0-10 since...

Damian Kust, who I have always thought of as the most knowledge "tennis person" I've ever gotten to know in the online tennis world, has died. Just unbelievably tragic. I had a chance to work with Damian just a few times and through exchanges online. Not great friends. But, I'll miss him alot.

"OpenAI has never provided full transparency on what information trained its flagship product, but there’s evidence that the company fed ChatGPT massive chunks of the internet...that means a random Reddit user’s post could inform ChatGPT’s next response."

Hi friends. I’m taking some time off for chemo. Not the way I wanted to start 2026, but it’s a necessary step. I’ll be trying to stay disconnected. I hope you can keep me in your prayers as I continue treatment.

I think the first point of these highlights ended the Open Era and started...the era of whatever is the best way to describe that point, because the ballstriking is so perfect I can't wrap my head around it at all. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATQ1...

Is this anything

The staying power of tennis's old-world etiquette is so strange to me. In any other sport Fritz doing the "too-small" gesture to Baez is just goofy and a bit dumb, but in tennis it's somehow awful sportsmanship. I don't think we can have the intensity without the edge, or that we should want to.

I really can't imagine any justification for staying on Twitter at this point

Normal people: celebrating the new year, not checking email, trying to relax Me: intensely thinking "what is a contributing editor" while walking down the beach

Meanwhile, at the other place:

Tried to get 2026 off on the right foot by contributing a cheery, non-existential prediction to this Guardian roundtable: www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/j...

The top option for a Stranger Things (I don't watch but I'm invested in the Mind Flayer) finale liveblog on Google is from a website called "Tom's Guide," searches are so cooked

Now that my final bylines of December have been published, here's a thread of my favorite stories I wrote in 2025. My first months of freelancing full time have been an adventure, to say the least—one that has gone better than I dared to hope when I graduated from college in June. The stories:

Here are a few great blogs from Defector's 2025, starting with Chris Thompson's comprehensive and maddening history of Color Star, would-be titans of just about anything: defector.com/a-comprehens...

This year ending with Siakam airballing a free throw kinda sums it up

Naoya Inoue is becoming a bigger monster: defector.com/naoya-inoue-...

My pal and freelancer extraordinaire @charleylocke.bsky.social and I are working on a cool project to help other full-time freelancers and wanna-be full-time freelancers make it work financially, so STAY TUNED. 🤭

Hello. I’ve been doing regularish webposts that collect all the tennis news into a fun and tidy format for you to read at your leisure. If that is a service that would be useful to you, subscribe or just bookmark to read. It’s free and always will be. See you in the 2 6. forty-deuce.ghost.io

2025 was my first full year freelancing, and to my happy surprise I got enough published to do a summary thread! I mostly wrote from bed, but I was at the very fun and hot Australian Open, and covered it for Defector. (Sans credential, but check back in a month.) defector.com/the-australi...

For The Guardian, I wrote about the Spurs bringing intrigue back to this NBA season: www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/d...

I mostly liked the year-in-review Press Box episode but David Shoemaker wishing that podcasts were around in Frank Deford's time was completely brutal. I for one am glad we remember Deford for his writing and not as the host of the Frank Deford Show, a video podcast from Spotify and FanDuel.

Honored to have made a few contributions here alongside a bunch of great writers!

Good morning! For @defector.com, I wrote about what @rachelreidwrites.bsky.social's "Game Changers" books, and the resulting TV show, have meant to me as a lifelong hockey fan with an increasingly... complicated... relationship to the men's pro game.

Oh "sublime," you deserve so much better than being used for a clickbait description of this thoroughly mediocre tennis set www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqnG...

Merry Christmas to all. defector.com/what-did-we-...

*Spurs end season 65-17 with a 5-0 record against OKC* NBA media: don't really see them as a contender yet, but next year they will be a PROBLEM

A mere four days after writing this, I must ask: what's worse than hell?

🚨JOB ALERT🚨 Enjoy writing clever headlines and assigning one-of-a-kind stories? Have an eye for detail and a knack for turning rough copy into sparkling prose? We're looking for another editor to join our small but elite team covering New York City news and culture: hellgatenyc.com/hell-gate-is...

finally wrote a bit about this freaky day. i didn't touch the highlights for weeks!

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

I like Pluribus so far despite some pacing issues, but I cannot forgive the podcast plug before the start of every episode

cowboy who stubbed his toe:

This team has now given up 44 points in a quarter to the New Orleans Pelicans 👍 defector.com/following-th...

I wrote about the Indiana Pacers for Defector (gift link): defector.com/following-th...

gonna thread some blogs i did in 2025 that i’m happy with

I wrote about the Indiana Pacers for Defector (gift link): defector.com/following-th...

Jake Paul takes on his realest opponent yet: defector.com/jake-paul-ta...

Australia launches biggest gun buyback in 30 years after Bondi beach terror attack

my essay in the latest Cake Zine, about the trope of cut fruit as a love language - seen across diasporic literature and internet memes - is online now a fun one 🍐🍉🥝🥭🍑🍍🍎 cakezine.substack.com/p/i-cut-this...

This whole blog is great but the kicker deserves to be framed

Liz cooked, great blog

Rockets-Nuggets every night please

Sam Altman's assertion that he needs ChatGPT to raise his child was widely ridiculed, but the timing of Altman’s Jimmy Fallon interview coupled with a lack of viewership for the full segment (which has 2x more thumbs-down reactions than thumbs-up reactions on YouTube) also don't bode well for OpenAI

Not even remotely adequate, of course, but I tried to get some thoughts down about Rob Reiner

impossible to argue with this call

Good insight into how the heartbreaking Bondi shooting could happen despite Australia being much more serious about gun control than the US here: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

I am in the Sunday Blog Chair for the last time in 2025 today. My first post, which will doubtless prove useful to every NBA team, unpacks the three easily replicated lessons from the Spurs handing the Thunder their first loss in six weeks: defector.com/the-spurs-sh...

"There is something a little deranged about hearing Mazzulla talk about love. This is, after all, a man who recently answered a child reporter’s question about having 'fun' by calling the phrase 'a cop-out' and then adding, 'You just got to tap into your darkness.'" www.newyorker.com/sports/sport...

Thanks to Victor Wembanyama for saving basketball

This is exhausting man