2017 Davis Cup: France's Noah made all the right moves

Raising La Coupe Davis / 2017 World Champions France

There's always so much pressure in France to win a Davis Cup. Especially, since a new generation of tennis "musketeers" featuring Gaël Monfils, Richard Gasquet, Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga are in their prime and have once again made France a competitive team.

When Belgium's mighty ace, World No. 7 David Goffin, leveled the 2017 Davis Cup championship tie at two points apiece after beating Tsonga convincingly in straight sets, 7-6 (5), 6-3, 6-2, in the opening reverse singles on Sunday afternoon, many of the 25,000-plus passionate French fans who packed Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille, France – just a few kilometers from the Belgian border – must have felt a collective, sinking feeling that their hopes of winning the Coupe Davis was slipping away for another year – again.

Imagine, the difficult decision that French captain Yannick Noah – the last Frenchman to win a Grand Slam when he triumphed at the 1983 French Open – faced in deciding to insert 23-year-old Lucas Pouille in the decisive fifth rubber instead of the more experienced Gasquet, 31. After all, Pouille was taken down by Goffin in Friday's first singles rubber, and Gasquet teamed with Pierre-Hugues Herbert to win Saturday's doubles rubber over Ruben Bemelmans and Joris De Loore in four sets after having never previously played together.

Thus, for the second straight year, the Davis Cup championship came down to a fifth and final rubber. The winner takes home the Davis Cup. The loser gets parting gifts from the ITF and handshakes from the winners. So, there was just a little pressure riding on the outcome of the final tennis match of the year.

Looking back, Noah's decision proved brilliant – the right one. Pouille, ranked No. 18 in the world and born just 75km from Lille, beat an overmatched Steve Darcis, 6-3, 6-1, 6-0, in just one hour and 34 minutes. Pouille showed his dominance in the final set by winning 25 of 34 points against the No. 76 Darcis. Leave it to the captain to be the first to sprint out on court to hug and congratulate Pouille. The rest of the joyful French team soon followed.

After 16 years of struggle and frustration – including losing each of the past three finals (2002, 2010, 2014) it competed in – France finally won its 10th Davis Cup championship. It was their first title since they beat Australia in 2001. France drew even with Great Britain, but still trails the U.S., which has won the Davis Cup a record 32 times and second-place Australia with 28. Belgium, which lost the 2015 final to Great Britain, is still looking for its first Davis Cup title.

Yannick Noah leads a lively rendition of "La Marseillaise."

Cue up the "La Marseillaise!" Never has a winning French team and its fan sung France's national anthem more proudly than they did during the awards ceremony in Lille.

Asked to describe the feeling of winning the Davis Cup, Pouille said during an English-language TV interview following his clinching victory, "No words needed. We have finally won it.

"There's nothing better than winning as a team, with my mates, in front of the fans, my family and my friends. We're going to celebrate and make the most of it. I'm proud of my team."

Speaking for Belgium, Goffin, who improved to 21-3 in singles rubbers with his pair of wins over Pouille and Tsonga – his team's only point points during the tie – said: "It's a disappointment even if I played two good matches. When the team loses we're all disappointed. We gave it our all. It's tough to finish this way, but we did a lot of good things as a team this year."

So, too, did France, and it marked the third Davis Cup victory as captain for Noah, who came back in 2015 for a third stint as France's Davis Cup captain after he skippered his country's team twice in the 1990s – winning in 1991 and 1996.

Shortly after Pouille's clinching victory, Noah described what it all meant for France during a television interview. "It was a beautiful adventure," he said. "We had eight, nine players capable of playing. We had a terrific team spirit. It was really beautiful to win.

"We played for people we love. I'm very proud for my team."

Looking back, France, which advanced to the championship tie against Belgium with victories over Japan, Great Britain and Serbia, won with a committed group of players. Everyone understood and accepted their roles on the team – and this French squad showed its strength in numbers. Plus, Noah backed Pouille from the beginning despite his opening-day loss to Goffin. He would have been unmercifully second-guessed if France had been swept in the reverse singles after entering the final day ahead 2-1. Instead, it turned out to be a beautiful adventure, just as Noah pictured it. Looking ahead, Pouille's definitely the future of French tennis.

Vive la France!

Photos: Courtesy of ITF Davis Cup Twitter feed.

Call Me By Your Name: A sensual and transcendent film

Call Me By Your Name / Sensual, transcendent, an Oscar contender.

Call Me By Your Name, a new film by Italian film director Luca Guadagnino, is a tender coming-of-age tale debuting this week that already has won over critics and audiences and is projected to be an Oscar contender.

A sensual and transcendent tale of first love, Call Me By Your Name is based on an acclaimed novel by André Aciman that is set in the summer of 1983 in the beautiful north of Italy countryside. My wife and I enjoyed The Cinema Club's sneak preview of the film Sunday morning in a northwest Washington, D.C. theater.

Call Me By Your Name

The central character in Call Me By Your Name is an American-Italian boy, Elio Perlman, 17 and precocious (wonderfully acted by 21-year-old Timothée Chalamet), who enjoys spending his high culture days in his family's 17th century villa transcribing and playing classical music on piano and guitar (Chalamet actually played both instruments in the film), reading books, swimming at the river, going out at night, and flirting – especially with his friend Marzia (played by Esther Garrel). It all sounds like innocent fun – and for the most part, it is. There's a certain sophistication and intellect about Elio for us to like and admire.

Throughout the 2 hour and 12 minute film, we see how Elio enjoys a close relationship with his parents. His father (played by Michael Stuhlbarg of HBO's Boardwalk Empire fame) is a classical archeologist specializing in Greco-Roman culture while his mother (played by Amira Casar) is a translator, who is always looking out for Elio's best cultural interests.

Indeed, Elio's interest is getting out in the world and experiencing things on his own, including having sex with both Marzia and with Oliver, a very charming and closeted 24-year-old American doctorate scholar (played by Armie Hammer), who is interning with Elio's father for the summer. Elio bonds with Oliver over their shared Jewish heritage, the Italian countryside they see together riding their bicycles, and his emerging sexuality. In this movie about desire, we soon learn, love means having no geography; it knows no boundaries.

During the second half of the film, the main focus is on physicality and emotions and the budding relationship between Elio and Oliver, in which Elio discovers the beauty of awakening desire and how it will alter his life forever. When Elio and Oliver kiss and engage in sex, it's all about figuring things out, both physically and emotionally. There are some long stretches without dialogue.

Near the conclusion, after Oliver has returned home, Elio's father pulls him aside and the two share a frank and accepting father-son talk about sexuality. Professor Perlman is very articulate when he conveys to his son to grow up and "be the person you needed when you were younger." Finally, Elio smiles at the end of this long scene. As the film's credits roll, we see him internalize what's happened in the entire movie.

Call Me By Your Name: Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics • Rated R • 132 minutes • In English, Italian, French and German with English subtitles. • Directed by Luca Guadagnino • Screenplay by James Ivory • Original songs performed by Sufjan Stevens.

Reflections on patriotism: Dan Rather on what unites us

Dan Rather reads from his book 'What Unites Us.'

Dan Rather finds himself thinking deeply about what it means to love America as he surely does in the age of President Donald Trump.

At a time in our nation's history when there's a crisis over our national identity, the longtime broadcast journalist has surfaced as a calm, measured voice of reason and integrity. At 86, he has embraced social media, where he regularly contributes his thoughts and wisdom via his Facebook page, which has more than 2.5 million followers.

Last week, Rather's new book, What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism, written with Emmy Award-winning journalist Elliot Kirschner, was published. In it, Rather has written a collection of 16 original and passionate essays that reflect on what it means to be an American in the 21st century.

During a recent book tour lecture at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., I listened attentively to Rather, in conversation with Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart. He discussed a variety of topics including patriotism and freedom of the press, whose values have transformed us and represent institutions that sustain our nation.

On the subject of patriotism, Rather read from his book: "Patriotism – active, constructive patriotism – takes work. It takes knowledge, engagement with those who are different from you, and fairness in law and opportunity. It takes coming together for good causes," he said. "This is one of the things I cherish most about the United States: we are a nation not only of dreamers but also of fixers. We have looked at our land and people , and said, time and again, this is not good enough; we can be better."

When asked about Capehart to discuss freedom of the press, Rather didn't hesitate when he responded: "We are the witness to the truth and there's a lot of good reporting going on out there. This president is pushing us toward a 'post-truth' and 'post-fact' political era.

"American journalism is at a crossroads," he continued. "News is what the public needs to know and it's generally what somebody else doesn't want you to know about."

Rather's storied career – he spent more than 40 years with CBS News and succeeded the legendary Walter Cronkite in the anchor chair for The CBS Evening News – has made him one of the world's best-known journalists. He's interviewed every president since Eisenhower. With decades spent on the front lines covering the world's biggest stories – from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to the Vietnam War to the Watergate crisis that ended with the resignation of President Richard Nixon – Rather is able to offer his readers a unique if not intimate view of America's history and its historical change.

It's easy to gain from reading What Unites Us and by listening to Rather that regardless of the state of our current national political climate, he maintains a fundamental sense of hope that comes from sharing our nation's transformative values, from empathy to inclusion to service.

Photo of Dan Rather by Michael Dickens © 2017.

In the age of internet, why public libraries are still relevant

Woodridge Neighborhood Library in Washington, D.C.

After moving to Maryland earlier this year, one of my top priorities was finding a good local public library. And I did, even if its across the District line in Washington. I visit the Woodridge Neighborhood Library, a branch of the District of Columbia Public Library system regularly – it's only a mile from our new home – and depending upon the time of the day, the library is often filled with people availing themselves to some of the many services offered. Indeed, it's a very positive environment, which opened to the public on September 28, 2016, to much fanfare.

I've seen high school students doing their homework, college students writing their dissertations, younger kids enjoying reading time, adults searching electronic job boards. A public library is a living room where one can go and feel human instead of feeling threatened. For some, including many young students, a neighborhood public library like Woodridge represents the only wi-fi source available to them for free. With 40 desktop computers with internet access available for use, this public library's value isn't lost on its patrons.

There is a warm, community-oriented ambiance inside the 20,000 square-foot Woodridge Neighborhood Library – not to mention a modern design by Wiencek + Associates and Bing Thom Architects that spreads throughout the library's two floors. It's open seven days a week and stays open late Monday through Thursday until 9 p.m.

Indeed, public libraries serve as a valuable bridge between the information-rich and the information-poor. Within these welcoming confines – and the Woodridge Branch is very welcoming – librarians provide a highly skilled service that meets the needs of the general public. I speak with the authority of someone who is married to a librarian.

As our public libraries play a vital role bridging the digital divide and teaching people how to get reliable information from the internet – something that's become very important following the Russian meddling scandal during the 2016 presidential election – it is for this very reason that we need our public libraries now more than ever despite living in an age when most everyone has broadband and can access information without recourse to a librarian.

While I appreciate that my local public library is open seven days a week, many public libraries have limited hours. Federal funding of public libraries has decreased by nearly 40 percent since 2000 and now – more than ever – they need our support not our dismantling.

There is something of important value gained from the physical, communal space of a library, and our public libraries need to continue to be able to provide highly skilled services in order to meet the needs of the general public – not to mention continuing their valuable mission of being repositories for books. I believe they ought to continue to innovate in order to take advantage of the way people are interacting with their libraries, which differs today than it did 10 years ago – even five years ago. There is a digital gap we need to continue bridging between those who have access to the internet and those who do not.

At local public libraries, there are core services such as book loans, study materials for local and national elections, availability of federal and state income tax guides and forms, and weekday and Saturday story hours for children, that remain vital. And, of course, where would we be without our librarians? They may be physical people – hopefully never replaceable by robots – and in the age of Google, their purpose remains valuable.

It's my hope that everyone does what they can to support their own local public libraries, especially now in the age of President Trump's self-proclaimed "fake news." After all, an ill-informed society that is ill-equipped to prosper in today's "information age" is a dangerous prospect for any democracy.

Learn more about the Woodridge Neighborhood Library by clicking on the link.

Photo: Courtesy of DCLibrary.org.

"Battle of the Sexes": Game, set, match, Billie Jean King

Battle of the Sexes /
Emma Stone as Billie Jean King (L) and Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs.

"Battle of the Sexes," a fictionalization of the 1973 exhibition tennis match between World No. 1 Billie Jean King and ex-champion and serial hustler Bobby Riggs, starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell, opened to much fanfare in theaters across the U.S. last month.

It's a very good movie – a beautiful film about sports – with great storytelling, and I was gripped from start to finish. What hadn't occurred to me when I sat down with my wife in a suburban Washington, D.C. theater on a recent Sunday afternoon to see "Battle of the Sexes" was that at its core, it's a lesbian love story that goes back and forth between intimate moments and public events, on and off the court. Throughout the film, we find out just how brave and authentic an athlete – and person – the 29-year-old King really was. Mind you, she just happened to be the top female tennis player in the world, too.

Meanwhile, Riggs had been one of the top players in the 1940s and won six major titles. However, by age 55, the self-avowed male chauvinist pig – both an energetic hustler and promoter, but an ebullient boor – had become a big gambler with a penchant for turning provocation into profit. 

"It was a man vs. woman match made for maximum public-relations gimmickry, but also a deadly serious referendum on equality on and off the court," wrote Manohla Dargis in her review of the film for The New York Times.

Indeed, the bespectacled King was a feminist symbol and the first woman athlete in any sport to win more than $100,000 in a single year. She was the centerpiece of the fledgling Virginia Slims women's professional tour that was out to fight against the gross inequalities that defined men's and women's professional tennis since the beginning of in the Open Era in 1968. Fast forward to the 2017 WTA Finals in Singapore won by Caroline Wozniacki on Sunday, with the awarding of multi-million dollar prize money to its participants and broadcast to a worldwide television audience, and you realize just how far women's tennis has come in the past forty-plus years.

At the same time, during her prime King was championing women's rights, including equal pay. So, in agreeing to play the floppy-haired Riggs in an exhibition match that was staged inside the vast Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas – and televised in evening prime time throughout the U.S. – it became both personal and political while remaining entertainment, too. 

"There's a lot to follow and a great deal to look at, including an atmospherically embellished past that turns the movie into a veritable way back machine of amusing and amusingly unfortunate colors and choices," writes Dargis. "There are plaid jackets and flirty minis, sideburns and shags, harvest-gold drapes and rooms perilously fogged in by cigarette smoke."

The real Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, in 1973.

Leading up to the big match, Riggs' sexist pronouncements get bigger and more outrageous, and some of his stunts – many of them wildly absurd and self-serving – are hard to take seriously. However, they offer some good comic relief during the film. Yet, for all of the drama and pomp and ceremony, the King-Riggs event drew plenty of Hollywood attention. Spectators came to the event dressed elegantly and sipped champagne while sitting court side. There were more than 30,000 fans watching in person inside the Astrodome while 50 million Americans watched at home on TV. (I was a high school teenager when the real event occurred, and I remember watching it at home on TV with my family. I was pulling for King to win.)

Riggs was paid $50,000 to sport a bright yellow Sugar Daddy jacket, which he took off after just three games. Meanwhile, King entered the arena in the great Hollywood fashion of Cleopatra, complete with four muscular and bare-chested males dressed in the style of ancient slaves who carried her in on a feather-adorned litter. Riggs presented King with an oversized Sugar Daddy lollipop and King gifted her opponent with a piglet, which was symbolic of his male chauvinism.

As it happened, the two-time Wimbledon champion King ran Riggs all over the court and trounced her opponent in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. She won by forsaking her usually aggressive approach to play a solid baseline game that allowed her to handle his lobs and soft shots. Afterward, she called her winner-take-all victory over Riggs the "culmination" of her career.

While King and Riggs are the focal points of the film, the tennis scenes are pretty convincing. That's because real players were used as doubles for King and Riggs. Kaitlyn Christian, a former champion collegiate doubles player at the University of Southern California who is struggling to make it as a professional on the minor-league ITF circuit, acted as Emma Stone's tennis double in portraying King, and former men's professional Vince Spadea served as the tennis double for Steve Carell, who played Riggs. 

Before she was cast, Christian had never played with a wooden racket with its smaller sweet spots like the ones King used in her prime. However, I learned, her forehand and backhand slice was convincing and it reminded me of how much the women's game has evolved since King's heyday into one that relies upon powerful ground strokes as exuded by predominant power players of today like Serena Williams. 

Looking back, King liked to serve and volley. She wasn't afraid to come toward the net to control points against her opponents. Her style, which served her well both throughout her professional career – and for one great festive night against Riggs – was one that relied upon finesse coupled with a dash of touch and spin.

Meanwhile, King's personal life became a bigger part of the movie, thanks to directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris of Little Miss Sunshine fame, who tweaked the screenplay. King, who came out as a lesbian in the 1980s and would go on to become a widely admired advocate for LGBT groups, was at the time of her exhibition against Riggs married to a man – and in the early stages of grappling with her sexuality after falling for a female hair stylist.

"It really did happen this way, where Billie Jean began her first affair with a woman at a time when she was one of the most famous women in America, if not the world," Mr. Dayton told The New York Times. "So that seemed like an important story to tell. And at the same time, she was fighting this very public battle for equality."

While Riggs may have viewed the match as nothing more than a publicity stunt, King felt that beating Riggs was important both for women's tennis as well as for the women's liberation movement. "I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match," King once said. "It would ruin the women's tour and affect all women's self-esteem."

Instead, while King's victory over Riggs didn't define her career, it became her destiny to work toward gender equality – not only in tennis but in all sports. And, as a nation that loves its sports, we are all appreciative of what this true champion has achieved in her lifetime.