Just 16, but Amanda Anisimova is on top of the world

Amanda Anisimova / On top of the tennis world.

Sixteen-year-old American tennis player Amanda Anisimova had not won a tour-level match until she arrived to play in the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells last week. Now, she's on top of the tennis world. Given a wild card entry into this annual, late winter WTA Premier event in the scenic California desert, Anisimova in just a few days has been nothing short of phenomenal – and she's fearless, too.

Whether she's hitting ripping forehands or two-fisted backhands – both with equal determination and success – the 149th-ranked Anisimova has been impressive. She's not dropped a set in winning her first three matches while tearing through the 96-player singles draw round by round.

During Sunday's Stadium One opener, Anisimova defeated two-time Wimbledon champion and No. 9 seed Petra Kvitova, 6-2, 6-4, to advance to the fourth round. The loss ended Kvitova's 14-match winning streak.

As Anisimova, the reigning U.S. Open junior champion, zeroed in on her latest victory – two days earlier, she advanced with an impressive win over No. 23 sed Anastasia Pavyuchenkova – it prompted Tennis Channel commentator Brett Haber to quip, "She's too young to be nervous."

Indeed, playing composed and focused well beyond her years, Anisimova placed 63 percent of her first serves in play and won 70 percent (23 of 33) of her first-serve points while losing just 19 points on her serve against Kvitova. She broke her opponent five times, outpointed Kvitova 59-46, and won on her first match-point opportunity. She played smart and made good shot selections.

"I'm shaking right now. This is the biggest stage I've every played on against the strongest person I've ever played in a tournament," said Anisimova after beating Kvitova in just 69 minutes. "It's just crazy."

Just who is Anisimova? Well, she's the daughter of Russian parents who immigrated to the United States. The 5-foot-11 Anisimova was born in 2001 in Freehold, New Jersey, before moving to Aventura, Florida, where she learned to play tennis at the very young age of two. While she speaks Russian, she's very much American and has been home schooled so she can focus on playing tennis. Last year, at age 15, she earned a wild card entry into the main draw of the French Open.

"This girl is going to be good. She has the look and poise – the attitude – to be a great player," said Tennis Channel analyst and Hall of Fame great Martina Navratilova, in describing Anisimova immediately after she beat Kvitova.

Looking back on her biggest win as a professional, in defeating Kvitiova, Anisimova said: "She's the best player I have ever played, and it was the biggest court I have ever played on. So it was definitely nerve-racking kind of, but I was enjoying it so much out there. And I was playing my best. It was a good day."

Front and center, Anisimova is part of a talented group of young American women – which includes Caroline Dolehide and Danielle Collins, each who also received a wild card entry into the Indian Wells main draw – who are starting to gain notice by the tennis media and appreciated by tennis fans.

Next, Anisimova will face her third straight seeded player – and second consecutive top 10 player – when she plays No. 5 seed Karolina Pliskova, a former World No. 1, in the round of 16 on Tuesday afternoon. While she may not be favored to win, I wouldn't bet against her.

• A postscript: Pliskova defeated Anisimova, 6-1, 7-6 (2). Although she looked a bit nervous and played tentative at times in losing to the more experienced Pliskova, Anisimova enjoyed a great week of tennis at Indian Wells – and she's definitely hit the big time. Plus, she moves up 19 spots to No. 130 on the live WTA world rankings.

A version of this story originally appeared in Tennis-TourTalk.com.
Photo: Courtesy of WTA.com. Video: Courtesy of WTA/YouTube.com.

Because none of us is as smart as all of us

Podcasts are a genre of narrative audio that have taken off in recent years. There are plenty of podcasts devoted to politics, sports, fashion and music. Search long enough and you will find podcasts devoted to topics like knitting and English football, too. While some podcasts lack polish, others sound like NPR programs. One thing they definitely are is portable.

One of my new favorites is "Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly," a podcast that's about the economy, technology and culture. It's motto is: "Because none of us is as smart as all of us."

"Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly" is hosted by Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood, and they use their collective expertise "to connect the dots on the topics they know best, and get help from listeners and experts about the ones they want to know better."

Prior to its launch last month, here's what Kai and Molly wrote on the podcast's website: "Here's what we think when we say 'smart.' Facts and figures? Sure, but not enough. Analysis and opinion? Absolutely, but still not quite there. Understanding, historical context, research and connecting individual stories as pieces of a larger whole? Now we're talking.

"We want to focus on analysis and understanding, not on headlines and talking points. And we each have our own expertise, but we know we're not always going to be the smartest people in the room.

"You have your own smarts. And together, we can all get just a little bit smarter."

"Make Me Smart with Kai and Molly" releases a new episode each week on Tuesday – it can be downloaded via iTunes or you can listen to it on the podcast's website – and the most recent one, "Reputation in the Age of the Protest Economy," made its debut on Feb. 21. It featured a conversation with Sallie Krawcheck, founder and CEO of Ellevest, an investment platform for women.

On the podcast's website, www.marketplace.org/topics/make-me-smart, to draw in listeners for a recent latest episode, "It's the Economy, Cupid," it teased: "Time to take a look at a big thing that's getting lost in the first four weeks of the Trump administration. Hint: It's the economy. Other highlights: a cameo by David Frum, senior writer for The Atlantic, answering the show's "Make Me Smart" question: "What's something that you thought you once knew, but turns out you were wrong about?" Later in the same episode, Kai and Molly talked with Eric Bickel and Michael Weis of the Quantify Louisville blog. What they do is to take publicly available data from the city of Louisville, Kentucky, then look for stories hidden in the data. How cool is that! Bickel and Weis spoke about specific ways in which to judge the value of any given statistic.

On earlier episodes, Kai and Molly talked with Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, author of the book The Attention Merchants, who coined the phrase network neutrality, "which is the principle that internet service providers should enable equal access to all content and applications, and not favor one source of content over another." Also, they spoke to Scott Phoenix, co-founder of Vicarious, a company that is trying to build a new kind of artificial intelligence, and to Autodesk CEO Carl Bass.

"Our ultimate goal at Marketplace is to raise the economic intelligence of the country," Ryssdal said prior to the podcast's launch. "Right now it's especially important that we work together to identify and understand what's truly newsworthy. This is exactly what 'Make Me Smart' does."

Adds Woods: "'Make Me Smart' is really a passion project for both of us. It's taking what Kai and I already do at Marketplace and putting it into a new format that allows us to go beyond what we can do on air. This podcast will let us press pause on what's newsworthy and dive even deeper into the topics that people not only want, but need to hear about."

Photo: Courtesy of Marketplace and American Public Media.