Regarding the piece Australian Open Writing Preview from a week ago:
About my idea to try to tell the Federer-Nadal match as a story, I said, "I don’t know if I can do it. It may not work." One morning this weekend, I exclaimed to myself, "What the hell is wrong with me? The setup alone--Federer going for his 18th Slam, Nadal is 15th; neither man, much less both, expected to be in the final--was an incredible story. Then Federer and Nadal gave us the gift of a back-and-forth five-setter. I mean, how much drama do you need before there's a story?" Of course it can work.
And regarding the question of whether or not I can do it: that's bullshit too. Can I do it? Answer: write the damn thing. Granted, it may not be excellent, because I've never done such a thing before.
And if that's the case, then the answer is simple: more practice.
Look: my trip to the U.S. Open last August was a fucking blast. I want to be someone who regularly travels to tennis tournaments. The best way to make sure I can afford to do so is to get paid to write about them. And the best way to get to paid to write about them is to prove that I can write something sufficiently compelling that people will want to read it.
The only way I've found to get really good at a certain type of writing is to write. So...