Howard Fendrich, a national sports writer for The Associated Press whose persistent reporting and detail-rich prose brought readers inside dozens of taut Grand Slam tennis finals, record-breaking Olympic moments and harrowing trips down Alpine ski slopes, has died. He was 55.
Fendrich died Thursday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his wife Rosanna Maietta said. He was diagnosed with cancer in February shortly after returning from Milan, where he covered his 11th Olympics.
Tennis great Roger Federer, who estimated he’d had more than 100 interactions with Fendrich over the decades, called the journalist 鈥渙ne of those constant and reassuring presences in the tennis world for many years.鈥�
鈥淗e started covering tennis in 2002, right around the time I was starting to have my breakthrough in the sport, and over time he truly became part of the fabric of tennis,鈥� Federer said. 鈥淭ennis lost a wonderful journalist and a great person.鈥�
Fendrich is survived by his wife; his mother, Ren茅e; his brother, Alex; and two sons, Stefano and Jordan, each of whom are pursuing careers in sports journalism 鈥� just like their dad.
鈥淗oward was a gifted journalist who brought such skill, expertise and enthusiasm to his work,鈥� said AP Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Julie Pace. 鈥淗is stories were a joy to read, combining lively writing with insightful reporting. He was also a generous and beloved colleague whose warmth and passion touched so many across the AP.鈥�
A veteran of AP across three decades
A graduate of Haverford College near Philadelphia, Fendrich worked at AP for 33 years, starting as an unpaid intern in Rome.
There, he became fluent in his beloved city鈥檚 language, mostly by watching Italian karaoke videos, and that helped him get a foot in the door to the news agency鈥檚 European sports coverage, focusing on soccer. That, in turn, landed him on the radar of the AP sports editor at the time, , who helped him get back to the United States.
In the United States, Fendrich started as an editor on the AP sports desk at the New York headquarters, where he also wrote a sports media column. He moved to the Washington area in 2005 and became a steady presence on sports beats in the region where he had grown up.
But his true passion was tennis. He chronicled the careers of Venus and Serena Williams, Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and others. He covered some 70 Grand Slam tournaments over nearly a quarter century on the beat. It was at those events where his brilliance shone brightest.
Fendrich’s writing honors included two Grimsley Awards for best overall body of work among AP sports writers and a handful of deadline-writing citations. One was for a piece from Andre Agassi鈥檚 last match, which
鈥淐rouched alone in the silence of the locker room, a pro tennis player no more, a red-eyed Andre Agassi twisted his torso in an attempt to conquer the seemingly mundane task of pulling a white shirt over his head. Never more than at that moment did Agassi seem so vulnerable, looking far older than his 36 years.鈥�
The passage highlighted Fendrich at his best 鈥� watching, rewatching, taking notes, going beyond the courts and painstakingly sifting through details of events that millions of people witnessed to tell them something the guy sitting right next to him might not have noticed.
Fendrich captured Federer鈥檚 heartfelt meeting with Bjorn Borg in the hallway after a history-making win at Wimbledon. He detailed the at Roland Garros, then having to wash it out of shorts and socks when the match was over.
At his last big assignment in Milan, he followed speedskater Jutta Leerdam鈥檚 famous fianc茅, fighter Jake Paul, down the hallway leading to the parking lot 鈥� all just to unearth a detail, . He got them, then Paul proclaimed: 鈥淥K, we鈥檙e done.鈥� Bodyguards moved in and, as Fendrich said at a dinner later: 鈥淚 decided, 鈥榊es, I guess we are.鈥欌��
An unerring instinct for how to get the news
He had a knack for knowing where to go, who to ask and, just as importantly, what to ask and how.
For days during the steamy Washington summer in 2011, he sat on a folding chair on a sidewalk, perched a laptop on his lap and wrote, all while waiting for principals to emerge from tense negotiations during the protracted NFL labor lockout. Though he wasn鈥檛 what would be known today as an 鈥淣FL insider,鈥� Fendrich worked the room, the phones 鈥� and the sidewalk 鈥� and helped AP stay as competitive as anyone in delivering developments and detailing the eventual end of the standoff.
鈥淭here was that doggedness,鈥� said Mary Byrne, the AP鈥檚 deputy sports editor at the time of the lockout. 鈥淗e was annoyed by it, and by all the time he spent out there waiting for people to come out and say nothing. But that situation wasn鈥檛 going to get the best of him, and he wasn鈥檛 going to get beat on the story.鈥�
When Washington quarterback Alex Smith broke his leg in the most gruesome of fashions in 2018, Fendrich immediately got on the phone with the one person who could understand: retired star quarterback Joe Theismann.
Sometimes, however, the phone would ring for him and, even if he was in the middle of a World Series game, Fendrich would pick up. If he started speaking Italian, it was undoubtedly Rosanna, his wife. Or sometimes the kids called and had a school question 鈥� or a story from that day鈥檚 soccer game. For them, he had endless patience and time.
Then: Straight back to work, and he didn鈥檛 miss a thing.
鈥淣othing got past him,鈥� said Stephen Wilson, AP’s former European sports editor, who worked with Fendrich for more than 20 years. 鈥淓very story 鈥� even a three-paragraph brief 鈥� had to be iron-clad.鈥�
It wasn鈥檛 just the written word where Fendrich was a master. He had a snappy, razor-sharp sense of humor. No colleague could turn him down when he raised his eyebrows, motioned his head toward the door and asked them to join him in his 鈥渙ffice鈥� — usually a quiet courtyard or hallway outside a press room 鈥� to hash out coverage plans for the day or compare notes about people and things seen around the courts.
Chris Lehourites, an editor at AP who guided tennis coverage in Europe for decades, spent many a long day fretting over punctuation, syntax and word choice with Fendrich, whom he called a 鈥減erfectionist when it came to his job.鈥�
鈥淗oward was also a friend,鈥� Lehourites said, 鈥渨hose dry humor, along with his bags of Blow Pop lollipops, made long days go by quick.鈥�
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