Howard Fendrich, a longtime national sports writer for The Associated Press, has died at 55.
Counterfeit Rolex, Cartier and Louis Vuitton items worth up to $300K linked to Houston store, records show‘Hikikomori’: Experts warn extreme social withdrawal syndrome is spreading beyond Japan worldwideFlood threat continues with more rounds of showers and storms Thursday Harris County judge delays capital murder trial of Lee Gilley amid extradition limbo following recapture in ItalyFILE - Associated Press sports writer Howard Fendrich is shown in this undated file photo.
Howard Fendrich, left, Associated Press national sports writer, interviews former French tennis player Guy Forget at the 2019 French Open tennis tournament in Paris. FILE - In this Sunday, Dec. 15, 2019 photo, Roger Federer, right, shakes hands with the Associated Press reporter Howard Fendrich upon his arrival for an exclusive interview in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Associated Press sports writer Howard Fendrich, left, his son Stefano Fendrich and wife Rosanna Maietta pose for a selfie, May 15, 2025, in Los Angeles. In this selfie, Associated Press sports reporters, from left, Howie Rumberg, Howard Fendrich, Graham Dunber and Tim Dahlberg pose, Feb. 20, 2018 at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
FILE - Howard Fendrich, Associated Press Washington sports writer, right, dressed as President Teddy Roosevelt, and Mark Zuckerman, Washington Times sports writer dressed as President George Washington, bump heads as they celebrate after competing in the fan favorite 'Presidents-Race' which is held in the middle of the fourth inning during Washington Nationals baseball games, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2006 at RFK Stadium in Washington.
FILE- Associated Press Washington sports writer, Howard Fendrich, is helped with putting on the head piece representing President Teddy Roosevelt, before his participation in the fan favorite"President-Race", which is held in the middle of the fourth inning of the Washington Nationals baseball games, Aug. 17, 2006, at RFK Stadium in Washington. FILE - Associated Press sports writer Howard Fendrich is shown in this undated file photo.
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 “one of those constant and reassuring presences in the tennis world for many years. ” “He 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,” Federer said.
“Tennis lost a wonderful journalist and a great person. ” Fendrich is survived by his wife; his mother, Renée; his brother, Alex; and two sons, Stefano and Jordan, each of whom are pursuing careers in sports journalism – just like their dad.
“Howard was a gifted journalist who brought such skill, expertise and enthusiasm to his work,” said AP Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Julie Pace. “His 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. ”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’s language, mostly by watching Italian karaoke videos, and that helped him get a foot in the door to the news agency’s European sports coverage, focusing on soccer. That, in turn, landed him on the radar of the AP sports editor at the time,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’s last match, which“Crouched 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.
” The passage highlighted Fendrich at his best – 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’s heartfelt meeting with Bjorn Borg in the hallway after a history-making win at Wimbledon.
He detailed theAt his last big assignment in Milan, he followed speedskater Jutta Leerdam’s famous fiancé, fighter Jake Paul, down the hallway leading to the parking lot – all just to unearth a detail,. He got them, then Paul proclaimed: “OK, we’re done. ” Bodyguards moved in and, as Fendrich said at a dinner later: “I decided, ‘Yes, I guess we are.
’”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’t what would be known today as an “NFL insider,” Fendrich worked the room, the phones — and the sidewalk — and helped AP stay as competitive as anyone in delivering developments and detailing the eventual end of the standoff.
“There was that doggedness,” said Mary Byrne, the AP’s deputy sports editor at the time of the lockout. “He 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’t going to get the best of him, and he wasn’t going to get beat on the story.
” 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 — or a story from that day’s soccer game. For them, he had endless patience and time.
“Nothing got past him,” said Stephen Wilson, AP's former European sports editor, who worked with Fendrich for more than 20 years. “Every story — even a three-paragraph brief — had to be iron-clad. ” It wasn’t 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 “office” -- usually a quiet courtyard or hallway outside a press room — 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 “perfectionist when it came to his job.
” “Howard was also a friend,” Lehourites said, “whose dry humor, along with his bags of Blow Pop lollipops, made long days go by quick. ”Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Houston says 99% of reported potholes are patched within a day. KPRC 2 put that claim to the testA box truck flew off the the highway onto I-10Man accused of inappropriately filming unsuspecting women at North Freeway Walmart storeHouston-area Katy HS softball prepares to show off its elite hitting in the state semifinalsAnother Harris County murder suspect on the run after allegedly cutting off GPS monitor before trialDefendant accused in deadly 100 MPH crash wanted after cutting ankle monitor days before trialWet and stormy week ahead for HoustonAnother body found in a Houston bayou. 🚨
Mary Byrne Bjorn Borg Sports Serena Williams Stephen Wilson Chris Lehourites Alex Smith U.S. News Rafael Nadal Julie Pace Roger Federer Terry R. Taylor Jake Paul Joe Theismann Howard Fendrich Novak Djokovic Andre Agassi
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Large-scale Meta-analysis Identifies Genetic Variants Associated with Metabolic TraitsThis study investigates the association between genetic variants and complex metabolic traits using a large-scale meta-analysis of data from the Estonian Biobank and the UK Biobank. The researchers identified 88,127 associations between genetic variants and metabolic traits and explored potential causal links between these traits and disease outcomes.
Read more »
Ron Howard Returns To Cannes With Richard Avedon DocumentaryRon Howard returns to the Cannes Film Festival with 'Avedon,' a documentary about the extraordinary photographer Richard Avedon.
Read more »
Tim Howard Remembers His 16-Save Performance, Assesses Arsenal and MoreWhat does he remember of 16 saves against Belgium? How does he assess Arsenal's David Raya? Tim Howard talks those topics and more.
Read more »
Howard Fendrich, award-winning AP national sports writer and tennis expert, dies at 55Howard Fendrich, a national sports writer for The Associated Press whose persistent reporting and detail-rich prose brought readers inside dozens of taut
Read more »