A celebrated Associated Press sports journalist who brought readers into the heart of major tennis championships, Olympic competitions, and skiing events has passed away at age 55.
Howard Fendrich died Thursday at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, according to his wife Rosanna Maietta. He had been battling cancer since receiving his diagnosis in February, just after returning from covering his 11th Olympic Games in Milan.
Tennis legend Roger Federer, who recalled having more than 100 encounters with Fendrich throughout the years, described the writer as “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 leaves behind his wife, his mother Renée, his brother Alex, and two sons, Stefano and Jordan, who are both following their father’s path into sports journalism.
“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.”
After graduating from Haverford College near Philadelphia, Fendrich spent 33 years with the Associated Press, beginning his career as an unpaid intern in Rome.
During his time in Italy, he mastered the language primarily through watching Italian karaoke videos, which opened doors to covering European sports, particularly soccer. This experience caught the attention of AP sports editor Terry R. Taylor, who facilitated his return to the United States.
Back in America, Fendrich began as an editor at AP’s New York sports desk while also writing a sports media column. He relocated to the Washington area in 2005, becoming a regular fixture covering regional sports in the area where he had been raised.
Tennis, however, remained his greatest love. He documented the careers of Venus and Serena Williams, Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and many others. Over nearly 25 years covering the sport, he reported on approximately 70 Grand Slam tournaments, where his exceptional talent was most evident.
Among Fendrich’s accolades were two Grimsley Awards recognizing the best overall work among AP sports writers, plus several deadline-writing honors. One such recognition came for his coverage of Andre Agassi’s final match at the 2006 U.S. Open:
“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.”
This excerpt exemplified Fendrich’s approach – observing carefully, taking detailed notes, venturing beyond the playing surfaces, and meticulously examining details from events witnessed by millions to reveal insights that even nearby observers might miss.
Fendrich documented Federer’s emotional encounter with Bjorn Borg in a corridor following a historic Wimbledon victory. He described the harsh realities of competing on clay courts at Roland Garros, including the post-match ritual of washing red clay from clothing.
During his final major assignment in Milan, he pursued speedskater Jutta Leerdam’s well-known fiancé, fighter Jake Paul, through a hallway to a parking area – all in pursuit of details and quotes. After obtaining what he needed, Paul declared: “OK, we’re done.” Security personnel intervened, and as Fendrich later recounted at dinner: “I decided, ‘Yes, I guess we are.’”
He possessed an intuitive understanding of where to position himself, whom to approach, and crucially, what questions to pose and how to ask them.
During the sweltering Washington summer of 2011, he spent days seated on a folding chair on a sidewalk, laptop balanced on his knees, writing while awaiting key figures to emerge from tense NFL labor lockout negotiations. Despite not being considered an “NFL insider” in today’s terms, Fendrich worked every angle – the room, the phones, and even the sidewalk – helping AP remain competitive in reporting developments and the eventual resolution.
“There was that doggedness,” said Mary Byrne, who served as AP’s deputy sports editor during 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 suffered a devastating leg injury in 2018, Fendrich immediately contacted the one person who could relate: retired star quarterback Joe Theismann.
Yet even during major events like World Series games, Fendrich would answer his phone when it rang. If he began speaking Italian, it was certainly Rosanna, his wife. Sometimes his children would call with school questions or stories from their soccer games. For his family, he always had unlimited patience and time.
Then he would return immediately to work, never missing any important details.
“Nothing got past him,” said Stephen Wilson, AP’s former European sports editor, who collaborated with Fendrich for over two decades. “Every story — even a three-paragraph brief — had to be iron-clad.”
Fendrich’s mastery extended beyond writing. He possessed a quick, sharp wit. No colleague could refuse when he would raise his eyebrows, gesture toward the door, and invite them to join him in his “office” – typically a quiet courtyard or hallway outside a press room – to discuss daily coverage plans or share observations about people and events around the venues.
Chris Lehourites, an AP editor who oversaw European tennis coverage for decades, spent countless hours with Fendrich deliberating over punctuation, sentence structure, and word selection, calling him 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.”
