Evelyn Reynolds

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    The U.S. Open Is King of New York. Could It Do More for Queens?

    The U.S. Open tennis tournament will celebrate the 50th anniversary of equal prize money for men and women in the event, part of a legacy of equality and inclusion of which the Open is extremely proud. But many close neighbors of the U.S. Open have not always felt so included.On 111th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, in the shadow of the No. 7 train’s elevated tracks, thousands of people go about their business during the U.S. Open while having virtually no interaction with one of the most popular and profitable sporting events in the world.The U.S. Open employs about 7,000 seasonal workers from around New York each year.Kamal Alma and his family have owned the 111 Corona Discount & Candy Store, less than half a mile from Arthur Ashe Stadium, for over 40 years. Occasionally, during the week of qualifying and the two weeks of competition, some of the event’s temporary workers filter into Alma’s store. But he rarely sees tennis fans there and does not gain any noticeable uptick in business from the event. His children like tennis, but tickets for the main draw are too expensive.“Plus, I’m working all the time,” he said. “Who knows, maybe someday I’ll go.”The U.S. Open is one of New York City’s landmark events, drawing international attention to Queens while generating huge profits and employing about 7,000 seasonal workers from around New York. But for some, it could be a better neighbor.“We are happy it’s here,” said Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president. “It’s definitely an economic driver for the borough, for the city. But if it’s not benefiting the local community, what good is that for the people of Queens? When the three weeks is over, we’re still here.”Tommy Chan, owner of Tommy’s Doghouse, a food stand outside the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.Richards said that he had just recently begun to dig deeper into how the U.S. Open engaged with the local community and that he planned to attend an event hosted by the United States Tennis Association on Tuesday to discuss those matters. He said he recognized and appreciated that the Open donated money to Flushing Meadows Corona Park, on which the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center sits in its 40-acre corner, and provided funds to enhance local community projects. He just wants to see more of it, commensurate with the huge sums produced by the event each year.“I look forward to sitting down with the leadership to really think about ways this partnership can benefit the fans, the tournament and the borough,” he said. “Not to say they don’t give support. We need to see that support ramped up to address inequities outside the park and in the park.”Since moving to the Corona and Flushing area from its previous location at the tony West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens, the U.S. Open has sat in its corner of the park pumping out revenue for the nonprofit U.S.T.A., which pays the city a percentage in rent for the privilege. In 2022, the event raised $472 million and paid close to $5 million in rent. The U.S.T.A., which has paid its top executive more than $1 million in compensation, builds and pays for the infrastructure, including the stadiums.Many fans squeeze on to the No. 7 train to get to the tennis stadium.More than 888,000 spectators attended the U.S. Open last year, and at least that many are expected this year at an event that is in some ways an annual contrast of culture and class.Many fans will drive there on the crowded parkways and highways adjacent to the stadium. Some will ride the commuter rails from Manhattan, Long Island and New Jersey, and others will squeeze onto the No. 7 train from Grand Central Station. And when they have seen the last ball struck for the day, most will make their way back in the same fashion, without setting foot in the nearby streets and restaurants of Corona, Flushing or Jackson Heights or ambling into the adjacent park, where soccer and volleyball players mix with in-line skaters, joggers and picnickers.“We never lose sight of the fact that we are in a public park,” said Daniel Zausner, the National Tennis Center’s chief operating officer. “We want to be a bigger player in the community, always.”The U.S.T.A. offers free admission to a week of professional tennis during the qualifying tournament before the main draw, providing an opportunity to attract future fans.Spectators heading to the tennis center from the boardwalk bridge that connects to the No. 7 train and Citi Field, where the Mets play.Omar Minaya, the former general manager of the Mets baseball club and now a senior adviser for the Yankees, grew up in Corona just a few blocks from where the Open site is now. He and his friends played football and baseball in the park before the Open moved to Flushing Meadows in 1978, and boxing was a popular sport in Corona, too. Few of the kids played tennis. Minaya said he still saw a positive overall effect from the event but recognized that it was not for everyone.“It’s brought a lot of attention to Queens, and that’s good,” he said. “But most of the people that go to the Open, they aren’t going into Corona. It’s more of a corporate crowd than a local crowd.”Lew Sherr, the chief executive of the U.S.T.A., said economic activity from the Open filtered across the region, and he pointed to a decade-old study that put the annual economic impact of the tournament at $750 million for the New York City area. He estimated that a similar study now would double that figure.“Although the stadium sits less than a mile away, it has no connection,” Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president, said of the tournament’s physical relationship to its neighborhood.But in Corona and nearby Elmhurst, two areas devastated by the Covid-19 pandemic, many residents have little or no interaction with the U.S. Open.Carlos Inga owns the Super Star II food stand in Corona Plaza, just off Roosevelt Avenue and 103rd Street. He has lived in Queens for 20 years but has never been to the U.S. Open, nor have any of his friends, he said. Sometimes he will see employees wearing U.S. Open shirts and badges, but rarely any fans, unless they get off at the wrong subway stop by accident.“There is definitely a disconnect,” Richards, the borough president, said. “Although the stadium sits less than a mile away, it has no connection. Those are the questions we will be raising on Tuesday. The same goes for the airports and the new soccer stadium. How do they impact the neighborhood?”On 111th Avenue, 111 Corona Discount & Candy Store is less than half a mile from Arthur Ashe Stadium but rarely sees any foot traffic from the tournament.More than 40 percent of the 7,000 seasonal employees at the U.S. Open are from Queens.“I love working here,” said Yvette Varga, a regular seasonal maintenance worker at the Open, who is originally from Ozone Park in Queens but now lives in the Bronx. “We would always go to this park, and still, every year, we have at least one cookout here. So for me, it’s like home.”Some employees have not had such a favorable experience. In 2022, three employees accused a U.S. Open subcontractor of wage theft during the previous year’s event, and the funds were ultimately restored after Zausner’s intervention.“I wish I had known in September so I could have acted upon it then, instead of hearing about it 11 months later,” Zausner said.The No. 7 train runs above the roads leading to the U.S. Open.A freshly painted bench at the entrance of the tennis center.In 2019, Scott Stringer, the New York City comptroller at the time, charged that the National Tennis Center had underreported $31 million in revenue from 2014 to 2017 and therefore had underpaid rent by more than $300,000. The U.S.T.A., in a letter to the deputy comptroller dated Nov. 16, 2020, and obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Law request, concurred with a shortfall of $143,296.61 and paid it.The N.T.C. also donates funds for the upkeep of the park, but more attention seems to be focused closer to the tennis center, where park benches along the path surrounding the perimeter fence bore “wet paint” signs on Tuesday. Farther away, the paint was chipped off the benches and litter was more evident.“If you look, it’s not as nice as you move away from the stadium,” said Tina Chen, a Flushing resident and a senior at Yale University who was walking her dog, Coco, in the park. “I think it’s good to have the U.S. Open here, for sure. But maybe they could do more to fix up the rest of the area, too.”More than 888,000 spectators visited the U.S. Open during qualifying week and the two-week tournament last year. More

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    Not All Tennis Balls Are Equal

    In tournaments, the old balls are swapped for new ones after several games. Those livelier new ones can change a player’s strategy.Keep your eye on the ball. That’s the mantra for tennis players, from beginners to whoever lands in the finals at this year’s United States Open.But each ball will be seen only briefly because in tournament play, six balls are used to start a match, then ditched after seven games; for the rest of that match, the balls will be replaced after every nine games. (The Open generally stocks about 100,000 new balls and goes through about 70,000 each year.)“I change my racket at every ball change,” said the 18th-ranked Lorenzo Musetti of Italy.Adam Vaughan/EPA, via ShutterstockThose life spans, punctuated by the chair umpire’s call for “new balls, please,” are necessarily brief because the balls take a beating. In the course of a ball’s court time, the pummeling causes them to get fluffier as their hairs shake loose. This slows them as they travel through the air, making it easier to control placement but more difficult to blast a winner.The balls are changed regularly to maintain consistency of play, but also used balls feel heavier on the racket, requiring more wrist, elbow and shoulder torque to generate power. Changing them reduces the risk of injury.Players are acutely aware of the way the balls degrade.“When the balls are getting old, it gets tougher to hit winners and make easy points, especially on slower courts,” said the eighth-ranked Andrey Rublev of Russia.Anders Bjuro/Agence France-Presse, via Tt News Agency/Afp Via Getty Images“When the balls are getting old, it gets tougher to hit winners and make easy points, especially on slower courts,” said the eighth-ranked Andrey Rublev of Russia.The aging process leads players to seek smoother, less-worn balls for a first serve to gain more speed. They look for fluffier balls for the second serve to attain more control and to slow their opponent’s return.Then the players need to adjust again when the new balls arrive.Francisco Cerundolo said players used more topspin on serve returns and ground strokes in the first game or two after the change.Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse /Getty Images“I’m conscious of the ways the balls change, and I have the count in my head until the new balls,” Francisco Cerundolo, the world No. 20 from Argentina, said.Jessica Pegula, an American ranked No. 3, added that while the fans might not be aware of the shift, the players were thinking “very strategically” about the change.The most common maneuver is switching rackets when new balls are introduced.“I change my racket at every ball change,” said the 18th-ranked Lorenzo Musetti, of Italy, explaining that the strings lose some tension over the course of nine games and the new racket will enable a player to capitalize on the smoother, slimmer ball to hit them hard while still maintaining control. (Roger Federer used to switch rackets one game early so he’d be comfortable with the new racket when the fresh balls arrived.)Changing rackets has become more common in the past 20 years, said Patrick McEnroe, an ESPN analyst and a former pro, although he noted that Ivan Lendl was the pioneer in making it a consistent practice timed to the new balls. In earlier eras, players used gut strings and had to change rackets more frequently, McEnroe said, but modern players are more meticulous about every detail in their game.Also, modern synthetic strings last longer, but they may be past their peak well before they break. So while some players change rackets for new balls because they feel it’s advantageous, others simply use the balls as an automatic reminder to grab a fresh stick.“With more explosive frames, rackets and strings that can grab the ball more to create spin, players can now feel the slightest change in tension,” McEnroe said. “There’s definitely more awareness of adapting when the new balls come in, and I think some players tinker more with their tactics as a ball goes through its life span.”In addition to switching rackets, many players change their game plan when the new balls arrive.The faster balls give the biggest advantage to the server, who can pound first serves or skid them out wide to win quick points, McEnroe said.Musetti serving.Vaughn Ridley/Getty ImagesMusetti said it was important to serve well with the new balls: “I try to be more aggressive.”Not only are the serves coming in faster, but the returns are also tougher to control, said Giuliana Olmos of Mexico, who’s ranked 18th in doubles. “When they first put new balls in, they tend to fly a lot. The other balls are old and heavy, so it’s a drastic difference and can be hard to adjust. I just remind myself and my partner and try not to go for too much, then you can start hitting normally again after a little bit.”Echoing complaints other players (including Rafael Nadal) have made about the recent quality of the balls, Rublev said this year many new balls “are super tough to control in the first game. It feels like they’re breaking your wrist, and the balls feel like stones and fly without control.”But even if the balls are not problematic, Cerundolo said players used more topspin on serve returns and ground strokes in the first game or two after the change. “If you hit the ball too flat, it may fly out.”McEnroe said that while the differences in the balls and in the string tension of the new rackets were real, they were fairly small concerns for players skilled enough to be at or near the top of the pro game. Still, the issue is in players’ minds.“Anything that gives you a little edge helps, and whether it’s a reality or not almost doesn’t matter,” McEnroe said, adding that if players barely miss a shot after the introduction of the new balls, they may blame it on the change and next time may switch rackets to enable them to control their shots better.“Players may be overthinking the differences with the new balls a little bit,” he said, “but just because a lot of it is likely psychological doesn’t mean it’s not important.” More

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    In Tennis, a Higher Ranking Means Better Perks

    Higher-ranked players tend to get the perks, like the better practice courts. The lower-ranked must make do.Eric Butorac played in the doubles main draw at the United States Open from 2007 to 2016. He vividly recalls his warm-up sessions on practice courts that were closer to the nearby subway station than they were to Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens.“We were lucky when we got to practice on those courts for any length of time,” said Butorac, now the director of player relations at the United States Tennis Association. “If we wanted a long practice we had to go off site completely, sometimes out to Long Island.”But Butorac, who reached the final in doubles at the 2014 Australian Open, never felt slighted.“I came from a small town in Minnesota and was just happy to be there,” Butorac said. “For me, it was more about gratitude than about feeling that others had been given more.”There has long been a hierarchy among tennis players, a distinction between the sport’s top players and everyone else. If Novak Djokovic, a three-time U.S. Open winner, wants to practice in Arthur Ashe for an extended amount of time, rather than outside the gates of the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, he is given that privilege. So are the defending champions Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz.Top seeds typically practice and play most, if not all, of their matches on one of three premier courts — Ashe, Louis Armstrong or the Grandstand — which affords them a major advantage. Ashe and Armstrong have retractable roofs, so by playing there, they get to avoid the disruption of rainouts, whereas the lower seeds, playing elsewhere, do not. Many players, of all ranks, also train on practice courts just outside Ashe, where fans can watch from courtside stands.Novak Djokovic practicing in Arthur Ashe Stadium before the 2020 U.S. Open. Djokovic has won the Open three times, and those wins have brought perks, like access to premiere courts for practice and matches.for The New York TimesBut for low-ranked players, doubles specialists and players who have gained entry by advancing through a qualifying tournament, finding quality courts to get ready for their matches can often prove challenging. Sometimes, less-accomplished players will arrange to practice with bigger names just so that they can share the more coveted courts.“When you’re playing the U.S. Open, it’s good to practice with Frances there,” joked 17th-ranked Hubert Hurkacz, referring to Frances Tiafoe, one of last year’s semifinalists.Many players agree that there is a have-versus-have-not culture in the sport. John Millman, who was ranked No. 33 in 2018, but is now at No. 326, wrote in an article, published in May on the Australian website news.com.au, that at some tournaments he received fewer tennis balls to practice with than high-rated players did.“Those new balls are being chased around by the big support teams that have received extra accreditation from the tournament,” said Millman, who also wrote that, in addition to being able to bring in more staff to help them during practice, bigger names are given the opportunity to book practice courts first. They then choose the more coveted earlier-morning time slots, so they can finish early.Alizé Cornet playing during this year’s Wimbledon. Cornet noted that, when she played on a featured court at a major, versus an outside court, she received more tickets to give to family and friends.Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesAlizé Cornet, ranked No. 11 in 2009 but now at No. 65, complained at Wimbledon that when she played on a featured court at a major versus an outside court, she was allocated many more tickets to give away to family and friends.“I’ve been almost top-10, I’ve been [ranked] 30 and I’ve been 90,” said Cornet, 33. “I definitely felt a little different when I was a seeded player at the Slam, but that’s how society works. The best you are, the more advantage you get.”Taylor Fritz, the No. 1 ranked American male and No. 9 in the world, sees bigger differences at small tournaments where it is customary for top seeds to be gifted luxurious hotel accommodations and more desirable match times.“Yeah, I think there are slight advantages, but I also believe that the players that get the advantages have earned them,” Fritz said.According to John Tobias, executive vice president at GSE Worldwide, a marketing and management company that represents top tennis players, many of them are given cars for their entourages, while other players and their friends, family and fans are relegated to tournament shuttle buses.Some players rely on accommodations provided at tournament hotels, while Tobias is often able to negotiate deals for his star athletes with upscale hotels that provide free suites in exchange for promotional appearances or mentions on social media.Cameron Norrie, Britain’s No. 1 player, thinks it’s funny that the better he performs, the less he has to pay for. After reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon last year, Norrie said that he was offered free coffee by his local barista and even had his dry-cleaning bill forgiven, even though he earned more than $600,000 in prize money for that Wimbledon alone.Many players agreed that perks for performance is a fair exchange. It’s when players are denied equal opportunities to prepare for tournaments that the situation becomes sticky.“This is a topic that has been going around for a long time,” said Daniel Vallverdu, Grigor Dimitrov’s coach and a former coaches’ representative on the ATP Player Council. “My feeling is that to get to the top you have to go through what the other guys went through. Everyone has the opportunity to go down the same path, to start from the bottom, to make it to the top or not. And those top players are doing a lot more for the events than the lower-ranked guys in terms of media commitments, sponsorship commitments and tickets sales, so you have to incentivize them to come.John Millman serving during a match at the 2022 U.S. Open. Millman wrote that top seeds are often given extra accreditation for their support teams, and the chance to book practice courts first. Mike Stobe/Getty Images“But when it comes to the opportunity to prepare, like access to the right gym, getting enough hours of practice, that’s where it should be as equal as possible,” Vallverdu added. “Anything that influences preparation, and that influences performance, should be very equal.”The U.S.T.A. is working to give equitable enhancements to all players at the U.S. Open. In addition to providing creature comforts such as recovery rooms and nap rooms, calming red-light therapy and virtual reality games, the association is offering new initiatives this year for players, including an additional free hotel room for a players’ coach or family member or a $600 per diem if players opt to find their own housing. All players’ and coaches’ meals on site are also covered by the U.S.T.A.The U.S.T.A. also gives all players competing at the Open a $1,000 air travel stipend and $150 to cover airport expenses, as well as five free racket stringings for every day a player has a match. There is also a new app that allows competitors to secure transportation, practice courts, meal allowances and match tickets. Coaches, who are now allowed to give advice during matches, are being given tablets that track match stats.“There’s no hierarchy in this situation,” said Butorac, who, as director of player relations for the U.S.T.A., also offers a suite to all players where they can pick out Open logo clothing, headphones or even a Tiffany bracelet.“This program is really geared toward players ranked No. 70 to 80,” he said. “The idea here is they won’t have to spend any money here, and they can take all of their prize money home with them.”Prize money this year has also been increased by more than 8 percent over last year with the men’s and women’s singles champions each earning $3 million and first-round losers in the singles tournament taking home $81,500. This year marks the 50th anniversary of equal prize money being awarded to men and women at the Open.Stan Wawrinka, a former U.S., Australian and French Open champion once ranked No. 3 in the world before injuries dropped him out of the top 300, knows the vagaries of being lower-ranked.“Of course, you have been through it differently when you’re at the top of the game and when you’re down in the ranking,” said Wawrinka, now No. 49. “That’s normal, and that’s how it is. And it’s always going to be like that.“I always believe it doesn’t matter where I am in the ranking,” Wawrinka added. “It doesn’t matter what court I’m playing on. Doesn’t matter where I have to stay. It’s always going to be special to be in a Grand Slam.” More

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    Jessica Pegula Is Still in the Hunt for her First Major Title

    She is the top female American tennis player and knows that she has to be more aggressive to win more.Jessica Pegula strode into Wimbledon’s cavernous interview room, bucket hat perched on her head, and stared at the empty room. When she realized that there were no media members there to ask her about her second-round win over Cristina Bucsa, Pegula chuckled, got up and walked out.Pegula is never entirely shocked when attention is diverted away from her. Though ranked No. 3 in the world, the highest among American women, and the champion at the Canadian Open two weeks ago, Pegula, 29, has never advanced to the semifinals in singles at a Grand Slam tournament. She is 0-6 in quarterfinal appearances at the majors, including at this year’s Australian Open and Wimbledon. The United States Open, where she lost to Iga Swiatek in a tight two-setter last year, is her final chance this season.At 5-foot-7, Pegula doesn’t have a thunderous serve, like Aryna Sabalenka. And she doesn’t possess flashy movements like the No. 1 Swiatek. Pegula can also flutter emotionally, as when she let a 4-1 lead slip in the third set against the eventual Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova. Instead, it is her consistency that sets her apart.“Her ball-striking is really, really good,” said David Witt, her coach since 2019. “If I were to think of a player who hits this clean it would be [former No. 1] Lindsay Davenport.”Pegula’s game is durable and reliable. She has a wide wingspan and hits with tremendous power off the forehand and backhand. Because of her doubles success with Coco Gauff, she has become a more-than-competent volleyer.She also studiously avoids the histrionics that many of her compatriots get entangled in.“I’m pretty chill, pretty laid-back,” said Pegula in an interview during Wimbledon in July. “It takes a lot to get me going emotionally, excited or upset. Maybe that’s good for the U.S. Open, because I’m able to stay well-balanced.”For Pegula, the Open is a mixed bag. A Buffalo native (her parents own the Buffalo Bills of the N.F.L. and the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League), she likes the fan support in New York but struggles with the mayhem.“I feel like the Open is really hot and crowded,” said Pegula, who failed to qualify four times at the Open before reaching the third round in 2020. “Everything is kind of against you. There’s so much going on. You’re usually really hyped up, and it’s kind of like you’re running on fumes. There’s just so much energy, and it can be really fun, but it can also zap a lot out of you. It’s something you have to learn how to balance.”Jessica Pegula serving during a singles semifinal at the Mubadala Citi DC Open on Aug. 5. “Her ball-striking is really, really good,” said her coach, David Witt.Geoff Burke/Usa Today Sports, via ReutersBalance is particularly important for Pegula, who weathered career-threatening knee and hip injuries that kept her out of the U.S. Open a decade ago, and then she faced the emotional turmoil of her mother’s heart attack last June.Jimmy Arias, a former top five player who has worked with Pegula, once tried to impress upon her that there were two types of competitors: a lion and a rat. Pegula, with her fearsome ground strokes, has long been a lion. What she needed to adopt was the rat part.“In a nuclear explosion, a rat is the only animal to survive,” Arias said. “J.P. had the weapons of a lion, but she needed the mentality of the rat. She had to learn how to dig, claw and scratch her way out. Now, when she’s in trouble, she can find her way out of a point.”Pegula understands that; it’s just the execution that can be tricky.“I’m doing everything to put myself in a good position,” she said. “It’s just a little more belief in myself in the later stages of tournaments and being more aggressive in the bigger moments.”And if she doesn’t break through and win a major, will she feel unfulfilled?“If I had to stop tomorrow, I think I’d be pretty satisfied,” she said. “I got to have this amazing career, proved a lot to myself and to a lot of other people. Obviously, there’s more that I want to do, but I’ve gotten through the really tough parts and a lot of really big lows. To come out of that has been a win in itself.” More

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    U.S. Open Draws Pave the Way for a Rematch of Djokovic vs. Alcaraz in Final

    Novak Djokovic, the No. 2 seed, does not have an easy path to a 24th Grand Slam title, and neither does Iga Swiatek, the defending women’s champion.After a marathon match between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday in the final of the Western & Southern Open in Ohio, Djokovic said he hoped to play Alcaraz again at the U.S. Open “for the crowd.”The crowd may get to see that rematch.The men’s and women’s singles draws for the U.S. Open, which begins on Monday in New York, revealed the path for Djokovic and Alcaraz to meet again in the final, which would also be a rematch of last month’s Wimbledon final, a thrilling five-setter that Alcaraz won after nearly five hours on the court.“Every match we play against each other goes the distance,” Djokovic said after the final on Sunday, adding that the match felt like a Grand Slam.Djokovic returns to New York after missing the U.S. Open last year because he was unvaccinated against the coronavirus and travel restrictions would not allow him to enter the United States. Now, with an injured Rafael Nadal and a retired Roger Federer not in his way, Djokovic will seek his 24th Grand Slam title and his third of the season after winning in Australia and France earlier this year.Djokovic, who will play Alexandre Muller of France in the first round of the tournament, will not have an easy path to the final. He could potentially face the No. 7 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in the quarterfinals, and in the semifinals, Djokovic could play Holger Rune of Denmark or Casper Ruud, the Norwegian who reached last year’s U.S. Open final.Alcaraz, who will face Dominik Koepfer of Germany in the first round, could also see some formidable opposition as he looks to defend his U.S. Open title. Alcaraz could play against Jannik Sinner of Italy in the quarterfinals, followed by one of two Russians, either Andrey Rublev or Daniil Medvedev, the 2021 U.S. Open champion.The women’s draw could also lead to several rivalries and rematches. Iga Swiatek, the No. 1 women’s player in the world, could end up in the final against Aryna Sabalenka, this year’s Australian Open champion.In defending her U.S. Open title, Swiatek could face Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals. Before this month, Swiatek had won seven matches against Gauff, but the 19-year-old American finally found a way to defeat Swiatek this month in the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open. Gauff went on to win the tournament for her first WTA 1000 title.On the other side of the draw, Sabalenka could play a quarterfinal match against Ons Jabeur, the Tunisian No. 5 seed who reached the U.S. Open final last year and lost in the Wimbledon final in July. In the semis, Sabalenka could meet either Caroline Garcia of France or Jessica Pegula, the American No. 3 seed.While both draws offer promising matchups, this year’s tournament will miss some big names: An injury has kept Nadal sidelined since the Australian Open, with hopes to return next year. Naomi Osaka, a two-time U.S. Open champion, will miss the tournament after giving birth to her daughter this summer, and Emma Raducanu, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, is out as she recovers from three minor procedures.Simona Halep, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, was withdrawn from the tournament because of a provisional suspension she received last year after she tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug during the 2022 U.S. Open.This year’s U.S. Open will also miss trick shots from Nick Kyrgios, who withdrew from the tournament because of a wrist injury.But despite the notable absences, the tournament will open with some strong first-round matches: Tsitsipas, who lost to Djokovic in this year’s Australian Open final, will start off against Milos Raonic, a Wimbledon finalist in 2016. Venus Williams, the 43-year-old seven-time Grand Slam champion, will play Paula Badosa, who won at Indian Wells in 2021. And Sloane Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion, will play in the first round against Beatriz Haddad Maia, a Brazilian player who has had a decent season, reaching the French Open semifinals this year and the round of 16 at Wimbledon. More

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    Jennifer Brady, Finally Healthy, Tries to Get Back to Work

    Even when the big success finally came, it hardly came easily for Jennifer Brady.She made her breakthrough at the 2020 U.S. Open near the height of the coronavirus pandemic, reaching the semifinals amid strict public health measures and the silence of a vast Arthur Ashe Stadium without any paying spectators.When she backed that performance up four months later by reaching the Australian Open final, she did it after spending two weeks in hard quarantine in a Melbourne hotel. She smacked tennis balls against a mattress that she had propped against a wall and pedaled a stationary bike in the bathroom with the door closed and a hot shower running to try to replicate the tournament’s often steamy conditions.Her deep run was a remarkable, resilient effort that put her on the brink of the top 10 of the singles rankings. But as the world and her sport slowly returned to something closer to normal, Brady was nowhere to be seen on tour.She was out of action for nearly two years with a chronic foot condition and a knee injury that, combined, sometimes left her, in her words, “in a very dark place,” curled up on the floor in tears, even looking at her troublesome left foot on occasion and wishing she could “just chop it off.”Brady, who had played her last competitive match in August 2021, returned to action last week for an International Tennis Federation satellite tournament in Granby, Quebec, winning a round before losing in straight sets to Himeno Sakatsume, a Japanese player ranked 223rd.Brady plans to return to the main WTA Tour next week in Washington, D.C., for the DC Open.“It was unbelievable, just being out there,” Brady said in a telephone interview from Granby. “Just engaging and just having a crowd there, and people enjoying good tennis. I definitely missed this. I didn’t think I would be as comfortable as I was. I’m happy I was able to show people that I’m still here.”‘It Seems Like There’s a Lot of Opportunity’Though Brady no longer had a WTA ranking after her long layoff, she has a protected ranking that will allow her entry into 12 tour-level events. That does not count wild cards, and given her past success, she is likely to receive several, although she plans to use her protected ranking to enter the U.S. Open next month.Brady said she missed playing in front of a crowd during her time away.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesWith a thunderous forehand that often led her to practice with boys in her youth, Brady, 28, was long considered one of the most promising American players. She knows there are no guarantees of a successful comeback. She was aiming initially to return for the French Open in May. She had her hotel room and plane ticket booked but then suffered a new injury, a bone bruise in her right foot, in her final practice session before her planned departure.As she returns this month, she senses an opening. She avoided watching much pro tennis in her long absence but she is well aware that Marketa Vondrousova recently became the first unseeded woman to win a Wimbledon singles title.“The women’s game right now, it seems like anybody can win a Grand Slam tournament,” Brady said. “It seems like there’s a lot of opportunity.”Brady no longer has a personal coach and is traveling instead with Kayla Fujimoto Epperson, a physical therapist. But as she prepared for her comeback in Orlando, she worked daily with Ola Malmqvist, the head of women’s tennis at the U.S.T.A., who has known Brady since she was a standout junior.“I just really, really wish that she gets the chance to put her feet into everything again and see what happens,” Malmqvist said. “I think in her mind she definitely feels she can compete with the very best, and I hope she can stay healthy enough and practice enough. She’s not going to go four hours a day anymore because of her body, but she can still do enough to get the physicality she needs.”The challenge for Brady has been learning to hold back. “It’s almost like I don’t trust myself,” she said. “I realized it’s more about staying healthy and training smarter instead of harder.”Brady has been working with Ola Malmqvist, the head of women’s tennis at the U.S.T.A.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesShe left U.C.L.A. after her sophomore year to turn professional in 2015. But she did not start to soar until she moved her training base to Germany in late 2019 and began working with the German coach Michael Geserer, who favored a high-volume, high-intensity approach.She returned from the tour’s five-month pandemic hiatus in August 2020 and won her opening tournament in Lexington, Ky., foreshadowing her deep run to a U.S. Open semifinal with Naomi Osaka, the eventual champion.She also lost to Osaka in the 2021 Australian Open final and then retreated to her hotel room again, emotionally and physical drained.“I just closed the blackout curtains, and I just watched Netflix for, like, three days straight,” she said. “It just hit me.”Instead of taking a break, she followed her plan with Geserer and went to the tournament in Doha, Qatar, in February 2021. “I just didn’t want to be there,” she said. “I love competing, but I just didn’t want to compete. Mentally, I was absolutely fried.”After losing to Naomi Osaka in the 2021 Australian Open final, Brady said she felt emotionally and physically drained.Kelly Defina/ReutersShe had already experienced some minor foot pain, but in March as she prepared for the Miami Open, she said, she woke up in the “middle of the night with a sharp, stabbing pain” in the sole of her left foot.She was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis but pressed on. By May, when she played in the Italian Open, she woke up after a match and said she “couldn’t walk.”She split with Geserer, in part because she felt they had pushed too hard.“There was no drama,” she said. “It was just a little too much; too much structure at that time period.”She went to the French Open and was in so much pain during her first-round victory over Anastasija Sevastova that she cried during the match. She managed to win her second-round match with Fiona Ferro but began experiencing back spasms in her third-round loss to Coco Gauff and stopped after losing the first set.“I was compensating for the foot,” Brady said. “So, I started having pain everywhere.”‘Like Stepping on a Porcupine’She skipped the grass-court season, received a cortisone injection and a platelet-rich plasma injection in her foot but lost in the first round at the Tokyo Olympics and returned to the U.S. to try to get ready for the 2021 U.S. Open.“Some mornings I would wake up, and I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m healed, like, it’s gone!’” she said. “And then I’d go on court, and I’d be like, ‘Damn, it’s not.’ I also had a ton of nerve compression, nerve pain. It wasn’t just plantar fasciitis. So, it was like stepping on a porcupine every step, and I was so sensitive that I would have to take my shoe and sock off because my foot would be so hot. It felt like somebody was lighting a match on my skin.”She played the Western and Southern Open on painkillers and was feeling good in her second-round match against Jelena Ostapenko before experiencing new pain in her right knee. She remembers running for a short ball late in the second set and feeling “like an explosion in my left heel.”“I immediately couldn’t put weight on it,” she said.Brady training at the U.S.T.A. National Campus in Orlando, Fla.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesJacob Langston for The New York TimesShe retired from the match and soon withdrew from the U.S. Open. She had a stress fracture in her right knee and would later discover that she also had a partial tear in her left plantar fascia. She had right knee surgery in March 2022 to repair cartilage damage but still had lingering foot pain.“Anytime I would feel pain, I would freak out because I’d be like, it’s back to where it was,” she said. “And I’d lose sleep over it; so many negative thoughts start rolling in the back of my head.”There has been angst about finances. Brady’s time near the top in women’s tennis was brief and though she has earned more than $4.6 million in prize money, pro tennis has plenty of overhead. And her medical bills, even with insurance, have been stacking up during her long layoff.“I don’t want to blow through all my money,” she said.Brady added: “When can I start doing my job?”The answer, at last, is now. More

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    ‘Break Point’ Just Might Be the Best Way to Watch Tennis

    The docuseries feels more like a prestige psychodrama — which gets the highs and lows of the pro circuit right.In the sixth episode of the Netflix docuseries “Break Point,” Ajla Tomljanovic, a journeywoman tennis player who has spent much of the last decade in the Top 100 of the world rankings, is shown splayed across an exercise mat in a drab training room after reaching the 2022 Wimbledon quarterfinals. Her father, Ratko, stretches out her hamstrings. She receives a congratulatory phone call from her sister and another from her idol-turned-mentor, the 18-time major champion Chris Evert, before Ratko announces that it’s time for the dreaded ice bath. “By the way,” Tomljanovic says at one point, “do we have a room?” Shortly after his daughter sealed her spot in the final eight of the world’s pre-eminent tennis tournament, Ratko was seen on booking.com, extending their stay in London.This is not the stuff of your typical sports documentary, but it is the life of a professional tennis player. Circumnavigating the globe for much of the year with only a small circle of coaches, physiotherapists and perhaps a parent, they shoulder alone the bureaucratic irritations that, in other elite sports, might be outsourced to agents and managers. If at some tournaments they surprise even themselves by outlasting their hotel accommodations, most events will only harden them to the standard torments of the circuit, which reminds them weekly of their place in the pecking order. As Taylor Fritz, now the top-ranked American men’s player, remarks in one “Break Point” episode, “It’s tough to be happy in tennis, because every single week everyone loses but one person.” This is a sobering audit, coming from a player who wins considerably more than his approximately 2,000 peers on the tour.“Break Point,” executive-produced by Paul Martin and the Oscar-winning filmmaker James Gay-Rees, arrived this year as a gift to tennis fans, for whom splashy, well-produced and readily accessible documentaries about the sport have been hard to come by. Tennis, today, finds itself in the crepuscular light of an era when at least five different players — the Williams sisters, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — have surely deserved mini-series of their own. But the sport has never enjoyed its own “All or Nothing,” the all-access Amazon program that follows a different professional sports team each season, or the event-television status accorded to “The Last Dance,” the Netflix docuseries about Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, with its luxury suite of talking heads: Nas, Isiah Thomas, “former Chicago resident” Barack Obama. Perhaps this is because the narrative tropes of the genre tend toward triumphs and Gatorade showers, while the procedural and psychological realities of professional tennis lie elsewhere. The 10 episodes of “Break Point” render tennis unromantically: This is the rare sports doc whose primary subject is loss.In Andre Agassi’s memorably frank memoir, “Open,” he describes the tennis calendar with subtle poetry, detailing “how we start the year on the other side of the world, at the Australian Open, and then just chase the sun.” This itinerary more or less dictates the structure of “Break Point,” which opens at the year’s first Grand Slam and closes at the year-end championships in November. At each tournament, the players it spotlights post impressive results — and then, typically, they lose, thwarted sometimes by the sport’s stubborn luminaries but more often by bouts of nerves or exhaustion. They find comfort where they can, juggling a soccer ball or lying back with a self-made R.&B. track in a hotel room. But many tears are shed, after which they redouble their commitments to work harder, be smarter, get hungrier. “You have to be cold to build a champion mind-set,” says the Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas.‘It’s tough to be happy in tennis.’Those who watched Wimbledon this month might find, in all this, an instructive companion piece to live tennis. “Break Point” is frustratingly short on actual game play, shaving matches down to their rudiments in a way that understates the freakish tactical discipline required of players; viewers will not, for example, come away with any greater understanding of point construction than they will from having watched Djokovic pull his opponents out wide with progressively heavier forehands, only to wrong-foot them with a backhand up the line. They will, however, come to understand how intensely demoralizing it must be to stand across the net from him. In an episode following last year’s Wimbledon, we watch the talented but irascible Nick Kyrgios, as close as tennis has to its own Dennis Rodman, play Djokovic in the final. He gets off to a hot start and then, like so many before him, begins to wilt. “He’s calmer; you can’t rush him,” he says of Djokovic, in a voice-over the series aptly sets against footage of an exasperated Kyrgios admonishing the umpire, the crowd, even friends and family in his own box. These are athletes we’re accustomed to seeing at their steeliest or their most combustible; the matches in “Break Point” may be fresh in the memory of most tennis fans, but the series benefits greatly from its subjects’ clearer-headed reflections.For all its pretensions to realism, “Break Point” is a shrewd, and perhaps doomed, attempt to fill the sport’s impending power vacuum. Kyrgios and Tsitsipas are among a handful of strivers it positions as the sport’s new stars, along with others like Casper Ruud, Ons Jabeur and Aryna Sabalenka. All, naturally, subjected themselves to Netflix’s cameras. This kind of access is increasingly crucial to sports documentaries, a fact that often results in work that’s unduly deferential to its subjects, as with “The Last Dance” and Michael Jordan.Tennis, though, runs counter to this mandate. It is perhaps the sport most conducive to solipsism. Singles players perform alone. On-court coaching is generally prohibited, so there are no rousing speeches to inspire unlikely comebacks. The game’s essential psychodrama takes place within the mind — often in the 25 seconds allotted between points, or in the split seconds during which one must decide whether to go cross-court or down the line, to flatten the ball or welter it with spin. I can remember, as a junior-tennis also-ran, my coaches saying that once my eyes wandered to my opponent across the net, they knew I would lose. This might explain why tennis players so often resort to their index of obsessive tics, like hiking up their socks or adjusting their racket strings just so.By the season’s end, we meet Tomljanovic again at the U.S. Open, where she earned the awkward distinction of sending Serena Williams into retirement. At the time, ESPN’s broadcast of the match yielded nearly five million viewers, making it the most-watched tennis telecast in the network’s history. This was Serena’s swan song, but “Break Point” depicts it from the perspective of our reluctant victor. Between the second and third sets, Tomljanovic shields her face with a sweat towel, as if to quiet the sound of 24,000 spectators rooting against her. In tennis, it seems, even winning can feel like a drag.After the match, we find Tomljanovic cooling down on a stationary bike. Ratko, who has emerged as the show’s sole source of comedic relief, comes up from behind, embracing his daughter with a joke about her beating the greatest player of all time. “But why do I feel so conflicted?” she asks. There is no Gatorade bath, no confetti. To win the tournament, she still has four more matches to go.Opening illustration: Source photographs from Netflix; Tim Clayton/Corbis, via Getty ImagesJake Nevins is a writer in Brooklyn and the digital editor at Interview Magazine. He has written about books, sports and pop culture for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The Nation. More

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    Alcaraz Wins Wimbledon in a Thrilling Comeback Against Djokovic

    Carlos Alcaraz won his first Wimbledon title and left Novak Djokovic, the overwhelming favorite, with his first finals loss at the All England Club in a decade.After years of false starts, men’s tennis finally has a proper war between the generations.In a startling comeback that rocked the All England Club’s venerable Centre Court, Carlos Alcaraz, the 20-year-old Spanish star who has blitzed the sport in his brief career, pulled off the nearly impossible, beating Novak Djokovic in a Wimbledon final on the grass that the man widely recognized as the greatest ever to play the sport has long treated as his back lawn.Besides chasing the Grand Slam, Djokovic was aiming to extinguish the dreams of another heralded upstart challenging his hold on the game, which, so far, has amounted to 23 Grand Slam tournament titles. Alcaraz is the standard-bearer of the next group of players who are supposed to move the sport beyond the era of the Big Three, an era that includes Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and that Djokovic has ruled longer than many expected.Alcaraz won the U.S. Open last year in thrilling, acrobatic fashion, serving notice that men’s tennis was going to be shaken up by an unusual talent. This year, he withdrew from the Australian Open to nurse an injury and was defeated by Djokovic in the semifinals at the French Open. But the buzz around him and his future never diminished.“It’s great for the new generation,” Alcaraz said, “to see me beating him and making them think that they are capable to do it.”Down after the first set and struggling simply to avoid embarrassment, Alcaraz rediscovered his unique combination of speed, power and touch and figured out the subtleties of grass-court tennis in the nick of time.He clawed his way back into the match in an epic, 85-minute second set in which he was a point away from what figured to be an insurmountable two-set deficit.He seized control of the match midway through the third set, then teetered in the fourth set as Djokovic, Wimbledon’s four-time defending champion and seven-time winner, rediscovered the footwork that has long served as the foundation of his success.Djokovic is as dangerous a player as there has ever been when facing defeat, but Alcaraz rose once more to claim victory, 1-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4, not only overcoming Djokovic’s endless skills and talents but breaking his spirit, too.When the momentum swung one last time, as Alcaraz cranked a backhand down the line to break Djokovic’s serve early in the fifth set, the Serb with the steely mind smashed his racket on the net post. A few points earlier, he had frittered away his chance to seize control, swinging at a floating forehand in the middle of the court and sending it into the net. Now, just a few minutes later, the thing that has so rarely happened to him in recent years — a loss to a relative newcomer on a grand stage, especially this grand stage — was happening.Last month, Djokovic, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, finally eclipsed his longtime rivals, Nadal and Federer. But this loss cost him a shot at one of the few prizes he has not achieved — becoming the first player since 1969 to achieve the Grand Slam in men’s singles, winning all four major tournaments in a single year. He was within one match of pulling off the feat two years ago. This time, at 36 years old, an age when most champions have retired to the broadcast booth, he was eight matches away.It seemed so close, but in the final game, Alcaraz showcased why everyone has been making such a fuss about him for so long. He finished Djokovic with his sexiest weapons — the silky drop shot, the artful topspin lob, a blasting serve and one last ripping forehand that Djokovic reached for but could not lift over the net.Alcaraz dropped to the ground and rolled on the grass, his hands over his face in disbelief. He hugged Djokovic at the net, shook hands with the umpire, picked up a loose ball from the grass and punted it into the crowd before heading into the stands to hug his parents and his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero.“Beating Novak at his best, in this stage, making history, being the guy to beat him after 10 years unbeaten on that court, is amazing for me,” Alcaraz said.After taking the champion’s trophy from Catherine, Princess of Wales, on a day that brought out A-list celebrities like the actors Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig, Emma Watson and Hugh Jackman and the singer Ariana Grande, he got to joke with King Felipe VI of Spain, who also watched the young Spanish player’s triumph.“Now that I won I hope you are coming to more of my matches,” Alcaraz said to the king.King Felipe VI of Spain was among those who watched Alcaraz’s triumph.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOne of Alcaraz’s many mentors, Nadal, the great Spanish player who had dethroned another Wimbledon icon, Federer, in 2008, wrote on social media that Alcaraz had brought “immense joy” to Spanish tennis.“A very strong hug, and enjoy the moment Champion!!!” wrote Nadal, who missed the tournament because of recent hip and abdominal surgery.The loss created a rare moment for Djokovic, who acknowledged that on this day at least he had lost to a better player.“A tough one to swallow,” Djokovic said of the loss. He then choked back tears as he looked at his son, who was smiling at him from a courtside seat. “Thank you for supporting me,” he told his family. “I will give you a big hug and we can all love each other.”On Saturday, Mats Wilander, the seven-time Grand Slam winner who is now one of the most respected voices in the sport, put Djokovic’s chances of beating Alcaraz and winning the four 2023 Grand Slam events at 90 percent.“He’s got too many weapons,” Wilander said. “He knows everything there is to know about the sport. He’s got it all down to a science. The opponents aren’t ready for him.”In the first minutes of Sunday’s final, Wilander looked prophetic. The most important men’s match on the tennis calendar looked like a contest between two players who had walked onto Centre Court under completely different circumstances.It was the usual July Sunday for Djokovic. But Alcaraz was playing in his first Wimbledon final, and that weight was made heavier after the stress-induced, full-body cramps he suffered during his semifinal showdown with Djokovic at the French Open last month. That had been the first major moment when Alcaraz, the top seed and the world No. 1, failed to live up to his hype.Sunday was different. But not at first.Alcaraz finished the match much stronger than he began.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesFrom the opening moments, Djokovic pinned Alcaraz in the back corner of the court with low slicing shots that made it impossible for Alcaraz to go on the attack. He crushed service returns, aiming at the brown patches of dirt at Alcaraz’s feet and sending him running backward.Djokovic was a set up before the match was a half-hour old but Alcaraz held a 2-0 lead in the second.Alcaraz’s chance to salvage his maiden Wimbledon final came down to a crucial tiebreaker at the end of an epic second set that lasted three times as long as the first one. Tiebreakers are Djokovic’s specialty. Entering the final, he had won 14 straight in Grand Slam matches.The moment brought out the best in both players — the big serves to the corners; nasty drop shots; crisp, point-saving winners with the opponent closing in at the net — and the packed crowd, with alternating chants of “Novak, Novak,” and “Carlos, Carlos” echoing around the Centre Court overhangs.And then just when it looked as if Djokovic was poised to grab a commanding two-set lead, he sent two backhands into the net to give Alcaraz a chance to draw even. Alcaraz then cracked a backhand return of Djokovic’s serve down the line to knot the match at a set each.Djokovic struggled against Alcaraz’s combination of power and speed and lost the second and third sets.Dylan Martinez/ReutersThe former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson once said that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.Alcaraz had landed a shot to Djokovic’s jaw, and Djokovic felt it. The third set became an array of Djokovic errors. He battled to regain a foothold in the match, never more so than a game midway through that went to 13 deuces, that ended with a Djokovic forehand into the net.As he usually does when he is down, Djokovic took a lengthy bathroom break before the fourth set. He splashes water on his face and talks to himself in the mirror. Usually, he emerges a different player, and Sunday was no different, as he seized the initiative once more, breaking Alcaraz’s serve midway through, getting back in his head and taking the set as Alcaraz, once more edgy and on the defensive, double-faulted.After nearly four hours, they were back where they started. Nearly five hours of drama would come down to a few moments.“He surprised me. He surprised everyone,” Djokovic said of Alcaraz, who, in his eyes, had taken elements of his style, Nadal’s and Federer’s and produced a prowess on grass — his grass! — far sooner than he expected. “I haven’t played a player like him, ever.”Alcaraz with his first Wimbledon trophy but probably not his last.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press More