Evelyn Reynolds

More stories

  • 150 Shares149 Views

    in Tennis

    At the U.S. Open, Future College Tennis Stars Are an Unsung Draw

    College coaches can be found across the U.S. Open’s outer courts during the juniors competitions, displaying their school colors while searching for the next star recruit.On an outer court at the U.S. Open, tucked into a far corner by the perimeter fencing, Raquel Gonzalez Vilar powered shots over the net in her first-round match of the junior girls’ draw. Two men dressed in orange and black, wearing white hats emblazoned with the words “Oklahoma State,” cheered her on.On a nearby court, a woman in a bright orange shirt with a fierce tiger on it chatted with a man wearing a black Georgia Tech shirt and hat. Across from them were two men in light blue shirts and hats with Columbia University tennis logos.They were not fans out for a fun afternoon of tennis-star gazing. They are college coaches who were dotted across the far courts for the juniors competitions, purposely displaying their school colors while searching for the next star recruit or protecting a committed player from a rival’s watchful eye.“All the coaches come here,” said Jamea Jackson, the incoming women’s head coach at Princeton and a former professional player who also scoured these grounds as an assistant at Oklahoma State. “The U.S. Open is integral to your recruiting calendar.”While competition on the courts at the U.S. Open is intense, the battle among these coaches in the stands and pathways is sometimes just as cutthroat, with dozens of coaches showing up each year to stock their rosters.In some cases, coaches introduce themselves after the players have finished for the day to plant a seed with players and eventually sign them.In other cases, the players have committed to a school, and the coaches are there to offer support and encouragement — and to prove their undying devotion. The two men in orange and black — Chris Young, the women’s tennis head coach at Oklahoma State and Jaime Sanchez-Cañamares, his top lieutenant — were watching Gonzalez Vilar.The coaches had already persuaded Vilar to attend Oklahoma State, but she was thrilled that they had shown up and celebrated her first-round win by jumping into their arms.“I really enjoyed today because they helped me along and gave me energy,” she said through an interpreter. “It was nice to have them here with me.”If you are not looking for these coaches, they could slip by, unnoticed. If you are, they are easy to spot behind their crisp shirts and hats in school colors. Over on Court 5, a man in University of Washington gear watched a match intently. Another, in a U.C.L.A. shirt, sat nearby, and across the way Arizona, Arizona State, Northern Arizona, Pepperdine, Mississippi and many more were represented, too.The U.S. Open is not the only tournament to which coaches flock. They also pop up (in fewer numbers) at events in Europe. But it is the big junior tournaments in Kalamazoo, Mich., and San Diego and the Orange Bowl event near Miami that, along with the U.S. Open, teem with college coaches dressed like models for athletic-department logo-wear.“You never see college coaches without their gear on,” said Parsa Nemati, a college tennis recruiting expert and marketing consultant for Universal Tennis Rating, who also serves as the social media coordinator for the Tennis Channel.Billy Pate, center, of Princeton University, said the gear coaches wore turned them into “billboards.” Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesBilly Pate, the men’s coach at Princeton, joked that the gear turned coaches into “billboards.” But it is important to fly the school’s colors, if only to grab the attention of the players.College tennis is an increasingly enticing alternative for young players who may not be ready for the rigors of the professional tour. For some players, college is an easy choice because of the potential opportunity for free coaching, free food, free training facilities, free medical attention and, in many cases, free education.According to Nemati, the recruiting expert, 21 of the 64 boys in the draw are committed to colleges and at least four more will soon declare. The number of girls is slightly lower, he said. The rest consider themselves good enough to turn professional or are still undecided.Most Americans and their families are aware of the college option. But Jordan Szabo, the assistant women’s coach at Texas A&M, said some of the international players were less aware and sought guidance.For Szabo, who is Australian, the U.S. Open is not very productive because so many coaches are there and most of the players are already spoken for. But like most coaches, he knows it is too important to pass up. On Monday, he had his eye on a hard-serving Australian girl and watched to evaluate the intangibles that do not appear on any rankings or stat sheets.Finding the right moment to say hello is an art, especially with other coaches lurking nearby. A coach may have to wait patiently while a rival filibusters with the player. No one wants to be the one to barge in on a conversation or appear too aggressive in front of the players.“It’s awkward,” Szabo said. “Yesterday, a girl walked up to me to say hi when another coach had been waiting. We had just spoken the day before, and she obviously felt it would be rude not to say hello. It can just be really awkward, but it’s part of it.”Pate, the Princeton men’s coach, said most coaches respectfully — but not always — backed off when a player had committed elsewhere. But there are other challenges to fend off. National tennis federations often do not want their players to attend college, preferring that they remain under the federation’s umbrella and then go pro. And agents, who profit when a player becomes a professional, can be an obstacle, too.Gina Suarez-Malaguti, a women’s associate head coach at Virginia, said she employed unique methods to gain a player’s interest and trust.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesGina Suarez-Malaguti, a women’s associate head coach at Virginia, has been recruiting at the U.S. Open for years. She said that at a big event such as the U.S. Open, juniors breathe the same intoxicating air and share the same hallways with top pros.“They are in a different cloud here,” Suarez-Malaguti said, “thinking anything is possible.”She employs unique methods to gain a player’s interest and trust.“I can’t tell you my secrets,” she smiled. “But, you’ve got to be creative.”Another danger can arise if a college-bound player does too well at a major event. Success at the top level can suddenly alter plans.“Sometimes, they need a bad loss to bring them back to earth and make them think about college,” said German Dalmagro, the associate head coach of the Illinois women’s team.Dalmagro, who also coached at Nebraska and Kansas, said there were many more coaches at the U.S. Open now than in previous years. The big tournaments are like conventions, and many coaches get along well. Some have even worked together at stops in their careers. Most greet one another cordially, but in an optimal world, each would be the only one there, with unfettered access to players.“We have a joke,” said Howard Endelman, the head men’s coach at Columbia, who was on site to watch his top recruit, Michael Zheng. “We always say, ‘Hi, nice to see you.’ But they don’t want to see me here, and I don’t want to see them.”Alexis Casati, an associate head coach of Georgia Tech women’s tennis, watching a girls’ match.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThe big tournaments are like conventions, and many coaches get along well.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesCoaches also use social media, email and texts to reach out to players, beginning on June 15 of their sophomore year in high school. Matchmaking services, like Stars and Stripes Tennis Recruitment, connect under-scouted players, usually from overseas, with colleges. Some players fish for scholarships by listing preferences on websites.Daniil Medvedev, last year’s U.S. Open men’s champion and the current world No. 1, used such a tactic when he was a little-known junior, listing every Ivy League college as a school of interest to him.When Endelman saw that, he hopped on a plane for a junior tournament in Linz, Austria, to watch Medvedev. Endelman laughs at himself now, knowing what Medvedev has become.“I looked at his strokes, which are unorthodox, and I was like, ‘I don’t know,’” he said with a chuckle. “Shows what I know.”But he also knew enough to be on hand to support Zheng, lest some other coach in different colors gets too close. More

  • 113 Shares159 Views

    in Tennis

    Alcaraz Beats Sinner in Late, Late US Open Match

    The Spanish teenager needed five sets and more than five hours to reach the semifinals in a match that ended shortly before 3 a.m. in New York.It was the latest finish ever at the U.S. Open, played in a city that purportedly never sleeps, but Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner made it well worth staying up into the wee hours.In one of the best (and longest) matches ever contested at this Grand Slam tournament in New York, Alcaraz, a 19-year-old Spanish prodigy, fought off a match point in the fourth set to defeat Sinner, a 21-year-old Italian prodigy, 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-7 (0), 7-5, 6-3, to advance to the semifinals.“I always say you have to believe in yourself all the time, and that hope is the last thing you lose,” Alcaraz said in an on-court interview early Thursday morning. “I just believed in myself and believed in my game.”The match, an instant-classic quarterfinal, lasted 5 hours and 15 minutes, the second longest Open match ever, and finished at 2:50 a.m., 24 minutes later than the previous record shared by three matches.The suspense and tension was that constant, the quality of the shotmaking and the effort that transcendent.Alcaraz, seeded third, and Sinner, seeded 11th, have long been considered the future of tennis, but they looked much more like the present after the match started on Wednesday night, setting a torrid pace from the baseline and chasing down each other’s drop shots and would-be winners.Alcaraz, an acrobatic speedster from Murcia, Spain, will face Frances Tiafoe of the United States on Friday.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesBut only Alcaraz, an acrobatic speedster from Murcia, will have a chance to make his big breakthrough at this unusually wide-open tournament. He will face Frances Tiafoe of the United States on Friday in what will be the first Grand Slam semifinal for both men. In the other semifinal, Casper Ruud of Norway will face Karen Khachanov of Russia.None of those four men have won a major singles title: no dishonor and no surprise in a long-running era that has been dominated by the Big 3 of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.But neither Federer nor Djokovic played this year in New York, and Nadal, short on matches and perhaps even a little short on inspiration after a taxing season, was upset in the fourth round by Tiafoe, a flashy 24-year-old who is the first American man since Andy Roddick in 2006 to advance this far at his home Grand Slam event.Tiafoe will surely have the majority of the support in Arthur Ashe Stadium, with its capacity of nearly 24,000. He will also have the advantage of extra rest.His three-set match with Andrey Rublev was played in the day session, which allowed Tiafoe to settle in for the evening at his hotel as Alcaraz and Sinner pushed each other historically deep into the night.The match was the second longest ever played at the U.S. Open, behind only the 1992 semifinal between Stefan Edberg and Michael Chang, won by Edberg in 5 hours and 26 minutes.But Alcaraz, who fell onto his back and dropped to the court after closing out the match with a service winner, looked anything but pessimistic as he tapped his chest and thanked the few thousand fans who stayed until the finish.The digital clock on the court showed that it was just about 3 a.m., but it wasn’t too early to look ahead to his next match.“It’s going to be really, really tough,” Alcaraz said at a news conference that finished shortly before 4 a.m. “Everybody knows the level of Frances. He has beaten Rafa Nadal; Rublev in three sets. He’s playing unbelievable right now: high confidence. He loves the crowd. He loves this court.”Despite Alcaraz’s youth, this is becoming a habit. His previous match against Marin Cilic — another five-set duel — also concluded after 2 a.m., and the late-night finishes will almost certainly revive the debate about the wisdom of putting athletes of any age in this position.The U.S. Open is not alone: The Australian Open, the first major of the season, has had even later finishes. But with a night session that begins at 7 p.m. (or later) and typically includes a best-of-three-set women’s match and a best-of-five-set men’s match, there is always a risk of sleep deprivation.Changing the start times or programming could address the situation, but it must be balanced with the strong emphasis on giving the men and women equal billing on the main show court. Night sessions are also an important source of revenue for the majors and many other tour events (the French Open recently added one as well in 2021).But Alcaraz, who is in the middle of a breakthrough season, has already demonstrated that he can recover from one nocturnal marathon. Now he will get a second opportunity. He is the youngest man to reach the semifinals of the U.S. Open since Pete Sampras, an American who was 19 in 1990 when he went on to win the title.Alcaraz grew up playing almost exclusively on clay in Murcia, in southeastern Spain, at a local club developed by his grandfather. But in recent years, he has begun training much more often on hardcourts at the JC Ferrero Equelite Sport Academy in Villena, about 60 miles away, where Alcaraz boards and works with his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, a former world No. 1 for whom the academy is named.Though Alcaraz beat Nadal and Djokovic to win the Masters 1000 title on clay in Madrid this year, and reached the quarterfinals of the French Open, his best results so far in his short career have come on hardcourts. He reached the quarterfinals last year in his debut U.S. Open and reached the semifinal of the BNP Paribas Open in March before winning the Miami Open.Alcaraz is the youngest man to reach the semifinals of the U.S. Open since Pete Sampras, who was 19 in 1990 when he went on to win the title.When Jannik Sinner served for the match at 5-4, he could not seal the deal.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesHe has an all-action style, and he frequently slides into near splits even on a hardcourt, a surface that allows him to make fast changes in direction and get the full benefit of his quickness.Sinner, who defeated Alcaraz in July in the fourth round at Wimbledon, repeatedly had to hit three or four terrific shots close to the lines to secure points as Alcaraz stretched and skidded to retrieve balls that would have escaped the reach of lesser talents.Sinner is not as quick, not as much of a showman, but he has his own enviable strengths, including an ability to produce smooth, seemingly effortless power and precision by punching and counterpunching near or inside the baseline.Both young men squandered opportunities that could have made their night easier (and shorter), but that was due, in part, to the resilience and skills of the opposition.When Sinner served for the match at 5-4, he could not seal the deal, failing to convert his lone match point at 40-30 when he missed a backhand off a strong second-serve return. Sinner then missed a forehand swing volley just wide to allow Alcaraz to even the score at 5-5.Alcaraz swept through the next two games to force a fifth set, which began at 2:05 a.m. after four and a half hours of toe-to-toe tennis.And yet the level did not drop, as both men continued hustling to all corners of the court and making magic on the move.“I was ready for a tough, tough battle,” Sinner said. “I feel physically for sure more ready to play these kind of matches for hours and hours.”Despite the next-generation masterwork that was on display early into Thursday morning, there is no guarantee in elite sports, certainly not in tennis, that the promise will be fully realized over the long run.For an example, Alcaraz and Sinner needed to look no further than one of the spectators at Ashe Stadium: Juan Martin del Potro, the 2009 U.S. Open men’s champion.A towering Argentine with thunderous strokes, he looked likely to take his place alongside the Big 3, only to see his career interrupted and ultimately ended by major wrist and knee injuries.Alcaraz is in the middle of a breakthrough season.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThe lesson is clear: Seize the championship opportunities when they arise, regardless of your age or your upside.And though both Alcaraz and Sinner had this marvelous match in their grasp as Wednesday night turned into Thursday, only Alcaraz got to experience the mixture of euphoria and relief that comes with this kind of special victory.“I think this one will hurt for quite a while,” said Sinner in his very-late-night news conference.Alcaraz can still win the U.S. Open, but first he had better get some sleep. More

  • 113 Shares189 Views

    in Tennis

    In Maryland, Frances Tiafoe’s Former Home Rallies Behind Him

    At the junior tennis club in College Park that gave Tiafoe his start and where he still trains, coaches and aspiring players cheer him on, and never stop working.COLLEGE PARK, Md. — At the Junior Tennis Champions Center, Frances Tiafoe, the young American who has barged into the men’s singles semifinals at the U.S. Open by playing fearless, joyful tennis, simply goes by Frances.On Wednesday afternoon, as Tiafoe played his quarterfinal match against Andrey Rublev of Russia, the center’s students, coaches and staff members broke from their regular routines and threw a party for the facility’s most popular alumnus, and a rapidly rising tennis star they know as a friend.On an indoor clay court, sitting on folding chairs — but more often standing in excitement — more than 40 people watched Tiafoe’s match on a large inflatable screen. They hollered and held their breath as Tiafoe overpowered Rublev in straight sets to become the first American man to make the U.S. Open semifinals since 2006, when Andy Roddick lost to Roger Federer in the final.Amid the cheers for Tiafoe’s gargantuan serves and deft drop volleys, no one was far removed from the spirit of the center itself and the hard work it teaches, which got Tiafoe, 24, this far in the Grand Slam tournament. Between sets, at a coach’s urging, players raced to the courts for a few minutes of practice.‘He’s Always Happy on the Court’Komi Oliver Akli, 50, the center’s senior director of player development, trained with Tiafoe before the U.S. Open. “He was on the court every day, trying to put some work in, and he was working so hard,” Akli said.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesKomi Oliver Akli, a senior director of player development at the J.T.C.C. who immigrated to the United States from Togo in 1996, started working at the center in 2000, and met Tiafoe just a few years later when he was 5 years old.From a young age, Akli said he could tell Tiafoe had the skills to go far in professional tennis. “You don’t have to tell him too much stuff,” he said. “You just have to keep it simple for him. He just enjoys himself when he plays. He doesn’t care what it is.”There’s a room inside the facility, next to a fitness center and across the hall from the restrooms, with two desks, a cabinet and a refrigerator. Today, it serves as the offices of the center’s general manager and director of tennis. Until several years ago, the office still had two beds where Tiafoe, his twin brother Franklin, and their father Constant slept when Frances was a boy.Constant, who emigrated from Sierra Leone in the early 1990s, took a construction job on the crew that built the tennis facility, and he stayed on as a maintenance worker after it was completed. His starting salary was $21,000 a year, and the staff allowed him and his twin boys to sleep in the center a few nights a week and use the courts.When they weren’t at J.T.C.C., the twins stayed with their mother, Alphina, who also emigrated from Sierra Leone, but met Constant in the United States. Other relatives lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Hyattsville, just a few miles south of College Park.Since they met, Akli, now 50, said Frances Tiafoe hasn’t changed. “He never gets upset,” Akli said. “Never. He’s always happy on the court, enjoying himself on the court.”The J.T.C.C. is a nonprofit club that is focused on encouraging and supporting players from diverse backgrounds and concentrates on recruiting promising players from its own backyard.“It’s not a typical tennis club,” Joe Wilkerson, a vice president of the center, said. “We’re not a club. We’re not an academy. We’re a hybrid of all those things, plus what we do with community outreach in D.C.”It has 32 indoor and outdoor courts with hard, green clay and red clay surfaces, and offers programs and classes for various skill levels and ages, from beginner adults to children and teenagers aspiring to become the next Serena Williams, Roger Federer or Frances Tiafoe.After beating Rafael Nadal in the fourth round of the U.S. Open on Monday, Tiafoe said in a news conference that “it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” adding that he worked hard for his parents.“I just had a big passion for the game,” he said. “Not even mainly for me, but to do it for them.”Watching Tiafoe defeat Nadal was a special moment for Akli, especially because of the training they did together in College Park leading up to the tournament, Akli said.“He was on the court every day, trying to put some work in, and he was working so hard,” Akli said, adding that Tiafoe was especially focused on his fitness to go far in matches. “He was there with Rafa the whole time.”A U.S. Open Watch Party, With PracticeErin Schaff/The New York Times“He’s very much available to everybody when they’re here,” Joe Wilkerson, a vice president of the tennis center, said of Tiafoe.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAfter Tiafoe took the first set against Rublev in a tiebreaker, Akli called out to the students, “Alright, guys. Let’s go.”The students jumped from their seats, grabbed their gear, and ran toward the facility’s indoor hard courts. Akli told the players to warm up and hit with a partner.“Then we can go back and watch another set,” he said.While the players hit forehands down the lines and cross-court backhands and forehands, Akli would occasionally check his phone, nestled in a basket of tennis balls, for the score of Tiafoe’s match.He was pleased to see Tiafoe tied at 4-4 in the second set, adding that Tiafoe had trained to go deep in sets if necessary. “I like the way he’s holding right now,” Akli said. “He knows his fitness.”Among the players who worked with Akli on Wednesday was Imani Jean, a 16-year-old who trains at the center full time. Imani starts her day at 7:30 a.m. for classes, tennis practice, fitness training, more tennis, and then more classes.Imani, who wants to play tennis at a Division I university before becoming a professional, said that she is inspired knowing she trains on the same courts where Tiafoe practiced and lived.“It definitely reassures me that I can get to that level,” she said.Even on days when he’s not playing in a tournament or training at the facility, Tiafoe’s presence is all around the grounds of the J.T.C.C., with framed pictures from when he was younger and enlarged news articles on the walls of the facility. Inside the lobby hangs a framed letter, with Tiafoe writing what he would have wanted to tell Arthur Ashe, the tennis star who died in 1993, after winning the ATP Ashe Humanitarian Award in 2020.“I know this is not just an award,” Tiafoe wrote. “It is a tremendous honor and a massive responsibility. I am not just that smiley kid on the rise anymore. I know I need to carry the torch and make a difference in the world.”Tiafoe went on to write that he wanted to be an example to younger children and “paint a picture for them that they did not know was possible.”“I want to help them make that a reality,” he wrote. “You showed so many of us the way, and now I want to pay it forward.”‘He Knows Them All By Name’Amari O’Brien, a 16-year-old who trains at the center full time, said she considers Tiafoe to be a friend.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWilkerson said that when Tiafoe is there, he makes himself open and accessible to the young players.“He knows them all by name,” Wilkerson said. “He’s very much available to everybody when they’re here. It’s probably sometimes to his own fault.”Amari O’Brien, 16, who trains at the center full time, said she considers Tiafoe to be a friend.“It’s just it’s kind of bizarre to think that he trained here,” Amari said, adding that she hopes that she can one day be in the same position as Tiafoe.Amari came to practice at the J.T.C.C. for two weeks in 2019, and earned a scholarship to train full time. Her parents eventually moved to Maryland from Michigan to support her.Wilkerson said that scholarships at the center help make tennis accessible to more people.“That is our ultimate goal,” Wilkerson said. “If a kid shows the promise and the passion and the love and respect for the game, then we will make sure that we can fund them and get them through the program.”It’s not just children and teenagers who come to the center. Charles Abety, 50, who lives in nearby Greenbelt, Md., started taking tennis lessons at the J.T.C.C. about four months ago.“I wanted to have something that I could do that I love,” Abety said while watching Tiafoe’s match, adding that he’s “very much” inspired by Tiafoe.After more training in the afternoon, the players returned to the watch party to see Tiafoe in the third set against Rublev. When Tiafoe won the set and clinched the match, advancing to the semifinals with an ace, the players, coaches, staff members, and parents of players at the center jumped to their feet and clapped.“Let’s go, J.T.C.C.” Akli yelled.But the applause and cheers were brief. The players didn’t stick around for Tiafoe’s post-match remarks on the court. They ran to grab their gear again. It was time to train.Erin Schaff/The New York Times More

  • 88 Shares99 Views

    in Tennis

    U.S. Open Semifinals: The 4 Women Left

    Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesCaroline Garcia, 28, of France, beat Gauff on Tuesday, adding to an exceptional summer that has included victories in Cincinnati, Warsaw and Bad Homburg, Germany. She also reached Wimbledon’s round of 16, but this will be her first Grand Slam semifinal. More

  • 138 Shares179 Views

    in Tennis

    US Open a Coming-Out Party for Russian and Belarusian Tennis Stars

    Wimbledon barred players from Russia and Belarus over the war in Ukraine. At their first Grand Slam since the French Open, Karen Khachanov and Aryna Sabalenka are making a run.Earlier in the summer, barred from Wimbledon after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian and Belarusian tennis stars spent time with their families or trained far from tennis’s spotlight. Aryna Sabalenka, practicing in Miami, said she turned off the television whenever Wimbledon was being broadcast.But the door to Grand Slam tennis reopened last week in New York, and they have seized the opportunity.Karen Khachanov, a bearded Russian extrovert with a big game and forehand, is into the men’s singles semifinals at the U.S. Open after defeating Nick Kyrgios in a late-night five-setter.Sabalenka, a powerful Belarusian who has often struggled this season, is back in the women’s singles semifinals after her authoritative victory, 6-1, 7-6 (4), over Karolina Pliskova on Wednesday and is playing and serving well enough to win her first Grand Slam singles title.One of those watching from the stands in Pliskova’s box was Olga Savchuk, a former Ukrainian tennis star who continues to oppose the Russians’ and Belarusians’ being allowed to play in this or any tournament.“I try not to think about it anymore when I’m watching because it brings me really, really down and brings a lot of emotions,” Savchuk said after Sabalenka’s victory. “I realize it’s tough to continue to live every day thinking about this constantly. So, I just realize that I cannot change the decisions which are not made by us and which we cannot control.”Savchuk, now retired, was the captain of the Ukrainian team that lost to the United States in the qualifying round of the Billie Jean King Cup in Asheville, N.C., in April. During that competition, Savchuk and the Ukrainian players expressed gratitude for the support they were receiving from the public but said that one of their biggest fears was that the war, which began in February, would become normalized and that global interest would wane.The Ukrainian team at the Billie Jean King Cup qualifying in Asheville, N.C., in April.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSavchuk, 34, believes that fear has become reality, even though she appreciates the efforts made by the U.S. Open to raise funds in support of Ukraine by staging a successful exhibition before the tournament.“I feel, overall, people are tired of it now, tired of hearing about it,” she said of the war. “Things are slowly changing that way, and so it’s like I should just go with it. And this is horrible, because for us, we cannot just go with it. Nothing has changed for us. It’s just worse. More time, more destruction, more losses.”Wimbledon’s controversial ban, the first of its kind at a major tennis tournament in the modern era, was made under considerable pressure from the British government, whose prime minister was then Boris Johnson.The British leadership wanted to avoid Wimbledon being used as propaganda by Vladimir V. Putin and the Russian government.Ukrainian players expressed deep appreciation for the ban and the support.“All of us, we wrote to the Wimbledon organization and the tournament director as well, and I talked to him personally,” Savchuk said.But the ban did not quite work as planned. The surprise women’s singles champion turned out to be Elena Rybakina, a Russian-born player who had agreed to represent Kazakhstan because of its financial support but long remained based in Moscow.Shamil Tarpischev, the longtime president of the Russian Tennis Federation, made a celebratory statement after her victory.Though Russia and Belarus were also barred from team tennis competitions such as the Davis Cup and King Cup after the invasion, their players have been allowed to continue participating as individuals in other tournaments without formal mention of their nationality. The U.S. Open is not announcing their nationalities during on-court introductions, and ESPN is not displaying their national flags in its coverage.Elena Rybakina, a Russian-born player who represents Kazakhstan, won Wimbledon this year.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressThough both the men’s and women’s tours condemned the invasion of Ukraine, they strongly opposed Wimbledon’s ban, arguing that individuals should not be prevented from competing based on their nationality or on governmental decisions beyond their control.Concerned that Wimbledon’s move could set a precedent for future bans based on politics, the tours made the unprecedented decision to strip Wimbledon of ranking points, essentially turning one of sport’s most prestigious events into an exhibition and contributing to Rybakina’s being seeded just 25th at the U.S. Open. (She lost in the first round on an outside court.)After lengthy deliberation, the board of the United States Tennis Association, which runs the U.S. Open, chose not to follow Wimbledon’s lead and allowed the Russians and Belarusians to compete.Four reached the round of 16 in both men’s singles and women’s singles, and while Khachanov and Sabalenka remain in contention, no Ukrainian players are left.It is an awkward scenario, but Lew Sherr, in his first year as the U.S.T.A.’s chief executive and executive director, emphasized on Wednesday that the U.S.T.A. “continued to condemn the unjust invasion of Ukraine by Russia.” He said the U.S. Open had raised $2 million in humanitarian aid for Ukrainian relief. Some of that came from the “Tennis Plays for Peace” exhibition staged Aug. 24 in Arthur Ashe Stadium that featured the Spanish star Rafael Nadal and the No. 1 women’s player, Iga Swiatek of Poland.But even that initiative generated tension. Ukrainian players, including Marta Kostyuk, opposed the plan to include the Belarusian star Victoria Azarenka in the event, maintaining that Azarenka had not been supportive behind the scenes and that as an influential member of the WTA Player Council had played a role in stripping Wimbledon of points.Azarenka withdrew from the exhibition, and after she defeated Kostyuk in the second round, Kostyuk declined to shake hands with her at the net, tapping rackets instead.Victoria Azarenka, right, played against Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine during the second round of the U.S. Open.Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAzarenka, a former No. 1 who is one of Belarus’s biggest international stars, said after that match that she had reached out to the Ukrainian players she knew personally and offered behind-the-scenes assistance since the invasion but had not spoken with the 20-year-old Kostyuk.“I don’t feel that forcing myself to speak to somebody who maybe doesn’t want to speak to me for different reasons is the right approach,” she said. “But I offered.”Some Russian players have spoken out, including Daria Kasatkina, who has been bold enough to actually call the conflict “a war” and termed it “a full-blown nightmare.” “A lot of respect for her,” said Savchuk, who said she had since sent Kasatkina a message of appreciation.Like Azarenka, Sabalenka has met in the past with Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus who has cracked down on protest and been one of Putin’s staunchest allies.But Sabalenka has avoided public comment on the war while acknowledging that the situation has made it a challenge to perform.“It’s tough, and it’s a lot of pressure,” she said on Wednesday. “I’m just thinking in that way that I’m just an athlete, and I have nothing to do with politics.”She said she made use of the forced break during Wimbledon to work on improving her serve. But Sabalenka, who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2021, said it was not easy to observe the tournament from afar.“Tough time,” she said. “Especially when I was working out in the gym, and there was Wimbledon playing on the TV. I was always turning it off because I couldn’t watch it.”Savchuk has struggled to watch television for different reasons in the past six months. Now based in London and the Bahamas, she was born and raised in Donetsk in the disputed Donbas region and still has family in Ukraine.Smoke from an artillery impact rising in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times“I have not seen my family, and until the war is over I don’t want to go there, and I miss them so much and more and more,” she said.She said she felt increasingly powerless and demoralized.“It kills you that you can’t change it,” she said. “I feel like we still are getting a lot of help around the world with money and donations, but I feel in people’s minds following the news, the interest has dropped. I even look at my Instagram whenever I post something about the war, people almost don’t look at it.”She said it stung to see Russian and Belarusian players competing down the stretch in the U.S. Open.“I was very disappointed that they were allowed to play,” she said. “But what kills me more is seeing Russian people continue living their happy lives and posting about it.”David Waldstein More

  • 125 Shares189 Views

    in Tennis

    Frances Tiafoe Reaches US Open Semifinals With Win Over Rublev

    Tiafoe backed up a win over Rafael Nadal with a quarterfinal victory over Andrey Rublev, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (0), 6-4.There are so many different kinds of pressure that tennis players can exert on their opponents over the course of a match.Blasting massive serve after massive serve. Hitting deep. Hounding the baseline to push the opponent into the back of the court. Rushing the net and standing tall there, unafraid, just 35 feet away. There is even the pressure of the scoreboard that comes with early leads in games, or of the softest drop shots that can land like uppercuts to the gut.An ability to get a crowd of more than 20,000 to raise the decibel count to uncomfortable levels at the crucial moments also helps.Frances Tiafoe, who used all those skills and more in his tight three-set win over Andrey Rublev of Russia on Wednesday, has another tool, too. On hot, sweaty afternoons, when he changes his shirt, he sits bare-chested in his chair for a good bit, the muscles rippling across his back, showing off a physique more befitting a mixed martial arts octagon than a tennis court.To beat him, opponents have to get through that, which can stick in the mind during those critical tests of nerve known as tiebreakers. Tiafoe won, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (0), 6-4, in a match that was so even for so long, except when Tiafoe surged during the tiebreakers, as he has done for 10 days. He has played six tiebreakers in this tournament and has won them all, including a 7-0 gem against Rublev in the second set Wednesday.“Best tiebreaker I will ever play,” Tiafoe said after the match. “Ridiculous.”No American man has won the U.S. Open or any Grand Slam singles title since 2003, when Andy Roddick, who was on hand Wednesday to watch Tiafoe, lifted the trophy in New York. (The N.B.A. star Bradley Beal, a Tiafoe fan and friend who plays for his beloved Washington Wizards, was there, too.)Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesMichelle V. Agins/The New York TimesSam Querrey, a big-serving Californian, plowed into the Wimbledon semifinals in 2017 and John Isner got there in 2018. But even then, those moments felt like the ceilings they turned out to be.This is different. At 24, Tiafoe beat Rafael Nadal on Sunday in a ground-shifting upset that made him the first American born after 1989 to beat Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer in a Grand Slam tournament. The win made him the youngest American to reach the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in 16 years.He is fast and fearless, and serves at more than 130 miles per hour in game after game. He is suddenly steady after years of being prone to peaks and valleys in the middle of sets and matches. His hands have always been quick; now they are just as soft as well and able to create the calmest drop volleys off the most furious forehands.And with one last blasted ace, he became a U.S. Open semifinalist, and a figure of hope in a country that has watched its female players perform on the biggest stages in the biggest matches during the last decade and wondered when a man might come along and be able to do the same.Tiafoe will play the winner of Wednesday night’s match between Carlos Alcaraz, the 19-year-old Spanish prodigy who will become the world’s top-ranked player if he wins this tournament, and Jannik Sinner, a 21-year-old Italian seeded 11th.“I hope they play a marathon match,” Tiafoe joked.Many in the game see Sinner vs. Alcaraz as a potential sequel to the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic rivalries that have dominated the men’s game for more than 15 years. Tiafoe would love to play a major role in whatever grand narratives the sport crafts during the next decade.Three years ago at the Australian Open, the only other time he made a Grand Slam quarterfinal, that looked like it might be a possibility. But Tiafoe slumped after that breakthrough, falling out the top 80 in the world rankings.Friends and family in Tiafoe’s box cheering him on.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesThen, starting roughly two years ago with the 2020 U.S. Open, a tournament played near the height of the pandemic with no spectators, Tiafoe began a steady climb back into the top 30, and lately had been trying to catch up with the other top Americans around his age, a clique including Taylor Fritz, Reilly Opelka and Tommy Paul with whom he grew up. Sometimes, it’s not speed that matters most, but direction.“Some players have difficulty being really, really talented and not playing the game the way you need to do,” said Wayne Ferreira, a top professional in the 1980s and 1990s who has coached Tiafoe the past two years. “The food intake was terrible and the effort in the practicing and the court wasn’t good enough.”Tiafoe was plenty good enough Wednesday, capping off, for now, a remarkable five days during which he has become the buzz of a tournament that has not lacked for it since the first ball rose into the air.First the fans came for Serena Williams at this U.S. Open to see the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion make one last run. Then they came for Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old heir apparent to Williams. And on Wednesday, they came to Arthur Ashe Stadium for Tiafoe.Many of them may have had little idea of who the no-longer-really-a-kid from Hyattsville, Md., was when the tournament started. Now they surely know him, the child of immigrants from Sierra Leone, who started playing tennis because his father was a janitor at a local tennis club.During matches, his player bench is a complete mess, with rackets and towels everywhere.“Diabolical,” is how he described it. His hotel room is that way, too, he said.He has an innate love for bright lights and know-how for playing before screaming throngs, and a game that is fast becoming as varied and creative as it is an exercise both in pressure of power and the power of pressure. That pressure had Rublev, a gentle soul who burns hot on a tennis court, kicking at balls in the final moments of the two-hour, 36-minute battle.Rublev had played Tiafoe nearly to a draw during the first 100 minutes. Then came the second-set tiebreaker, and Tiafoe played seven of the best points of his career, bullying Rublev to submission.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesHe smashed service returns back at Rublev’s feet, feathered two lusty drop volleys, smashed two aces and finished off the sweep with a searing backhand winner he punctuated with what is becoming his signature celebration — a sprint back to his courtside chair.Rublev, seeded ninth, kept fighting hard but was largely finished with Tiafoe in peak form. He cracked for good while serving seven games later, whipping an easy forehand, usually one of the best in the game, into the middle of the net to give Tiafoe a shot to break his serve, then sending a backhand in the middle of the court long with Tiafoe standing at the net just a few feet away.He will be back there Friday, trying to exert all forms of pressure once more. More

  • 163 Shares119 Views

    in Tennis

    Nick Kyrgios’s U.S. Open Run Ends One Match After Beating the Top Seed

    Karen Khachanov of Russia needed five sets to put Kyrgios away, 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 6-7, 6-4. He will play Casper Ruud of Norway in the semifinals on Friday.For the third consecutive day, one of the top-seeded men or a heavy favorite exited the 2022 U.S. Open.In a match that began Tuesday night and ended in the small hours Wednesday morning, Nick Kyrgios lost to Karen Khachanov of Russia in five sets in a duel between two of the hardest hitters in the game, but also two players whose minds have often gotten in the way of the success that so many predicted for them when they were teenagers.The loss, punctuated with him smashing rackets on the court as he has often done, left Kyrgios as sad as he has been in a long while, sadder than after he lost the Wimbledon final earlier this summer.“I feel like I’ve let so many people down,” he said. “It’s just devastating. Like, it’s heartbreaking. Not just for me, but for everyone that I know that wants me to win.”Khachanov won the three-hour, 39-minute scrap, 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 6-7, 6-4. Kyrgios looked to have the momentum after taking the fourth-set tiebreaker, but he lost his serve in the opening game of the fifth set and never recovered.“Crazy match,” Khachanov, the No. 27 seed, said in his on-court interview. He will face Casper Ruud of Norway, the No. 5 seed, in the semifinals.For Kyrgios, the talented but temperamental Australian, the loss came two nights after he eliminated the top seed and the defending champion, Daniil Medvedev, another Russian. On Monday, Rafael Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam singles champion, lost in fourth sets to Frances Tiafoe, a rising American.Nadal’s loss was less of a surprise than Medvedev’s, especially because few would have been shocked if the two had met in the finals had they landed on opposite sides of the draw. The surprise was how efficiently the 23rd-seeded Kyrgios had steam-rolled Medvedev, who is widely recognized as the world’s top hardcourt player, in the third and fourth sets.The performance was among the best matches Kyrgios, 27, has ever played at a Grand Slam tournament, if not the best. In those final two sets, in game after game, Kyrgios all but hit Medvedev off the court, except when he was confusing and frustrating Medvedev with his drop shots and touch volleys. There was little doubt when the match ended that if Kyrgios could continue playing at that level, it was unlikely anyone in the field would be capable of stopping him from winning his first Grand Slam singles title in a career marked by wild swings of brilliance and blowups.The only consistencies in Kyrgios’s game and the mind that rules it though are their unpredictability, and how irresistible tennis fans find it.Khachanov reached his first Grand Slam semifinal.Elsa/Getty ImagesGoran Ivanisevic, the 2001 Wimbledon champion who now coaches Novak Djokovic, has described Kyrgios as a “tennis genius.” But just when it appears that Kyrgios has everything locked in — his massive serve, his blistering forehand, his deceptively quick movement, his breathtaking touch, his combustible temper — something goes awry.Against Khachanov, the inability to find anything close to the near-perfection he had reached against Medvedev doomed him. Kyrgios was just slightly off, and against a far inferior opponent. Shots that normally burn the lines drifted beyond them. Shots that usually zip over the net on a wire slammed into the tape, or even the middle of the net in the lesser moments. He struggled all night to crack the code of Khachanov’s serve, especially on his rare chances to break it.At one point, he got so frustrated with his inability to get off a quality return that he swatted at the balls as though he was trying to kill a fly with a swatter. After losing two golden chances to break Khachanov’s serve late in the third set, he smashed his racket on the ground and later smacked a television camera with his hand.The tide appeared to turn three games later, when Kyrgios stroked a series of easy rally balls into the middle of the net, giving the crucial third set to Khachanov. Kyrgios went up a break in the fourth set, gave it back, then prevailed in the tiebreaker, but that brief stumble early in the fifth set cost him the match.Khachanov, 26, was not perfect, but he was as good as he needed to be, serving hard, working enough points around to his smooth and powerful forehand, and attacking as soon as he could find an opening. He also kept his emotions in check, even as the crowd rallied behind Kyrgios — New York has always loved a showman — and heckled the Russian. He waited for Kyrgios to grow frustrated enough to want to get off the court and get home to Australia.Kyrgios never got there, though he had ample opportunity. Instead he fought to the bitter end, whipping forehands and pounding serves, moaning as he chased down shots against a stubborn player who managed to come up with his own big serves when needed, including on the final point, one last bomb down the middle of the court. Moments later, Kyrgios smashed two rackets on the side of the court.Kyrgios’s immediate future is uncertain. He loathes the time away from his home and his family that the sport requires. His mother has been ailing. A court hearing has also been scheduled in early October for Kyrgios to face a charge of assaulting his former girlfriend in Canberra last December. Kyrgios has not commented on the charges. He could face prison if convicted.He has long had an ambivalent relationship with tennis. He played little during the early days of the pandemic, choosing not to travel the world to play in empty stadiums. Then, in January, he won the Australian Open doubles title with his longtime friend Thanasi Kokkinakis.The victory both lit a fire in Kyrgios and also taught him how much commitment and energy playing a Grand Slam to the finish over two weeks required. He skipped the clay court season because he hates playing on the surface, then took over Wimbledon, becoming the talk of the tournament with his sublime play and his antics, which included fights with officials and taunting Stefanos Tsitsipas into submission. In the finals he lost in four sets to Djokovic, who won his 21st Grand Slam singles title.Kyrgios said if he had won Wimbledon, he might have struggled to find a reason to keep playing tennis. The sport, and the expectations that had been placed on him when he burst onto the scene as a 19-year-old, have tortured him, and driven him to alcohol abuse.This U.S. Open offered him the best opportunity of his career to win a Grand Slam singles title. Djokovic’s refusal to receive a vaccination for Covid-19 prevented him from entering the country to participate, and then Nadal had been eliminated in the fourth round.As Kyrgios took the court Tuesday night, no one who had won a Grand Slam title was left in the draw, and he was playing some of the best tennis of his life, until he wasn’t any longer. More

  • 125 Shares139 Views

    in Tennis

    Coco Gauff Drops U.S. Open Quarterfinals Match to Caroline Garcia

    Garcia, the No. 17 seed from France, beat the 18-year-old American, who was playing her first quarterfinal at the U.S. Open, in straight sets.So how do you say steamroller in French?It is a fine time to find out because nothing has been able to stop Caroline Garcia of late: Not even the rising American Coco Gauff and a packed partisan crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium.Garcia, a 28-year-old from the French city of Lyon, did not appear unsettled in the least on Tuesday.In her first night-session appearance in the biggest stadium in tennis, Garcia swept the first four games of this U.S. Open quarterfinal in just 17 minutes to take quick command and then rumbled to a 6-3, 6-4 victory with timely serving, deft volleys and big baseline hitting that routinely paid dividends.“It was super important to get a quick start,” said Garcia, concerned about keeping the latest sellout crowd of 23,859 at Ashe from making her life more difficult.“That was the goal,” she said. “That crowd can get fired up very quickly.”Garcia subdued them by playing the same brand of aggressive, attacking tennis that had carried her to 12 straight victories this summer.Make it 13.“I just go for my shots, even when I’m stressed and don’t feel it,” she said in her on-court interview after the match. “The way to improve for me is to move forward, and I just try to flow that way.”While Gauff, 18, did manage to narrow the gap after Garcia’s opening salvo, she could never manage to stop Garcia’s momentum. A Gauff run to the title here this year would have had powerful narrative arc. Gauff, a Black prodigy from Florida, was inspired to take up the game by the success of the Williams sisters, and Serena Williams, soon to celebrate her 41st birthday, played what was likely her final official match last week in a third-round defeat in Queens.This would have been quite the time for a torch passing, and Gauff may well run with it someday. But despite reaching the French Open final in June, she still needs to shore up some aspects of her big game. She remains prone to double faults and had six more on Tuesday as she won just 27 percent of her second-serve points.Ranked No. 1 in doubles, Gauff has a terrific net game but is still learning to make the right choices on when to push forward. She also made too many unforced errors from the baseline, leaning back as she tried to counter Garcia’s percussive strokes and often getting unsettled by the pace.Gauff had beaten Garcia in their previous two singles matches, but Garcia and her doubles partner, the Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic, defeated Gauff and Jessica Pegula in the French Open women’s doubles final in June: a victory that helped relaunch Garcia. Ranked outside the top 70 in singles after Roland Garros, she has simplified her approach with great success under the coach Bertrand Perret. It is grip-it-and-rip-it tennis, designed to overwhelm the opposition, but there is also great technical skill and timing involved as she stands sometimes three steps inside the baseline to smack returns.“I would say she’s definitely striking the ball much better,” Gauff said. “Kudos to her, and her team because I think she’s gotten a lot better since the last time I played her.”It was the first U.S. Open quarterfinal in singles for both players, and now Garcia, seeded 17th but playing much better than that, will face Perret’s former pupil Ons Jabeur in her first Grand Slam semifinal on Thursday.“Of course he knows her well, but that goes back a few years now,” Garcia said. “Everybody knows everybody on tour. I’m not sure he is a secret weapon. I think our main goal will be to see how I can put my game in place.”Jabeur, a Tunisian seeded fifth, advanced earlier on Tuesday by stopping Ajla Tomljanovic’s run in the quarterfinals by 6-4, 7-6 (4).Tomljanovic, an unseeded Australian who is based in Florida, recorded the biggest victory of her career when she defeated Williams in a gripping, emotional three-setter on Friday night.She then, to her credit, backed that up by defeating Liudmila Samsonova of Russia in the fourth round, but in her return to Ashe Stadium she could not win a set against Jabeur, who reached the Wimbledon final in July, delighting the Centre Court crowd along the way with her acrobatic footwork and taste for drop shots.Jabeur, like Garcia, is 28, and they have known each other since their junior days, some of which Jabeur spent based in France. They are on friendly terms and speak French together, but they have never faced each other in a match of this import.“It’s a big challenge in front of me,” Garcia said. “We go back a long way, and she has a special game that you don’t often see on the tour. She has had a solid year and has that experience now in these big matches like Wimbledon. So it’s going to be very interesting to see how we can find a solution to counter her.”Caroline Garcia continued playing the aggressive, attacking tennis that has now carried her to 13 straight victories this summer.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesMichelle V. Agins/The New York TimesGarcia, long considered a promising junior in France, put herself on a bigger map early at age 17 by going up a set and 4-1 on the Russian superstar Maria Sharapova in the second round of the 2011 French Open. The British star Andy Murray, who follows women’s tennis closely, tweeted during the match that “the girl Sharapova is playing is going to be No. 1 in the world one day.”That was quite a leap of faith, and Sharapova eventually came back to win. Garcia, flattered by Murray’s comment but not remotely ready to start living up to it, needed more time. She reached No. 4 in the world in 2018 before fading. But she has roared back this summer and now has six straight victories over top-20 players after losing the previous 12.She was asked on Tuesday night if Murray, despite his good intentions, had hurt her with his grand prediction.“Yes,” she said with a grin. “I’m very happy that he thought that at the time, but I was 17 and ranked 150 or 200, and I was capable of producing this level for a match but not capable to produce it other weeks. At first, I put pressure on myself, saying I wanted to play like that, and that’s when things went wrong.”Not much has gone awry in New York. It is no easy task to overpower Gauff, one of the best defenders and quickest movers on the women’s tour. Gauff will break into the top 10 in singles next week for the first time.“She is of course very fast,” Garcia said of Gauff in an interview on the eve of the match. “But my game can negate that, because I am not looking to get in too many long rallies.”So it turned out. The average rally length was 3.53 shots. After winning the title as a qualifier at the Western and Southern Open in Mason, Ohio, last month, Garcia has not come close to dropping a set in five matches at the U.S. Open.And in case you’re still curious, steamroller in French is rouleau compresseur. More