Evelyn Reynolds

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    Who Will Serena Williams Play in the Third Round?

    The scene was quieter on the much smaller Court 7, with only a few dozen people sitting on the metal bleachers on Wednesday night to watch Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia defeat Evgeniya Rodina of Russia in three sets.Tomljanovic, 29, will now face Serena Williams in the third round. The two players have never faced each other.Tomljanovic, No. 46 in the world, arrived at the U.S. Open after an impressive performance at Wimbledon in which she advanced to the quarterfinals before losing to the eventual champion, Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan.Rodina handily took the first set of the night, 6-1, but then Tomljanovic quickly took the first three games of the second set. Down 3-0, Rodina called for a medical trainer to the court. The trainer appeared to be treating her leg before they left the court.While Rodina was being treated, Tomljanovic put on a sweatshirt and practiced her serves to stay warm. Rodina returned to the court after several minutes with what appeared to be tape over her right thigh.Rodina won the next two games to make it 3-2, and then called for a trainer to the court again. Down 5-2, Rodina again called for a trainer, who appeared to redo the tape on her leg.Tomljanovic won the next set, 6-2. After the second set, Rodina took another medical timeout and left the court. Tomljanovic appeared to take issue with Rodina’s second break and had a few words with the chair umpire about it.Serving at 5-3, Rodina failed to close out the match, as Tomljanovic pushed it to 5-4, winning the break with a forehand.At 5-5, the two players dueled out an 11-point game that Rodina lost on a forehand unforced error. Up 6-5, Tomljanovic closed out the match on her serve.The third round starts on Friday. More

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    Celebrities and Athletes Who Showed Up to See Serena Williams Tonight

    Two nights after a number of politicians, A-list actors and professional athletes came to see Serena Williams play in the first round of the U.S. Open, the stars aligned again.Like Monday night, the guests in Williams’s player’s box included Alexis Ohanian, her husband; Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., her daughter, who turns 5 on Thursday; Oracene Price, her mother; and Anna Wintour. Tiger Woods was also joined, and he was eventually greeted by Venus Williams during the first set.After coming to Monday night’s match, Spike Lee returned for the second round match, sitting courtside. Tennis star Billie Jean King also came back.Dionne Warwick before the matchMichelle V. Agins/The New York TimesGov. Kathy Hochul of New York joined the list of politicians to come watch Williams, after former President Bill Clinton and Mayor Eric Adams of New York were in attendance on Monday.Others in attendance or expected to attend include: Dionne Warwick, Jason Collins, Amy Schneider, Zendaya, Anthony Anderson, Bella and Gigi Hadid, La La Anthony, Chelsea Handler, and Steve Nash. More

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    For Venus and Serena Williams at the U.S. Open, Day and Night Experiences

    Unlike her sister, Venus was not prepared to deal with questions about her tennis future after a loss in the first round of the singles tournament. “I’m just focused on the doubles,” she said.Follow live as Serena Williams plays Anett Kontaveit at the U.S. Open.If Monday night at the U.S. Open with Serena Williams was electric, Tuesday afternoon with her sister Venus was natural lighting: sunlit yet subdued.“That’s a good analogy,” said Kim Benjamin, a longtime fan of the Williams sisters from Baton Rouge, La., who was in Arthur Ashe Stadium for both sessions.Serena Williams’s victory, 6-3, 6-3, over Danka Kovinic of Montenegro in the first round Monday night would have been a tough act to follow for anyone, not just a sibling.This is Serena’s self-declared last U.S. Open and likely her final tournament, and she extended her stay in the singles draw by shaking off the rust and clicking into some familiar gears against Kovinic with the sellout crowd roaring on its feet as she arrived, as she prevailed and as she departed after an on-court tribute that featured Billie Jean King and a video tribute narrated by Oprah Winfrey.“You could just feel the energy, and you just knew that Serena was going to come out and want to give it her all, because the crowd was amazing, from the minute she stepped out,” said Benjamin, who purchased a ticket at the last minute. “It was goose bumps.”But Tuesday afternoon had a very different vibe. The biggest stadium in tennis was half empty and the reception comparatively muted, even if there were plenty of shouts of “We love you, Venus” and “Let’s go, V.”It is partly a matter of perception. The sisters will be forever linked in the public’s eye as players and doubles partners: sharing the same moonshot journey from cracked public courts in Compton, Calif., to Grand Slam titles and No. 1 in the world.But though Venus, 42, is long past the typical tennis retirement date and has not won a singles match since she returned to the tour this season, she appears to be on a different career timeline than her sister, or at least has a radically different way of making an exit.Tuesday’s loss, 6-1, 7-6 (5) to Alison Van Uytvanck, an unseeded Belgian veteran, could well turn out to be the last U.S. Open singles match of Venus’s career but there has been no clarity on her plans, which only widened the disparity between the sisters’ night-and-day experiences this week.They will soon be reunited on court, playing doubles in a first-round match that almost certainly will be scheduled for Thursday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium. But Venus was not prepared on Tuesday to dissolve the mist surrounding her own tennis future at one of her increasingly rare news conferences.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Decades of Greatness: Over 27 years, Serena Williams dominated generation after generation of opponents and changed the way women’s tennis is played, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and cementing her reputation as the queen of comebacks.Is She the GOAT?: Proclaiming Williams the greatest women’s tennis player of all time is not a straightforward debate, our columnist writes.An Enduring Influence: From former and current players’ memories of a young Williams to the new fans she drew to tennis, Williams has left a lasting impression.Her Fashion: Since she turned professional in 1995, Williams has used her clothes as a statement of self and a weapon of change.Question: “We know about Serena and her plans post-Open. After you have done the doubles, do you plan to evolve away from tennis and do your own thing or is tennis still in the forefront of your mind?”Venus’s response: “Right now I’m just focused on the doubles.”“In the end, it’s just rust,” Venus Williams said. “There is nothing you can do about that except for, you know, not be rusty at some point.” Karsten Moran for The New York TimesRetirement is a rightfully sensitive subject for any star athlete, but Venus has had to deal with the speculation and thinly veiled questions much longer than most. With her results slumping, she had to begin fending off retirement queries beginning in her late 20s, quashing them for a time when she experienced her renaissance season in 2017: reaching the finals of the Australian Open and Wimbledon, making the semifinals of the U.S. Open and soaring inspirationally back into the top five of the rankings at age 37.She has had, by nearly any measure, a phenomenal career: reaching No. 1 in both singles and doubles, winning seven Grand Slam singles titles (five at Wimbledon and two at the U.S. Open), four Olympic gold medals and winning 14 Grand Slam doubles titles with her sister (they are 14-0 in finals).But that stirring 2017 revival looks very much like her last hurrah. She has not reached another final at any level since then and has lost nine times in the first round of Grand Slam tournaments in the last five seasons, never advancing past the third round in any major during that span.“When it’s my last, I’ll let you know,” she said when retirement talk resurfaced after she lost early at Wimbledon again in 2021.At this stage, having missed nearly a year of action because of injury before returning in July, she has a world ranking of 1,504.“It was definitely the longest time I have been away from tennis and been without a racket in my hand,” she said. “So it was a completely new experience for me, getting a racket back in my hand and trying to acclimate as quick as possible to be ready for the U.S. Open, which was not easy.”Because of her ranking, she can only make it into tour-level events through wild cards, like the one awarded to her at this U.S. Open. At some stage, if Venus improbably extends her career well beyond this tournament and season, the largess will and should end. Young players on the rise deserve those opportunities, too, but Venus, even with a quadruple-digit ranking, remains an undeniable drawing card and a touchstone whose many fans, particularly those with siblings, can connect with her story.“She is in her sister’s shadow in my opinion,” Benjamin said. “I think she doesn’t have obviously the family dynamics that Serena does now with a husband and a child. So, I think that she’s here for the long haul, just because she loves the game so much. I think she’s playing because win, lose, or draw, she’s just happy to be playing the game she loves.”That is a devoted fan’s view but not the message Venus sent after her latest defeat. She was asked what was driving her out there on the court at this point of her career.“Three letters,” she answered without hesitation. “W-I-N. That’s it. Very simple.”If so, this must be a downbeat time, but then perhaps it’s wise to not assume too much.She has had plenty of opportunities to gracefully step away and bask in the accolades but has continued to head to the practice court with Eric Hechtman, the coach she now shares with Serena, and has continued to step back into the arena, even if her first step is not nearly as quick.She is hardly embarrassing herself and pushed Van Uytvanck, who is ranked 43rd, into a tiebreaker by lifting her level in the second set with the less-than-capacity crowd providing plenty of positive feedback. But in the end, she could not manufacture quite enough form or consistency.“In the end, it’s just rust,” Venus said. “There is nothing you can do about that except for, you know, not be rusty at some point.”She is now 0-4 in singles in 2022 but is not done just yet with Arthur Ashe Stadium. Bring on the electricity on Thursday.Benjamin, on her way back to Baton Rouge, won’t be able to make that session, but she had some parting words as she headed for the front gate in the natural light.“Be gentle with Venus,” she said. “Please.” More

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    Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams and One Last Shared U.S. Open

    Osaka lost in the first round Tuesday to Danielle Collins, but would remember the final Grand Slam of the year for the front-row seat she had to her idol’s farewell party. A little more than 24 hours had passed since Serena Williams captivated Arthur Ashe Stadium with her opening-round triumph and bedazzled tennis dress, wrap and hair, and now it was Naomi Osaka’s turn.A year ago, with Williams sidelined with a hamstring injury, Osaka had brought so much heat to the U.S. Open, even before her third-round loss led her to announce that she needed to step away from tennis because it brought her so little joy and so much sadness, even if the sport had allowed her to eclipse Williams as the highest-paid female athlete.Now, for what she says is the last time, Williams is back, and once more, these two megastars that transcend their sport are connected, just as they have been since a fireworks-filled final at Ashe four years ago evolved into both a torch-passing and a moment that has linked them through their careers.Osaka, who lost to the 19th-seeded Danielle Collins, 7-6 (5), 6-3, in a match that bled into early Wednesday morning, is struggling to get out of a prolonged slump as she battles nagging injuries and could not reclaim her magic the way Williams did Monday night. “This is what makes you great, being able to win matches like this even if it’s in the first round,” Osaka said after coming up short. The loss meant a second consecutive premature exit from a tournament that once looked like it would be her grandest stage for years, and it happened despite all those connections she embraced over the past week to the role model she still reveres, who will be back in the spotlight Wednesday night.“I’m a product of what she’s done,” Osaka said Saturday in her pretournament news conference. “I wouldn’t be here without Serena, Venus, her whole family.”Like everything else at this tournament, Osaka’s match seemed peripheral to Serena Williams’s narrative, even if Osaka’s loss had its own significance. At the moment, Osaka is more famous than she is successful at the game that gave her stardom, which could become a problem if those two phenomena do not align soon, and now she will have to do it without her tennis guidepost on tour with her. Since Williams delivered her intentionally vague announcement that she would stop playing competitive tennis at some point after this U.S. Open, few players — perhaps even, few people — have taken the news as hard or tried to collect these last morsels of Williams’s professional tennis life as much as Osaka has.Sensing that end might not be far-off, Osaka cried as she watched Williams’s first match in Toronto earlier this month at the National Bank Open, and she cheered Williams on during her first-round match at the Western and Southern Open in Ohio the following week.It was similar to how she felt after she beat Williams in the semifinals of the Australian Open last year, a loss that caused Williams to break down during her news conference and end it after just a few questions. At the time, Osaka sensed that was the last time Williams was going to play in Australia.Assuming Williams keeps her word, Osaka’s intuition will have aged well once more. The morning after the first-round Toronto match, Williams’s announcement in Vogue that the end was imminent hit Osaka hard.“I’m like, ‘Oh, my God,’ this is what devastation must feel like,” Osaka said of what she felt as she read the news. “It really is an honor just to keep watching her play.”Osaka was watching once more Monday night. She donned a baseball cap and a pair of round glasses and sat roughly 20 rows up from the court, even to the baseline, in the front row of a corporate box but in the open air, with fans passing in the aisle within an arm’s length of her.Coco Gauff, another young Black player who has credited Williams’s career with providing inspiration and a road map for her own path in tennis, was in the stands as well. Gauff, who had won her first-round match Monday afternoon, had planned to watch Williams’s match on television, but changed her mind, deciding she did not want to miss the moment dedicated to the woman who had given her belief.“It made me feel that I could do it,” she said Monday of learning about how Williams and her sister Venus had grown up poor in Compton, Calif., and broken into what had been an overwhelmingly white sport. “I hope that somebody can look at me and say that I feel like I can do it because she did it.”Osaka, whose mother is Japanese and father is Haitian, is a Japanese national, but, like Williams, she grew up largely as a Black woman in America, but their links go far beyond that.Like Williams, Osaka was largely coached by her father, who has spoken of copying the playbook Richard Williams essentially wrote for creating female champions. Osaka also has an older sister who played professional tennis; Mari Osaka, 26, retired last year.For much of their childhoods, Mari was the better player, though Naomi appeared to have a higher ceiling because of her speed, just as Serena Williams did. The first mountain each had to climb was getting good enough to play with and then beat their older sisters. Like Williams, Naomi Osaka has not been shy about speaking out on social justice issues, especially in 2020, following a series of police killings and shootings of Black people. Both have been unafraid to take on the tennis establishment.They played each other five times. Osaka won three of the matches, most memorably the 2018 U.S. Open final, when an overmatched Williams was penalized for receiving coaching and ended up in an ugly dispute with the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos. Osaka ended up in tears during the trophy ceremony as the crowd howled at the outcome.That was the first of Osaka’s four Grand Slam singles titles. It was the second of the four finals Williams lost while on the precipice of tying Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles championships. Williams has not won any Grand Slam singles titles since then. Osaka has won three more, including the 2020 U.S. Open, and was on the cusp of taking the torch from Williams and full control of the sport until her struggles with mental health prevented her from playing all but a few matches during the last six months of 2021. This April, she made the final of the Miami Open, her best result since her comeback began in January, but battled an Achilles’ tendon injury that derailed her preparation for the French Open and forced her to pull out of Wimbledon. After a few hard-fought losses this summer, Osaka badly wanted to play into the later rounds of the U.S. Open, and she came out on fire, lacing serves and forehands and digging balls out of the corners as she sprinted to an early 3-0 lead, looking like the Osaka of two years ago. But Collins quickly matched every ounce of Osaka’s power and proved just a little bit sharper, and maybe a bit luckier in the crucial first-set tiebreaker. She floated a desperate lob that caught the back of the baseline and knuckled a mis-hit service return that Osaka could not handle to clinch the set. In the second set, Osaka took another early lead only to succumb to another rush from Collins, as her forehand grew a little too loose on a night with so little margin for error. Collins gambled with big swings that paid off more often than not, and more often than Osaka’s gambles did. With Collins serving for the match, Osaka had two shots to get back on serve but couldn’t find the winners she needed and sent a backhand long to give Collins the match. “I just have to chill a little bit,” Osaka said while the loss was still raw. “There’s a lot of random chaos in my head right now.”She paused a slow walk off the court and an early departure from the tournament to sign some courtside autographs. Then it was over, and the tournament spotlight was back on Williams once more. More

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    Serena Williams’s Next Opponent Is a Struggling Anett Kontaveit

    They will face off in a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday, a venue that feels like home to Williams even if it has not always been a haven.At nearly 41 years of age, Serena Williams would seem to have seen it all in tennis, but the new experiences keep coming in what she has suggested — but coyly not quite confirmed — will be her final tournament.Since returning to the tour in June after nearly a year’s absence, she has played five singles matches: four of them against opponents she had never faced.More novelty lies ahead on Wednesday night in the second round of the U.S. Open when she will play her first career match against Anett Kontaveit, the No. 2 seed.They will face off in a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium, a venue that feels like home to Williams even if it has not always been a haven.Kontaveit, a 26-year-old Estonian whose international profile is not nearly as high as her ranking, has surely never experienced anything quite like what awaits her on Wednesday. But she sounds more excited than daunted.“I’m going to fight as hard as I can for every point and really enjoy the atmosphere of being out there against the greatest player of all time,” she said. “I think it’s such a great opportunity.” Kontaveit is the highest-ranked player in history from Estonia, the northernmost of the three Baltic States. But she is not Estonia’s first elite women’s singles player. Kaia Kanepi, 37, reached her first Grand Slam singles quarterfinal in 2008 at the French Open and has been to six more, most recently, in a big surprise, at this year’s Australian Open.Kontaveit, a ferocious ball-striker with a powerful serve, has made it to only one Grand Slam quarterfinal at this stage, which helps explain her relative anonymity. But she did break new ground for Estonia by reaching the championship match of last year’s WTA Finals, the tour’s prestigious year-end event, losing to Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain.That run boosted Kontaveit’s ranking, but her best results have come in lower-tier events and often indoors: no surprise considering Estonia’s long winters. Though she has often trained in Britain and was once described by the country’s Daily Telegraph as “an honorary Briton with a cut-glass” English accent (presumably a compliment), she still lives in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, in an elegant modern apartment that she has decorated with plants and some of her own handmade pottery.“She does get recognized in the street, and she has a lot of fans in Estonia for sure,” said Torben Beltz, the veteran German coach who joined her team in June before Wimbledon.Kontaveit, a prodigy who won the Estonian women’s singles title at age 13, received instruction from her mother Ülle Milk in her formative years. But she has had a series of prominent international coaches on tour: working with the Dutchman Glenn Schaap; the Briton Nigel Sears; and Dmitry Tursunov, a straight-talking and deep-thinking former tour player from Russia who was instrumental in Aryna Sabalenka’s rise into the top three and then Kontaveit’s.But Tursunov and Kontaveit ended their partnership this spring. Kontaveit attributed the split to Tursunov’s Russian nationality making it complicated for him to secure visas and travel with her consistently on tour after the nation’s invasion of Ukraine, but that did not keep Tursunov from being quickly rehired for a trial run by Emma Raducanu, the 19-year-old British star.Though Kontaveit reached the final of the Qatar Open in February, this has been a trying season. She said she contracted Covid-19 in late April and withdrew from the Madrid Open and said she struggled physically when she returned to the tour.“We all know she had long Covid kind of,” Beltz said. “She was not fit, but she’s very close again to get this back and is playing better in practice really well now. So I think it’s coming.”This will be Kontaveit’s first match with Williams but not the first match Beltz will coach against Williams. He previously worked with Angelique Kerber when she faced Williams in a series of major matches, including the 2016 Australian Open final that Kerber won and the 2016 Wimbledon final that Kerber lost.“I’ve been scouting her for a long time,” Beltz said with a laugh. “Every tournament when you play good you have to scout Serena, because you know your player may have to face her. But it’s great to face a champion, I think. It’s going to be a good match tomorrow.”Kontaveit reached the final of the Qatar Open but lost to Iga Swiatek of Poland.Noushad Thekkayil/EPA, via ShutterstockBeltz scouted Williams this time from afar by watching on television when she defeated Danka Kovinic of Montenegro on Monday night in an extraordinary atmosphere at Ashe Stadium.“I couldn’t get a ticket,” Beltz said. “This is the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in women’s tennis. I think it’s the greatest thing for the sport, and we all have to thank Serena for all she did. Especially right now with the end coming.”Though Williams has struggled since her return to the tour in June, winning just two of her five singles matches, Beltz could see progress against Kovinic.“I think her ball speed, serve and return is really up to her prime time,” Beltz said of Williams. “I saw her other matches, and it looks like she’s improved over the last couple of weeks. She looks in better shape and looks good now. For Anett, I think the key is to just go out and try to play her best tennis but also enjoy the moment. It’s going to be a big challenge, a great challenge, but I think she wants that challenge and wants to embrace it.”Remarkably, she may get to embrace the challenge twice in Williams’s farewell U.S. Open. Kontaveit and Shelby Rogers, her American partner, could also face Williams and her sister Venus in the second round of the women’s doubles tournament. More

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    With Upset Over Taylor Fritz, Brandon Holt Is Making a Name for Himself

    Holt, a qualifier who inherited tennis skills from his mother, the U.S. Open winner Tracy Austin, and his other pastime — music — from his father, is putting together a tidy run at the tournament.As the son of a famous tennis champion, Brandon Holt is often asked what he has taken from his mother, Tracy Austin, who won the United States Open twice. Did he inherit his service return from her? Did she bequeath her court savvy to her son?Some of his tennis skill set does derive from his mother, and some of it is his own. But what did Holt get from his father, Scott Holt?“His musical taste,” Brandon Holt said, and for the rising tennis star, that is something very precious.Ever since Holt, 24, rolled his ankle in his sophomore year at the University of Southern California and was forced to spend significant time away from tennis, he has become an avid guitar player, borrowing from his dad’s record collection to strum along with the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Oasis, Pink Floyd and more.The guitar was something he picked up to get away from the mind-numbing magnetism of social media during his rehabilitation. He bought a guitar and learned chords and songs from the internet.“Every time I felt the urge to go on Instagram or something, I would pick up the guitar,” he said. “And I fell in love with it. Now it goes wherever I go.”Holt was too exhausted after his record-breaking upset win over the No. 10 seed, Taylor Fritz, on Monday to play later that night. In his hotel room on Tuesday morning, he grabbed his instrument and started jamming, just like any other day on tour, as long as the doctors allow it.Several months ago, Holt was recovering from a hand injury that temporarily jeopardized his career. He found he could strum the guitar, but picking the strings hurt his hand. He asked his surgeon if he could still pick through the pain.“He said, ‘That depends,’” Holt recalled. “‘Do you want to be a professional tennis player or a professional musician?’”The answer to that question is affirmatively the former. Holt is having the tournament of his life, piling career-best win on top of career-best win to reach the second round of the U.S. Open. If he can beat Pedro Cachin of Argentina, who is ranked No. 66 in the world, on Wednesday, Holt would become the first man with a wild-card entry into the qualifying rounds of the U.S. Open to reach the third round of the main draw.In other words, the U.S. Open gifted him the opportunity to compete in the pretournament qualifying rounds, which meant that he would then have to win three matches just to get into the main draw. He did that for the first time in his young career and then stunned Fritz in four sets.Holt, left, beat his friend, the No. 10 seed, Taylor Fritz, to advance to the second round.Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressHe is the first wild-card qualifier to beat a top-10 seed, men or women, and the second man to win a match in the main draw. He did it by beating Fritz, an old friend — they have played against one another in Southern California since before they were 10 — who had designs on winning the U.S. Open.Fritz is also 24, but he has been playing in major tournaments for seven years. Quicker to develop professionally, Fritz was always helpful to Holt as they played against one another in their youths and trained together over the years. Fritz acted almost as a mentor while Holt bided his time. When they were young, Fritz invariably won their matches, but there was nothing weird about the tables turning as they did on Monday.“No, that’s not the right word,” Holt said. “I felt really happy, maybe just, I don’t know, stress relief. Sometimes, you want something so bad, and you want it to end so that it comes true, and when it happens, it just feels so good.”Holt’s gradual development has allowed him to surface into the thick of the U.S. Open eight years older than his mother was when she first won the U.S. Open as a 16-year-old phenom, seeded third, in 1979. Holt, who came into the qualifying rounds ranked No. 303, went to regular schools, avoided the grind of international travel as a teenager and spent four years in college with strong (free) coaching, top nutrition and training facilities (also free).“He really liked being a normal kid,” said David Nainkin, the lead men’s national coach for United States Tennis Association player development. “He’s got a strong family background, and he’s just taken his time and gotten a little better and a little better over time.”Austin remains a part of her son’s coaching staff and occasionally makes critical suggestions, Nainkin said, like a recent footwork adjustment that added 10 miles per hour to his serve. Nainkin added that Holt, always a smart player, has also taken a quantum leap in self-analysis of his game during his time at the U.S. Open.“He’s improved in just the nine days that he has been here,” Nainkin said.Tracy Austin won the U.S. Open twice and is now watching her son Brandon try to do the same.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAlso, he is devouring newfound information about his opponents, statistics he had never had access to before. The U.S. Open is the first tournament Holt has played in which in-depth technical data is available on all players — from groundstroke speed to first-serve tendencies.Nainkin also believes that Holt’s pathway to the professional ranks has been enhanced by his maturity and independence. Before he was granted the wild card into qualifying, Holt traveled the world by himself — no parent, no coach, no manager — playing in Tunisia, Mexico, Ecuador, Britain and the Dominican Republic and ranked as low as No. 924.His only traveling partner was his guitar, a 2.5-pound semi-acoustic that he plugs into his computer and listens through headphones. Holt packs the guitar into his luggage and sets it in the corner of his hotel room and plays it every day, sometimes for two hours at a time, before he catches himself, lest he develop hand cramps while playing barre chords.Although he was drawn to his father’s musical tastes, neither of his parents plays an instrument, he said. His grandmother on his father’s side is an accomplished pianist, and sometimes they play together. Holt’s favorite song to play is one that could apply to all his friends and family members who could not make the journey to New York to witness his breakout tournament.“‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd,” he said. “If there is only one song I could play for the rest of my life, it would be that one.”Luckily, there are no such restrictions. Holt is showing he can play a lot more than just that. More

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    Defending U.S. Open Champion Emma Raducanu Loses in the First Round

    Raducanu, who won the U.S. Open women’s singles title as a qualifier without dropping a set last year, fell to Alizé Cornet in straight sets.Emma Raducanu, who won last year’s U.S. Open as a little-known 18-year-old qualifier without losing a single set, will not defend her title this year after losing in the first round to Alizé Cornet on Tuesday night.For Cornet, a 32-year-old Frenchwoman ranked No. 40, the win, 6-3, 6-3, was her second major surprise victory of the year after she upset No. 1 Iga Swiatek in straight sets in the third round of Wimbledon. Cornet achieved the best Grand Slam result of her career earlier this year at the Australian Open, where she reached the quarterfinals before losing to Danielle Collins, who went on to reach the final.For Raducanu, now 19, the loss came in what has been a challenging year for her in Grand Slam tournaments. Raducanu reached only the second round at each of the first three majors, losing to Danka Kovinic at the Australian Open, Aliaksandra Sasnovich at the French Open and Caroline Garcia at Wimbledon.“I’m sorry I beat her tonight but I’m really happy with my performance,” Cornet said on the court after the match. “I felt like I played a really solid match, I was fighting my heart out and hanging in there. I think my game at the net was pretty good, I think it was a bit of everything, playing with a bit of variation, and it definitely worked tonight.”Alizé Cornet of France celebrating after defeating Raducanu.Elsa/Getty ImagesCornet and Raducanu stepped into a breezy Louis Armstrong Stadium on Tuesday as the American flag hanging above the court moved swiftly from the start of the match through the end. They played before a modest crowd on a night that featured Rafael Nadal on the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium at the same time.“Alizé’s defense was pretty good,” Raducanu said after the match, with a hat over her eyes. “I thought she was just scrapping everything back. There were junk balls in the middle of the court. With the wind blowing around, it was really difficult. She just kept getting it back.”Raducanu added that she thought she wasn’t going for as many balls because of the windy conditions.The match got off to a close start, with each player splitting the first six games. Then, down 4-3 in the first set, Raducanu failed to tie up the set on her serve, double faulting to bring the match to 5-3.Up 40-30 in the next game, Cornet threw her arms up into the air, calling for cheers from a crowd that had been supporting Raducanu from the beginning. Cornet went on to take the set, 6-3, with a forehand winner.The set was the first Raducanu had dropped in her career at the U.S. Open.“I’m going to drop down the rankings and climb my way back up,” she said. “In a way the target will be off my back slightly. I just have another chance to claw my way back up there.”After the first set, a medical trainer was called onto the court, and appeared to be treating Raducanu’s right hand. Raducanu struggled with blisters earlier this year.Raducanu said she has been dealing with blisters while in the United States, adding that it could be because of the humidity in some cities along the tour.“You tape it up and move on it,” she said. “It’s a blister — not much you can do about it. It is what it is. Sometimes these things happen in these conditions.”Cornet took the first game of the second set, and Raducanu took the next game, and then another, winning the final point with an ace.Then down 40-15, Cornet decided to go with a drop shot that Raducanu could not reach, but Raducanu came back quickly, winning the next point to go up 3-1.Cornet pushed the set to 3-2 with a backhand winner, and she then tied the set at three games apiece without giving up any points. Cornet took the next game to go up 4-3, as Raducanu lost the break with a backhand unforced error into the net.As she stepped back onto the court, down 4-3, Raducanu looked up into the crowd as if she were searching for someone or something. The crowd responded with several people yelling “c’mon, Emma.”Serving at 4-3, Cornet took the next game, with Raducanu hitting into the net on the final point.Raducanu failed to extend the match on her serve. Down 40-30, Raducanu hit a backhand volley out, giving Cornet the win.The match would have been significant for Cornet even if she had lost. This year’s U.S. Open is Cornet’s 63rd consecutive appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament, a record streak in the Open era that started at the 2007 Australian Open, where she lost in the first round.While the U.S. Open is the last Grand Slam of the year, Raducanu said she will consider playing in other tournaments.“It could be exciting for me to start my kind of climb back up there,” she said. “How far can I go till the end of year?” More