Evelyn Reynolds

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    How Wimbledon Became the Nick Kyrgios Show

    Kyrgios, the big, talented Australian, has taken over Wimbledon with his antics and psychological warfare. It’s working.WIMBLEDON, England — Going up against the tennis talents of Nick Kyrgios, the powerful Australian with hands as soft as a masseuse’s, is plenty difficult in its own right.That is just the start, though. Kyrgios, practitioner of psychological warfare, can be even more formidable.The sport’s outspoken, charismatic bad boy, whose antics have stolen the Wimbledon spotlight, casts a spell on the vast crowds that pack stadiums to watch his matches, even on Centre Court at Wimbledon, that supposed temple of decorum.The mid-rally, between-the-legs trick shots, the twisting and curling winners and the antisocial theatrics force opponents to take on Kyrgios and thousands of spectators looking for another episode of the most unpredictable and compelling show in tennis.“Come on, Nick!” they yell as though he were a pal playing a game of darts at the pub.His regular battles with officials erupt without warning and can reappear throughout the match. He knows how much he is loved and loathed, and when a Grand Slam tournament becomes a soap opera starring him, as this one has, his game is right where he wants it to be.“I sit here now in the quarterfinals Wimbledon again, and I just know there’s so many people that are so upset,” he said after outlasting Brandon Nakashima of the United States on Monday in five sets, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-2. “It’s a good feeling.”Kyrgios has fought his own psychological battles through the extreme highs and lows of his erratic career. A few years ago, his agent had to drag him from a pub at 4 a.m. because he had a match against Rafael Nadal later that day. He knows as well as anyone that tennis is as much a mental fight as a physical one, maybe more so. He rattles his opponent’s concentration, doing whatever he can to force the guy across the net to start thinking about the drama rather than his game.Kyrgios appeared to injure his right arm or shoulder during a forehand return on Monday.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockHere are the facts of Kyrgios’s fourth-round match against Nakashima, a rising, levelheaded, 20-year-old American, which occurred two days after Kyrgios’s upset of Stefanos Tsitsipas that was a circus of screaming matches with officials that so unnerved Tsitsipas, the fourth-seeded Greek star, that he began trying to hit Kyrgios with his shots — and usually missed.Midway through the first set against Nakashima, Kyrgios appeared to injure his right upper arm and shoulder while trying to muscle a forehand return of Nakashima’s serve. By the latter stages of the set, Kyrgios, whose cannon-like serve is among his most potent weapons, was grabbing and massaging the area around his right triceps muscle on changeovers and between points.He winced after some serves and forehands and repeatedly rotated his arm, as though trying to stretch out the joint and the muscles around it.Unable to swing freely and unable to unleash that nearly 140 m.p.h. serve as he did in his first three matches, Kyrgios stopped chasing and reaching for balls. In the tenth game, Nakashima, playing with his trademark efficiency, jumped on the diminished Kyrgios’s serve repeatedly to take the first set, 6-4. The young American looked like he was on cruise control.The umpire and a tournament official asked Kyrgios if he was OK and if he needed medical attention. He waved them both off, but as the second set began, there was more shoulder rubbing, more wincing, more arm rotation. Kyrgios’s forehand became a wristy whip instead of the windmill that sends opponents running backward.Kyrgios took a medical timeout that may have been more of a mind game against his opponent.Paul Childs/ReutersSometimes there is nothing so difficult as playing against an injured opponent. Players tell themselves to change nothing, to play as if everything were normal. But the mind can instinctually relax, suggesting to not hit that next forehand so close to the line or so hard because maybe it’s not necessary against a weakened opponent.On Monday afternoon, Nakashima could not ignore Kyrgios’s winces and shoulder grabs or his so-much-slower-than-usual walks from one side of the court to the other for the next point.The more Kyrgios rubbed that shoulder, the more tentative Nakashima became. He missed seven of eight first serves in the third game of the second set, then missed a forehand on break point, and suddenly Kyrgios had the momentum.And then the numbers on the board tracking the speed of Kyrgios’s serve began to climb, from the 110s into the 120s in miles per hour and upward from there. And the blasted forehands started to reappear. Serving at a tight moment late in the set, Kyrgios hit 137 and 132 on the radar gun. Minutes later, he was all even.Nakashima settled back down early in the third set. On serve, midway through, Kyrgios called for the physiotherapist and a medical timeout. As Kyrgios received a massage, Nakashima got up from his chair and performed shadow drills facing the stands instead of Kyrgios.Back on the court, Kyrgios served once more well above 120 m.p.h. He stretched his advantage in a tiebreaker with a 129 m.p.h. ace, then won it rifling a forehand return.“He was still serving fine after the medical timeout, still ripping the ball, so I don’t think it was that big of an injury,” said Nakashima, who had no answers for Kyrgios’s serve or forehand in the third-set tiebreaker.That shoulder drama — Kyrgios later described it as one of his “niggles” that he had treated with some painkillers — ended there.Another set, another mind game. Kyrgios, serving at 3-5, could have won the game and made Nakashima serve out the set so Kyrgios could serve first in the deciding act.Kyrgios has been the most entertaining player on and off the court at Wimbledon.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNot so much. How about three serves in the 75-m.p.h. range, one underhanded, and a forehand on set point so obviously aimed off the court? (It hit its target.) Was Kyrgios now quitting?“Complete rope-a-dope tactic,” Kyrgios said. “I just threw away that service game. I knew he was in a rhythm. He was starting to get on top of me. I kind of just wanted to throw him off a little bit.” It worked, judging by the aces, and the running volley he perfectly shaved off the grass in his first service game.There were challenges on calls he thought were wrong, and a few on shots of his that were clearly out. Nakashima serving at deuce at 1-1 made for a convenient time for Kyrgios to start jawing with the chair umpire. Then he stabbed a backhand for break point and pulled off a back-spinning squash shot to induce the error for a service break.And it was largely curtains from there. A 134 m.p.h. serve got Kyrgios to match point at 5-2. A surprise serve-and-volley on second serve on match point sealed it.Cristian Garin of Chile, ranked 43rd in the world, is up next in the quarterfinals. The show goes on, and maybe on and on. More

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    Sinner Beats Alcaraz in a Match Befitting Wimbledon’s Centre Court

    The young talents made their Centre Court debuts hours after Wimbledon celebrated the main stage’s 100th anniversary, and they provided a foil to a contentious match the day before.WIMBLEDON, England — It was a long weekend full of contrasts at the All England Club.The first Sunday of the tournament has traditionally been a day of rest at Wimbledon, where they once did not play on Sundays at all.But time rumbles on, and sometimes rolls right over tradition. Wimbledon has now joined the other Grand Slam tournaments by scheduling matches on every day available.This year, the added entertainment on the first Sunday was more a pleasure for the senses than the regular fare on Saturday, when Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas put on a mutually bratty display that you could not take your eyes off, frequently for the wrong reasons.Sunday restored calm and decorum as two other luminous young talents, Jannik Sinner of Italy and Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, took to the most famous showplace in tennis just a couple of hours after the ceremony and parade of champions that commemorated the 100th anniversary of Centre Court.While Kyrgios swore and berated the chair umpire on No. 1 Court and Tsitsipas knocked a ball angrily into the crowd and tried to nail shots directly at his opponent, Sinner and Alcaraz showed why they were the ones who got trusted with an assignment on Centre Court even though neither had ever played there.Sinner kept Alcaraz stretching and lunging.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThey are talented beyond their years but also classy beyond their years as they demonstrated throughout Sunday’s fourth-round duel, won, 6-1, 6-4, 6-7 (8), 6-3, by the 20-year-old Sinner over the 19-year-old Alcaraz.At one point, Sinner slipped and fell hard on his chest while chasing down an Alcaraz drop shot, and Alcaraz came hustling forward to offer him an encouraging fist bump after he rose to his big feet.Are they the future of men’s tennis? It certainly looks that way, and they have been the present of the game at times, upsetting their elders, winning tour titles and reaching the quarterfinals at Grand Slam tournaments. But there are no guarantees. Injuries, big money and new arrivals can quickly change the pecking order.“I think what we showed today, it’s a great level of tennis, great attitude from both of us,” Sinner said. “There are still so many other players who are playing incredible tennis. For sure, we are the two youngest at the moment. So let’s see. I don’t know in the future what’s going to happen. I think it’s just great for tennis to have also some new names, new players.”This has been a most unusual Wimbledon with the No. 1-ranked Daniil Medvedev and his fellow Russians barred from playing because of the war in Ukraine; the new No. 2, Alexander Zverev of Germany, out after major ankle surgery; and three other leading grass-court players — Matteo Berrettini of Italy, Marin Cilic of Croatia and Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain — withdrawing after testing positive for the coronavirus.There were big windows of opportunity in the draw, and of the 16 players in the men’s fourth round, only two — Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal — had been to even the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament. Sinner will now face Djokovic, the three-time defending champion at Wimbledon, in the quarterfinals after Djokovic defeated Tim van Rijthoven, a late-blooming Dutch wild-card entrant, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, on Sunday night.Though seeded 10th at Wimbledon, Sinner had never won a match on grass on the main tour until arriving at the All England Club, but it was difficult to understand why as he navigated the grass and generated huge punching power with his groundstrokes against Alcaraz off shots hit from all different kinds of heights. Sinner was the more consistent force on Sunday, but he was also often the one doing the dictating against one of the most explosive movers and hitters in the men’s game.Sinner, who had lost his only previous tour-level match against Alcaraz, kept him stretching and lunging and turned Alcaraz’s service games into gantlets by repeatedly putting forceful returns at his feet and obliging him to flick half-volleys while leaning back just to stay in the point.“For me, Jannik played incredibly well,” said Alcaraz, the higher seed at No. 5.The elastic Alcaraz was often spectacular (he cannot help himself) but also irregular: misfiring repeatedly on his signature drop shots and failing to convert any of his seven break points while Sinner cashed in on four of his 12.That seemed to be the key statistic. Alcaraz went for too much too often with his groundstrokes. The temptation to end the exchange was understandable. Sinner was setting a torrid pace from the baseline, but it was a testament to Alcaraz’s talent and competitive fire that he turned a potential straight-sets defeat into something much more compelling.He rallied from 0-40 to hold serve in the first game of the third set and then fought off two match points in the tiebreaker before making the shot of the day at 8-8: a sharply angled forehand half-volley drop shot winner off a full-force backhand pass down the line from Sinner that would have finished off just about any other point.Alcaraz raised an arm and pumped up the crowd, which did not need much encouragement, and then closed out the set.But to Sinner’s credit, Alcaraz could not close out the comeback, double-faulting to lose his serve in the fourth game of the fourth set, and despite saving three more match points on his serve in the eighth game, he could not prevent Sinner from serving out the match.Sinner has made a smart hire this summer, employing Darren Cahill, a former player, veteran coach and ESPN analyst, as a grass-court consultant. Cahill, between his daily commentary duties, is helping him prepare for the matches, and they clearly prepared well for Alcaraz as Sinner handled the big stage and big moment with just a bit more sang-froid.“I need to improve my mental stability,” said Alcaraz, who is having a breakout season. “Today and in many matches, I’ve had lots of highs and lows, moments of playing well and playing badly. I have to manage the nerves better. It cost me some today.”So, he conceded, did the Centre Court assignment.“It’s not so much the court itself, or the silence,” he said, referring to the classic quiet between points.“It was not so silent,” he said with a grin. “But it’s more knowing all the story behind this court. You are playing and knowing all the historic matches that were played there that were so important to the game. That’s what weighed on me.”The parade of Wimbledon winners certainly underscored the point on this special Sunday, as retired champions like Billie Jean King and Rod Laver shared the grass with active champions like Nadal, Djokovic, Andy Murray and Venus Williams and with champions on hiatus like the surprise guest Roger Federer.“For me it was a privilege today to go for the first time there in the Centre Court,” Sinner said.He made the most of it, and together, he and Alcaraz did the grand occasion justice. More

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    When Will Federer and the Williams Sisters Call It Quits? Maybe Never.

    Advances in physical preparation keep their bodies in the game, and so can the changing nature of sports business and celebrity.WIMBLEDON, England — Most tennis professionals are retired by their mid-30s. But last week, there was Serena Williams, at almost 41, grinding against a competitor a little more than half her age for more than three hours at Wimbledon.Venus Williams, too, is here. She played mixed doubles, with tape on her right knee and not so much spring in her step at age 42. Roger Federer, who has not played since limping away from Wimbledon last year, is angling to return to the tennis tour in September, when he will be freshly 41. Rafael Nadal is threatening a deep Wimbledon run and eyeing the Grand Slam at 36 after a medical procedure that deadened the nerves in his troublesome left foot.To varying degrees, the biggest names in tennis keep going. Why is it so hard, with their best years behind them, to leave the stage and kick back with their millions? And it’s not just tennis. Tiger Woods, with an estimated net worth of $1 billion, is struggling to come back from devastating leg injuries at 46. Tom Brady can’t stay away from football. Regular working people go through life believing that retirement is the endgame. Not so with professional athletes.It is not just advances in physical preparation and nutrition keeping their bodies in the game. The changing nature of sports business and celebrity is conspiring to keep stars at it far longer than they have in the past. But there is also another element that has remained constant across the generations.“I get it 100 percent why they want to keep going,” said Martina Navratilova, a longtime No. 1 and 18-time major singles champion who retired at 37 in 1994, came back to play doubles and did not retire for good until she was almost 50.“You really appreciate it, and you realize how lucky you are to be out there doing what we do,” Navratilova said. “It’s a drug. It’s a very legal drug that many people would like to have but they can’t get.”Serena Williams exited Wimbledon in the first round for the second consecutive year, far from her fittest and gasping for air down the stretch. She and Federer soon face having no ranking in the sport they dominated for decades. Venus Williams decided at the last minute to play in mixed doubles at Wimbledon. But there have been no announcements on exit strategies; no target dates on end dates.“You never know where I’ll pop up,” Venus Williams said Friday, before she and Jamie Murray lost on Sunday to Alicia Barnett and Jonny O’Mara in a third-set tiebreaker in the round of 16.Earlier Sunday, at a ceremony at Centre Court, Federer, who has a men’s record eight Wimbledon titles but has not played a match in a year, said he hoped to play Wimbledon “one more time” before he retired.Roger Federer, 40, has not played since limping away from Wimbledon last year. He said on Sunday that he hoped to play another Wimbledon before he retired.Hannah Mckay/ReutersIt is a new sort of limbo: great champions well past their primes but not yet ready to call it a career while outsiders occupy themselves with speculation on when the call will come. Nadal, who has generated plenty of retirement chatter himself and said he was close to retiring only a couple of weeks ago because of chronic foot pain, understands the public’s quest for clarity. Famous athletes “become part of the life of so many people,” he said after advancing to the third round of Wimbledon.Even Nadal said he felt unsettled after seeing his friend Woods become only a part-time golfer. “That’s a change in my life, too.” But Woods, and the Williams sisters, like other aging and often-absent sports stars, remain active, not retired. There can be commercial incentives to keep it that way. Official retirement not only terminates a playing career. It can terminate an endorsement contract or a sponsorship deal and reduce a star’s visibility.“Typically, it’s black and white that when you announce your retirement, that’s clearly giving the company a right to terminate,” said Tom Ross, a longtime American tennis agent.But there are exceptions, Ross said, and champions who are late in their careers and of the stature of Federer and Serena Williams often have deals that provide them with security even if they retire before the deal expires. Federer’s 10-year clothing contract with Uniqlo is one example. He, like Serena Williams, also has the luxury of time.Nearly any other tennis player without a ranking would not be able to secure regular entry into top tournaments if they did decide to continue. But Federer and Williams have access to wild cards with their buzz-generating cachet, and can thus pick their spots.Nike, as Federer and some others have discovered, is disinclined to commit major money to superstars close to retirement, favoring active athletes with longer runways. But Mike Nakajima, a former director of tennis at Nike, said that Williams, still sponsored by Nike, was in an exceptional position. She has her own building on Nike’s campus.“Her building is bigger than the Portland International Airport,” Nakajima said. He added, “She’s had her hands in so many different things, so many interests, so many passions, that I think in a lot of ways it won’t matter when she stops. Serena will always be Serena.”This week, EleVen by Venus Williams, her lifestyle brand, started a Wimbledon collection of all-white clothing that was not hurt by the fact that Williams was actually playing at Wimbledon, if only in mixed doubles, after more than 10 months away from the tour.“Just inspired by Serena,” Venus Williams said.Venus Williams and Jamie Murray during their mixed doubles match at Wimbledon.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNavratilova, like many in the game, believes that Venus and Serena Williams will retire together when the time comes. If it comes. The advantages of formally announcing retirement are few: a temporary surge in publicity and an end to random drug testing. It can, in some cases, start the clock on your pension or on making you eligible to be elected into a sport’s Hall of Fame.Retirement is perhaps more a rite than a necessity. John McEnroe, for one, never officially retired, a technicality which, in his case, did allow him to keep earning more for a time from some existing contracts.“Well, look how well retirement worked out for Tom Brady; it got a lot of attention and then it was, ‘Oh, I changed my mind.’ OK!” Navratilova said with a laugh. She added, “Do you ask a doctor or a lawyer how much longer are you going to keep practicing? People put thoughts in your head that might not be there otherwise.”Federer has been hearing retirement questions since he finally won the French Open in 2009, completing his set of singles titles at each of the four Grand Slam events at age 27. Venus Williams, who went through a midcareer dip partially linked to an autoimmune disorder, has been hearing them for over a decade, as well.“When it’s my last, I’ll let you know,” she said at Wimbledon last year.Here she is, back for more, just like her kid sister, although perhaps even the Williamses don’t know how much more. Navratilova does not recommend giving too much advance notice. When she announced that 1994 would be her last season, she regretted it.“If I had to do it over again, I would definitely not say anything, because it was exhausting; it was much more emotionally draining than it would have been otherwise,” she said. “For your own good, forget whatever it may do for or against your brand. I wouldn’t announce it until that’s it.”And it was not it. She came back and ended up winning the U.S. Open mixed doubles title with Bob Bryan in her real last tour-level match at age 49, one of tennis’s better final acts.“My thing is, if you enjoy playing and really get something out of it still, then play,” Navratilova said. “Venus has been playing and people say she’s hurting her legacy. No, those titles are still there.” More

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    Nick Kyrgios, a Dream and a Nightmare for Wimbledon, Is Winning

    The Australian’s matches and news conferences have become irresistible theater — some call them a circus — that is a blessing and a curse for a sport battling for attention.WIMBLEDON, England — All white is the dress code at Wimbledon, the oldest and most traditional of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. So when Nick Kyrgios wears a black hat for his on-court interview, he is sending a message.And that’s what he did Saturday night on the No. 1 Court, after his emotional, fireworks-filled, 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7) win over Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the No. 4 seed.As Wimbledon enters its second week, the women’s tournament is wide open and there is potential for a men’s final of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, which looks more inevitable each day. And then there is Kyrgios, a dangerous and disruptive force who has so much pure talent, but is so temperamental and combustible that the sport can neither control him nor ignore him.He plays when he feels like it, then disappears for months, only to return to wreak havoc and provide headline-grabbing theater.“Everywhere I go I’m seeing full stadiums,” he said after his battle with Tsitsipas. “The media loves to write that I am bad for the sport but clearly not.”Kyrgios is an immensely talented Australian who has an ambivalent relationship with the rigors and requirements of professional tennis. He relishes his role as the game’s great outlaw, unafraid to jaw with, spit toward or berate judges and umpires.He badgers the young workers on the court for not keeping the changeover chairs stocked with fresh towels and bananas. He smashes rackets. One ricocheted off the ground and very nearly crashed into the face of a ball boy at a tournament in California this year. His boorish displays regularly garner tens of thousands of dollars in fines.Then he will return to the court and fire one of the most dangerous serves in the game. He puts on the sort of magical shotmaking clinics — shots between the legs, curling forehands, underhanded aces — that other players can only dream about.He is the ticking time bomb who packs stadiums and has hordes of young fans. He is at once the sport’s worst nightmare and its meal ticket: hard to watch but also hard to ignore.When he loses, it’s always someone else’s fault. When he wins, it’s because he has overcome all manner of forces against him: tournament directors, the news media, the tennis establishment, fans who have hurled racial slurs at him.“Unscripted. Unfiltered. Unmissable,” is how the @Wimbledon Twitter feed put it Saturday night as Kyrgios, in all of his brilliance and brattiness, overpowered and outfinessed Tsitsipas over three compelling hours.All evening, Kyrgios went after the chair umpire as well as the tournament referees and supervisors for not defaulting Tsitsipas after he angrily sent a ball into the crowd, coming dangerously close to directly hitting a fan on the fly. Kyrgios claimed the umpire surely would have sent him off had he done the same thing. (He may not be wrong on that one.)The nearly endless complaints and interruptions rattled Tsitsipas. He struggled to maintain his composure, complaining to the chair umpire that only one person on the court was interested in playing tennis, while the other was turning the match into a circus. Then he took matters into his own hands, and started trying to peg Kyrgios with his shots. The crowd of more than 10,000 grew louder with each confrontation.It became only more intense after Kyrgios finished off Tsitsipas in the tiebreaker with three unreturnable shots — a half-volley into the open court; a ripped, backhand winner; and a drop shot from the baseline that died on the turf just beyond Tsitsipas’s reach.The drama was cresting as the Tsitsipas and Kyrgios news conferences descended into a name-calling, insult-filled back and forth about decorum and who had more friends in the locker room.Tsitsipas, certain that Kyrgios had intentionally made a mess of the match — and probably steamed that Kyrgios had beaten him twice in a month’s time — said his fellow players needed to come together and set down rules that would rein in Kyrgios.“It’s constant bullying, that’s what he does,” Tsitsipas said of Kyrgios. “He bullies the opponents. He was probably a bully at school himself. I don’t like bullies. I don’t like people that put other people down. He has some good traits in his character, as well. But when he — he also has a very evil side to him, which if it’s exposed, it can really do a lot of harm and bad to the people around him.”Tsitsipas said he regretted swatting the ball into the crowd, but was less remorseful about another that he smacked across the net and into the scoreboard, earning a point penalty.“I was aiming for the body of my opponent, but I missed by a lot, by a lot,” he said. Then, he added, “When I feel like other people disrespect me and don’t respect what I’m doing from the other side of the court, it’s absolute normal from my side to act and do something about it.”“It’s constant bullying, that’s what he does,” Tsitsipas, above, said of Kyrgios.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKyrgios was watching all of this on a television nearby. Minutes later, he sat down behind the microphone, wearing that black cap and a T-shirt featuring Dennis Rodman, the onetime N.B.A. rebel, and a big grin. Once more, Tsitsipas had created a situation where Kyrgios could get the better of him, even allowing him the rare chance to take the high road and claim to be a kind of innocent.“He was the one hitting balls at me,” he said of Tsitsipas. “He was the one that hit a spectator. He was the one that smacked it out of the stadium.”He called Tsitsipas “soft” for letting Kyrgios’s conversations with tournament officials get to him.“We’re not cut from the same cloth,” he said of Tsitsipas. “I go up against guys who are true competitors. If he’s affected by that today, then that’s what’s holding him back, because someone can just do that and that’s going to throw him off his game like that. I just think it’s soft.”On Sunday, Wimbledon fined Tsitsipas $10,000 and Kyrgios $4,000 for their behavior.Tsitsipas’s mother is a former pro and his father is a tennis coach who reared his sons on the tennis court from an early age. Kyrgios is of Greek and Malay descent, and his father painted houses for a living.“I’m good in the locker room,” Kyrgios, now rolling, went on. “I’ve got many friends, just to let you know. I’m actually one of the most liked. I’m set. He’s not liked.”Then, one last dagger.Kyrgios said that he did not take the court to make a friend, to compliment his opponents on their play, and that he had no idea what he had done to make Tsitsipas so upset that he barely shook his hand at the end of the match.Every time he has lost, Kyrgios said, even when he has been thrown out of matches, he has looked his opponent in the eye and told him he was the better man.“He wasn’t man enough to do that today,” he said.The victory put Kyrgios into the round of 16, where he will play the American Brandon Nakashima on Centre Court on Monday. He is two wins from a possible semifinal showdown with Nadal, assuming the 22-time Grand Slam event champion can keep winning as well. It would be the ultimate hero-villain confrontation, a perfect setting for all manner of potential Kyrgios explosions and boorishness, but also, as that Twitter feed put it, unmissable theater.Nadal is known to be one of the game’s true gentlemen, a keeper of the unspoken codes between players. He has marveled at Kyrgios’s talent and questioned the baggage he brings to the court and the ordeals he often creates with umpires, especially when his chances of winning begin to slip away.On Saturday night, after winning his own match and hearing about the Kyrgios-Tsitsipas fracas, Nadal turned philosophical when asked when a player crossed the line, and whether Kyrgios goes too far. It is, he said, a matter of conscience.“I think everyone has to go to bed with being calm with the things that you have done,” Nadal said. “And if you can’t sleep with calm and being satisfied with yourself, it’s because you did things that probably were not ethical.”How does Kyrgios sleep? Only he knows. More

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    Roger Federer’s Absence Leaves a Void at Wimbledon

    Federer said he hoped to return to the tournament he has won eight times before. His absence from the field this year left a void over Wimbledon’s early rounds.WIMBLEDON, England — There he was, a surprise, perhaps the biggest of this Wimbledon fortnight: Roger Federer in the flesh Sunday on Centre Court.As always, he looked handsome and freshly pressed. But instead of his tennis whites, Federer wore a trim, dark suit to to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Centre Court.Flanked by a slew of past Wimbledon champions, Federer was on hand only briefly, but no player received a louder greeting. Not Bjorn Borg. Not Venus Williams. Not Rod Laver or Billie Jean King, not Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic.For the first time since 1998, when he announced himself to the tennis world by winning the junior event, Federer is not playing Wimbledon. At age 40, he’s still rehabbing after surgery on his right knee and is unsure of his playing future.“I’ve been lucky enough to play a lot of matches on this court,” Federer said, speaking into a microphone, his voice ringing across the court. He added, “It feels awkward to be here today in a different type of role.”He continued for a short while, bathing in the warm adoration, taking in the old stadium and its memories. “This court has given me my biggest wins, my biggest losses,” he said.“I hope I can come back one more time.”The fans sitting around me at Centre Court went nuts.And then Federer was gone.Wimbledon 2022 has been a strange journey. Instead of the usual electric energy coursing through each day, signaling the peak of the tennis season and the start of the English summer, the feel has been slightly off — like a master violinist struggling for just the right note.During the opening four days, attendance dropped to levels not seen in over a decade. The barring of Russians and Belarusians robbed the tournament of several marquee names, including the world’s top-ranked male, Daniil Medvedev. Their exclusion caused protests by the men’s and women’s tours, which decided not to officially recognize the results with ranking points, essentially turning the entire affair into the most lavish tennis exhibition ever held.Those are some mighty blows.But there’s something else that feels off about this Wimbledon.Instead of charging into the tournament’s second week as the men’s favorite and the fans’ hoped-for winner at a tournament where he is worshiped like a god, Federer floated in for the centennial celebration and then was scheduled to jet back home to Switzerland.The tournament goes on. But a Wimbledon without Federer is like a Wimbledon where there are strawberries but no cream.How do you explain the power of absence? Maybe through the shock of looking at the men’s draw and not seeing the most familiar name. Or through a fan’s shout, such as the one that came out loud and true, expressing palpable longing during a prime-time match last week.“Is that Roger Federer?” someone yelled, the voice ringing across Court No. 1 during a tense late-night match between two guys, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios, who could offer only a glimpse of the grace Federer brought to every match at Wimbledon.The yell was aimed at Tsitsipas, of Greece, whose one-handed backhand and flowing strokes call to mind the eight-time champion.Close is not the real thing. Tsitsipas is no Federer.There are no guarantees that Federer will ever play here again, though we now know that he hopes to. “I think maybe there’s a little magic left,” said Tony Godsick, Federer’s longtime agent, as we walked the grounds last week.“I’m not sure that magic means having to hold up a trophy,” Godsick added. “Magic means going out on your own terms, being healthy, and enjoying it.” He looked out at one of the grass courts. “There will be places where he’ll be able to do better just because of the nature of the surface,” he said. “But if it doesn’t happen, he gave everything.”The deep, even ethereal connection Federer has with this vine-covered Taj Mahal of tennis is about more than longevity.Part of it is style. Wimbledon is white linen, polished gold, light cotton fineries, ascots and the Duke and Duchess of Kent in the royal box. Everything about the refined Federer fits this palace, from his old-school game to the gliding way he walks.Part of it is substance: the fine art of victory. Federer was the champion in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 and 2017.Part of it is losing, but weathering the storm in the right way.For a while, the Swiss player seemed like he might never be conquered on the low-cut grass. Then came Nadal. When Nadal finally beat Federer in the final in 2008, their match was regarded as one of the greatest ever played. Who can forget Federer’s comeback, his saved match points and Nadal’s unquenchable desire? The match ended in the dwindling sunlight, 9-7 in the fifth set, with Federer shedding tears of agony.Federer’s Wimbledon final against Novak Djokovic in 2019 was perhaps the last great match of Federer’s career.Nic Bothma/EPA, via ShutterstockHe suddenly seemed vulnerable, human, within reach. Showing weakness at a tournament he had owned for five straight summers, and handling it with grace, made Federer more popular than ever.To the fervently loyal fans of Nadal and Djokovic, he was the perfect foil, the one to root most lustily against, the one player they most wanted to defeat and send off with head bowed.In the last great match we saw him play at Wimbledon, possibly the last great match of his career, the marathon championship final of 2019, Federer held two match points while serving against Djokovic. The Serb won both, tracking down the last of them by skimming across the baseline and, as he so often does, producing a winning passing shot. About an hour later, he won the match, 13-12, in a fifth-set tiebreaker.Watching Djokovic play on Centre Court last week, it was impossible not to think of that classic. There he was again, the defending champion, dashing across the same baseline with the same staunch resolve as when he snatched victory from his longtime rival. Djokovic may well win this year’s tournament, which would give him seven Wimbledon titles overall. But other than among his loyal fans — and yes, there are many — watching him plow through opponents with metronomic efficiency and tight-lipped swagger does not quite stir the soul.He is a marvel, all right. So is a microwave oven.Then I watched Jannik Sinner of Italy, 20, who is little known outside tennis but regarded as a potential future force within it. Sinner may not win Wimbledon this year, but there’s a good chance he will one day.On Sunday, against another precocious talent, 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, Sinner hit his forehands with a consistent mix of heavy speed and daring curve. He added aces, drop shots and deep returns. The crowd on Centre Court swayed and swooned with his every move.It felt reminiscent of the energy surrounding a certain Swiss player at the start of his great Wimbledon career. It was a reminder of the way greatness gives way to greatness, one generation to the next — and a reminder that Federer was not on hand to help keep youth at bay. Not this year, at least. Maybe next. More

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    Lesia Tsurenko Plays Tennis to Earn Money to Help Ukraine

    WIMBLEDON, England — Lesia Tsurenko’s Wimbledon campaign ended Friday during a match in which her head was someplace else.Ms. Tsurenko, a 33-year-old tennis veteran from Kyiv, had been watching the news from home all week and seeing that Russians had bombed a shopping mall and other civilian targets.“They’re just trying to kill as many people as possible,” Ms. Tsurenko said of the Russian military.Since February, she had gotten better at keeping thoughts about the Russian invasion of Ukraine out of her mind when she was on the tennis court, but Friday was a bad day. She said she felt off-balance from the time she woke up, “like there was no ground beneath my feet.” And once she took the court against Jule Neimeier of Germany, she said she “had no idea how to play tennis.”Juggling the constant travel and physical and mental grind of professional tennis is hard for even the best players. For players from Ukraine these days, who have not been home in months and spend much of their free time getting updates on the health and safety of friends and family members back home, the challenge is monumental.The good news for Ms. Tsurenko is she seems to have found a semi-permanent home in northern Italy, at an academy run by the famed coach Ricardo Piatti. She has an apartment. Her sister, Oksana, recently joined her. So did her husband, Nikita Vlasov, a former military officer, who is ready to return as soon as he gets the call but for the moment the forces do not need someone at his level.“We have no problem with people,” Ms. Tsurenko said, a little while after her defeat. “The problem is the heavy weapons.”Ms. Tsurenko left Ukraine before the war started, so she is not technically a refugee. Recently, she had to miss a tournament so she could stay in Italy and file paperwork to allow her to remain there. She is waiting for approval. Also, her mother, who lives near Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine, does not want to leave, despite heavy bombing. The mother of her sister’s husband also lives there.Her time playing tennis in England the past month has provided a respite. Russian and Belarusian players were barred from competing at Wimbledon. Knowing how popular President Vladimir V. Putin remains in Russia, Ms. Tsurenko has assumed some of the Russian and Belarusian players likely support him. It’s been better, she said, not bumping into them in the locker room, though she will soon when the WTA Tour moves outside of Britain and they return to competition.There have been many matches since the war began Feb. 24 when Ms. Tsurenko has wondered what she is even doing playing tennis. One particular match in Marbella, Spain, stands out. That morning she had seen a photo of an administration building in Mykolaiv with a massive hole from a missile strike. She could not get the image out of her head.Lately, though, she has found clarity. She has always played tennis because she loves the game. The riches the sport offered never motivated her. Now they do.“I play for the money now,” she said. “I want to earn so much so I can donate this,” she said, “I feel like that may be a bad quality, because it has nothing to do with tennis, but that is what I am playing.”Coming into the tournament, Ms. Tsurenko, who has four career WTA titles and has earned more than $5 million, had won $214,000 so far this year. Making the third round at Wimbledon earned her an additional $96,000. For the world’s 101st ranked player, that is a solid month’s work. She hopes there will be more ahead this summer. More

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    Iga Swiatek Falls at Wimbledon, Ending a Long Win Streak

    Frustrated by low bounces on the grass courts that took away her most powerful weapons, the top-seeded women’s singles player lost in straight sets to Alizé Cornet of France.WIMBLEDON, England — Iga Swiatek, the world No. 1 and the top seed at Wimbledon, did something she had not done in more than four months Saturday. She lost a tennis match.Swiatek, the 21-year-old two-time Grand Slam champion from Poland, lost in the third round to Alizé Cornet, the veteran Frenchwoman, 6-4, 6-2, ending her winning streak at 37 matches, one of the longest in modern women’s tennis.Swiatek, though, did not lose the match so much as Cornet won it, emphatically even.Playing with strapping on her left thigh, Cornet came out swinging hard, matching Swiatek’s power and taking advantage of the Polish champion’s discomfort on grass.Alizé Cornet celebrated Saturday during her straight-set victory over Swiatek.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAfter losing the first set, Swiatek seemed to right things quickly, and surged to a 2-0 lead. But Cornet reeled off six straight games with Swiatek losing the final point with a forehand into the middle of the net.Swiatek shook hands with her opponent, quickly stowed her rackets and headed for the exit of the No. 1 court, where she had been pushed to three sets by a relative unknown only two days earlier.She waved and gave a thumbs up to the crowd as she walked, then stopped to sign a series of autographs before leaving.The result had a familiar feel for Cornet. In 2014 she beat Serena Williams, then the world No. 1 and the top seed at the tournament, on the same No. 1 court.That was relatively early in her career, though. Eight years later, in just 93 minutes, she pulled off another monumental upset and made the second week of a Grand Slam for the second time this year. Then, fittingly, she compared herself to another French favorite.“Like good wine,” she told the crowd. “It ages well.”The afternoon was really about Swiatek, though.Anyone who has ever picked up a racket knows the most basic adage of the game — it is hard to win a tennis match but incredibly easy to lose one. A few errant shots, a bad quarter-hour of serving, the briefest lapses of concentration, and one set and then another slips away in what feels like minutes. Hopelessness sets in, and getting off the court as quickly as possible can feel like the best and only alternative, even though it isn’t.Hopelessness, however, was not what led to Swiatek’s demise Saturday. It was Cornet. A fearless opponent can be just as fatal.That is just part of what made Swiatek’s accomplishments during the first half of this year, in an era of women’s tennis when the competition is intense from the first round of nearly every tournament, so remarkable.Swiatek lost to Jelena Ostapenko, the free-swinging Latvian, on Feb. 16 in the quarterfinals of the Dubai Tennis Championships. Since then she has won six consecutive singles titles, including her second French Open. She won three tournaments at the Masters 1,000 level, just below the Grand Slams.In March and April she won the so-called Sunshine Double — the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif., and the Miami Open. Only three other women had done that before. At the French Open, she lost just one set. Other players talked about just trying to get past the one-hour mark on the court with her. Many failed.During her winning streak, Swiatek won the women’s singles title at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSwiatek, though, always figured the grass court season might spell the end of her streak. She is most comfortable taking balls on the rise and using her topspin and her power to put opponents on the back foot from the very first moments of the match.After she won the French Open in early June, she faced the choice of playing a warm-up tournament or two to get more comfortable on her least favorite surface or taking a break and arriving at Wimbledon feeling refreshed. She chose to rest and hoped that her cresting confidence would help her solve the puzzle of grass. It did not.In practice, her timing was off. In matches, balls skidded along the grass instead of bouncing into her strike zone, taking her most potent weapon, that topspin power, out of her quiver, forcing her to play more conservatively.On Saturday afternoon, she reverted to Plan A, trying to hit Cornet off the court. Unable to control the ball, she dropped the first three games against a player who truly believed she could do the thing that had not been done in a long while.Swiatek rallied her way onto the scoreboard, but Cornet never gave up the advantage and finished off the first set with an emphatic overhead. She then left the court before the start of the second set, leaving Swiatek to sit in her chair and ponder her fate.In the second set, Swiatek went back to Plan A and surged to a 2-0 lead, but before long she had fallen out of her groove once more. On break point in the fifth game, Cornet jumped on a second serve and laced a forehand down the line. Swiatek dropped her chin and walked to her chair for the changeover.From there, the only question was whether Cornet could stay solid enough to get across the finish line. The answer came quickly.Swiatek, bidding farewell to Wimbledon for this year, lost 12 of the last 14 points in the match. “I just didn’t know what to do,” she said.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Usually when I’m coming back, I have some kind of a plan, and I know what to change,” Swiatek said. “Here I didn’t know. I was confused. On grass courts everything happens so quickly.”Cornet won the next three games and 12 of the final 14 points.“I didn’t tank it, but I just didn’t know what to do,” Swiatek said.Swiatek will get a bit more rest now. Before long, though, she will journey to North America for the hard court season. Clay still reigns in her mind, but after she won the Miami Open in April, two weeks after winning Indian Wells, she said hard courts were a very very close second.Another streak could be in the offing. Few would be surprised. And if not, she will always have 37. More

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    Tennis Gets Another Fairy Tale in Tim van Rijthoven, Maybe the Craziest One Yet

    Tim van Rijthoven is a perfect 8-0 in the last month. Before that, and seven years into his professional career, he had yet to win a main-draw match.WIMBLEDON, England — Tennis has had its share of come-out-of-nowhere stories in recent years. A qualifier named Emma Raducanu won the U.S. Open last September. The sport is as deep as it has ever been.But even by those standards, what Tim van Rijthoven of the Netherlands has accomplished during the last month does not just border on the absurd — it is the definition of absurd. And the ludicrousness continued on Friday as van Rijthoven, the 205th-ranked player in the world less than a month ago, played himself into a final-16 showdown with the top-seeded Novak Djokovic.Ah, but that is just the beginning, because van Rijthoven’s journey is even more ridiculous than that.On June 6, van Rijthoven, an injury-prone 25-year-old, and Homer Simpson had the same number of wins in the main draw of ATP Tour events. That would be zero. Unlike Simpson, though, van Rijthoven received a wild-card entry into the Libema Open, a low-level grass-court tournament in the Netherlands.On June 7, he recorded his first main-draw tour win. During the next five days, he reeled off four more wins, including upsets of the top three seeds in the tournament — the fourteenth-ranked Taylor Fritz, the 9th-ranked Felix Auger-Aliassime, and to cap it off in the finals, he drubbed the current world No. 1, Daniil Medvedev.He has since won three more matches, all at Wimbledon, his first Grand Slam tournament. He has beaten two seeded players. He has dropped just one set, in a tiebreaker. Some players can take a year to win a half-dozen matches on the ATP Tour. Van Rijthoven has done it in four weeks.“From the outside, it obviously looks like a fairy tale,” he said Friday after he beat the No. 22 seed Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4. Van Rijthoven began just after 11 a.m. He played like someone with a girlfriend waiting to meet him for lunch, finishing Basilashvili off in 102 minutes.When Basilashvili’s last shot sailed out, van Rijthoven calmly raised his arms and strolled to the net to shake hands. He briefly clapped his racket to the crowd, packed his bag and left. Just another day at the office.Van Rijthoven celebrating his win against Nikoloz Basilashvili.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Very difficult to explain,” said his coach, Igor Sijsling, who was still playing tournaments himself last year and only began working with van Rijthoven six months ago. “Our first day here, he had big eyes, but now he’s acting like he’s been here 10 years already.”Late bloomers with triple-digit rankings have had some eyebrow-raising runs at Grand Slam tournaments of late. Van Rijthoven’s countryman Botic van de Zandschulp was ranked 117th before his run to the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open last year. Aslan Karatsev of Russia had been in the tennis wilderness for years and was ranked 114th ahead of his semifinal run at the 2021 Australian Open.“All it takes is a couple of wins against a big player, and then your confidence goes up and you start thinking you’re as good as these guys,” said Marc Lucero, who coaches Steve Johnson, the veteran pro from the United States now ranked No. 93.The grass also helps, said David Witt, a longtime coach. Players rarely practice on it, and they compete on it for just one month each year, making it something of an equalizer for those who are comfortable with the surface when they play against more established professionals who may not be.A watered-down draw missing the barred Russians, including Medvedev, does not hurt either.Still, van de Zandschulp and Karatsev had won top-level tour matches before getting hot on the big stage. Until early June, van Rijthoven was winless in ATP Tour main-draw matches. How is this happening?He was promising enough as a teenager to train at the IMG Academy in Florida in 2015 and said he has struggled with injuries, some tennis-related and one that was just bad luck, for three years. He had surgery on his wrist and battled inflammation of the tendons on the inner, or medial, side of his elbow.“They call it golfer’s elbow, but I got it playing tennis,” he said Friday. (Tennis elbow is inflammation of the tendons on the outer, or lateral, side.)Also, completely unrelated to his elbow problem, he developed thrombosis in the arteries of his arm, which caused the tips of his fingers to become cold and numb. He had to have surgery to remove the blood clots.The biggest problem, he said, was not physical but mental. He is plenty big (6-foot-2, 195 pounds) and strong and fast enough, but when he missed easy shots or made bad decisions he became sullen and embarrassed. He would obsess during matches about what other people were thinking about his level of play, assuming it was not good.Earlier this year, frustrated that his chance at a professional career might be slipping away, he had an epiphany.“I decided I was going to accept my mistakes and grow up and become an adult,” he said as he walked to the first of more than a dozen television interviews, a new part of his schedule. “I told myself, ‘I’m not going to be negative anymore.’ I will tell you that is not a one-day shift that you make. It’s something you have to work on every day.”Igor Sijsling, right, watching Tim van Rijthoven as Maartje Basten, Rijthoven’s girlfriend, cheers.Kieran Galvin/EPA, via ShutterstockHe has also started training with Sijsling, who works for the Dutch tennis federation, which had continued to support van Rijthoven through his struggles. Sijsling told him that he needed to stop playing defensively and use his power to play more aggressively and push forward into the court.“You have to attack with power or else it’s wasted,” Sijsling said. Sijsling has also encouraged van Rijthoven, who likes to work intensely but not for very long, to put in more time on the practice court. “I don’t think you can get to the top without working very hard,” he said.On Sunday, van Rijthoven’s undefeated status this spring will get its stiffest test against Djokovic, the six-time singles champion here and winner of the last three Wimbledon titles. Djokovic said he watched some of van Rijthoven’s matches in recent days in anticipation of their showdown, which will most likely take place on Centre Court, an atmosphere unlike anything van Rijthoven has experienced.Djokovic’s scouting report: van Rijthoven is well suited to the grass, he said. “Big serve, one-handed backhand, uses the slice well. He’s an all-around player. He can play fast; he can also stay in the rally and come to the net.”Djokovic has 20 Grand Slam singles titles, but van Rijthoven said he would walk onto the court with the same thought he has tried to have all year, whether in those backwater challenger tournaments or during the past month on the ATP Tour. He will believe he can win.“It’s basically going into every match thinking I’m the better player,” he said, “even though it’s maybe not always the case.” More