Evelyn Reynolds

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    At the U.S. Open, It Feels Like the Fourth of July

    A decade or so ago, back when Tommy Paul, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe were rowdy teenagers raising hell at the United States Tennis Association dormitories in Florida, they dreamed that days like Sunday at the U.S. Open would eventually come.Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton were barely 10 years old back then, still figuring out how large a role tennis was going to play in their childhoods, though it was a safe bet it would be pretty large.Flash forward to Sunday at the U.S. Open, and those five players were at the center of what figured to be a daylong American tennis festival in the fourth round, a part of the tournament when, for so long, especially on the men’s side, players from Europe have filled the starring roles. Not on Sunday, when the year’s final Grand Slam tournament got down to serious business and the round of 16.With Ben Shelton facing Tommy Paul, it guaranteed an American would advance to the quarterfinals. It ended up being Shelton.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThe schedule featured wall-to-wall red, white and blue; Black and white and mixed race players; players from wealthy families (Fritz), from more humble means (Shelton, Gauff, Paul), and one (Tiafoe) who started with almost nothing; some players with years of tour experience and one so raw (Shelton) that he needed to get a passport last year so he could leave the United States for the first time to play in the Australian Open.“We always believed this would happen,” said Martin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the U.S.T.A., who has known all five players since their early years. “But you never know when.”When Serena Williams, a majestic and groundbreaking figure in sports and culture for more than two decades, retired from pro tennis at this tournament last year, she left big questions about who might begin to fill the massive void she was leaving, especially in American tennis. Some pretty good hints arrived within days. Gauff and Tiafoe — charismatic figures with bright eyes and big smiles who play with equal parts heart, skill and athleticism — blazed into the deep end of the 2022 tournament, the quarterfinals for Gauff and the semifinals for Tiafoe.That was last year, though, and there was no guarantee that they or any of their compatriots would reproduce the magic of some of those days. Sunday represented a decent midpoint indicator.Looking at the draw in the middle of last week, Fritz’s eyes drifted to the quarter just above him, where Shelton, Paul and Tiafoe were crowded together. Some big names were out, and his people were still very much alive. Immediately he thought, “One of them is going to be in the semis,” and that was pretty cool.Paul won the third set after losing the first two, but he could not force a decisive fifth set.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesPaul and Shelton got the action rolling at noon Sunday in the opening match at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The stands were filling up more with every changeover, getting louder each time Shelton’s booming serve put up big numbers on the radar gun.Two adrenaline-fueled blasts clocked in at 149 miles per hour as he built a commanding two-set lead before Paul came alive with the crowd rallying behind him. The stadium was near its capacity of 23,000 by the time his last forehand sailed long. It wasn’t the outcome Paul wanted, but the match had its moments.Early on, he looked up at the video board and saw that he and his buddies were on the list of Americans left in the tournament. He let that sink in, those names from the dormitory hall, names that were there in the late rounds of the junior national tournaments in his teenage years.“We grew up all together,” Paul said shortly after the loss. “Kind of cool.”Every Grand Slam tournament crowd throws its weight behind its home-country players. At the Australian Open, the “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy Oy!” chant is a constant refrain. French crowds break out in spontaneous renditions of “La Marseillaise.” At Wimbledon, Britons will pack a field court to urge on a junior player they have never heard of with the same vigor they offer Andy Murray.The U.S. Open crowd, by reputation the rowdiest and most indecorous of them all, does its boisterous best to get its own over the line.Shelton, 20, hugged Paul at the net wanting to hear just what full-throated screams from the biggest crowd he had ever played before might sound like. Hard to blame him on that front.Shelton played to the crowd after his victory. His next opponent, Frances Tiafoe, is something of a showman, too.Karsten Moran for The New York Times“Amazing atmosphere, felt the love all day,” he said on the court moments later.And it stayed that way as Gauff played against Caroline Wozniacki, a former world No. 1. Wozniacki is on the comeback trail after having two children and has long been a crowd favorite in New York.That said, she had never played Gauff on a day that felt like a flashback to a couple generations ago, back to the eras when American men and women always held the promise of becoming the class of the sport and were among its biggest stars. This was part tennis match, part revival meeting, with more screams of “Go Coco!” than anyone could count in a building that Gauff, who is just 19, figures to be making her home for the next decade.A slight complication, a welcome one for the hometown crowd, arose as 4 p.m. approached when Tiafoe strutted into Louis Armstrong Stadium to play Rinky Hijikata of Australia just as Gauff was finding her groove. Like a parent facing a choice between children, Blackman needed a plan.“First set with Coco, then over to Frances,” he said as he rushed through a hallway underneath the stadium.Coco Gauff faced Caroline Wozniacki, a former world No. 1 popular with fans, but still enjoyed a partisan crowd.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesSlight complication for Gauff, too, in the form of a late-second and early third-set wobble that had her hitting backhand after backhand into the middle of the net. Wozniacki surged into the lead, breaking Gauff’s serve in the first game of the third set. But Gauff and her 20,000 friends weren’t about to let that last for long, not on this day. With a slew of “Come ons!” and teeth clenches she reeled off the final six games, bulldozing her way back into the quarterfinals.“Had some chants going, which was really nice,” Gauff said later. “The crowd doesn’t really compare to any of the other Slams.”She won two of the three U.S. Open tuneup tournaments and, despite dropping sets in three of her first four singles matches, is brimming with confidence.“I’ve been in this position before,” said Gauff, a French Open finalist last year. “I can go even further.”Meanwhile, over on Armstrong, Tiafoe was cruising.If Ashe is American tennis’s grand cathedral, Armstrong is its party space, a 10,000-seat concrete box with an upper level of seating that seems to hang almost directly above the court and a retractable roof that keeps sound echoing up and down and all around even when open. And no one these days, other than Carlos Alcaraz, knows how to throw a party like Tiafoe, 25, who broke into the top 10 of the rankings for the first time earlier this year.Tiafoe defeated Rinky Hijikata in straight sets at Louis Armstrong Stadium before turning the court over to Taylor Fritz.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThe drunker and more spirited the fans the better as far as he is concerned. He pumps his fists, shakes his racket, and even throws out the occasional tongue wag after those curling forehands and jumping two-handed backhands, to make it just how he likes it, with as many hollers of “Go Big Foe!” as he can wring from them. It’s how he has long believed American tennis should be, and part of the reason he is Paul’s favorite player to watch in the sport.Up next for Tiafoe is Shelton, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.“He’s going to come after me, and I’m going to come after him,” he said. “I plan on being in the semi.”Then it was Fritz’s turn, filling the early evening slot on Armstrong, and taking the court shortly after Tiafoe left it, against Dominic Stricker, 21, of Switzerland, one of the surprises of the tournament. Stricker had to win three matches in the qualifying tournament to get into the main draw and he upset Stefanos Tsitsipas, a two-time Grand Slam singles finalist, in the second round. He had already played 22 sets of tennis in New York, including two five-setters, before he hit his first ball against Fritz.Taylor Fritz ended the run Dominic Stricker made out of the qualifying tournament by beating him in straight sets on Sunday.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesMuch of the Tiafoe crowd filed down the stairs into the main plaza of Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Waiting at the bottom were thousands more ready to take their place, Honey Deuces, Aperol spritzes, beers, poke bowls and fries in hand.Three American headliners had already moved on, and roughly three hours later Fritz had joined them, with a straight-sets win over Stricker, to make his second career Grand Slam singles quarterfinal, and his first since Wimbledon in 2022.“No other place I’d rather go on a run than here,” Fritz said.Madison Keys and Jessica Pegula were set to play each other in the fourth round Monday, and Peyton Stearns, out of Ohio and the University of Texas, was set to take on Marketa Vondrousova, this year’s Wimbledon champion. This home-country party was rolling on. More

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    When Coco Gauff and Zendaya Need Tennis Tips, They Ask Brad Gilbert

    Gilbert, a former pro, coached Andre Agassi to a U.S. Open victory in 1994. Now he’s advising Gauff — in between calling matches — at this year’s tournament.Brad Gilbert — tennis junkie, junkballer, commentator, coach of legends — had roughly seven minutes to trade his coaching hat for a microphone, to shift from helping Coco Gauff manage her third-round match Friday night to interviewing Novak Djokovic in the tunnel before his.That match, by the way, ended just after 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, and Gilbert had spent Friday afternoon calling matches before heading to Gauff’s courtside box. It was well after 2 a.m. when he got back to the New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott. Then he spent an hour analyzing the video of the match that Gauff’s next opponent, Caroline Wozniacki, had won that afternoon. Finally, around 3:30 a.m., he clicked off the light. Rise and shine arrived at 6.“Been coming to this place since 1981,” Gilbert, who travels with an espresso machine, said between sips of coffee as he headed to his office, a.k.a. the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, on Saturday morning. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”Indeed, this is the life Gilbert has chosen.For 40 years, he has been a near-ubiquitous presence in the sport, rising through the 1980s to the No. 4 ranking in the world, despite his quirky, awkward, ugly strokes, then pivoting to coaching and television work, often at the same time, in that hybrid way that is oddly common in tennis. Andre Agassi had him at his side when he won the U.S. Open in 1994, as did Andy Roddick, in 2003.Now, at 62 and a decade removed from top-level coaching, Gilbert is back in the trenches and quickly becoming a star of this year’s U.S. Open, albeit in a supporting role to the 19-year-old Gauff, who is among the biggest stars of this quintessentially American tennis party. One minute, Gilbert is chatting and applauding Gauff through a practice session. The next, he’s hustling through the crowds, fist-bumping fans who treat him like an old buddy on his way up to the ESPN commentary booth to mingle with a decidedly older set of stars from his era, such as Chris Evert, Patrick McEnroe and Pam Shriver.Gilbert with Coco Gauff during a recent practice session.Earl Wilson/The New York Times“A very funny man,” Gauff said earlier this summer of Gilbert, whose coaching exploits she knew little about, since, as she pointed out with a giggle, they mostly happened before she was born. “I didn’t want to be with someone who’s a wall. But he’s definitely not a wall.”Tennis fans love and hate his nerdy player nicknames. Stan Wawrinka, the Swiss tank of a player, is “Stanimal.” Carlos Alcaraz is “Escape from Alcaraz.” And on and on.It’s a good life. Has been for a while.Gilbert is the same as he ever was, Shriver said. She and Gilbert first bonded at the 1988 Olympics, two sports nuts who won medals while hopscotching from swimming to wrestling to track and field to take in the competition.“He loved scouting,” Shriver said. “Loved game plans.”Last year took an unconventional turn. For nearly a decade, Gilbert had been working with junior players on private courts in California. Then the phone rang with an odd request.Zendaya, the actor and music star, had signed on to star in “Challengers,” an upcoming movie about a professional tennis love triangle.Small problem: She had no idea how to play tennis. Could Gilbert teach her and her co-stars Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist how to play well enough to not look ridiculous? Also, could he set up and design the points in the action scenes?Sure, why not, Gilbert said. He and Zendaya started showing up at Pepperdine University tennis matches to help her understand the game. There were three months of training in California, then four months of rehearsal and filming in Boston and New York.When it was done, Gilbert looked around and saw that his friends from television were coaching top pros part-time. Darren Cahill was working with Jannik Sinner, the Italian ranked sixth in the world. Shriver was working with Donna Vekic, the talented veteran from Croatia.Gilbert wanted back in with a top American player. He put the word out and began to get some offers, but he wanted to make sure it was with the right player, a member of the elite whom he believed he could help and who shared his hunger.Gauff celebrated her first-round win against Laura Siegemund at the U.S. Open.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAfter Gauff lost in the first round at Wimbledon in July, another disappointing Grand Slam result for a player who believes she is ready to win the biggest titles, he got a call from her team. They wanted him to speak with her parents about sharing his been-there wisdom as an adviser alongside Gauff’s new and somewhat-inexperienced coach, Pere Riba.American? Check.Elite? Check.Hungry? Triple check.“A super kid,” he said of Gauff on Saturday.Gauff’s shortcomings were hardly a mystery: a shaky forehand and serve in tight moments; a struggle to maximize her prodigious strengths — her speed and ability to cover the court, her fitness, her blazing backhand, a laserlike first serve.Used the right way, those tools have gotten her far. Maybe Gilbert’s brain could get her over the line.“He loved discussing matchups, how to get to people’s weaknesses,” said Andy Murray, who worked with Gilbert earlier in his career. “It was very focused on the strategy and finding ways to win matches.”Gilbert and Gauff’s team have kept quiet about the specific ways he has helped her, but anyone who watches him and hears what he says from her box during matches can figure it out: Know what’s coming, and play to your strengths.“Make it physical, Coco,” is a constant refrain, a reminder that she can chase down balls all night long if she wants to, taking the legs and the heart out of opponents.Gilbert has little use for the statistics that have come into fashion among many elite teams. He ignores the screen in the coaching box that gives coaches real-time data.“I trust my eyes,” he said.He has been trying to introduce Gauff to his music, sending her links to songs by Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and the Eagles. Gauff, a fan of City Girls — a Miami hip-hop duo featuring artists Yung Miami and JT — has yet to share her thoughts.Still, at the moment, she and her team have every reason to trust his eyes, too. Gauff has won two of her first three tournaments with him on the team, and 14 of 15 matches, including three at the U.S. Open.Andy Roddick, right, embraced Gilbert after winning the U.S. Open men’s singles final in 2003.Vincent Laforet/The New York TimesThen there is this: Gilbert began working with Agassi in March 1994, and Agassi won the U.S. Open that September. Gilbert began working with Roddick in June 2003. Three months later, Roddick was the U.S. Open championThey were different players. Agassi, Gilbert said, had a photographic memory and an analytical mind that could take apart a match hours later, stroke by stroke, with total recall. Roddick was so exuberant that Gilbert had roughly 15 seconds to deliver any message before his attention went elsewhere.His take on Gauff? Kind of like Zendaya, he said.Both were prodigies who began working on their craft and breaking through as young children. They’re around the same height, about 5-foot-10. And Zendaya has the wingspan of someone closer to 6-4, he said. Great athletic physique. If only he had gotten to teach her tennis when she was younger.They were texting the other day, on Zendaya’s 27th birthday. She told him she was watching and was all in on Gauff. He said he was, too. Just as he wanted. More

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    The Season’s Hottest Accessory: The Honey Deuce Cup

    Tennis fans stack, stash and take home the collectible cup after downing the U.S. Open’s signature cocktail.Sometimes it sits alone on a table at the U.S. Open or in the grip of a thirsty tennis fan. Often it is stacked, maybe in a pair, maybe in a precariously balanced tower.Everywhere you look is the familiar clear cup of the Honey Deuce.For a while, columns of Honey Deuce cups were all that Christine Dinisi saw when she opened her cupboard while looking for a water glass. “For a long time, until about a year or two years ago, they were my only cups in my apartment,” said Dinisi, 34, who estimated she had about 20 in her kitchen at one point.The Honey Deuce, made of Grey Goose vodka, raspberry liqueur and lemonade, and garnished with honeydew melon in the shape of tennis balls, has been the signature cocktail of the U.S. Open since 2006. The drink is a draw all on its own, but the hard plastic cup, with the current year and names of previous U.S. Open winners printed on it, is a sought-after souvenir, helping some fans justify the cocktail’s $22 price.Sherita Gregory picks up a pair of Honey Deuce drinks.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThe Honey Deuce cup was made sturdily so bartenders could pour and serve the drinks quickly and fans could safely carry them around the grounds.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesDinisi, a marketing services manager for a New York architecture and engineering firm, has been collecting the cups for years. She said the Honey Deuce was a motivating factor for her trips to Flushing Meadows Corona Park. “It may be one of the reasons to go to the U.S. Open,” she said.Last year, more than 405,000 of the cocktails were sold at the Open. On the middle weekend of the tournament, some stands ran out of the collectible cups, instead delivering the Honey Deuce in a generic cup for the reduced price of $20.On Monday, Trudy Potter, Susie McMullan and Debbie Morrison, all of Ridgefield, Conn., were leaving the Grandstand with eight cups stacked among them.“We come here for this,” Potter said of the cups. “My kids love them,” McMullan said.The friends enjoy collecting the cups as mementos of their visits to the U.S. Open, with the listing of the victors’ names offering a record of the tournament over time. “The years go by, and we remember the winners,” Potter said.Ivan Michalovic carried a stack of empty Honey Deuce cups.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesHoneydew melon balls awaited their fate.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBut there’s a key, Morrison said, to keeping the cups in good condition year after year: “Hand-wash them,” she said. Otherwise, the cups may crack and fade.Dinisi has had to jettison a fair number of cracked cups over the years. But she likes that the cup looks more like a water glass than a typical stadium souvenir, and its hard plastic structure makes it sturdier than most.That was by design. Aleco Azqueta, the vice president for marketing at Grey Goose North America, said the acrylic cup was constructed so that bartenders could pour and serve the drinks as quickly as possible, and so that they would be safe for fans to carry around in a stadium.“For many fans, the cups are central to their entire U.S. Open experience,” Azqueta wrote in an email. “The tournament is a stylish affair, and it often feels like the Honey Deuce is treated as a fashion accessory.”Ashley Haslun working a bar at the U.S. Open. Last year more than 405,000 Honey Deuces were sold.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesA Honey Deuce cup care pro tip: Wash them by hand; don’t put them in the dishwasher, which can cause premature cracking and fading.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesWhether it’s making a chic statement at the seen-and-be-seen event that marks the unofficial end of summer or merely doing its job as a receptacle for a sweet, signature drink, the cup is ubiquitous at New York’s Grand Slam tournament.For her part, Dinisi relies less on the Honey Deuce cup now than she once did — “I finally broke down and bought some real, actual water glasses,” she said — but she’ll still take home one or two this year. It wouldn’t be the Open without them. More

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    Seen from Close-up: How the U.S. Open Dials in its Court Speed

    From the seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the tennis court below appears smooth and uniform. Even the players who sprint and slide across the blue hardcourt can barely see or sense a characteristic that significantly sets the tone for their matches. Now take a look at this high-resolution scan of the surface in Ashe, where […] More

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    The Tennis Education of Ben Shelton

    At the packed grandstand court here on Friday, you could hear the fans’ murmured conversation, a low, languid hush, as Ben Shelton toed the line to serve for the first time.Then the hush came to a jarring halt. Shelton’s knees bent, his shoulder cranked, and his Yonex tennis racket thrust violently toward the tossed ball.Crack!He unleashed a 130-mile-per-hour heater, an ace that stunned his third-round opponent, Russian tour vet Aslan Karatsev, and sounded like a leather whip lacing a fence post.“Whoa!” came a unified response from an astonished and suddenly very loud and awake crowd, a large majority of which had likely never seen Shelton, still in his first year as a professional.“So, this is what everyone’s talking about,” I heard a fan mutter.“He’s got some serious game,” said another.Serious game, indeed.For me, as for most tennis fans, among the great joys of every U.S. Open is the discovery of young, emerging, surprising talent. This year is no exception. A quick walk through the sprawling grounds on any day during this first week revealed a strong crop of sterling up-and-comers. Look, there’s France’s Arthur Fils, cranking forehands. And there’s Czechoslovakia’s 18-year-old qualifier Jakub Mensik. The Russian Mirra Andreeva might be just 16, but she already hits the yellow felt off the ball.Shelton was the fifth best player on his Florida team in 2021, but won the N.C.A.A. singles title in 2022.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesShelton, 20, is the best of the bunch. Dripping with raw talent, he is the ultimate late bloomer, a player who puts the lie to the notion that top-tier tennis pros must first be 12- and 13-year-old forehand-smacking prodigies.Seemingly out of nowhere, in less than a year on the ATP Tour, the young Floridian has risen from tennis’ minor leagues to a career-high ranking in May of No. 35. (He entered the Open ranked No. 47.)But this week, doubt swirled. For all of Shelton’s ability, he has of late been on a steep learning curve. The movie version of his rookie season could be titled The Education of a Young Tennis Pro.Over the last seven months, he has sustained 19 losses and struggled to string together wins. When he beat former U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem this week — a match called early when Thiem defaulted with illness after losing the first set — it was the first time Shelton had won back-to-back singles matches since he’d made his surprising quarterfinal run at January’s Australian Open.During his matches in Melbourne, he flashed an eye-widening talent that gave a tennis-head like me goose bumps, reminding me of the first time I saw Roger Federer.Seeing Shelton up close at Flushing Meadows did not disappoint.In the first set against Karatsev, everything came easy. Shelton broke Karatsev with a smooth forehand winner. Then he cruised, serving with the canniness of an All-Star pitcher, firing off 140-mile-per-hour lasers then befuddling his opponent with left-handed spin.Shelton won the opening refrain, 6-4, in 33 minutes.Shelton’s serve was clocked at 147 m.p.h in the third set, the fastest in the tournament so far.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesHis best qualities were shining through, and the crowd was more than willing to go along for the ride. Many pros play with a foreboding look, grimly serious, sometimes hangdog, or remarkably neutral, like poker players. There is no neutral with Shelton. He pumps his fists and shouts in celebration and shows what he feels at virtually every moment of every match — often with a broad, inviting smile.Then there is his skill. Shelton can bend balls with heavy spin, flatten them for winners, or cut at them for precision volleys. Few on tour have his strength — he’s built like a football safety: 6-foot-4, 195 pounds, sculpted muscles — or his combination of foot speed and live-arm explosiveness.His talent is so immense that his coach, who happens to be his father, former professional Bryan Shelton, says a primary goal is to contain his son’s prodigious abilities. For example, instead of firing off a high-powered ace and then excitedly trying to serve the next ball with even more umph, he tries to get his son to dial it back a bit, learn to control the zeal.Dialing back after Friday’s smooth first set proved difficult. Karatsev began drawing a bead on Shelton’s serve. The Russian returned enough of them, tightening his offense to gain the upper hand.Second set, Karatsev, 6-3.Shelton’s level had dipped just a bit, a sign of his inexperience.In the third set, Shelton struggled to reach Karatsev’s returns.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesHe only became serious about tennis after quitting football in 7th grade. He was not an upper-tier American junior until late in high school, nor did he do what upper tier juniors do. He did not leave the country to face high-test competition. He did not he play any of the significant junior grand slam events that have operated as springboards for many pros.Shelton went to the University of Florida, where the men’s tennis coach happened to be Bryan Shelton, who is well respected in tennis circles for emphasizing a mastery of the game over chasing victories.There was no grand plan to move Ben quickly up the tennis ranks. The foundation began coming together seemingly out of nowhere.“You work on something, you work on something, you keep working on it, and then, six months later, you see that you can do it,” the younger Shelton told me this week. “That’s what happened to me. And at the same time, I think I finally grew into my body, which helped me move a lot better. When that changed, my whole game changed.”By his account, Shelton was the fifth best player on his Florida team in 2021, but won the N.C.A.A. singles title in 2022 — a tennis anomaly if ever there was one. Then he began running roughshod in ATP Challenger tournaments, the tennis equivalent of Triple-A baseball.For the first time in his life, he traveled outside the United States, off to the Australian Open. Who could have imagined his success there? Not even him. He reeled off four upsets, making it to the quarterfinals of his second Grand Slam tournament before losing to veteran Tommy Paul.Now comes the hard part. Pro tennis is full of quicksand that has swallowed players who succumbed to the pressure of great promise. Shelton appears ready to leapfrog all the typical obstacles and thrive if the last two sets of his battle against Karatsev are any guide.The third set went quickly. Shelton’s serve cranked to a new level: He hit 147 m.p.h on the radar gun, the fastest in the tournament. He held two break points, won them both, and took the stanza, 6-2.“Go Ben!” came shouts from the crowd.“Ben, we love you!”“Finish it!”Karatsev’s shoulders slumped. He knew what was coming.In the fourth set, Shelton did not lose a game, putting a crowning cap on what amounted to a U.S. Open launch party.Final score: 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 6-0. Onto the round of 16, where his opponent will be Paul, the compatriot who bested him at the Australian Open.The Education of a Young Tennis Pro continues. More

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    The Hardest Ticket at the U.S. Open? Ball Person.

    Thirty minutes before the gates to Arthur Ashe Stadium opened at 4 p.m. on June 22, a cluster of people began gently rolling tennis balls across a parking lot.One after the other, they lowered one knee close to the ground, extended their opposite arm, and released a tennis ball to someone 10 feet away.Closer to a locked chain-link fence, a gaggle of people started doing calisthenics as others nervously shifted their weight back and forth, tightly clutching their paper applications.The group of 500 people — already whittled down from some 1,200 online applicants — would be vying for 120 spots as ball people for the U.S. Open, during tryouts over a full week that were forced indoors because of rain. Those selected joined the 200 or so ball people who are returning to service the courts in Queens.Groups were led through a series of drills during 30-minute auditions, in which they were asked to quickly and quietly roll, retrieve and toss balls. “I don’t think people understand, it’s a highly sought-after job,” said Tiahnne Noble, the director of the U.S. Open Ball Crew.Ranging in age from 14 to their mid-60s, the hopefuls came from all corners of the country. Applicants flew in from California, drove from Indiana, took the subway from the Bronx and rode the train from Connecticut. Some were tennis fans, some played themselves and others had their curiosity piqued from seeing ball people on TV. Could they do that? (Spoiler: Mostly not.)The adults were generally far more anxious than their younger counterparts. The experience was described as a “dream” by many over the age of 30.Masami Morimoto, 59, said she had been determined to try out before she turned 60. “I love tennis,” the Manhattanite said, a bounce in her step. “I couldn’t sleep, I was so excited.”Groups were led through a series of drills during 30-minute auditions, in which they were asked to quickly and quietly roll, retrieve and toss balls. Participants were locked in, acting as though, at any moment, Novak Djokovic would look one of them dead in the eye and motion for a ball.Tiahnne Noble, the director of ball people at the U.S. Open, looked for applicants with speed, agility, quick reflexes and the ability to blend into the background of the tournament.Supervising staff members were highly attuned to the jitters. When an applicant forgot instructions, throwing a ball instead of rolling it, they were quick to comfort the anguished applicant. “Don’t worry about it!” they would say gently, sending a tennis ball back in their direction.Body language suggested the message went unheeded.Noble and her staff of veteran ball people said they could spot a potential ball person almost immediately. Ball people, she said, must have speed, agility, quick reflexes and the ability to blend into the background of the tournament.Six ball people work each match, communicating clearly and silently so as not to distract the pros or spectators. They need to respond to the preferences of different players — some only want a ball tossed to them with their left hand, for example — and act as invisible guardians of the game.As evaluators looked on at the tryouts in June, there was plenty of subtle nodding and note taking on clipboards.The auditions were not for the faint of heart. “It’s the U.S. Open,” Aaron Mendelson, 57, said with a deadpan acknowledgment of the stakes. He rolled a suitcase alongside him, having flown in from San Francisco for the occasion. He said he planned to head straight to the airport afterward.Mendelson knew what to expect. He had been a ball person at the 1992 U.S. Open, working the match between Jim Courier and Andre Agassi. He pulled up a YouTube clip as proof. “Look for the redheaded kid,” he said.Miles Hairston of Brooklyn warmed up by catching and throwing balls.Anupam Singh of Jersey City lacing up as he readied for a tryout.Nyla Joseph, a high school student from Queens, chased down a ball thrown against the net.Applicants would not know if they had been selected for another week, but some were already cautiously sketching out plans for where they would stay. While the U.S. Open is the only Grand Slam to pay its ball people — $16 an hour for most recruits — it does not provide housing. “Which borough would you recommend?” Avani Kondragunta asked this reporter.Her 21-year-old daughter, Alekhya, had previously been a ball person at the Western & Southern Open near their home in Cincinnati. So the two decided to make the 10-hour drive for tryouts.As the high-stakes auditions drew to a close, prospective ball people shuffled off the court sweaty and shrugging their shoulders. They would receive an email with their acceptance — or a rejection — soon enough.“It wasn’t too hard,” said Debra Gil, 14, of the Bronx as she walked off the court. She was one of the youngest applicants with experience under her belt. Her brother had been a ball person the previous year, and she had worked the Bronx Open.After Mendelson finished his tryout, he stumbled upon another group of Californians who had traveled in for the opportunity. The father-daughter duo Kuangkai and Emily Tai of San Diego had both tried out.When asked whether, if selected, they would return for the duration of the U.S. Open, Emily Tai, 19, responded with a cautious, “We’ll see!”Her father’s eyes bugged. “Oh, we’re coming.”“If you pay,” Emily responded.Victoria Flishenbaumat, center, was greeted by her father, Yan, and brother, Ari, after her tryout.Of those interviewed, only Emily Tai got the golden ticket — erm, email. She was surprised to have made the cut over her father. “He’s in way better shape than me,” she said.Kuangkai Tai planned to stick to his word. Though he will not be servicing courts, he plans to come watch his daughter. More

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    Coco Gauff Wobbles, Then Steals the Show at the U.S. Open

    Gauff, the 19-year-old American star, made error after error in the first set but rallied for a 3-6, 6-3, 6-0 win to advance to the round of 16.In the opening set of her third-round match against Elise Mertens on Friday, Coco Gauff looked fallible, frustrated and like she would be finished early, nothing like she had earlier this week at the U.S. Open.Mertens, a 27-year-old Belgian, was playing loosely and aggressively, while Gauff, the 19-year-old American superstar, made error after error on just about every stroke. Gauff, usually possessing preternatural emotional maturity and composure, showed frustration throughout the early part of the match, uncharacteristically yelling out angrily after a double fault in the first set, which Mertens won 6-3.It was suddenly easy to imagine Gauff’s run at the U.S. Open coming to an end on this cool New York evening.Instead, Gauff turned it on and turned the emotional tables on Mertens. She won the second set less shakily, 6-3, and by the third, it was clear how badly Gauff wanted to win, as she used her immense foot speed to track down every ball, forcing Mertens into errors. Gauff won the third set cleanly, 6-0.“The energy today definitely helped me, I felt you guys, I was playing every point my hardest,” Gauff said in her on-court interview. “When you lose the first set, you know that you have to show that you left all that energy in the first set and you’re ready to play.”Gauff said that the “three setters show everybody else that I’m not going down without a fight.”The early night match at Arthur Ashe Stadium drew a packed house that included the pop star Justin Bieber and his wife, the model and influencer Hailey Bieber, along with the Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour and the actress Katie Holmes.The crowd was lopsided for Gauff from the night’s opening serve. Cheers of “Let’s go, Coco” and “Finish her, Coco” boomed throughout the stadium. The crowd jumped to its feet and fans high-fived each other at every positive turn for Gauff, though it was slow going until the second set.Friday marked the third time the two had faced each other, with Gauff winning their last encounter in straight sets at the 2022 French Open. Gauff acknowledged in an interview before the match that she had won their last encounter handily, and wasn’t expecting to win so easily this time around.Not long into the first set it seemed almost certain that Mertens would advance to the round of 16. Then everything flipped.Gauff, who showed uncharacteristic vulnerability in the first set, turned the tables on Mertens in the second set.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesGauff lost the first game of the second set, then fought hard to hold serve after six deuce points. On the sixth, she hit an ace down the middle and screamed “Come on!” It was her fourth ace of the match at that point. As the match wore on she crushed a risky overhead and when Mertens hit a loopy cross-court backhand, Gauff pounced, sprinting to the ball and then jumping in the air to crush it down the line with her forehand.When she clinched the second set with a backhand winner down the line, she pumped a fist, and extended her arms, beckoning the crowd to cheer for her. Mertens looked hopeless.Gauff started the third set energetically as Mertens’s game completely fell apart. She netted forehands, hit backhands long and double-faulted.Gauff will next play Caroline Wozniacki, who recently returned to tennis after retiring three years ago to focus on building a family. Wozniacki has had a stellar start to the tournament, defeating Petra Kvitova in straight sets in her first-round match and Jennifer Brady in three sets, after being down a set, in her second-round match.Gauff said she told Wozniacki when she retired that she wished she’d had a chance to play her. “That wish came true,” she said. “Playing a legend like her is really exciting and I’m not going to take the moment for granted.”Gauff, who had looked like a veteran as she steamrollered Mertens in the third set, quickly reminded us she is still a teenager.In an interview on the ESPN desk inside Ashe after the match, Gauff said she noticed Bieber in the crowd during the second set.“Oh yeah, I definitely saw who was there,” she said with a giggle. “I thought I cannot lose in front of Justin Bieber. I didn’t lose a game after I saw that. I got a little tight when I first saw him, then I remembered President Obama and Michelle Obama were at my first round match.” More

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    Caroline Wozniacki Is Getting Very Good at Comebacks

    Wozniacki keeps finding magic at the U.S. Open, but she’s not the only player enjoying a revival. Stan Wawrinka and Elina Svitolina also can’t find the exits.America likes to fancy itself the land of second chances. Show some humility. Work hard. A new you, or perhaps a better version of the old you, is just around the corner.So perhaps it’s fitting that comebacks have featured so prominently in the first days of the U.S. Open. Some have gone well — Caroline Wozniacki, Elina Svitolina, Stan Wawrinka, Jennifer Brady. Others — Venus Williams, who suffered an opening night drubbing — not so much.What binds them together though, is the seemingly irresistible pull of a sport and a life that so many players complain about but ultimately struggle to say goodbye to, knowing that once the door locks completely, as it does for everyone eventually, there is no way to unlock the pathway to the international glamour, fame and money of their former life.“It’s the competition,” said Brady, 28, who is rediscovering her form following two injury-plagued and mentally grueling years. “You just can’t replicate it.”That’s not all. On Thursday, there was the 38-year-old Wawrinka in the fading light of Court 17, which is a kind of tennis bullring, rolling back the years to a time before foot surgeries seemed to spell the end. He had just dispatched Tomas Etcheverry, who is 14 years his junior, in four gritty sets, rallying the capacity crowd of 2,800 which had been screaming for him all afternoon. He stirred them like an orchestra conductor, urging each bank of stands to get louder to earn their post-match, souvenir ball.“I like the emotion I get from tennis,” Wawrinka said later. “I also know the day I stop I will never find those emotions anywhere.”Friday afternoon’s third round delivered a tense, three-set battle between dueling comeback stories, as Wozniacki, 33, a former world No. 1 playing her first Grand Slam following a three-year, two-pregnancy retirement, outlasted Brady.It was the second time in three days that Wozniacki had found the old magic in Arthur Ashe Stadium, where she had her breakout run to the her first Grand Slam final 14 years ago. On Wednesday, she topped an old rival and two-time Wimbledon champion, Petra Kvitova, in two tight sets under the lights. On Friday, she came back from a set down against Brady, an Australian Open finalist in 2021, winning 12 of the final 14 games. She said three years ago she never thought she would be competing on this court again, much less winning.“What an honor this is,” she said Friday.Stan Wawrinka stole the show on Court 17 on Thursday, beating the much-younger Tomas Etcheverry in four sets.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesIt is fitting that Wawrinka and Wozniacki are clicking once more here. This is the tournament where Jimmy Connors went on his storied run to the semifinals in 1991 when he was 39. It’s where, in 2009, Kim Clijsters, took a wild-card entry and in just her second tournament back after a two-year break won the singles title.The enduring image of that night was Clijsters’s toddler daughter running across the court during the trophy ceremony. Her opponent in that final — Wozniacki.If ever there was a player that seemed done for good, Wozniacki was it.She had been playing almost her entire life. She had fulfilled her childhood dreams of reaching the top of the rankings and in 2018 winning a Grand Slam tournament title at the Australian Open. She had won $35 million in prize money and earned tens of millions more in endorsements.When Wozniacki left the sport in 2020, she had spent the previous two years battling ​rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic inflammatory disease that sometimes left her joints so swollen she struggled to get out of bed. She and her husband, David Lee, a retired N.B.A. player, were raising their two children in Florida, and Wozniacki had become a mainstay of tennis television commentary.The Wozniackis have always been an intense sports family. Her father played soccer for Denmark and Poland and her mother played volleyball for Poland. For Wozniacki, a fitness freak, tennis was a profession but also a cardio workout. But she did not play for so long during her temporary retirement that when the day arrived that she wanted to hit some balls she had no idea where her rackets were.The ball started coming off her strings as soundly as she felt it ever had.“I realized that, yes, I love playing tennis,” she said. “I love to play the game, I’m very passionate about it, and I want to be the best I possibly can be.”Pretty soon she was floating the idea of a comeback to her father, who has always been her coach, and her husband, who essentially said, ‘why not, you only live once.’ Now here she is in New York, with the kids in tow, taking her 3-year-old daughter, Olivia, to a park near her hotel in the morning, and competing for one of the biggest titles in the sport in the afternoon and evening. On off days she has been going to museums.“Pretty cool that I get to live my passion and be a mom and kind of wear many hats,” she said Friday after yet another win in a Grand Slam after so many years of them.There are, of course, different ways to go about a comeback. Svitolina, who is from Ukraine and like Wozniacki had a child last year, tried to remain fit through her pregnancy. Then she spent three months after childbirth reworking her game with a new coach, Raemon Sluiter.She played a series of smaller tournaments in the spring as she prepared for top-level tennis and set few expectations for immediate success, especially given how much energy she was spending raising money for relief efforts in Ukraine. In June, Svitolina made the quarterfinals of the French Open and in July she made the semifinals of Wimbledon. She and her husband, Gael Monfils, have left their daughter at home in Europe.“Pretty cool that I get to live my passion and be a mom and kind of wear many hats,” Wozniacki said Friday after advancing to the round of 16.Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConWozniacki, on the other hand, took the go-big-or-go-home approach, beginning her comeback at the two big U.S. Open tuneup tournaments in Montreal and outside Cincinnati, then playing the year’s final Grand Slam with just three post-comeback matches. She wrote in Vogue that she believed she could win the U.S. Open.Ultimately, most of the best tennis players come to understand that they are not simply athletes but also performers and entertainers. Once they make that leap, they begin to draw energy not just from the act of competing but also the feedback loop experienced by doing the thing they have done from the time they were very small, to the exclusion of nearly any other pursuit, in front of thousands of people.It becomes a kind of drug, and the fix isn’t available from simply playing a few friendly sets in a quiet park. Anyone can do that.“I love playing in front of a big crowd,” Wozniacki said Friday. “I love playing on the big stadiums. That’s exciting to me. That’s why I’m still playing. It’s a great feeling.” More