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    Roger Federer Faces Knee Surgery, Putting His Future in Doubt

    The 20-time Grand Slam champion will miss the U.S. Open and undergo his fourth knee surgery since 2016. He will be on crutches and off the tennis court “for many months.”There will be no U.S. Open for Roger Federer this year, and after his announcement on Sunday that he will have yet another knee operation, it is time to question whether he will play tennis on tour again.For now, Federer, one of the greatest athletes of this or any era, does not intend to retire, but after turning 40 last Sunday and after two operations on his right knee in 2020, he is well aware that the odds are heavily against him.He is an optimist, no doubt, long inclined to see the water bottle as half full. He has been successfully fending off retirement (and retirement questions) for more than a decade, but even he looked and sounded glum on Sunday as he described his situation in a post on Instagram, a medium that did not exist when he began playing Grand Slam tournaments in the late 1990s.“I will be on crutches for many weeks and also out of the game for many months,” Federer said. “It’s going to be difficult of course in some ways but at the same time I know it’s the right thing to do. Because I want to be running around later as well again, and I want to give myself a glimmer of hope also to return to the tour in some shape or form. I am realistic, don’t get me wrong. I know how difficult it is at this age right now to do another surgery and try it, but look, I want to be healthy.”For most of his remarkable career, Federer seemed to lead a charmed existence: free of major injury and ennui in a Darwinian sport that can grind down players’ bodies and psyches.Where others saw inconvenience, he saw opportunity: embracing the tour, the competition, the news conferences and the grueling travel even when he and his wife, Mirka, were on the road with their four young children.“All I can tell you after four years of traveling with him is that he was one of the best at not complaining and not letting people know what was going on if he was having physical problems and not using stuff as an excuse,” Paul Annacone, his former coach, said in a telephone interview on Sunday.Federer had to cope with chronic back pain and other ailments as he rose to prominence and stayed there.“He has made it look a lot smoother than it was,” Annacone said.He did not have his first operation of any kind until 2016 when he was 34. After a six-month layoff in the wake of that left knee operation, he roared back in 2017 to win the Australian Open and Wimbledon. In 2018, he ran his total of Grand Slam singles titles to 20, a men’s record, by winning the Australian Open again.For most of his career, Federer seemed to lead a charmed existence, free of major injury.Usa Today Uspw/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBut fortune has not favored him of late. In 2019, he had two championship points on his serve against Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final and was unable to convert, losing in five sets.In 2020, he required two operations on his right knee. He missed more than a year of competition, and though the first stage of that forced break coincided with the tour’s pandemic hiatus, he struggled to hit his customary high notes after his return as he competed sporadically.He played five tournaments in 2021 and was able to reach the quarterfinals only at Wimbledon, where he was beaten, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-0, last month by Hubert Hurkacz, a talented Polish player who has yet to reach a Grand Slam singles final. If that turns out to be Federer’s final match at the All England Club or his final match on tour, it is far from fitting. But his failure to win so much as a game in the third set on the court where he has won a men’s record eight singles titles was also a sign that something was awry.He confirmed that on Sunday while making it clear that his 2021 season was over.“I hurt myself further during the grass-court season and Wimbledon,” he said. “It’s just not the way to go forward.”He suggested that doctors had told him that surgery was his best option, not just for tennis but for life after tennis.“Unfortunately, they told me for the medium to long term to feel better I will need surgery, so I decided to do it,” he said.Federer did not explain the nature of his surgery or even which knee would require surgery. His agent Tony Godsick did not immediately respond to messages seeking clarification.But Nicholas DiNubile, an American orthopedic surgeon from Philadelphia who specializes in knee surgeries, said that Federer’s timeline — “many weeks” on crutches and “many months” away from the tour — suggested that this could be a more serious operation.“As a knee specialist, I’m certainly concerned,” DiNubile, who has never treated Federer, wrote in an email. “More surgeries are not necessarily better. At this point, he is probably not dealing with simpler things like meniscus tears but rather the arthritis and cushion (articular cartilage) damage that tends to occur over time. If wear and development of arthritis is part of the issue, you can’t fix that with arthroscopic surgery.”DiNubile said “regenerative techniques,” including microfracture surgery, might be tried.“His knee might feel better, but will he be able to compete at the level he would need to, especially in today’s very physical and grueling game with younger and younger opponents with power and unlimited energy?” DiNubile said.Those are tough questions to answer in the affirmative no matter what the precise nature of Federer’s latest injury.Federer and his wife, Mirka, after his most recent Grand Slam victory at the 2018 Australian Open.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKen Rosewall, the Australian who is the only other man in the Open era to remain in the top 10 after the age of 40, did not have to overcome major medical issues to do so. Rosewall’s primary concern as he remained a contender in the 1970s was his younger, hungry opposition.Federer must solve a more complex equation if he is to chase a more appropriate endgame than a lopsided defeat at Wimbledon.For now, he remains tied with his longtime rivals Djokovic and Rafael Nadal with 20 Grand Slam singles titles. It appears quite possible that the No. 1 ranked Djokovic will be the only one of the three to play at the U.S. Open in New York, which begins Aug. 30. Nadal is struggling with the return of a left foot problem that threatened his career in 2005, a problem he has managed effectively through the years with extensive therapy and a custom-made shoe insole.After losing (and limping) in the Washington tournament this month, Nadal withdrew from the National Bank Open in Toronto and the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio, and returned to Spain for treatment. He has yet to confirm that he will play at the U.S. Open, where he has won four singles titles.Federer, who won his five U.S. Open titles from 2004 to 2008, last played in New York in 2019, losing in the quarterfinals in five sets to Grigor Dimitrov in what could very well turn out to be Federer’s last U.S. Open match.“He’s in good hands,” Annacone said, referring to Federer’s support team. “But at some point we knew Father Time, in some way, shape or form, was going to wrestle the reins out of his hands and Rafa’s and Serena’s. Let’s just hope that all of them can retire on their own terms, not stop because they have to.”Federer celebrating his U.S. Open title victory in 2008, the last time he won the event.Uli Seit for The New York Times More

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    Top Stars in Tennis Choose Rest Ahead of the U.S. Open

    The year’s final Grand Slam tournament begins in less than three weeks, but players including Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams have chosen to skip the usual hardcourt warm-up events.As the tennis tours warm up for the U.S. Open in the summer heat of North America, the sport’s most accomplished players will arrive in New York cold.The five active players with the most Grand Slam singles titles to their names — Serena Williams, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Venus Williams — are missing from both this week’s National Bank Open in Toronto and Montreal, and next week’s Western & Southern Open in the Cincinnati suburbs. The veterans have all played selective schedules this year, but their wholesale absence from the warm-up to the year’s final major tournament, which begins on Aug. 30, is striking.Djokovic, 34, was the only one of the group to compete at the Tokyo Olympics, while Federer, Nadal, and Serena Williams opted out, and Venus Williams’s singles ranking of 112 did not qualify her for the Olympics.Djokovic’s bid for his first gold medal ended in disappointment. After reaching the semifinals in both singles and mixed doubles, Djokovic lost the singles bronze medal match to Pablo Carreño Busta, and pulled out of the mixed doubles bronze medal match citing a left shoulder injury.Djokovic, who will attempt in New York to become the first man to win all four Grand Slam singles titles in the calendar year since 1969, blamed his withdrawal from Cincinnati on fatigue.“I am taking a bit longer to recover and recuperate after quite a taxing journey from Australia to Tokyo,” Djokovic, the Western & Southern defending champion, said. “Sadly, that means I won’t be ready to compete in Cincinnati this year so I’ll turn my focus and attention to U.S. Open and spend some more time with family. See you in New York soon!”Nadal, 35, is the only one of the group to have played a warm-up event in North America. After withdrawing from both Wimbledon and the Olympics with a left foot injury, he played two matches at the Citi Open in Washington, beating Jack Sock before losing to the 50th-ranked Lloyd Harris.Nadal, who has a longstanding foot problem because his navicular bone did not correctly ossify during childhood, was upbeat about his progress after his loss to Harris.“Best news: the foot was better than yesterday,” Nadal said last week. “I was able to move a bit better, so that is very important, especially for me personally, to keep enjoying the sport and keep having energy, believing that important things are possible.”But after further practices in Washington and Toronto, Nadal withdrew from the National Bank Open on Tuesday.“I was suffering, especially in that first match,” Nadal said Tuesday of his play in Washington. “And I was suffering on the practices, too. But you always expect an improvement or you hope to improve, and that’s why I came here. And this improvement didn’t happen, no? So I really believe that I am not able to compete at the level that I need because the foot won’t allow me to move the way that I need.”Federer, who turned 40 on Sunday, cited the knee injury that forced him out of the Olympics in withdrawing from Toronto and Cincinnati.Serena Williams, who turns 40 next month, cited a leg injury on Tuesday in withdrawing from Cincinnati. Her WTA Tour ranking has fallen to 20th.Naomi Osaka, the defending U.S. Open champion, lost her third-round match at the Tokyo Olympics, but planned to play in Cincinnati.Seth Wenig/Associated PressWomen’s tennis has already had several torch-passing moments on the Grand Slam stage, like Naomi Osaka beating Williams in the final of the 2018 U.S. Open and in the semifinals of this year’s Australian Open.Osaka was already on her way to Cincinnati, her agent Stuart Duguid said on Wednesday. Osaka, 23, is the defending champion at the U.S. Open this year.The men, however, have lacked similar transition moments at the sport’s biggest events. When Dominic Thiem won last year’s U.S. Open at 27, he did so without having to face any of the so-called Big Three. Nadal and Federer both missed the tournament, and Djokovic defaulted from his fourth-round match after hitting a lineswoman with a ball. Thiem has been out of competition since June when he suffered an acute right wrist injury at a tournament in Majorca. He posted on Instagram on Wednesday that he was “swapping the splint for my racket again.”Thiem’s U.S. Open win last year remains the only Grand Slam singles championship won by a man born in the 1990s; 17 Grand Slam titles have been won by women born in that decade, with two more won by women born in the 2000s.Asked about the absence of established stars in the wake of Nadal’s withdrawal, the third-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas pointed out the problem’s upside.“I think there is room for new stars,” Tsitsipas said after his second-round win in Toronto. “It’s been a lot about them in recent years, and I think now it’s showing that things are changing. We see a different generation of players stepping up and showing what they are capable of.“It’s interesting to have this kind of variation and change of thrones, let’s call it,” Tsitsipas added. “It’s interesting for our game. We, ourselves, we have generated our own team of people and fans that support us, give us love, and are there for us in each single match following us.”One fan seemed plenty excited for Tsitsipas in Toronto, begging “please touch me!” as he reached down toward him.There was no physical contact, but the fan left satisfied. “He smiled at me! He literally smiled!” More

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    How Naomi Osaka's Loss Gives Tokyo Its Latest Olympic Setback

    The tennis superstar, who lit the caldron during the opening ceremony as one of Japan’s biggest sports celebrities, was upset in the third round and is out of the Tokyo Games.TOKYO — For Japan, the Tokyo Olympics have been filled with bumps and potholes and disappointing surprises. A yearlong postponement, the barring of international fans — then all fans — and the hemorrhaging of billions of dollars from lost ticket sales and tourism. Even a typhoon blowing just north on Tuesday provided a storm cloud metaphor they did not need. More

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    Tennis, Everyone?

    Furi Sport, a new tennis equipment and fashion line, wants to do nothing less than change the game.The first time Erick Mathelier visited Greenwich, Conn., was an eye-opening experience.“The houses were humongous,” he recalled, sitting outside a Lower East Side cafe one morning in June. “I was like, ‘Wow, people live like this?’” To the eyes of a teenager from the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, Greenwich was a window to a different world, one where the houses weren’t just bigger, the dreams were.His first glimpse of this rarefied enclave on the Long Island Sound came through tennis, in a van on the way to an Ivan Lendl tennis club for a match.Tennis was a gateway for Mr. Mathelier. He recalled his first time on an airplane at age 14 for a trip to a tournament in Bermuda. “It’s funny, I was teased because I was so scared to fly, and by 14 most of my friends had flown,” he said. The sport was his ticket to a scholarship to a Division 1 college, Saint Francis in Brooklyn Heights. Two decades later, Mr. Mathelier, now 42, is a tennis professional — off the court.Last month, he introduced Furi Sport, an equipment — rackets, strings, overgrips and bags — and apparel line with his business partner Michelle Spiro. The idea behind the company is to break down the entry barrier to tennis, to shake off the elitist country-club flavor that insulates the world of Wimbledon and its all-white dress code.Black is the defining color of the Furi Sport T-shirts, hoodies, bags and rackets. At $199, the rackets are priced with inclusivity in mind, competitive with, yet slightly below, the top of the competition (Prince, Head, Wilson, Yonex, Babolat). Mr. Mathelier knows from experience that tennis can take you places, if you can gain access to it.How Others LiveMr. Mathelier grew up in a predominantly Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn, the only son of a single mother from Haiti. He was an active child whose first love was baseball. As a 10-year-old, he was one of two African American kids on a team in Sheepshead Bay.Then, in the summer of 1989, Yusef Hawkins, a Black teenager from East New York, was brutally murdered by a mob of white kids in Bensonhurst. As racial tension surged in the city, Mr. Mathelier’s mother pulled him out of baseball, fearful that Yusef Hawkins’s tragic fate would befall her son.“I was so sad,” Mr. Mathelier said. “I needed something to do.” Deeming himself too short for basketball, he set his sights on tennis. Why? He’s not sure. His mother told him to crack open the Yellow Pages and find a way to play, which led him to the Prospect Park Tennis Center.The tennis club, situated at the nexus of the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Little Caribbean and Crown Heights — which at the time was years away from being gentrified — drew a diverse bunch.“Just seeing how people lived definitely changed my perspective,” Mr. Mathelier said.Mr. Mathelier had no professional tennis ambitions until he met Ms. Spiro by chance at a fashion event in 2014. By then, he had hung up his racket to focus on a series of start-ups.Ms. Spiro, 53, spent 25 years in corporate fashion in increasingly senior buying and sales roles at Macy’s, DKNY, Polo Ralph Lauren Underwear and Calvin Klein Men’s Underwear — companies that were held by public giants like Sara Lee and Warnaco. By 2015, she had become intrigued by the street wear movement.“The luxury market was all about showing how much money you have through what you were buying,” Ms. Spiro said. “What I loved about street wear is that it was this exclusive inclusivity. The currency changed from cash to being in the know.”Mr. Mathelier’s teenage tennis journey resonated with Ms. Spiro, who observed that Supreme, Palace and A Bathing Ape were anchored in skateboarding. Moncler and The North Face grew out of outdoor recreation, and Carhartt and Timberland were backed by construction. Tennis had no street cred.Ms. Spiro called Mr. Mathelier and said, “I have this crazy idea.” How about a rare Black- and female-owned tennis brand, based in New York City and built on the idea of taking the sport out of the country club?The company’s clothing collection speaks to tennis’s off-court culture.via FURI SportThe vibe is more streetwear than country club.via FURI SportTennis for EveryoneHigh-quality, competitive equipment was central to the idea. But there’s a reason the sport is dominated by a handful of big brands. “Everyone is just stuck with what equipment that they’re used to,” said Mr. Mathelier, who was committed to Prince before founding Furi. “Even though they may complain about the newer version of their racket, they just play with it.”Then there’s the fact that what looks like a relatively simple piece of equipment requires navigating a byzantine network of Asian manufacturing cliques. Ms. Spiro and Mr. Mathelier enlisted his childhood friend from Prospect Park Tennis Center, Gerald Sarmiento, a pro-shop owner, coach and master stringer who knows the nuances of rackets better than his own backhand. He told them not to bother unless they came to the market with something that gives the player an “ooh-ahh feeling,” Mr. Mathelier recalled.When it came time to develop a racket, Mr. Sarmiento connected them with Yasu Sakamoto, a Japanese racket maestro with 40 years of experience consulting for companies including Wilson.Through several years of development, frustrating trials and errors, they landed on a proprietary design with energy return technology and vibration reduction technology that gave Mr. Sarmiento that special feeling. Two models, a lite and a pro version, are for sale on the Furi Sport website.The next challenge was recruiting other players. “People would be like, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’” Mr. Mathelier said of pitching Furi’s racket. Once, at the McCarren Park courts in Brooklyn, he approached a friend and her hitting partner.“He looked at me like I was a traveling salesperson with my trunk,” Mr. Mathelier said. “Well, now he plays with Furi.”For every dismissal, there was someone willing to help. A tweet sent to Caitlin Thompson, the publisher of the independent tennis magazine Racquet, led to a meeting. “We became hitting partners because I was really intrigued about the idea of new equipment in the space,” said Ms. Thompson, who has used the Furi rackets, grips and bags.She sees Furi’s opportunity in its positioning as a beginner-friendly option for recreational players, a rare direct-to-consumer brand (think of what Casper did for mattresses) in a market steeped in pro-shop culture.“So much of tennis is catered toward this notion of professional athletes,” Ms. Thompson said. “This is a racket that Roger Federer plays with. This is the racket that Serena Williams plays with.” She said that Mr. Federer’s racket is so heavy, most recreational players can’t lift it above their heads. Yet pro shops can’t keep it in stock because he plays with it.The Social ComponentFor Mr. Mathelier, Furi is a tool to reach kids growing up in circumstances similar to his own. Junior rackets will be coming for fall. Furi is sponsoring three junior tennis players — Carter Smallwood, Olivia Medrano and Bode Vujnovich — and donates grips, strings and rackets to youth programs, including Kings County Tennis League, which began in 2010, when its founder Michael McCasland posted a sign offering free tennis lessons on a dilapidated court near the Marcy Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It has since grown into a tennis program for kids living in Brooklyn public housing that serves more than 200 people.“You can use tennis to get out,” Mr. Mathelier said. “It is really good at creating structure, building strategy. A lot of former tennis players end up becoming successful businesspeople.”The lifestyle portion of Furi Sport draws on Ms. Spiro’s expertise. Luis Santos, a designer who has worked for Christian Lacroix, Kenzo and Paco Rabanne, created a collection of clothing that is not performance wear — that’s still in development — but speaks to tennis’s broader, off-court culture. T-shirt dresses, shirts with cutout shoulders and wide-leg, tapered khakis and cargo pants can be worn by anyone heading to a post-match drink. Or anyone who wants to be in Furi’s club.A blue tennis ball with a smirk is Furi Sport’s trademark, “symbolizing the fierce energy and velocity that comes from within,” according to the company’s website. The name Furi was chosen partly because “fury” evokes an attitude of fire-in-the-belly grit essential to a sport in which every match results in one winner and one loser.“You have to be comfortable with losing,” Mr. Mathelier said. “We have a saying internally,” Mr. Mathelier said. “‘Dream big and let it fly.’” He directed attention to his forearm, where those words have been immortalized in a subtle, faded tattoo. More

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    Shirley Fry Irvin, Tennis Star of the ’40s and ’50s, Is Dead at 94

    The fastest player of her day, she played down her own ability but admitted, “Billie Jean King said I was her idol.”Shirley Fry Irvin, a tennis player who in the pre-Open era swept the singles and doubles titles in the four Grand Slam tournaments, died on Tuesday in Naples, Fla. She was 94. Her death was announced by the International Tennis Hall of Fame, where she was inducted in 1970.At a time when the players were amateurs, the rackets were made of wood and the championship surfaces were mostly grass, Irvin (who was known in her playing days as Shirley Fry) won the French title (on clay) in 1951, the Wimbledon and United States titles in 1956 and the Australian title in 1957. She then retired from tennis to raise a family.She was one of only 10 women to win the singles titles at all four of those championships.She also won 12 women’s doubles championships in those four tournaments, the first 11 partnered with Doris Hart and the 12th with Althea Gibson. In the annual Wightman Cup competition between the United States and Britain, she played six years, winning 10 of her 12 matches. At 5-foot-5 and 125 pounds, she was the fastest player of her day. But she apparently did not think much of her talents.“Billie Jean King said I was her idol,” she told The Orlando Sentinel in 2000. “That flatters me, because I really wasn’t that good of a player. I wasn’t a natural. I had athletic ability, I could run and I could concentrate. I excelled in running and concentration. I had no serve.”Hart, her frequent doubles partner, admired Irvin’s tenacity. “Shirley was one of the best runners I ever saw play,” she said in 2000. “She ran everything down.”Shirley June Fry was born on June 30, 1927, in Akron, Ohio. She was an athletic child, trying hockey, badminton, baseball, archery, ice skating, swimming and running as well as tennis. In 1999, she told The Akron Beacon Journal, “I wanted to play football, but once we got into junior high school it became the boys and the girls.”Irvin waves her hat in 2004 as 50 Hall of Famers are introduced during ceremonies celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. She was inducted in 1970.Victoria Arocho/Associated PressTennis won out. At a Hall of Fame event in Newport, R.I., in 2004, she told the broadcaster and columnist Bud Collins that she had begun traveling alone to tournaments all over the nation when she was 10.“My parents would put me on a bus in Akron and off I’d go,” she said. “Usually, someone met me at the other end, but I would go to Travelers Aid if there was a problem. It built self-reliance, and it was fun.”When she was 11, she told The New York Times, “I traveled by train to a tournament in Philadelphia, and then, at my father’s suggestion, went on to New York. I took a train to Penn Station and then the subway to Forest Hills, where he had made a reservation for me at the Forest Hills Inn. Then I walked all the way to the New York World’s Fair.”In 1941, at 14, she played in the United States amateur championship, the youngest person to compete there until Kathy Horvath (who was a month younger) in 1979. In 1942, she became the youngest United States amateur quarterfinalist. For 13 consecutive years (1944-56), she ranked in the United States Top 10. She was No. 1 in 1956.She found time to earn a degree in human relations from Rollins College in Florida in 1949. After the 1954 season, she retired from tennis because of a nagging elbow injury and got a job as a clerk at The St. Petersburg Times in Florida, where she made about 75 cents an hour. As that newspaper recalled in 1989, “One of her first duties as copy girl was sending the story of her own retirement down to the composing room.”After a few months of recreational tennis, she entered two Florida tournaments in 1955 and won both, in one of which she beat Hart in the final. That summer, she quit her job and returned to full-time tennis.The next year provided her crowning glory at Wimbledon, where she beat Gibson in the quarterfinals, Louise Brough in the semifinals and Angela Buxton of England in a 50-minute final.“I play better when it doesn’t matter if I win or lose,” she told The New York Times about her victory at Wimbledon, which came on her ninth try. “After eight attempts at Wimbledon, I didn’t think I was going to win.” Her subsequent United States championship was her first at Forest Hills in 16 tries.Shirley Fry in 1951 in a semifinal match against Louise Brough at Wimbledon. She won, but lost in the finals to Doris Hart.Central Press/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesShe won the Australian title in 1957 and then retired again. That year she married Karl Irvin, an American advertising executive whom she had met when he was working in Australia and served as an umpire for some of her matches there.“During one match,” she told The Times, “I became furious over several of his calls and asked that he be removed and that he not work any more of my matches. Shortly after that, we were married and had four children within the space of five years.”Her husband died in 1976. She is survived by their children, Mark, Scott, Lori and Karen, and 12 grandchildren.Irvin lived in West Hartford, Conn., for 35 years before moving to Florida. She taught tennis for three decades, played in senior tournaments and, at 58, won the United States clay-court championship for women 55 and older. When her knees gave out at 62, she stopped playing tennis in favor of golf, which had become her favorite sport.She loved golf, but she was not that good at it, generally shooting higher than 100.“It’s a little embarrassing,” she said in 2000. “You say, ‘She won the Wimbledon tennis tournament?’ Then you see me playing golf and say, ‘How could she?’”Frank Litsky, a longtime sportswriter for The Times, died in 2018. Peter Keepnews contributed reporting. More

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    Chasing a Grand Slam: It’s Rarer Than You Think

    Novak Djokovic has claimed this year’s Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon. Only the U.S. Open is left to be won. But no man has achieved a Grand Slam since 1969, and no woman since 1988.Most fans know about the tennis Grand Slam: winning the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open in the same calendar year. More

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    Winning Junior Wimbledon Is ‘Crazy’, but It’s Still ‘Just the Juniors’

    This year’s boys’ final, which featured two American teenagers, represented a surprising success for U.S. tennis as the sport desperately seeks another top men’s player.WIMBLEDON, England — As Novak Djokovic and Matteo Berrettini played the first set of the Wimbledon men’s singles final Sunday afternoon on Centre Court, two young Americans were wrapping up the boys’ singles final, 100 yards and also a world away. More

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    Novak Djokovic Wins Wimbledon, U.S. Open is Next

    Djokovic, now with 20 career Grand Slam titles, suggested that the three-way tie with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal could be broken at the U.S. Open.WIMBLEDON, England — The Big Three now have 20 apiece.It is a development that would have seemed unlikely to Novak Djokovic as he made his way onto the tour in the aughts with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal racking up Grand Slam singles titles. More