Tennis

“Having those months off to work on certain stuff definitely helped,” she said. More

Robert Ryland, the first Black professional tennis player and for many years a well-regarded coach of younger players and celebrities, died on Aug. 2 at his stepson’s home in Provincetown, Mass. He was 100.His wife, Nancy Ingersoll, said the cause was aspiration pneumonia. They had left their home in Manhattan in March because of the pandemic, she said, so that her son, Raymond Ingersoll, could help with his care.During Mr. Ryland’s prime playing years, the major tennis tournaments were largely all-white affairs. The Grand Slam tournaments were amateur events; in 1956 Althea Gibson became the first Black player to win a Grand Slam with her victory at the French Open.Mr. Ryland was a top player in the American Tennis Association, a Black organization, winning its men’s singles titles in 1955 and 1956. In 1959, in his late 30s, he was invited to join Jack March’s World Pro Championships, and was paid $300 for playing a tournament in Cleveland. That, according to the Black Tennis Hall of Fame, made him the first professional Black player.Past his prime, he didn’t last long on the pro circuit — “I had only exposed myself to Black tennis, and we didn’t have that type of competition,” he told The Wall Street Journal last year — but he broke a formidable barrier.“People stand on his shoulders,” Leslie Allen, a top women’s player in the 1970s and ’80s whom he coached, told The Journal, “and they don’t even know who he is.”Robert Henry Ryland Jr. was born on June 16, 1920, in Chicago. His father was a postal worker. His mother, Augusta (Gibbs) Ryland, went into a tuberculosis hospital when Robert was young and died four years later; his twin brother had died as an infant.His father was of Irish and Native American descent, and his mother was Black.“When you’re part Black and part white you can deal better with prejudice,” Mr. Ryland once said. “You know what Black is and you know what white is. You know everybody’s the same.”After his mother became ill, he went to live with his grandmother in Mobile, Ala., for several years. When he returned to Chicago, his father began teaching him tennis, and he took to it.“I used to sleep with my racket,” he told the New York radio station WINS this year.After graduating from Tilden Technical High School in Chicago, he won a scholarship to Xavier University of Louisiana, but he left in 1941 to join the Army and served for four years. In 1946 he won a scholarship to Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit, where he anchored the tennis team for two seasons and competed in N.C.A.A. tournaments.He left college again in 1947 to play tennis on the West Coast. In 1954, Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State College (now Tennessee State University) lured him back to college as a player-coach. He earned a bachelor of science degree in physical education there in 1955.Mr. Ryland won various local tennis titles in the cities where he lived, and he continued to play competitively into his 80s. He also became known as a tennis teacher, especially at the Midtown Tennis Club in New York, where he worked from 1963 to 1990. Arthur Ashe, Harold Solomon and Renee Blount were among those he tutored.“You could almost identify Robert Ryland students based on how they struck the ball and how solid they were as players,” Ms. Allen said in a phone interview.She said that Mr. Ryland, a friend of her mother’s, first gave her coaching when she was 11 and wasn’t quite ready to embrace the sport. She became more passionate years later, and while in college committed herself to becoming a pro; others were telling her she was already too old, she said, but Mr. Ryland knew better.“It was his ability to see where an athlete was in their journey and what they needed to get to the next step” that made him a good coach, she said. “When I finally got the tennis bug, he had laid a good foundation for me to build on.”Mr. Ryland also coached celebrities, either teaching them the game or trying to make them better at it.“Stars can be hard to teach,” he told New York magazine in 1981. “They have problems coming down off their ego pedestals. Bill Cosby thought he knew how to do everything already and didn’t have to be taught. Barbra Streisand had a photographer around all the time. The key is to keep your mind quiet on the courts.”Mr. Ryland’s previous marriages ended in divorce. Ms. Ingersoll said that she and Mr. Ryland had been together since 1978. His stepson also survives him.Mr. Ryland was quick to provide tennis pointers even in his old age, and would do so during strolls past the courts in Central Park.“He’d say, ‘Step in, catch the ball early,’” Ms. Ingersoll said in a phone interview. “He was always there with advice.” More

Both looked strong in the first round of the Top Seed Open in Kentucky and will face off Thursday in their 31st meeting. More

After the coronavirus paused the tours, Williams is gearing up for the U.S. Open, her next opportunity to tie Margaret Court’s Grand Slam singles title record. More

Rafael Nadal will not defend his United States Open men’s singles title.On Tuesday, one day after the entry deadline, Nadal announced that he was withdrawing from the tournament because of his concerns about travel during the coronavirus pandemic.“This is a decision that I did not want to take,” he said on Twitter. “But in this case, I am following my heart by deciding that right now I prefer not to travel.”Nadal, 34 and ranked No. 2 behind Novak Djokovic, is a four-time singles champion at the U.S. Open and won the singles title last year after a lengthy and memorable five-set duel with Daniil Medvedev in the final.With 19 Grand Slam singles titles, he is just one short of matching Roger Federer’s men’s record, but he has decided to wait. His next chance could come at the French Open, which he has won a record 12 times and which is scheduled to start on Sept. 27 — just two weeks after the men’s final at the U.S. Open.“Rafa is one of the greatest champions in the history of our sport, and we support this decision,” said Stacey Allaster, the U.S. Open tournament director. “I know our fans will be disappointed to not have Rafa playing this year’s Western & Southern Open and U.S. Open. However, for the fans and the sport, we look forward to being inspired by him when he decides he’s ready to play.”Because of temporary changes to the ranking system, Nadal will still be able to count the points from winning last year’s U.S. Open even though he is skipping this year’s event. He did not specify on Tuesday whether he would play in this year’s French Open, but he had already committed to playing at least some of the clay-court season when he announced he would play at the Madrid Open the week after the U.S. Open.But the Madrid event, one of the most prestigious tournaments on both the men’s and women’s tours, was canceled on Tuesday after the organizers received a recommendation from Spanish public health authorities to call it off because of an increase in positive virus tests in some parts of Spain.“The situation is very complicated worldwide; the Covid-19 cases are increasing,” Nadal said. “It looks like we still don’t have control of it.”Nadal was in Indian Wells, Calif., in early March, set to play in the BNP Paribas Open before that event was called off on the eve of the qualifying tournament. He traveled back to his base in Majorca, where he went through lockdown before returning to train at the tennis academy he started in Manacor, his home city.The women’s tour resumed this week with a clay-court event in Palermo, Italy, but the men’s tour has been shut down for nearly five months and is not set to resume until later this month in New York, with the Western & Southern Open and the U.S. Open.The Western & Southern Open, normally played in the suburbs of Cincinnati, was moved to New York this year to create a doubleheader in a controlled environment where it would be easier to maintain strict health and safety protocols. Spectators will not be allowed on site at either tournament.“All my respects to the U.S.T.A., the U.S. Open organizers and the ATP for trying to put the event together for the players and fans around the world through TV,” Nadal said.But Nadal will instead be watching from afar. So will Federer, who announced he would not play again in 2020 as he recovered from his latest knee surgery. The last Grand Slam tournament without Federer and Nadal was the 1999 U.S. Open, where Federer, then 18, was eliminated in qualifying. The Open remains the only Grand Slam tournament where Federer and Nadal have not played each other.Ashleigh Barty, the No. 1 women’s player, announced last week from her home in Australia that she was withdrawing from the Open because of concerns about travel and the health risks for some of her team members.But the vast majority of leading players are, at least for now, still entered, including Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Karolina Pliskova, Sofia Kenin and Bianca Andreescu, the reigning women’s champion. In the men’s event, Djokovic and six other top 10 players remain on the entry list.But as Alexander Zverev pointed out last week, players are closely monitoring the health situation in New York and the travel situation internationally.The U.S.T.A. laid out key elements of its plan on Tuesday in an update sent to players, explaining that if a player leaves the tournament “bubble” without written permission from Allaster or the tournament’s chief medical officer, the player will be removed from the event and fined an unspecified amount. If a coach or other guest of a player leaves the bubble, that credential will be revoked, and the coach or guest will be required to leave the tournament hotel within 24 hours. The coach or guest would also be fined and prohibited from receiving a credential to the 2021 U.S. Open, the U.S.T.A. said.Several leading players, including the former U.S. Open champion Andy Murray, have lobbied recently for strong penalties for those who break health and safety protocols.Players staying in private housing instead of an official hotel must rent through the U.S.T.A. and abide by a safety plan. Players must pay all costs for 24-hour security that is approved, and capable of being monitored, by the U.S.T.A. Players in private housing are not permitted to stay with or receive visits from individuals who are not part of the officially approved entourage that is being tested by the U.S.T.A. for the virus.Each player is allowed to come with a maximum of three accredited guests or team members: up from one in the initial planning, which was a proposal that Djokovic criticized. But only one of those guests will be allowed access to competition areas, locker rooms, player dining and lounges.Locker rooms will be limited to 30 players at a time, with players encouraged to leave as soon as possible. In the absence of spectators, new outdoor fitness areas and outdoor lounge spaces are being created on-site.Players and their guests will be tested twice for the virus once they arrive, about 48 hours apart, and antibody tests will also be encouraged. Those who test positive for antibodies will be tested for the virus less frequently during the tournament.Those who test positive during the tournament will be withdrawn automatically and isolated for 10 days. Players who test positive upon arrival could still compete if they received medical clearance after the necessary isolation. If a player is sharing a hotel room with a guest and that guest tests positive during the event, the player will be automatically withdrawn.Players arriving from outside the United States will not face an additional quarantine requirement upon arrival in New York, according to the U.S.T.A. But it is still unclear whether players or their team members will face quarantine if they travel on to Europe for the clay-court season, although the U.S.T.A. said it was making “positive progress” on that front. More

On all but the two biggest show courts, line calls will be made by Hawk-Eye Live to reduce the number of people on site during the pandemic. More

Ashleigh Barty, the top-ranked women’s singles player, has confirmed that she will not play in the United States Open because of concerns about traveling during the coronavirus pandemic.Barty, 24, soared from outside the top 10 to No. 1 last year when she won the French Open and three other singles titles, including the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, China.She has also confirmed that she will not play the Western & Southern Open, an event normally played near Cincinnati that has been moved to New York this year to be staged at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center ahead of the U.S. Open.The U.S. Open is still set to begin on Aug. 31. The last time the tournament was held without the top women’s singles player was 2010, when Serena Williams withdrew because of a foot injury.“I love both events so it was a difficult decision,” Barty said in a statement sent to Australian media outlets on Thursday. “But there are still significant risks involved due to Covid-19, and I don’t feel comfortable putting my team and I in that position.”Barty, who has been practicing in Brisbane in her native Australia, is the most prominent women’s player to withdraw from the U.S. Open, but she is unlikely to be the last, with No. 2 Simona Halep practicing on clay and committed to playing a clay-court event in Prague that begins on Aug. 10.“I respect every player’s decision,” said Stacey Allaster, the U.S. Open tournament director, who has been pushing hard with her staff to salvage the tournament, which will be played without spectators and with extensive health precautions. “Ash made her decision on what she thinks is best for her and her team. We wish her well, and I am looking forward to seeing her return to play as she is a fan favorite.”The Games ResumeSports and the VirusUpdated July 29, 2020Here’s what’s happening as the world of sports slowly comes back to life:Baseball’s botched return could be a warning for the N.F.L., which is returning without sequestering players. It may be too late for the league to change its plans.Baseball’s woes have the N.B.A. convinced that a “bubble” approach is the only kind that can work for team sports in the Covid-19 era.At least 17 members of the Miami Marlins, including 15 players, tested positive, throwing baseball’s schedule into turmoil.Halep and three other members of the women’s top 10 — No. 5 Elina Svitolina, No. 6 Bianca Andreescu and No. 10 Naomi Osaka — also have not entered the Western & Southern Open, which starts Aug. 20.Andreescu, a Canadian, is the reigning U.S. Open singles champion. Osaka, who represents Japan but has long lived in the United States, won the 2018 U.S. Open singles title and has become one of the sport’s biggest stars.Their management teams did not respond to messages on Wednesday inquiring whether they planned to play in the U.S. Open.Andreescu, 20, has not competed since last October after injuring her knee. She had hoped to return to play in the Miami Open in March, but that event was canceled because of the coronavirus. She initially committed publicly to defending her title at the U.S. Open.In a normal season, players would pay a significant price in the rankings for skipping a Grand Slam event, but both the men’s and women’s tours have adjusted their rankings to allow players to count their best result at an event from 2019 or 2020. That means Andreescu will keep the 2,000 points she acquired from winning the U.S. Open last year regardless of whether she plays this year.But Barty, who reached the fourth round of the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2019, has made it clear for months that she was uncertain about making the journey. Australia’s restrictions on international travel have also been a concern, with Australian citizens requiring an exemption to leave the country and then being required to quarantine for 14 days upon returning.Barty would most likely qualify for an exemption and may still travel to Europe in September to play in clay-court events and defend her French Open title. The French Open is scheduled to begin Sept. 21.“I will make my decision on the French Open and the surrounding WTA European tournaments in the coming weeks,” she said in her statement. More

In a season full of foiled plans and economic peril, the WTA Tour suffered its biggest blow on Thursday when it was forced to cancel its remaining tournaments in 2020 in China, including its lucrative tour championships: the WTA Finals in Shenzhen.The cancellations, confirmed by a tennis official who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, came two weeks after a Chinese government sports agency recommended that the country call off most international sporting events for the remainder of the year because of the coronavirus pandemic.Steve Simon, the WTA’s chief executive, had expressed hope that China’s government and its tennis officials would allow the tournaments to proceed, just as it was allowing certain winter sports test events to go on ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.Negotiations proved unsuccessful, however, and the women’s tour will now have to cancel all seven events scheduled in October and November in China, which has rapidly become one the tour’s major markets and a key source of revenue.Simon could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday. But in an interview earlier this month, he spoke about the potential impact of losing the China swing, including the WTA Finals, which provided a record $14 million in prize money in its first year in Shenzhen in 2019 with backing from primary sponsor Shiseido, a Japanese cosmetics company. More