Tennis

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Tennis

      At the U.S. Open Tommy Paul Readies Himself for the Second Round

      by

      After numerous misfires with his career, Paul, an American seeded 14th at the U.S. Open, finds himself as comfortable on the court as off it, and into the second round in Queens.The last time Tommy Paul needed an attitude adjustment, he had just flamed out of a small tournament in the Netherlands in the spring of 2022 in the most petulant way, and his coach had seen enough.Brad Stine, who guided Jim Courier to four Grand Slam singles titles and the world’s top ranking and coached several other top players of the past 20 years, is 64 years old and knows when a player has crossed the line from battling through a rough patch into behaving unprofessionally.For several weeks, he had watched Paul act like a child instead of a man in his mid-20s. During an opening-round match in Geneva that May, Paul had mocked someone sitting in the player box of his opponent, Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands. Paul thought the man was cheering too loudly. Another time, in the grass-court tournament in ’s Hertogenbosch, he had disrespected Brandon Nakashima, a fellow American, yelling that he should not have been losing to a player he felt he was much better than.Stine’s kids are grown and his bills are paid. He has been to tennis’ mountaintop. He doesn’t need the work. He needed to tell Paul exactly what he believed, and if their three-year player-coach relationship ended there, so be it.The coach Brad Stine gave Paul a reality check in 2022.Sandra Ruhaut/Icon Sport, via Getty Images“You’re embarrassing me,” Stine told Paul as they talked in a quiet spot at the tournament after the loss to Nakashima. Then he rattled off his complaints about Paul’s attitude and competitiveness during the previous month.Paul absorbed Stine’s words for a few moments before he spoke, then told Stine he didn’t disagree with anything he had said.Among the top American men, Frances Tiafoe, a 25-year-old son of immigrants from Sierra Leone whose run to the U.S. Open semifinals last year was electrifying, sucks up most of the oxygen these days. Taylor Fritz, the 25-year-old Californian, has the highest ranking among the group and last year won the BNP Paribas Open, the so-called fifth Slam. Sebastian Korda, the son of a Grand Slam singles champion, has the pedigree.But Paul, 26, who has a dangerous, all-court playing style, who likes to hold a rod and reel in his hands as much as (OK, maybe more than) a tennis racket, has arguably had the best season of them all.He is the only American man to make a semifinal of a Grand Slam tournament, falling to Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, which Djokovic went on to win for a record 10th time. Paul’s ranking shot up to No. 13 this month, from No. 35 in January. He has given Carlos Alcaraz, the world No. 1, fits during the past month, beating him for the second time in his career in Toronto, then falling in three tight sets to him a week later in the Cincinnati suburbs.Paul, right, is the only American man this year to reach the semifinal of a Grand Slam tournament. He lost to Novak Djokovic, left, who went on to win a record 10th Australian Open title.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Associated PressThe rewards, including nearly $2 million in prize money, have begun rolling in. His agents at GSE Worldwide have gotten Paul new endorsement deals with Yonex, a racket manufacturer; De Bethune, the maker of his luxury watch; Motorola; IBM; Acorns, a financial management firm; and Celsius, a beverage maker. He appeared in a fashion photo spread in Vanity Fair, his hair slicked down and his body wrapped in a shiny overcoat.“Not really my thing,” said Paul, who is more suited to a trucker hat and a hoody than haute couture.This was the way it was supposed to go for Paul, who was almost always the best in his age group among American junior players. He won the French Open junior title in 2015. But then came a frustrating climb up the tennis ladder, years when Paul’s desire and commitment to his craft failed to match the talent that he had showcased from the time he was a small boy, and he learned the hard way that talent only gets a player so far.“He was the big fish in the little pond, and then he got out there and realized, these other players they’re better, and they’re working harder, too,” said his mother and first coach, Jill MacMillan, who was courtside for Paul’s four-set, first-round win over Stefano Travaglia of Italy on Monday. She and her husband live on a small farm in South Jersey, with two horses, eight sheep and various other animals.In talking about his journey later that night, Paul was philosophical.“I don’t think I ever really stopped believing,” he said. “I kind of knew that I could make it. I just didn’t really know how to do it.”Or if he really wanted to.Growing up in Greenville, N.C., where his mother and her ex-husband owned and operated a health club with some tennis courts, Paul received his first tennis racket from an older woman whom Paul and his siblings called Grandma Betty — she wasn’t their grandmother — when, he thinks, he was about 5 years old. He promptly went outside and started banging it against a tree. She followed him out and told him that wasn’t how he was supposed to use it.Paul and his older sister started spending every afternoon playing tennis at the health club. Beating his sister, who would go on to play collegiate tennis, was his earliest goal. MacMillan said that when Paul started playing — and winning — tournaments at age 6, he barely knew the rules or how to keep score. “He just loved to hit the ball.”That love never faded, even as Paul played plenty of baseball and basketball before focusing exclusively on tennis when he was about 13. Then tennis got serious and a little weird.He has vivid memories of seeing parents hitting their children for losing tournaments. His parents could not afford intensive private coaching, so Paul began to spend much of his time practicing at the United States Tennis Association’s training grounds in Florida. There were a lot of rules and a lot of coaches telling Paul what to do, such as to limit his time with friends and family. Sometimes he listened and followed the rules and practiced hard. Sometimes he didn’t. He still won plenty, so there weren’t many repercussions.He planned on attending the University of Georgia. But then he started winning lower tier pro tournaments and captured the junior title at the French Open. So instead of going to college he turned professional.Paul lost the support of the United States Tennis Association in part because of his behavior during the 2017 U.S. Open.Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBig mistake. No agents wanted to represent him because of his reputation as a player with questionable commitment, Paul said. For the next two years, he was miserable. That misery boiled over at the 2017 U.S. Open, when the aftereffects of a night of indulgence after a first-round loss in singles led to a 6-0, 6-0 loss in a doubles match. A falling out with the U.S.T.A, ultimately resulting in his loss of support, ensued over the next several months.“That was a different life,” Paul said last week while sitting on a couch in a home in Southampton on Long Island, where he was a guest of the chairman of GSE, his agency.Paul said losing the support from the U.S.T.A. was the best thing that could have happened to him. Finally, he had to take responsibility for his future in tennis, hiring his own trainer and coach. He stopped going through the motions in the gym and on the practice court.“I wasn’t going to waste my investment,” he said.The biggest one came in 2019, when following a loss in the U.S. Open qualifying tournament, he asked Stine, whose main player was battling injuries, to evaluate his game.As he watched Paul play, Stine didn’t understand how such a gifted athlete could so often be off balance on the court. He gave him a list of 11 things to fix, everything from improving his footwork to developing a slice. He shared his “conversion theory,” that all it takes to completely shift the momentum of any game regardless of the score is winning three points in a row.“Do the math,” Stine said. He’s not wrong.When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Paul and his compatriots spent much of their time in Southern California, playing at the Los Angeles-area mansions of tennis enthusiasts. He was still getting used to feeling like he belonged.Paul has a 2-2 record against Carlos Alcaraz, who is currently the No. 1 men’s singles player in the world.Vaughn Ridley/Getty ImagesEight days before the U.S. Open, Paul was fishing for tuna off Long Island. His face lights up as he talks about the hourlong fight to land a 350-pounder too big to keep. He has yet to buy his own boat, but has been pricing them out. The next day he was on the court of another seaside mansion practicing for two hours with Diego Schwartzman of Argentina.“I want him to continue to have fun,” Stine said later at the mansion they were calling home for the pretournament week.Was Paul having fun? His eyes went to the sprawling lawn and the pool and backyard tennis court.“Look where we are,” he said. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      Ons Jabeur Struggles to a First-Round Win at the U.S. Open

      by

      Jabeur, who said she had been dealing with an illness before the tournament, appeared weary at the end of the match but nonetheless took the first step toward a repeat run to the final.As Camila Osorio hugged Ons Jabeur at the net following their match on Tuesday, she almost looked as if she were holding Jabeur upright. Jabeur was exhausted and drained, sweat saturating her tennis uniform. She had managed to defeat Osorio, 7-5, 7-6 (4), but she was so weary and wobbly that Osorio asked her if she was OK.“I told her, ‘Not really,’” Jabeur, a Tunisian seeded fifth in singles, said in an on-court interview following her first-round victory at the U.S. Open.Jabeur reached the final at this tournament last year and is a sentimental favorite of tennis fans worldwide. But those fans will be concerned over whether Jabeur is healthy enough to get back to the championship match. Last week, Jabeur mentioned that she was suffering from nasal congestion, but it appeared to have worsened significantly on Tuesday. She left the tournament grounds in Queens after her match and will have a day to recover before she faces Linda Noskova, an unseeded 18-year-old Czech, in the second round on Thursday.It has not been a smooth several weeks for Jabeur since her loss to Marketa Vondrousova in the Wimbledon final in July. She took time off after that demoralizing defeat, then played the Western & Southern Open outside Cincinnati, where she won two matches before falling to Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets. During that match, Jabeur needed medical attention for a foot injury.That ailment did not seem to affect her play against Osorio, an unseeded Colombian, but Jabeur still needed help from a tournament doctor during the match because of her illness. She took some medicine, and even though she was able to remain upright and win, it was an obvious struggle. She sweated through her clothes and needed a full change of uniform at one point, apologizing to Osorio at the net for all the delays.“I know it is tough to play a player who is injured or not feeling well on the court,” Jabeur said.Playing in Louis Armstrong Stadium, Jabeur said the audience’s support helped her through the match, just as Coco Gauff, the American star seeded sixth, said the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium helped her through her tightly contested match with Laura Siegemund of Germany on Monday. A prolonged dispute over how long Siegemund took to serve and to be in position to receive Gauff’s serves ramped up the tension. The pro-Gauff crowd turned on Siegemund, who later said she had been grossly mistreated.“I have to say I am very, very disappointed of the way people treated me today,” she said.She added: “They had no respect for the player that I am. They have no respect for tennis, for good tennis. This is something that I have to say hurts really bad.”Fans clapped when Siegemund missed her first serves, which is not considered appropriate decorum in tennis, and even Gauff signaled several times for the crowd to stop. Also, even on tough rallies Siegemund won, there were times when no one clapped for her.By contrast, it was all love and respect on Tuesday in Armstrong Stadium, where both Jabeur and Osorio played without any tension. When it was over, the fans sang “Happy Birthday” to Jabeur, who turned 29 on Monday.“I’m feeling blessed to have all of this,” Jabeur told the fans. “For me, it’s more important than to win any match because I know that any love you get from people you will cherish until the end of your life, not your career.” More

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in Tennis

      How the War in Ukraine Turned Tennis Into a Battlefield

      by

      It was a few days before the start of Wimbledon this summer, and Elina Svitolina, just off a flight from Geneva, had come to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to check in for the tournament. She was returning after a year’s absence. “It feels like it has been 10 years,” she said as she got out of the car. A lot had happened since she last competed at Wimbledon, in 2021. She had given birth to a daughter named Skaï, the first child for her and her husband, the French player Gaël Monfils. Also, her country, Ukraine, had been invaded by Russia.Listen to This ArticleFor more audio journalism and storytelling, More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      At the U.S. Open, Frances Tiafoe Picks Up Where He Left Off

      by

      Tiafoe, who made a sensational run to the semifinal in New York last year where he ran into Carlos Alcaraz, got an easy first-round win over Learner Tien on Monday.The last time Frances Tiafoe was playing a match inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, it was under the lights last year in front of a teeming crowd of 23,000, roaring with every point, as he tried to topple Carlos Alcaraz, the eventual U.S. Open champion and No. 1, in the semifinals.Michelle Obama was sitting in the front row of the President’s Box, urging him on within earshot. There were N.B.A. players in the lower bowl, including Bradley Beal, then a star of Tiafoe’s beloved Washington Wizards, as well as a slew of Tiafoe’s friends and relatives lucky enough to land tickets for the biggest match an American man had played at the U.S. Open in years.On Monday, Tiafoe, a 25-year-old from Maryland who has catapulted himself into a different level of sports celebrity, experienced something a little different in Ashe Stadium than what transpired a year ago. Opening day at the U.S. Open is an opportunity for tennis fans, even those with a ticket for Ashe, to wander the grounds in search of the up-and-comers, or to take in a tight four-hour match between middling pros at close range.The result can be a lifeless, half-empty atmosphere in the biggest stadium in the sport, especially for a mostly one-sided win like Tiafoe’s 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 drubbing of Learner Tien, a 17-year-old Californian likely to have better days at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in the future. From Tiafoe’s perspective, that was good. The only thing that would have boosted the buzz would have been a match far tighter than Tiafoe, the tournament’s 10th seed and one its most popular players, would have wanted.And yet, while there may not have been too much buzz in the big stadium, there was plenty pulsing through Tiafoe, who knows this U.S. Open is far different than any he has played before.“A bunch of new experiences today,” Tiafoe, a favorite for the first time on Ashe, said in his news conference after the match.That dynamic has consequences, both literal and figurative, good and potentially complicating, since they are loaded with reminders of Tiafoe’s new status.It was the first time his team got to sit in the player’s box belonging to the favorite, on the west side of the court, forcing Tiafoe to pivot his head in a different direction for support. As the favorite, he got introduced to the crowd and entered the court after Tien. That meant he sat in the chair on the left side of the chair umpire rather than on the right side, farther from the entrance, where the underdog traditionally walks to.Everywhere he looked, there was a reminder of who he is now, just like it has been all week as he moved between sponsor events — he has a shiny new Cadillac Escalade in his driveway — and other appearances. And then the tennis began.“I’ve never played a match before where I was supposed to win on Ashe,” he said.How Tiafoe handles all this will go a long way toward determining how many wins he can manage at the tournament every American man desperately wants to win. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the last time it occurred, when Andy Roddick grabbed his lone Grand Slam singles title before the rise of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.The expectations are high.“They should be,” said Martin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the United States Tennis Association, who has known Tiafoe since his elementary school days.“It’s a lot,” said Ray Benton, the chief executive of the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., where Tiafoe’s unlikely rise to tennis stardom began. Tiafoe’s father, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, was a maintenance man in the early years of J.T.C.C., where the tennis pros first noticed how proficient his young son was at hitting a tennis ball against a wall.Benton was at Tiafoe’s match on Monday and has been in contact with him over the summer.“He’s a little —” Benton paused and with his arms imitated someone who was experiencing the inevitable weight of expectations, the biggest of which are those Tiafoe has set for himself. “In some ways all he can do is disappoint.”As well as the season has gone for Tiafoe, including wins in tournaments in Houston and Stuttgart, Germany, he has fallen short of his own goals at the most important events. He has lost in the third round at the year’s first three Grand Slam tournaments.He was downright despondent after he played arguably his worst match of the year in a three-set loss to Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria at Wimbledon on grass, a surface he loves and that would figure to suit his aggressive and creative game.At heart, Tiafoe, who burst onto the scene in 2019 when he made the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and quickly broke into the top 30, is a showman, an entertainer who loves to play off the energy of the crowd. One of the challenges from his earliest years has been figuring out how to do that most effectively.A typical Tiafoe sequence occurred Monday during a tight second set against Tien. With the score knotted at 4-4, Tien rose and twisted and snapped a backhand overhead that looked like a certain winner. Tiafoe chased it down and threaded the needle with his shot, zipping it between the umpire’s chair and the net post to set him up for what seemed like a crucial break of Tien’s serve. Then he did his trademark frozen stare into the crowd, his cue for the fans to get loud. They did.But then he lost his own serve with a series of careless errors — a forehand into the net and an overhead wide — allowing Tien a chance to draw even in the set once more. Megan Moulton-Levy, a former pro who is the general manager of player development at J.T.C.C. and has been a mentor to Tiafoe for years, spoke earlier this summer of her long talks with Tiafoe about cracking the code of entertaining and using the energy of his ever growing fan base without burning too much energy or losing his focus.“He’s such a social guy,” Moulton-Levy said in an interview earlier this month. “He has this big beautiful personality, so what he has to do is manage how to turn it on and off through the course of a match. He has to figure out when and how to let it show.”Tiafoe spoke of his search for balance Monday after his win over Tien, of choosing when to fire up a crowd that will undoubtedly be in his corner during this tournament and that is coming to Queens specifically to see him, and of when to focus on the taxing task of winning best-of-five-set matches.“I don’t want to gas out in the first set,” he said, noting that it would be important especially as the tournament wore on, and the hype and excitement and the interest of all those A-list names and countless others among the Tiafoe faithful took note of another, he hoped, deep run.“I have to keep winning so they stay interested,” he said. More

    • 75 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      How to Recognize a Tennis Prodigy

      by

      The people who coached Frances Tiafoe as a child said they could see even then that he would become one of the world’s top players. But how did they know?You may have seen it if you’re a tennis fan. The ad begins with a young boy of 10 or 11, sitting in a humble apartment watching Venus Williams on a tiny antique television. He’s interrupted by a man tapping him on his shoulder.“Hey Frances,” the man says, “What if a wall isn’t an obstacle, but an opportunity?”The apartment melts away and now the boy and the man — presumably a coach — joyfully hit beautiful looping groundstrokes against a wall. As they hit, the sweet-faced boy grows gradually older, finally melding into a regal, heavily muscled adult, his head crowned by a now-familiar headband as he delivers a sizzling ace and the crowd roars. It is Frances Tiafoe, one of the most popular and recognizable faces in men’s tennis, now ranked 10th in the world and considered a contender in the U.S. Open, which begins Monday.Of course the young Tiafoes in the ad were the product of a casting call, not the actual young Frances. But the producers did a good job finding someone who looked like the 11-year-old boy I met in 2009, when I spent a couple of months writing about the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., a then-obscure tennis training academy which had shockingly produced three boys in the world’s top 20 of junior tennis. I eventually accompanied their top two players, Denis Kudla and Mitchell Frank, to the French Open, where they competed in the junior championships.But here’s the relevant bit: During my reporting at the tennis center, I spent a day with a boy the coaches seemed to have a strange regard for. Kudla might actually make it to the pro tour, they said, adding: “But this kid is going to be better. This kid is special.”I was baffled. He appeared to be an ordinary 11-year-old, a ringer for the first kid in the ad — except instead of stylish new tennis duds he was wearing a well-worn Pikachu T-shirt. Frances was not especially big for his age, with no notable force of personality I could detect except an open and appealing disposition. I spent a morning in an attic above the tennis courts with him while he suffered through a geography class that was part of the in-house academic program. He wasn’t sullen, as so many kids would be, forced to focus on latitude and longitude with a strange adult looking over his shoulder. It was more a mild bemusement: “How did I end up here when I could be playing tennis?”Tiafoe being trained by Pat Etcheberry, a strength and conditioning coach, in 2012.Matt Roth for The New York TimesAfter class I hit with him. He was really good for his age. But I noticed that after he hit the ball, he didn’t immediately bounce back into position for the next shot — a trademark of a serious player. And when I watched him play in a local tournament in a dingy sports bubble, he beat an older kid, but only by moon-balling him to death. I couldn’t see why the coaching staff was so high on him.A year later, I returned to the tennis center, and Frances, now 12, had replaced the moon ball with fearsome topspin groundstrokes that shot off the court and smacked into the back fence with a thud. When he was 15 — just four years after he left me so unimpressed — Tiafoe became the youngest player to win the Orange Bowl, the world’s premier 18-and-under tournament, which had previously crowned Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl, Jim Courier, Roger Federer and Andy Roddick.When I delved into what it was, exactly, that the College Park pros had seen in Frances that I had missed, I discovered I had some expert company in my oversight.Kudla left College Park when he was 18 and became the first Junior Tennis Champions Center alumnus to break into the top 100 in men’s tennis, peaking in 2016 at No. 53 in the world. He knew better than most what combination of skill, dedication and gut-busting work that took.Early in his pro career, Kudla returned to the tennis center for a visit, a conquering hero. Frances was 13, still a few years away from winning his first junior titles. When he saw Frances play, he was more than a little skeptical. “He had that weird technique, weird forehand, I didn’t think his tennis I.Q. was that high,” Kudla said.He hit with Tiafoe and had the same sense of his potential that I did.“I just never thought that he had the discipline to be top 100 — not from a fitness point of view, but from a decision-making point of view,” Kudla said. “Decisions on the court are so important and take so much work, so much instruction, so much studying. I didn’t see him doing that.“But I was also basing that on the way I did it. I’m definitely more of an overthinker than he is. He’s a lot more natural, a lot more creative, a lot more God-given with his hands, so I was wrong about that as well. I was definitely wrong about a lot of things with him.”Tiafoe playing in Indian Wells, Calif., in 2016, the year he turned pro. Julian Finney/Getty ImagesTiafoe turned pro in 2016 and quickly became a fan favorite. He had an infectious gaptoothed grin and a moving back story: The impoverished son of refugees from the civil war in Sierra Leone, he had grown up in the tennis center, where his father was a janitor, sometimes sleeping on a massage table head to toe with his twin brother, Franklin, when his dad worked late. He also had a performative flair and winning disposition to go with his killer forehand. He was an enthusiastic and indiscriminate hugger at the postgame handshake who obviously loved being on the court and drove the crowd into a frenzy with gutsy shotmaking, fist pumps and biceps flexes.He rose to the top 100 at 19, broke the top 50 at 20, and at 21 broached the top 30. No longer the shy little boy, he was 6 feet 2 inches and built like a linebacker, with 135 m.p.h. serves and forehands not much slower. Even then, Kudla remained skeptical that Tiafoe had what it took to make the top 10, and from 2019 to 2021 Tiafoe seemed to feed those doubts. He had a propensity to get ahead in matches and then lose focus. He lost too often to lower-ranked opponents in the first round of too many tournaments.During this period I suggested to the tennis center chief executive, Ray Benton, that Tiafoe’s career might have peaked at age 21. No shame in that, I said. Getting into the top 30 of the brutally competitive pro tour is almost a miracle to begin with. There are about 1,800 professional players in the ranking system, but only roughly the top 100 can make much of a living from competitive play alone. Benton himself had once told me: “There are 11 Americans in the top 100. That basically means there are 11 jobs in the whole world of tennis for Americans. How bad are your odds there?”Maybe, I suggested, Frances had finally found his limit at a very rarefied altitude.Benton just smiled and said, “Nope.”Really? I asked. Just how high did he think Frances could go?“All the way to the top,” he said. “No. 1.”What about that kid Carlos Alcaraz? I said. He looks like he will be eating everyone else’s lunch for a couple decades. And who knows if Novak Djokovic’s deal with the devil has an expiration date.Benton shrugged. “OK, then, top 10, at least.”As if on cue last summer, Tiafoe began to hang on in matches in which he had jumped to a lead. He would switch into a higher gear and finish, against even some top 10 opponents. He made a thrilling, stadium-shaking run to the U.S. Open semifinals, barely losing to Alcaraz. Along with Taylor Fritz, he is one of two American men in the top 10 for the first time in more than a decade.Tiafoe at the U.S. Open last year. “I haven’t seen anyone in my 35 years in tennis whose love of the game was so pure,” the coach Vesa Ponkka said of young Tiafoe.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesWhich left me where I began — mystified. How did Benton know then? And how did his coaches know at the beginning?At the tennis center in 2009, I watched as Vesa Ponkka, the director of tennis, and the coach Frank Salazar ran a horde of local children through drills cleverly disguised as games in a “Free Fun Festival” at the academy. Some kids twirled like ballerinas or flapped their arms like birds when instructed to run a route among orange cones. But one girl cut and bobbed through the obstacles like a cornerback. “Frank, check this out,” Ponkka told Salazar. “See how she pumps her knees high, her arms move in sync, her head stays still?”Ponkka knew that kind of balance, focus and poise in a young child was the best indication of future athletic success — she could maybe play on her high school team someday, or even at college. But what did he see in the young Frances that far exceeded anything he saw in that girl, or anyone else who ever stepped onto those College Park hardcourts?“We all noticed that the moment he came in here at 4 or 5 he just couldn’t get enough tennis,” Ponkka told me recently. “He was always observing, always watching, and all the spare time he had he was hitting against the wall. It wasn’t so much about his natural ability, but his absolutely unbelievable love of the game.”Salazar recalled: “Other kids that age watched cartoons. Frances only watched the Tennis Channel. If you didn’t want to talk about tennis nonstop, you couldn’t be his friend.”Physically, Frances had a good start — his dad, Frances Sr., was well over 6 feet tall and naturally athletic. “He never worked out, but he had this amazing six-pack,” Benton said of the father. But Ponkka insists that Frances’ genetic potential was a secondary consideration.“In tennis, the mental and the emotional are more important than the physical, and this was Frances’ unique talent. He moved well because he wanted it more than other kids, he wanted so badly to get to the ball,” he said. “He loved everything about the game, the smell of the new tennis balls, how the ball sounds on the racket.”Tiafoe in his family’s apartment in 2012. “From the beginning, he was an absolutely world-class competitor,” Vesa Ponkka said. “He hated to drill, he just wanted to compete.”Matt Roth for The New York TimesMisha Kouznetzov, who coached Frances in his junior years, helped get his homework done and sometimes gave Frances’ mother grocery money, says Frances’ drive came from more than love. “Look,” he said, “the kid was poor. He needed to get out of there, get out of Hyattsville. He wanted to make a name for himself and start making money for his family. So the level of hunger and desire during competing was always there. He was all in, he had no choice.”In a match, even a practice match, “he fought like crazy,” Ponkka said. When he lost to older kids, he would pester them for an immediate rematch. “There were days where he’d play five, six, seven matches in one day because he wanted to finally beat the guy. He learned how to win.”Indeed he did. I met Frances in person again for the first time in 14 years in late July. He was sitting in a barber chair in a utility building beside the Junior Tennis Champions Center courts getting his hair and makeup done before the filming of an ad for Cadillac, which had just signed him as a brand ambassador. His brand-new black Escalade was parked just outside, one of the many perks that have come from winning, a lot.I reminded him of the afternoon I spent with him in the cramped classroom, and he politely pretended to remember. As always, his schedule was overcrowded. As I talked to him he was surrounded — his agent, the producer, the cosmetician all hovering around him like worker bees around the queen. So I got to the point and asked him the most relevant question: When did he believe he was going to make it as a pro?“Oh I always believed it,” he said. “There was no doubt in my mind I was going to be a pro from the time I was 10 or 11. And I felt like that made the process very easy. I was only ever focused on one thing, and it showed in every match and tournament I ever played.”As the hair clipper buzzed and his agent fielded phone calls, I was definitely getting in the way, but I had to know just one more thing.“How’s your geography knowledge these days?”He beamed that gaptoothed grin that has won so many fans. “Yeah, well, I’ve been around the world so many times by now, I guess I know where I’m at.”Karsten Moran for The New York Times More

    • 163 Shares139 Views

      in Tennis

      Frances Tiafoe Is Ready to Win the U.S. Open and Make Tennis Cool

      by

      Returning to the U.S. Open after last year’s electric run and crushing defeat, the boundary-busting American thinks he can win it all — and make tennis cool.One year ago, Frances Tiafoe headed to the U.S. Open, beloved within the tennis world but a relative unknown outside it. He emerged as the first American man to reach the U.S. Open semifinals since 2006, and the first Black American man since Arthur Ashe.Tiafoe did it by upsetting the great Rafael Nadal in an emotional, magnetic match in, as a colleague put it at the time, “a stadium packed to the rafters with the sound bellowing off the roof after nearly every point.” When he eventually lost in the semis to Carlos Alcaraz in a five-set banger, Michelle Obama asked to see him afterward, to thank him and console him. And the national media rushed to tell his story — an unusual one in a predominantly white, wealthy sport.Heading into this year’s Open, Tiafoe is the world No. 10. No longer the underdog, he is now contending with the burden and blessing of expectations and the distractions of sports celebrity. I sat down with him one week before the Open, at the Rock Creek Tennis Center in Washington, D.C., not far from where he grew up. We talked about whether his story really represents “the American dream,” if he’s looking forward to Novak Djokovic’s retirement, and … pickleball. This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.Listen to the Audio Version of This InterviewFrances Tiafoe Is ReadyI am wondering what it’s like at this moment in your career. You’re being profiled in magazines. I just saw you in Vanity Fair. You’ve got N.B.A. stars in your box. It’s got to be pretty wild.Yeah, I talk about it all the time. That saying that your life can change overnight is 100 percent true. After I beat Rafa Nadal at last year’s Open, I felt like I was looked at totally different. You don’t realize what you’re doing, how crazy it is, while you’re doing it because you’re doing it. I think afterward, going home and buying little things at CVS and ladies are like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe this is you.” It’s been crazy. It’s definitely not meant for everybody. It’s definitely a life shift.Can you tell me a little bit about that? I mean, very few people will have that experience.You need to really have solid people around you. Everybody says that but don’t really live by it. A lot of people are going to want to take your time. All of a sudden, everyone wants to be your best friend. The famous guy wants to hang out, and he can do it at that time, but you maybe need to not do that. And I think the biggest thing for me is learning to say no. I still need to do a much better job of that. I’ve seen it eat a lot of people up. It gets to people’s heads.What have you said no to that you wanted to do?Even little things, like an appearance with one of my new brand partners that would have been a cool sit-down with Matt Damon, who I’m a big fan of. But I can’t do it, can’t go. I got to play a tournament. And it’s like, ahhh.You know, like, going on “The Shop” with LeBron — stuff that I’ve wanted to do, but scheduling just hasn’t quite worked out. And then obviously parties. You’ll get invited, but you probably should play a tournament. The reason people know you? You should probably stay on that.When you say you’ve seen other people get pulled off their path —People who are so hot for a second and then you just don’t hear about. And I think that’s the difference between one-hit wonders and people with longevity. It’s just that they’re so obsessed with what they’re doing and what got them to a certain place.I want to talk a little about your back story. You’re the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone. When you were little, your father literally helped build an elite tennis center in College Park, Md., as a construction worker. And then he got a job there as its custodian. And you actually lived there part time with your dad and your twin brother. And you started training there at the age of 5, which is incredible.Tiafoe training with Nikola Andjelic, a footwork coach, in 2012 at the tennis center in College Park, Md., where Tiafoe’s father worked.Matt Roth for The New York TimesThese details of your life are the headline of most articles about you. Does it feel like people get your story right? Are there things that you feel like people don’t understand when they talk about the way you came up?I feel like people do and don’t. People hear it, they know about it, but I don’t think they realize how crazy it actually is. I mean, I really was a big long shot, a huge long shot. And it just goes to show that being great at something is just having a level of obsession, and that’s what I had. I just hope it inspires a lot of people, honestly.You talked about how extraordinary your story is. And I guess there’s a couple of ways that you can think about it. Version one is that this is the American dream, that a family can come to this country, and within a generation their son can be one of the top 10 tennis players in the whole world. But I think there’s another version, which is that without an incredible amount of luck, you could have been just as talented, you could have been just as driven as you are, and yet never have become a professional tennis player.How do you think about the balance between those two versions — that your story shows both the incredible opportunities in America, but also that there are these inequalities that mean that it’s much harder for someone like you to be able to get to where you are?Ironically, I look at it more as the second version.Really? So then what does your story say about why there aren’t more Tiafoes?Well, it’s the lack of access, right? The biggest thing with the game of tennis is that it’s so hard to just start to play. Like very, very tough for people in low-income areas to just play the game of tennis. Shoes, rackets, clothes, stringing, court time. If it’s cold and you play inside, you pay for the court. You pay for coaching. I mean, if I’m a young kid, why wouldn’t I just go and play basketball, where I need three other guys to play two-on-two and a hoop? It’s a no-brainer.I think that’s the crazy thing. I imagine if I wasn’t, as you said, wasn’t in that situation —That your dad got the job at this place that allowed you to have the opportunity to be seen and to play.Think about how many people, if they were in my situation, could be doing what I’m doing. People that come from similar backgrounds as me, could do something special. That’s what I think about. Why aren’t more people lucky enough to be in that position?There have barely been any elite Black American male tennis players. How do you diagnose that problem?That’s why I look at my story that way. I mean, 50 years until an African American male made a semifinal of the U.S. Open? Fifty years. You’re telling me in 50 years a Black male can’t be in the semifinal of the U.S. Open?Granted, it was a great accomplishment for me! But I don’t want to wait another 50.I want to ask you about a separate issue, or maybe you think it’s connected. But there’s a real question about why American male players in general have struggled so much in the past two decades. An American man hasn’t won a Grand Slam since 2003. And until your run last year, there really haven’t been any U.S. stars on the men’s side in the way there were before. Agassi and Sampras, McEnroe, Connors. Why do you think American men in general have had such a hard time?That’s always a funny question. I’ve been dealing with it for a long time.I think it is a bit of a separate issue from what we were just speaking about. My rebuttal to it is always: It doesn’t really matter where your flag is from. Essentially it was four guys winning Grand Slams for a decade. One of the guys is still going at it, however old he is. He doesn’t seem like he’s stopping.He’s 36. Djokovic.Exactly. So I don’t think that’s really a flag issue. I think that’s just an era issue. I mean, the best decade of tennis ever.But we’re at this changing-of-the-guard moment. Roger Federer retired last year. Nadal, who you beat last year at the U.S. Open, is having a tough season with injuries. He’s also talked about retiring. Djokovic is still very much in the mix, but he is indeed 36 years old. Are you secretly glad these guys are winding down?Yes and no. My goal when I was younger, I wanted to beat one of those guys in the highest-level event. You want to be the best, so you’ve got to beat the best. So I’m not like, Oh, man, I can’t wait for these guys to stop. I think that’s a bad mentality. I think it’s I’ve got to get better. I’ve got to beat these guys.I mean, I’m playing Rafa last year. I should have more legs than he has. Should! And it motivates me. Because even if Novak retires, you have new guys. Carlos Alcaraz is very good. There’s always going to be someone who you’re going to have to beat.So, um, nah.Tiafoe, right, playing Rafael Nadal at last year’s U.S. Open. Tiafoe said that after winning that match, he really believed he could win the whole thing.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesI was watching this conversation you had with Chris Eubanks and Ben Shelton, two other young Black American players. And you said, “We’re going to be the reason why the game changes.” What did you mean by that?I just think diversity in sports, right? You bring a whole different demographic to the game. It’s history, and you’re watching it live. It’s the reason why Chris Eubanks’s run at Wimbledon was so big. It’s iconic stuff in a predominantly white sport. So I think we have a bit of a different impact. You start seeing more people of color in the stadium, paying that hard-earned money to come watch because it’s history, it’s different.How does that make you feel, that more people are using their hard-earned money to come to the stands? People of color that you’re bringing into the sport?It means everything to me. It means everything to me, but at the same time it’s like, damn, you feel the responsibility to perform, to be your best self for them.It’s interesting. You’ve just discussed this tension, which is feeling really great to be able to inspire people, but also feeling like it’s a burden. And I think most people of color who are successful would say that it’s really difficult to be the first and the only. Because there is this tension. Do you feel like it pushes you farther, or do you feel like it sometimes can weigh you down?It’s a great question. First off, yeah, as you achieve it, you definitely think about that. I don’t want to be the first and only, as I said earlier. But I think it inspires me, man. It really does. It makes me want to have longevity with this thing at a high level. Because you think about Serena and Venus. That’s why you create a Sloane Stephens winning a Grand Slam. That’s why you create a Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka. And that’s the position I want to be in, right?But the job doesn’t end until you do the ultimate goal, and that’s to win a Grand Slam.That’s your goal right now? That’s the thing?That’s the only thing that matters, to be fair. If I win a Grand Slam, there’s nothing anyone could say or ask of me after that.So you’ve been pretty vocal about how you think tennis should modernize and bring in new fans. You’ve said you’d like to see the sport borrow from basketball and be more relaxed when it comes to fan behavior. Why do you think that would be a good thing?People are like, oh, that’s not this game, that’s not tennis. Well, the question was how do we bring in younger fans? If you go to a soccer game, you go to a football game, a baseball game, you’re not quiet, are you?No.It’s entertainment. Obviously with tennis you need a little bit more structure. But for example, in between games, when people are standing on top of the stadium and ask the usher, “Well, when can I come down? I’m paying for tickets and I can’t even come and go as I please?”I don’t want to change the whole way of it, but within reason. I think a lot more young people would be like, OK, this is cool. You know, music playing more constantly, maybe in between points or in high-pressure moments.You think about the U.S. Open atmosphere, and they’re doing it anyway. Like, I’m playing in that stadium, it’s rockin’. People are drunk out of their minds, they’re just screaming whenever they want. You can’t control the environment anyway, so you might as well let it rock.But, hey, man, I don’t make the rules.OK, I have a question for you. What do you think of pickleball?[Laughs] I think it’s a sport I should invest in. I don’t think it’s a sport that I like. I don’t think it’s a great sport. But from the business side, I love it.I don’t think it takes very much skill. I go to Florida and I see a lot of older people playing and joking with the kids and having fun, but as far as creating all these leagues and tournaments and pro events, I just feel like tennis players who couldn’t quite do it out here are trying to make something out there.And they’re closing down tennis courts in order to make pickleball courts.For that sport to have an effect on the game of tennis, it’s ridiculous to me.Thank you for indulging me. To get back to your generation: There’s a lot of buzz around Carlos Alcaraz. He’s 20, he’s won two Slams, and it looks like he’s just getting started. Are you worried he’s a player who’s becoming the guy to beat?The man whom Tiafoe calls “the guy to beat,” Carlos Alcaraz.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesA disappointing end to Tiafoe’s emotional run at last year’s U.S. Open.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesNo, it’s good! It’s good. He’s good. He’s good for the game. Hell of a player. He is going to be special. He’s going to be a guy that’s going to push me to always want more and be at my best, because if I want to achieve anything special, I got to go through him. Once Novak leaves, he’s the guy to beat.That brings me to where you are right now. You’re world No. 10. You’ve won a couple of tournaments this year, but you’ve also been knocked out early in others, including a heartbreaker at Wimbledon. How do you evaluate your overall performance this year?I think I’ve had a good year. I’ve won 30-something matches. I’ve won a couple titles. I’m probably the most consistent I’ve been this year as far as week to week. But I’d much rather take more L’s, more losses, with a deeper run in a Slam. So we got one more shot. And obviously I want to go deep and put myself in title contention.How are you preparing for that?I know what I want to do. I know I want to win the event. It’s a matter of beating the guys you’re supposed to beat. But it is what it is. I’m 25. It doesn’t have to be right now.I want to ask you a little bit about the specifics of your game. You changed coaches. You reworked your technique, particularly your forehand. I watched the Netflix “Break Point” episode — that’s the documentary series about the tennis tour — and there was a lot of talk about your focus, about trying to up your consistency. So when you think about how your game has changed, do you think the shift has been more mental or more physical?The physical side has played a part. I’ve gotten much more fit, much more lean in the last couple years. But I think the mental side is the biggest thing. I’ve just made a choice. I made a choice that I’m committing to the game. I made a choice that I’m going to be more professional. I made a choice that I’m going to sacrifice a bit more of my outside tennis activities. Pick your moments of whatever pleasure — trying to just put tennis as the No. 1 priority.So saying no to LeBron.[Laughs] Yes.Of his chances at this year’s U.S. Open, Tiafoe said, “I always feel like I can do something special in New York.”Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesWas there a moment when you made that choice?Yes. Going into the pandemic, I was not in a good place. Playing horribly. I was just enjoying life and got really complacent and it showed in my game a lot. It was the first time I really went through adversity as it pertains to the game of tennis. Losing a lot of matches and I didn’t really know how to handle it. So that was very tough.And then, just having a conversation with my boys, looking at the rankings, I’m like, dude, these guys ahead of me, they’re not better than me. Like, this is not reality. This can’t be my reality. And then from that point, I hired coaches. A lot of my team is new. My fitness coach travels with me much more. I started just slowly making choices. Being coachable. Stop trying to act like I know everything. Just slowly break old habits, which is very tough. It’s been a long process, but it’s been good. These last three years have been good. I’ve changed a lot.I want to take you back to last year’s U.S. Open. Because, you know, losing is terrible for everyone, but it feels like it hits you particularly hard. In your postmatch interview after you lost in the semifinals, even though it was this incredible moment, you said, and I’m quoting here, “I feel like I let you guys down.” Who did you feel like you let down?The country.The country?The country. I’ve never felt that much weight. Never felt that much energy. I checked into my hotel three weeks prior to that match. It was kind of like, whatever, nobody was really bothering me. Then at the end, I have security outside my door, people are going crazy, I’m all over New York, can’t go anywhere, everyone’s coming to the match.And I really believed I could do it. After I beat Rafa, after I backed up that win and I gave everything I had. You know, it just wasn’t good enough. And at that particular moment, I genuinely felt that way. I felt like I let those guys down. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself, but I was letting them know that I want to come back and finish the job. It was an emotional moment. It was very tough. No competitor wants to feel like they fell short.And now on the cusp of this year’s Open —I feel like I’m in a pretty good place. Going in, momentum-wise, it hasn’t been a great couple of weeks. But honestly, no matter how I’ve played going in, I always feel like I can do something special in New York. That crowd behind me. There’s something about people getting behind you and wanting it more than you almost do. You feel like you don’t have a choice but to give everything. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      Carlos Alcaraz Is Bending Tennis to His Will and Taking Over the Game

      by

      Alcaraz, the defending U.S. Open men’s singles champion, has forced the best players in the world to adapt to his playing style, or risk losing for a long time.A little after 5 p.m. last Wednesday, Carlos Alcaraz, racket bag over his shoulders, bounded into the U.S. Open player garden outside Arthur Ashe Stadium like a high school quarterback striding into the cafeteria on the first day of school.He slapped hands and bro-hugged with new friends and old ones. He posed for selfies with other players and their hangers-on. He double-kissed and hugged a few kids his agent had brought along. A few minutes later, as he began a slow, autograph-filled walk to a practice court, a roar rose from beyond the high hedges.Less than a year after his breakout win at the U.S. Open, and a little more than a month after his thrilling five-set win in the Wimbledon singles final over Novak Djokovic, there is no longer any question: Alcaraz has pushed tennis permanently into its future.Djokovic, 36 years old and with 23 Grand Slam tournament singles titles, knows that his career is sunsetting, and that Alcaraz, the 20-year-old Spanish star who has established himself as the game’s new standard, is at daybreak.“The talk of our sport for the last two years, and, of course, deservedly because he has done things that probably no other, you know, teenager has ever done,” Djokovic said of Alcaraz during an interview last week.Beyond all the accolades and the attention, Alcaraz is forcing the best players in the world into a devil’s choice — to change how they have trained to play for years and adapt to him, or to likely spend most of the next decade or more smothered by an athlete who plays on every inch of his side of the net and tries to hit balls to every inch of his opponent’s.“There’s lots of power, not a lot of weaknesses, but also the all-court game, and the transition from neutral or defensive to offense is so quick,” said David Nainkin, who leads player development for the United States Tennis Association. “And now every player knows if he is going to compete with him, he’s going to have to do that as well.”Alcaraz knows that better than anyone. He has said his goal, along with winning as often as possible, is to entertain and thrill the spectators who pack stadiums for his matches, which have also sent television ratings soaring. Winning efficiently is not enough. He wants to win spectacularly, showcasing his power and speed and touch from everywhere on the court.“It’s dynamic,” Alcaraz has said time and again of his style.For years, this was the sort of shift that might happen every half-decade or so, though for roughly the last 15 years, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Djokovic and, for a while, Andy Murray turned the sport into an exclusive scrum of skill and wit. Each took a turn or two redrawing the tennis court to suit his style. First came Federer’s supreme and unmatched shotmaking, which ran into Nadal’s power and competitive fire, which ran into Djokovic’s relentless defense and angular creativity, which ran into Murray’s magical touch and movement.Now Alcaraz has begun collecting the sport’s most important championships and also accomplishing the far larger feat of forcing nearly everyone to think and compete differently. He is inside their head every time they step on the practice court.The days of winning by hitting a big serve and whaling forehands from a foot behind the baseline, a style that has mostly dominated play in this era, appear to be numbered, as everyone goes to school on the talent that, barring injury, they know will be at the top for the foreseeable future.Tommy Paul, an American ranked No. 14 in men’s singles, summed up Alcaraz’s game: “Once he is on offense, you’re probably toast.”Kareem Elgazzar/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“There’s pretty much never going to be a chance to go from defense to offense in the middle of a point against him unless you are a ridiculous athlete like Novak,” Tommy Paul, the rising American who is ranked 14th in the world, said last week as he prepared in the Hamptons for the year’s final Grand Slam event. “Everyone now only has one choice. You got to get forward and go on offense before he does, because once he is on offense, you’re probably toast.”Paul, 26, is worth listening to, since he is the rare player other than Djokovic who has consistently tested Alcaraz, winning two of their four meetings, including this summer in Toronto. A week later, near Cincinnati, Alcaraz needed all three sets to beat Paul, with two of those sets decided by tiebreakers.Jannik Sinner, 22, is also in that category, winning three of their six meetings. At the moment, he has positioned himself as Alcaraz’s most likely rival during the next decade. Their five-and-a-half-hour, five-set battle in the quarterfinals at last year’s U.S. Open ended just before 3 a.m. and was arguably the match of the year.In a sport that is all about matchups, Paul and Sinner are pretty sure they know why they can go toe-to-toe with Alcaraz while other players who have won far more prestigious titles often struggle. Both are plenty comfortable hitting the ball hard. They are able to cover the whole court. They aren’t afraid to move forward and use as much of the playing surface as possible to make Alcaraz move. They stay cool in tight moments because they are confident they won’t be forced outside their natural skill set.“He causes me problems, but also I cause him problems,” Sinner, who was also preparing — and relaxing — last week in the Hamptons, said recently. “Sometimes I try to overpower him, which is sometimes also the only solution.”It’s hard to overestimate the level of fascination with Alcaraz at every level of the sport.Coco Gauff has been studying his matches to learn how to become better at staying calm and composed, noting that sometimes Alcaraz even smiles after making a mistake or losing an important point.At the moment, Jannik Sinner has best positioned himself to be Alcaraz’s chief rival for the next decade.John E. Sokolowski/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMurray went to the All England Club on the Sunday morning of the finals to take care of some business, with no intention of staying for the afternoon. But once there, he realized he should stick around, got his hands on a ticket for a Centre Court seat and sat mesmerized for nearly five hours, shooting videos on his phone and trying to figure out how Alcaraz was hanging with Djokovic, who had won the last four Wimbledon singles championships and seven overall. Murray paid special attention to Alcaraz’s movement, his return positions — and Djokovic’s as well — and when and how he decided to play aggressive and offensive tennis.“You could sort of see Alcaraz learning as the match went on,” Murray said last month.J.J. Wolf, the 24-year-old American ranked 44th, watched on television and decided then and there that he needed to hit the weight room.“I’ve always been in decent shape, but he’s so physical,” Wolf said in early August at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., where he was already making plans for an off-season training program that would begin in November. “If I’m going to be able to play like that, I’m going to have to get stronger.”Jimmy Arias, a star of the early 1980s who is now the director of tennis at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., a leading talent incubator, has struggled in recent weeks to wrap his brain around how Alcaraz can hit a ball from 10 feet behind the baseline to a deep corner of the court and then get to the net, a play that forces opponents to be aggressive on that shot or else give Alcaraz an easy volley.He compared it to when Federer destroyed Lleyton Hewitt in the 2004 U.S. Open final, 6-0, 7-6(3), 6-0. Hewitt could hit the ball as hard as anyone, but Federer had such exquisite timing, and could step in and return Hewitt’s shots so quickly, that the rhythm of the game that Hewitt had played with for years disappeared.“The only thing you are going to be able to do is out-Alcaraz Alcaraz,” Arias said. “Good luck with that.”Patrick McEnroe, the former pro and ESPN commentator who runs a top tennis academy in New York City with his brother, John, the seven-time Grand Slam winner, said he is now planning to incorporate parts of Alcaraz’s game into his curriculum this fall. Players will have to learn how to follow a big serve with a drop shot the way Alcaraz does, and how he uses the drop shot as an offensive weapon, coming in after it for an easy finish.There was a time, not long ago, when a slice backhand was not all that important. Then Murray used one that rarely missed to become the world No. 1, and now no one serious about winning Wimbledon shows up without a slice. After Djokovic started hitting powerful second serves in pressure moments, hitting a 115-mile-per-hour second serve became almost normal.Now Alcaraz has come along, following his serve with a drop shot and a topspin lob, a risky combination, serving for the Wimbledon title against Djokovic.“He has taken the game to a different place,” McEnroe said. “He does things no one thought was possible.” More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Tennis

      A Fan Favorite Is Still Trying to Clear Her Major Hurdle

      by

      Ons Jabeur, the Tunisian player who is popular among spectators and fellow competitors, is the only woman to appear in three of the last five major singles finals. But she has lost them all.Seven weeks was not nearly enough time to soothe Ons Jabeur’s emotional wounds. After losing the Wimbledon women’s singles final in July, she returned home to Tunisia to put some space between her and another painful loss in a Grand Slam tournament final — the third in her career, all in the past 14 months.In the aftermath of that tearful defeat, Jabeur’s ubiquitous smile and easygoing humor are still there, and so is her refreshing honesty.“They say time heals,” she said on Friday. “I’m still waiting a bit. The Wimbledon loss still hurts.”Jabeur is the only woman to appear in three of the last five major singles finals. But with no titles to show for those runs, the pressure mounts for a player who is so popular with fans and competitors that many of them would be delighted to see her finally take home a winner’s trophy.“She’s got the world on her shoulders, unfortunately,” said Billie Jean King, who won 12 major singles titles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including four U.S. Opens. “She is so nice. Everybody loves Ons. Everybody. So of course I’d like her to win and get that monkey off her back, because she is a real pioneer for her continent and her country.”Jabeur on her way to a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Marketa Vondrousova last month in the Wimbledon final. Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBorn and raised in Tunisia, Jabeur became the first Arab woman to win a WTA Tour title, at the 2021 Birmingham Classic in England, when she was 26. A year later, at Wimbledon, she became the first African woman to reach a Grand Slam tournament final, and later that summer, she was the first African and first Arab woman to get to a U.S. Open final.The world cheered her on, and continues to do so, both for her trailblazing accomplishments and her magnetic personality. In almost every match, she is favored by the majority of spectators, many of whom yearn to see her win the most coveted titles. Even outside her country, she is a sentimental favorite.“I do feel that,” she said last week, “especially when I step on a tennis court, most of the people cheering for me. That’s a privilege. It’s a positive thing. I don’t think anyone would hate that. But I do take it as a great energy.”Jabeur developed into an elite player relatively late in her career, and did not break into the top 20 of the singles rankings until Aug. 16, 2021. Her 29th birthday is Monday, the day before she faces Camila Osorio, a Colombian ranked 68th, in the first round of the U.S. Open. It is realization that helps her cope with the disappointment of going 0-3 in major finals. Sometimes, it just takes time.Always ready with a quick one-liner and often poking fun at herself and others in a playful way, Jabeur elicits smiles wherever she goes. At the recent tournament near Cincinnati, Iga Swiatek, the world’s top-ranked player, lamented the vicious messages she receives on social media after certain matches, often from disgruntled gamblers. They will sometimes lash out at players, even after the players win, because it was not by enough to win a bet. Swiatek said she had received abuse for winning a match in three sets instead of two.“I believe these people should not exist,” Jabeur said in support, then added, “But, yeah, next time, Iga, don’t lose a set.”She was joking, of course. And she is one of the few players who can make such a comment without incurring the wrath of fellow players. They know how she is and recognize her wit. Before she lost to Aryna Sabalenka in a quarterfinal on Aug. 18 in Ohio, Jabeur referenced her victory over Sabalenka at Wimbledon a month earlier.“I know she didn’t forgive me for Wimbledon semifinals,” Jabeur said with a smile.But when the match commenced, Jabeur injured her right foot. An athletic trainer taped it tightly and Jabeur finished the match, but she was not moving well, raising concerns for how she would fare at this U.S. Open, where she is seeded fifth. Sabalenka, despite their rivalry and despite Jabeur’s cheeky comment about not being forgiven for Wimbledon, was sympathetic toward her popular opponent.“I’m a little bit sad for Ons,” she said. “I really hope she’ll recover fast and she’ll be ready for the U.S. Open.”Jabeur was not specific when asked about her foot injury on Friday. She did, however, account for a slight bit of congestion heading into the tournament.“American A.C. kills me,” she said about the air-conditioning.Jabeur was also asked about practicing with Marketa Vondrousova, who played the villain by beating Jabeur, 6-4, 6-4, in the Wimbledon final in July. Was the practice session an attempt by Jabeur to exorcise some demons?“Tried,” she said. “It did not work.”Her humor accounts for much of her popularity. But so do her tears. Sometimes the entire tennis world aches for Jabeur.Jabeur broke down during her on-court interview at Wimbledon.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockAfter she lost to Vondrousova at Wimbledon, she broke down during her on-court interview, evoking heart-wrenching memories of Andy Murray and Jana Novotna, who each cried on the same court after losing finals. Jabeur called it the most painful loss of her life, and it was plain to see. Her vulnerability in the moment, allowing the world to grasp how much it all meant to her and how painful it was to leave so many supporters disappointed, made Jabeur an even more sympathetic figure.Andy Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open men’s champion and one of Jabeur’s favorite players when she was a child, messaged her after Wimbledon and urged her to take time to recuperate — advice she followed. Roddick also told her he had more faith in her eventually winning Wimbledon than he had had in himself (that was probably because Roddick had to contend with Roger Federer, who beat Roddick in three Wimbledon finals and one U.S. Open final). Roddick discussed his admiration for Jabeur in his blog after the loss.“She’s someone I really hope wins a Grand Slam title at some point,” he wrote.But with each successive loss, the challenge grows more daunting and the pressure grows. Playing for so much and knowing that millions of people look to her to find inspiration is a weighty responsibility, indeed.“During a match she’s got to find a way not to be thinking about the world at all,” King said. “Just the ball and you. One ball at a time, in the now, play every point. She’s got to stay there for the whole match. It’s the only way she’s got a chance.” More