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      Carlos Alcaraz Has Been Studying the Grass Court Masters. That Means Andy Murray.

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      On a day many matches were rained out at the All England Club, Alcaraz displayed his continued improvement on grass, and what he has learned from Murray.Carlos Alcaraz took a little time to rest after coming up short in the French Open last month, and then he embarked on the next step toward strengthening one of the few remaining weaknesses in his tennis development — playing on grass.For Alcaraz, the 20-year-old world No. 1, that meant getting enough training sessions and matches on the surface that is at once the most traditional and most quirky in the sport. It also meant hours of watching videos of Andy Murray, the two-time Wimbledon champion and one of the masters of grass court tennis.On a day of rain that caused the cancellation or suspension of nearly every match not contested on the two covered courts at the All England Club, Alcaraz showed that his homework was paying off, and Murray provided the young Spaniard with a fresh batch of study material.Alcaraz has never advanced past the round of 16 at Wimbledon, but he has left no doubt about his goals for his third go-round at this most venerated of tennis competitions.“To win the tournament,” he said after the 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 pounding he delivered to Jeremy Chardy of France. “I have a lot of confidence right now.”An afternoon of play against Chardy, who had announced that he planned to retire after this tournament, was sure to help with that. There was little chance that Chardy was going to provide much of a challenge for Alcaraz at 36 years old, ranked 542nd in the world, and with just one tour level win this year.But for Alcaraz, who grew up mostly playing on red clay, the value of the day came not from the difficulty of his opponent. It came from spending more time on the sport’s most beguiling surface. With each match at Wimbledon Alcaraz gets closer to the inevitable — when the most talented young player becomes every bit as good on grass as he is everywhere else.Alcaraz, left, and Andy Murray at the Erste Bank Open in Vienna in 2021.Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty ImagesThis is where watching videos of Murray comes in. Alcaraz knows how to hit a tennis ball as well as and as hard as anyone, and his drop shot is as good as it gets on clay and hard courts. He’s also just about the fastest player in the game, especially on clay and hard courts. But he has said he needs to learn how to adapt his speed and his repertoire of shots to the grass.Few players have shown how to do that better than Murray, who won the men’s singles title at Wimbledon in 2013 and 2016, and showed why Tuesday afternoon in his 6-3, 6-0, 6-1 dismantling of Ryan Peniston, a fellow Briton.There are others who have conquered grass, of course, namely Roger Federer, who won a record eight men’s singles titles at Wimbledon and spent the afternoon chatting quietly in the front row of the royal box with Catherine, Princess of Wales, after he was celebrated with a video and a standing ovation. Alcaraz has studied his matches, too.And then there is Novak Djokovic, who has won the last four singles titles here, seven overall, and is on a 29-match Wimbledon winning streak. The problem with studying Djokovic is that he moves differently than everyone else on grass.Djokovic has somehow figured out how to glide and slide as though he were on clay or a hard court. When others try to play that way, they often end up on their backsides or with a strained groin. It is a style of grass court tennis that should come with a “don’t try this” warning.Alcaraz didn’t. Not on his way to the title at the grass court tuneup at Queen’s Club two weeks ago, or against Chardy on Tuesday, when he displayed plenty of signs of his Murray/Federer imitation game.Alcaraz took on balls ever so slightly earlier, a necessary move since they barely bounce on grass. He decelerated and turned with a series of quick stutter steps instead of his usual lightning quick plant-and-pivot. He showed off his improving serve, firing 10 aces, with plenty of them sliding off the court, including a final one on match point into the deep-wide corner of the service box that slid off the court before Chardy could move for it.“Every time that I get out to the court playing, it’s better for me,” he said when it was over. “I get more experience that is really, really important on that surface.”Murray does not lack for experience on grass and has almost always looked comfortable at the All England Club, making the third round in his debut in the main draw in 2005, when he was just 18 years old. Tuesday’s win over Peniston provided plenty of grass court study tips.Alcaraz often talks about how he begins every match wanting to play aggressively. Murray showed that on grass, aggression can take many forms beyond Alcaraz’s crushing forehands.Andy Murray in action in his first-round match on Tuesday.Hannah Mckay/ReutersHe played blocked backhand returns of serve that died in the front of the court to set up passing shots and sent drop volleys nearly sideways. In some rallies he produced a series of strokes that passed ever closer to the top of the net, and slid ever lower as they landed on the grass. One passing shot while Peniston was at the net darted toward his feet as though it fell off a table as soon as it passed over the tape. It was all over in two hours and 1 minute, one of Murray’s easier days on Centre Court, though he confessed to feeling nervous early on.“I like to feel that way,” he said “If I was going on the court and felt flat, didn’t have any emotion when I’m walking out there, that’s something that would probably be a bit wrong.”When Peniston committed his final error, Murray celebrated with the slightest of fist pumps and a brief wave to the crowd.He noted that the last time Federer had watched him on Centre Court was in the final of the 2012 Olympics, when Federer was cheering on his countryman and Murray’s opponent that day, Stan Wawrinka.“I was glad to get a few claps today,” Murray said.Murray skipped the French Open to begin his preparations for Wimbledon, the tournament he believes offers him the best chance to play into the second week.Those chances likely improved Tuesday when the match between his potential opponents, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Dominic Thiem, was suspended shortly after Thiem won the first set. They will likely resume Wednesday, with the winner taking on Murray, almost undoubtedly on Centre Court, Thursday.Murray said he does not study draws, preferring instead to focus only on his next match rather than waste time on hypotheticals. If he did, he would find a potential opponent in the semifinals who would be familiar with his tricks.That would be Alcaraz. More

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      After a Fall, Venus Williams Is Eliminated on Wimbledon’s First Day

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      Williams, a five-time Wimbledon singles champion, was vying, at 43, to become one of the oldest women to win a main draw singles match at the sport’s oldest Grand Slam event.She walked onto the court late on a gray and chilly afternoon with that rocking gait that has become so familiar to tennis fans over the past 25 years. With her tennis bag on her shoulder, she pulled at the ends of an elastic band to get in some last-minute upper-body stretches.Venus Williams, a five-time Wimbledon singles champion and a nine-time finalist, was back on Centre Court on Monday at age 43, vying to become one of the oldest women to win a main draw singles match at the sport’s oldest Grand Slam event.That is not how the day went. It ultimately left her limping, an injured symbol of a couple of undeniable truths about this era of tennis.The first: More players are stretching their careers longer than they ever have, into their late 30s and, in the case of the Williams sisters, into their early 40s, thanks to better training, nutrition and compensation. Caroline Wozniacki, 32, a former world No. 1, announced last month that she was returning to tennis after retiring in 2020 and having two children.The second: It’s difficult to stay healthy and win in this brutal sport in your late 30s and early 40s, unless your name is Novak Djokovic.There were members of the older set scattered all across the All England Club on Monday, the first day of Wimbledon, and not simply in the television booths. Williams took Centre Court after Djokovic, 36, had begun yet another title defense in his usual fashion, beating Pedro Cachín of Argentina in straight sets. The American player John Isner, 38, lost in four sets on Court 16 to Jaume Munar of Spain, but two courts over, on Court 18, Stan Wawrinka, another 38-year-old, was giving a clinic to Emil Ruusuvuori, eliminating the 24-year-old Finn in straight sets.Williams came up short in her effort, a hard-luck, 6-4, 6-3 loss to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in which Williams aggravated an injured right knee early in the match. Williams never regained the form she had shown in the match’s first few minutes, when she grabbed an early lead and gave every sign that a win for the old guard might be in the cards. Last month, Williams, ranked 558th in the world, beat a player ranked in the top 50 for the first time in four years, outlasting Camila Giorgi of Italy in a third-set tiebreaker in Birmingham, England.The victory helped Williams earn a wild-card entry into the Wimbledon tournament, which she won in five of nine appearances from 2000 to 2008. She made the women’s singles final as recently as 2017, and she has not given any indication that she is pointing at a certain end.“I’m a competitor,” a somber and shaken Williams said in her postmatch news conference. “That’s what I do for a living.”She has been doing it since she was 14.Officials assisted Williams after she fell and clutched her right knee in the first set of the match.Zac Goodwin/Press Association, via Associated PressPlaying on grass that was slick from a midafternoon rain shower and the moisture that lingered in the air throughout the day, Williams came out firing serves and lacing hard, flat shots to the back of the court. She broke Svitolina’s serve in the second game. But facing break point in the third game, Williams charged the net and then crumpled onto the grass with a scream as she clutched her right knee, which was wrapped in a support band.Williams remained on the ground for several minutes, with Svitolina placing a towel under her head for support. It looked as though Williams’s afternoon would end right there. But she got up and limped to her chair, where a trainer examined her. Afterward, her movement was far more limited than it had been in the first two games.She hobbled through points and struggled to generate the power from her groundstrokes and her serve that has long been the signature of her game but requires the ability to push and torque with the lower half of her body. The speed of her first serve dropped from 115 miles per hour early in the match to the mid-90s.“I was literally killing it — then I got killed by the grass,” Williams said. “It’s not fun right now.”The sequence of events had an eerie familiarity. Two years ago, her sister Serena walked onto the same court for her first-round match, seeking her eighth Wimbledon title at age 39. The effort lasted just six games: Serena Williams had to withdraw in the first round because of an ankle injury.Serena Williams returned to Wimbledon last year at the start of what seems to have been a final summer of professional tennis, though one never knows these days. She lost in the first round in three sets on an evening that had the feel of a farewell.What was striking about her older sister’s match Monday was how little it felt like a valedictory, and how defiant Venus Williams seemed as she faced the toll that aging exacts on every athlete, regardless of her ability.She said she was in shock at being injured, though older athletes are far more injury-prone.“I just can’t believe this happened,” she said. “It’s, like, bizarre.”She was angry at how the match had ended. On match point, Svitolina hit a ball that was called out, but the chair umpire gave her the match when the Hawk-Eye system showed it was in. Williams’s return of the shot had been wide, and the umpire ruled that the point would not be replayed. Williams skipped the postmatch handshake with the umpire.She said the injury had been so painful that it had prevented her from focusing. She said that she had never considered stopping and that she would have her knee checked on Tuesday. Moments later, she was talking about the difficulty of processing another injury after recovering from a hamstring injury at the start of the year.She has been missing from the tour for a while. It is not what she wants for herself in her early 40s.“Hopefully I can just figure out what’s happening with me and move forward,” she said.For nearly 30 years, that has meant one thing: back to the tennis court. More

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      Novak Djokovic Eyes a Fifth Straight Wimbledon Title

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      If Djokovic can win his fifth consecutive title at the All England Club, he will be three-quarters of the way to a Grand Slam.Novak Djokovic, bent over with a towel in hand, delighted the Centre Court crowd during a rain delay at Wimbledon on Monday when he mopped some moisture from the grass. It seemed appropriate for someone who has been doing the same general thing to his opponents over the last five years at this tournament.Djokovic has not lost a match at Wimbledon since 2017, and with a victory over Pedro Cachin of Argentina in their first-round meeting Monday, he extended his record over the last five Wimbledon tournaments to 29-0. He has won the last four men’s singles titles, and one more this year would set him up to eclipse even more names in the record book.If Djokovic can claim a fifth consecutive title at the All England Club, he will have taken home the first three major trophies of 2023 and increased his chances of winning the first men’s Grand Slam (all four majors in the same year) since Rod Laver did it in 1969. He would also become just the third man to do it, joining Laver (1962 and 1969) and Don Budge in 1938. Three women have accomplished the feat: Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.Djokovic would also tie Roger Federer for most Wimbledon men’s singles titles (eight) and tie Bjorn Borg for the most consecutive (five). Finally, he would match Court’s record of 24 major titles, and would be the only player to do it entirely in the Open era. (Court won 13 majors before 1968, during a time when professionals were not allowed to play in the majors.)On Monday, Djokovic, the No. 2 seed but the overwhelming title favorite, walked onto Centre Court absorbing a moment that only a happy few have experienced.“It’s a feeling like no other tournament in the world, of walking out on the Centre Court of Wimbledon as a defending champion, on the fresh grass,” he said. “It’s amazing, amazing to be back to a dream tournament, and to be able to get the first match out of the way.”Wimbledon was the first tennis tournament Djokovic watched on television when he was growing up in Serbia, and it has held an allure for him since. And while that is true for thousands of players, few have enjoyed it as much as Djokovic, who ingests blades of grass immediately upon winning his titles (unlike when he wins on the red clay of Roland Garros).Winning on grass, especially in an era when there are so few tournaments on the surface, and the season is so short, is particularly challenging, and Djokovic rarely plays the warm-up tournaments anymore. There are many tactical aspects that make grass distinct from clay and hardcourts, even now, when the Wimbledon surface is much bouncier and faster than it once was.“I had to learn how to move,” Djokovic said about the transition from playing on red clay to playing on grass.Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor Djokovic, who likes to slide across hardcourts and clay as he reaches for balls out wide and at the net, the grass at Wimbledon does not allow for the same kind of horizontal movement. But Djokovic has become as adept as anyone at adjusting from clay to grass in short order.“I had to learn how to move,” he said, “how to walk, how to play, how to read the bounces, etc.”But the grass was actually too slippery for a while on Monday after a light rain fell toward the end of the first set of Djokovic’s victory, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (4) over Cachin. It was Djokovic’s toughest obstacle of the day.The match was halted, the tarp spread over the court and the roof rolled closed. Normally the courts dry off in less than half an hour. But the moisture mysteriously persisted on Monday, and tournament officials and the players returned to a still slippery court.In all, the delay lasted almost 90 minutes, a surprising duration for a court with a roof. But Djokovic endeared himself to the disappointed spectators by employing his towel and joking with them, as if he could clean it all up himself. Considering his success on that patch of grass — he hasn’t lost on Centre Court since 2013 — some might have expected him to do it.Some wondered whether his good temper was an indication that Djokovic, with a men’s singles record 23rd major title safely in hand, was now in a more relaxed and jovial mood.“I wouldn’t particularly say it’s quite a unique feeling for me just because I’ve won my 23rd Slam,” he said. “I’ve always tried to have fun in particular circumstances where I guess you can’t control things. I’ve had some funny rain delays in Paris, as well, New York, where I joked around.”He acknowledged being physically and emotionally exhausted after winning the French Open in June. So he and his wife, Jelena, went to Portugal’s Azores Islands to hike and relax. They were even forced to spend an extra day there because fog grounded their original flight home.“It was great because I’ve been through a lot of different emotions during the clay season,” he said, “particularly obviously reaching the climax in Paris, and I needed to get away, get isolated a little bit.”One player Djokovic will not have to contend with this year is Nick Kyrgios, his opponent in last year’s Wimbledon final. Kyrgios, who has been recovering from surgery on his left knee in January, withdrew from the tournament on the eve of the first day after a scan revealed a torn ligament in his wrist.“I think people just forget how strenuous this sport is, how physical it is,” Kyrgios said Sunday, before announcing his wrist injury. “I dare someone to go out there and play four hours with Novak and see how you feel afterward.”Since Djokovic’s current run began in 2018, they’ve all been wiped away. More

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      Ben Shelton Arrives at Wimbledon With His Father as Coach

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      Bryan Shelton guided his son for years as a junior and in college. Now he is taking the reins on the ATP Tour. Next up: Wimbledon.Last year, when Ben Shelton decided to leave college and turn professional, he wondered aloud to his father, Bryan, a former player on the men’s tennis tour, if they ought to embark on a venture together.Sorry, Bryan Shelton told his son, he already had a full-time job coaching at the University of Florida. Bryan Shelton handed the reins to Dean Goldfine, a highly respected coach who had previously worked with the former world No. 1 Andy Roddick. Perhaps, they reasoned, it was better this way, giving the 57-year-old father and his 20-year-old son a healthy distance for his first couple years as a professional.Then Ben became the breakout star of this year’s Australian Open, riding his booming serve into the singles quarterfinals, while Bryan was back home in Gainesville, Fla., readying the Gators for the spring season. It turns out even well-adjusted, middle-aged dads can be susceptible to FOMO. In early June, shortly after Florida’s men’s team was eliminated from the N.C.A.A. Division I tennis tournament, the Sheltons announced that Ben had a new/old full-time coach.“It was the right time,” Bryan Shelton said.On June 12, father and son set out for the grass-court season and the next phase of their relationship, which has a big-stage debut this week at Wimbledon, where Shelton, who has been billed as a star in the making, is scheduled to play Taro Daniel in the first round Tuesday.“We knew eventually this is what we wanted to happen,” Ben Shelton said Saturday at the All England Club.Parent-child relationships can be fraught. Mix in coaching, which is not uncommon in tennis, especially when a parent is a former professional, and they can quickly turn “toxic and tough,” in the words of Bryan Shelton.Stefanos Tsitsipas yelling during matches at his box, with his coach and father, Apostolos, sometimes yelling back, can make spectators feel like uncomfortable guests at an awkward family dinner. Then again, things seem to be working out all right for Casper Ruud, who has made (but lost) three of the past five Grand Slam finals under the tutelage of his father, Cristian. Like Bryan Shelton, Cristian Ruud was a decent pro on the ATP Tour.Looking for the Ruuds between tournaments or on off days? Try the nicest nearby golf course, where they compete like college buddies. Still, after his loss last month to Novak Djokovic in the French Open final, Casper Ruud, 24, said he would not rule out one day getting guidance from someone other than his father.“It can always be good with new, fresh eyes on your game,” he said.For Ben Shelton, there are benefits both on and off the court in having his father around, he said. Given his strapping frame and 12-month rise from Florida Gator ranked outside the top 400 to Grand Slam quarterfinalist, it can be easy to forget just how young and raw he is in tennis years and life experiences.A late bloomer, Ben did not play most of the major junior tournaments growing up. He attended a regular high school rather than a tennis-focused academy. His journey to Australia for the Open and its lead-up tournaments was his first trip overseas.This year’s clay-court swing was his first trip to Europe. On Saturday, he confessed to feeling homesick while traveling without his parents earlier this year.Not only has he never played Wimbledon before, but until the middle of last month, he had never set foot on a grass court. He won one of his three matches on grass the past few weeks, though both losses needed a deciding third set.Expectations for Ben’s Wimbledon debut are high, and arriving alongside his dad, who has coached him before and has won his own matches at the All England Club, may bolster his chances.Ben Shelton trained on the practice courts at Wimbledon on Friday as his father looked on.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesThe young player’s pounding serve, walloping forehand and his ability to move forward on the court make grass an ideal surface for him if he can figure out how to stay low and master the quick, controlled foot movements that winning on grass requires.The first two days were rough, Ben said Saturday.“My legs were feeling weird,” he said. “And then after those two days, I started having a lot of fun.”Bryan Shelton said he has always told his son that Wimbledon is the game’s most special venue, a place where he had dreamed of playing as a teenager in Alabama watching the famous matches between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe on television. In 1989, he walked onto a field court to play Boris Becker, who was already a two-time Wimbledon champion at 22, two years younger than Bryan Shelton. Becker beat him in three sets.“Someone pulled up a video on an iPad and handed it to me so we could watch it,” Bryan Shelton said. “Better than I thought it would be.”He made the fourth round of Wimbledon in 1994, his best performance at a Grand Slam tournament, beating the second seed, Michael Stich of Germany, in his opening match.Bryan Shelton said for the past six months he and his wife, Lisa, had been discussing him leaving his college job to work full-time with Ben, but first he needed to make sure Ben still wanted him. He did.During Ben’s early teenage years, father and son would practice before Ben headed off to school, hitting the courts at 6:45 a.m. each morning. Through that experience and during Ben’s college career, Bryan learned a lesson that nearly all parents learn about their children: Despite all that shared DNA, they are not mini-me’s.Bryan loved to drill on the tennis court, honing shots through hours of practice. Drills bore Ben. Competition drives him. He needs to play more points in practice.Bryan said as a junior player there were times when Ben would come home from losing in a tournament and Bryan would ask his son what had gone wrong.This was before Ben had grown to 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds. He would tell his father he just needed to get bigger.Ben Shelton said his father has become good at picking up on the signals that it’s time to switch from coach mode into dad mode. Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesBryan didn’t necessarily like that answer. He would tell his son that there were always things he could get better at, that he should make a list of the elements of his game he needed to improve, the way Bryan had after some of his losses. But that wasn’t how Ben ticked.“I was getting in his way,” Bryan Shelton said. “What I learned that I need to do is let him think about how good he is and know that he will do the work.”Like any coach and player, they have had their moments on the court. There are times when Ben needs to let off steam, and Bryan needs him to be composed. An hour later, someone will apologize, and they move on. They share an understanding that people make mistakes, and they try to maintain their “no grudges” rule.Ben said his father has become good at picking up on the signals that it’s time to switch from coach mode into dad mode. Bryan will set a time limit on a video session, so they aren’t constantly watching and talking about tennis. So far, he’s been happy to let Ben head to dinner with friends while he stays back in his hotel room, orders in and watches golf.“He’s pretty easy to travel with,” Ben said of his father.Good thing. They will be doing a lot of it. More

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      GOATs Are Everywhere in Sports. So What Really Defines Greatness?

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      Athletes from Tom Brady to Serena Williams to LeBron James have all been tabbed the Greatest of All Time. Faced with the term’s pervasive use, our columnist considers how sports heroes become transcendent.If you are reading this column, I have great news: You’re the GOAT!That’s right: Among those who have happened upon this space, I deem you the Greatest Reader of All Time.Then again, if you’re LeBron James, or Serena Williams, or Nikola Jokic — with that sparkling N.B.A. championship ring — well, you already know you’re the GOAT. Everyone has been saying so.“Bahhh, bahhh, bahhh,” goes the bleating of a goat. It’s also the sound made by James’s Los Angeles Lakers teammates when he walks into the locker room. GOAT hosannas are practically the soundtrack of his life.Driven by its pervasive usage around sports, five years ago the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster entered the term GOAT in the dictionary as an acronym and a noun.LeBron James is considered by many to be the GOAT in men’s basketball.Kyle Grillot for The New York TimesDefining the term as “the most accomplished or successful individual in the history of a particular sport or category of performance or activity,” a Merriam-Webster editor nodded to the pervasive use of Tom Brady’s name along with GOAT in a popular search engine as an example of why the acronym had become dictionary official.Yeah, I know — this GOAT thing, it’s a little confusing. To be the greatest implies singularity, no? But now there are GOATs everywhere we turn.Even worse than the acronym’s overuse is its doltish simplicity. There’s not enough nuance. Too much emphasis on outright winning, not enough on overcoming.What are our options here? Maybe we should ban the use of the term outright in sports, following the lead of Lake Superior State University, which cheekily ranked the hazy, lazy acronym No. 1 on its 2023 list of banished words.“The many nominators didn’t have to be physicists or grammarians to determine the literal impossibility and technical vagueness of this wannabe superlative,” read a statement from the university.Banning doesn’t quite seem like a possibility, however — not when a word has bored a hole this deep into our collective consciousness.No doubt, being a goat isn’t what it used to be. In sports, it was once a terrible insult, a term of shame hung on athletes who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Greg Norman, otherwise known as the Shark, was a goat for coughing up a six-stroke lead in the final round of the 1996 Masters, a tournament he lost by five strokes.Before Norman, there was the Boston Red Sox’ grounder-through-the legs-at-the-worst-possible-World-Series-moment goat, Bill Buckner.Need I say more?According to a Merriam-Webster editor, online searches for Tom Brady’s name and GOAT prompted the addition of the acronym to the dictionary in 2018.Elise Amendola/Associated PressMuhammad Ali is widely credited with first injecting the Greatest of All Time into the mix. When he went by Cassius Clay in the early 1960s, he recorded a comedy album anchored by the title poem, “I Am the Greatest.”After his upset win over George Foreman in 1974, he added a flourish, admonishing his doubters and critics, and reminding them of his status: “I told you I am still the greatest of all times!”But was it really Ali who came up with this particular egotistic flourish?Some say GOAT’s origins actually spring from a flamboyant, blond-tressed wrestler, George Wagner, who was known as Gorgeous George and who in the 1940s and ’50s earned lavish paydays by turning trash talk into fine art.In a precursor to W.W.E.-style braggadocio, Gorgeous George once claimed before a big fight that if he lost, he would “crawl across the ring and cut my hair off!” He added, “But that’s not going to happen, because I’m the greatest wrestler in the world.”Ali said he had learned a good chunk of his boastfulness from Gorgeous George.“A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth,” the wrestler is said to have told Ali after a chance meeting. “So keep on bragging, keep on sassing, and always be outrageous.”This week marks the moment when sport’s most legitimate GOAT talk hovers over tennis and an event its organizers not-so-humbly call the Championships.Wimbledon starts Monday. The men’s favorite, Novak Djokovic, has 23 Grand Slam tournament titles, one short of Margaret Court’s record of 24. If he wins this year, his wildly devoted fan base will confidently proclaim the Serb’s GOAT status.That will drive fans of Rafael Nadal, who is stuck at 22 major titles, to distraction. They will argue that their idol would have won 25 major titles (or more) by now, if not for injuries.Then Roger Federer devotees will wade in. He had losing records against both Nadal and Djokovic. But, by goodness, he’s Roger Federer, fine linen with a forehand with 20 Slams and a raft of epic final-round battles to his name.Not so fast, Serena Williams adherents will remind. Not only does she have 23 Grand Slam titles — including one earned while she was pregnant — Williams braved playing in a mostly white sport and bent it to her will. Besides, she’s as much a cultural icon as an athlete. Can any male player say that?Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam titles in her career, bolstering her claim to being the GOAT of tennis.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesThen there are the old-school partisans of Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King. Stop the unfairness, they will shout. No more comparing superlative athletes from vastly different eras.Time has changed everything in every sport — better equipment, better training methods, new rules — so how can we reliably compare? Before McEnroe lost to Borg in the 1980 Wimbledon final, neither had the benefit of sleeping, as Djokovic reportedly does, in a performance-enhancing hypobaric chamber.On and on the argument will go.That’s the craziness of it. The foolishness and the fun of it.Who’s the GOAT?Well, to be honest, I’ve got four. Willie Mays. Joe Montana. Williams. Federer.I can remember each for their sublime victories, of course. But also their stumbles. A 42-year-old Mays lost in the outfield. A fragile Montana in his twilight, playing not for San Francisco but Kansas City.I was on hand to see Williams struggle and come up short as she chased that elusive last Slam. I sat feet from Federer as he held two match points against Djokovic in the Wimbledon final of 2019. Then the Swiss crumbled in defeat.“For now it hurts, and it should — every loss hurts at Wimbledon,” Federer said at the post-match news conference. But, he added, he would persevere. “I don’t want to be depressed about actually an amazing tennis match.”No one escapes disappointment and frailty. But if we do it right, we soldier on.You know what that means? It means all of us can be GOATs!Bleat on, my friends. Bleat on! More

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      Andy Murray Returns to Wimbledon Aiming for Another Long Run

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      A decade ago, Murray broke the 77-year singles championship drought for British men at Wimbledon. It has been up and down since. Can he recapture the magic?In late May, with most of the world’s best tennis players focused on the red clay at the French Open, Sir Andy Murray was 300 miles away on the other side of the English Channel, dialed in on preparations for the grass at Wimbledon.That had been the plan, anyway. But then his wife, Kim Sears, had to head up to Scotland for a few days to handle some business at the hotel she and Murray own. That left him solo for the morning rituals beginning at 5:30 a.m. with their four children, all younger than 8: cooking breakfast, getting everyone dressed and dropping them off at school.Three hours later, with the last child delivered, he headed to Britain’s national tennis center in Roehampton, where he received treatment from his physiotherapist and trained for several hours on the grass court and in the gym. There was also an afternoon of interviews and shooting promotional videos. It’s all part of the next phase of Murray’s quixotic, late-career quest to finish his journey on his terms, metal hip and all.Maybe that means somehow recapturing the magic of 10 years ago, when he became the first British man in 77 years to win the most important title in his sport. Maybe it’s simply cracking the top 30 or 20 once more, proving wrong all the doctors and doubters who called him foolish for entertaining a future in professional tennis after hip resurfacing surgery in 2019.Or maybe it’s pushing off for however long he can be the full-time tennis elder, entrepreneur and someone who, years ago, did that glorious thing.The default demeanor that accompanies Murray’s grueling physical play has always looked something like misery, peppered with a near-constant verbal self-flagellation that pulls spectators into his battle. But there is also joy in the training, the competing, the quest to improve and get the most out of himself while doing something that he loves, even when that means struggling against seemingly inferior opponents. Murray knows nothing else he does will ever match the feeling. So he goes on, results be damned.“I’m jealous of your Jannik Sinners and these young guys that have got an amazing career to look forward to,” he said during a recent interview at the end of that harried day as he headed for the tennis center parking lot. “I would love to do it all over again.”Murray’s Wimbledon singles title in 2013 was the first by a British man since Fred Perry won in 1936.Kerim Okten/European Pressphoto Agency‘An Outrageous Career’A decade on from the moment Britain had been waiting on since the Great Depression, Murray returns to the All England Club a version of himself that he could not have imagined in 2013, when he was just another 20-something bloke who walked his dogs in London on the south bank of the Thames.The tennis obsessive is now a man in full: a husband of eight years; a father of four; an officer of the Order of the British Empire (hence the “sir”); an art collector; an entrepreneur with a portfolio that includes a hotel, a clothing line and other investments; and the wise man, sounding board and occasional practice partner for the next generation of British tennis stars, such as Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu.Mirra Andreeva, the 16-year-old Russian phenom, would like some time with him, too. She called him “so beautiful” this spring.Regrets, he has a few, especially in those years in his 20s when he trained like a fiend and viewed time with friends and family as an impediment to a tireless search for every ounce of success. Another speed workout. More lifting, or hot yoga, or hitting practice balls. Why did he make life so difficult for his coaches? Why did he eat all those sweet-and-sour candies? Why did he stay up until 3 a.m. playing video games so often?The lazy view of Murray, who plays Ryan Peniston of Britain in the first round on Tuesday, is a player with just three Grand Slam singles titles, the same as Stan Wawrinka, who is a fine champion but no one’s idea of an all-time great. Novak Djokovic just won his 23rd. Rafael Nadal has 22; Roger Federer, 20. They are the so-called Big Three.Djokovic said recently he doesn’t much like that term because it excludes Murray, a player he has been battling since his days on the junior tennis circuit. The longtime mates practiced together on Saturday at the All England Club.There is a reason Federer included Murray as a central character in his send-off last year at the Laver Cup. Murray has beaten Djokovic, Nadal and Federer a combined 29 times, including two wins over Djokovic in Grand Slam finals. He made 11 Grand Slam singles finals during the most competitive era of elite men’s tennis. Only he, Nadal, Federer and Djokovic held a No. 1 ranking between 2004 and 2022. And he withstood unmatched pressure during his run to that first Wimbledon title.“It’s an outrageous career,” said Jamie Murray, a top doubles player who teamed with Andy, his younger sibling, in 2015 to deliver Britain its first Davis Cup triumph since 1936.Or it was an outrageous career, until that grueling physical style exacted its toll on Murray’s back and ankles and eventually led to the degenerative hip condition that stymied his run at the top in 2017. In January 2018, Murray had an initial unsuccessful hip surgery. For the rest of the season, everyone saw him suffering and limping through the pain.At the 2019 Australian Open, Bob Bryan, a 23-time Grand Slam doubles champion, put his breakfast tray down at Murray’s table and told him about the hip resurfacing surgery he had undergone the previous summer. The operation allowed Bryan to return to high-level competition doubles in just five months. Elite singles was something else entirely.“‘All I want to do is play,’” Bryan said Murray told him.Later that month, Murray posted a startling photo on Instagram that showed him lying in a hospital bed.“I now have a metal hip,” he wrote after the roughly two-hour resurfacing procedure that replaced the damaged bone and cartilage with a metal shell. “Feeling a bit battered and bruised just now but hopefully that will be the end of my hip pain.”Murray’s pain had grown so severe that the primary goal of the operation was to give him the ability to play with his children.For the next six months, he attacked physical therapy and rehabilitation the way he had attacked tennis. He was a full-time father. He played golf. He hung around with old friends.Matt Gentry, Murray’s longtime agent and business partner, said the downtime gave Murray a window into life without tennis. It wasn’t terrible.Murray has long admired American sports stars who take an entrepreneurial approach to their careers, and he and Gentry began to map out opportunities. Murray has since launched a clothing line. He has invested with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in TMRW Sports, a company that is seeking to find new ways to marry sports media and technology, including a new golf competition. He is part of a group that is building thousands of padel courts at sports clubs throughout the United Kingdom.In 2013, he purchased Cromlix House, a 15-room castle-like hotel near his childhood home in Dunblane, Scotland, for roughly $2 million. The property was especially meaningful: His grandparents held their 25th anniversary party there in 1982. He and Sears held their wedding reception there. His brother, Jamie, also got married at the property.Murray and Sears recently completed the first phase of a multimillion-dollar renovation and expansion of the property that will eventually include cabins by the nearby loch. The hotel is home to several pieces of art from Murray’s private collection, including a series of Damien Hirst and David Shrigley prints.For now, Murray said, he mostly listens to pitches and writes checks, but he plans to become more involved in his business ventures when he is done playing tennis. If he has his way, that day will not arrive for some time.‘Why Shouldn’t He Keep Playing?’Murray’s mother, Judy, a former player who was his first tennis coach, said tennis allows her son to express so many parts of his identity, beginning with a burning need to compete, but also an analytical mind that loves studying the game and its history.From the time he was a small boy, she said, if a game of cards or dominoes wasn’t going his way, those cards and dominoes would go flying across the room. He also had an older and bigger brother he desperately wanted to beat, and plenty of people who said that a boy from a small town in Scotland, where the weather was terrible and indoor courts were scarce, could never win Wimbledon. Now those same people say his time has passed.“If he still loves it, then why shouldn’t he keep playing?” Judy Murray said in an interview on Friday.Andy Murray with his mother, Judy, at the All England Club in 2019, when he played doubles while recovering from hip surgery.Hannah Mckay/ReutersMurray said he has a rough idea of when and how he would like his tennis career to end, but he knows it might not be his choice. Federer desperately wanted to play more, but his knee wouldn’t allow it. Murray has seen the videos of Nadal limping off the court in Australia in January with a torn muscle and hip injury from which he may never fully recover.Murray knows that his next desperate sprint for a drop shot, or one of his signature points earned while running the baseline back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, could be his last. Then again, he could still be doing this three years from now, which carries its own unique complications.He recently ran out of his stash of the bulky, extra-support tennis shoes that Under Armour manufactured for him until their last partnership deal expired. So Murray had to call his friend Kevin Plank, the Under Armour founder, and ask if he could make him more shoes. Plank did.In early June, when Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz and nearly everyone else of consequence was playing in Paris, Murray was playing a Challenger tournament at a racket club in Surbiton, southwest of London, in the tennis minor leagues.The field was made up of pro-tour deep cuts and some early round French Open casualties. A crowd of hundreds packed the stands, which were set on shaky scaffolding.Murray took only a few games against Chung Hyeon, a journeyman from South Korea, to show why he is certain he can beat anyone in the world on grass at a time when so few pros have mastered the surface: the slice backhands that go successively lower until they barely bounce above an opponent’s shoelaces; the dying volleys in the front of the court, and the stinging ones to the baseline; the slice serve that slides so far off the court; the softballs that look like meatballs but are really knuckleballs, wobbling in the air and twisting when they hit the grass.Two weeks and two Challenger trophies later, Murray had claimed 10 straight matches, the first five won while commuting from his home outside London, where he had decamped to a spare bedroom for the month to get some rest.Then came his final Wimbledon tuneup, at Queen’s Club in London, where he lost his first match to Alex de Minaur of Australia, a top 20 player who took advantage of Murray’s heavy legs and lackluster serve that day. Murray tried not to read too much into the result.All journeys have peaks and valleys. As the teachers in Murray’s hot yoga classes would say, the only way out is through — even on those days when the end feels closer than Murray hopes it might.Murray passed on the French Open and played two grass-court ATP Challenger tournaments in England instead. He won both.Ben Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More

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      Before Wimbledon, There’s Practice on Grass at an English Garden Party

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      The Boodles, which draws elite players on their way to the All England Club, is unlike nearly anything else on the tennis calendar — a Gatsby-like few days on an estate outside London.Even for the best tennis players in the world, the days before a Grand Slam can be filled with nerves and stress, especially the time leading up to Wimbledon, the grandest Grand Slam of them all.Days can become a blur of hunting for hitting partners and time on the limited practice courts a tournament has available, or one last try to win some tour-level matches at competitions in Eastbourne or Majorca.A handful of pros, including several clients of Patricio Apey, a longtime agent, end up at a classic English garden party called the Boodles that is unlike nearly anything else on the tennis calendar — a Gatsby-like few days on an estate outside London that makes Wimbledon’s All England Club, supposedly the apotheosis of tennis elegance, feel like a gathering of the masses at the local park.The Boodles tennis exhibition, set on a sprawling estate outside London, is unlike nearly anything else on the sport’s calendar.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesDriving in this morning, I was kind of shocked,” Lorenzo Musetti, the rising star from Italy, said of the 300-acre property, whose owner since 2021 has been Reliance Industries, a company run by the Ambani family of India, which bought it for roughly $70 million. “Not every day you see a property like this.”Or a high-end jewelry show masquerading as a tennis event at a sprawling former country club called Stoke Park.“The best event we do all year,” said Michael Wainwright, the managing director of Boodles, the Liverpool- and London-based jewelry company that his family has owned since 1880.Guests in the outdoor seating area before the matches began.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesStoke Park was bought by Reliance Industries, a company run by India’s Ambani family, for roughly $70 million in 2021.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesWhen he started the Boodles two decades ago, Apey wasn’t thinking about putting on a tennis event that would feel more like a polo match. He just knew that players who won Wimbledon made more money than players who won the other major tournaments. (Wimbledon’s men’s and women’s singles champions will earn nearly $3 million each this year.)He represented a number of players who excelled on clay courts but not on grass. They struggled to acclimate during the few weeks between the French Open and Wimbledon because they often lost early in the few tournaments available during the brief grass court season.“I needed to get them more matches,” Apey said.The only way for him to do that, he reasoned, was to create a grass court exhibition event near London ahead of Wimbledon. Stoke Park, with its some two-dozen-bedroom mansion, a rolling golf course — tennis players love to relax with rounds of golf — and immaculate grass tennis courts provided the perfect location.Through an acquaintance, he landed a meeting with Wainwright and his older brother, Nicholas, who warmed to the idea. It was a soft sell opportunity: Put their jewelry in front of hundreds of their top customers and thousands more in the upper echelon of the tennis demographic (think pocket squares and long, flowery summer dresses) whiling away a summer afternoon drinking champagne and Pimm’s, eating multicourse catered lunches, enjoying high tea, browsing a tented pavilion filled with sparkling baubles and perhaps taking in some tennis in a small stadium under high trees surrounded by perfectly manicured gardens.Who doesn’t love mixing grass court tennis and expensive jewelry?Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBoodles sponsors another high-end sports event, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a well-heeled equestrian race, but women like tennis more, Wainwright said, and horse racing doesn’t offer the same “dwell time” that tennis does.In other words, with all of tennis’s changeovers and the breaks between sets and matches, and the fact that the matches don’t actually matter, the 10,000 patrons who come to the five days of the Boodles tennis event have plenty of time to peruse that $2.9 million diamond ring, or the more affordable $80,000 necklace. There were several cases of Patek Philippe watches on display as well.Boodles also threw an evening gala on the Stoke Park grounds for roughly 40 of its top customers Wednesday night. Wine and champagne flowed, and jewelry was sold, into the small hours of the morning.Andrey Rublev took advantage of the grass courts at Stoke Park to practice before his match.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBorna Coric worked out after a match.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesCoric, left, and Sebastian Korda answer questions during an interview.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesFor players, the Boodles can offer an appearance fee and — just as valuable — a chance to chill. Sebastian Korda and his coach, Radek Stepanek, joined Wainwright for a round of golf earlier in the week.There is an expansive gym for the growing cohort of lifting obsessives on the tour. Perhaps most important are the moments of calm practice on the Stoke Park grass before the chaos of Wimbledon.“It’s a chance to work on a few things,” said Korda, who played in Eastbourne the week before Wimbledon last year and lost his first match.Borna Coric of Croatia, who was winless in two grass court tournaments this year, said he had arrived at Stoke Park this week harried and worried about his form. He had then climbed into bed in a luxurious room.“I had the best night of sleep I’ve had in weeks,” Coric said. More

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      Artists Honor Wimbledon With Sculptures, Paintings and More

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      The Championships Artist Program has been chronicling the tournament in sculpture, paintings and other mediums for nearly 20 years.Sitting courtside at Wimbledon, the sculptor Mark Reed found inspiration as he watched players serve. The power, speed and beauty mesmerized him. Commissioned by the All England Club to create a sculpture that combined tennis and his trademark metal trees, Reed envisioned a piece that presented a serving player in human and tree form.This year, when fans enter the tournament grounds through Gate 1, they will be greeted by “The Serving Ace Meeting Tree.” The nearly 12-foot-tall bronze sculpture features a tree trunk and branches curved to represent a player in midserve. A canopy of stainless-steel leaves shades the bench below.Mark Reed’s bronze sculpture “The Serving Ace Meeting Tree” on the tournament grounds.AELTC/Chloe KnottThe sculpture is the newest addition to the Wimbledon landscape and to the collection of artwork produced by the Championships Artist Program.“Seeing it lowered into place at Wimbledon, that touchdown point, was very emotional,” Reed said. “It was like ‘Wow, it’s whole, it’s safe, it’s in position and looks right.’ ”In 2002, after refurbishing its clubhouse, the All England Club recognized a need for more artwork and commissioned pieces that depicted its rich history. Those commissions evolved into the artist program in 2006.For nearly two decades, a club committee has invited artists who work in a variety of mediums, including sculpture, painting, glass blowing, engraving, paper quilling, illustration and poetry, to create pieces that embody Wimbledon.Some of the artists are well-known with several prestigious commissions on their résumés, including work for the royal family. Others gain greater visibility through the program. All have been based in Britain, though it’s not a requirement, and all have collaborated with club leaders on themes and tie-ins to tournament traditions.“The Serving Ace Meeting Tree” includes caterpillars with tennis rackets on the branches.AELTC/Chloe Knott“The Serving Ace Meeting Tree” reflects a post-pandemic change to the program. Instead of annual commissions, the club now focuses on fewer, larger-scale pieces that may take years to complete. Reed said designing, casting and assembling the tree required almost 6,000 hours of work.Honored to be selected for Wimbledon commissions, the artists want to create pieces that provide an original take on the tradition-steeped event and connect with club members and visitors. That often results in a mix of emotions, typically excitement and anxiety.“People are so passionate about Wimbledon that everybody will have an opinion about what you’ve done; that’s quite a challenge,” said Eileen Hogan, who made oil paintings in 2009 that are showcased the Members’ Enclosure.Eileen Hogan produced several oil paintings in 2009 of the Wimbledon grounds.AELTCWorking at Wimbledon helped prepare Hogan for her most recent commission: the coronation service of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. Hogan was the first woman to receive that assignment.Artists commissioned by the All England Club tour the grounds and the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum before the tournament starts and return to watch matches. Walking around with sketchbooks and cameras, they find inspiration almost everywhere — the clubhouse décor, championship trophies, flower beds, archived photos, action on the court, private clubhouse spaces, and conversations with members, caterers, ball boys and ball girls.“We try and show the artists our heritage and give them as much access as possible,” said Sarah Frandsen, who as program coordinator supports the projects from conception to installation. “We want them to be really fired up about the commission. We never want to be too prescriptive.”Jeremy Houghton, a painter, attended matches in 2017 and called the commission a “dream ticket.” He painted watercolors of Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Venus Williams and other top players. He also captured junior matches, wheelchair tennis and club staff.“You’ve got your rock stars on the court, but there’s a huge amount of people behind the scenes making things tick,” he said. “I was keen to portray both sides of that.”Jeremy Houghton’s watercolor painting of Wimbledon’s Centre Court.AELTCThe glassblower Katherine Huskie vividly remembers the tour she took with the engraver Nancy Sutcliffe in 2018. “What really struck us was all of the details on the wallpaper, the curtains, the carpet,” Huskie said. “It looks like little patterns, then you get closer and realize it’s tennis rackets.” That influenced how Huskie and Sutcliffe approached their commission.With a nod to the plate-shaped women’s trophy, they created two large glass discs. A ribbon of gold leaf winds around one disc, representing the seams on a tennis ball. The ribbon features engravings by Sutcliffe. From a distance, the engravings appear as an abstract pattern, but up close they’re an intricate arrangement of players in midstroke.Yulia Brodskaya, who specializes in paper quilling, built a three-dimensional aerial map of the Wimbledon grounds in 2015. The colorful piece consists of more than 1,000 paper strips that have been rolled, curled, folded and twisted into easily recognized images, including flowers on the grounds and Serena Williams with the women’s trophy.Yulia Brodskaya’s three-dimensional aerial map of the Wimbledon grounds is made from more than 1,000 paper strips.AELTCThe map includes a small tennis court at the center.AELTC“The whole experience was a visual representation of people being proud of 140 years of heritage and caring deeply about all aspects of the tournament,” Brodskaya said.As the program’s first and only poet, Matt Harvey enjoyed a different kind of Wimbledon experience. In 2010, he posted a poem online each day and read verses to fans waiting in lines.“Thwok!”A poem by Matt Harvey.“I thought I might be imposing poetry on people, but they really enjoyed it,” he said. “People wanted to be part of Wimbledon. I was helping them feel more part of it because they were having an interaction with the poet who was one of its odd little features. It was a celebratory thing, of the game, of the language.”After fulfilling their commissions, the artists get invited to the royal box, where they can celebrate their accomplishment and socialize with V.I.P.s. It’s a highlight of the program, but the most meaningful aspect remains creating art that becomes part of Wimbledon.When Huskie and Sutcliffe watch broadcasts of the championship matches, they’re reminded of that. Their glass disc with the gold ribbon is prominently displayed above the staircase leading to Centre Court. As the finalists walk down the stairs, Huskie and Sutcliffe can catch a glimpse of their work.“The whole project was mind blowing in terms of scale,” Sutcliffe said. “We tried to make something that was worthy of the space.” More