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      The Agony of Playing Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic at the French Open

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      Little-known players learned humbling lessons when they drew Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic in the first round of the French Open.Aleksandar Kovacevic did plenty of tossing and turning Sunday night before finally settling in for what he thought was about six hours of restless sleep.He had good reason to be nervous. Kovacevic, who is 24 years old and the world’s 114th-ranked player, had a noon tennis date in the first round of the French Open with Novak Djokovic, the winner of 22 Grand Slam singles titles.The only person with a more daunting assignment perhaps was Flavio Cobolli of Italy. Cobolli, who is 21 and ranked 159th, survived the qualifying tournament last week, only to be rewarded with an opening-round confrontation with Carlos Alcaraz.It didn’t go so well for either of the unknowns.Nine games and roughly 35 minutes into Cobolli’s match, an Alcaraz forehand sailed long and Cobolli let out a scream, swung his racket in celebration and let a smile spread across his face. He pumped his fist to the crowd as he walked to his chair. He had finally won a game against the best player in the world, who was playing like, well, the best player in the world.“I did the best I could,” Cobolli said.Alexsandar Kovacevic grew up idolizing Novak Djokovic, who defeated him in three sets on Monday.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesKovacevic, who lost to Djokovic, 6-3, 6-2, 7-6(1), had a pretty good idea of what that felt like, too, even though he lasted more than two hours on the court with a player he grew up idolizing.“There was some points, passing shots that he hits, and they’re just points where I feel like I had no chance sometimes,” Kovacevic said. “And those are definitely humbling.”It is a truism of tennis that the top players hate playing the first round of a Grand Slam. Anything but a cruise to victory is cause for concern. Also, there is always the possibility of epic failure in the form of a loss to someone few have heard of.Whatever discomfort Djokovic and Alcaraz may have felt walking onto the courts at Roland Garros on Monday, they mostly managed it with ease, especially Alcaraz. He made an early contribution to the tournament highlight reel, curling a backhand around the net post for a winner early in the second set. Djokovic had more of a workout, and even lost his serve late in his match after getting windblown clay in his eyes.It helped that the stars drew opponents with three digits in their rankings whose recent experience didn’t have much in common with their own. Kovacevic had a particularly winding journey to his date on the French Open’s center court with Djokovic.His father, Milan, immigrated to America from Serbia to pursue a doctorate in computer science from U.C.L.A. His mother is from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kovacevic grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, about 500 yards from the green clay of the Central Park tennis complex.In ninth grade, he still wasn’t good enough to play singles for Beacon High School, a public school in Midtown, even though he was spending afternoons training at the John McEnroe Tennis Academy on Randall’s Island.Things started to click after he left Beacon to train in Florida while taking classes at home. At a tournament one summer, he played a top junior who was planning to attend the University of Illinois. His opponent told him he should join him at the school, so he did, even though he didn’t have much interest in college. By the time he finished five years later, he was ranked in the low 400s and figured he would give pro tennis a shot.Since then he has mostly been playing in the tennis hinterlands, though he did win a match in the main draw of the prestigious Miami Open in March.“It has not been the most glorious over the last couple of years,” he said.“I’m standing in Chatrier in front of a packed crowd, playing the best player to ever pick up a racket,” Kovacevic said of Djokovic. “It’s something that you got to take in for a second, but also push away and try to focus and play.”Jean-Francois Badias/Associated PressOn Monday, Kovacevic made his Grand Slam debut against Djokovic on the main court at Roland Garros, Philippe Chatrier, though it wasn’t his first time meeting Djokovic.That happened at the U.S. Open when he was 6 and his Balkan-proud parents brought him to watch the 18-year-old Djokovic win an early-round match, long before Djokovic was the player he would become. And two years ago he warmed up Djokovic at the U.S. Open after coming within a point of qualifying to play.He has the pictures to prove it, and he has tried to incorporate elements of Djokovic’s game into his own. His squat as he waits for an opponent’s serve — knees wide, chest up, racket out front — has plenty of Djokovic in it, even if the rest of his game isn’t quite there yet.“Where I am in my career, like it shouldn’t be so crazy to me that I’m playing some of these guys,” he said. “But, you know, the little kid in me, I’m standing in Chatrier in front of a packed crowd, playing the best player to ever pick up a racket. It’s something that you got to take in for a second, but also push away and try to focus and play.”The way Alcaraz has started his career, he may eventually have something to say about who is the best player to pick up a racket. Everyone in tennis knows this, including Cobolli, who has also spent most of his brief career in the sport’s version of the minor leagues.He was in an elevator, still feeling good about qualifying for his first main draw Grand Slam match, when he looked at his phone and saw that his opponent was Alcaraz. He said he closed his eyes, ran his hand through his hair, and thought, “Oh no.”Roughly, three-quarters of an hour into the match, it was going as he dreaded it might. Alcaraz couldn’t miss and later said he felt “invincible,” like he would never lose a game. Cobolli barely had time to breathe between shots.The scoreboard said 6-0, 2-0. “He was playing incredible,” Cobolli said.Cobolli lasted just under two hours against Alcaraz.Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn the bright side, there is nothing the French crowd loves more — other than a French player — than rallying behind a player who is getting blitzed. And by the time Cobolli got his legs under him, knotting the third set at 5-5, the crowd of nearly 10,000 on the Suzanne Lenglen court was chanting his name. It was like he was one of their own, especially after he saved three match points and broke Alcaraz’s serve to draw even in the set.“I felt important on the court,” Cobolli said.The final score was 6-0, 6-2, 7-5, the elapsed time 1 hour, 57 minutes.Now that Cobolli has seen up close what the best looks like, he said he understands better what he must do to compete — hit the weight room, he said with a grin as he pushed in at his chest with his hand. And get better at tennis.Hope springs eternal for him as it does for so many of the Kovacevics and Cobollis in the game. Just over two years ago, Alcaraz’s ranking had three digits, too. More

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      Women’s Tennis Suddenly Has a Big(ish) Three

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      Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka have been winning just about everything important lately, emerging as a potential triumvirate unseen in the women’s game for about a decade.Iga Swiatek, Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka have won a combined five Grand Slam singles titles. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic have won 64.Swiatek, Rybakina and Sabalenka have been at the top of the sport for roughly a year. Some combination of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic has been there the last 20.Swiatek, the world No. 1 from Poland; Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion who was born and raised in Russia but represents Kazakhstan; and Sabalenka, the 2023 Australian Open champion from Belarus, are still largely known only to tennis geeks. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic are among the most recognizable athletes on earth.So it is with the utmost hesitance, caution and respect for what has come before that anyone should invoke the term “Big Three” when talking about Swiatek, 21, Rybakina, 23, and Sabalenka, 25.And yet something has been happening with this group lately in the rivalry-starved women’s game — something that could all come together in a glorious rumble during the next two weeks at the French Open. The first of the three to play at Roland Garros, Sabalenka, started her tournament with a win over Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine in a match tinged with wartime bitterness. Swiatek and Rybakina’s first-round matches are scheduled for Tuesday, with Swiatek taking on 70th-ranked Cristina Bucsa and Rybakina facing Linda Fruhvirtova, an 18-year-old ranked 59th.Ever since Ashleigh Barty of Australia retired while atop the rankings in March 2022 at age 25, Swiatek, Rybakina and Sabalenka have been hogging nearly all of the most prestigious trophies. They have often beaten one another on the way to the winner’s circle, giving hope to the tennis executives — if not the rest of the field — that the women’s game just might be on the cusp of the kind of rivalries it has been missing for roughly a decade, perhaps even as far back as when Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters were battling for supremacy.“It is what you want, the best players playing each other, over and over,” Steve Simon, the chairman and chief executive of the WTA Tour, said during a recent interview.The budding rivalry even has a geopolitical back story to add some fuel and antagonism. Swiatek has been among the most outspoken critics of Russia’s invasion, helping to raise millions of dollars to support relief efforts in Ukraine. She wears a pin with Ukraine’s flag on it when she plays. Rybakina and Sabalenka hail from the two countries perpetrating the war, as Kostyuk reminded everyone Sunday.The Russian invasion of Ukraine has continued to cast a pall over the sport, especially whenever players from the Eastern European countries most affected by the conflict compete. Kostyuk refused to shake Sabalenka’s hand after their match on Sunday.Swiatek has never gone as far as Kostyuk and the other players from Ukraine have, but whatever relationship Swiatek has with her two biggest rivals, it is a chilly one. Swiatek said she, Rybakina and Sabalenka respect one another but do not have any relationship at all off the court. Also, she said, she tries not to think about politics when she plays.“When I think about the player, like, personally, it doesn’t help,” she said. “We don’t really have time in a match to overanalyze all the other stuff.”There certainly has not been a shortage of matches to analyze, though.In the first round, Sabalenka, a Belarusian, faced Marta Kostyuk, a Ukrainian who opted not to shake her hand after the match. Swiatek has been one of the most outspoken players against Russia’s invasion, which Belarus aided by hosting Russian troops. Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesSwiatek has lost to Rybakina three times this year already — at the Australian Open, the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and then this month at the Italian Open in Rome, where she retired after injuring her leg early in the third set. Rybakina went on to win the tournament.Rybakina has provided a blueprint for toppling Swiatek, a three-time Grand Slam tournament winner. Few could do that in 2022, when Swiatek reeled off 37 consecutive wins at one point. But Rybakina is among the most powerful players in the game, and she uses that ability to put Swiatek on her heels.“Against Iga, it’s always tough battles,” Rybakina said earlier this year. “Everybody wants to beat her.”Swiatek beat Sabalenka in the final at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany, in April (with a car on the line). Sabalenka returned the favor in May in the final at the Madrid Open.Sabalenka beat Rybakina to win the Australian Open in January. In March, Rybakina beat Sabalenka to win the title at Indian Wells, regarded in the sport as an unofficial fifth Grand Slam tournament.“Women’s tennis needs this kind of consistency to see world No. 1 and world No. 2 facing in the finals,” Sabalenka said after her win in Madrid. “It’s more intense.”Elena Rybakina won the Italian Open title after defeating Swiatek in the quarterfinals. Rybakina has three wins over Swiatek this year.Alex Pantling/Getty ImagesShe has also made it clear that overtaking Swiatek for No. 1 has been her primary motivation during the past year and that having a specific target has helped her figure out what she needs to improve upon to get there.It’s not unlike the dynamic that Federer, Nadal and Djokovic experienced at the heights of their success. They knew they were better than just about everyone else, knew the weapons that their stiffest rivals brought to the fore and knew their top priority had to be finding a way to answer them.Swiatek said it’s more fun this way, and not just for the spectators. So many matches against the same tough outs and so many familiar tactics to combat turn the sport into a search for solutions to very specific problems.“Pretty exciting, because I never had that yet in my career,” she said. “Extra motivation, for sure.”Not a true Big Three yet, but not that far off, and far closer than women’s tennis has been to one in a while. More

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      French Open: Ukraine’s Kostyuk Booed After No Handshake With Belarusian Sabalenka

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      Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine had the crowd on her side initially, but then was booed after she did not shake hands with Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus after losing to her in straight sets.The moment the women’s singles draw for the French Open pitted Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus against Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine in the opening round, there was no doubt the start of the tournament would produce some fireworks.It did that and more.The score line showed a decisive 6-3, 6-2 win for Sabalenka, the reigning Australian Open champion, who is the second seed in Paris and one of the hottest players in the world.But what did not show up in the score line was the behavior of the morning crowd at Roland Garros’ main court, Philippe Chatrier. Spectators urged on Kostyuk at the beginning of the match, then rained boos on her when she left the court without shaking hands with Sabalenka. Kostyuk has refused to shake the hand of any player from Russia or Belarus.And then there was Sabalenka, who on Sunday came as close as she ever has to condemning the Russian invasion, in a rare statement of defiance by an athlete from Belarus or Russia.“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody,” Sabalenka said at a news conference after her win. “How can we support the war? Nobody, normal people, will never support it.“This is like one plus one, it’s two,” she continued, saying if she could stop the war she would. “Unfortunately, it’s not in our hands.”But shortly afterward, Kostyuk dismissed Sabalenka’s sentiments as empty words.“I feel like you should ask these players who would they want to win the war, because if you ask this question, I’m not so sure these people will say that they want Ukraine,” Kostyuk said.She added that Sabalenka should speak for herself and not for other players from Russia and Belarus.“I personally know athletes from tennis that support the war,” she said without identifying any.After Sabalenka said nobody supports the war in Ukraine, Kostyuk, above, said the question should be, “who would they want to win the war?”Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesThe impact of the war in Ukraine on tennis has been constant and never-ending. Fifteen months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war shows no end in sight. (Belarus has provided a staging ground for Russian soldiers, and its leader has said the country would join the war if attacked.)Belarus and Russia have been banned from team tennis competitions, and their flags and country names have been banished from the sport. The moves have left players from Ukraine unsatisfied and players from Russia and Belarus feeling like pariahs.The tension on Sunday was in stark contrast to the otherwise celebratory feel of the first day of the French Open. It is often one of the most joyous days in tennis, especially with the sky sparkling with that special shade of bright Parisian blue. There is no red like the red of the clay courts of Roland Garros, no crowd that looks as effortlessly elegant as this one: the Panama hats, the silk spring dresses, the aperol spritzes in fancy glasses in seemingly every other hand.The absence of the injured star Rafael Nadal, whose record 14 men’s singles titles have made him synonymous with this event, is weirding everyone out. But as Nadal has said, tennis moves fast and waits for no one. The rousing roars whenever a French player was in action echoed across the grounds as loudly as they ever have. As Kostyuk and Sabalenka made clear, though, the war may very well make this tournament and tennis summer unlike any before it. On Monday, Elina Svitolina, among the most successful players Ukraine has produced, will make her Grand Slam return from maternity leave, against Martina Trevisan of Italy. Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine, whose grandparents had to leave their home and whose parents’ home was bombed, will play Diane Parry of France on Tuesday in her first match after her emotional run to the Italian Open final this month.“Everyone is in a very different situation,” Kostyuk said in an interview Sunday. “Whoever needs a comfort, I’m always there. We have a very good group.”Kostyuk, though, was the one who seemed to need some comforting Sunday in the moments after her match. On the final point, she walked to shake hands with the chair umpire and then directly to her courtside seat. Sabalenka shook hands with the chair umpire, too, then stood for a moment watching Kostyuk gather her belongings as the restless noise from the crowd began to rise.Sabalenka said she initially thought the boos were for her but then realized they were for Kostyuk.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesSabalenka said she initially thought the boos were for her, but then realized they were for Kostyuk, undeservedly so, she added, explaining that she understands why the Ukrainian players do not want to be seen shaking hands with a Belarusian or a Russian.Kostyuk said she was shaken by the reaction, which was so different from a supportive reception in the United States this year when she refused to shake the hand of a Russian opponent.“I want to see people react to it in 10 years when the war is over,” she said. “I think they will not feel really nice about what they did.”Kostyuk last visited Ukraine in March to see her father and grandfather. She traveled there after the Miami Open. The journey required four flights to get to Poland by way of her temporary home in Monte Carlo, a two-and-a-half-hour train ride to the border, and then a six-hour car ride. She spent five days there, struggling to sleep amid the distant sounds of bomb-carrying drones that her relatives have somehow learned to live with. She said she still has not recovered from the trip.She woke up at 5 a.m. Sunday and saw a series of alerts on her phone about the latest drone attack on Kyiv, the largest of the war. She said she tried not to look at her phone in the overnight hours, but when she saw all the alerts she could not stop the urge to see what had happened.A few hours later, she was at Roland Garros preparing for her match with Sabalenka. To her surprise, she said, for the first time since the start of the war ahead of a match against a Russian or Belarusian, she was not focused on the nationality of her opponent. It was refreshing, she said, and it made her think that a day would come when a war would no longer intrude on her chosen occupation, that every tennis match would be nothing more and nothing less than that.One day perhaps, but certainly not Sunday. More

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      Before Carlos Alcaraz Was Great, He Was Good Enough to Be Lucky

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      Carlos Alcaraz is so good, so young, and wins so often that his success has seemed predetermined.Of course someone that fast, with hands as soft as an artisan’s and a physique that lands him right in the not-too-tall and not-too-short Goldilocks zone of the modern tennis greats, would become the youngest world No. 1 during the 50-year history of the ATP rankings. He has good genes, too. His father was a nationally ranked professional in Spain as a teenager.So this was preordained for Alcaraz, the 20-year-old champion who comes to Paris this week as the prohibitive favorite to win the French Open, wasn’t it?Maybe not.As happens so often in sports, and especially in tennis, where early exposure and training are essential, there was an element of luck that helped create the sport’s heir apparent to the troika of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic that has ruled the men’s game for the better part of the last two decades.That luck ultimately took the form of a local candy company’s logo, which adorned the shirts Alcaraz wore during his matches from the time he was 10 years old. It was all thanks to happenstance encounters with Alfonso López Rueda, the tennis-playing president of Postres Reina, a Spanish dessert and candy concern known for its puddings and yogurts. López Rueda’s interest in Alcaraz and the support that allowed him to travel Europe and begin competing against older boys in unfamiliar settings may be an explanation for the way Alcaraz, from the beginning of his short career, has almost always displayed a kind of joyous serenity, even as the stage grew bigger and the spotlight hotter.Carlos Alcaraz has worn the Postres Reina logo on his shirt during matches since before he was 10 years old.Manuel Romano/NurPhoto, via Getty ImagesSupport from the candy company allowed Alcaraz to travel Europe to tournaments.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“Some personalities are just adept at that, some have to learn,” said Paul Annacone, who has coached the great players Federer and Pete Sampras, among others. “He just really seems to enjoy the environment — win, lose, whatever — seems to embrace it.”The greatest fortune an aspiring tennis player can have, it seems, is to have been born to parents who played the game at the highest level. The pro ranks, especially on the men’s side, are lousy with nepo babies. Casper Ruud, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Sebastian Korda, Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton are all the offspring of former professionals. All of them had a racket in their hands at an early age and nearly unlimited access to someone who knew best what to do with it.For everyone else, some kismet is key.The skills professional tennis requires are so specialized, and the long and expensive process of honing them has to start at such a young age. But the player development system in most countries is fractured and happenstance at best, with any school-based programs being mostly limited. Either a family consciously decides to expose a young child to tennis, or the child does not play, at least not seriously.So it’s hardly a surprise that so many of the creation stories in professional tennis seem to involve a sliding-doors moment.Frances Tiafoe probably does not end up as a Grand Slam semifinalist if his father, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, becomes a maintenance man in an office park instead of at a local tennis club.Novak Djokovic had the good fortune of meeting Jelena Gencic, one of the top coaches in Serbia, when he was 6 years old and she was giving a tennis clinic on the courts near his parents’ restaurant in Kopaonik, in the Serbian mountains near Montenegro.Arthur Ashe was traveling in Cameroon in 1971 when he spotted an 11-year-old schoolboy with raw talent to burn. He put in a call to his friend Philippe Chatrier at France’s tennis federation and told him he best come have a look. That boy was Yannick Noah, the last Frenchman to win the French Open.As with the others, Alcaraz’s preternatural gifts and skills played the biggest role in his good fortune. When he got the chance to impress, he did, but first luck had to deliver an opportunity.The decision by Alcaraz’s grandfather to put red clay courts at a club in El Palmar proved fortuitous for his grandson.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe story of that opportunity begins with Alcaraz’s grandfather’s decision decades ago to develop tennis courts and a swimming pool at a hunting club in El Palmar, a suburb of the city of Murcia. It would have been cheaper to put in all hardcourts, but the Spanish love the red clay. So Grandpa Alcaraz (another Carlos) made sure to include those courts with the development.Now flash forward to a dozen years ago. López Rueda is the tennis-mad chief executive of Postres Reina, which is based in Caravaca de la Cruz. But López Rueda doesn’t just like tennis; he likes to play tennis on red clay. He lives in the same region as the Alcaraz clan, and the best and most accessible clay courts for him are at a club in El Palmar, so he plays there, said Jose Lag, a longtime Postres Reina executive and an Alcaraz family friend, who spoke on behalf of his boss, López Rueda.At the club he became friendly with Alcaraz’s father and played as the doubles partner of his uncle. Also, López Rueda’s son, who is three years older than Alcaraz, had the same coach, Kiko Navarro, who could not stop raving about the talents of Carlito. One day López Rueda agreed to watch the boy play and it was unlike anything he had ever seen. Carlito had everything, but his family’s resources were limited. His father was a tennis coach and administrator at the club, and his mother was busy raising the boy and his younger siblings.López Rueda agreed to loan the family 2,000 euros to travel to a tournament, but then he started to think bigger and decided to get his company involved in supporting this local boy who was already capable of beating taller, stronger and older competition.Postres Reina had long supported local basketball and soccer teams, but tennis was López Rueda’s favorite sport and the company had never sponsored an individual athlete. Alcaraz became the first, wearing the company logo on his shirts.The company’s support, which lasted through Alcaraz’s early teenage years, allowed him to continue to access to the best coaching in his region and to travel throughout Europe to play in the most competitive tournaments.“It was done not as a marketing interest,” Lag said. “It was only to help him. We never thought he would be No. 1.”Alcaraz with López Rueda. Postres Reina had never sponsored an individual athlete before Alcaraz.Courtesy of Jose LagSeeing Alcaraz’s success, IMG, the sports and entertainment conglomerate, signed him at age 13, providing even more access, notably to his current coach, the former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero.There is a fair chance that Alcaraz would have eventually become a top player had López Rueda never seen him. Spain’s tennis federation, which has one of the world’s best talent development pipelines, probably would have caught wind of him before too long.Max Eisenbud, the director of tennis at IMG, said in any tennis success story the most important ingredient is a solid family willing to take a long-term view toward a child’s success.“That is the secret recipe,” Eisenbud said during a recent interview, but he acknowledged that financial assistance for a family that needs it can certainly help.When a player develops as quickly as Alcaraz, rising from outside the top 100 in May 2021 to No. 1 16 months later, each detail of his development can be credited with having a role in the outcome.Alcaraz’s peers have watched in awe as he has raised his level of play with each tournament, in an era when the constant spotlight tortures so many of them. During Alcaraz’s first months challenging the top rungs of the tour, Alexander Zverev marveled at his ability to play “simply for the joy.”Alcaraz said that no matter what people saw, getting used to the ever more raucous and pressure-filled environments took some time but he learned fast. A drubbing by Nadal in Madrid two years ago helped but his mind-set never changed.“I always wanted to play in the great stadiums,” he said. And it has seemed like he really did.Alcaraz during his loss in the round of 32 at the Italian Open. He had won three of his previous four tournaments before an early exit in Rome.Guglielmo Mangiapane/ReutersAlcaraz won the 2022 U.S. Open final to claim his first major singles title and earn the No. 1 ranking.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesMostly tennis is one big hoot to Alcaraz, from his first win at a Grand Slam tournament on a back court at the Australian Open in February 2021, to his back-to-back victories over Nadal and Djokovic at the Madrid Open in 2022, to his semifinal showdown against Tiafoe at the U.S. Open last September in front of 23,000 fans and with Michelle Obama sitting in the front row, to his triumph in the finals two days later.How could that be? Allen Fox, a Division I champion and a 1965 Wimbledon quarterfinalist who later became one of the game’s leading sports psychologists, used the term that professionals use when there is no rational explanation. He described Alcaraz as both a “genius” and a “genetic freak.”“The only way he loses is when he is missing,” Fox said. “He just plays his same high-risk game, and never takes his foot off the accelerator.” More

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      Alexander Zverev’s On- and Off-Court Drama

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      He’s a diligent player. He has also recently worked through an abuse claim and an on-court tantrum — and a serious injury at last year’s French Open.When Alexander Zverev left the French Open last year, it was in a wheelchair. He was in tears.After tearing ligaments in his right ankle while running for a ball, Zverev was forced to retire in the semifinals to the eventual champion, Rafael Nadal. Zverev had hopes of winning his first major title after twice winning the ATP Finals and capturing a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. He was also the runner-up at the 2020 United States Open.Zverev has faced plenty of adversity, much of it self-inflicted. A public feud with a former agent over money was settled out of court. Allegations of domestic abuse by a former girlfriend dogged him for about two years, prompting an investigation by the ATP, which eventually found no substantial evidence of the claims. And after throwing an on-court tantrum following a doubles loss last year, Zverev was fined $40,000 and put on 12 months of probation for “unsportsmanlike conduct.”Yet Zverev remains one of the most diligent workers on tour.The following interview has been edited and condensed.You are known for your physical strength on court. But the game is mental, too. Which is harder for you?I always feel like when I do the work, I am mentally prepared as well. Once I’ve done everything I can to be ready to win, there’s nothing to be nervous about. If you don’t play well, you don’t play well. Sometimes things happen out of your control in any sport, especially in tennis because it’s a singular sport.You’ve been super competitive since you were a child. How much of that has helped you on the ATP Tour?I hated losing. That has helped me because when somebody younger or better was coming up, I tried to outwork them. When I work more than everybody else, I’m going to be better than everybody else. Which isn’t always the right thing. I’ve learned that with age.Alexander Zverev at the Madrid Open. Zverev has defeated some of his fiercest peers, including Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Carlos Alcaraz.Oscar Del Pozo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEverybody talks about your father’s influence on your game, but wasn’t it your mother who taught you technique?She had a bigger effect on me than my dad did, because she was the one who taught me the game from a young age. More people talk about my father because he’s my true coach now, along with Sergi Bruguera. But my mother had a much bigger influence than my father.Of all the men you’ve beaten — Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Daniil Medvedev — who is the most difficult?They all have their own difficulty. When Rafa’s playing well on clay, he’s unbeatable. I’ve played Novak on a lot of surfaces, but when he is in the zone, he is also very difficult. With Roger, everything just happens so fast. You feel like you’ve just started the match, and you’re already down a set and a break, and you have absolutely no idea how it happened. Medvedev just doesn’t miss. It doesn’t matter what position in the court you put him in, he’s always going to put the ball back, so you have to win the matches yourself. And Carlos Alcaraz, with him it’s obviously the power. You honestly can’t name one that is most difficult.With everything you’ve been through over the last several years, from your personal problems to your injury, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned about yourself?When you’re young, you’re naïve. You think everybody’s your best friend, that they’re there because they really like you. But tennis is a business, which, unfortunately, is not always the nicest thing in the world. I have a very close circle. I don’t let people in that much anymore. I only have people who I truly 100 percent trust. I had to learn to go into myself, to get the noise out of my head to be able to compete.What about this game gives you the greatest joy?It’s that you’re really you. You win by yourself, you lose by yourself. You can’t hide behind your teammates. A lot of players say they play for the money and they don’t really love tennis. I’m somebody who absolutely loves what I do. I can’t imagine doing anything else. For me, there’s no better life. More

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      Tennis Injuries Present Top Players with Serious Challenges

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      Getting hurt is part of the game, but sometimes it can take years for top players to return to form.It didn’t take long for Alexander Zverev to realize his situation was dire.After hours of scintillating shot-making, Zverev and Rafael Nadal were set to begin a second tiebreaker in their semifinal match at last year’s French Open.But suddenly, Zverev ran wide for a forehand, rolled his right ankle on its side and let out a bellow. He stumbled to the ground, red clay caked to the back of his black sleeveless top, and cupped his ankle in his hands.“I knew immediately that I was done because my ankle was basically three times the size it normally is,” said Zverev by phone of the injury that took him from tennis for the rest of 2022 and dropped his ATP ranking from No. 2 to outside the top 20. “It wasn’t a nice feeling.”Zverev is hardly the first player to be forced into an extended layoff because of a serious injury.His opponent that day, Nadal, hasn’t played a tour match since he hurt the psoas muscle between his lower abdomen and upper right leg during the Australian Open in January. After repeated attempts to rehab the injury over the last four months, Nadal — who has also suffered from chronic foot pain, a cracked rib and a torn abdominal muscle in the last 18 months — withdrew from the French Open on May 18. He is the 14-time Roland Garros champion and has played the tournament every year since 2005. He also indicated that he does not plan to play Wimbledon and that 2024 will likely be his last year on the professional tour.Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open in January, where he injured his psoas muscle. He recently announced that he will not compete in the French Open. Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEmma Raducanu, who won the 2021 United States Open, has been frequently injured ever since, and recently underwent surgery on both of her wrists and one ankle. Andy Murray, a Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion, announced before the 2019 Australian Open that he would retire after the tournament, only to come back, first playing doubles, then returning to singles following a successful hip resurfacing surgery.Bianca Andreescu, who beat Serena Williams to win the 2019 U.S. Open, has suffered injuries to her adductor, ankle, foot, back, and right shoulder, causing her to question whether she should stop competing. And Stan Wawrinka, a three-time major champion, contemplated retirement following multiple surgeries on his knee and ankle. Once ranked world No. 3, Wawrinka is now fighting to stay in the top 100.Injuries, surgery and rehab are dreaded words in any athlete’s vocabulary. For professional tennis players, who are not protected by a team sport’s comprehensive rehabilitation coverage but are instead treated as independent contractors, working their way back onto the ATP and WTA Tours can be grueling physically, mentally and even financially.“I had never experienced an injury from the time I started, and I played with high intensity every day,” said Dominic Thiem by phone. Thiem, who beat Zverev to win the 2020 U.S. Open, suffered a debilitating wrist injury in June 2021 and was sidelined for months. Once ranked No. 3, Thiem lost seven straight matches when he first returned to the ATP Tour, and his ranking plummeted to No. 352, forcing him to play lower-level Challenger tournaments.“With an injury, the whole system comes to a stop,” said Thiem, who is now ranked just inside the top 100. “You can’t do your job, and you no longer have a clear plan. After I returned, it was like never before. You have to lower your expectations, but that’s very tough because for all those years you set for yourself a certain standard, not only from the tournaments you play, but also how you feel the ball. Basically, everything changes.”The process of returning from a layoff can be just as difficult as the injury itself. Readjusting to the rigors of constant travel and the pressure of playing matches at all hours of the day and night, along with worrying about the possibility of reinjury, can impact a player’s recovery.Andreescu knows that. Plagued by back troubles through much of 2022, she had finally begun to rebound at the Miami Open in March. But during her fourth-round match against Ekaterina Alexandrova, Andreescu tumbled to the court, clutching her left leg and screaming in agony.“I’ve never felt pain like that,” Andreescu said by phone as she prepared to return to the tour three weeks later in Madrid. “The next morning I knew what happened, but I was just hoping that I was waking up from a bad dream. Then I felt the pain, and I knew this was real.”Andreescu has rehabbed her body many times before, but she is also convinced that the mind-body connection is just as important.Bianca Andreescu at the 2023 Miami Open. Andreescu has suffered multiple injuries since beating Serena Williams to win the 2019 U.S. Open.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“I believe that everything starts in the head and that we create our own stress and, in a way, our own injuries,” she said. “There can be freak accidents, but if you can get your mind right, then it’s easier to come back from those injuries.”The WTA takes injury prevention and rehabilitation seriously. The tour has programming and staff devoted specifically to athletes’ physical and psychological well-being. According to Carole Doherty, the WTA’s senior vice president, sport science and medicine, all its players receive comprehensive medical care, with services that include cardiology, checkups with dermatologists, bone-density exams, and nutrition and hydration advice.When a WTA player is out injured, or pregnant, for at least eight consecutive weeks, she can apply for a Special Ranking, which means that upon her return she will be ranked where she left off and can enter eight tournaments over a 52-week span with that ranking. The ATP has a similar protocol called Protected Ranking.Becky Ahlgren Bedics, the WTA’s vice president of mental health and performance, is keenly aware of the psychological toll an injury can take.“Injuries take you out of training and competition and force you to regroup and prioritize your life differently,” said Bedics, who encourages players who are off the tour to delete WTA rankings from their phones, so they won’t see where they stand as compared with their peers. “It’s tough for an athlete whose only thought is, ‘How can I get back, and what happens if I don’t?’”Bedics and her mental health team encourage players to manage their expectations upon their return to play.“There are so many stressors in this game, including financial ones,” Bedics added. “Our athletes are typically very young and not going to be doing this for 50 years. Sometimes they are supporting their families. So, what we help them do is listen to ‘what is,’ not ‘what ifs.’ We want them to look forward, but also to look backward to see how far they’ve come.”Daria Saville tore her ACL while competing in Tokyo last September. “Every time I get injured, I think about my life and wonder what it will be like without tennis,” she said.Kiyoshi Ota/Getty ImagesDaria Saville understands the play-for-pay nature of tennis. She has suffered from repeated Achilles’ tendon and plantar fasciitis issues since 2016. She had surgery after the 2021 Australian Open, which kept her from playing for nearly a year. Then, while competing in Tokyo last September, she tore her anterior cruciate ligament, requiring more surgery.“Every time I get injured, I think about my life and wonder what it will be like without tennis,” said Saville, who also had ACL surgery in 2013. “On tour, life is not so hard. Everything is done for you, so you don’t have to overthink. The worst thing that happens is you play bad and lose a match.”Fortunately, for Saville, the financial burdens have been lessened by the support she receives from her national federation, Tennis Australia, which pays for her physiotherapist and strength and conditioning coaches. She also gets pep talks from her coach, the former tour player Nicole Pratt.When Thiem thinks back on his wrist injury, he connects the dots to when he won the U.S. Open. Having achieved that goal, Thiem said, he suddenly lost his passion and motivation to play, prompting him to practice with a decreased level of intensity, ultimately leading to the injury. Trying to come back has been difficult.“I can’t forget,” Thiem said, “that all the time when I didn’t play, the other players were playing, they were practicing and improving and moving ahead of me. That makes it even harder to come back.” More

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      Coaching Is Now Allowed During Tennis Matches, but How Useful Is It?

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      The practice was long banned, but a change in the rules has permitted hand signals and some talking.At the new United Cup tournament that began the 2023 season in Australia, Cam Norrie and Taylor Fritz split the first two sets and were locked in a close battle for the final set.But Norrie’s coach, Facundo Lugones, had some choice information to pass on: Norrie wasn’t getting enough of Fritz’s serves on the deuce (or right) side back in play and needed to back up, Lugones recalled. And when Norrie was serving, Lugones saw Norrie was winning all his on the deuce side when he served the ball wide to Fritz’s forehand, so he urged him to do that more.The 13th-ranked Norrie won 6-4 in the third set. It’s impossible to call coaching the decisive factor — the players had to make their shots — but it added an extra wrinkle for the players and the fans.The WTA began allowing coaching during matches in 2020, while the ATP debuted coaching last summer, making this French Open just the third Grand Slam tournament to allow it for men’s tennis.Exchanges are limited: While hand signals are now permitted, players and coaches may only talk during the 25 seconds between points when the player is on the side where the coach is sitting. (Outside of Grand Slams, the WTA allows female players one longer conversation per set during a changeover.)Still, many players, including the ninth-ranked Fritz, criticized the change, calling it a “dumb rule” that violated the idea of an individual sport. Lugones said Norrie was also “not a big fan of on-court coaching — most players love the one-on-one battle.” When things are going well, he said, he doesn’t say much.Zhang Zhizhen worked with his coach, Luka Kutanjac, on the practice courts during the BNP Paribas Open.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersZhang Zhizhen climbed from 99th to 69th in Madrid this month by beating Denis Shapovalov, Norrie and Fritz in a week when he left his coach back home. “I don’t like when my coach talks to me. It makes me feel confused and makes things complicated,” Zhizhen said. “Sometimes I will say, ‘Stop, you are talking too much.’”Many players want at least some outside advice and encouragement.“Watching from the outside you can see more, so a coach can really help with the small changes. If I’m missing forehand returns, he’ll tell me whether I need to step back or stay low, which can make a difference,” said Rohan Bopanna, who is ranked 11th in doubles.While the forced brevity is limiting, live coaching can be effective, said the third-ranked Jessica Pegula. “You can change your game plan a little quicker now.” Both she and Jan-Lennard Struff, who is ranked 28th, said that in tough matches, a psychological push was just as important. “Then it’s about the positive energy and good vibes,” Struff said.Fifteenth-ranked Hubert Hurkacz agreed that “big-picture strategy” and a psychological boost could really help, but he added that occasionally, he will shut down communication. “Sometimes I can say, ‘I got this,’ and focus on myself,” he said. Even Fritz communicates regularly during matches. His coach, Michael Russell, said 70 percent of their exchanges were about the mental game — “stay positive, one point at a time, keep your feet moving” — and 30 percent was more tactical and strategic.“A player can be so hyper focused, they can’t see the bigger picture,” Russell said, adding that his suggestions often reinforced their pregame planning while responding to trends Russell had noticed. “There are matches where Taylor gets too comfortable hitting the backhand crosscourt and just extending the rally. If he’s not being aggressive enough and using the backhand down the line, I’ll tell him to do that to hurt his opponent more.”But Russell said his advice was in broad strokes, not telling Fritz where to serve on the next point.“It’s better not to be specific because if it doesn’t work on that next point, you’re setting him up for negativity,” Russell said. He also won’t make technical adjustments, like saying his toss is too low, unless it’s a blatant issue because he doesn’t want Fritz overthinking things.Because of a change of rules, Facundo Lugones, shown at the BNP Paribas Open, was able to offer coaching tips to Cam Norrie during Norrie’s match with Taylor Fritz at the new United Cup tournament in Australia this year.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesLugones said that being limited to perhaps five words — often at a distance in a stadium filled with screaming fans — restricted the amount of actual coaching possible. While Norrie will seek more advice during certain matches, the consultations are quite brief.“You can’t fully explain a change of patterns, and if the player doesn’t hear you or understand you, it can backfire,” he said. “That’s why the coaching during matches is often more mental than tactical.”That’s especially true for the men at Grand Slams, where matches can go five sets and last four or five hours.“The Slams are like a roller coaster — you have to remind your player there are lots of momentum shifts and whoever handles that better will win the match,” Lugones said. “Stay patient and remember you have time to change things.”Russell added that as the match grinds on, he’ll remind Fritz about nutritional and caloric intake and not rushing through points when fatigue sets in. But sometimes when a player is tiring, the best move is to growl encouragement like Mickey, the trainer in the movie “Rocky.”“Make sure he can see the light at end of the tunnel,” Russell said.In that Norrie-Fritz match at the United Cup, the coaches had access to livestreaming data, which Lugones said was helpful in confirming the patterns he had picked up with his eyes. “It’s especially good to have during the long matches,” he said.He would like to see data used more during matches, but he would also like to see the men’s tour amend the rule that allows one real conversation a set during a changeover. “You would have more time to explain your tactics and make sure the player hears,” he said.Lugones would even be open to letting the TV audiences listen in, the way other sports often attach microphones to coaches. “If it’s better for the sport and will attract more fans,” he said, “that’s fine.” More

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      The Not-So-Genteel Side of Tennis Is in the College Playoffs

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      It took roughly an hour for the last rounds of the N.C.A.A. Division I men’s tennis championships to get real.The top doubles teams from Virginia and Kentucky were locked in an epic tiebreaker to decide who would take the often crucial doubles point into the singles portion of their matchup. The Cavaliers and the Wildcats took turns saving match points with clutch volleys and gutsy passing shots, as their teammates and fans howled and taunted after every winner and error.One last Virginia forehand sailed long and wide, giving Kentucky the tiebreaker, 11-9, and the early advantage in the team competition. The howls got louder and the taunts more rowdy. The All England Club this was not.The college version of this supposedly genteel sport — especially the competition that unfolds in the final segment of the N.C.A.A. championships — is where tennis morphs into something more like the spectacle of pro wrestling.Players roar after nearly every point. Coaches regularly wander across the courts mid-game for quick pep talks and to give strategy tips. The crowds cheer double faults and mis-hits, and the fans scream for action on one court when someone is about to serve on another court just a few feet away. The school colors pop off the courts — Texas Christian purple, Texas Longhorn burnt orange, North Carolina baby blue, Stanford cardinal — and provide a welcome respite from the corporate apparel seen throughout the pro game.North Carolina women’s players practicing before their match.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesClaremont-Mudd-Scripps players using tubs with ice water for recovery after practice.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesIt is tennis with the volume turned up to 11, something the often staid and stale pro tours could learn from.“No place else I’d rather be,” said Fiona Crawley, a junior at the University of North Carolina, who is the top-ranked woman in the country playing for the top-ranked team. “This is my life.”Crawley, from San Antonio, is majoring in English and comparative literature. Her plan after graduation involves getting her “butt kicked on the tour for two years because I love to travel,” then becoming a teacher.The top-ranked University of Texas men’s team also has the No. 1 player on its side of the sport, with junior Eliot Spizzirri leading the top-ranked Longhorns into the final eight. He is thrilled to not be grinding the back roads of the pro circuit just yet.“It almost feels like a different sport,” Spizzirri said of college tennis. “You look to your left and your right and your best friends are competing right next to you and you don’t want to let them down.”An ocean away from all of this, Madrid, Rome and Paris are serving as the hot spots in the pro game this month during the European clay court swing. Yet for pure, high-octane intensity from the first ball to the last, it is hard to beat what is unfolding here on the steamy courts of the U.S.T.A. National Campus.Eliot Spizzirri of Texas during a doubles match.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesThis year the U.S.T.A. is hosting the final rounds of 14 major collegiate championship competitions from Division I, II and III. It’s part of a pitch the U.S.T.A. is making to the N.C.A.A. to make the training center in Orlando the permanent home of the final phase of the Division I tournaments, which means the quarterfinals onward for the teams, plus separate singles and doubles competitions.The idea is to make getting to Orlando for tennis akin to getting to Omaha for the men’s College World Series, a yearly destination for Division I baseball teams since 1950.“This is an opportunity to enhance the college game,” said Lew Sherr, the chief executive of the U.S.T.A.One argument for the sprawling campus is its seating for spectators, which cuts through the spine of the courts and makes it easier to watch simultaneous matches that have implications for one another.But a hurdle may be the weather. Playing tennis in Orlando in May can sometimes feel like playing on the surface of the sun, and matches have been suspended because of rain. A thunderstorm on Thursday meant the suspension of Division I play for the night, and there aren’t enough indoor courts to offer a backup plan.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesNo matter the venue, though, college tennis has been having a bit of a moment lately within the sport, making a case as a viable option for young prospects.Cameron Norrie, who played at Texas Christian, is ranked 13th in the world. Ben Shelton, an N.C.A.A. champion last year, wowed at the Australian Open. Jennifer Brady (U.C.L.A.) and Danielle Collins (Virginia) have made the Australian Open singles final in recent years.The ATP top 100 includes a dozen former college players, and the men’s tour even joined forces with collegiate tennis to guarantee top-ranked college players spots in lower-tier pro tournaments.This season, North Carolina State has featured Diana Shnaider, a 19-year-old Russian who made the second round of the Australian Open. She has already won a small WTA tournament.Attending college, if only for a year, was Shnaider’s hedge against professional tennis potentially banning Russians from competing because of the war in Ukraine. It was also a lot cheaper than paying for coaching and court time in Moscow. After the team finals, she will turn professional and head to Paris for the French Open.“It’s made me better,” Shnaider said of the college tennis experience.Still, much of the tennis establishment has long looked down at its version in college sports, an institution that is big in the United States but not in other countries. For critics, campus life that can include parties and papers and exams can distract from the focus on the sport, softening players compared with the rigors of the minor leagues of the pro game.Jacob Langston for The New York TimesJacob Langston for The New York TimesDavid Roditi, a former tour pro who has coached Texas Christian the past 13 seasons, said college tennis has a uniquely rowdy and pressurized proving ground that players can only understand with experience. Plus, most players don’t peak until their 20s anyway, he said, so what is the rush to go pro? He’s seen too many players burn out on the lonely tour life long before their prime.“They quit before they can find out how good they could be,” Roditi said. “In college you get four years of safety.”There are limits to scholarships, of course, and the competition is generally not as rigorous as on the pro circuits. Still, Roditi has been successfully selling the ideals of college athletics abroad for several years. His team has players from Scotland, England, France, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. Jacob Fearnley, his top player, grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland.Fearnley said he was small as a teenager and needed time to develop and get stronger. Turning professional after high school would have been foolish, he said. Spizzirri, the Texas star, has a similar tale. Both are now long, lean and powerful.Fearnley said he has played low-level pro tournaments that were a snooze compared with what he has learned to deal with in college. During an early road match against Michigan near the beginning of his college career, the crowd yelled at him after every double fault and told him he was a hopeless tennis player. He crumbled then, but not anymore.“It’s just noise,” Fearnley said the other day ahead of another showdown with Michigan. “That’s what our coach tells us. You learn the only thing that matters is you and your opponent and what’s happening on the court.”Cleeve Harper of Texas cheering on his teammates.Jacob Langston for The New York Times More