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      War and Motherhood Sidelined Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina. She’s Ready to Return.

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      Rather than struggling to compete on the WTA Tour most of 2022, the tennis star focused on her new daughter and raising money to help her fellow Ukrainians.Elina Svitolina, the most successful Ukrainian women’s tennis player in history, has not played tennis in 10 months.She is a new mother — her daughter, Skaï, was born in October — and Svitolina is, like many prominent Ukrainians, a crusader, focused on raising money and awareness for her embattled country.Based in Switzerland with her husband, the French tennis star Gaël Monfils, Svitolina has sensed that the wider world is losing interest in the conflict with Russia.“Here in Europe, a couple of times people came up to me and asked if there is still war going on in Ukraine,” she said in a video interview. “This was very, very sad for me to hear. I have close friends and family back in Ukraine, and I know what they are going through.”When hope and energy run low, she thinks of her 85-year-old grandmother Tamara, still in Odesa, the vibrant, strategically vital port on the Black Sea where Svitolina was born and lived in her early years.“The winter is very tough right now for Ukrainians,” Svitolina said. “Obviously, it’s very cold, and they are often without electricity and running water. My grandmother lives on the 13th floor, and she needs to walk all the way up to her apartment because she cannot use the elevator. She could get stuck, or there are no lights at all. I have many friends in different cities, and they tell me the same stories. No lights. No water. They are just sitting at home. Most of the time, the phones die after one day so you cannot connect with them.”With her grandmother and her compatriots in mind, Svitolina is using her clout to help keep the power on. An ambassador for United24, a Ukrainian fund-raising platform, she organized a gala event in Monaco in December that raised 170,000 euros, or about $181,000. She said that 57,000 euros that were raised have been earmarked for the purchase of generators for Ukrainian hospitals.“Without electricity in the hospitals, they cannot perform some essential surgeries,” she said. “Our goal for the generators is 10 million euros.” They have raised 2.9 million so far, she added. “But we need more help.”Svitolina, ranked as high as No. 3 in 2017, was a semifinalist at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2019 and has long been one of the sport’s best movers and counterpunchers. But she has not played since losing in her opening round of the Miami Open in March. Newly pregnant and reeling emotionally after the Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, she said she realized she could not continue to compete. She spent days drained or in tears and has worked with a psychologist and leaned on Monfils and her family but also benefited, she said, from time on her own, time in her own head.“I didn’t touch a racket for seven months,” she said. “I wanted to switch off from tennis. I had maybe too much because of what happened in the end of February and all the nerves and all the pressure. The tournaments I played were probably too much for me mentally, so I was really happy to switch off completely. Right now, for me the goal is to come back, but I’m sure I won’t regret that I took this time off.”Svitolina and Monfils, a luminous, acrobatic talent and intermittent top 10 men’s player, were married in 2021 and are one of the game’s power couples. But Monfils missed much of the last season with foot and heel injuries.Both are targeting comebacks in 2023. Monfils, 36, has often talked about his desire to play until age 40, but, as a new father, he has shortened that timeline. He now plans to continue at least until the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, where the tennis event will be held on the red clay at Roland Garros, the site of the French Open. Svitolina would like nothing better than to win a medal for Ukraine in those Games.But Svitolina, who only recently resumed training, is not planning on a quick return even if the back problems that troubled her before her hiatus are resolved for now.“I will try to be ready for the summer, but I try not to rush things,” she said. “Because I know I need to be very strong to be back on tour, because right now tennis is very physical. All your muscle groups need to be ready and after not playing for over seven months and not doing so much after pregnancy, of course, your body is different now. And I have to really break everything down into small pieces to put together the full strength of my body, which I will need if I want to get back to the top.”At 28, she certainly has time in a sport where more players are competing deep into their thirties and where more women also have made successful returns from childbirth, including Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka, Serena Williams and Tatjana Maria, who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2022 after her second extended break from the game because of pregnancy.“I’m sure that they worked extremely hard to get back where they were and some of them are even better,” Svitolina said. “So that certainly gives me hope and motivation I can do the same.”Svitolina’s only contact with tennis during her break came in July, when she served as the chair umpire in an exhibition to raise funds for Ukrainian children that was organized by Iga Swiatek, the young and increasingly outspoken world No. 1 from Poland.Svitolina has appreciated Swiatek’s public support but remains disgruntled about the pro tours’ decision to allow Russian and Belarusian players to continue competing, albeit as neutrals without national identification. While Wimbledon barred the Russians and Belarusians because of the war it was an outlier and was stripped of ranking points in retaliation by both the men’s and women’s tours, who also fined the tournament and Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association.“I was shocked to see this,” she said. “The U.K., they always supported Ukrainians; they helped so many Ukrainian refugees to find new homes. I think the tours should have respected Wimbledon’s decision rather than punish them, but it’s really hard to see what will change the tours’ position, even if I don’t agree or understand it.”Through her personal foundation, she said she had been involved in helping more than 100 young Ukrainian players and their families find new training bases even if some have had to return to Ukraine. But she has no illusions about the challenge ahead and is all too aware of the destruction. She lived in her early teens in Kharkiv, recently reoccupied by Ukrainian forces but one of the cities that has suffered the most damage during the war. The arena in which she and her Ukrainian teammates once played Fed Cup matches has been destroyed by bombing.“Our athletes and our sports have been thrown back at least four or five years, because all the stadiums, all the facilities in Ukraine were destroyed,” she said. “After the war is finished, I really want to help to build a tennis center that kids can use to train. And it’s not just facilities that were destroyed. I think our kids have mentally been destroyed as well. Some of them lose their parents. Some of them are homeless. They see these explosions, these shootings. A whole generation I think mentally is really facing a big struggle.”It has been a year to rue but, for Svitolina, a year also to savor.“The most horrible year with the war and also the most happy I would say with welcoming our first baby in October,” she said. “So, it’s a mixture of everything, but we are here right now, and for me it’s just important to do everything possible every single day that I can. And for now, the goal is for the Ukrainian people to at least have a little light in their lives.” More

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      Holger Rune Making a Name for Himself in Tennis

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      As the 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz rose through the ranks in 2022, Rune, also 19, was marching through the top players. He even beat Alcaraz.Holger Rune speaks as he plays tennis — at a crazy fast pace, barely stopping to take a breath. His thoughts are deep and direct, as if he has much to say but not much time to say it.Rune’s footwork is exceptionally speedy, and his ascent up the rankings has kept pace. In just one year, he rose from outside the world’s Top 100 to a Top 10 ranking. He went from playing in lower-level tournaments at the beginning of 2022 to winning ATP events in Munich, Stockholm and Paris. At the Paris Masters, he upset five Top 10 players, including world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and 21-time Grand Slam singles winner Novak Djokovic, whom he beat in the final. At just 19, Rune was the ATP’s Newcomer of the Year, ending the season at No. 11.But there were problems for the Dane, whose squabbles with umpires, players and even his omnipresent mother, Aneke, garnered him unwanted attention. A verbal rumble after a loss to Casper Ruud in the quarterfinals of the French Open last year had both players accusing each other of insults and untruths.For Rune, who begins contesting his second Australian Open this Monday, it’s all part of the maturation process.The following interview has been edited and condensed.Last year, you lost your first-round match at the Australian Open to Soonwoo Kwon after leading by two sets to one. What do you remember about that match?I was still very inexperienced, and it was physically and mentally hard to play five sets. After the third set I started cramping a little bit. Now I have a good take on playing long matches. It’s about saving some energy, and you can only get that by experience.You were the No. 1 ranked junior in the world in 2019. Some juniors find the transition to the pro tour very difficult, but for you it was seamless. Why?First of all, it wasn’t easy even though it was going quick. For me it felt like it took a lot of time, but on paper it didn’t. I was very eager and took all the steps. I have a big will to go through any challenge I get on my way to getting closer to my dream. That’s my focus every day that I step on the tennis court.In juniors, it looked like you played best on clay courts. Then you won 19 of your last 21 matches last year indoors on hard courts. Is that your new surface?That’s a good question. I don’t know honestly if I’m a clay-courter or a hard-courter. It depends. That’s why when people ask me if hard, clay or grass is my favorite surface, I would say all of them.Last year you added Patrick Mouratoglou to your coaching team, but you’ve been working with Lars Christensen since you were very young. What’s the most important thing Lars has taught you?I would say the discipline. If you look at me now from five years ago, I’m very different. I’m more structured in everything I do, on the court and off. Lars is also very technical. He’s still trying to help me learn stuff, and I’m very eager to improve.You had huge wins over Djokovic, Alcaraz and [Alexander] Zverev in 2022. Which one meant the most?I had one against [Stefanos] Tsitsipas too. But I’ve got to say, all of them in a way. But right now I’d have to say Novak. To play him in a final with all of the emotions and stuff is very big.You set a goal last year to be in the Top 25, and you made it to the Top 10. Did that surprise even you?When you stay in the moment you’re not surprised when everything is going so fast. But when I look back, I feel very proud of what I achieved. Ranking goals are important, but you can’t really control them because it depends on so many things. I’m happy with how things are going, and I’m very motivated to be in the best shape as possible in Australia. More

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      With the Australian Open Set to Begin, All Eyes Are on Rafael Nadal

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      The defending champion, Nadal has lost six of his last seven tour singles matches and is struggling with his timing, confidence and composure. But don’t count him out.MELBOURNE, Australia — The first collective gasp of this year’s Australian Open came Thursday afternoon, four days before the tournament officially begins.The hubbub came at the start of the men’s singles draw when Jack Draper’s name appeared in the second slot in the 128-man field. That meant Draper’s first-round opponent was guaranteed to be Rafael Nadal, the reigning Australian Open champion and the No. 1 seed in the absence of the injured Carlos Alcaraz.The buzz in the room was a sign of the left-handed Draper’s gathering strength — a 21-year-old Briton, he is in form and up to No. 40 in the world — but also a reflection of Nadal’s disarray.One of the greatest champions in any sport, Nadal has lost six of his last seven tour singles matches, struggling with his timing, confidence and even his composure as he has been defeated by, in order, Frances Tiafoe, in the fourth round of the U.S. Open; Tommy Paul, in the first round of the Paris Masters; Taylor Fritz and Felix Auger-Aliassime, in round-robin matches at the ATP Finals; and Cameron Norrie and Alex de Minaur, in the recently completed United Cup team event.None of those six men has reached a Grand Slam singles final and neither has Hubert Hurkacz, who dealt Nadal his latest defeat — even if it was only in a practice match — in Rod Laver Arena on Thursday evening in front of a few thousand spectators (and a chair umpire).Hurkacz, a flashy shotmaker with an unflashy personality, is no pushover. He is seeded No. 10 in Melbourne and will forever be the last man to face — and defeat — Nadal’s friendly rival Roger Federer in singles.Hurkacz defeated Federer in straight sets in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 2021, and he looked considerably looser and more relaxed on Thursday evening than Nadal, who kept casting concerned glances at his main coach, Carlos Moyá, after missing groundstrokes and first serves.“Rafa is certainly vulnerable,” said Todd Woodbridge, the Australian former star who is now an analyst for Australian television. “He had that faraway look on a changeover against Tiafoe at the U.S. Open and it looked like he had it again in the match against de Minaur last week.”But as Woodbridge and everyone else in tennis have learned repeatedly over the past 19 years, you cannot count out a player of Nadal’s talent and inner drive. He has repeatedly risen from the depths, most recently at the 2022 French Open, which he entered injured and slumping but then managed to win his 14th men’s singles title at Roland Garros.Another title run here in Melbourne looks far less likely, however. The opening hurdle is high with the 6-foot-4 Draper, who advanced to a semifinals match on Friday in the lead-in event in Adelaide.The son of Roger Draper, a former chief executive of Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association, Jack Draper was once considered uncertain to break through to the highest level because of his movement. But he has improved his quickness and court coverage significantly in recent seasons.Jack Draper of Britain will face Nadal in his opening match.Mark Brake/Getty Images“It will be amazing to play on a big court against him; he is a great champion,” Draper said in Adelaide about his first chance to play Nadal. “Whatever happens it will be a special occasion for me. I’m still very young in my career, so it’s great to have these sort of experiences and exposure to playing Rafa on a big arena.”Get past Draper, and Nadal could face the rising American Brandon Nakashima in the second round, Tiafoe in the fourth round and the former No. 1 Daniil Medvedev in the quarterfinals in what would be a rematch of their topsy-turvy, five-set Australian Open final last year.Nadal’s experience, grit and ability to problem solve in best-of-five-set matches should not be dismissed, and he has been focused on shortening points and coming to the net in his pretournament sessions this week. He pushed forward often against Hurkacz on Thursday.“I need to win matches, for sure, but the preparation is going quite well, practicing a lot and I’m in good shape,” Nadal said. “Then you need to demonstrate that in the matches in the official tournaments, but I am confident that if I’m able to have the last week of positive practices, why not?”Draper is not the only British player with a high-profile match in Melbourne. Andy Murray, Nadal’s contemporary and a former No. 1, will face the former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini in the opening round. Emma Raducanu, the big-surprise U.S. Open women’s champion in 2021, could face seventh-seeded Coco Gauff in the second round if both win their openers (and if Raducanu’s injured ankle continues to improve and allows her to take part in the tournament).Gauff, 18, struggled with her forehand and confidence at the end of the 2022 season, but had a productive off-season and on Sunday won the singles title in Auckland, New Zealand. The event was played indoors and outdoors because of frequent rain and lacked many of the other leading Australian Open contenders.The favorite in the women’s draw remains No. 1 Iga Swiatek despite her lopsided and emotional defeat to Jessica Pegula of the United States in the United Cup. But Swiatek, who faces the German all-court player Jule Niemeier in the opening round, is in a thorny section of the draw. Her eighth includes the Grand Slam singles champions Bianca Andreescu and Elena Rybakina as well as Danielle Collins, who lost in the final last year in Melbourne to Ashleigh Barty, who retired last March.There will be newcomers as well, including the 15-year-old qualifier Brenda Fruhvirtova, the youngest woman in the tournament and part of the Czech Republic’s big wave of young talent that includes her sister Linda Fruhvirtova, 17, who is also making her Australian Open singles debut.Jessica Pegula, at No. 3, is the highest-seeded player from the United States among men and women.Patrick Hamilton/Agence France-Presse via Getty ImagesThursday’s draw delivered another rarity: a first-round match between two former Australian Open singles champions: Victoria Azarenka, the Belarusian veteran who won in 2012 and 2013, and Sofia Kenin, the American who won in 2020 but has since dropped outside the top 100. That matchup was all the more extraordinary considering that Azarenka and Kenin are the only Australian Open women’s singles champions in the draw. The seven-time Australian Open champion Serena Williams is now retired (or at least evolved). The two-time champion Naomi Osaka and the 2016 champion Angelique Kerber are pregnant, and so is Barty, although that happened after her surprise retirement at age 25.Much can change in a hurry in tennis, as Nadal knows well, and this year’s tournament is already a sea change from last year’s because Novak Djokovic is in the draw after being deported by the Australian government on the eve of the 2022 event because he was unvaccinated for the coronavirus.Now, after a change in government policy and after winning the warm-up event in Adelaide, Djokovic, still unvaccinated, can chase his 10th Australian Open singles title. He will face the unseeded Spaniard Roberto Carballés Baena in the opening round on the opposite side of the draw from his longtime rival Nadal.Based on current form, Djokovic winning his 22nd major singles title sounds a lot more plausible than Nadal winning his 23rd. More

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      Naomi Osaka Announces She Is Pregnant and Won’t Play in 2023

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      The tennis star, who withdrew from the Australian Open this week, posted a photo of an ultrasound on Instagram.The tennis player Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam winner, announced on Wednesday that she is pregnant.She posted a photograph of an ultrasound on Instagram, and added, “One thing I’m looking forward to is for my kid to watch one of my matches and tell someone, ‘that’s my mom,’ haha.”She said in the post that she would be at the 2024 Australian Open.Three days ago, Osaka, 25, dropped out of this year’s Australian Open, which begins Monday. She has not played a tournament since September. Because of the missed time, she is currently ranked No. 47 in the world.Osaka won the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021. She also won the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2020. She has been involved in a relationship with the rapper Cordae since 2019.Serena Williams won the 2017 Australian Open while she was roughly two months pregnant. Osaka did not reveal how far along she was in the Instagram post.Osaka withdrew from the 2021 French Open after declining to attend news conferences, saying that she found them detrimental to her mental health, and she revealed that she had struggled with depression. She took a break from the game and also missed time with an Achilles’ tendon injury last year.Though she has lived in the United States since she was a toddler, Osaka, whose parents are Haitian American and Japanese, represents Japan and was given the honor of lighting the cauldron to begin the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.Because of numerous endorsement deals, Osaka is one of the top 20 earning athletes in the world and the highest-paid woman, Forbes has reported.Her business portfolio includes a skin care products company focused on people with darker skin tones, and she has written a children’s book. Last year, Osaka and her longtime agent, Stuart Duguid, left IMG, the sports and entertainment conglomerate, to begin Evolve, which manages Osaka’s business interests as well as other clients. More

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      Naomi Osaka Withdraws From the Australian Open

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      Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, was once widely considered the world’s top hardcourt player, but she has struggled to regain her form after injuries and time away from tennis.Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, has withdrawn from the Australian Open, the latest turn in an increasingly enigmatic career.The Australian Open announced Osaka’s withdrawal on Sunday in Melbourne. Dayana Yastremska will now move into the main draw of the tournament, which starts Jan. 15.Osaka, who won the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021, has not played a tournament since September, when she withdrew from a match in Japan with abdominal pain.Once seemingly destined to compete for the biggest championships in tennis for the next decade, Osaka has struggled to regain her form since she took two lengthy breaks from competition in 2021.The first break came after her withdrawal from that season’s French Open, where she went public with her longtime struggles with depression. She returned for the Olympic Games in midsummer, but after a disappointing early-round loss at the U.S. Open, she announced an indefinite break.Osaka returned to the tour compete in Australia last January, and she seemed to be well down the road back when she reached the final of the Miami Open in April. She said that she wanted to be No. 1 again. But an Achilles’ tendon injury cut short her clay-court season and also prevented her from playing in Wimbledon.Osaka then won just one match during the summer hardcourt swing in North America, a disappointing result because Osaka was once considered the world’s premier hardcourt player. The Australian Open, the year’s first Grand Slam, is played on hardcourts as well.Despite her limited play and a ranking that sunk to 85th in the world last February, Osaka remains one of the highest earning athletes in the world, with endorsement deals that have pushed her annual income to more than $50 million, according to Forbes.And she remains very busy away from the court. Osaka launched a representation agency in May to take further control of her mounting business portfolio. Osaka and her longtime agent, Stuart Duguid, left IMG, the sports and entertainment conglomerate, to begin Evolve. Nick Kyrgios, an Australian tennis star, has since joined the agency as well.At the time, Duguid said that Osaka’s main priority remained winning tennis matches and tournaments but that launching Evolve allowed her to engage her interests in culture and business.“She’s not someone who likes to play video games and binge Netflix all day,” said Duguid, who has worked closely with Osaka since she was a teenager.Duguid predicted that Osaka’s business portfolio could grow to $150 million annually in the coming years through investments and ventures such as Kinlò, a skin care products company focused on people with darker skin tones.In December, Osaka released a children’s book, “The Way Champs Play.” She wrote that she hoped the book “inspires kids to chase their dreams and encourages them to believe they can do anything they put their minds to.” More

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      U.S. Open Winner Carlos Alcaraz to Miss Australian Open With Injury

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      Alcaraz, 19, the world No. 1, said he had injured his right leg during training.The year’s first major tennis tournament suffered a major blow on Friday when Carlos Alcaraz, the precocious men’s world No. 1 from Spain, announced that he was withdrawing from the Australian Open with a right leg injury.Alcaraz, a 19-year-old phenom with an acrobatic and all-court game, won his first Grand Slam singles title in September at the U.S. Open in often-spectacular fashion, prevailing in a series of compelling and frequently lengthy matches.His four-set victory over Casper Ruud of Norway in the final was the capstone to a breakthrough season and propelled him to the top spot in the men’s rankings, but Alcaraz has struggled with his health since then: withdrawing from the season-ending ATP Finals in Turin, Italy, and Davis Cup Finals in Malaga, Spain, with an oblique muscle tear in his left abdominal wall.He has not competed in an official event since retiring from his match against Holger Rune, another gifted 19-year-old, in the quarterfinals of the Paris Masters in early November, though he took part in an exhibition in Abu Dhabi last month. Alcaraz returned to his training base in Villena, Spain, to recharge and rehabilitate for the 2023 season, but he said in a social-media post on Friday that he had injured the semimembranosus muscle in his right leg during a training session.“When I was at my best in preseason, I picked up an injury through a chance, unnatural movement,” he wrote, announcing his withdrawal from an exhibition next week near Melbourne and from the Australian Open, which will begin on Jan. 16.“I’d worked so hard to get to my best level for Australia,” he wrote. “It’s tough, but I have to be optimistic, recover and look forward.”Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player for a second year in a row, albeit under starkly different circumstances.Last year, Novak Djokovic was deported from Australia on the eve of the tournament after arriving in the country without being vaccinated for the coronavirus and losing an extended and high-profile legal battle with the Australian government.But Australian government policy has changed, now allowing unvaccinated foreigners to enter the country, even without an exemption. Djokovic, a nine-time Australian Open singles champion, returned to Australia this year and has received a warm welcome so far on his way to the semifinals of the lead-in tournament in Adelaide this week.Though Alcaraz finished the season at No. 1, becoming the youngest man to do so, Djokovic finished 2022 with the momentum, winning the ATP Finals for the sixth time. It was a triumphant finish to his strangest and most tumultuous season, in which his unvaccinated status kept him from competing in two majors (the Australian Open and U.S. Open) and four Masters 1000 events in North America. He also received no ranking points for winning Wimbledon because of the tours’ decision to strip tournament of ranking points in light of its ban of Russian and Belarusian players.Despite that major mathematical handicap, Djokovic is still ranked No. 5 and was the heavy favorite to win the Australian Open even before Alcaraz’s withdrawal. But the Spaniard’s absence eliminates the enticing prospect of an intergenerational duel down under between the reigning No. 1 and the longest-reigning No. 1.Djokovic, the elastic 35-year-old Serbian, has held the top spot for a men’s record of 373 weeks and has a chance to reclaim that spot by winning a 10th Australian Open title.Alcaraz, who reached the third round in Melbourne last year, will have to watch from afar this time and steel himself for the long haul in a grinding, global, increasingly physical sport made all the tougher by a short off-season.He had a 2022 to savor, winning five singles titles and providing a surplus of social-media clip material with his airborne, all-action style and taste for the abrupt and spectacular change of pace: often a thunderous forehand followed by a deft drop shot. He was also sportsmanlike, giving opponents’ points and the benefit of the doubt on multiple occasions.But his torrid run clearly took a mental and physical toll. After winning the U.S. Open, he won just six of his next 10 singles matches, failing to reach another final. He also lost both matches in the Abu Dhabi exhibition in straight sets, to Andrey Rublev and Ruud.His staying power, unlike his luminous talent, is, for now, a question mark. More

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      Dick Savitt Dies at 95; Won Australian and Wimbledon Tennis Titles in 1951

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      He was the second American to win both Grand Slam tournaments in the same year, and he was ranked among the world’s top 10 players four times.Dick Savitt, the tennis Hall of Famer who won the men’s singles championships at the 1951 Australian and Wimbledon Grand Slam tournaments but dropped out of full-time play a year later while at the height of his game, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 95.His death was confirmed by his son, Bob.Savitt became the second American to win both the Australian and Wimbledon men’s titles in a calendar year. Don Budge had accomplished the feat in 1938. Only Jimmy Connors (1974) and Pete Sampras (1994 and 1997) have matched them.Savitt was ranked among the top 10 American players six times in the 1950s and among the world’s top 10 four times, even though after 1952 he confined his Grand Slam tournament play to the United States Nationals at Forest Hills, Queens. He bested leading American players in domestic tournaments while pursuing a business career.He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1976.In 1951, Savitt defeated Ken McGregor, a native of Australia, in the Australian championships. “The Australian was a big shock to the tennis world,” Savitt told Nancy Gill McShea in an interview for the International Tennis Hall of Fame 60 years later. “It put me on the map.”He reached the semifinals of the 1951 French championships but lost to Jaroslav Drobny, who went on to win the singles title. He needed only 61 minutes to defeat McGregor again in the Wimbledon final, becoming the first Jewish player to win the Wimbledon singles championship.Savitt appeared on the cover of Time magazine’s Aug. 27, 1951, issue on the eve of the U.S. Nationals, the forerunner of the U.S. Open. “What he has got is a simple, overpowering attack; a smashing serve and deep, hard-hit ground strokes that keep his opponent scrambling in the backcourt, on the defensive,” Time wrote.Savitt, who stood a sturdy 6-foot-3 and often wore down his opponents, reached the semifinals at Forest Hills. Hampered by a knee infection, he lost to his fellow American Vic Seixas.Savitt was selected for the 1951 U.S. Davis Cup team, which was hoping to avenge its loss to Australia in the 1950 cup finals, formally known as the challenge round. Savitt, ranked as the squad’s No. 1 player, won singles matches in the early rounds. But Frank Shields, the nonplaying captain of the team, removed him from cup play afterward and replaced him with Ted Schroeder, who had been in semiretirement. Shields said he hadn’t been happy with Savitt’s overall play in the previous few months.Savitt and many of his fellow American players were stunned that he was passed over, but Savitt chose not to comment on being cut. The United States lost to Australia, 3-2, in the challenge round.The next year, Savitt reached the semifinals of the Australian championships. After losing there to McGregor, he said he was stepping away from the international tour.But he won the U.S. National Indoor Championships in 1952, 1958 and 1961, becoming the first player to capture that title three times. In 1961, he captured singles and doubles gold medals at the Maccabiah Games, the Jewish Olympics, held in Israel. He later helped develop tennis centers there.Savitt at his home in Manhattan last year.Carly Zavala for The New York TimesTennis trophies on a bookshelf at Savitt’s home. He was ranked among the top 10 American players six times in the 1950s.Carly Zavala for The New York TimesRichard Savitt was born on March 4, 1927, in Bayonne, N.J., the only child of Morris and Kate (Hoberman) Savitt. His father was a food broker who had a business that pursued marketing opportunities for producers.He taught himself to play tennis in his early teens when he was a ball boy at the Berkeley Tennis Club in Orange, N.J., mostly by watching some of the game’s greatest players, including Jack Kramer, Bobby Riggs and Pancho Segura, competing there in New Jersey state tournaments.“I had never seen tennis like that before,” Savitt said in his Hall of Fame interview. “I immediately got Don Budge’s book on tennis to learn how to hit strokes correctly.”But Savitt’s first love was basketball. When his family moved to El Paso in the early 1940s, hoping that the warmer weather would ease his mother’s skin problems, he became an all-state high school basketball player. But he also continued to play tennis and was highly ranked nationally in the junior division.Savitt entered Cornell University in 1946 on a basketball scholarship after serving during World War II in the Navy, which had assigned him to play on basketball teams to entertain service personnel. But injuries hampered him, so he turned to tennis once more and won Eastern collegiate singles and doubles titles. He graduated in 1950 with a degree in economics.In addition to his son, from his marriage to Louise Liberman, which ended in divorce in 1963, Savitt is survived by three grandchildren. His second wife, Annelle Warwick Hayes, died in 2013. Savitt and his son, Bob, who had played on the tennis team at the College of Wooster in Ohio, won the U.S. Father and Son doubles title in 1981.Savitt worked on rigs drilling for oil in Texas and Louisiana and then became a longtime investment banker in New York after leaving full-time tennis.The amateur tennis world where he flourished offered trophies for victories, but no prize money.“You either kept playing and taking under-the-table type payments or you ended up teaching at a club,” Savitt told The Star-Ledger of Newark in 2011. “I didn’t want to do that. I had to decide to keep playing a few more years or get out of the game and go to work in a normal position. That’s what I did.”Maia Coleman More

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      Ashleigh Barty Is Comfortable in a Life Outside Tennis

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      Barty retired from the sport at age 25 while ranked No. 1, but she says she has “slipped quite seamlessly into this life that’s just like everyone else.”The New York Times Sports department is revisiting the subjects of some compelling articles from the last year or so. In March, the tennis star Ashleigh Barty retired from the sport, less than two months after winning the Australian Open. Here is an update.As the best players in tennis regather in Melbourne, Australia, in January for the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, the reigning women’s champion Ashleigh Barty will be back among them — but not to defend her title.In one of the most surprising developments in sports in 2022, Barty retired in March at age 25, on top of the women’s rankings and on top of her sun-drenched part of the world after becoming the first Australian in 44 years to win the Australian Open singles title.Her early exit from the tour was all the more striking in a season when Roger Federer retired at age 41 and Serena Williams, now also 41, played what could be her final tournament at the U.S. Open.The leading players of the 21st century have set new benchmarks for enduring excellence, staying in the game long past the ages when previous champions let go. Barty bucked the trend.Any regrets nine months later?“To be honest, I think what has surprised me most is how comfortable I’ve been,” Barty said by telephone from Brisbane, Australia, last week. “I think there was probably a normal fear or uncertainty in not knowing what my life would look like after tennis after being so focused.”Barty had grown accustomed to the “very structured life” of the tennis circuit.“I was a bit unsure how I would deal with that because I am a person who likes to be organized,” she said. “There was probably a little bit of fear in that, but overall, that hasn’t been an issue, a concern or a worry. What’s been most surprising in a good way is that I’ve slipped quite seamlessly into this life that’s just like everyone else, which is kind of always what I wanted.”Barty, a self-described “homebody,” married her long-term partner, Garry Kissick, in July, and she has spent considerable time with friends and family since her retirement. But her life is still not quite like everyone else’s.She earned nearly $24 million in prize money and millions more in endorsements and has been able to pay off the mortgage on her parents’ homes to express her gratitude for the sacrifices they made to help her become a tennis champion. After retirement, Barty, an excellent recreational golfer, was invited to play a round on the Old Course at St. Andrews, and she extended her stay there to follow her fellow Queenslander Cameron Smith as he won the British Open.Barty golfed in Scotland during a celebrity event in July.Paul Childs/ReutersBarty, a multisport talent, has ruled out becoming a professional golfer or returning to professional cricket, which she played briefly when she took her first indefinite break from tennis at age 17, because of the mental strain and loneliness of life on tour. She returned to the game 17 months later in 2016 with a new coach, Craig Tyzzer, and went on to win three major singles titles, including Wimbledon in 2021. She spent 121 weeks at No. 1.She was entrenched in the top spot when she retired, and though Iga Swiatek, an explosive talent from Poland, quickly took over at No. 1 and dominated the season, it was hard not to wonder how Barty’s presence would have changed the equation.“It was a bit of a strange one, I suppose,” Barty said. “But I think that was probably what was least important to me: where I was sitting in the rankings. That was hard for a lot of people to understand.”How best to sum up why she did retire?“I achieved my dreams,” she said. “Everyone has different dreams and different ways of defining success. But for me, I knew that I gave everything I could, and I was fortunate to live out my ultimate childhood dream, and now it was time for me to explore what else was out there and not be, I suppose, greedy in a sense of keep playing tennis because that’s what I was expected to do, and then you blink and maybe the other things have passed you by.”After retirement, Barty worked on a series of children’s books and her autobiography, “My Dream Time,” which has been published in Australia and will be released in the United States on Jan. 10.She said the process of writing her memoir was “therapeutic.”“A way to close a chapter on some really tough moments and then to revisit and recelebrate some of the most amazing moments,” she said. “So, it was certainly a big year in that sense. There was a lot happening off the court, and I’m pretty tired at the end of the year now, and it’s scary to think that typically I’d be in the middle of a tennis preseason getting ready for an Australian summer that’s just around the corner.”Instead, Barty will spend the holidays with her family and then make appearances for her sponsors at the Australian Open, which begins on Jan. 16.Barty during the final of the Australian Open in January. She beat Danielle Collins for the title.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesShe is preparing to start her own foundation in 2023 with a focus on helping Australian youth and an emphasis on sports and education. She also has announced plans to join with Tyzzer and Jason Stoltenberg, another of her former coaches, to start an elite tennis academy in Australia. She is eager to mentor teenagers in particular but not to coach on tour.Tennis has had no shortage of comebacks: Margaret Court, Bjorn Borg, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin all returned to the tour after early retirement, and Court and Clijsters returned and won majors. But though retiring at 25 gives Barty plenty of years to reconsider, she sounds unlikely to do so, even after her comment in March that the door to a comeback “is closed but it’s not padlocked.”“The more time I’ve had to sit and think and absorb this year, I think it is never in the sense of me competing professionally again,” she said. “But I’ll never not be involved in the sport. So I think that’s where I’ll always get my tennis fix, that taste of the sport that gave me so much.” More