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      Roger Federer’s Retirement Makes Room for a New Era of Champions

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      Roger Federer’s retirement will auger opportunities for a new generation of players not named Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic.Upon learning that Roger Federer will retire after the upcoming Laver Cup, Judy Murray, the Scottish tennis coach and mother of Andy Murray, one of Federer’s great opponents, noted on social media that it signifies “the end of a magnificent era.”But Federer’s pending retirement, announced Thursday, also foretells the conclusion of a larger era defined by more than just him.For many, it is the greatest era of men’s tennis, one that includes the unsurpassed greatness of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Collectively, the three helped define a transcendent and remarkably durable period in tennis history that also parallels the career of Serena Williams, who announced she was stepping away from the sport last month.On the men’s side, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic’s collective reign, which endured for two decades, was glorious for tennis fans. Their stubborn persistence also prevented numerous “next generations” from finding the spotlight.Nadal, 36, and Djokovic, 35, who won Wimbledon this year, will presumably still carry on a bit longer. But Federer’s announcement on Thursday reminded the tennis world that the end will eventually come for all three of them, leaving the stage to a host of hungry new players, some of whom have already muscled their way into the breach.Carlos Alcaraz, right, keeps a photo of himself with Federer on a bookshelf at his home in El Palmar, Spain.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“Roger has been one of my idols and a source of inspiration,” Carlos Alcaraz, the new United States Open champion, posted on his Twitter account in tribute to Federer. “Thank you for everything you have done for our sport! I still want to play with you! Wish you all the luck in the world for what comes next!”What comes next is a peek into a future of men’s tennis minus one of its greatest male stars, and eventually all three of them.Alcaraz became the youngest men’s player to reach No. 1 when he captured the U.S. Open on Sunday at only 19. Others — including Casper Ruud, whom Alcaraz beat in the final; Daniil Medvedev, last year’s U.S. Open champion; Jannik Sinner, the promising 21-year-old from Italy; Nick Kyrgios; Frances Tiafoe; Felix Auger-Aliassime; and Denis Shapovalov — now can all ponder the possibilities that tennis mortality presents to them.“It’s been a privilege to share the court with you,” Shapovalov, 23, told Federer on social media Thursday.It will be a different kind of privilege — and opportunity — to play without him.But on the court, Federer’s retirement does not constitute a sudden change in the landscape. There were few expectations that, even if he could have rediscovered his health, Federer would come back to win more majors — not at 41, and not after three frustrating years trying to regain his footing. Nadal and Djokovic, on the other hand, remain the agenda setters in men’s tennis.Since 2019, they have combined to win 12 of the 15 major tournaments that were held. Had Djokovic not been barred from entering the United States this year, he likely would have been favored to win the U.S. Open, and if he had won, it would have given him and Nadal a sweep of this year’s majors.Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic before their French Open semifinal earlier this year.James Hill for The New York TimesTwo of the big three are still as dangerous as ever, and there is no fixed expiration date on either of them. There are concerns, though. Health has long been a nagging issue for Nadal, as it was at the U.S. Open, when he was ousted by Tiafoe in the fourth round after he returned from an abdominal strain that forced him out of Wimbledon.For Djokovic, there is the matter of his refusal to be vaccinated for the coronavirus, which prevented him from competing in this year’s Australian Open and U.S. Open. At least some doubt remains about Djokovic’s availability for those events next year, lending even more hope to the younger stars.So, can promising young players like those previously mentioned, plus No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas, No. 5 Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem, who won the 2020 U.S. Open, take advantage, as Alcaraz did? For the first time in 20 years, it seems possible, even with Nadal and Djokovic still standing in the way. But tennis has seen this before.In 2017, the A.T.P. launched the Next Generation Finals in Milan. Zverev, Medvedev and Karen Khachanov, who reached a U.S. Open semifinal last week, were all invited, along with Shapovalov, a Wimbledon semifinalist last year, and Jared Donaldson, who retired with an injury. Tiafoe and Tsitsipas were alternates.Since then, only Medvedev, 26, has won a major title. The rest of the time, he and the others were thwarted, often by one of the big three. It was the same for older players, too, like Andy Roddick, Stanislas Wawrinka, David Nalbandian, David Ferrer and Mikhail Youzhny, all of whom played for leftovers.Daniil Medvedev, who beat Djokovic to win the 2021 U.S. Open, is among the emerging generation of stars.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesSince 2004, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic has finished as the year’s No. 1 player except one, when Andy Murray earned the distinction in 2016.In 2018, when Youzhny retired, he said, “Sometimes these guys didn’t give anyone else chances to win. I can’t say I would have won more, but this is a great era for tennis.”Federer came into the game first, turning professional in 1998 and winning his first Grand Slam event at Wimbledon in 2003. Nadal was next, playing professionally since 2001 and winning the first of his 22 majors in 2005. Djokovic turned professional in 2003 and won his first major title in Australia in 2008.It seems natural that they should go out in the same order. Only then can a new generation of stars finally establish a new era, one that has been decades in the making. More

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      Roger Federer Came Along When Tennis Desperately Needed Him

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      Tennis had lost its cachet in the early 2000s before Federer made the classic sport modern and the modern sport classier.This may be it a little hard to remember amid the glow of record attendance at an electric 2022 U.S. Open, but tennis was not in a great spot when a promising young player from Switzerland with a goofy ponytail came along in the early 2000s.Tiger Woods had somehow made golf cool for the masses. But tennis, the hot sport of the 1970s and 1980s, was predominantly a game of the elite, followed and played largely in a rarefied niche.At the professional level, the men’s game essentially had one group of players who bludgeoned the ball and another that counterpunched. Andre Agassi was a rare exception who could do both and had some personality. Like a lot of players, though, he had an ambivalent relationship with the physical and emotional demands of a sport that seemed to make many miserable. There was not much joy to be found on the tennis court.Then, after some rough, temper-filled early years on the pro tour, Roger Federer, with his terrible haircut and tennis outfit two sizes too big, suddenly had people oohing and aahing as the months passed in 2001.“Baryshnikov in sneakers” is how the McEnroe brothers — John, the seven-time Grand Slam champion who had once garnered similarly lusty praise, and Patrick, the solid former pro and television commentator — often referred to Federer, comparing his style and grace on the court to ballet.Cliff Drysdale, another former pro and longtime commentator, began to notice that whenever Federer took the court, the locker room would empty as players either went to the stands or huddled around a television set in the players’ lounge to watch a man who seemed capable of creating shots and playing with a style they could only dream of. Drysdale had not seen that since the days of Rod Laver, the great Australian who had dominated in the 1960s.“When the admiration you receive extends beyond the fans to your fellow players, that is something,” Drysdale said Thursday in an interview. “And the players would watch all of Roger’s matches.”Federer returning a volley from Lleyton Hewitt during a match at the 2005 U.S. Open.Robert Caplin/The New York TimesHere was a player who could play any style from any place on the court. There was an ethereal quality to the way Federer created shots, like a jazz musician, improvising solos.How exactly does one hit a jumping, one-handed backhand on a ball that bounces to eye level? And the movement. Federer seemed to float across the court, the way a world-class sprinter flies down a track in a state of relaxation on his way to breaking a world record.“He elevated the sport at a time when it desperately needed it,” Patrick McEnroe said Thursday. “And I don’t mean this to be a knock on any of the great champions who came before him, including one I know particularly well, but he brought a classic game back to the modern game, and he brought a certain class back to the sport.”Once Federer got a haircut and some decent tennis clothes, his grace extended off the court. He appeared on the covers of fashion magazines. He hobnobbed as easily with C.E.O.s and heads of state as he visited with sick and impoverished children. He launched a foundation that has donated tens of millions of dollars to education in Africa, where his South African mother was born.“I always said that Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith were good players but great people,” said Donald Dell, a co-founder of the ATP, as well as an agent and tennis promoter. “Roger is a great, great player and greater person off the court, who became as good an ambassador for a sport as you could have when it needed it.”The trophies arrived by the truckload. By the end of 2008, when he was still just 27 years old, he had already won 13 Grand Slam titles, one behind the record. He would win seven more Grand Slam singles titles before he was done, and he was still winning them long past the age when anyone thought a tennis player could compete at the highest level.Rafael Nadal arrived to become a chief rival in the early 2000s, and then Novak Djokovic crashed the party and turned tennis into the three-way battle that has brought the sport to unprecedented heights.Federer made people feel like they were watching sport as a form of art. He was not simply playing tennis; he was redrawing the geometry of the court, hitting shots into spots where balls rarely bounced, from angles no one had seen. The novelist David Foster Wallace, who had been a decent junior player growing up in the Midwest, wrote about Federer the way others wrote about Vladimir Nabokov or Vincent van Gogh.The grace hid other qualities that led to his success. During his initial run of Grand Slam titles, wins seemed to come so easily that they masked just how competitive Federer was.That became clear after the 2009 Australian Open. He cried during the trophy ceremony after Nadal beat him in a third consecutive Grand Slam final, a stretch that included their epic five-set duel at Wimbledon in 2008 in what many consider the greatest professional tennis match ever played.Roger Federer wept as Rafael Nadal received the winner’s trophy at the Australian Open in 2009.Oliver Weiken/European Pressphoto Agency“It’s killing me,” he said of the losing streak.He channeled the pain into getting back to the top after everyone had thought his time had passed. He did this not once, but twice, the second time when he was 36 years old and won the last of his Grand Slam titles, and his third after his 35th birthday — an absurd concept then that Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have now made seem practically normal.The grace also masked an assassin-like ruthlessness that could torture opponents. Nick Kyrgios, the temperamental Australian star, has said that Federer is the only player who has ever made him feel like he really did not know what he was doing on a tennis court.Check some of the old score sheets. Amid the carnage is a 6-0-6-0 bludgeoning of Gaston Gaudio of Argentina, a French Open champion, at the ATP Masters in 2005; there is a 6-0, 6-1 destruction of Andy Murray in the ATP Tour Finals in London in 2014.In 2017 during the Wimbledon final, Marin Cilic suffered a blister on his foot midway through the match that rendered him nearly unable to compete. Cilic cried as he sat in his chair and received treatment from a trainer. Federer paced menacingly on the other side of the net, a look of disdain in his eyes, like a prize fighter wanting his opponent to get up so he could hit him again.And yet, as soon as Federer’s matches ended, all of that edge drifted away as the assassin turned back into a statesman — all smiles and gratitude for his opponents, for sponsors, for fans, for the staff at tournaments, even for journalists.“I don’t think the guy has ever had a bad day in his life,” said John McEnroe last month, marveling at how effortlessly Federer handled the demands of celebrity that had nearly crushed McEnroe in the 1980s.Paul Annacone, one of the few people to coach Federer, was asked last year why he thought Federer was attempting to come back from knee surgery at 39 after a long layoff that had coincided with the start of the pandemic. He said Federer simply loved tennis — the competition, the travel, the fans, all of it — and that allowed his personality to flow.Federer signing autographs during Aurthur Ashe Kids’ Day before the start of 2008 U.S. Open.Michael Nagle for The New York Times“His legacy is grace,” said Mary Carillo, a former player and current broadcaster. “Grace in the way he played. Grace under pressure. Grace with children. Grace with kings, with queens. Grace when he moved, when he sat still, when he won, when he lost. In French, in German, in English. In Afrikaans. It was just in his bones to be that way.” More

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      Roger Federer’s Career in Photos

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      His achievements made him famous, but his movements made him timeless. Sure, Roger Federer had the strength, stamina and guile to win 20 Grand Slam singles titles.But like an athlete from another age, it was his grace that stood out. His lithe form, his dancer’s lightness, his calm fluidity. Did he sweat? Did he panic? There was an effortlessness to his game, a tranquillity to his manner. He played melody when most of his rivals played percussion.He made it look easy. We knew it wasn’t. But for more than two decades, we were transfixed by the gift of the illusion.Now, at 41, Federer has announced his retirement from tennis. What he leaves behind may be less the moments than the way he moved between them.1998: Federer posed with the trophy after he won the boys’ singles title at Wimbledon.Professional Sport/Popperfoto via Getty Images2003: Federer on his way to winning Wimbledon.Alastair Grant/Associated Press2004: Celebrating after he won the Wimbledon men’s singles final against Andy Roddick.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images2005: Practicing at the U.S. Open, which he won that year along with Wimbledon.Vincent Laforet/The New York Times2006: Federer serving during the U.S. Open. He won, earning his third major title of the year.Robert Caplin for The New York Times2006: Federer after winning the Australian Open, his first of that year. He also won Wimbledon.William West/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images2007: Federer at the Australian Open, where he successfully defended his title.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images2007: Federer and his rival, Rafael Nadal, during an exhibition tennis match.Manu Fernandez/Associated Press2008: Federer signing autographs at the U.S. Open. It was the only major he won that year.Michael Nagle for The New York Times2009: Federer holding his sixth Wimbledon championship trophy.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images2009: Federer kicking up clay on his way to winning his first French Open.Patrick Kovarik/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images2010: Federer served in his quarterfinal match en route to another Australian Open title.Pool photo by Vivek Prakash2012: Andy Murray of Britain fell both literally and figuratively in front of Federer during the Wimbledon final.Pool photo by Clive Rose2015: Federer missed out on his sixth U.S. Open title, losing to Novak Djokovic.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times2017: Federer with another Wimbledon championship trophy.David Ramos/Getty Images2018: Federer won his last major title at the Australian Open.Edgar Su/Reuters More

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      The Shots That Made Roger Federer

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      [embedded content]Federer has had one of the most effective serves in tennis, winning 89 percent of his service games in his career, according to ATP statistics.With a consistent ball toss, Federer bends his knees, jumps, strikes the ball overhead and lands on his left foot. More

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      Roger Federer Says He Will Retire From Tennis

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      Federer, who won 20 Grand Slam singles titles, said injuries and surgeries had taken their toll on his body. His final competitive matches will be next week in London.Roger Federer, the elegant and enduring Swiss star who dominated men’s tennis for two decades but saw his more recent years marred by injuries and surgeries, said Thursday that he was retiring from the sport.“I am 41 years old, I have played more than 1,500 matches over 24 years,” Federer said in an audio clip posted on social media. “Tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamed and now I must recognize when it is time to end my competitive career.”To my tennis family and beyond,With Love,Roger pic.twitter.com/1UISwK1NIN— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) September 15, 2022
      Federer, the winner of 20 Grand Slam singles titles, said his appearance at next week’s Laver Cup in London would be his final competitive matches. He said he would continue to play tennis in the future, but that he would no longer compete on the ATP Tour or in Grand Slam tournaments like Wimbledon and the U.S. Open that he once dominated.“The past three years have presented me with challenges in the form of injuries and surgeries,” he said in a video on Twitter. “I’ve worked hard to return to full competitive form, but I also know my body’s capacities and limits, and its message to me lately has been clear.”Federer leaves the game with one of the greatest competitive records in the game’s history: 103 ATP singles titles, 20 Grand Slam championships, a record eight men’s singles titles at Wimbledon and a record-tying five at the U.S. Open.His decision to step away from the game comes after a similar one by Serena Williams, who announced before this year’s U.S. Open that she would wind down her playing career. But unlike Williams, who said she was “evolving” away from competitive tennis and has left the door slightly ajar to a “Tom Brady” style return, Federer was more definitive.“This is a bittersweet decision, because I will miss everything the tour has given me, but at the same time there is so much to celebrate,” he said. “I consider myself one of the most fortunate people on earth. I was given a special talent to play tennis and did it at a level I never imagined for much longer than I ever thought possible.”Federer, the son of a Swiss father and South African mother, was born in Basel, Switzerland in 1981 and spent his early years playing many different sports and was considered a particularly promising soccer player. But he definitively chose tennis after beginning to work with the Australian player Peter Carter, who began teaching at the Basel tennis club Old Boys to supplement his income as an aspiring tour-level player.Carter eventually chose coaching full-time, and he and Federer formed a special bond as he helped the youngster develop his flowing, elegant game, including his often-airborne forehand and his versatile and sweeping one-handed backhand.This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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      Timing Is Everything for Carlos Alcaraz

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      Alcaraz, the 19-year-old winner of the men’s U.S. Open, said he “worked really hard so that things like this could happen.”The U.S. Open victory party at Carlos Alcaraz’s Manhattan hotel wrapped up before 3 a.m. on Monday, which was early by his standards at this round-the-clock Grand Slam event.“I got to bed at 5:15 a.m. after the Cilic match, and 6 a.m. after the Sinner match,” he explained rather wearily as he sat in the back seat of a sport utility vehicle, shifting his gaze from his interlocutor to the streetscape outside the tinted windows.He was rolling toward Times Square for a rendezvous with his new trophy, and upon arrival, he stepped onto the sidewalk in his jeans and blue-and-white sneakers and was soon holding the silverware high with the photographers — professional and amateur — clicking away as a crowd began to gather.“Numero uno!” shouted someone in Spanish.Alcaraz took note, just as he had after waking up on Monday and looking at the updated ATP rankings on his phone.“I had to be sure,” he said.At 19, Alcaraz is the youngest No. 1 since the ATP rankings were created in 1973. That is quite a feat in a sport that has had plenty of prodigies: from Bjorn Borg to Mats Wilander, Boris Becker to Pete Sampras, to Alcaraz’s Spanish compatriot Rafael Nadal, who also won his first major at age 19 (at the 2005 French Open).But Alcaraz’s meteoric rise to the top has not been due simply to his genius — though the word, which should be used very sparingly in tennis or anything else, does seem to apply in his acrobatic case.His coronation is also due to timing:To Novak Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated for Covid-19, which kept him out of this year’s Australian Open and U.S. Open and four Masters 1000 events in North America.To Nadal’s limited schedule because of a series of injuries.To the extraordinary situation at Wimbledon, which Djokovic won again in July but which earned him no ranking points; the tournament had been stripped of points by the men’s and women’s tours because of Wimbledon’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players over the war in Ukraine.Alcaraz’s situation is radically different from the case of Nadal, who, as the longtime No. 2, had to chase Roger Federer for years before finally securing the top ranking.Alcaraz has reached No. 1 before the end of his second full season on tour and after winning his first major title with a four-set victory over Casper Ruud on Sunday.“Look, I don’t want to take credit away from myself,” Alcaraz said. “But it’s true that Rafa, Djokovic, Federer, they were in a period when they were all playing. I had the luck or whatever you want to call it that Djokovic could not play. Everybody has their reasons, but that is the reality. He could not play much for a while, and Rafa kept playing but not all year, either. But like I said, I don’t want to take credit away from myself. I have been playing all season, playing incredible matches and incredible tournaments, and I’ve worked really hard so that things like this could happen.”In an interview before the season, Alcaraz was asked which major tournament he would most like to win. The U.S. Open was his answer.Kena Betancur/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt the end of 2021, Alcaraz was considered one of the brightest young talents in the game and was ranked No. 32. Less than nine months later, he has won the Rio Open, Miami Open, Barcelona Open, Madrid Open and now his first Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open.Along the way, he has beaten the old guard, defeating Nadal and Djokovic in Madrid, and the new wave, defeating the 21-year-old Italian Jannik Sinner, the 24-year-old American Frances Tiafoe and the 23-year-old Ruud in New York.Alcaraz’s latest duel with Sinner in the quarterfinals was the match of the tournament, played at close to full throttle for five sets in five hours and 15 minutes, with Alcaraz saving a match point in the fourth set.It was also the latest-finishing match in U.S. Open history, wrapping up at 2:50 a.m., which is certainly notable but also a dubious honor even if the tournament presented him with a commemorative photo from that record-breaking match on Sunday.Finishing at that hour (and going to sleep at 6 a.m.) is no way for an elite athlete to optimize performance or for a major sports event to maximize its reach even if tennis is a global sport and 2:50 a.m. in New York is prime time in certain parts of the world.On the upside, this was the first time in U.S. Open history that all sessions in Arthur Ashe Stadium were sold out. That was due, in part, to the impact of Serena Williams’s announcement that the end of her career was imminent, which spiked interest in first-week tickets in Ashe Stadium.But Stacey Allaster, the U.S. Open tournament director, said officials would certainly take another look at the night-session schedule before the 2023 Open.But what is clear is that Alcaraz’s three consecutive late-night marathons did not keep him from the championship. He beat Marin Cilic, Sinner and Tiafoe in five sets before defeating Ruud, becoming the third man in the Open era to win a major after winning three consecutive five-setters. (Stefan Edberg did it at the 1992 U.S. Open, and Gustavo Kuerten did it at the 1997 French Open.)Like the elegant Edberg’s and the elastic Kuerten’s, Alcaraz’s powers of recovery were astonishing, and for now at least he plans to play in the Davis Cup for Spain later this week in Valencia after flying home.In an interview with the Spanish publication El País, Juanjo Moreno, Alcaraz’s physiotherapist, said Alcaraz had a “good genetic predisposition that we have managed to bring to its maximum splendor.”Moreno explained that the team paid close attention to Alcaraz’s hydration and energy replenishment during matches, which included the ingestion of caffeine, a legal supplement.But Moreno said post-match recovery was the key: focusing on the use of a stationary bike, hot-and-cold contrast baths, massage and what he calls the “four Rs.” Those are “rehydration, replenishment of muscle glycogen, restoration of lost amino acids and recovery for the immune system.”Quality sleep is also essential. “The other day, we helped him with a sleep supplement because we had given him a lot of caffeine,” Moreno told El País.But Alcaraz said on Monday that other less-scientific factors were also in play.“I’m 19 years old,” he said with a grin. “And I have worked a lot and very hard day to day on recovery, and I have a magnificent team.”He offered his thanks.“But above all, it was going on the court with the adrenaline, the matches and everything,” he said. “You forget the pain. You forget the fatigue, and you push through.”Alcaraz used the Spanish word “aguantar,” which his team kept shouting at him in New York from the players’ box.“Of course, I felt soreness,” Alcaraz said. “After so many matches, it was so difficult, and things are bothering you, but you have to fight through it.”He did so in often-spectacular style, displaying his phenomenal quickness and timing, his ability to adapt on the fly and his rare capacity to take big risks on big points that pay off.“You forget the pain. You forget the fatigue, and you push through,” Alcaraz said.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesIt is quite a skill set, quite a fan-friendly package, and it made for a much happier ending in New York than in his first appearance in 2021 when, after an upset of Stefanos Tsitsipas in the third round, he later had to retire with a leg injury against Felix Auger-Aliassime in the second set of their quarterfinal.“A year ago, I came here as a new guy, a kid who was experiencing everything for the first time, including Arthur Ashe Stadium,” Alcaraz said. “I think I was a player who could win against anyone but was not ready to have the physical, mental and tennis level for two full weeks.“One year later, I have changed a lot. I feel I am ready to hold this level.”The proof was there in Times Square on Monday as he held his trophy aloft, but, above all, the proof was there in Ashe Stadium night after late night as he held off rival after rival with the crowd of nearly 24,000 often making him feel like he was playing at home. (The Tiafoe match was an exception.)“I think my town in Spain has about the same population as Arthur Ashe Stadium,” said Alcaraz, who comes from El Palmar, a suburb of Murcia. “I took a moment during the final and looked around and to see all those people and all those seats filled to the top row was incredible.”During an interview before the season, Alcaraz was asked which major tournament he would most like to win. The U.S. Open was his answer.Mission accomplished even if the love affair may be only beginning.“I feel a special bond,” he said. “I think my game matches up with that court and what the people are looking for when they come. There’s energy. It’s dynamic, and I think they don’t know what I’m going to do next. I think that’s part of the connection.” More

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      Carlos Alcaraz Wins US Open Men’s Singles Title, and Becomes No. 1

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      Alcaraz, the 19-year-old Spanish sensation, beat Casper Ruud of Norway in four sets to capture his first Grand Slam championship and take the top spot in the ATP world rankings.The future of tennis arrived at 7:38 p.m. Sunday with a rocketed serve off the racket of Carlos Alcaraz, who clinched the U.S. Open men’s singles championship, announcing the start of a new era in the game.Alcaraz, the 19-year-old Spanish sensation, beat Casper Ruud of Norway, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-3, to win his first Grand Slam singles title, but probably not his last. Far, far from it. A blasted serve that came off his racket like a missile sealed it. The Carlos Alcaraz era is here.On Sunday, he reached the sport’s pinnacle in grand fashion on its biggest stage, packing the nearly 24,000 fans in the stadium onto his bandwagon as he claimed not only the men’s singles championship and $2.6 million in prize money, but also the No. 1 ranking in the world, becoming the youngest man to do so. He is the youngest man to win a Grand Slam title since Rafael Nadal won the 2005 French Open as a 19-year-old.The dream becomes reality.@carlosalcaraz is a Grand Slam champion. pic.twitter.com/sPFaAiVFNR— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 11, 2022
      Alcaraz’s rise to the top of the sport had been predicted for years, but it has been breathtaking nonetheless. His forehand is powerful, and his ability to chase down balls that other players would not bother trying to reach is thrilling to watch. He can hit the lustiest of winners when he gets to them, and he takes pure joy from competing, even in the middle of the night. He has dazzled crowds everywhere he has played during his first two years as a full-fledged professional, never more so than during the past two weeks of this unforgettable championship run.The ride began in 2021 in Australia, where he won his first main draw Grand Slam match on a court in the hinterlands of Melbourne Park with just a few dozen fans in attendance. He was outside the top 100 of the rankings then. In Croatia, last summer, he won his first tour-level title, and in New York starting a month later he blasted and drop-shotted his way into the quarterfinals as part of a teenage wave that took over the U.S. Open.This spring brought his first titles at the Masters level, just below the Grand Slams, in Miami Gardens, Fla., and Madrid, where he beat Nadal and Novak Djokovic in consecutive matches. Veterans playing him — and often losing — for the first time left the court shaking their heads, their eyes glazed, and at a loss for words about what they had experienced.“This is something I have dreamed of since I was a kid,” Alcaraz, not so far removed from youth, said during the trophy presentation, after he and Ruud acknowledged the solemnity of the 21st anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in their moments of tennis heartbreak and triumph.Alcaraz’s victory was the capstone of a tournament that will be recalled for years for many reasons. There was the farewell to Serena Williams, widely considered the greatest female player of the modern era; the rise of Frances Tiafoe, the 24-year-old American son of immigrants from Sierra Leone, who knocked out Nadal and pushed Alcaraz to the limits in an electric five-set semifinal; and on Saturday, Iga Swiatek of Poland staked her claim as the new queen of the game, winning her third Grand Slam title in less than two years.The tournament set an all-time attendance record of 776,120 for the past two weeks, surpassing the previous record of 737,872, set in 2019.Alcaraz has become known for getting to balls other players wouldn’t think of reaching.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesOn Sunday, there was Alcaraz, doing the usual Alcaraz things. He sprinted from one corner of the court to the other, from the back wall to the edge of the net, whipping and spinning balls, and tantalizing and wowing a crowd sprinkled with the usual cast of celebrities befitting the final round. Years from now, the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Anna Wintour, Questlove and Christie Brinkley can tell friends they were there when the teenager won his first Grand Slam title.The championship came at the end of an epic week for Alcaraz. Just to get to the final, he played three straight five-set matches, starting Monday, that had him on the court for some 15 hours. His quarterfinal victory over Jannik Sinner, during which he was one point from elimination, lasted until 2:50 a.m. on Thursday, the latest finish in the history of a tournament notorious for late endings. Two nights later, or rather, the next night, he outlasted Tiafoe in emotional, battle-filled, lung-busting rallies in a match with miraculous point-saving shots to the end.“I’ve never played a player who moves as well,” said Tiafoe, who has played the best of the best. “He’s going to be a problem for a very long time.”Alcaraz, though, said his first chance at a Grand Slam final was no time to be tired, and he started causing problems for Ruud early. Determined not to get into another marathon slugfest against an opponent as steady and as fit as anyone else in the field, Alcaraz stepped on the gas pedal from the start, rushing the net at every good chance and ending points with crisp volleys hit on the sharpest angles. Given what had transpired recently, Ruud had every right to expect Alcaraz’s unique style of tennis attrition. Instead he got shock-and-awe.Alcaraz grabbed the early edge in the third game. With Ruud serving, he eschewed any inclinations to ease his way into the match. With a chance to cause early damage, Alcaraz flicked on his afterburners and started grunting with late-match urgency and volume on every shot.After Alcaraz clinched that first service break, Ruud grabbed his towel near the corner of the court where his father and coach, the former pro Christian Ruud, sat a few feet above the court. Team Ruud needed a plan B.It took another 10 games for Ruud to find it, but he did. Down a set, Ruud pressured Alcaraz by putting ball after ball at his feet, then put on an Alcaraz-like display of power and touch and covered the court to even the match after an hour and a half, as Alcaraz’s efficiency, and his lethal drop-shot, went missing temporarily.Alcaraz collapsed to the court in joy after defeating Casper Rudd.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThis was a different Ruud than the one who took a drubbing from Nadal in his first Grand Slam final at the French Open three months ago, on a day when he looked like someone with really good seats for the match rather than an opponent. Ruud was not going away on his own Sunday.But throughout the tournament, Alcaraz showed a rare ability to find the next gear to meet whatever challenge came his way. He put that on full display late in the third set, during a crucial, and for Ruud, soul-crushing stretch across a single game and a tiebreaker.With Alcaraz serving to stay in the set, Ruud poured every bit of his power and determination into a series of rocketed forehands that earned him two chances to move a set ahead. Each time, Alcaraz pressed forward, fearlessly pushing into the court chin first. His chance for a lead gone, Ruud crumpled in the tiebreaker with a series of wild misses as Alcaraz reeled off seven consecutive points.From there, holding back Alcaraz suddenly felt much like it has all year, a task akin to holding back an ocean. An absurd forehand, topspin lob while Alcaraz was running at full speed gave him the chance to get the crucial fourth-set service break. A point later, he did his best impression of a human backboard until Ruud could keep the ball in the court no longer.“Hard to believe he’s only teenager, but, yeah, he is,” Ruud said later. After the final point, a crushing service winner, Alcaraz collapsed on his back. A minute later he was embracing his longtime coach — the former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero — who has piloted the journey, along with Alcaraz’s father, a former pro himself, and his grandfather, who helped develop the tennis club where he started to play as a 3-year-old.When he made it back to his chair, Alcaraz put his face in a towel and sobbed, as Ruud sat stoically a few feet away. Ruud knew what had hit him, and knew that it could be the first of many days that end like this one. A little while later, Ferrero said Alcaraz had reached about 60 percent of his potential. “I want to be on top for many weeks, many years,” Alcaraz said later in a news conference. Then he pointed at the trophy. “I want more of these.”The era is just starting.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times More

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      On the Quiet Hardcourts in Spain, Carlos Alcaraz’s Star Was Already Shining

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      No matter how clear the potential, you never truly know what a tennis player is capable of until they have to fight for the biggest points on the biggest occasions.In December, when I visited Carlos Alcaraz and his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, at the academy where they are based in the stark countryside of Villena, Spain, both calmly and reasonably explained that the goal for 2022 was to break into the top 15.So much for calm and reason.On Sunday, Alcaraz became a Grand Slam champion by winning the men’s singles title at the U.S. Open and, at 19, the youngest No. 1 player since the ATP rankings were created nearly 50 years ago.In December, Alcaraz trained on a hardcourt with Ferrero near the back of the academy grounds with just a few people observing as they picked up their own balls amid the peace and quiet.So much for peace and quiet.Sunday’s four-set victory over Casper Ruud of Norway was secured in a sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium with the roars of nearly 24,000 fans rumbling off the closed retractable roof as Alcaraz lunged and leaped straight into the winner’s circle and the collective consciousness.To be honest, a star was already born.Alcaraz ticked that big box quite some time ago when he upset the likes of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal this season on his acrobatic, gravity-defying way to trophies on tour and early acclaim. He sensed after winning the Miami Open final over Ruud in early April that Grand Slam titles were within his reach.But no matter how clear the potential and how dynamic the game, you never truly know what a tennis player is capable of until they have to fight for the biggest points on the biggest occasions.Sunday was one of those moments, and now he and we know for certain that Alcaraz is the mega-talent that men’s tennis was anxiously hoping would surface with the Big Three — Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer — riding toward the fading light.“It’s crazy for me,” he said on Sunday night. “I never thought I was going to achieve something like this at 19 years old. Everything came so fast.”Alcaraz, as truly exceptional players do, has arrived at some of the usual way stations on the road to success and stepped on the accelerator pedal instead of pulling over.Pete Sampras was also 19 when he rode his supreme serve and running forehand to win the 1990 U.S. Open men’s singles title. Nadal, Alcaraz’s fellow Spaniard, was 19, too, when he arrived at his first French Open in 2005 and ran the table against his elders without even being pushed to a fifth set.Alcaraz found a way to attack when threatened rather than playing the waiting game.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAlcaraz now belongs in the same paragraph even if he never made it look remotely that easy in New York. He had to save a match point against Jannik Sinner of Italy in the quarterfinals. That was part of him winning three five-set matches in a row that finished near midnight or well after and kept him from going to sleep until much of the city was starting to wake up.And all that was just to reach the final, where a letdown would have been entirely understandable. But Alcaraz was having none of it, even if there were some moments in the second and third sets where his energy levels seemed to dip and his full-cut groundstrokes lacked some of their customary punch.But as champions do, he found a way, and as not all champions do, he did so by attacking when threatened rather than playing the waiting game.Serving in the 12th game of the third set, he saved one set point by approaching the net and hitting a deft angled forehand volley winner. He saved the next by serving and volleying and finishing off the point with an overhead shot. He won the game with a lunging backhand lob that sent Ruud scrambling back to the baseline, where he hit a tweener that Alcaraz, back at the net, punched away to force a tiebreaker with the crowd giving him nothing but positive feedback.There is no need to bury the Big Three just yet.Federer’s glory days are very likely done at age 41, and he has not played in more than a year. But Nadal, at 36, won two major titles this year and has had a marvelous, reaffirming season. Djokovic just won Wimbledon and, despite being unvaccinated against Covid-19, looks very likely to be granted permission by the Australian government to defend the old guard against Alcaraz and the new wave in January at the Australian Open, which Djokovic has won a record nine times.But Sunday’s final and this U.S. Open as a whole sent a clear message: men’s tennis will have a strong heartbeat long after its long-running icons are gone.This was appointment viewing, too, a day when two hungry young men were chasing their first major title and the No. 1 ranking at the same time.Alcaraz not only won the U.S. Open trophy, he took top spot in the ATP rankings.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThis was a first, and what made it better yet was that this was big-time all-court tennis, brimming with risk and reward as roars of approval and occasional disbelief rumbled through the Thunderdome of Ashe Stadium.Alcaraz, down to earth off the court, is a human highlight reel with a racket in hand: ideally suited to a social-media age where bite-size brilliance is the coin of the realm. But Ruud, less obviously charismatic, showed plenty of panache himself, hunting down drop shots, ripping bold forehand winners, countering Alcaraz’s injections of pace and hustling to keep points and his chances alive.He also showed welcome and remarkable sportsmanship, calling a double bounce on himself in the second set that the chair umpire had missed, thereby awarding the point to Alcaraz, who clearly appreciated the gesture.It was a final played in that sort of Corinthian spirit despite all that was at stake.Ruud was close to turning it, closer than the four-set score line will indicate, but he lost his edge and his rhythm when he needed it most: mistiming shot after shot in the third-set tiebreaker that gave Alcaraz fresh hope and a much clearer view of the finish line.“He has such an incredible fighting spirit,” said Ruud, still searching for his first major title after losing to Nadal in straight sets at this year’s French Open final. Ruud is well placed to note the common thread between the two Spanish champions, born nearly 17 years apart. Alcaraz might have grown up admiring Federer’s flair and net-rushing skills, but like Nadal, he clearly relishes the fight as he proved again and again in New York. He delights not just in having won a match but in the process that leads to winning.“It is what makes Carlos special,” Ferrero said during my visit in December. “Many players like to compete but not so many look forward to playing the biggest points. Carlos does, and I think that is a very good sign for the future.”Ferrero said he sensed some of Alcaraz’s joy was missing earlier this summer at the Masters 1000 tournaments in Montreal and Mason, Ohio. Ferrero was intent on recapturing it and urged him to be true to his attacking instincts, to approach the net off short balls and to use his full range of skills. Mission accomplished. “I came here just to enjoy,” Alcaraz said. “To smile on court and to enjoy playing tennis.”Ferrero, who clinched the No. 1 ranking by reaching the final of the 2003 U.S. Open won by Andy Roddick, remains an unexcitable sort, but even he was struggling to keep his composure down the stretch on Sunday, extending his palms to the team to maintain calm while his strained expression was sending a rather different message.Who could blame him? He sensed something special in Alcaraz when he saw him in his early teens at a low-level professional tournament in Spain: He saw him hit drop shots and rush the net without fear; sensed his ability to adapt his game to the opposition; sensed that he had extra gears on his extra gears.But he also had a long-term view in mind.“Above all, he told me not to be in a hurry,” Alcaraz explained in December. “That I’m going to get the experience and play the tournaments and learn the ropes, and that there’s no need to get ahead of the process. I need to live all these moments and not be in a hurry for the results right away.”So much for not being in a hurry. More