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      A Surprising Year Could Culminate in a Surprising U.S. Open

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      Two unseeded players won in a big U.S. Open warm-up tournament, another unexpected result in an odd tennis season.Who is going to win the United States Open, which starts next week? Given the results over the weekend in an important warm-up tournament near Cincinnati, the answer seems like it could be “almost anyone.”Though the fields were strong, both the men’s and women’s singles tournaments in Ohio were won by unseeded players. The men’s winner was Borna Coric of Croatia, ranked 152nd in the world last week after being injured for a year and returning in March. The victory made him the lowest ranked player ever to win a Masters 1000, the elite events rated just below the Grand Slams.Along the way, he beat the 2, 4, 7, 9 and 15 seeds. Did he think there was a chance to win going in? “Absolutely not,” he said.The women’s winner was Caroline Garcia of France, the 35th-ranked player last week. She became the first qualifier ever to win a WTA 1000 title and beat the 4, 6 and 7 seeds to do so. “It’s hard to believe I am standing here today; it’s been such a week,” she said in her post-match speech.The results continue an unexpected year in tennis. The previous men’s Masters 1000 event, in Montreal, was also won by an unseeded player, Pablo Carreño Busta of Spain. The seven 1000 events this year have had six different winners. (Carlos Alcaraz won two but has never made the semifinal of a Grand Slam event.)The men’s Grand Slam events have been won by the familiar duo of Rafael Nadal (Australian and French Opens) and Novak Djokovic (Wimbledon), but at ages 36 and 35 their dominance seems to be wavering. They each had to survive at least one five-set match on their way to their Grand Slam titles this year. And Nadal, who lost to Coric last week, has been dealing with an injury to his abdomen that led to his withdrawal from Wimbledon.On the women’s side, Ashleigh Barty won the Australian Open as the top seed, then retired. Iga Swiatek of Poland seemed to take up her mantle, going on a run earlier in the year that culminated in a French Open win and the No. 1 ranking. Then she lost in the round of 32 at Wimbledon and the round of 16 in both Toronto and Cincinnati. The Wimbledon winner was Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the second-lowest-ranked woman ever to win there at No. 23.Caroline Garcia of France won the Western & Southern Open on Sunday. She became the first qualifier ever to win a WTA 1000 title.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAt the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 29, the bookmakers are keeping the faith with Djokovic as the men’s favorite at about 8-5. If he plays. His vaccine status means he may not even be allowed in the country. And the No. 2 player in the world, Alexander Zverev, is out after an ankle surgery.Daniil Medvedev is the next choice at about 5-2, probably in large part because he is the reigning champion. He hasn’t won a big event this year and is the No. 1 player almost by default. After that come Alcaraz, Nadal and Nick Kyrgios. Coric is 35-1. Particularly if Djokovic is out, the tournament result looks much more uncertain than usual.Despite her recent struggles, Swiatek is the 3-1 favorite on the women’s side, perhaps for lack of a better option. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. Most oddsmakers have Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep, Coco Gauff and the defending champion, Emma Raducanu, all in the 7-1 to 16-1 range, plus at least another eight or 10 players with a real shot at 22-1 or less, including Rybakina and Garcia.Generally, tennis fans put a fair amount of stock in the hardcourt warm-ups for the U.S. Open, if not to show the winner at least to point out players to watch. The upset-filled events this year could be a harbinger for a U.S. Open full of surprises. More

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      Serena Williams Brought New Fans to Tennis. Are You One of Them?

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      Part of Williams’s legacy can be seen in the stands of her matches, where the spectators are among tennis’s most diverse.Tell us about your experience watching Serena Williams play in the form at the end of this column.When you watch Serena Williams play from the comfortable remove of a living room, she pops from the screen. All that willpower, athleticism and skill, even as she ages and fades.When you watch Serena Williams play live and up close, in a packed stadium during a tight match on the biggest stage — now, that is something else altogether. That’s an event, a happening, a mix of Broadway and Cannes and the Met Gala, with a whole lot of forehand winners and sometimes a soap opera mixed in.Those performances will cease now that she is “evolving” from the game, as she announced this month, to pursue a life beyond tennis and perhaps have a second child. But her legacy goes far beyond what she did between the lines: It’s clear in the stands of every tournament that Williams’s glitz and drama beckoned to fans of all kinds, including large swaths who only pay attention to sports when she plays.To be at a Serena match — among masses of attendees, particularly brown and Black spectators making their first foray to a professional match — was to feel a sense of new possibility for a sport long steeped in whiteness.Take the U.S. Open, for instance. Since her ascension to tennis’s upper reaches when she won there in 1999 at age 17, Flushing Meadows has been a special stage for Williams and her fans.In 2016, bidding for an Open-era record 23rd major singles title, the overall U.S. Open attendance figures showed nearly a quarter of fans there were Black, according to the United States Tennis Association. In 2017, with Williams’s career on hold as she sat out to give birth to her daughter, the number of Black fans at Flushing Meadows dropped by 10 percent.That is the Serena effect.“The magnetism of Serena attracts all kinds of new fans,” said Chris Widmaier, a U.S.T.A. spokesman. “But you can certainly see the outsize and indelible impact that she has had on Black Americans in their relationship with tennis.”Widmaier has been working communications at the Open for 20 years. He has seen Williams play all over the world and figures he has watched her more than any other top player.“When Serena would walk on the court and you had the ability to be courtside, you would get chills,” he said. “You just knew you were in the presence of greatness. And it didn’t matter at which point in her career. That is what I always felt.”Williams’s matches always made viewers feel. And while her career — and that of her sister Venus — has drawn onlookers of all kinds, it has had special resonance for Black fans and others traditionally at the margins of the tennis scene.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe tennis star is retiring after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.On Her Own Terms: Serena Williams announced her decision to retire in an article in Vogue in a way that felt unapologetically her own. A Beacon of Black Excellence: The tennis player achieved greatness without ever masking the struggles it took to win — especially as a Black woman.A Career on Top: Williams won her first Grand Slam in 1999, when she was 17 years old.  Over the next two decades, she became the sport’s most dominant force.Her Legacy: While emerging as the face of tennis, Williams, along with her older sister Venus, changed the face of the sport, carrying the load for the nation’s aspirations.If that’s you, I want to hear your story. Especially if you made the pilgrimage to see Williams play in person. Even if “up close” was the nosebleed seats at the Olympic tennis stadium in Rio. Or if you made it to one of the smaller tournaments on the WTA Tour, without the Grand Slam crowds and prices.Were you there at Indian Wells in 2001, as many in the majority-white audience booed Williams during her championship win? Were you there 14 years later, when she ended her boycott of that desert event?What moments and images from Williams’s career, good and bad and utterly astonishing, stick with you? What compelled you to see her in person?For me, when I think of Serena, of course, I also think of Venus. Watching them together was sports as beautiful alchemy. Just the right mix, even if their matches were sometimes full of nervousness and imperfection.At the U.S. Open in 2008, Serena and Venus were about to clash in a quarterfinal match on a hot, humid New York evening. Two hours before, I watched as fans gathered outside the stadium. Yes, it was still a mostly white and well-heeled crowd, but it was also Black, Latino, Asian, every hue, every class.It felt supercharged. The air surged with electric excitement and anticipation. I heard many say they would not have ventured to Flushing Meadows that evening if not for Serena. Adding Venus to the mix sealed the deal.The sisters put on a show. There were early pockmarks of sloppy play, but in the end, the evening sizzled with excellence, and Serena affirmed her superiority, winning, 7-6, 7-6.Looking back on the arc of Serena’s career, the swings of that match are a hallmark. She has always been capable of producing clumps of errors in batches — and then turning up the winners when everything counts. That’s part of the wonder.On the grounds of the most significant events, it often felt like the competition had not really stepped into high gear until Williams put on a high-pressure spectacle.A fan held a sign in support of Serena Williams during the Western & Southern Open in Ohio last week.Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesSerena brought the buzz, whether she won or not. It began from the moment she’d leave the players’ tunnel and walk before the fans. If you were there at the 2018 French Open when she entered that red-clay center court dressed in her tight black, Wakanda-inspired bodysuit, the feel in the stands, the swooning and gasping and awe, will be in your mind for good.God, I loved that moment. It gave me goose bumps.In her boldness and bearing, Williams has always reminded me of my undaunted nieces and cousins and my late paternal grandmother, Peggy Mae Streeter, a powerful Black woman born one generation from slavery. Dressed in that bodysuit — reveling in her complete self, with that trademark “I’m gonna do my thing, no matter what” kind of attitude — Williams, it seemed to me, was channeling their unbreakable spirit.I’m certainly not the only one to observe and feel that way. She spoke for herself and in doing so, spoke to us.It’s strange, but I seemed to have a knack for being in the stands when Williams was surprisingly upended. The loss to Elina Svitolina at the Rio Olympics in 2016. The time she blew a 5-1 last-set lead and succumbed to Karolina Pliskova at the 2019 Australian Open. With each loss, on the grounds of those events, you could feel energy and passion drain from fans once they realized she would no longer be around.When, in 2019, Williams worked in vain to fend off Bianca Andreescu, the talented young Canadian, I was one of the 23,000 who jammed Ashe Stadium for what may have been her last Grand Slam final.Thinking about it now, I can still hear the proud and melancholy sound of Williams’s straining breath as she served to stay in the match, facing a third match point. I can feel her gasping exhale echoing across the stands. I can remember Andreescu dialing up a forehand reply, just as I can recall Williams’s lunge as that forehand spun by for a winner.Game, set, Slam, Andreescu, 6-3, 7-5.You had to be there to feel the poignancy. A collective, mournful groan underlay the standing ovation applause for a new and deserving champion.This was the ultimate tennis champion on her last legs, coming up short, fighting to the end. I’m thankful to have been there as a witness.Has Serena Williams Impacted You? Share Your Story.The Times wants to hear stories from people who have seen Williams play at tournaments, and those particularly impacted by her career. We won’t publish any part of your submission without contacting you first. More

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      Serena Williams Loses to Emma Raducanu in Cincinnati

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      Emma Raducanu beat Williams in straight sets in the first round at the Western and Southern Open. Williams’s next tournament, and quite possibly her last, will be the U.S. Open.MASON, Ohio — The Serena Williams farewell tour continues to seem like a fine idea that has come too late in the game.Since Williams’s announcement in Vogue last week that she would soon retire from the sport that she once ruled, she has played two matches and lost both in straight sets.Her last hurrahs have so far been sotto voce: grand occasions without matching content. And as Emma Raducanu, last year’s surprise U.S. Open champion, made frightfully quick work of Williams with a victory, 6-4, 6-0, on Tuesday night, the sold-out center court at the Western and Southern Open was often as quiet as a practice court as the nearly 12,000 fans on hand rarely had the chance to cheer the icon they had come to honor.For those who remember Williams at her peak, it was painful to watch this first-round defeat as she piled up unforced errors and missed returns early and then, after a brief surge, faded badly down the stretch with more of the same.Irresistible on serve in her prime, she lost her opening service game at love and also lost her last three service games, unable to control her shots or her destiny, particularly when the quick and agile Raducanu got her on the run, exposing Williams’s now-limited movement.Williams’s second serve has been a problem in recent years, and it was an even bigger problem on Tuesday. She won just two of 16 points on her second delivery: a paltry 12.5 percent. And though Williams had long feasted on second serves like Raducanu’s, the 19-year-old British star won 75 percent of the points on her second serve as Williams struggled to find her timing and sometimes her footing.It was a measure of Williams’s disarray and disappointment that, after this 65-minute rout was complete, she politely shook hands with Raducanu and quickly exited the court with a wave to the crowd, declining an on-court interview with Kondo Simfukwe that would have allowed her to address the public directly in her final match at the tournament.Last week in Toronto, when Williams lost to Belinda Bencic in the second round of the National Bank Open, there was considerably more fanfare: Williams said a formal farewell to Canada, shed a few tears and accepted an armful of parting gifts, including Maple Leafs and Raptors jerseys with her name and the No. 22 on them.Williams won just two of 16 points on her second serve.Jeff Dean/Associated PressBut there would be no Bengals gear on Tuesday outside Cincinnati, even though the Western and Southern Open tournament staff were prepared to mark the moment with much more pomp and circumstance if Williams had been open to the idea.Instead, it was left to Raducanu, who had just faced Williams for the first and likely only time, to speak to the moment and perform one of the pirouettes that Williams long deployed in victory.“Well, I think we all need to just honor Serena and her amazing career,” Raducanu said. “I’m so grateful for the experience to be able to play her and for our careers to cross over. Everything she has achieved is so inspirational, and yeah, it was a true honor to share this court with her.”Raducanu was not yet born when Williams won her first Grand Slam singles title at age 17 at the 1999 U.S. Open but like so many of her generation, Raducanu grew up with Williams dominating the landscape.“When you guys were cheering for her, I was like — you know what? — all for it,” Raducanu said to the crowd.Raducanu’s breakthrough victory in New York last year was much more of a shock than Williams’s 1999 triumph. Raducanu was an unseeded qualifier and is the only qualifier to win a Grand Slam singles title. She has struggled to follow up on that bravura performance, failing to reach a final in any other tour event. But her poise, precision, flowing footwork and superbly sliced serves on Tuesday were a flashback to last September at Flushing Meadows, even if she felt much more shaky than she looked.“To be honest, I was nervous from the first point to the last point,” Raducanu said. “I know what a champion she is. She can come back from any situation. I just had to stay focused. I’m just so pleased I managed to keep my composure.”Williams congratulating Emma Raducanu, who wasn’t yet born when Williams won her first U.S. Open singles title in 1999.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesWilliams’s struggles in the twilight are certainly understandable. She will turn 41 next month and has been a professional since age 14. The years, even with a limited schedule and phenomenal talent, take their toll. Williams, who missed a year of action after a hamstring tear at Wimbledon in 2021, has played only four singles matches in the last 14 months, and she took to the court to face Raducanu with a long strip of tape running down the outside of her left thigh, likely to provide support for her left knee.This much-anticipated match between the greatest women’s player of this era and one of the game’s brightest young talents was originally scheduled for Monday night but was delayed a day at Williams’s request in order to give her, according to people informed of the situation but not authorized to speak about it, more time to recover from knee pain.It was a newsy day in women’s tennis on Tuesday: Naomi Osaka, once the world No. 1, continued to struggle in 2022, losing in the first round by 6-4, 7-5 to Zhang Shuai of China. Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American who reached the French Open final earlier this year, rolled an ankle late in the first set of her opening-round match with Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic and retired trailing, 5-7, 0-1.But the main event was clearly Williams vs. Raducanu, and Williams took the court after warming up in front of a large and supportive crowd earlier in the day on Court 16, with fans peering down from nearby show courts for a chance to catch a glimpse of Williams in person, perhaps for the last time. Some of them already had watched Williams’s older sister Venus lose, 7-5, 6-1, on center court to No. 14 seed Karolina Pliskova in their first-round match.It was another poignant day for the Williams sisters and another short stay at a tournament where they used to settle in for longer. On Wednesday, the 10th-seeded Raducanu, not the unseeded Serena Williams, will face the former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in the second round.Serena Williams will presumably return to the practice court and physical therapy to try to get sharper and healthier before playing in New York, even if it now seems a long shot that she will be able to find enough form to make a run at the U.S. Open, which begins on Aug. 29 and is likely to be the last of her hurrahs. More

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      Serena Williams Takes On Emma Raducanu On the Road to the U.S. Open

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      After a postponement because of physical problems, Williams is scheduled to play Emma Raducanu on Tuesday. Her prime target is the U.S. Open, and she will not want to take undue risks.MASON, Ohio — The Serena Williams farewell tour is set to continue Tuesday at the Western and Southern Open.But for how long?The matchup — Williams vs. Emma Raducanu of Britain in the opening round — seems particularly well suited to the grand occasion that is Williams’s extended goodbye from professional tennis.With 23 Grand Slam singles titles, she is unquestionably the greatest women’s tennis player of this era and one of the greatest athletes of any era. Raducanu, a cosmopolitan 19-year-old, shocked the world (and herself) by winning last year’s U.S. Open as a qualifier, and has the smarts and strokes to be one of the leaders of the game if she can adjust to her new status and resume smacking forehand winners and winning matches by the bunch.The two champions at opposite ends of their careers have never played each other, and Raducanu is one of several young stars on the WTA Tour who have been hoping for a chance to face Williams before she walks away from the sport she long dominated. She wrote in Vogue, published last week, that the U.S. Open, which begins on Aug. 29 in New York, would be her last.But the question is whether Williams’s body (she turns 41 on Sept. 26) can make it to her self-imposed finish line. Her match with Raducanu was originally scheduled, with great fanfare, for Monday night, with the tournament releasing a statement and informing fans on site for the qualifying rounds that Williams would be playing in that opening-night slot outside Cincinnati.But after tickets, presumably quite a number of them, were purchased with Williams in mind, the match was bumped late on Monday to Tuesday with a vague explanation from the tournament. “On account of a number of factors related to scheduling, the Serena Williams-Emma Raducanu match will now be held on Tuesday,” the tournament said in announcing the Monday schedule.People who had been informed about the situation but who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, said the postponement was because of physical problems with Williams, who has had chronic knee tendinitis during her career and missed a year of competition after tearing her right hamstring at Wimbledon in 2021.There was no confirmation of injury concerns from Williams or from tournament officials. Williams practiced on Sunday and Monday, and the match remains on the Tuesday night schedule. But Williams, if she wins, would have to play on consecutive days for as long as she remains in the tournament. With the U.S. Open in her sights, she will clearly not want to take undue risks that could jeopardize her moment in Queens.Serena Williams and her coach, Eric Hechtman, during a practice.Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesThe U.S. Open is her prime target as Eric Hechtman, her new coach, made clear in an interview last week in Toronto, where Williams lost in the second round of the National Bank Open in straight sets to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.It was the third singles match of Williams’s latest and surely last comeback, following an opening-round defeat to Harmony Tan, an unseeded Frenchwoman, at Wimbledon in June and a first-round victory in Toronto over Nuria Parrizas-Diaz of Spain.“We had Wimbledon, and now we have Toronto and Cincinnati to build up for New York,” Hechtman said after the loss to Bencic. “I’d say Serena’s played better in each match, and obviously there are things she could do better out there, but I thought her opponent played really well tonight. What we’re going to do is take the positives and improve tomorrow. She’s a champion, and we’re going to keep getting better every day, not just every match, but every day and hopefully we can make some improvements by Cincinnati.”Hechtman, a 38-year-old club professional who played at the University of Miami, has coached Venus Williams, Serena’ s older sister, since 2019 and began coaching Serena Williams earlier this year after she split with her longtime coach, Patrick Mouratoglou.For years, Venus and Serena shared the same coaches, their father Richard and mother Oracene Price, and in the sisters’ developmental years, the Florida-based coach Rick Macci.Working with Hechtman brings them, in a sense, full circle even if he generally trains with them separately to give them individualized instruction.“I feel blessed and thankful that I’m in this situation,” he said. “It just fell into place, and I just hope I do them justice and help them as much as I can to go forward.”Venus Williams, 42, who has yet to announce any timetable for her own retirement, received a wild card into the Western and Southern Open and has a daunting first-round match on the main stadium court against Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, a former world No. 1, on Tuesday.“Venus will do it how she wants to it when she wants to do it,” Hechtman said of her leaving the game. “She could play for five more years. Who knows?”But her younger sister has made her intentions much clearer.“Emotions are high,” Hechtman said. “Every athlete faces this time at some point, and I think it’s good Serena did it the way she did it. I thought her first-person essay was unbelievable, and it shows a lot about how she is but also how intelligent she is. We’ve got a couple of tournaments left and hopefully we can use that as one of her major weapons: not just her tennis but her brain power and how she uses it on court.”Tennis fans watched Williams, far left, during a practice session on Monday.Aaron Doster/Associated PressThe power gap that long separated Serena Williams from the chase pack has been closed. Her successors on tour thrive on torrid pace, from this year’s Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina to the rising Americans Coco Gauff and Amanda Anisimova. It is harder to overwhelm this generation, in part because Williams set a new standard.But Williams still has aura, particularly with those who grew up watching her from afar.“When I look at her, I suddenly kind of forget that I’m here as world No. 1,” said Iga Swiatek, the Polish 21-year-old who was not even born when Williams won her first major title at the 1999 U.S. Open. “I see Serena and it’s, ‘Wow, Serena!’ You know? And I feel like I’m a kid from kindergarten just looking at her. So it’s tough. I haven’t talked to her, but I’m just trying to say hi.”And though Williams is no longer as mobile at age 40, she can win points in a variety of manners, deploying drop shots successfully in Toronto and using her still-impressive first serve to secure quick points or set up next-shot winners.“I think she’s serving well,” Hechtman said. “The pace is there on the serve, as it always has been through her career. She’s been improving since Wimbledon, and I think she’s definitely striking the ball cleaner, and I’d say the movement has improved. So, on all those fronts, it’s good.”The intent is to have a better, fuller preparation heading into New York than she had heading into Wimbledon, where she had played only two doubles matches at a tournament in Eastbourne, England, with Ons Jabeur before facing Tan.“We’re playing more events coming in,” Hechtman said. “So I think that’s useful and what we need to be doing. It’s like warming up for a match, right? You don’t just start the match cold. You’ve got to get the rhythm, and she’s getting her rhythm with the more matches she plays.”Body willing, she will play at least one in Mason, Ohio. More

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      Can a Tennis Player Share His Heart, and Courts, With Pickleball?

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      Our columnist grew up playing competitive tennis on Seattle courts that are now caught in the middle of a turf war with pickleball. He took up a paddle to see what all the fuss was about.Allow me to begin with an admission. I haven’t exactly been a fan of pickleball, the sport that is sweeping America like thorny tumbleweeds blowing across the windswept plains.I’ve always been jarred by the sound of it: Thwack!Though pickleball, a hybrid paddle sport, is increasingly sharing space with tennis at many courts and clubs around the country, it has nothing like the feel of tennis or the booming sound of that fuzzy ball on the strings, struck just right.Instead, graphite pickleball paddles careen against yellow plastic balls, emitting a high-pitched bleat.Thwack!For a lifelong tennis player like me, that high-pitched wail is an insult to the ears, the auditory equivalent of a root canal.Then, there’s the aesthetic. The look and feel of pickleball. In contrast with the elegance of tennis, this sport appeared to me to be a simple something parents would dream up to keep the kids busy on a lazy summer day. Turns out that’s pretty much how the game began back on Bainbridge Island, Wash., in the 1960s.Pickleball? Why not read a book, walk the dog, take a nap or just go ahead and play Ping-Pong?I had intentionally and assiduously avoided it until last week.Then pickleball sucked me in.Pickleball players of varying skills and ages pack the courts at Green Lake Park in Seattle.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesI went down to one of the game’s new meccas in my hometown, Seattle, a sliver of courts in the verdant park that wraps around the aptly named Green Lake. To describe it with better accuracy, these are three tennis courts that have been more or less commandeered by pickleball.It’s a turf war that’s become common nationwide in recent years as the pandemic drove demand for both sports. Pickleballers are clamoring for respect, more resources and courts, creating a sensitive balancing act for parks and recreation departments around the country.I naturally landed on one side of the battle. Way back when — read, during the administrations of Presidents Reagan and Clinton — I was one of the better players in the Pacific Northwest and often the best for my age division in Seattle. From ages 14 to 30, I won the city championships a half dozen times, sometimes playing matches or warming up on the three Green Lake courts.On my pilgrimage to the transformed (pickled?) venue, I quickly found a shepherd. “So, do you want to give it a try?” asked Peter Seitel, a former owner and manager of a computer-engineering firm who is now known as the mayor of these courts. He’s an organizer, champion of pickleball and one of the locals trying to get the city to pay more heed to the sport.I played my first games with Seitel, 68, as he taught me the rules and strategies. And I was hardly the only newbie greeted with open arms that day. Everywhere I looked, experienced players were guiding rookies with welcoming patience. The scene felt open and democratic compared with my experience with tennis, in which you often must prove you’ve got game before you can really be accepted.There were intense games and relaxed ones. A 60-year-old woman held her own against a muscular 20-something. A fourth grader was just learning the ropes, moving from court to court to face off against people he’d never met. The racial and age diversity of the people playing pickleball felt refreshingly cool for a part of the city with a mostly white population and teeming with youthful tech workers.Anita Gulrajani, a Green Lake pickleball regular, serving the ball.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesIf you can play Ping-Pong and run eight feet in any direction, you’ll be rallying within a single day.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesPickleball’s cozy community partly owes to the low barrier to entry. The time between learning the game and having fun with it is almost negligible. If you can play Ping-Pong and run eight feet in any direction, you’ll be rallying within a single day. Seitel and I played a few games, and I immediately held my own. It was competitive but not so rigorous that I couldn’t wear my straw, wide-brimmed hat while playing. Don that hat during a tennis match and it would have fallen off during every other serve and sprint across the court.Still, there were nuances. The scoring and positioning for instance. I’m used to hitting 120-mile-per-hour tennis aces, but the pickleball serve is a floppy underhand shot that barely leads to an advantage. During rallies, that pesky little plastic ball seems to have a mind of its own. One of the game’s biggest weapons is a soft knuckler that barely clears the net and is known as the dink. Not exactly my style.Nicole Bideganeta urged me on. If Seitel is the mayor of the Green Lake courts, Bideganeta is the chief of staff. She can also talk a lot of smack to opponents and back it up so, of course, I wanted her as my partner.Bideganeta, 28, might have regretted saying yes.In our second game, I got tired of dinking around. “I’m gonna poach, just like in tennis, and take this thing over!” I told myself.This was not the smartest move. Or the safest.When a floater came, I dashed for it, coiled, swung — and my racket collided with Bideganeta’s elbow, right on the funny bone. “Ouch!” She winced in pain. I felt embarrassed, like a bull in one of those ever-shrinking tennis-racket stores.Kurt Streeter, left, chatted with Nicole Bideganeta as she iced her elbow. With its small court and swinging paddles, pickleball can be a little dangerous.Lindsey Wasson for The New York TimesThe score was tied, but we had to end that game. I got my partner some ice and a mango popsicle to soothe her pain.Lesson learned. With its small court and swinging paddles, pickleball can be a little dangerous.No sweat, Bideganeta assured me. “We’re going to get back out there. You’re not done yet!”And sure enough, we returned, only this time with more focus. I didn’t want to let her down — dink, dink, curveball, smash to the feet. I was getting into it now.Thwack! — that paddle-against-plastic sound I had thought was so obnoxious? Well, in the heat of the moment, I didn’t even notice it. What I did notice was that I couldn’t stop smiling as I played. And I saw way more smiles and joy all around me than when I’m playing tennis, where intensity and furrowed brows dominate.We won that game, 11-0, which I learned is known as “a pickle” and isn’t easy at any level. “You’re just getting started,” my new partner said. Several other stalwarts surrounded us, urging me on.I’m not giving up tennis. No way. A good match is like a flowing waltz — and a much more demanding workout. But I’m ready to make some room for pickleball in my life.Just don’t tell my tennis friends.Luca Campese, 9, put down a paddle to reserve a spot in line for the next available court.Lindsey Wasson for The New York Times More

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      Serena Williams Begins the Not-Too-Long Goodbye

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      Williams, who expects to retire after the U.S. Open, played what was likely her last match in Canada on Wednesday. It ended with a loss, and tears.As a champion who says she hates goodbyes, Serena Williams could have made her exit from tennis in other ways.In a news release or Instagram post; by post-match interview or by simply walking away and staying away without formalizing her farewell.Instead, by making it plain this week that the end is very near, Williams has given herself and her vast public some runway to do the job just right, an extended — but not too extended — opportunity to do justice to Williams’s long and phenomenal career.“Savor every match,” said Tracy Austin, the former No. 1 turned television analyst.The first chance came in Toronto on a warm Wednesday night in a packed stadium against a tough and experienced opponent, Belinda Bencic, whose flowing, counterpunching game unsurprisingly proved too much for the 40-year-old Williams.Bencic closed out the victory, 6-2, 6-4, in the second round of the National Bank Open, but it was, as Bencic rightly pointed out, not really about the result on Wednesday. It was about the occasion.Though on-court interviews are usually the realm of the winner, Bencic quickly and elegantly stepped aside after her victory and ceded the stage and the microphone to Williams.“It was a lot of emotions,” Williams said as the tears started to come. “Obviously I love playing here, and I’ve always loved playing here. I wish I could have played better, but Belinda played so well today. But just, yeah, it’s been a pretty interesting 24 hours.”It has been above all, a fascinating 27 years since Williams first played in Canada. She launched her pro career in 1995 at the Bell Challenge, a now-defunct tournament in Quebec City, making that debut at age 14 in part to avoid becoming subject to age restrictions that the women’s tour was soon to impose.She lost in the first round of qualifying to the American Annie Miller, then ranked 149th in the world, but that was hardly foreshadowing. Williams has gone on to become the greatest women’s player of the 21st century and join the very short list of the most successful players of all time alongside Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Margaret Court.Tickets for the second-round match sold out in the hours following Serena Williams’s retirement announcement in Vogue.Vaughn Ridley/Getty ImagesWilliams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, one short of Court’s record, and has won 50 other tour singles titles, including three at the Canadian Open in 2001, 2011 and 2013.There would be no fourth title in Canada, but that was no impediment to her generating plenty of excitement and emotion as she played her last professional match there.Williams announced her impending retirement — she intends to play through the U.S. Open — in a poignant first-person essay in Vogue that was published on Tuesday. That was the day after she won her first singles match in more than a year in the opening round in Toronto, defeating Nuria Parrizas-Diaz of Spain.The buzz built quickly ahead of Williams’s second-round duel with Bencic.Karl Hale, the tournament director at the National Bank Open since 2006, said that after the retirement news broke, the tournament sold more tickets for the Williams-Bencic showdown than it had for any of its men’s matches, notable for a tournament that began in 1881, making it almost as old as Canada itself. (Canada was founded in 1867, and the women’s tournament started in 1892.)“In the players’ lounge, you heard the chatter. It’s the first time I’ve seen so many players watch a practice,” Hale said of Williams’s practice on Tuesday. “She practiced at 9 a.m., and everybody was out there watching her.”On Wednesday night, the stadium north of downtown packed in 12,500 fans, and the tournament would set up an outdoor viewing area — for the first time — for another 5,000. Williams’s husband, Alexis Ohanian, and their daughter, Olympia, 4, watched from the stands.Alexis Ohanian, Williams’s husband, and their daughter, Olympia.Vaughn Ridley/Getty ImagesAhead of Williams’s taking the court — which she did with a bowed head and a serious expression — a video with greetings from the retired champion Billie Jean King and some rising stars on the tour, Coco Gauff, Leylah Fernandez and Bianca Andreescu, played for the crowd. Wayne Gretzky, the Canadian who was one of the very greatest players in hockey history, had a closing message for his counterpart.“Serena Williams, Willie O’Ree in hockey, Jackie Robinson in baseball,” Gretzky said. “They changed everything. They changed the culture of sports, and what Serena did for boys and girls throughout the world is spectacular. Serena, congratulations on a wonderful career.”The crowd wanted Williams to win, and throughout the match it often felt as if everyone was trying to will her to victory. The hoopla — and often-disruptive shouts from the stands — could easily have rattled a lesser, more inexperienced player, but Bencic, a 25-year-old Swiss star, handled the moment with aplomb. She is at her best on hardcourts with her finely tuned game and exquisite timing, on display again as she redirected Williams’s still-formidable power with half volleys from the baseline and forecourt. Bencic won the Olympic gold medal in singles last year in Tokyo, and back in 2015 she upset Williams in Toronto in the semifinals on her way to winning the women’s singles title at age 18.Williams had won their three previous matches. Although both women have had to contend with injuries in recent years, much has changed since Williams defeated Bencic in three sets in the Hopman Cup team event in 2019.While Bencic has re-established herself as a consistent threat and is ranked No. 12, Williams, ranked 407th, has played comparatively little and missed a year of action before returning for Wimbledon in July, where she lost in the first round to Harmony Tan, an unseeded Frenchwoman.Wednesday’s match was only Williams’s third singles match in the last 14 months. She is, understandably, still finding her range and is no longer able to move to the corners or find the lines on the run as she did in her prime. But when in position, she still has the power and ball-striking skills to do considerable damage, and she occasionally clicked into higher gears against Bencic without summoning the consistency to genuinely threaten her opponent.The floor, if not the match, was soon hers, however.“It’s just been so memorable,” Williams said, her voice cracking, as she addressed the sellout crowd. “Like I said in my article, I’m terrible at goodbyes, but goodbye — .”She waited a beat and then added, “Toronto.”Other emotional adieus await: at the Western & Southern Open next week in the Cincinnati suburbs and then, body and spirit willing, at the U.S. Open in New York that begins Aug. 29.“These are all building blocks for New York,” said her new coach, Eric Hechtman. “And put it this way, she’s not just showing up as a farewell tour. Today, we could see stretches of level of play that are championship level, and I truly believe that she has got that gear in her, and I know she believes it, too.”Shawna Richer More

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      Serena Williams Loses in First Match Since Saying She Will Retire

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      Williams’s second-round match on Wednesday at the National Bank Open was her last in Canada, and everyone wanted in on it, even Wayne Gretzky.TORONTO — Karl Hale has been the tournament director at the National Bank Open since 2006 and had never seen anything like the 24 hours after Serena Williams said she was winding down her professional tennis career.“We heard it yesterday morning, and immediately ticket sales picked up,” Hale said. “In the players’ lounge, you heard the chatter. It’s the first time I’ve seen so many players watch a practice. She practiced at 9 a.m., and everybody was out there watching her.”Williams, who played a second-round match against Belinda Bencic of Switzerland on Wednesday night, stepped onto the court with everyone aware she could be competing for the last time in front of Canadian tennis fans at this tournament.“But I hope not,” said Hale, who has known Serena and her sister Venus for more than 20 years since they began coming to Toronto.But it was, as the 12th-ranked Bencic won in straight sets, 6-2, 6-4.

      National Bank Open — Women’s Second RoundFinal12 Belinda Bencic66 Serena Williams24 .spt-live-blog-width { max-width: 600px; margin: auto; } .spt-grid-item { font-family: nyt-franklin,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; padding: 5px 0; width: 100%; border: none; } table.spt-scoreboard { font-family: nyt-franklin,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-weight: 300; font-size: 15px; border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%; } tr.spt-scoreboard { border-top: 1px solid #ddd; } tr.spt-scoreboard:last-of-type { border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd; } td.spt-scoreboard { padding: 13px 0 12px; text-align: left; /* vertical-align: top; */ } .spt-black { color: #121212; } .spt-athleteName { word-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word; hyphens: auto; margin: 0 !important; } .spt-score { padding: 13px 0 12px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center; width: 30px; } .win { font-weight: 700; } .spt-score sup { position: absolute; top: 7px; text-indent: 2px; font-size: 12.5px; } .spt-winner-mark { width: 1em; margin-left: 5px; height: 1em; display: none; } .spt-winner-mark.win { display: block; } .spt-container { display: flex; align-items: center; } .spt-medal-wrapper { display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; } .serve { display: inline-block; border-radius: 10px; width: 10px; height: 10px; background-color: #ffe532; margin-left: 5px; } .spt-seed { font-size: 12.5px; color: #666; font-weight: 300; width: 21px; text-align: right; display: inline-block; } .spt-flag { transform: scale(.9); margin-top: 1px; margin-bottom: -1px; } .spt-meta { margin-bottom: 5px; } div.spt-title { padding-bottom: 5px; font-weight: 700; } div.spt-status { font-weight: 400; } @media (min-width: 600px) { .spt-grid-item { /*text-align: center;*/ } .spt-score { width: 50px; } .spt-meta { text-align: center; margin-bottom: 10px; } } The stadium north of downtown packed in 12,500 fans, and the tournament set up an outdoor viewing area — for the first time — for another 5,000.Ahead of Serena Williams’s taking the court — which she did with a bowed head and a serious expression — a video with greetings from the retired champion Billie Jean King and some rising stars on the tour, Coco Gauff, Leylah Fernandez and Bianca Andreescu, played for the crowd. Wayne Gretzky, the greatest player in hockey history, had a message for the greatest player in women’s tennis.“Serena Williams, Willie O’Ree in hockey, Jackie Robinson in baseball,” Gretzky said. “They changed everything. They changed the culture of sports and what Serena did for boys and girls throughout the world is spectacular. Serena, congratulations on a wonderful career.”Williams’s farewell tour is underway, kicked off by an as-told-to Vogue cover story for the September issue that was published online Tuesday. Williams wrote that she planned to retire from tennis at some point after at least playing in the U.S. Open, which begins Aug. 29 in New York.“I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me,” including working with her venture-capital firm and growing her family, she said.“I’m gonna relish these next few weeks,” Williams wrote on Instagram.The National Bank Open is the lone Canadian stop for the WTA and ATP tours each August, splitting the men’s and women’s events between Toronto and Montreal and alternating the cities each year. Suddenly, Williams’s match on Wednesday night in Toronto became the hottest ticket in sports.Hale said that after the retirement news broke, the tournament sold more tickets for the Williams-Bencic showdown than it had for any of its men’s matches, notable for a tournament that began in 1881, making it almost as old as Canada itself. (Canada was founded in 1867, and the women’s tournament started in 1892.)The round-of-32 match was a bigger draw than the entire 2017 women’s tournament, he said.Hale was buried in interview requests for Williams — the answer has been “no” — and requests for tickets from athletes, musicians and actors like Adam Sandler currently shooting movies in the city — the answer has been “yes,” to a point.“It’s going to be a really emotional night for her,” he said.The stadium hosted 12,500 fans, and 5,000 more gathered in an outdoor viewing area.Cole Burston/ReutersIt was. Williams, with wet eyes, thanked the crowd for its support over 22 years. “I was so happy to be here today,” she said.Fans, who gave Williams two standing ovations before the match began, and a lengthy one afterward, held signs that read: “Serena Williams for Prime Minister,” “Canada Loves Serena,” “Queen,” and simply, “Thank you Serena.”“Tonight was about her,” Bencic said in her on-court interview.Hale had a four-hour dinner at Harbour 60, a pricey Toronto steakhouse, with Serena and Venus Williams on Saturday night.“She didn’t tell me the Vogue piece was coming, but she spoke that retirement was imminent,” he said. “All of the signs were definitely pointing to a U.S. Open retirement. She’s really ready to move forward with the next chapter of her new life. She’s excited, she’s not sad, but she’s going to be very, very emotional tonight. I don’t think it’s hit her yet.”She is plainly having fun in Toronto. Over the weekend before the tournament began, she and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, and their daughter, Olympia, went to Medieval Times, the theater show with crowns and swords. Then on Monday, she won in straight-sets over Nuria Parrizas-Diaz of Spain, her first singles victory in more than a year. “I forgot what it felt like,” she said.It was the first time Olympia had sat through a full match, and she low-fived her mother — a go-to move when you’re 4 — after her win. “I was super excited,” Williams said. “It was good for her to have that memory. She’s never had it because I’ve always kept her away.”One of the most enduring images of this tournament — until Wednesday night — came after Williams was forced to exit the women’s singles final early in 2019 because of back spasms. Her opponent, Andreescu, approached the sideline and asked the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion if she could give her a hug.Andreescu, who went on to beat Williams in the 2019 U.S. Open final, recalled her emotional postmatch bonding with Williams after her straight-sets win over Daria Kasatkina of Russia on Tuesday night.“In Toronto, we had a nice conversation going, and at the U.S. Open she said some very kind things to me in the locker room,” Andreescu said. She added that she felt “grateful to have gotten the chance to play her and connect with her in some way. Maybe I’ll get one more.”Williams and Bianca Andreescu after Andreescu won the women’s singles final at the 2019 U.S. Open.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAs Williams closes out her career, a scarcity mind-set is setting in. Only a handful of tickets for Wednesday’s match were listed with resellers, suggesting that Williams’s final Canadian match was not for sale at any price.Williams’s fellow players at the tournament were also afraid they will miss out. Iga Swiatek, the world No. 1, Gauff, Emma Raducanu and the Canadians Fernandez, Rebecca Marino and Carol Zhao have never played against Williams and wistfully said they hoped to share the court with her before it was too late.The spotlight and the crowd will continue to follow Williams from Canada to Ohio, and on to New York, where she won her first Grand Slam singles title in 1999 as a 17-year-old.Marino said that it was fitting that Williams would at least play once more at the U.S. Open and that it would make for a perfect goodbye to the sport. “That’s, I think, the place to do it,” she said. More

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      At the U.S. Open, Serena Williams Was a ‘Game Changer’

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      In 1998, when Serena Williams made her singles debut at the U.S. Open, it was typical to see a crowd of many white faces watching many white players.In the years since, she has done more than any other person to transform those tournament grounds in Queens into a more inclusive environment, where increasing numbers of women and girls of color, some of whom have gone on to play and win in the event, join in the fun each year.While emerging as the face of tennis, Williams, along with her older sister Venus, changed the faces of tennis.“It’s a great feeling to see it,” said Martin Blackman, the general manager of player and coach development for the United States Tennis Association. “I attribute that to Serena and Venus. They completely changed the narrative.”Blackman’s father attended the U.S. Open in Forest Hills, Queens, to see Althea Gibson in the late 1950s, and was one of three Black fans in attendance, he told his son. When Blackman went to the U.S. Open for the first time 20 years later as a fan, there were more Black spectators than the amount his father saw, but nothing like now, thanks largely to the Williamses. Blackman went to the tournament later, as a player representative in 1999, the year Serena won her first major singles title at age 17.“I had the privilege of working in the junior space at that time, and I gradually started to see more and more African American girls and African American boys coming to our camps,” he said. “And the common thread was the inspiration and demonstration effect that Serena and Venus provided. That was the inflection point. That was the game changer.”Over a quarter-century, Serena Williams came to dominate the U.S. Open, winning six singles titles and reaching four other singles finals; winning two doubles titles, with Venus; and winning a mixed doubles title. She also flamed out in spectacular fashion on more than one occasion.For each title, there were untold numbers of players, like Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff and others, whose passion for the game was ignited by Williams’s fiery and unapologetic charisma.There were groundbreaking victories, shocking losses, emotional outbursts and hours of thrilling, inspiring tennis, all of which is coming to an end. Williams wrote in a cover story for Vogue magazine, published online Tuesday, that she was transitioning away from tennis to focus on other pursuits, including growing her family.“I started playing tennis with the goal of winning the U.S. Open,” she wrote.She attained that goal, and plenty more. In an era of the sport when American men faltered, she more than carried the load for the nation’s tennis aspirations.Williams was 16, beads in her hair, when she played her first U.S. Open singles match, beating Nicole Pratt and making it to the third round. But being Serena Williams, she did come away with a title, winning mixed doubles with Max Mirnyi.Williams won her first U.S. Open women’s singles title in 1999, above, beating Martina Hingis in the final.Chang W. Lee/New York Times“Even at that age you could see her talent and athleticism,” Mirnyi, 45, recalled. “I would notice, every time she went back to strike the ball, the opponents would be back on their heels. They literally backed up.”Mirnyi’s father, Nikolai, was responsible for arranging the pairing two months earlier at Wimbledon. He asked Richard Williams, Serena’s father, and within days the two had won their first tournament. The only things that could stop them, Mirnyi felt, were the warnings and point penalties chair umpires would impose when beads fell out of Williams’s hair and onto the court.“I kept saying, ‘We don’t want to lose any points because of the beads,’” Mirnyi recalled. “And she would just say, ‘Oh, it’s OK.’ And it was.”But a singles title was her mission. Her first major singles championship came at the 1999 U.S. Open when she beat Martina Hingis in the final at Arthur Ashe Stadium to become the first Black woman to win a Grand Slam event since Gibson, who won five, including the 1957 and 1958 U.S. Opens.Upon winning, she put her hands to her heart and could be seen saying, “Oh my God, I won, oh my God.” Later, she spoke to President Bill Clinton and his daughter, Chelsea, by telephone.In 2001, fans saw the first of the awkward Williams sister duels at a major final, won by Venus Williams. The next year, Serena Williams captured rematches at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.It would be six years before she beat Jelena Jankovic for the 2008 U.S. Open title, which was followed in 2009 by an on-court flare-up that abruptly ended her semifinal match with Kim Clijsters. Williams had been called for a foot fault that set up a match point, then accosted the lineswoman. Williams was assessed a point penalty, which gave the match to a stunned Clijsters, who went on to win the tournament.Williams won three straight titles beginning in 2012; in 2015, she entered New York looking unbeatable. She had won the three previous major events that year, and winning the fourth would have given her the coveted Grand Slam. But the pressure proved too much, and she was upset in a semifinal by an unseeded Italian, Roberta Vinci.Williams’s most recent U.S. Open win, in 2014, came when she beat Caroline Wozniacki.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesHer 2018 Open final, against Osaka, was marred by a lengthy and intermittent dispute between Williams and the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, who initially set off the uproar by calling a code violation on Williams because her coach was signaling to her from the seats. The argument ensued over two changeovers and resulted in her losing a game, and her focus, allowing Osaka to take her first major title amid a cascade of boos and jeers.The spectators were squarely on Williams’s side, and still are. On Tuesday, after news broke that Williams is retiring, 13,000 tickets were sold by 3 p.m., the U.S.T.A. said. As it has been for years, fans will flock to the U.S. Open again, because Serena, along with Venus, made Flushing one of the premier spots in the country to see a celebrated, groundbreaking Black hero in person. More