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      Novak Djokovic Beats Jannik Sinner at Wimbledon

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      After dropping the first two sets to the young Italian player, Djokovic rallied to win three straight sets.WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic has pulled off some masterly escape acts on Centre Court.Roger Federer serving with two match points for the championship in the fifth set of their epic final in 2019? No problem. Djokovic rallied and won in a tiebreaker.Add Tuesday’s quarterfinal to the list for Djokovic, the defending champion and six-time winner of the singles title at the sport’s most prestigious tournament, including the last three. His triumph, 5-7, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, over Jannik Sinner, the rising 20-year-old Italian, was a simple lesson in regicide — when you come to slay a king, do it fast or not at all.“I always believe I can turn a match around,” he said when it was over.Djokovic, the winner of 20 Grand Slam singles titles, entered the match having won 25 consecutive matches at Wimbledon. The last time Djokovic lost at Wimbledon was in 2017 (the tournament was canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic) when he retired with an elbow injury in the middle of the second set of his quarterfinal against Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic. He is now 10-1 at Wimbledon when a match goes five sets.The last time he lost a match here that he played to its conclusion was in 2016, when he lost to the American Sam Querrey in the third round in four sets.Early on, it looked like Djokovic was going to have another easy afternoon on Centre Court, the site of so many of the signature wins of his career. He had been so clinical in his first three matches, his movement, his feel for the ball and his command of the setting looking as strong as ever. An unusual scuff mark was a dropped second set against the unknown but hot Tim van Rijthoven of the Netherlands on Sunday evening.Djokovic struggled early and dropped the first two sets to Sinner.Toby Melville/ReutersWith William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, sitting in the front row of the royal box, Djokovic won the first seven points of the match. A congratulatory roar rose from the crowd when Sinner managed to get on the scoreboard, but Djokovic still surged to a 3-0 lead.Sinner, making his second appearance on Centre Court in three days, quickly found his sea legs. Every year, early in the second week of Wimbledon, the grass near the Centre Court baseline turns brown and bumpy. Sinner started aiming his powerful topspin forehand and flat, hard backhand at that area, and more often than not he hit his target, beating Djokovic at his own game as he pushed him back off the court in point after point.Sinner drew even midway through the set and pushed ahead in the 11th game, breaking Djokovic’s serve once more with a massive twisting cross-court forehand, then finishing off the first set with a series of big serves and cut strokes that stayed low to the grass.The second set brought more of the same, with Sinner getting an early service break and a late one to take the set, 6-2. After 93 minutes, Sinner was a set away from the finish line.Sinner returning the ball to Djokovic.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut then Djokovic, who is the most dangerous player in the game when he is two sets down, woke up, and the size of the moment and the task seemed to grow in Sinner’s mind. Djokovic left the court for a break — a snack and a pep talk in the bathroom mirror.For the next 70 minutes, he sent a message to whoever ends up holding a racket on the other side of the net from him in the final days of this tournament — his refusal to get vaccinated for Covid-19 may well prevent him from playing another Grand Slam event for 11 months, and he isn’t going anywhere easily.“I saw a little bit of a doubt in his game and his movement,” Djokovic said.He pegged 123-mile-per-hour serves that sent chalk dust from the lines flying in the air. He sprinted to catch up with short balls and drop shots. He laced shots within inches of the top of the net that pushed Sinner back as though he had an 80-foot pole jammed against his chest.On his best shots, Djokovic put a finger to his ear or flapped his hands to the sky asking for more noise from the crowd. He even cracked a smile when a champagne cork popped just before his serve late in the fourth set, breaking the silence and forcing him to pause and reload. This was his idea of fun.Three hours after they began, Djokovic pounded one more serve down the centerline and Sinner lunged. The ball sailed long, and they headed to a deciding set, an earsplitting roar rising through Centre Court as Sinner settled in to serve.It was all but over within a few minutes.Djokovic grunts and grinds his way through the points he wants and needs. In the third game, with a chance to break Sinner’s serve and his spirit decisively, Djokovic spread shots back and forth across the baseline, making Sinner hit one more shot and then another until the young Italian cut a volley into the net. Five games later, the result was official. Time elapsed: 3 hours 35 minutes.“I’m just glad I’m through,” he said. More

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      In Wimbledon’s Queue, Waiting Is a Pleasure, and the Point

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      In a world of online ticketing, camping overnight for tennis seats is an anachronism, but it is also about community and a sense of belonging.WIMBLEDON, England — It was nearing 10 p.m., and Richard Hess, an 81-year-old American, was sitting inside his small tent and merrily preparing for his latest sleep-deprived night in the Wimbledon queue.“You caught me blowing up my mattress,” he said, poking his gray-haired head out of the tent and offering his visitor a seat in a folding chair.Hess is an Anglophile from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., who memorized the names of all the English monarchs beginning with William the Conqueror before his first visit to Britain. He has a doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and played the California junior-tennis circuit at the same time as Billie Jean King. He has been queuing at Wimbledon since 1978: first lining up on the sidewalks for tickets and then, beginning in the early 1990s, camping out overnight with hundreds of other tennis fans in the quest for prime seats on Centre Court and the other main show courts.“When I was a child, I asked my father, what’s the most important tournament in the world, and he said, ‘Well, that’s Wimbledon,’” Hess said.On his first day, he and his oldest daughter saw Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe play first-round matches, and Hess had spent his latest day at Wimbledon watching the new Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz before returning to his tent and his community.“It’s not just the tennis that keeps me coming back; it’s the culture and the people,” Hess said.The queue enters the wooded area of Wimbledon Park.Lucy Nixon and Richard Hess heading for the Wimbledon gates after purchasing their tickets.One of those people is Lucy Nixon, a 42-year-old from Norfolk, England, who met Hess on her first day in the queue in 2002 and is now a close enough friend that she invited Hess and Jackie, his wife of 60 years, to her wedding.This year’s Wimbledon has been a chance to reconnect after the tournament was canceled because of the pandemic in 2020 and was staged without a queue in 2021 for health-and-safety reasons.There was doubt it would return. In a world of online ticketing, the queue is clearly an anachronism, but then Wimbledon — with its grass courts, all-white-clothing rule for players and artificially low-priced strawberries and cream — is an anachronism writ large.“Some people are traditionalists,” Nixon said. “And it’s like, we’ve always done it this way, we’ve always had a queue, we’re always going to have a queue. And then there’s other people that are just like, you know, let’s do what every other Grand Slam does and just sell tickets online and be done with it.”For now, the queue lives on, although many other Wimbledon traditions do not.“The queue is not still here because it’s just a thing we’ve always done,” said Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club. “The queue is here because it’s about accessibility to the tournament. That’s really integral to our traditions.”A steward carries the Q flag past tents on the Wimbledon queue.Nixon, who has had ample time to ponder these issues in 20 years of waiting outside the club’s gates, has a “love-hate thing” with the queue.“I’ve been to other tennis tournaments in Europe and in Indian Wells, and as an ordinary person I could go online with my ordinary phone and book tickets with my ordinary bank account,” she said. “It was much easier to do that. You’ve got to work for your Wimbledon tickets, so in a way, it’s kind of like, actually are they really that progressive and inclusive? Or are they making the little people work hard for the crumbs they are going to get, which is a measly 1,500 tickets out of how many thousands available for the main courts?”The All England Club, which conducts an annual ticket lottery and also has season-ticket holders, has a daily capacity of around 42,000. It reserves about 500 seats each on Centre Court, No. 1 Court and No. 2 Court for those in the queue, who pay face value for tickets. The Centre Court and No. 1 Court seats are down low, near the action.“That’s the real appeal,” Hess said.If you are one of the often-thousands in the queue who do not get a main-court ticket, you can still buy a grounds pass for access to the outside courts, although it could be a long wait if you are deep in line or another night in a tent if you want to try again for a main-court spot.It is not precisely clear when queuing began at Wimbledon, but according to Richard Jones, a British tennis historian and author, there were news reports in 1927 of fans lining up at 5 a.m. for tickets. Overnight queuing was happening by the 1960s, became more popular as Borg and McEnroe did, and for about 40 years it happened on the sidewalk that the British call “the pavement.”“I was always waiting for someone to get run over,” Hess said.In 2008, the overnight and increasingly polyglot queue went bucolic: moving into Wimbledon Park, the vast green space that lies opposite the All England Club on the other side of Church Road. The tents are pitched in numbered rows on the grass near a lake. It is more peaceful yet heavily controlled, more trailer park than adventure. There are food trucks, unisex bathrooms, a first-aid center, security guards and lots of stewards milling about to keep order and position the flag that indicates the end of the queue to new arrivals.The queue enters the wooded area of Wimbledon Park through a series of branded portals.Volunteers begin rousting campers shortly after 5 a.m. to give them time to pack their gear and check it at the huge white storage tent before entering the queue well ahead of the All England Club’s 10 a.m. opening time.“Four or five hours of sleep is a good night,” Hess said.Would-be ticket holders are issued a card with a number when they arrive at Wimbledon Park. The lower the number, the higher your priority, and on June 26, the first night of queuing at Wimbledon in nearly three years, the person who was first in line and holding “Queue Card 00001” was Brent Pham, a 32-year-old property manager from Newport Beach, Calif.Pham arrived in London on the Thursday before Wimbledon, bought a tent and air mattress, and spent Friday night sleeping on the sidewalk and Saturday night sleeping in a nearby field in a group of about 50 before the queue officially opened at 2 p.m. on Sunday. It paid off with a guaranteed Centre Court seat.Twilight descends on the queue and rows of tents in Wimbledon Park.Christopher Clarey/The New York TimesBrent Pham entering the All England Club on Monday morning.Christopher Clarey/The New York Times“My dad, he loved to watch Wimbledon, and he passed away in 2017, and he never got to experience this, so I feel it’s extra important to make sure I get on Centre Court every year,” said Pham, who carries a printed photograph of his father, Huu, with him into the grounds each day. “So his spirit at least is able to be at Wimbledon,” he said.In a normal year, getting into Centre Court each day from the queue would have been nearly impossible, but the queue’s numbers were down significantly in the first four days this year: at around 6,000 per day instead of the usual 11,000. Potential factors included lower international visitor numbers, galloping inflation, shifting habits because of the coronavirus and rain. Then there is Roger Federer. The eight-time Wimbledon champion is not playing in men’s singles for the first time since 1998.“During the Federer years, there were a lot of people who would camp two nights to see Roger,” Hess said. “They’d see his match, come right on out, set up their tent — there might be 200 of them — and sleep two nights to get in for his next match.”Hess has spent more than 250 nights in the queue and will log 10 more this year. Long ago, he set a goal of queuing until he was 80. The pandemic delayed the milestone, but he made it.“Now I’m reassessing,” he said before returning to his underinflated air mattress. “But I fully expect to be back next year.” More

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      How Wimbledon Became the Nick Kyrgios Show

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      Kyrgios, the big, talented Australian, has taken over Wimbledon with his antics and psychological warfare. It’s working.WIMBLEDON, England — Going up against the tennis talents of Nick Kyrgios, the powerful Australian with hands as soft as a masseuse’s, is plenty difficult in its own right.That is just the start, though. Kyrgios, practitioner of psychological warfare, can be even more formidable.The sport’s outspoken, charismatic bad boy, whose antics have stolen the Wimbledon spotlight, casts a spell on the vast crowds that pack stadiums to watch his matches, even on Centre Court at Wimbledon, that supposed temple of decorum.The mid-rally, between-the-legs trick shots, the twisting and curling winners and the antisocial theatrics force opponents to take on Kyrgios and thousands of spectators looking for another episode of the most unpredictable and compelling show in tennis.“Come on, Nick!” they yell as though he were a pal playing a game of darts at the pub.His regular battles with officials erupt without warning and can reappear throughout the match. He knows how much he is loved and loathed, and when a Grand Slam tournament becomes a soap opera starring him, as this one has, his game is right where he wants it to be.“I sit here now in the quarterfinals Wimbledon again, and I just know there’s so many people that are so upset,” he said after outlasting Brandon Nakashima of the United States on Monday in five sets, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-2. “It’s a good feeling.”Kyrgios has fought his own psychological battles through the extreme highs and lows of his erratic career. A few years ago, his agent had to drag him from a pub at 4 a.m. because he had a match against Rafael Nadal later that day. He knows as well as anyone that tennis is as much a mental fight as a physical one, maybe more so. He rattles his opponent’s concentration, doing whatever he can to force the guy across the net to start thinking about the drama rather than his game.Kyrgios appeared to injure his right arm or shoulder during a forehand return on Monday.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockHere are the facts of Kyrgios’s fourth-round match against Nakashima, a rising, levelheaded, 20-year-old American, which occurred two days after Kyrgios’s upset of Stefanos Tsitsipas that was a circus of screaming matches with officials that so unnerved Tsitsipas, the fourth-seeded Greek star, that he began trying to hit Kyrgios with his shots — and usually missed.Midway through the first set against Nakashima, Kyrgios appeared to injure his right upper arm and shoulder while trying to muscle a forehand return of Nakashima’s serve. By the latter stages of the set, Kyrgios, whose cannon-like serve is among his most potent weapons, was grabbing and massaging the area around his right triceps muscle on changeovers and between points.He winced after some serves and forehands and repeatedly rotated his arm, as though trying to stretch out the joint and the muscles around it.Unable to swing freely and unable to unleash that nearly 140 m.p.h. serve as he did in his first three matches, Kyrgios stopped chasing and reaching for balls. In the tenth game, Nakashima, playing with his trademark efficiency, jumped on the diminished Kyrgios’s serve repeatedly to take the first set, 6-4. The young American looked like he was on cruise control.The umpire and a tournament official asked Kyrgios if he was OK and if he needed medical attention. He waved them both off, but as the second set began, there was more shoulder rubbing, more wincing, more arm rotation. Kyrgios’s forehand became a wristy whip instead of the windmill that sends opponents running backward.Kyrgios took a medical timeout that may have been more of a mind game against his opponent.Paul Childs/ReutersSometimes there is nothing so difficult as playing against an injured opponent. Players tell themselves to change nothing, to play as if everything were normal. But the mind can instinctually relax, suggesting to not hit that next forehand so close to the line or so hard because maybe it’s not necessary against a weakened opponent.On Monday afternoon, Nakashima could not ignore Kyrgios’s winces and shoulder grabs or his so-much-slower-than-usual walks from one side of the court to the other for the next point.The more Kyrgios rubbed that shoulder, the more tentative Nakashima became. He missed seven of eight first serves in the third game of the second set, then missed a forehand on break point, and suddenly Kyrgios had the momentum.And then the numbers on the board tracking the speed of Kyrgios’s serve began to climb, from the 110s into the 120s in miles per hour and upward from there. And the blasted forehands started to reappear. Serving at a tight moment late in the set, Kyrgios hit 137 and 132 on the radar gun. Minutes later, he was all even.Nakashima settled back down early in the third set. On serve, midway through, Kyrgios called for the physiotherapist and a medical timeout. As Kyrgios received a massage, Nakashima got up from his chair and performed shadow drills facing the stands instead of Kyrgios.Back on the court, Kyrgios served once more well above 120 m.p.h. He stretched his advantage in a tiebreaker with a 129 m.p.h. ace, then won it rifling a forehand return.“He was still serving fine after the medical timeout, still ripping the ball, so I don’t think it was that big of an injury,” said Nakashima, who had no answers for Kyrgios’s serve or forehand in the third-set tiebreaker.That shoulder drama — Kyrgios later described it as one of his “niggles” that he had treated with some painkillers — ended there.Another set, another mind game. Kyrgios, serving at 3-5, could have won the game and made Nakashima serve out the set so Kyrgios could serve first in the deciding act.Kyrgios has been the most entertaining player on and off the court at Wimbledon.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNot so much. How about three serves in the 75-m.p.h. range, one underhanded, and a forehand on set point so obviously aimed off the court? (It hit its target.) Was Kyrgios now quitting?“Complete rope-a-dope tactic,” Kyrgios said. “I just threw away that service game. I knew he was in a rhythm. He was starting to get on top of me. I kind of just wanted to throw him off a little bit.” It worked, judging by the aces, and the running volley he perfectly shaved off the grass in his first service game.There were challenges on calls he thought were wrong, and a few on shots of his that were clearly out. Nakashima serving at deuce at 1-1 made for a convenient time for Kyrgios to start jawing with the chair umpire. Then he stabbed a backhand for break point and pulled off a back-spinning squash shot to induce the error for a service break.And it was largely curtains from there. A 134 m.p.h. serve got Kyrgios to match point at 5-2. A surprise serve-and-volley on second serve on match point sealed it.Cristian Garin of Chile, ranked 43rd in the world, is up next in the quarterfinals. The show goes on, and maybe on and on. More

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      Sinner Beats Alcaraz in a Match Befitting Wimbledon’s Centre Court

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      The young talents made their Centre Court debuts hours after Wimbledon celebrated the main stage’s 100th anniversary, and they provided a foil to a contentious match the day before.WIMBLEDON, England — It was a long weekend full of contrasts at the All England Club.The first Sunday of the tournament has traditionally been a day of rest at Wimbledon, where they once did not play on Sundays at all.But time rumbles on, and sometimes rolls right over tradition. Wimbledon has now joined the other Grand Slam tournaments by scheduling matches on every day available.This year, the added entertainment on the first Sunday was more a pleasure for the senses than the regular fare on Saturday, when Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas put on a mutually bratty display that you could not take your eyes off, frequently for the wrong reasons.Sunday restored calm and decorum as two other luminous young talents, Jannik Sinner of Italy and Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, took to the most famous showplace in tennis just a couple of hours after the ceremony and parade of champions that commemorated the 100th anniversary of Centre Court.While Kyrgios swore and berated the chair umpire on No. 1 Court and Tsitsipas knocked a ball angrily into the crowd and tried to nail shots directly at his opponent, Sinner and Alcaraz showed why they were the ones who got trusted with an assignment on Centre Court even though neither had ever played there.Sinner kept Alcaraz stretching and lunging.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThey are talented beyond their years but also classy beyond their years as they demonstrated throughout Sunday’s fourth-round duel, won, 6-1, 6-4, 6-7 (8), 6-3, by the 20-year-old Sinner over the 19-year-old Alcaraz.At one point, Sinner slipped and fell hard on his chest while chasing down an Alcaraz drop shot, and Alcaraz came hustling forward to offer him an encouraging fist bump after he rose to his big feet.Are they the future of men’s tennis? It certainly looks that way, and they have been the present of the game at times, upsetting their elders, winning tour titles and reaching the quarterfinals at Grand Slam tournaments. But there are no guarantees. Injuries, big money and new arrivals can quickly change the pecking order.“I think what we showed today, it’s a great level of tennis, great attitude from both of us,” Sinner said. “There are still so many other players who are playing incredible tennis. For sure, we are the two youngest at the moment. So let’s see. I don’t know in the future what’s going to happen. I think it’s just great for tennis to have also some new names, new players.”This has been a most unusual Wimbledon with the No. 1-ranked Daniil Medvedev and his fellow Russians barred from playing because of the war in Ukraine; the new No. 2, Alexander Zverev of Germany, out after major ankle surgery; and three other leading grass-court players — Matteo Berrettini of Italy, Marin Cilic of Croatia and Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain — withdrawing after testing positive for the coronavirus.There were big windows of opportunity in the draw, and of the 16 players in the men’s fourth round, only two — Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal — had been to even the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament. Sinner will now face Djokovic, the three-time defending champion at Wimbledon, in the quarterfinals after Djokovic defeated Tim van Rijthoven, a late-blooming Dutch wild-card entrant, 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, on Sunday night.Though seeded 10th at Wimbledon, Sinner had never won a match on grass on the main tour until arriving at the All England Club, but it was difficult to understand why as he navigated the grass and generated huge punching power with his groundstrokes against Alcaraz off shots hit from all different kinds of heights. Sinner was the more consistent force on Sunday, but he was also often the one doing the dictating against one of the most explosive movers and hitters in the men’s game.Sinner, who had lost his only previous tour-level match against Alcaraz, kept him stretching and lunging and turned Alcaraz’s service games into gantlets by repeatedly putting forceful returns at his feet and obliging him to flick half-volleys while leaning back just to stay in the point.“For me, Jannik played incredibly well,” said Alcaraz, the higher seed at No. 5.The elastic Alcaraz was often spectacular (he cannot help himself) but also irregular: misfiring repeatedly on his signature drop shots and failing to convert any of his seven break points while Sinner cashed in on four of his 12.That seemed to be the key statistic. Alcaraz went for too much too often with his groundstrokes. The temptation to end the exchange was understandable. Sinner was setting a torrid pace from the baseline, but it was a testament to Alcaraz’s talent and competitive fire that he turned a potential straight-sets defeat into something much more compelling.He rallied from 0-40 to hold serve in the first game of the third set and then fought off two match points in the tiebreaker before making the shot of the day at 8-8: a sharply angled forehand half-volley drop shot winner off a full-force backhand pass down the line from Sinner that would have finished off just about any other point.Alcaraz raised an arm and pumped up the crowd, which did not need much encouragement, and then closed out the set.But to Sinner’s credit, Alcaraz could not close out the comeback, double-faulting to lose his serve in the fourth game of the fourth set, and despite saving three more match points on his serve in the eighth game, he could not prevent Sinner from serving out the match.Sinner has made a smart hire this summer, employing Darren Cahill, a former player, veteran coach and ESPN analyst, as a grass-court consultant. Cahill, between his daily commentary duties, is helping him prepare for the matches, and they clearly prepared well for Alcaraz as Sinner handled the big stage and big moment with just a bit more sang-froid.“I need to improve my mental stability,” said Alcaraz, who is having a breakout season. “Today and in many matches, I’ve had lots of highs and lows, moments of playing well and playing badly. I have to manage the nerves better. It cost me some today.”So, he conceded, did the Centre Court assignment.“It’s not so much the court itself, or the silence,” he said, referring to the classic quiet between points.“It was not so silent,” he said with a grin. “But it’s more knowing all the story behind this court. You are playing and knowing all the historic matches that were played there that were so important to the game. That’s what weighed on me.”The parade of Wimbledon winners certainly underscored the point on this special Sunday, as retired champions like Billie Jean King and Rod Laver shared the grass with active champions like Nadal, Djokovic, Andy Murray and Venus Williams and with champions on hiatus like the surprise guest Roger Federer.“For me it was a privilege today to go for the first time there in the Centre Court,” Sinner said.He made the most of it, and together, he and Alcaraz did the grand occasion justice. More

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      When Will Federer and the Williams Sisters Call It Quits? Maybe Never.

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      Advances in physical preparation keep their bodies in the game, and so can the changing nature of sports business and celebrity.WIMBLEDON, England — Most tennis professionals are retired by their mid-30s. But last week, there was Serena Williams, at almost 41, grinding against a competitor a little more than half her age for more than three hours at Wimbledon.Venus Williams, too, is here. She played mixed doubles, with tape on her right knee and not so much spring in her step at age 42. Roger Federer, who has not played since limping away from Wimbledon last year, is angling to return to the tennis tour in September, when he will be freshly 41. Rafael Nadal is threatening a deep Wimbledon run and eyeing the Grand Slam at 36 after a medical procedure that deadened the nerves in his troublesome left foot.To varying degrees, the biggest names in tennis keep going. Why is it so hard, with their best years behind them, to leave the stage and kick back with their millions? And it’s not just tennis. Tiger Woods, with an estimated net worth of $1 billion, is struggling to come back from devastating leg injuries at 46. Tom Brady can’t stay away from football. Regular working people go through life believing that retirement is the endgame. Not so with professional athletes.It is not just advances in physical preparation and nutrition keeping their bodies in the game. The changing nature of sports business and celebrity is conspiring to keep stars at it far longer than they have in the past. But there is also another element that has remained constant across the generations.“I get it 100 percent why they want to keep going,” said Martina Navratilova, a longtime No. 1 and 18-time major singles champion who retired at 37 in 1994, came back to play doubles and did not retire for good until she was almost 50.“You really appreciate it, and you realize how lucky you are to be out there doing what we do,” Navratilova said. “It’s a drug. It’s a very legal drug that many people would like to have but they can’t get.”Serena Williams exited Wimbledon in the first round for the second consecutive year, far from her fittest and gasping for air down the stretch. She and Federer soon face having no ranking in the sport they dominated for decades. Venus Williams decided at the last minute to play in mixed doubles at Wimbledon. But there have been no announcements on exit strategies; no target dates on end dates.“You never know where I’ll pop up,” Venus Williams said Friday, before she and Jamie Murray lost on Sunday to Alicia Barnett and Jonny O’Mara in a third-set tiebreaker in the round of 16.Earlier Sunday, at a ceremony at Centre Court, Federer, who has a men’s record eight Wimbledon titles but has not played a match in a year, said he hoped to play Wimbledon “one more time” before he retired.Roger Federer, 40, has not played since limping away from Wimbledon last year. He said on Sunday that he hoped to play another Wimbledon before he retired.Hannah Mckay/ReutersIt is a new sort of limbo: great champions well past their primes but not yet ready to call it a career while outsiders occupy themselves with speculation on when the call will come. Nadal, who has generated plenty of retirement chatter himself and said he was close to retiring only a couple of weeks ago because of chronic foot pain, understands the public’s quest for clarity. Famous athletes “become part of the life of so many people,” he said after advancing to the third round of Wimbledon.Even Nadal said he felt unsettled after seeing his friend Woods become only a part-time golfer. “That’s a change in my life, too.” But Woods, and the Williams sisters, like other aging and often-absent sports stars, remain active, not retired. There can be commercial incentives to keep it that way. Official retirement not only terminates a playing career. It can terminate an endorsement contract or a sponsorship deal and reduce a star’s visibility.“Typically, it’s black and white that when you announce your retirement, that’s clearly giving the company a right to terminate,” said Tom Ross, a longtime American tennis agent.But there are exceptions, Ross said, and champions who are late in their careers and of the stature of Federer and Serena Williams often have deals that provide them with security even if they retire before the deal expires. Federer’s 10-year clothing contract with Uniqlo is one example. He, like Serena Williams, also has the luxury of time.Nearly any other tennis player without a ranking would not be able to secure regular entry into top tournaments if they did decide to continue. But Federer and Williams have access to wild cards with their buzz-generating cachet, and can thus pick their spots.Nike, as Federer and some others have discovered, is disinclined to commit major money to superstars close to retirement, favoring active athletes with longer runways. But Mike Nakajima, a former director of tennis at Nike, said that Williams, still sponsored by Nike, was in an exceptional position. She has her own building on Nike’s campus.“Her building is bigger than the Portland International Airport,” Nakajima said. He added, “She’s had her hands in so many different things, so many interests, so many passions, that I think in a lot of ways it won’t matter when she stops. Serena will always be Serena.”This week, EleVen by Venus Williams, her lifestyle brand, started a Wimbledon collection of all-white clothing that was not hurt by the fact that Williams was actually playing at Wimbledon, if only in mixed doubles, after more than 10 months away from the tour.“Just inspired by Serena,” Venus Williams said.Venus Williams and Jamie Murray during their mixed doubles match at Wimbledon.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNavratilova, like many in the game, believes that Venus and Serena Williams will retire together when the time comes. If it comes. The advantages of formally announcing retirement are few: a temporary surge in publicity and an end to random drug testing. It can, in some cases, start the clock on your pension or on making you eligible to be elected into a sport’s Hall of Fame.Retirement is perhaps more a rite than a necessity. John McEnroe, for one, never officially retired, a technicality which, in his case, did allow him to keep earning more for a time from some existing contracts.“Well, look how well retirement worked out for Tom Brady; it got a lot of attention and then it was, ‘Oh, I changed my mind.’ OK!” Navratilova said with a laugh. She added, “Do you ask a doctor or a lawyer how much longer are you going to keep practicing? People put thoughts in your head that might not be there otherwise.”Federer has been hearing retirement questions since he finally won the French Open in 2009, completing his set of singles titles at each of the four Grand Slam events at age 27. Venus Williams, who went through a midcareer dip partially linked to an autoimmune disorder, has been hearing them for over a decade, as well.“When it’s my last, I’ll let you know,” she said at Wimbledon last year.Here she is, back for more, just like her kid sister, although perhaps even the Williamses don’t know how much more. Navratilova does not recommend giving too much advance notice. When she announced that 1994 would be her last season, she regretted it.“If I had to do it over again, I would definitely not say anything, because it was exhausting; it was much more emotionally draining than it would have been otherwise,” she said. “For your own good, forget whatever it may do for or against your brand. I wouldn’t announce it until that’s it.”And it was not it. She came back and ended up winning the U.S. Open mixed doubles title with Bob Bryan in her real last tour-level match at age 49, one of tennis’s better final acts.“My thing is, if you enjoy playing and really get something out of it still, then play,” Navratilova said. “Venus has been playing and people say she’s hurting her legacy. No, those titles are still there.” More

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      Nick Kyrgios, a Dream and a Nightmare for Wimbledon, Is Winning

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      The Australian’s matches and news conferences have become irresistible theater — some call them a circus — that is a blessing and a curse for a sport battling for attention.WIMBLEDON, England — All white is the dress code at Wimbledon, the oldest and most traditional of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. So when Nick Kyrgios wears a black hat for his on-court interview, he is sending a message.And that’s what he did Saturday night on the No. 1 Court, after his emotional, fireworks-filled, 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (7) win over Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the No. 4 seed.As Wimbledon enters its second week, the women’s tournament is wide open and there is potential for a men’s final of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, which looks more inevitable each day. And then there is Kyrgios, a dangerous and disruptive force who has so much pure talent, but is so temperamental and combustible that the sport can neither control him nor ignore him.He plays when he feels like it, then disappears for months, only to return to wreak havoc and provide headline-grabbing theater.“Everywhere I go I’m seeing full stadiums,” he said after his battle with Tsitsipas. “The media loves to write that I am bad for the sport but clearly not.”Kyrgios is an immensely talented Australian who has an ambivalent relationship with the rigors and requirements of professional tennis. He relishes his role as the game’s great outlaw, unafraid to jaw with, spit toward or berate judges and umpires.He badgers the young workers on the court for not keeping the changeover chairs stocked with fresh towels and bananas. He smashes rackets. One ricocheted off the ground and very nearly crashed into the face of a ball boy at a tournament in California this year. His boorish displays regularly garner tens of thousands of dollars in fines.Then he will return to the court and fire one of the most dangerous serves in the game. He puts on the sort of magical shotmaking clinics — shots between the legs, curling forehands, underhanded aces — that other players can only dream about.He is the ticking time bomb who packs stadiums and has hordes of young fans. He is at once the sport’s worst nightmare and its meal ticket: hard to watch but also hard to ignore.When he loses, it’s always someone else’s fault. When he wins, it’s because he has overcome all manner of forces against him: tournament directors, the news media, the tennis establishment, fans who have hurled racial slurs at him.“Unscripted. Unfiltered. Unmissable,” is how the @Wimbledon Twitter feed put it Saturday night as Kyrgios, in all of his brilliance and brattiness, overpowered and outfinessed Tsitsipas over three compelling hours.All evening, Kyrgios went after the chair umpire as well as the tournament referees and supervisors for not defaulting Tsitsipas after he angrily sent a ball into the crowd, coming dangerously close to directly hitting a fan on the fly. Kyrgios claimed the umpire surely would have sent him off had he done the same thing. (He may not be wrong on that one.)The nearly endless complaints and interruptions rattled Tsitsipas. He struggled to maintain his composure, complaining to the chair umpire that only one person on the court was interested in playing tennis, while the other was turning the match into a circus. Then he took matters into his own hands, and started trying to peg Kyrgios with his shots. The crowd of more than 10,000 grew louder with each confrontation.It became only more intense after Kyrgios finished off Tsitsipas in the tiebreaker with three unreturnable shots — a half-volley into the open court; a ripped, backhand winner; and a drop shot from the baseline that died on the turf just beyond Tsitsipas’s reach.The drama was cresting as the Tsitsipas and Kyrgios news conferences descended into a name-calling, insult-filled back and forth about decorum and who had more friends in the locker room.Tsitsipas, certain that Kyrgios had intentionally made a mess of the match — and probably steamed that Kyrgios had beaten him twice in a month’s time — said his fellow players needed to come together and set down rules that would rein in Kyrgios.“It’s constant bullying, that’s what he does,” Tsitsipas said of Kyrgios. “He bullies the opponents. He was probably a bully at school himself. I don’t like bullies. I don’t like people that put other people down. He has some good traits in his character, as well. But when he — he also has a very evil side to him, which if it’s exposed, it can really do a lot of harm and bad to the people around him.”Tsitsipas said he regretted swatting the ball into the crowd, but was less remorseful about another that he smacked across the net and into the scoreboard, earning a point penalty.“I was aiming for the body of my opponent, but I missed by a lot, by a lot,” he said. Then, he added, “When I feel like other people disrespect me and don’t respect what I’m doing from the other side of the court, it’s absolute normal from my side to act and do something about it.”“It’s constant bullying, that’s what he does,” Tsitsipas, above, said of Kyrgios.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKyrgios was watching all of this on a television nearby. Minutes later, he sat down behind the microphone, wearing that black cap and a T-shirt featuring Dennis Rodman, the onetime N.B.A. rebel, and a big grin. Once more, Tsitsipas had created a situation where Kyrgios could get the better of him, even allowing him the rare chance to take the high road and claim to be a kind of innocent.“He was the one hitting balls at me,” he said of Tsitsipas. “He was the one that hit a spectator. He was the one that smacked it out of the stadium.”He called Tsitsipas “soft” for letting Kyrgios’s conversations with tournament officials get to him.“We’re not cut from the same cloth,” he said of Tsitsipas. “I go up against guys who are true competitors. If he’s affected by that today, then that’s what’s holding him back, because someone can just do that and that’s going to throw him off his game like that. I just think it’s soft.”On Sunday, Wimbledon fined Tsitsipas $10,000 and Kyrgios $4,000 for their behavior.Tsitsipas’s mother is a former pro and his father is a tennis coach who reared his sons on the tennis court from an early age. Kyrgios is of Greek and Malay descent, and his father painted houses for a living.“I’m good in the locker room,” Kyrgios, now rolling, went on. “I’ve got many friends, just to let you know. I’m actually one of the most liked. I’m set. He’s not liked.”Then, one last dagger.Kyrgios said that he did not take the court to make a friend, to compliment his opponents on their play, and that he had no idea what he had done to make Tsitsipas so upset that he barely shook his hand at the end of the match.Every time he has lost, Kyrgios said, even when he has been thrown out of matches, he has looked his opponent in the eye and told him he was the better man.“He wasn’t man enough to do that today,” he said.The victory put Kyrgios into the round of 16, where he will play the American Brandon Nakashima on Centre Court on Monday. He is two wins from a possible semifinal showdown with Nadal, assuming the 22-time Grand Slam event champion can keep winning as well. It would be the ultimate hero-villain confrontation, a perfect setting for all manner of potential Kyrgios explosions and boorishness, but also, as that Twitter feed put it, unmissable theater.Nadal is known to be one of the game’s true gentlemen, a keeper of the unspoken codes between players. He has marveled at Kyrgios’s talent and questioned the baggage he brings to the court and the ordeals he often creates with umpires, especially when his chances of winning begin to slip away.On Saturday night, after winning his own match and hearing about the Kyrgios-Tsitsipas fracas, Nadal turned philosophical when asked when a player crossed the line, and whether Kyrgios goes too far. It is, he said, a matter of conscience.“I think everyone has to go to bed with being calm with the things that you have done,” Nadal said. “And if you can’t sleep with calm and being satisfied with yourself, it’s because you did things that probably were not ethical.”How does Kyrgios sleep? Only he knows. More

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      Roger Federer’s Absence Leaves a Void at Wimbledon

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      Federer said he hoped to return to the tournament he has won eight times before. His absence from the field this year left a void over Wimbledon’s early rounds.WIMBLEDON, England — There he was, a surprise, perhaps the biggest of this Wimbledon fortnight: Roger Federer in the flesh Sunday on Centre Court.As always, he looked handsome and freshly pressed. But instead of his tennis whites, Federer wore a trim, dark suit to to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Centre Court.Flanked by a slew of past Wimbledon champions, Federer was on hand only briefly, but no player received a louder greeting. Not Bjorn Borg. Not Venus Williams. Not Rod Laver or Billie Jean King, not Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic.For the first time since 1998, when he announced himself to the tennis world by winning the junior event, Federer is not playing Wimbledon. At age 40, he’s still rehabbing after surgery on his right knee and is unsure of his playing future.“I’ve been lucky enough to play a lot of matches on this court,” Federer said, speaking into a microphone, his voice ringing across the court. He added, “It feels awkward to be here today in a different type of role.”He continued for a short while, bathing in the warm adoration, taking in the old stadium and its memories. “This court has given me my biggest wins, my biggest losses,” he said.“I hope I can come back one more time.”The fans sitting around me at Centre Court went nuts.And then Federer was gone.Wimbledon 2022 has been a strange journey. Instead of the usual electric energy coursing through each day, signaling the peak of the tennis season and the start of the English summer, the feel has been slightly off — like a master violinist struggling for just the right note.During the opening four days, attendance dropped to levels not seen in over a decade. The barring of Russians and Belarusians robbed the tournament of several marquee names, including the world’s top-ranked male, Daniil Medvedev. Their exclusion caused protests by the men’s and women’s tours, which decided not to officially recognize the results with ranking points, essentially turning the entire affair into the most lavish tennis exhibition ever held.Those are some mighty blows.But there’s something else that feels off about this Wimbledon.Instead of charging into the tournament’s second week as the men’s favorite and the fans’ hoped-for winner at a tournament where he is worshiped like a god, Federer floated in for the centennial celebration and then was scheduled to jet back home to Switzerland.The tournament goes on. But a Wimbledon without Federer is like a Wimbledon where there are strawberries but no cream.How do you explain the power of absence? Maybe through the shock of looking at the men’s draw and not seeing the most familiar name. Or through a fan’s shout, such as the one that came out loud and true, expressing palpable longing during a prime-time match last week.“Is that Roger Federer?” someone yelled, the voice ringing across Court No. 1 during a tense late-night match between two guys, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios, who could offer only a glimpse of the grace Federer brought to every match at Wimbledon.The yell was aimed at Tsitsipas, of Greece, whose one-handed backhand and flowing strokes call to mind the eight-time champion.Close is not the real thing. Tsitsipas is no Federer.There are no guarantees that Federer will ever play here again, though we now know that he hopes to. “I think maybe there’s a little magic left,” said Tony Godsick, Federer’s longtime agent, as we walked the grounds last week.“I’m not sure that magic means having to hold up a trophy,” Godsick added. “Magic means going out on your own terms, being healthy, and enjoying it.” He looked out at one of the grass courts. “There will be places where he’ll be able to do better just because of the nature of the surface,” he said. “But if it doesn’t happen, he gave everything.”The deep, even ethereal connection Federer has with this vine-covered Taj Mahal of tennis is about more than longevity.Part of it is style. Wimbledon is white linen, polished gold, light cotton fineries, ascots and the Duke and Duchess of Kent in the royal box. Everything about the refined Federer fits this palace, from his old-school game to the gliding way he walks.Part of it is substance: the fine art of victory. Federer was the champion in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 and 2017.Part of it is losing, but weathering the storm in the right way.For a while, the Swiss player seemed like he might never be conquered on the low-cut grass. Then came Nadal. When Nadal finally beat Federer in the final in 2008, their match was regarded as one of the greatest ever played. Who can forget Federer’s comeback, his saved match points and Nadal’s unquenchable desire? The match ended in the dwindling sunlight, 9-7 in the fifth set, with Federer shedding tears of agony.Federer’s Wimbledon final against Novak Djokovic in 2019 was perhaps the last great match of Federer’s career.Nic Bothma/EPA, via ShutterstockHe suddenly seemed vulnerable, human, within reach. Showing weakness at a tournament he had owned for five straight summers, and handling it with grace, made Federer more popular than ever.To the fervently loyal fans of Nadal and Djokovic, he was the perfect foil, the one to root most lustily against, the one player they most wanted to defeat and send off with head bowed.In the last great match we saw him play at Wimbledon, possibly the last great match of his career, the marathon championship final of 2019, Federer held two match points while serving against Djokovic. The Serb won both, tracking down the last of them by skimming across the baseline and, as he so often does, producing a winning passing shot. About an hour later, he won the match, 13-12, in a fifth-set tiebreaker.Watching Djokovic play on Centre Court last week, it was impossible not to think of that classic. There he was again, the defending champion, dashing across the same baseline with the same staunch resolve as when he snatched victory from his longtime rival. Djokovic may well win this year’s tournament, which would give him seven Wimbledon titles overall. But other than among his loyal fans — and yes, there are many — watching him plow through opponents with metronomic efficiency and tight-lipped swagger does not quite stir the soul.He is a marvel, all right. So is a microwave oven.Then I watched Jannik Sinner of Italy, 20, who is little known outside tennis but regarded as a potential future force within it. Sinner may not win Wimbledon this year, but there’s a good chance he will one day.On Sunday, against another precocious talent, 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, Sinner hit his forehands with a consistent mix of heavy speed and daring curve. He added aces, drop shots and deep returns. The crowd on Centre Court swayed and swooned with his every move.It felt reminiscent of the energy surrounding a certain Swiss player at the start of his great Wimbledon career. It was a reminder of the way greatness gives way to greatness, one generation to the next — and a reminder that Federer was not on hand to help keep youth at bay. Not this year, at least. Maybe next. More

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      Lesia Tsurenko Plays Tennis to Earn Money to Help Ukraine

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      WIMBLEDON, England — Lesia Tsurenko’s Wimbledon campaign ended Friday during a match in which her head was someplace else.Ms. Tsurenko, a 33-year-old tennis veteran from Kyiv, had been watching the news from home all week and seeing that Russians had bombed a shopping mall and other civilian targets.“They’re just trying to kill as many people as possible,” Ms. Tsurenko said of the Russian military.Since February, she had gotten better at keeping thoughts about the Russian invasion of Ukraine out of her mind when she was on the tennis court, but Friday was a bad day. She said she felt off-balance from the time she woke up, “like there was no ground beneath my feet.” And once she took the court against Jule Neimeier of Germany, she said she “had no idea how to play tennis.”Juggling the constant travel and physical and mental grind of professional tennis is hard for even the best players. For players from Ukraine these days, who have not been home in months and spend much of their free time getting updates on the health and safety of friends and family members back home, the challenge is monumental.The good news for Ms. Tsurenko is she seems to have found a semi-permanent home in northern Italy, at an academy run by the famed coach Ricardo Piatti. She has an apartment. Her sister, Oksana, recently joined her. So did her husband, Nikita Vlasov, a former military officer, who is ready to return as soon as he gets the call but for the moment the forces do not need someone at his level.“We have no problem with people,” Ms. Tsurenko said, a little while after her defeat. “The problem is the heavy weapons.”Ms. Tsurenko left Ukraine before the war started, so she is not technically a refugee. Recently, she had to miss a tournament so she could stay in Italy and file paperwork to allow her to remain there. She is waiting for approval. Also, her mother, who lives near Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine, does not want to leave, despite heavy bombing. The mother of her sister’s husband also lives there.Her time playing tennis in England the past month has provided a respite. Russian and Belarusian players were barred from competing at Wimbledon. Knowing how popular President Vladimir V. Putin remains in Russia, Ms. Tsurenko has assumed some of the Russian and Belarusian players likely support him. It’s been better, she said, not bumping into them in the locker room, though she will soon when the WTA Tour moves outside of Britain and they return to competition.There have been many matches since the war began Feb. 24 when Ms. Tsurenko has wondered what she is even doing playing tennis. One particular match in Marbella, Spain, stands out. That morning she had seen a photo of an administration building in Mykolaiv with a massive hole from a missile strike. She could not get the image out of her head.Lately, though, she has found clarity. She has always played tennis because she loves the game. The riches the sport offered never motivated her. Now they do.“I play for the money now,” she said. “I want to earn so much so I can donate this,” she said, “I feel like that may be a bad quality, because it has nothing to do with tennis, but that is what I am playing.”Coming into the tournament, Ms. Tsurenko, who has four career WTA titles and has earned more than $5 million, had won $214,000 so far this year. Making the third round at Wimbledon earned her an additional $96,000. For the world’s 101st ranked player, that is a solid month’s work. She hopes there will be more ahead this summer. More