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      Matteo Berrettini Withdraws From Wimbledon With Coronavirus

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      WIMBLEDON, England — Matteo Berrettini, a finalist at Wimbledon last year, withdrew from the tournament on Tuesday after testing positive for the coronavirus.Berrettini’s announcement of his withdrawal came only about two hours before he was to take the court for his first-round match against Cristian Garín and was the latest blow to a Grand Slam tournament that was already shorter than usual on stars and that had been stripped of ranking points for this edition by the men’s and women’s tennis tours.Berrettini, who is undefeated on grass courts this season and was seeded No. 8 at Wimbledon, was one of the leading contenders for the men’s singles title. His withdrawal came one day after another player, Marin Cilic, the No. 14 seed from Croatia and a 2017 Wimbledon finalist, also withdrew after testing positive.“I am heartbroken,” Berrettini wrote on his Instagram account, echoing Cilic’s announcement on Instagram on Monday.The dual withdrawal raised the prospect of an outbreak among the player group at Wimbledon, which is missing several stars because of injury and the tournament’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players.Berrettini and Cilic have been in contact in recent weeks with many players. Both played at the grass-court tournament in Queen’s Club in London that ended on June 19, with Berrettini winning the singles title and Cilic reaching the semifinals.Both practiced at Wimbledon last week and used the locker room reserved for seeded players. Berrettini trained on Centre Court on Thursday with Rafael Nadal, the No. 2 seed. Cilic trained on Centre Court with Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 seed.Djokovic, who has said that he remains unvaccinated for the coronavirus, won his first-round match on Monday, defeating Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea in four sets. Djokovic served particularly well but was far from his sharpest in other areas, looking wan and low on energy at one stage and dousing himself with water on a changeover. On Tuesday, Nadal played at Wimbledon for the first time since 2019, beating Francisco Cerundolo in four sets in the first round on Centre Court.Wimbledon was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic and imposed strict restrictions last year, following British government guidelines. Coronavirus testing was required for players, support team members and tournament officials and employees. But with the loosening of government mandates this year, no testing is currently required at Wimbledon.In a statement, the All England Club said that its policy is “in keeping with agreed practice across all of the U.K.”The club said some health and safety measures were still in place. “We have maintained enhanced cleaning and hand sanitizing operations and offer full medical support for anyone feeling unwell,” the statement said.No masks are required at the tournament, and they are a rare sight on the grounds. But the player medical team is continuing to wear them for any consultations. The team of racket stringers on site is also wearing them. The club emphasized that Wimbledon’s health and safety policies were regularly under review and could be updated.Emma Raducanu signing autographs for fans. Masks are not required at the tournament this year.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the tournament clearly has a problem, which could get bigger.In all, five of the top 20 men were unable to play at Wimbledon because of bans, injuries or illness. No. 1 Daniil Medvedev of Russia was blocked from competing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Wimbledon’s decision to bar Russians and their allies from Belarus led to the tours retaliating by removing ranking points from the tournament.No. 2-ranked Alexander Zverev is out for an extended period after tearing ligaments in his right ankle at the French Open.There have also been early upsets. Hubert Hurkacz, the No. 7 seed and a strong contender, was beaten Monday in five sets in the first round by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Felix Auger-Aliassime, the No. 6 seed, was beaten Tuesday in four sets by Maxime Cressy.Berrettini, a strapping 6-foot-6 Italian, missed several months of action this season because of surgery on his right, primary playing hand. But he returned for the grass-court season this month and won consecutive titles in Stuttgart and at Queen’s Club.“I have had flu symptoms and been isolating the last few days,” Berrettini wrote on social media. “Despite symptoms not being severe, I decided it was important to take another test this morning to protect the health and safety of my fellow competitors and everyone else involved in the tournament.”Berrettini and Cilic, like many of the leading players, were staying in private accommodations in Wimbledon rather than in one of the player hotels in central London. That could reduce the risk of contamination, but there is also a new sense of resignation among the player community about the virus. Many have had the coronavirus, including Djokovic, Nadal and Coco Gauff.“I’m pretty sure I had Covid, so I’m less afraid than I used to be,” Maria Sakkari, who is seeded fifth in women’s singles, said after her first-round victory on Tuesday. “We have to get back to a normal life again.”Sakkari equated getting the coronavirus to getting food poisoning, which could also force withdrawal from a tournament. Alizé Cornet, a French player, said the virus had become a “part of the landscape.”“There always have been injuries and illnesses,” she told French reporters on Tuesday, claiming that there had been numerous undeclared coronavirus cases among players at the recent French Open. “In the locker room, everyone had it, and we didn’t say anything,” she said, suggesting that some players had symptoms but did not test themselves.“We’re not going to test ourselves and put ourselves in trouble,” she said. “I saw some women wearing masks because they did not want to spread it.”Gauff said she was comfortable with testing not being mandatory for players and said she was happy that the testing was no longer “every day or every other day.”“I don’t want to go back to that,” she said. “Not being scared to be tested, but it’s also, like, a hassle. I think with the vaccines and everything, we kind of know that the viral load is low and it’s very hard to transfer if you’re a vaccinated individual.”But she said she would test if she had symptoms and encouraged her peers to do the same.Berrettini had not been on site at the All England Club since Saturday and now, despite his thunderous serve and forehand, will have to wait until next year.“I have no words to describe the extreme disappointment I feel,” he said. “The dream is over for this year, but I will be back stronger.”Cilic, 33, has also been in resurgent form, overwhelming Medvedev in the fourth round of the French Open on his way to the semifinals. With his long reach, huge serve and flat baseline power, he is dangerous on grass and was, like Berrettini, one of the players to watch closely in the bottom half of the men’s draw.Cilic could have faced Nadal in the fourth round; Berrettini could have faced him in the semifinals. But now Nadal’s path looks quite a bit less daunting, if he remains healthy. More

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      Matteo Berrettini exits Wimbledon after testing positive for the coronavirus.

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      Mr. Berrettini was seeded No. 8 in the tournament, but he was not the first player to withdraw for virus reasons.WIMBLEDON, England — Matteo Berrettini, a finalist at Wimbledon last year, withdrew from this year’s tournament on Tuesday after testing positive for the coronavirus.Berrettini’s announcement of his withdrawal came only about two hours before he was to take to the court for his first-round match against Cristian Garin and was the latest blow to a Grand Slam tournament that was already shorter than usual on stars and has been stripped of ranking points for this edition by the men’s and women’s tours.Berrettini, who was undefeated on grass courts this season and seeded No. 8 at Wimbledon, was one of the leading contenders for the men’s singles title. His withdrawal came one day after another player, Marin Cilic, the No. 14 seed from Croatia and a 2017 Wimbledon finalist, also withdrew after testing positive. More

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      Tennis’ Most Popular Podcast Is The Tennis Podcast

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      It started around David Law’s parents’ dining room table. A decade later, “The Tennis Podcast” is the conscience of the game and how the sport communicates with itself.WIMBLEDON, England — The moment Amélie Mauresmo, the French Open tournament director, said women’s tennis did not have as much appeal as men’s tennis right now, there was little doubt she was going to get an earful.Those objecting included a British woman named Catherine Whitaker, who delivered a scathing, 10-minute-35-second dressing down of Mauresmo on an increasingly influential show, “The Tennis Podcast.” Whitaker was somewhere between exasperated and aghast that a former No. 1-ranked player in women’s singles would say such a thing to explain why she had scheduled men for nine of the tournament’s 10 featured night sessions. She called out Mauresmo for possessing an “unconscious bias” against some of the world’s greatest and most famous female athletes.The next morning, a member of the French Open’s communications staff approached Whitaker with a proposition: Would she like to join a select group of journalists to speak with Mauresmo?That Whitaker’s words had gotten the attention of Mauresmo — who would later attempt to walk back her comments — might have been hard to foresee in 2012, when Whitaker and her boss, David Law, sat at the dining room table at his parents’ home to record the first episode of their podcast.“Maybe five people listened to it,” Law, a longtime tennis communications executive and BBC radio commentator, said during a recent interview. For years, the show stopped and restarted, with episodes dropping irregularly and attracting tiny audiences.A decade on, “The Tennis Podcast” regularly tops the Apple charts for the sport in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and Spain. It is a favorite of the game’s luminaries and commentators, such as Billie Jean King, who has listened to the entire archive, Chris Evert, Pam Shriver and Mary Carillo. In the United States, it recently ranked 40th among all sports podcasts. In certain moments, such as during Mauresmo’s crisis, it is how the sport talks to itself.From left, David Law, Catherine Whitaker and Matt Roberts host the show. “He’s the one they all like the most,” Law said of Roberts. “I know, because I read all the emails.”James Hill for The New York Times“I’m a nerd,” Carillo said in late May, just before taping a special 10th anniversary show high above the main court, Philippe Chatrier, at Roland Garros. “These guys know their stuff. And they’re funny. You can’t fake funny.”Every sport has its handful of must-listens. Most feature hosts who came to their podcasts with established platforms or have major media companies behind them.Whitaker, Law and Matthew Roberts, who began as the show’s Twitter intern in 2015 when he was still in college, are the genre’s charming garage band that broke through, though they are not sure why. Maybe tennis debate just sounds more proper with British accents? “The Tennis Podcast” has become an interesting test case for a crowded podcast market where it’s hard to develop an audience and even harder to make a living, as the three are trying to do.Roberts, 26, still is not sure if this is a legitimate career choice.“Maybe I’ll write some more?” he wondered one evening in Paris.At big events like the little competition taking place here at the All England Club this week, the group will occasionally set up with the microphones and a pint at a picnic table, though with a growing legion of fans, especially at Wimbledon, that arrangement is becoming more problematic.On the show (and in their lives), Law, 48, plays the goofy but thoughtful father. He is clueless about most pop culture references. He often jousts with Whitaker, 36, as though she were a much younger stepsister. Roberts serves as the wise-beyond-his-years son, often settling their disputes.“And he can do that annoying, jumping backhand thing,” Whitaker said of Roberts, who played junior tennis tournaments and has a degree in modern languages.At this year’s French Open, a fan of the podcast nervously approached to praise Roberts.“He’s the one they all like the most,” Law said of Roberts. “I know, because I read all the emails.”They now earn enough to travel to all the Grand Slam tournaments, though Wimbledon is a home game of sorts. Law, who is married with two children, recently quit his day job as the communications director for the annual grass-court tournament at Queen’s Club in London, about 120 miles south of his home near Birmingham.Through newsletter subscriptions and an annual Kickstarter campaign, the hosts can sustain themselves and earn enough to travel to all four Grand Slam tournaments.James Hill for The New York TimesWhitaker, who lives in London, sent Law an email after she graduated from university telling him she was desperate to work in tennis. He hired her to assist with his work with retired players on the Champions Tour.He also liked her voice, and eventually raised the concept of a podcast. Whitaker was skeptical, but went along.Law got introduced to podcasts the same way a lot of Britons did — listening to “The Ricky Gervais Show” in the mid-aughts. As the medium grew, Law realized that each sport seemed to have a podcast that became The One, and quickly grabbed the title “The Tennis Podcast.”It was a good name, he thought. “And there were no other tennis podcasts, so it was actually true,” he said.In 2013, with the podcast muddling along with just a few hundred weekly listeners, Whitaker went to work writing news releases about crime and punishment in the press office of the Crown Prosecution Service. She knew within a month that despite her yearning for stability, she had made a terrible mistake. It took her a year to walk away and commit to the podcast, as well as a few side gigs in tennis.The venture cost Law money the first four years. In 2015 he sold a small sponsorship to BNP Paribas, the French bank.The next year, Law, Whitaker and Roberts did the first of their annual Kickstarter campaigns, which, along with subscriptions to additional content for 5 pounds per month or £50 for the year, or about $6 and $61, sustain them.They have 3,000 subscribers and roughly 35,000 weekly listeners. Their success helped Whitaker get hired to host Amazon Prime’s tennis coverage.They owe a great debt to Carillo. Five years ago, she approached Whitaker at a tournament and asked her if she was from “The Tennis Podcast.” Whitaker said she was, then found Law and told him the strangest thing had just happened.Carillo spread the word. She told King, who told Evert, who told Shriver, or something like that. No one is certain of the order. All are now dedicated listeners. King joined the show’s hosts at Whitaker’s apartment last summer for curry and to watch the European Championship soccer matches.Shriver, right, Mary Carillo and Billie Jean King are among the game’s luminaries who regularly listen to the podcast.James Hill for The New York TimesAfter Shriver went public with the revelation that her longtime coach, Don Candy, had sexually abused her as a teenager, her first interview was on “The Tennis Podcast.” Steve Simon, the head of the WTA Tour, also came on to discuss sexual abuse.Most shows have no guests. The troika chat about the latest results from Estoril, in Portugal, or Istanbul. They mock one another’s food choices or underhand serving abilities.Law said years of mistakes and research have provided valuable lessons, such as the importance of releasing a new podcast weekly, dropping it on a specific day (usually Monday), limiting the weekly shows to about an hour, and doing 45-minute daily episodes during the Grand Slams.Things went a little longer after Mauresmo stepped in it earlier this month at the French Open, allowing Whitaker the proper time for her takedown. She described Mauresmo as a product of a system “designed and upheld almost exclusively by men,” telling everyone who might believe that men’s tennis was inherently more attractive than women’s tennis to “get in the bin.”A lot more than five people were listening. More

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      Wimbledon, a Longstanding Tradition, Opens with a Flurry of Changes

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      One hundred years after the opening of Centre Court, it’s a season of change at the All England Club, what with the barring of Russian players and a new set of green doors.WIMBLEDON, England — It is about tradition this year at Wimbledon on the 100th anniversary of Centre Court, but as the defending men’s singles champion Novak Djokovic walked back onto the grass on Monday to launch this year’s tournament, it was also about change.There is plenty of it at the All England Club in 2022: large and small; obvious and subtle.The big stuff: Russian and Belarusian players (and journalists) have been barred because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The tournament has been expanded from 13 days of play, with no matches scheduled on the first Sunday, to a full 14 days that will leave no respite for the grass and the leafy neighborhood.The little stuff: The benches and desks in the Centre Court press seats have been replaced with padded chairs. All England Club members with their circular purple badges no longer serve as moderators at news conferences. Now, the stars sit alone at the rostrum, as they do nearly everywhere else in the tennis world.Djokovic passed through a set of green doors to meet Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea in their first-round match.Paul Childs/ReutersAs if to underscore the theme, Djokovic and his first-round opponent, Kwon Soon-woo, arrived on the most celebrated court in tennis in novel fashion.Players have long exited the clubhouse and made a hard left, passing behind a screen with a club member leading the way, before taking a hard right and stepping onto the grass.Beginning this year, they walk straight ahead and unaccompanied out of the clubhouse and onto the court through a new set of green doors that are quickly closed behind them.It seemed unceremoniously abrupt to those used to the old ways and fond of the murmurs from the crowd that used to build into cheers as the players navigated the passageway before coming fully into public view.But the pixie dust was still there, as Djokovic confirmed after his 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory, which seemed even closer than the score.“Childhood dreams were realized here in 2011,” Djokovic said of the first of his six Wimbledon singles titles. “I will never forget that. It will always have a special place in my heart. Of course, every time I step out there on the court, there is this goose bumps type of feeling, butterflies in the stomach.”It happens the first time, too, as Emma Raducanu later confirmed. All in a rush last year, she became a global star and a superstar in Britain by winning the U.S. Open at age 18, becoming the first player to win a Grand Slam singles title as qualifier. Victories have been much harder to come by since then, but she already had fine memories of Wimbledon after reaching the fourth round in her first appearance in the main draw last year.Emma Raducanu of Britain in her match against Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressMonday, however, was her first match on Centre Court, and though she has barely played on grass this season because of injuries, she managed the moment, and a tricky opponent in Alison Van Uytvanck, to win 6-4, 6-4.Raducanu may not be ready to take over women’s tennis. No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who just turned 21, has taken up that air and space. But Raducanu clearly knows how to rise to an occasion.“From the moment I walked out through those gates, I could really just feel the energy and the support and everyone was behind me from the word ‘go,’” she said. “I just really tried to cherish every single point on there, played every point like it could have been one of my last on that court.”That was imaginative thinking indeed, considering that Raducanu, Britain’s first women’s Grand Slam singles champion since Virginia Wade in the 1970s, is poised to be a Centre Court fixture for a decade or more if she can remain healthy.Andy Murray knows the drill. He, too, became a Centre Court regular in his teens and eventually lived up to the billing by ending a 77-year drought for British men in singles by winning Wimbledon in 2013 and again in 2016.Playing with an artificial hip at age 35, Murray has proved his love of his craft beyond a reasonable doubt. Though he will never bridge the achievement gap that separates him from the Big Three of Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer — each with 20 or more major singles titles — Murray remains a threat on grass on any given afternoon.He demonstrated it with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory over James Duckworth that closed play on Centre Court on opening day, almost exactly eight hours after it had begun and almost exactly 100 years after the first opening day on Centre Court.Britain’s Andy Murray celebrated his first-round victory over James Duckworth of Australia.Hannah Mckay/ReutersThat was on June 26, 1922, after the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club moved from its cozier, original home on Worple Road after purchasing land on Church Road to accommodate a new, larger stadium. The main court at Worple Road had been called Centre Court because it was actually at the center of the grounds. The club kept the name even though the new primary court was no longer so central.The new Wimbledon got off to a soggy start with rain and more rain, forcing the 1922 edition to finish on a Wednesday, but it was still a popular success with worthy singles champions: the stylish and long unbeatable Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen and the Australian men’s star Gerald Patterson, a two-time Wimbledon champion nicknamed “The Human Catapult” because of his big serve (he could volley, too).Both Lenglen and Patterson would have been in for a few surprises if they had been watching on Monday. Centre Court is now rainproof with its retractable, accordion-style roof that was put to good use for Djokovic’s and Kwon’s duel.The electronic scoreboards and the touch screen operated by the chair umpire would also have caught their eyes, as would the once-unthinkable fact that the chair umpire for Monday’s opening men’s match was a woman: Marija Cicak. More

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      How a Tennis Nerd Gave Serena and Venus Williams a New Lease on the Game

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      Eric Hechtman, a club professional from Miami, has signed on to help two champions chase success far beyond the usual finish line of a tennis career.WIMBLEDON, England — Already coaching one American tennis icon, Eric Hechtman added another: logging the extra miles and the extra hours to try to help both Venus and Serena Williams get the most out of however many matches or seasons they have left.“If they are both good with it, I’m absolutely good with it,” Hechtman said in an interview at Wimbledon last week. “They are family. They are super close with each other. It’s been great so far.”Hechtman, a 38-year-old club professional and father of three from Miami, jokes that he is “old” but he is younger than both his star pupils.Venus is 42. Serena is 40. But neither is ready to retire even if Venus has not played on tour in nearly a year and Serena has not played singles on tour since last year’s Wimbledon.Both sisters are back in London, however, with Serena set to face Harmony Tan, an unseeded Frenchwoman, on Centre Court on Tuesday in the first round. Venus, who practiced on the grass at the All England Club over the weekend, is not playing in the singles or women’s doubles tournaments but could still take a wild-card entry into the mixed doubles.The sisters like to keep their plans private for as long as possible, but it seems doubtful that Venus would have made the long trip across the Atlantic just to attend a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert on Sunday with her sister, Isha Price, and Hechtman.“Lots of fun,” said Hechtman, who did not confirm Venus Williams’s Wimbledon plans but did confirm that she is not ready to call it a career.“I don’t want to necessarily speak for their plans, but they are definitely not ready to retire,” Hechtman said. “Look, they both love the game. They are both champions. They both love working hard and putting in the work. So, as long as you’ve got that, who’s to say you can set parameters on things, right?”Venus Williams arriving at the All England Club on Sunday.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesThe Williamses were raised to ignore the usual tennis boundaries: playing very little junior tennis before turning professional and being encouraged by their parents, Richard and Oracene, to actively pursue outside interests. There were skeptics early, just as there are skeptics now as both sisters have become part-time players at best in their 40s, but there is no arguing with their achievements or their staying power. And while Serena clearly has the superior body of work, with 23 Grand Slam singles titles to Venus’s seven, Wimbledon is where their resumes are most closely aligned.Venus has won five singles titles; Serena seven; and they have joined forces to win six doubles titles, going 6-0 in finals (they are 17-0 in all their Grand Slam and Olympic doubles finals together).“They’ve broken barriers for everything, for women, for the way the game is played,” Hechtman said. “They transcended tennis from a power perspective, and they are continuing to do it at their age. And I don’t think they even think about that. They are just homing in on themselves, and what they want to do, and there you go. To me, the more I can learn from those types of people, the better it is.”Hechtman, a self-described “tennis nerd,” was a successful junior who went on to play at the University of Miami.Evan Zeder, a longtime friend and former junior rival, has known Hechtman since they were 8.“He has always been brutally honest, for better or worse, and I think that has to be refreshing for people like Venus and Serena who are two legends to have someone who can be brutally honest without an agenda,” said Zeder, now head of global tennis sports marketing for New Balance.Zeder remembers Hechtman wearing basketball shorts and a Legionnaire cap on court. “The kind Ivan Lendl used to wear,” Zeder said. “And he just kind of beat to his own drum.”He also had grit. Zeder remembers Hechtman getting severe cramps late in the decisive set of one of their matches as 18-year-olds and refusing to quit, taking massive cuts at the ball going for winners because he could no longer run. Zeder said Hechtman kept looking across the net and smiling.“He was trying to get in my head, and it worked,” Zeder said.“After Eric served it out, he ended up in a full body cramp and was taken to the hospital, where he spent the whole night with an I.V.,” Zeder said. “He came out and could barely walk in the finals and got smoked, and I was fresh as a daisy and had to play for third place.”Hechtman said he had offers from other Division I programs but chose to stay at home to support his mother Brenda, who had cancer and died during his sophomore year.He tried to play on the pro tour for about six months after college. “To be honest, I didn’t give myself a fair shot,” Hechtman said.He went to law school but began working as a teaching professional as well and eventually received an offer to become the tennis director at the Royal Palm Tennis Club, a private club in Miami with a strong junior program.“I didn’t have a passion for law,” he said. “My passion is definitely tennis, and when that opportunity came up, it wasn’t that tough a choice.”He has spent much of the last 15 years developing junior players and said more than 50 of his pupils had gone on to play in college. But he also has worked as an occasional hitting partner for professional players. He said he was introduced to Venus Williams around 2008 and met and eventually hit with Serena as well, but both sisters had their own long-term coaches: Venus was working with the American David Witt and Serena with the Frenchman Patrick Mouratoglou.Serena Williams during a training session on Saturday.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesBut after Venus split with Witt, she hired Hechtman in 2019 and after Serena split with Mouratoglou earlier this year, she hired Hechtman with Venus’s approval.Still the director of tennis at Royal Palm, Hechtman said he has been getting up before dawn, making the two-hour drive north to Venus’s home in Jupiter Island to train with each sister in separate sessions and then making the two-hour drive home to work at the club.He and his wife, Alexandra, have three children, sons Noah, 7, and Chase, 5, and daughter Madison, 3.“I make sure I’m at home by 6,” he said.This is the kind of multitasking to which the Williams sisters can relate with their outside businesses and in Serena’s case, her daughter Olympia, 4, with her husband Alexis Ohanian.Serena has yet to speak publicly in detail about her new coach, but she was asked on Saturday what it was like to be back at Wimbledon without Mouratoglou, who helped her win 10 Grand Slam singles titles in their nearly 10 years together.“Oh my,” she said. “I didn’t even think about it. I don’t know. It feels good. I’m having a wonderful time here.”Hechtman said he respected Witt’s and Mouratoglou’s previous work. “I’m not the type of guy who’s going to steal someone’s job,” he said. “I have my business ethics, but when an opportunity like this comes along I’m not going to say no for sure.”Hechtman said he occasionally shares the court with Richard Williams, who though diminished by a stroke, still attends some of his daughters’ practices.“Sometimes he’ll throw in some coaching and obviously he’s got a unique eye for the game,” Hechtman said. “He made his mark in the history of the sport. He belongs in the Hall of Fame. He coached them from scratch to becoming two of the greatest ever.”Hechtman, too, would one day like to take a player from beginner to the top of the pro game, but for now his task is much shorter term: helping two champions chase success far beyond the usual finish line of a tennis career.“You can just see it in their eyes, the passion for it,” Hechtman said. “I’ve been on the court with any type of person you can imagine from kids that don’t want to be out there to kids that are motivated to adult recreational tennis players. This is the best experience so far, and you can take what they’ve accomplished out of the equation. It’s about their attitude and how a practice goes. If you’re a tennis nerd, it’s as good as it gets.” More

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      As Wimbledon Begins, an Era of Sports Free of Bans and Boycotts Ends

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      For decades, sports has avoided punishing athletes for the actions of their countries. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put an end to that.LONDON — For roughly three decades, making sure athletes participated in the biggest events regardless of the world’s never-ending military and political battles has been a nearly sacrosanct tenet of international sports.Wars broke out. Authoritarian nations with egregious records on human rights hosted major events. There were massive doping scandals. And through it all, boycotts and bans on participation all but disappeared from the sports landscape.That principle — staging truly global competitions and not holding athletes responsible for the world’s ills — began to crumble after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It will be on hiatus starting Monday, when Wimbledon opens without the world No. 1, Daniil Medvedev, and the rest of the tennis players from Russia and Belarus, who have been barred from participating.World Athletics, track and field’s world governing body, has also barred Russian and Belarusian athletes from its championships next month in Eugene, Ore., the biggest track and field event outside of the Olympic Games.The bans represent a drastic shift after years of resisting letting politics interfere with individual athletes’ participation in sports. They are also a departure from the decisions that various sports organizations made earlier this year to limit punishments to banning Russian and Belarusian teams or any flags or other symbols of the countries from competitions.What changed? China’s authoritarian government has stifled free speech and other human rights, and its treatment of the Uyghurs has been deemed genocide by multiple governments, yet it was permitted to host the Olympics in February. Why were Russian and Belarusian athletes pariahs by March?Experts in international sports say that the so-called right-to-play principle ran headlong into the most significant package of economic sanctions placed on a country since the end of the Cold War. That shifted the calculus for sports leaders, said Michael Payne, the International Olympic Committee’s former director of marketing and broadcast rights.“For years, people would point at sports and athletes and demand boycotts, and sports could say, ‘Hang on, why are you singling us out but going on with the rest of your trade?’” Payne said. “But if you have full economic and political sanctions against a country, then I’m not sure that sports should still sit it out.”Daniil Medvedev of Russia, the world’s No. 1 men’s tennis player, will not be permitted to play Wimbledon this year.Cati Cladera/EPA, via ShutterstockThe leaders of tennis in Britain ultimately decided they could not. In April, acting at the behest of the British government, the All England Lawn Tennis Club, which runs Wimbledon, and the Lawn Tennis Association, which oversees the other annual spring and summer tournaments in England, announced the ban, explaining they had no other choice.“The U.K. government has set out directional guidance for sporting bodies and events in the U.K., with the specific aim of limiting Russia’s influence,” said Ian Hewitt, the chairman of the All England Club. “We have taken that directional guidance into account, as we must as a high-profile event and leading British institution.”He said the combination of the scale and severity of Russia’s invasion of a sovereign state, the condemnation by over 140 nations through the United Nations and the “specific and directive guidance to address matters” made this a “very, very exceptional situation.”The move is broadly popular in Britain, according to opinion polls, but it has received significant pushback from the men’s and women’s tennis tours. They condemned it as discriminatory and decided to withhold rankings points for any victories at the tournament.On Saturday, Novak Djokovic, the defending champion at Wimbledon, called the barring of players unfair. “I just don’t see how they have contributed to anything that is really happening,” he said.One Russian-born player, Natela Dzalamidze, changed her nationality to Georgian so she could play doubles at Wimbledon. Last week, the United States Tennis Association announced that it would allow players from Russia and Belarus to compete at its events, including the U.S. Open, this summer, but with no national identification.“This is not an easy situation,” Lew Sherr, the chief executive of the U.S.T.A. told The New York Times this month. “It’s a horrific situation for those in Ukraine, an unprovoked and unjust invasion and absolutely horrific, so anything we talk about pales in relation to what is going on there.”But, Sherr added, the organization did not receive any direct pressure or guidance from government officials.Tennis has been juggling politics and sport a lot lately. Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA, last fall suspended the tour’s business in China, including several high-profile tournaments, because of the country’s treatment of Peng Shuai.Peng, a doubles champion at Wimbledon in 2013 and the French Open in 2014, accused a former top government official of sexually assaulting her. She then disappeared from public view for weeks. She later disavowed her statements. Simon said the WTA would not return to China until it could speak independently with Peng and a full investigation took place.Sebastian Coe, center, president of World Athletics, said sports must take a stand on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Peter Cziborra/Action Images Via ReutersIn explaining the decision to bar Russian and Belarusian athletes from its world championships, Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, acknowledged in March that the move went against much of what he has stood for. He has railed against the practice of politicians targeting athletes to make political points when other sectors continue to go about their business. “This is different,” he said, because the other parts of the economy are at the tip of the spear. “Sport has to step up and join these efforts to end this war and restore peace. We cannot and should not sit this one out.”Michael Lynch, the former director of sports marketing for Visa, a leading sponsor of the Olympics and the World Cup, said the response to Russia’s aggression is natural as sports evolve away from the fiction that they are somehow separate from global events.Just as the N.B.A. and other sports leagues were forced to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake, international sports will have to recognize that they are not walled off from the problems of the world, he said.“This genie is not going back in that bottle,” Lynch said. “We will continue to see increased use of sports for cultural change, for value change, for policy change. It’s only going to happen more and more.”Sports’ sanctions against Russia could be the beginning of the end of largely unfettered global competition. Who gets to play and who doesn’t could depend on whether the political zeitgeist deems an athlete’s country to be compliant with the standards of a civilized world order.Should Israeli athletes worry because of their country’s much-criticized occupation of the West Bank? What about American athletes the next time their country kills civilians with a drone strike?“This a slippery slope,” David Wallechinsky, a leading sports historian, said of the decision to hold Russian and Belarusian athletes accountable for the actions of their governments. “The question is, Will other people from other countries end up paying the price?”This month, some of the world’s top golfers were criticized for joining a new golf tour bankrolled by the government of Saudi Arabia, a repressive government responsible for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident and columnist for The Washington Post. Looming a little more than two years from now are the next Summer Olympics, in Paris. Who will be there is anyone’s guess.“I do think Ukraine has rightly galvanized the West and its allies, but I also believe that sport will emerge as a connector instead of a tool of division,” said Terrence Burns, a sports consultant who in the 2000s advised Russia on its bids to secure hosting rights for the Olympics and the World Cup during a different era. “But it will take time. And during that time, athletes, for better or worse, will pay a price.”Christopher Clarey More

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      Novak Djokovic Has Prepared His Way. So Has Rafael Nadal.

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      By design, Djokovic usually does not play grass-court events before Wimbledon, and he has won five times with that tactic. Nadal, necessitated by injury, is on the same track this year.WIMBLEDON, England — While the French Open has long been Rafael Nadal time, Wimbledon has become Novak Djokovic time.He is not yet the greatest grass-court player of this Darwinian era in men’s tennis. Roger Federer, 40, absent from this year’s tournament, still gets that nod with his eight singles titles at the All England Club. But Djokovic, who used to pose with a homemade replica of the winner’s trophy in his youth, has certainly been the best in recent years with his acrobatic, tight-to-the-baseline style, and he is undoubtedly the greatest grass-courter in the men’s field as Wimbledon’s main draw begins Monday.“It’s hard not to make Novak the prohibitive favorite,” said Paul Annacone, one of Federer’s former coaches. “People talk about preparation and lack of matches and stuff like that, but the thing is when you’ve played Wimbledon so many times and been there at the end so often, I don’t think it’s that important at all.”Bjorn Borg, the stone-faced Swede, broke the mold on Wimbledon preparation, winning the event five straight times from 1976 to 1980 without playing an official warm-up tournament on grass. But the mold got repaired and redeployed for nearly 30 years before Djokovic smashed it again, perhaps for good.He has won five of his six Wimbledon titles — 2011, 2014, 2015, 2019 and 2021 — without playing a tuneup event on tour and will aim to do the same again this year as he tries to win Wimbledon for the fourth time in a row.“Every day that you get to have a little bit of a rest and reset helps,” Djokovic said. “But then, we’re all different.”Speaking about grass courts, he added: “I didn’t have too many issues to adapt quickly to the surface. Over the years, I learned how to play more efficiently on the surface as well. At the beginning of my career, I was still struggling with movement and sliding.”Djokovic, who will open play on Centre Court Monday against unseeded Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea, has not played an official match since his deflating, frankly mystifying loss to Nadal in a French Open quarterfinal. Djokovic seemingly had weathered the storm of Nadal’s thunderous start, but he failed to sustain his momentum and later blew a lead in the fourth and final set.Rafael Nadal, like Djokovic, did not play in an official event between the French Open and Wimbledon, but participated in an exhibition.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe spent some downtime with his wife, Jelena, and two young children before arriving in London to play — and play very well — in the exhibition grass-court event last week at the Hurlingham Club.Nadal followed the same template, racing the clock to recover from a radio frequency ablation, which deadens nerves through the use of radio waves, to treat a left foot injury before playing — not quite so convincingly — at Hurlingham. Unlike his archrival Djokovic, Nadal has never won Wimbledon without an official lead-in tournament on grass. His two titles, in 2008 and 2010, came after competing at Queen’s Club, and unlike Djokovic, Nadal has not played at Wimbledon since 2019.The tournament was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic, and last year Nadal skipped it because of the chronic foot problem that has remained his concern throughout his intermittently magnificent 2022 campaign. He has won the first two legs of the Grand Slam: the Australian Open in January and then the French Open this month despite having to take painkilling injections to numb his left foot before all seven rounds in Paris.But he said on Saturday that the radio frequency treatment had soothed his daily pain and granted him the freedom to push aggressively off his left foot, and there certainly seemed to be a spring in his step and an urgency to his mood as he practiced over the weekend at the All England Club.“First of all, I can walk normal most of the days, almost every single day,” he said. “That’s for me the main issue. When I wake up, I don’t have this pain that I was having for the last year and a half, so I’m quite happy about that.” Watch out, world, but even though Nadal has moved mountains in 2022, it will still be an uphill battle to rise to Djokovic’s level on grass.They can only meet in the final as the top two seeds in the tournament, with top-ranked Daniil Medvedev and second-ranked Alexander Zverev absent. Medvedev, a Russian, is among the players barred from Wimbledon this year because of the war in Ukraine. Zverev, a German, tore ligaments in his right ankle in his semifinal loss to Nadal at the French Open on June 3.Hubert Hurkacz of Poland, who won a tournament in Germany this month and beat Roger Federer at last year’s Wimbledon tournament, is in Djokovic’s half of the draw this year. Carmen Jaspersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut there are still clear, big-serving threats to a Djokovic-Nadal rematch, which would be an Open Era men’s record 10th duel in a Grand Slam final.Hubert Hurkacz, an amiable Pole who upset Federer last year in the quarterfinals, is a grass-court wiz and manhandled Medvedev to win the title in Halle, Germany, this month. He is in Djokovic’s half of the draw at Wimbledon. Matteo Berrettini, the powerful Italian who lost to Djokovic in last year’s Wimbledon final and just won tuneup events on grass in Stuttgart, Germany, and at Queen’s Club, is in Nadal’s half.But Nadal, who faces Francisco Cerundolo, an unseeded Argentine, in the first round on Tuesday, could get a big early test if he faces Sam Querrey of the United States in the second round.Querrey’s ranking has slipped, but he remains dangerous on grass and is the last man to defeat Djokovic in a completed match at Wimbledon, upsetting him in the third round in 2016 as Djokovic began a tailspin that would last nearly two years.Djokovic is in another difficult phase, partly of his own doing, by, unlike every other top men’s tennis player, declining to get vaccinated against Covid-19. That led to his deportation from Australia in January ahead of the Australian Open and could keep him out of the U.S. Open later this year unless the United States lifts its ban on entry for unvaccinated foreigners.“Of course, I’m aware of that,” Djokovic said. “That is an extra motivation to do well here. Hopefully I can have a very good tournament, as I have done in the last three editions. Then I’ll just have to wait and see. I would love to go to the States, but as of today, that’s not possible.”He has played just 21 matches in 2022: Fourteen fewer than he had played at this same stage last season. But grass, once the main surface for professional tennis, is now a sideshow and an acquired taste. Djokovic, who has liked to chew on a blade of Centre Court grass after his titles at Wimbledon, has clearly acquired it.As the best returner in men’s tennis, he can still break serve on a surface that favors the server. As the most flexible player in men’s tennis, he can bend himself into all manner of positions to deal with the lower bounce on grass. He can also shut down the baseline and also keep opponents off balance by serving and volleying on big points.“It’s a rough recipe,” Annacone said. “And though we talk about how much he dominates on hardcourts, his winning percentage is actually higher on grass.” That is true: His career winning percentage in singles is 84 percent on hardcourts, just a shade below his 85 percent on grass.Now, in a downbeat season, it’s time for the rightful Wimbledon favorite to try to widen that gap and to narrow the gap with Nadal, who has 22 Grand Slam singles titles to Djokovic’s 20. More

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      Entering Wimbledon, Emma Raducanu Carries a Heavy Load of Expectations

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      Emma Raducanu came out of nowhere to win the U.S. Open at 18 years old. Things have been a little rocky ever since. The British tennis-sphere gasped earlier this month.For the third time this year, the teen sensation Emma Raducanu had to quit in the middle of the match because of an injury. Just weeks before Wimbledon, her participation in the event, the most anticipated homecoming this sport has experienced in years, appeared to be in jeopardy.A lengthy headline in The Daily Mail put it this way:“Emma Raducanu has ‘no idea’ if she’ll be fit for Wimbledon as she RETIRES just 33 minutes into her first match on grass since last summer, after US Open champion struggled through just seven games with ‘freak’ injury to her left side.” (Emphasis theirs.)A day later, however, Raducanu, who is 19 years old, put out word that she expected to be just fine for Wimbledon, which begins Monday. But there will still be jitters until she takes her first swings, most likely on Centre Court, and perhaps manages to win her opening match. A kingdom is dreaming.“This is stress that is off the scale really,” said Annabel Croft, a British former professional and once rising young star who is one of a handful of women with an inkling of the kind of pressure Raducanu is under.Wimbledon is where it all began a year ago for Raducanu. Back then, she was just weeks removed from taking her university entrance exams, a practically unknown player with smooth strokes and an ability to glide across the court. Raducanu cruised to the fourth round at Wimbledon, charming the fans with her athleticism and graceful style before retiring with breathing difficulty against Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia.As it turned out, that run was just a warm-up. Two months later at the U.S. Open, she won 10 consecutive matches on her way to the title. Raducanu became the first British woman to win a Grand Slam title since Virginia Wade in 1977.Raducanu, a British citizen born in Canada to a Chinese mother and Romanian father, was seemingly built for the global sports stardom that has followed.British fans’ expectations of Raducanu mean that the pressure on her is “off the scale,” the former tennis player Annabel Croft said.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockThere was the Met Gala, and then millions of dollars in sponsorships from the highest-end corporations — Porsche, Tiffany and Co., British Airways, Evian, Dior and Vodafone, and on and on. Now, when someone says “Emma” in Britain, they more likely mean Raducanu than Jane Austen. She has become the game’s ultimate disrupter.Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American, said in May that Raducanu had altered how she viewed winning a Grand Slam title — meaning she now believes anyone could do it, even her. Gauff made the finals of the French Open earlier this month.Raducanu’s unlikely path could inspire more players: Developing into a Grand Slam winner while shunning tennis academy life and preparing to attend one of England’s storied universities. Winning one of the sport’s four major championships in just the second try. Doing it with a seeming immunity to pressure.Raducanu recently announced that she has decided not to hire a full-time coach. She has been through four, and she has determined that what she really needs is high-intensity hitting partners. “Sparring,” as she put it recently. That will get her more used to the pace of the highest level of tennis. Playing without a coach is also something most top players just don’t do.For this disruption to be successful, at some point Raducanu’s results will have to return to the level she reached at the end of last summer. Her record is an undistinguished 8-11 this year.She and her former coaches have said she got tripped up by Covid-19 in December, which interrupted her off-season training. She entered the season in a diminished physical condition. That, perhaps, led to the nagging injuries and not having the season she had hoped for. She said recently that because of the U.S. Open win and the 2,000 points it produced, her ranking (No. 11) is probably better than her game.All of this, of course, would be fine if Raducanu were just another player just beginning her second year as a full-time professional. Raducanu is so new to this life that last month in Paris, where she played in the main draw of the French Open for the first time, she said she is looking forward to her second full year as a pro because she would no longer be so clueless about her surroundings every week.“I’m always asking where everything is,” she said. And yet, Raducanu is the reigning U.S. Open champion, and the first Grand Slam champion to emerge from a qualifying tournament. She was the BBC’s sports personality of the year for 2021, and the reason the Lawn Tennis Association, which oversees tennis in Britain, reports a boomlet in participation since September.For seven consecutive months, adult monthly participation has steadily increased, said John Dolan, a spokesman for the organization. Women’s participation during the first three months of 2022 was stronger than it has been the past five years. Annual participation among 16- to 34-year-olds is up 10 percent.“My academy is absolutely packed with little boys and girls wanting to be the next one,” Clinton Coleman, a global scout for IMG, the sport’s top representation firm, and the head professional of a London tennis center, said of the Raducanu phenomenon. “Never seen anything like it.”Simon Briggs, the tennis correspondent for The Telegraph, one of the major British news organizations, said that a year ago he thought he was going to have to find another line of work. Andy Murray’s career had hit its twilight and Britain’s talent pipeline seemed out of gas.Raducanu received medical attention before retiring from her fourth-round match at Wimbledon last year.Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA, via ShutterstockThen Raducanu made Wimbledon’s fourth round. Briggs had to write a story on her virtually every day once she began the summer hard court season in North America. Three days after Raducanu lost in the second round of the French Open, Briggs was still filing stories about her.“She’s got to be the biggest female sports story here since the Second World War,” Briggs said last week.Jo Durie, a top 10 player from Britain in the 1970s who commentates on tennis for the BBC, said people who don’t even follow sports often stop her in the market to ask about Raducanu.“She’s so well-known people expect her to play well and win all the time,” Durie said. “Of course it’s not fair. She’s so young.”It’s possible only Christine Truman can understand what Raducanu’s transformation into “Emma” has really been like. Truman, 81, reached the semifinals of Wimbledon when she was 16 years old and won the French Open two years later. The victory earned her a voucher worth 40 pounds ($112 in the United States at the time) that could not be used on anything tennis-related because that would violate the rules then on professionalism. But she became a household name practically overnight.She was tall and blonde and easily recognized and could not go to the bread line, or ride the escalator down to the subway, or visit the pharmacist without being stopped. She met Winston Churchill, who had sent her congratulatory telegrams. He was quite old by then, though it was still a thrill for her.“Winston, it’s the tennis girl,” Clementine Churchill said to her husband, who shook Truman’s hand.In her mid-20s, Truman said, she thought she could both “have fun” and stay at the top of the game. It did not work so well.Her advice to Raducanu?“Remember what made you good and don’t lose sight of that,” she said in an interview last week.And hire a coach.“They can spur you on when you’re doing well and bring you back up when you’re doubting yourself,” she said. “If they have the belief, it rubs off on you.” More