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      The End of the Endless Final Set: Grand Slams Adopt Same Tiebreaker

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      The French Open was the last major tennis tournament that allowed an “advantage final set” without a tiebreaker. Once the maker of many classic, marathon matches, the system is no more.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Tennis is entering a new era: one in which the marathon final sets that have concluded some of its greatest and longest matches are no longer an option.The Grand Slam Board announced Wednesday that beginning in May with the French Open, all four major tournaments will put in place a tiebreaker at 6-6 in decisive sets: the third set in women’s singles matches and the fifth set in men’s singles.The first player with at least 10 points and a 2-point margin will win the tiebreaker. The move was announced as a one-year trial, but is likely to be adopted permanently considering the extensive consultation behind it.The winds have been blowing in this direction for some time amid concerns about the pace of play, match lengths, player health and recovery times.“It’s good they have that uniformity now, but I guess what made them unique was also how each fifth set was different, so I can see both sides to it,” said John Isner, the American veteran whose first-round victory over Nicolas Mahut of France at Wimbledon in 2010 established a logic-defying record by stretching to 70-68 in the fifth set.If the new rules are embraced permanently, that mark will forever remain untouchable.“It was never going to get broken anyway, so those are my thoughts,” Isner said.It is difficult to argue. The final set of Isner-Mahut stretched across three days, monopolizing Court 18 at the All England Club and generating global interest for an otherwise obscure early-round match.There is a fascination created by two players pushing each other to their physical and mental limits; a particular sort of tension fostered by a marathon final set after competitors and spectators have invested so many hours in the outcome.“That’s just like an absolute battle,” said Taylor Fritz, the 24-year-old American who reached the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open.Fritz said ultralong final sets make it all but impossible for the victor to advance much further in a tournament. “You’re so done for your next match if you have one of those,” he said. “But it’s tradition, and I will miss seeing those crazy battles.”Before the Open era, there were no tiebreakers in any set at the Grand Slam tournaments or in the Davis Cup, the premier men’s team competition. A set was won by winning a minimum of six games by a margin of at least two. In one extreme example from the first round of Wimbledon in 1969, 41-year-old Pancho Gonzales defeated his fellow American Charlie Pasarell, 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9, in a match that stretched over two days.The next year, a tiebreaker at six games all was introduced at the 1970 U.S. Open for all sets and was gradually adopted by the other Grand Slam tournaments and major team competitions for all sets except the final one.But after more than a century, the Davis Cup opted for a final-set tiebreaker in 2016 and the Australian Open and Wimbledon followed suit in 2019, though in different ways. The Australian Open opted for the extended first-to-10-points tiebreaker at 6-all and Wimbledon adopted a traditional first-to-seven tiebreaker at 12-all.The French Open continued to play out the fifth set, which left the four Grand Slam tournaments with four different methods of resolving decisive sets — a discrepancy that confused some players.In the middle of the fifth set of the 2019 Wimbledon men’s singles final, Novak Djokovic had to double check with the chair umpire when the tiebreaker would be played.The Grand Slam tournament leaders clearly wanted a tidier solution.“The Grand Slam Board’s decision is based on a strong desire to create greater consistency in the rules of the game at the Grand Slams, and thus enhance the experience for the players and fans alike,” the board said in its statement.Uniformity at least will provide clarity, and the first-to-10-points tiebreaker should allow for more suspense and momentum shifts than the first-to-seven system.But if the new rules are adopted after the trial, it will shrink the horizons of what constitutes an epic match.Many matches that are ranked among the greatest went into the tennis equivalent of overtime, which is certainly no coincidence.Bjorn Borg’s victory over John McEnroe in the 1980 Wimbledon final went to 8-6 in the fifth set; Rafael Nadal’s victory over Roger Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon final went to 9-7 in the fifth; Djokovic’s victory over Federer in the 2019 Wimbledon final went to 13-12 in the fifth with a tiebreaker at 12-all.At the French Open, Monica Seles’s victory over Steffi Graf in the exquisite 1992 final went to 10-8 in the third, and Jennifer Capriati’s victory over Kim Clijsters in the 2001 final stretched to 12-10 in the third.But marathons will not be out of the question in this new, streamlined tennis world. Consider the 2012 Australian Open men’s final, between Djokovic and Nadal, the longest singles final in Grand Slam history in terms of elapsed time. They played for 5 hours 53 minutes and were so spent by the time Djokovic finished his victory that both needed chairs at the award ceremony.But that match, undoubtedly one of the greatest in tennis history, would not have been shortened by a tiebreaker under the unified rules announced on Wednesday.It ended at 7-5 in the fifth. More

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      Jane Campion and the Perils of the Backhanded Compliment

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      Jane Campion’s comment about Venus and Serena Williams reminded our critic of his own night of ‘botched fanciness’ and racial slights.Something about the way the director Jane Campion went overboard on Sunday to identify with, then insult, Venus and Serena Williams at an awards show brought to mind a night of botched fanciness that happened to me. A couple Fridays ago, I went to see some art: a Faith Ringgold retrospective at the New Museum in the afternoon, with friends; Norm Lewis singing at Carnegie Hall in the evening. (That was a solo trip.) For both, I wore a suit.The Ringgold show requires three floors and includes her 1967 masterpiece “American People Series #20: Die,” a blunt, bloody racial-rampage frieze that would be pure physical comedy about the era’s racial cataclysms were it not for the helpless terror in the faces she’s painted (Black men, women and children; white men, women and children). The scale of the canvas helps. It’s huge. Ringgold has always painted Black women in a range of moods, feelings, conditions, beauty. She gives them faces that feature both personal serenity and indicting alarm.I planted myself in a tight corridor that featured three works at the alarm end of things — the “Slave Rape” trio, from 1972. Each is a warm, sizable canvas of a woman nude and agape, framed by patchwork quilting, a signature of Ringgold. I was taking my time with one called “Slave Rape #2: Run You Might Get Away” — the woman is mid-flight, loosely shrouded by leaves, a big gold ring in each ear — when two strangers (women, white) parked themselves between me and the piece and continued a conversation I had heard them having in an adjacent gallery. They noticed neither me nor the depicted distress nor my engagement with it. I waited more than a minute before waving my hand, a gesture that seemed to irritate them.“Is something wrong?,” one stranger asked.“You’re in my way,” I told her.“Please accept our deepest apologies,” said her friend. If a middle ground exists between sincerity and sarcasm, these two had just planted a flag. But they did move, though not immediately, lest I relish some kind of relocation victory, and kept their talk of real estate and art ownership within earshot.The Faith Ringgold painting “American People Series #20: Die,” from 1967, in an  exhibition at the New Museum.Faith Ringgold/ARS, NY; Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesAfter a drink with my friends I left for Carnegie Hall. A cab made sense. One pulled up, and the driver (male, brown) took a look at me, then noticed a white woman hailing a taxi up ahead and drifted her way, instead. When I jogged over to ask him what just happened — Is something wrong? — I was given no acknowledgment in the way only a guilty cabby can achieve. I chased the car half a block to photograph a plate number that you’d have to be Weegee to get just right. I’m not Weegee.I’d never been to Carnegie Hall. And I liked the idea that Norm Lewis was going to break me in. He played Olivia Pope’s senator ex on “Scandal” and one of the vets in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods.” He’s got a luscious, flexible baritone that I’d only ever encountered in recorded concerts on PBS. That night, backed by the New York Pops, he gave Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Marvin Gaye the polished jewel treatment and pumped “Ya Got Trouble” with enough breathless gusto to make you wonder, with all due respect to Hugh Jackman, why the current “Music Man” revival isn’t starring him.As a solo performer, this was Lewis’s first show at Carnegie Hall, too. And people were anxious to see him and their beloved Pops. In a queue in the lobby before the show, one such person (woman, white) was making a point to push past me when I turned to ask if she was all right.“We’re going to will-call,” she said of herself and the gentleman she was with.“Ma’am, I think we all are,” I said.“We’re members. Are you?” she asked.I lied, hoping a yes would stanch her aggression.“Of the Pops?”She had me.“I like Norm Lewis,” I told her.“We love the Pops.”Venus Williams, left, and Serena Williams at the Critics Choice Awards; “King Richard,” a movie about their family, earned a best actor award for Will Smith.Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesI was thinking about my night out a week later when one of the world’s great filmmakers saluted two of the world’s greatest athletes in an acceptance speech at the Critics Choice Awards. Jane Campion had been given the directing prize for a sneaky-deep ranch drama called “The Power of the Dog.” From the stage, Campion (woman, white) saluted Venus and Serena Williams and announced that she had taken up tennis but her body had told her to stop. In her nervous excitement, Campion was charming. She then took curious note of her plight as a woman in the film industry by informing the Williamses that they’ve got nothing on her. “You are such marvels,” she said, through a grin. “However, you do not play against the guys like I have to.”The Williams sisters were in the room that evening because a smart, tangy movie about their family, “King Richard,” was in the nominations mix, alongside Campion’s. “King Richard” is not about the time in 2001 when a California crowd booed and slurred Venus and Serena and their father, Richard, at a top tennis tournament. It’s not about the many mischaracterizations of their bodies, skills and intent in the press and by their peers. It’s not about the insidiously everlasting confusion of one sister for the other, the sort of thing that, just a few weeks ago, took place on a page of this newspaper. It’s not even about their fight, Venus’s particularly, to get women’s prize money even with men’s “King Richard” is about how the sisters’ parents molded and loved and coached them into the sort of people who can handle sharp backhands and backhanded compliments with the same power and poise.Even though Campion’s errant backhand had flown wide, the room lurched into cheers. Some of the applause came from Serena Williams, who has watched many a shot sail long. I had to desist further thought about the meaning of Campion’s aside. It was too confused. Was this a wish for the establishment of gendered guardrails for directors at award shows or the elimination of such distinctions in sports? Are there no men to be contended with in tennis? The line separating argument from accusation and accusation from self-aggrandizement was murky. I thought instead about the costs of the murk.Sunday afternoon, the Williamses got dressed up to celebrate some art. And somebody stood before them and challenged the validity of their membership, here in Campion’s restricted vision of sisterhood. The next day, Campion gushed an apology. These slips and slights and presumptions have a way of lingering, though. Their underlying truth renders them contrition-proof. I had every intention of keeping my date with Faith and Norm to myself. These incidents aren’t rare in fancyland, and therefore don’t warrant a constant spotlight because standing in its glare is exhausting. But Venus. Her face does something as Campion speaks. A knowing cringe. She and her family came out to soak up more of the praise being lavished on art about their life. They were invitees turned, suddenly, into interlopers, presenting one minute, plunged through a trap door the next. Faith Ringgold would recognize the discomfort. She painted it over and over. Run you might get away. But you probably won’t. More

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      At Indian Wells, a Shot of Optimism for American Men’s Tennis

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      Long without a major tournament champion, the United States has four players in the round of 16 at the BNP Paribas Open and seven in the top 50.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — False dawns in American men’s tennis? There have been quite a few in the last 20 years here in the California desert and in more well-watered parts of the pro circuit.So, it is unquestionably wise not to get carried away in a sport the Europeans still rule, as they have since a smooth-moving Swiss man named Roger Federer calmed his nerves and slipped into a higher gear in 2004 to leave Andy Roddick in his rearview mirror at the top of the rankings.Since then, tall and good-natured American men in the shadows, like John Isner and Sam Querrey, have had to field countless variations of one question: “What has happened to American men’s tennis?”But Isner, 36, long the top-ranked American man, had a look of quiet confidence on Tuesday night as he revisited that topic.“I think for the first time in a while you can actually say American tennis on the men’s side is very promising,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”How not to detect a cool breeze of optimism after watching Tommy Paul, 24, knock out the third-seeded Alexander Zverev in a third-set tiebreaker here at the BNP Paribas Open on Sunday night and then seeing the 21-year-old Californian Jenson Brooksby outhit and outwit the fifth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas in another three-set upset the following night?Indian Wells, a second home to many an affluent elder, has been prime real estate for coming of age this year, and that does not even include the 21-year-old American Sebastian Korda’s missed opportunity against Rafael Nadal in the second round. Korda, the younger brother of the L.P.G.A. stars Nelly and Jessica, was up two service breaks and 5-2 in the final set before allowing Nadal, one of the game’s greats, to wriggle free.Patrick McEnroe, the ESPN analyst and retired player, said Sebastian Korda could be a top-five player.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersEven without Korda, four American men have reached the round of 16 here: Isner, Brooksby, Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka, the 6-foot-11 power server with a bushy beard and swing speed worthy of a lumberjack. That is the most since 2004, and it also reflects their rise in the ATP rankings. The seven American men in the top 50 is also the most since 2004, and six of those seven men — all but Isner — are under 25.It is no takeover: The top 10 remains nearly all European, with Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada as the lone interloper. But it is progress, and there appears to be considerable upside.“I think that’s true,” said Patrick McEnroe, an ESPN analyst, former pro player and U.S. Davis Cup captain. “I think particularly from Opelka, Brooksby, Korda and maybe throw Fritz in there, although I don’t know if he’s got the athleticism to get to the top-top.”McEnroe, like a lot of people in tennis, looks at the 18-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, with his blazing speed and all-action, all-court game, and clearly sees a future No. 1 player.“I wouldn’t say that about the Americans,” McEnroe said. “But I would say, to me, I could see Brooksby, Korda and Opelka definitely hitting the top five at some point and definitely getting to the final four or final of a major. That’s what it’s going to take to get the average fan a little bit more interested in it, no doubt. So, I’m very optimistic, and if you have one or two of those guys do that, I think the other guys will feel even more emboldened.”For now, the Americans have a daunting Wednesday ahead with Opelka facing Nadal, Brooksby facing the defending tournament champion Cameron Norrie, Fritz facing the No. 29 seed Alex de Minaur, and Isner facing the No. 33 seed Grigor Dimitrov.This has been a long time building, and McEnroe had a view near the ground floor as the head of the United States Tennis Association’s player development program. He was pushed out in late 2014 in part because of poor men’s tour results. When his tenure ended, Isner was the only American man ranked in the top 50, but while in his role, McEnroe heard and saw plenty of Opelka, Paul, Fritz and Frances Tiafoe, a charismatic African American player from the Washington, D.C., area.All four are projected to be ranked in the top 40 after this tournament, with Opelka currently the top-ranked American at No. 17.“It’s cool that we can all do this together,” said Fritz, who is ranked 20th, after his narrow third-round victory over the Spanish qualifier Jaume Munar on Tuesday.They are fast friends. Boyhood group photos abound, and Opelka and Paul were long housemates in Florida. Like many groups of talented players from the same country, they are feeding off each other and pushing each other.“It’s really not surprising,” Fritz said. “I’ve been around these guys my whole life. I know how good they are.”Fritz, Opelka and Paul were all Grand Slam tournament junior singles champions, which is not necessarily a harbinger of professional success, although it certainly was for Federer, who won the Wimbledon boys’ title in 1998.But the Americans have all made it on tour. Trailing them in age, but not potential, are Korda and Brooksby, both 21 years old but with very different games.Korda is the 6-foot-5 son of Peter Korda, the 1998 Australian Open winner, and the retired WTA player Regina Rajchrtova. He has a flowing, balanced game with easy power, and his emotions, by design, are difficult to read on his placid game face.Brooksby is a fiery 6-foot-4 scrapper from Sacramento with an underpowered serve who has not been on tennis experts’ radar nearly as long as Korda has. His style is confrontational, and his strokes are artisanal. But his contact points are consistently clean, and his two-handed backhand is a versatile marvel — and he can punch and counterpunch with conviction with his forehand, too.“He’s a little bit unconventional in his ball-striking, but the space between a foot or two behind the ball and a foot or two in front of the ball, he repeats that over and over again,” said Brad Stine, Paul’s coach. “Would I teach someone to hit a ball exactly the way he hits the ball? No. But it’s absolutely, 100 percent repeatable for him.”The 6-foot-11 Reilly Opelka has used a powerful serve to climb to No. 17 in the rankings.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersStine compares Brooksby to the former top-five player Brad Gilbert, an author of the book “Winning Ugly.” Brooksby has repeatedly left higher-ranked players mystified and disgruntled during his brief and successful professional career. Add Tsitsipas, the hirsute Greek with the polished game and elegant one-handed backhand, to that list, as he damned Brooksby with faint praise (in defeat).“He’s not a very explosive player, but he’s able to get balls back,” Tsitsipas sniffed. “He’s not the most athletic player, as well. He’s just able to read the game well, play with his pace, play with the opponents’ pace.”“There’s nothing that he has that kills, I would say,” Tsitsipas concluded.But Brooksby seemed far from miffed. “I think a lot of players and coaches maybe don’t see how I could be as good of a level as I am,” he said. “That’s what we shoot for in our games and strategy, not to be too easily figured out. That’s how the top players over history have been.”For now, Brooksby is ranked 43rd. The top spot, occupied by Daniil Medvedev of Russia and soon to be reoccupied by Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, is a long way off. It remains highly advisable to keep the Champagne in the fridge with young talents like Alcaraz and Italy’s Jannik Sinner already well-established threats, but the Americans and the collective mood are justifiably upbeat.Even Isner did not seem to mind answering yet another question about the future on Tuesday: What would it take for us to say American men’s tennis is really back? A Slam title?“No, because the bar has been set pretty low since 2003, probably,” Isner said. “I think getting two guys in the top 10 would be a good starting point. Then you go from there.”That, in Isner’s mind, “in the near future is very conceivable.” More

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      At Indian Wells, Daniil Medvedev Faces Backlash Over Ukraine Invasion

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      At Indian Wells, the Russian fell in the third round to Gael Monfils of France, as Medvedev faced criticism that Russian players should not be competing because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Daniil Medvedev’s reign as the No. 1 men’s tennis player will not last long — at least, not this time.Medvedev, a 26-year-old Russian, took over the top spot for the first time in his career last week from Novak Djokovic, but his third-round loss to Gael Monfils on Monday will allow Djokovic to reclaim the No. 1 ranking next week. Djokovic will ascend even though he was unable to play in the BNP Paribas Open because of the vaccination requirement for non-American visitors to the United States.Medvedev, who is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, did make the journey to California, although some of his peers believe he also should not have been allowed to compete at Indian Wells because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Russian athletes have been banned from most international team competitions and some individual events, including World Cup competitions in biathlon and skiing and the recently concluded Beijing Winter Paralympics.Marta Kostyuk, a rising Ukrainian star, said at Indian Wells that she did not think Russian tennis players like Medvedev should be allowed to compete. But after lengthy debate, tennis’s governing bodies have decided to preserve players’ right to compete individually as neutrals while banning Russia and Belarus, its ally, from team events like the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup.Medvedev is grateful to keep his job, but all too aware that these are fluid, deeply sensitive circumstances. “First of all, it’s definitely not for me to decide,” he said. “I follow the rules. I cannot do anything else. Right now, the rule is that we can play under our neutral flag.”But the war certainly changes the optics of matches like Monday’s.Gael Monfils after winning his third-round match at Indian Wells.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersMonfils, a Frenchman, recently married Elina Svitolina, Ukraine’s biggest tennis star, who was watching from his player box on Monday as the Ukrainian flag flapped in the breeze in its new place of honor atop the main stadium at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. The flag was installed there this year next to the American one in a show of support for Ukraine.Monfils, ranked No. 28 at age 35, said he did not view Monday’s match — or his surprising, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, victory — through a political lens, but a personal one.“I’m not very political in general,” he said in French. “I’m a support for my wife. A sad thing has come to her country. I try to do the maximum to support her in whatever she chooses to do, but today we were here for playing. I’m simply happy to have won my match.”Monfils said that it had been difficult to see the distress of his Ukrainian in-laws.“It’s not easy to see my wife a couple weeks ago crying every night,” he said in English. “Still quite a lot of family still there. It’s tough describe because I’m in it. And it’s just kind of crazy when you think about it, but we try to manage it the best way we can.”Kostyuk, beaten in the second round here, said she was upset that more Russian players had not approached her to apologize directly for the invasion, but many of the Russian and Belarusian stars, including Medvedev, have called for peace. Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, a former world No. 1, said she had sought out Ukrainian players since the war began last month.“Whatever I say I know can be twisted in many, many different ways,” she said. “But one thing that’s missing in this world is compassion toward each other and empathy. That’s something I feel I can offer to people.”Medvedev’s short stint at No. 1 has not been business as usual. Reaching the top spot in the rankings is one of tennis’s ultimate achievements, and Medvedev is the first man outside the Big Four of Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray to reign at No. 1 since early 2004.In normal times, that would have been cause for fanfare. But these are traumatic times, and though the ATP Tour did award Medvedev the crystal trophy it reserves for first-time No. 1 players and hold a photo shoot with his support team, there was no media tour; no series of promotional events and interviews.His management company, I.M.G., has said that no sponsors have dropped Medvedev since the war began, but this is not an appropriate climate for Medvedev to be searching for new international sponsors.A courtside sign at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.Ray Acevedo/EPA, via ShutterstockWith the war, it is prudent for Russian stars to maintain a low profile. Speaking out against the war or President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could carry risks for them and their relatives who are still in Russia or Belarus.“I don’t think you should ask them to be more vocal about it, because they have family to consider, and now, you know, they can get 15 years in prison for talking about the war,” said Martina Navratilova, the former top-ranked player who defected in 1975 to the United States from Czechoslovakia when it was part of the Soviet bloc.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4A show of E.U. support. More

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      Should Russian Athletes Be Barred From Competition?

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      Our columnist examines whether the soft power of sport should be wielded against Russia, penalizing athletes with little or no say in its actions.Russia’s Daniil Medvedev, the top-ranked male tennis player in the world, is the No. 1 seed at the big Indian Wells tournament set to finish this weekend.Should he still be playing while his country is invading Ukraine?Russia’s Alex Ovechkin is one of the most gifted hockey players the world has seen. And oh, by the way, he’s a longtime supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin. Should Ovechkin still be scoring goals for the N.H.L.’s Washington Capitals?Should any Russian nationals be allowed on the sports world stage right now?In an effort to condemn sports-loving Putin and further isolate his nation, the sports world reacted with remarkable swiftness as the war in Ukraine began. We’ve seen Russia barred from World Cup qualifiers in soccer and its basketball teams cut from international play. Tennis called off its Moscow tournament, and Formula 1 ended ties with the Russian Grand Prix.Even the normally tentative International Olympic Committee got in the mix by recommending athletes from Russia and Belarus, which has supported the invasion, be barred from sports events, and the Paralympics after some wavering did just that.But the bans are not complete.Many Russian athletes continue to prosper right in front of us. Individual soccer players can still participate in European soccer leagues. Ovechkin leads a robust Russian contingent in professional hockey, and the country’s tennis players continue to make good livings on the pro tours, though they cannot participate in tournaments with any national identification.Should these players’ days as competitors outside Russia be numbered — at least until the war ends and Ukraine sovereignty is restored?Bruce Kidd thinks so. Kidd represented Canada at the 1964 Summer Olympics as a distance runner, and has long been a human rights leader in sports.During the era of South African apartheid, he helped lead the charge for Canadian restrictions on South African athletes, which began taking effect in the 1970s.When I spoke to him last week, Kidd was adamant: Using hockey as an example that could spread globally, he believes Russian nationals in the N.H.L. should be barred once the current season ends in June, their immigration visas suspended with the door open for asylum.Such a move would not stop the war, of course. But similar to the effort he promoted during apartheid, ending Russian sports participation would buttress economic penalties, deprive Putin the chance to revel in the athletic exploits of Russian players and send a message of support to Ukraine.“The No. 1 argument is to say, ‘Mr. Putin, the sports community is so outraged by your repeated violations of human rights, your violation of the basic values of sports and fair play, that we are saying enough is enough,” said Kidd, whose idea has been echoed in similar form by the Ukrainian Embassy in Canada. “We are showing you and your population our abhorrence.”Bruce Kidd, a professor and longtime humanitarian in the Canadian sports world, at his home in Toronto.Cole Burston for The New York TimesKidd, now the ombudsperson at the University of Toronto, knows detractors will tell him that such a move runs contrary to the principles of a free society. In normal times, he would agree. Not now.All Russian athletes, he added, are highly visible representatives of the nation they come from, “whether they like it or not.”I tend to agree with Kidd. But I’m also wary. Barring individual athletes is likely to add to the unfounded feeling of grievance shared by Putin and many in Russia. It may also fuel dangerous xenophobia against everyday people of Russian descent.That eerie silence from most Russian athletes, the refusal to say anything critical after blood doping scandals and now the bombing and killing in Ukraine? No doubt some stay quiet because they support Putin and want to steer clear of controversy.Some also stay quiet out of well-placed fear for their safety and that of family in Russia.If we bar all sports stars from the aggressive nation in this war, what about those who have taken the risk of speaking against it?Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 3Looking for a way out. More

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      Naomi Osaka Brought to Tears by Heckler at Indian Wells

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      “I don’t know why, but it went into my head,” said Osaka, who otherwise had ample support from the crowd in her loss to Veronika Kudermetova of Russia.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Crying on court after being heckled by a spectator, Naomi Osaka was knocked out of the BNP Paribas Open in the second round on Saturday.Osaka, the Japanese star who has struggled with her mental health and with ambivalence toward professional tennis, spoke to the crowd directly at her request after her 6-0, 6-4 defeat against the No. 21 seed, Veronika Kudermetova.Fighting for composure, Osaka explained that the heckler, who shouted, “Naomi, you suck!” after the opening game, had made her flash back to footage she had seen of Venus and Serena Williams being booed and jeered at Indian Wells during the tournament in 2001.“To be honest, I’ve gotten heckled before, and it didn’t really bother me,” Osaka said. “But, like, heckled here? I watched a video of Venus and Serena getting heckled here, and if you’ve never watched it, you should watch it.“And I don’t know why, but it went into my head, and it got replayed a lot,” she continued, apparently referring to Saturday’s match.Osaka then thanked the crowd, slung her bag over her shoulder and left the court.Osaka, a former No. 1 whose ranking has dropped to No. 78, was unseeded this year at Indian Wells, where she made a major breakthrough by winning her first WTA singles title in 2018 as an unseeded player. She has gone on to win four Grand Slam singles titles, most recently at the 2021 Australian Open. But since then, she has played infrequently and has not won another tour event, or even reached another final. Saturday’s defeat was her latest setback, and her latest vulnerable moment in the public eye.“I feel like I’ve cried enough on camera,” she said in teary post-match remarks to the crowd. She skipped her post-match news conference.Osaka fought back tears in her brief remarks to the crowd after her defeat.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAfter the tension in 2001, the Williams sisters did not return to the tournament in Indian Wells for more than a decade, with Serena only coming back in 2015 and Venus in 2016. Serena, now 40, and Venus, now 41, are still active players but neither is participating in the event this year.During the Williams sisters’ early years as professionals, there was speculation on tour that their father and co-coach, Richard Williams, was prearranging the results of their matches against each other. At Indian Wells in 2001, the Russian player Elena Dementieva spoke about her suspicion publicly after losing to Venus Williams in the quarterfinals.When Venus withdrew from the semifinal against Serena only minutes before it was to begin, citing tendinitis in her right knee, the crowd responded by booing. Dementieva later insisted her comment had been joke, and the sisters and Richard Williams denied that any of their match results were prearranged.But two days later, Serena Williams was booed throughout the tournament final, and Richard Williams, who was watching from the stands with Venus, said he was subjected to racial slurs. Serena Williams won in three sets but has said that the experience was traumatic and “haunted” her and her family for years.The circumstances on Saturday seemed vastly different. Osaka, 24, had ample support from the overwhelming majority of the crowd. There were several thousand fans scattered throughout the stands in the 16,100-seat main stadium on a chilly evening, and after the heckler’s insult — clearly audible on the television broadcasts of the match — there were loud cheers for Osaka’s few winners in the opening set and even more support for her down the stretch as she raised her game.Osaka defeated the former U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens in three sets in the first round on Thursday. But she faced another tough test in Kudermetova, a powerful Russian on the rise whom she had never played in singles.“I want to play that match because I want to see what I can improve, what I need to improve,” Kudermetova said. But the match ended up illustrating more about Osaka’s vulnerabilities and tennis weaknesses than about Kudermetova’s strengths.Osaka took a three-month break from the game after losing to Leylah Fernandez in the third round of last year’s U.S. Open, explaining that she was no longer finding joy in competing. She returned to the tour in Australia in January with a more upbeat mind-set but was beaten in the third round of the Australian Open by the American Amanda Anisimova.Indian Wells was only Osaka’s third tournament in six months, and while she conceded that she needed more matches to get back “into the swing of things” she only got two more here.Kudermetova broke Osaka’s serve in the opening game, and the spectator’s shout came as Osaka prepared to return serve. She approached the chair umpire, Paula Vieira Souza, and appeared to ask about having the spectator ejected, but Souza politely demurred. Kudermetova held serve, and Osaka began to tear up as she prepared to serve the next game.“I didn’t hear what the lady say because I really so focus on my game, on my service game,” Kudermetova said of the heckler. “I didn’t understand what she said, but after that moment, I saw that Naomi, she start to cry.”After Osaka was broken again, she had another extended conversation with Souza, who reassured her that if the spectator heckled her again, the person would be identified and ejected. Osaka asked if she could use the referee’s microphone to address the crowd directly.Souza declined, and the WTA Tour supervisor Clare Wood was called to the court and discussed the matter with Osaka as the player sat on her chair.When play resumed, Osaka continued to struggle to find her range and lost the set at love. Wood spoke with Osaka again before the start of the second set, which was much more competitive. But Kudermetova broke Osaka’s serve in the seventh game and went on to close out her victory.Osaka shook hands with her opponent and then waited for Kudermetova to give the customary victor’s on-court interview before walking to the microphone herself. Though Osaka thanked the crowd in her brief remarks, Osaka’s decision to connect her treatment on Saturday to the Williams sisters’ experiences in 2001 was surely unwelcome linkage for tournament organizers.Andrew Krasny, the on-court interviewer at the BNP Paribas Open, tried to reassure Osaka as she finished her remarks and headed for the exit.“Out of about 10,000 people, one person’s voice can’t weigh out 9,999 others,” he said. “We love you here.” More

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      At Indian Wells, Ukrainian Tennis Stars Take Their Fight to the Court

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      Playing through fear of the war, Marta Kostyuk said that she must show “what it’s like having a Ukrainian heart” and that it “hurts” to see Russian players at the tournament.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The Ukrainian teenager Marta Kostyuk and the Belgian veteran Maryna Zanevska played for more than three hours in the sun and a swirling wind.They played through pain and concern about issues much larger than tennis, and when they met on the same side of the net after Kostyuk’s victory, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (6), 7-5, in the opening round on Thursday, they shared a long, tearful embrace and a similar message.“I told her that everything is going to be all right,” Zanevska said.“I told her that everything is going to be OK, that our parents are going to be OK,” Kostyuk said.Indian Wells is a 10-hour time change and more than 6,000 miles away from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, where Kostyuk was born, and from the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, where Zanevska was born before immigrating to Belgium in her teens and leaving her relatives behind.But Ukraine’s war with Russia, now into its third week, still feels inescapably close to the Ukrainian players competing at the BNP Paribas Open.“It’s just terrifying,” said Kostyuk, 19, one of tennis’s brightest young talents. “Especially in the beginning, the first couple days, my whole family was there. They were all in one house, so if anything was about to happen, I would lose the whole family. So, thinking of it is just you go to sleep and you don’t know if you wake up the next morning having the family.”She continued: “I’m coping the way I’ve been coping. Everyone is different. I chose to fight. I came here. At the beginning, I was feeling guilty that I’m not there. You know, the whole family is there but not me. I was feeling guilty that I’m playing tennis, that I have the sky above me that is blue and bright and very calm and mixed feelings. But you can’t be in this position, because everyone is fighting how they can fight, and my job is to play tennis, and this is the biggest way I can help in the current situation.”Daniil Medvedev of Russia, left, with another Russian player, Karen Khachanov, at Indian Wells this week.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesRussian players are in Indian Wells, too, but while Kostyuk played with Ukraine next to her name in the draw and on the scoreboard, the Russians and the Belarusian athletes, whose country has cooperated with Russia’s attack on Ukraine, are playing without national symbols or identification, as mandated by the men’s and women’s tours.Ukraine’s biggest tennis star, Elina Svitolina, lobbied successfully for that policy before she agreed to play Russia’s Anastasia Potapova in a match at the tournament in Monterrey, Mexico, earlier this month. But Kostyuk believes Russian players should be barred from competing on tour altogether, even as individuals.“I don’t agree with the action that has been taken,” she said. “Look at the other sports. Look at the big sports, what they did.”Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from the Paralympics in Beijing, and Russian national teams and clubs have been banned from major global sports like soccer and basketball. But though Russian and Belarusian track and field athletes have been barred from major competitions like this year’s world outdoor championships in Eugene, Ore., individual Russian athletes are still allowed to compete internationally for their non-Russian clubs in, for example, European soccer leagues and the N.H.L.Daniil Medvedev, the Russian men’s star who recently displaced Novak Djokovic atop the rankings, acknowledged that “there is always a possibility” that Russian tennis players could be banned altogether.“We never know,” Medvedev said in Indian Wells on Wednesday. “The way the situation is evolving in other sports, some sports made this decision, especially the team sports.”But for now, tennis has taken a comparatively moderate approach, although this year’s men’s and women’s tour events in Moscow have been canceled and Russian teams have been barred from the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup.“I do feel really sorry that the Russian players have to go through this, but the Ukrainian people are going through much worse things,” Maryna Zanevska said.Clive Brunskill/Getty Images“It’s a very tricky thing because I see that all other sports are removing Russians from their competitions,” Zanevska said. “And in the tennis community they did a few steps like removing the flag, and I can imagine it’s tough for the Russian players as well. But really unfortunately, Ukraine needs support as much as possible from all over the world, all the communities, all the types of sports. It counts. I do feel really sorry that the Russian players have to go through this, but the Ukrainian people are going through much worse things.”The Russian star Andrey Rublev wrote “No war please” on the camera in Dubai last month, and others like Medvedev and the Belarusian women’s stars Victoria Azarenka and Aryna Sabalenka have called for “peace.” But Kostyuk, whose yellow-and-blue tennis outfit here matches the colors of Ukraine’s flag, said she did not like such vague appeals.“For me ‘No war’ means a lot of things,” she said. “No war? We can stop the war by giving up, but I know this was never an option.”She added: “These ‘No war’ statements, they hurt me — they hurt me because they have no substance.”Such sentiments are, nonetheless, too strong for the tournament organizers here. On Thursday, as Kostyuk and Zanevska played in Stadium 6, Wilfred Williams and Mary Beth Williams, American fans, held up a homemade banner that featured two Ukrainian flags and two messages written in Russian: the word “war” with a diagonal line through it and “Let’s go!”After the match, a tournament official told the Williamses, who are siblings, that they could not continue to display the banner. The BNP Paribas Open does not allow politically oriented signs, although national flags are permitted, and the tournament, in a show of support, has placed Ukrainian flags in its two main stadiums.“We just love peace and love tennis,” Mary Beth Williams said.Ukraine’s biggest tennis star, Elina Svitolina, at the Monterrey Open last month.Daniel Becerril/ReutersKostyuk said she had been in Kyiv in late 2013 and early 2014 when a series of protests led to the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s pro-Russia president who later fled the country.“I remember how united everyone was and I remember that we changed the government, and the fact that the guy decided that he thought that finally after eight years we would want to join him, I think, is a very big mistake,” Kostyuk said, referring to Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president.Both Kostyuk and Zanevska, whose parents remain in Odessa, said they were disappointed that Russian players had not expressed regret for the invasion to them directly.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. More

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      Djokovic Is Included in Indian Wells Draw Despite Unclear Covid Vaccination Status

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      Novak Djokovic, one of the world’s most prominent sports stars to hold out against getting a coronavirus vaccination, was included in the field for this week’s Indian Wells tennis tournament in Southern California, even though there are doubts over whether he will be able to enter the United States and participate.Djokovic was deported from Australia in January after immigration officials there ruled that he was a danger to society because they said he could energize the country’s anti-vaccination movement. He was thus unable to defend his Australian Open title, which he has won a record nine times.Djokovic has expressed reluctance to be vaccinated against coronavirus, saying that he was not convinced by the science. He said the issue was more important to him than adding to the 20 Grand Slam tournaments he has won.Djokovic told Australian border officials in January that he was unvaccinated, and in recent interviews has given no indication that his status has changed.Djokovic’s name and picture appeared on a list of players in the main draw for the BNP Paribas Open, which starts on Wednesday at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Although not one of the sport’s four Grand Slams, the hardcourt event is considered one of the biggest tournaments in the world.Djokovic, the tournament’s second seed, has a bye in the first round, so he is not scheduled to play until Saturday.Under U.S. immigration law, people who are not citizens and also not immigrants must show proof of full vaccination as well as a negative coronavirus test to enter the country by air.Djokovic spent two years as the game’s No. 1 ranked player until February, when he slipped to No. 2.In his absence, Rafael Nadal won the Australian Open and moved one ahead of his rival as the men’s player with the most Grand Slam wins. Nadal also is listed among the players at Indian Wells, although Roger Federer, who has also won 20 Grand Slam titles, is not. More