Auger-Aliassime, Felix (2000- )

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    The Tennis Podcast that Champions, and Hosts, Black Pros

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    Black Spin Global found an audience with its cheeky coverage of the growing number of ranked Black tennis players. It also offered them a forum.Eugene Allen was an 8-year-old Black boy growing up in southwest London when he first started to nurse hopes of one day playing professional tennis. It was 1997, and there were no Black men ranked in the top 100 on the ATP Tour. Venus Williams had just made her U.S. Open debut that year, and she and Chanda Rubin were the only Black women ranked in the top 50 in the world; Serena Williams was at No. 99.About 10 years later, Allen put down his rackets to focus on his education. The costs of the game — coaching sessions, travel to tournaments, equipment — were piling up. His family could no longer afford to help him prepare for the pro circuit.“I kind of fell out of love with it,” he said. “There was almost a resentment.”Now, Allen is the center of an online community focusing exclusively on Black tennis players worldwide, at a time when there are more pros and juniors on tour than ever before. As of July 1, there were five Black men ranked in the top 50: Ben Shelton (No. 14), Felix Auger-Aliassime (No. 17), Frances Tiafoe (No. 29), Gael Monfils (No. 33) and Arthur Fils (No. 34). On the WTA Tour, there were four women: Coco Gauff (No. 2), Jasmine Paolini (No. 7), Madison Keys (No. 13) and Sloane Stephens (No. 50).Since 2019, Allen has run Black Spin Global, a digital media brand that encompasses a podcast, blog and social media accounts where he and Lucy Tezangi delve deep into the tennis universe. “It’s not just, ‘Oh, they won,’” she said. “It’s match updates, breaking news, coach updates, player updates and so on.”Allen, 35, was lured back to the sport in the mid-2010s, when both Williams sisters were routinely ranked in the top 20 and James Blake, Monfils and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga were fan favorites breaking through on the men’s tour.Since leaving high-level competition, Allen had majored in journalism and taken jobs at The Daily Mail Online and The Telegraph, while writing freelance soccer articles. He founded Pitching It Black, a website dedicated to covering Black soccer players in Europe, in 2016 and thought, what if he did something similar for tennis?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Life at a Grand Slam: What You Don’t See on TV at the U.S. Open

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      When Mackenzie McDonald dueled Félix Auger-Aliassime for three and a half hours in the opening round of the U.S. Open, fans were only seeing a glimpse of the time McDonald put in toward his surprise win on Monday.For both players, and hundreds of others at the sprawling tournament, a match day extends well beyond a warm-up and the contest itself. The preparation, of course, takes weeks and months, with the grueling men’s and women’s professional tennis tours pushing players to seek higher rankings to gain a more favorable path at the Grand Slam tournaments.And once they arrive in Queens, a new series of obstacles emerges as players adapt to the feel of the courts, the ambience of New York and the demands of one of the world’s biggest sporting events.McDonald greeting his agent Saturday morning before heading to Queens.The driver was able to get McDonald to Billie Jean King Tennis Center from Manhattan in less than a half-hour for a sponsor event on Saturday morning.For McDonald, the 28-year-old American who broke into the top 50 of the singles rankings in 2022 and upset Rafael Nadal in the second round of this year’s Australian Open, the preparation for the U.S. Open began on Aug. 22 when he arrived in New York. McDonald, who lost in straight sets to Borna Gojo of Croatia in the second round on Wednesday, said he trained hard for his first few days, then tapered a bit to recover before his four-set duel against Auger-Aliassime.Those practices, along with the travel, can become repetitive. Jessica Pegula, the American ranked third in women’s singles, last week compared the routine on tour to “Groundhog Day,” the 1993 film in which a man relives one day again and again. McDonald echoed that sentiment.“Things can get monotonous week after week, locker room after locker room, hotel after hotel,” McDonald said. “It’s good to have those small goals or little things that drive you that make you believe that you can get better.”Two Days OutTwo days before his opening match, McDonald couldn’t focus solely on his play. Before practicing on Saturday, he had to stop by a fan event put on by Wilson, his racket sponsor.His day began around 8:45 a.m. as he made his way down to the lobby of his hotel in Manhattan’s Murray Hill neighborhood. A driver and S.U.V. were waiting for him, his girlfriend and his trainer as they walked out of the hotel.McDonald volleyed with children and posed for photos and videos during an event for his racket sponsor, Wilson.On a normal day, the drive from the East Side of Manhattan to Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park can take up to an hour in heavy traffic.“It’s never easy,” McDonald said of the commute to Queens. “Day after day, it definitely adds up.”But on a Saturday morning, with little traffic and an assertive driver familiar with shortcuts, the ride was a brisk 21 minutes 16 seconds.The quick ride afforded McDonald some extra time to drop off his bags before heading to the Wilson event, where he spent about half an hour volleying with children, then posed for pictures and videos.With that commitment filled, McDonald could focus on more intense tennis for the rest of his day, starting by working with a physiotherapist and finding time to eat, and following that with two hours of practice.McDonald’s first hour of practice was scheduled at noon against Marcos Giron, another American player, on Court 4 near Arthur Ashe Stadium. As McDonald and Giron hit back and forth and played out points, dozens of fans stopped by to watch them. As their practice drew to a close, several of those fans began to gather courtside in hopes of an autograph or a picture. But McDonald had no time.After shaking hands with Giron and his trainer, McDonald quickly grabbed his bags and scurried off for his next practice on a court on the opposite end of the tennis center, nearly half a mile away.To avoid having players walk that distance through a sea of fans, the U.S. Open has vans that shuttle them and their trainers out to the farthest practice courts. McDonald and his trainer hopped in a van, but the driver wanted to stay a few more minutes to see if any other players would come.Already behind schedule, McDonald politely asked the driver if they could leave without waiting. In the early rounds of the tournament, when hundreds of players need to practice, court time is precious.“They definitely show the glamour of the sport on TV,” McDonald said. “It is all the behind the scenes, it is the day to day and the around-the-year tournaments that we play that really get us to these moments.”By the time McDonald arrived to his next practice court, it was just after 2 p.m., and the sun was beaming down with temperatures in the 80s. He trained for another hour before finally cooling down and heading back to his hotel to rest.Shuttle vans are available to allow players to move between practice courts without having to wade through crowds. McDonald had two hours of practice scheduled for Saturday afternoon on two different courts. He did not have time to sign autographs between sessions.Last PracticeOn Sunday, McDonald wanted to scale back his workload to only an hour of tennis, so he could be fresher for his match the next day. He still did not know his exact playing time, but because it would likely be in the afternoon, McDonald said he hoped to have an afternoon court slot on Sunday.He was scheduled for 4 p.m. against Lloyd Harris of South Africa on Court 5, where McDonald was scheduled to play the next day.“Way more of a chiller day for me,” McDonald said, adding that the rest of his Sunday would be spent resting, hydrating and taking “my mind off of tennis for a bit.”But even when he’s not training, McDonald said there’s other preparation that goes into playing a match, including creating a game plan and looking over analytics.“The mental preparation for my match on Monday started once that draw came out,” he said.Match DayBefore McDonald’s match on Monday, there were three others scheduled on Court 5, starting at 11 a.m. Being scheduled later in the day often leaves players trying to figure out how long each of those matches will last so they can plan an ideal time to leave their hotel.McDonald, right, played the underdog against Felix Auger-Aliassime, left, a Canadian who has been ranked as high as sixth in the world.McDonald was down, 0-40, in a game in the fourth set before rallying to win the game, set and match.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesBut trying to make those predictions can be a gamble when rain or a lengthy five-set men’s match can delay another match’s start time. At majors, McDonald said that he likes to arrive four hours before a match to be treated by a physiotherapist, hit with a partner for half an hour, have lunch and then prepare his sports drinks and rackets.“There’s definitely a lot of little nuances that go in part of each day that you’re really submerged in,” he said. “Everything’s invested toward what’s going to prepare me best to play this match today.”McDonald and Auger-Aliassime finally took Court 5 around 5:45 p.m., and after a quick warm-up, it was 5:51 p.m. when the umpire, Jaume Campistol, said: “Ready? Play.”From the beginning, it looked like the match was going to be a long duel. It took an hour and nine minutes for McDonald to win the first set on a tiebreaker.Auger-Aliassime took the second set, but after that, McDonald settled in. As McDonald and Auger-Aliassime played on, cheers from Arthur Ashe Stadium overflowed out of the venue, and they could be heard on Court 5. At one point in the fourth set, Auger-Aliassime appeared to complain to the chair umpire about the noise coming from Ashe.Eventually, after more than three hours on the court, McDonald prevailed, winning the last five points of the final game of the fourth set to win, 7-6 (5), 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, and advance to the second round.Before his win, McDonald said that each incremental victory is what motivates him on tour. The drive to advance, he said, pushes him through long practices, commutes and extensive travel.“I want to win a title so bad,” said McDonald, who has made one singles final in his career, losing to Jannik Sinner of Italy at the 2021 Citi Open in Washington, D.C. “I always find that each week, your opportunity each week, can be that week that can shift things, and I think that dream is what we’re all chasing.”And after he beat Auger-Aliassime, the routine of mental and physical preparation began again for Round 2. More

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      Bum Knees, Stress Fractures and Mental Anguish. Oh, Canada.

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      Canada has been striving to become a top tennis nation for two decades, and with two Wimbledon finals appearances and a U.S. Open title it seemed to be working. Then things quieted down.It may be a little hard to remember, with all the injuries, career detours and mystifying losses, but there was a time when everything seemed possible for Canadian tennis.Every time a tennis fan looked up, it seemed, another wildly talented or gritty Canadian had made a Grand Slam final. Bianca Andreescu even won one, beating Serena Williams in the 2019 U.S. Open when she was still a teenager, playing with a style so creative she left tennis aesthetes drooling.Lately, with all the bum knees (Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime), stress fractures (Leylah Fernandez) and the mental anguish (Milos Raonic and Andreescu) that so many players struggle with these days, even Fernandez’s improbable run to the 2021 U.S. Open final can feel like it was a long time ago.And then there was a day like Wednesday at Wimbledon, with the rain finally going away long enough for outdoor tennis to happen, for Shapovalov and Raonic to show why there had been so much fuss in the first place. Both came back from a set down to win in four sets, giving Shapovalov a chance to reminisce about what it had meant to him to be a junior player from a country known mostly for its prowess in sports with ice (hockey and curling) and watching Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard nearly go all the way on the Wimbledon grass.“It kind of put a real belief in mine and Felix’s eyes that it’s possible as a Canadian,” Shapovalov said, after beating Radu Albot of Moldova 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 in a match that began on Monday. “And I’m sure with the generations, you know, following me, Felix, Bianca. Leylah, I’m sure there’s much more belief in the country, that it is possible even if the country is cold or is mostly wintertime.”Apparently, Canadians missed the string of champions that Sweden, hardly a temperate locale, produced during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, such as Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg.Shapovalov and Raonic, who played and won his first match at a Grand Slam tournament in two and a half years Monday, beating Denis Novak of Austria, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6(5), 6-1, will be back at it on Thursday. Both men will play second-round matches, as will Fernandez. Andreescu will be out there, too, finally playing her first-round match against Anna Bondar of Hungary.Leylah Fernandez will play Caroline Garcia of France in the second round.Adam Davy/Press Association, via Associated PressAuger-Aliassime, who has been dealing with a sore knee all year, lost in the first round at the All England Club for a second consecutive year. The nagging injury and the latest loss count as major disappointments for Auger-Aliassime, who broke out in his late teens and whose powerful serve and movement should allow him to excel on grass.But a Wimbledon schedule filled with Canadians is what the nation’s higher-ups in the sport were shooting for when they set out to make Canada a top-level tennis country nearly 20 years ago. Other than long, cold winters, Canada seemed to have everything a country needed to achieve big things in tennis — wealth, diversity and a commitment to spend money on building facilities and importing top coaches.It built a tennis center in Montreal and satellite facilities in other major cities and began to focus on developing young children and teenagers. It hired Louis Borfiga, a leading tennis mind from France who was Borg’s hitting partner, to oversee player development.Blessed with the good fortune of players with natural talent and parents willing to support it, Canada had Bouchard and Raonic rolling by the mid-2010s and Shapovalov, Andreescu and Auger-Aliassime tearing up the junior rankings, with Fernandez not far behind.The success — last year Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime led Canada to its first Davis Cup title — and the struggles have bred a camaraderie among the players. They know when the others are playing even when they are not in the same tournament.“I’m guilty of following the results of all my fellow Canadians,” said Fernandez, who remembers just a few years ago seeing Auger-Aliassime training a few courts down from her in Montreal and thinking, “Oh, this is inspiring.”When Fernandez was injured last year, one of the first texts she received was from Andreescu, who has been battling all sorts of ailments seemingly since she won the 2019 U.S. Open. Andreescu told Fernandez that she was there for her whatever she needed and that Fernandez was headed for a tough time, but would get through it.Earlier this year, when Andreescu rolled her ankle and suffered what looked to be a devastating injury at the Miami Open, Fernandez sent the support right back. “I was like, ‘Bianca, you’re strong, you’ll get back, you’re a great tennis player, and a great person.’”Rain forced Denis Shapovalov to play his first-round match over two days.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressOn Wednesday, Shapovalov and Raonic found each other in the locker room, trying to manage the rain delays that have disrupted the tournament all week.Raonic said he had forgotten his old routine because it had been so long since he had dealt with something like that. At first he tried to keep moving to stay loose, but then thought he might have been burning too much energy.He sat down for a bit with Shapovalov, who was passing the time with his coach by answering animal trivia questions. Raonic jumped into the game and said everyone was entertained to learn which sea animal can breathe through its rear end. (Turtle). There was also a spirited argument about the killing power of a mosquito versus that of sharks. Shapovalov was firmly on the side that sharks are scarier than a malaria-carrying insect.Eventually, the rain subsided along with the zoology debate. Then it was time for Raonic to head back to the court and deliver the sort of victory that once happened all the time, wearing down Novak with his blasting serve and big forehand. Later in the afternoon, when Shapovalov found his rhythm on those smooth, graceful strokes, Albot never had a chance.In a symbol of how tenuous Canada’s tennis efforts have become, both Shapovalov and Raonic easily might not have been at the All England Club this year.Shapovalov has been limping on and off in recent months and had to cut his practices short on grass when the pain grew too intense.Raonic said through his injury struggles during the past few years he had come to terms with the idea that his life after tennis had begun. But he drove by a tennis court each day near his home in the Bahamas, or would see tennis on television while he worked out at a local gym, and he figured he might as well give it another shot.On Wednesday, he said he was annoyed with himself for not enjoying the moment more, being back at the All England Club, playing in the Grand Slam where he had his greatest success and helped make Canada believe. In his words, it was easy to detect a larger message about the often fleeting nature of success, on a single day, or during an era.“You just get caught up with the whole process of competing and trying to find a way to win and that passes by really quickly,” he said. “Then you don’t really get to enjoy the match.” More

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      Sometimes Tennis Is a Waiting Game. And Waiting and Waiting.

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      Games can take a long time, and players waiting to take the court for the next match have to find ways to stay sharp.When Felix Auger-Aliassime won the first two sets of his men’s quarterfinals against Daniil Medvedev at last year’s Australian Open, Gonzalo Escobar started prepping for his mixed doubles semifinals, the next match in Rod Laver Arena. As the third set progressed, Escobar and his partner Lucie Hradecka, along with their opponents Jason Kubler and Jaimee Fourlis, began loosening up.But Medvedev won that set in a tiebreaker, forcing the doubles players to switch gears. They lay down, covering their bodies to stay warm. At first they chatted, then Hradecka listened to music while Escobar talked to his wife before watching the match.With Auger-Aliassime ahead in the fourth set, the doubles players again grew silent and serious, resuming their physical preparations. But again Medvedev prevailed.“It was very tiring,” Escobar said.Again, they lay down. Escobar ate a banana, energy bars and gels to keep his body fueled. The fifth set lasted another hour until Medvedev won. Escobar said that when the doubles players finally entered the court, Medvedev “looked at us and said, ‘Sorry guys.’”In most major sports, the athletes know their start time. Tennis, however, is a guessing game: The previous match may be over in an hour or last for three. And Grand Slams deepen the uncertainty because men play a best-of-five instead of best-of-three format, as they do in other tournaments. Longer matches produce more seesaw battles, forcing waiting players to continually adjust their physical routine and mental preparations.Even a match seemingly near the finish offers no guarantees.“It can be two sets to love with one player up 5-4 and the match could be over in five minutes, or it could last more than two hours,” said Craig Boynton, who coaches Hubert Hurkacz. “You’re estimating and observing, but it’s all guesswork.”Boynton was coaching John Isner in 2010 when Isner beat Nicholas Mahut at Wimbledon in a 70-68 fifth set that stretched across multiple days, eventually forcing officials to shift waiting players to other courts. “I’m happy all the Slams now do fifth-set tiebreakers,” Boynton said, which prevent final sets from going on indefinitely.Alex de Minaur returning a shot against Filip Krajinovic during the first round of men’s singles of the 2022 U.S. Open. That match began after a long period of waiting, during the four-hour five-setter that preceded it.Mike Stobe/Getty ImagesAlex de Minaur, who followed a four-hour five-setter in his first 2022 United States Open match, said afterward that the key was to be “mentally versatile.”“You have to do everything to prepare as if the match before yours will go three sets and then adapt,” he said. “You can’t let it have a negative impact or waste too much energy, although that’s easier said than done.”Many coaches request the first match of the day to avoid this issue, said David Nainkin, who coaches Brandon Holt (the son of Tracy Austin, who won the U.S. Open in 1979 and 1981). “The third match is the toughest slot — you can be on any time from 2 to 6 p.m.”Certain matches offer more predictability, said Peter Polansky, who coaches Denis Shapovalov. If Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal is trailing the 50th-ranked player two sets to one, Polansky would say “let’s wait it out,” but if either superstar is leading by a set it’s more likely time for “high-alert mode” to get ready to play.But repeatedly leaping into high alert can be draining, said Austin, whose 1981 U.S. Open final against Martina Navratilova followed a five-setter between John McEnroe and Vitas Gerulaitis. Austin didn’t want to feel rushed so, anticipating an ending, she taped her feet and got dressed.“I was ready to go and I’d get charged up, but then their match would extend,” she said. When the men finished, Austin felt “a little sapped by the emotional roller coaster” and lost the first set 6-1, but bounced back to win the match.Shifting scenarios give experienced players an edge, Austin said. “It’s a gradual learning process. You develop tools and routines in those situations.” She said one factor was figuring out whether you prefer being around people or in a quiet space alone.Caroline Garcia warming up before a match against Iga Swiatek during the 2022 WTA Finals. Garcia also hit the gym while waiting out a five-setter before one of her matches at the U.S. Open, to “fire myself up a bit.”Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesAfter waiting out a five-setter before her fourth-round match at the U.S. Open, Caroline Garcia noted that she passed part of her limbo reading, before prepping her rackets and then going to the gym to “fire myself up a bit.”Some players meditate or even nap once a match extends, Polansky said, although it’s tricky because a final set can be a quick 6-1 laugher. At the opposite end, many players will gather with their team and play cards or board games.“You don’t want to do anything that will fatigue you mentally,” Polansky said, noting that spending too much time staring at a phone as matches elongate can be detrimental.When a match suddenly goes to a fourth or fifth set, Nainkin said some waiting players change their location, perhaps leaving the locker room for the lounge, “just to reset mentally and get out of ‘ready to go mode’ for 30 minutes.”If the end of the match is exciting, many players watch while getting ready, he said, which also helps them pace their warm-ups. Some players, however, just have their coaches tracking the score. “The coach’s job is to have a read on the match so the player can switch off entirely if the match goes to a fifth set.”Timing your food is also essential, Garcia said. “You don’t want to eat too much, but if it goes to a fifth set you need to have another snack while waiting.”But numerous smaller details must also be factored in. “Some players want their ankles taped right before match time so it’s stiffer, while others want to walk around and break it in,” Boynton said. “Some want to get limber and sweaty and then use the last few minutes to go through the game plan, but others don’t.”In a close fourth set, he added, Hurkacz will get on the treadmill and do sprints then undo his shoelaces and do a few stretches and wait. During a tiebreaker, he’ll lace up again, but if the match goes to a fifth set, the shoes come off and he’ll ask for another round of rice and vegetables.“Everyone has their own process and talking about it sounds crazy, but it’s just normal to us,” Boynton said. “You don’t have to be the best at dealing with it, you just have to be better than your opponent.” More

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      It’s Djokovic vs. Nadal, the French Open Rematch We’ve Been Waiting For

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      Djokovic, the world No. 1, and Nadal, the 13-time French Open champion, will continue their epic rivalry on Tuesday in the quarterfinal at Roland Garros.PARIS — As the kids like to say these days, it’s on.Far sooner than many may have hoped, Novak Djokovic, the reigning French Open champion, will take on Rafael Nadal, a 13-time champion at Roland Garros, in a quarterfinal match on Tuesday, the first rematch of two of the leading men’s players since their epic semifinal last June.It took some of Nadal’s greatest tennis to survive a five-set, four-hour, 21-minute thriller Sunday evening against Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada, but the match that so many crave is on the horizon.“A huge challenge and probably the biggest one that you can have here in Roland Garros,” Djokovic said, anticipating Nadal, after his fourth straight-sets win, 6-1, 6-3, 6-3, a pummeling of Diego Schwartzman of Argentina. “I’m ready for it.”Perhaps more than Nadal, who survived one of the great scares of his storied French Open career against Auger-Aliassime, the athletic and tireless Canadian with a booming serve and big forehand.“We have a lot of history together,” Nadal said of Djokovic.They have played each other 58 times, with Djokovic holding a 30-28 edge. It is a classic clash of styles, Nadal blasting away and running wild on the clay, his favorite surface, and Djokovic bringing his exquisite timing, incomparable steel, and the most varied arsenal in the game.Even more, it is a clash of two men whose personalities and trajectories, especially over the past year, have pushed them into different realms of the sport and public consciousness. One is a beloved citizen of the world, the other a polarizing, outspoken iconoclast so set in his beliefs that he was prepared to spend his last prime years on the sidelines rather than receive a vaccination against Covid-19.There were scattered boos as Djokovic was introduced on the Suzanne Lenglen Court on Sunday. Fans at the main court, Philippe Chatrier, chanted “Rafa, Rafa,” through the evening, urging on the Spanish champion who is immortalized with a nine-foot statue outside the stadium.Since Djokovic pulled off the nearly impossible by beating Nadal at last year’s French Open, Nadal has been jousting indirectly with his chief rival.Novak Djokovic beat Diego Schwartzman in straight sets on Sunday to advance to the quarterfinals against Nadal.Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDjokovic mounted an all-out quest last year to pull ahead of Nadal and Roger Federer in Grand Slam tournament titles and nearly did it, evening the Big Three at 20 wins each for six months and coming within one match of surging ahead. Nadal, who largely ended his 2021 season after the French Open because of a chronic foot injury, said finishing his career with the most major championships mattered little to him.Djokovic has refused to get vaccinated and questioned established science. Nadal got vaccinated long ago, because, he said, he is a tennis player and in no position to question what experts say is best for public health.Djokovic has tried to spearhead an independent players organization, the Professional Tennis Players Association, which he launched with a handful of other players in 2020. Nadal has refused to join the group and remains a member of the player council of the ATP, which has kept Djokovic’s organization on the outside of the sport’s decision-making process.On the court, they have captured each other’s most treasured possessions. After beating Nadal in the semifinals last year, Djokovic erased a two-set deficit and beat Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final to win his second French Open title.In January, after being largely inactive for six months, unsure whether his foot would ever allow him to play again, Nadal won the Australian Open, which Djokovic had won nine times, more than any other Grand Slam tournament.Djokovic had won three consecutive Australian Opens and traveled to the country expecting to be allowed to defend his titles. He had tested positive for Covid-19 and recovered in mid-December. He thought that was supposed to gain him entry into the country despite its strict rules prohibiting unvaccinated visitors. He was detained at the border and deported after government officials deemed his stance against vaccinations a threat to public health.As the controversy unfolded, Nadal said in some ways he felt sorry for his rival, then kicked a bit of dirt at Djokovic, who was locked in a Melbourne hotel with asylum seekers.“He knew the conditions since a lot of months ago,” Nadal said, “so he makes his own decision.”The shadow sparring has continued in Paris. Djokovic complained that the ATP had not involved his player organization in its discussions with Wimbledon after the tournament barred players from Russia and Belarus in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The tour responded by announcing it would not award rankings points for the event, a move Nadal defended as necessary for protecting all players.They even have different approaches to their careers. Djokovic said Sunday that being ranked No. 1 was “was always the highest goal beginning every season, particularly being in the era with Federer, Nadal.”A few hours later, Nadal, currently ranked fifth, said he never paid any attention to his ranking. Just a number. Not important to him.With their showdown now less than 48 hours away, the conversation has turned to whether they will play during the day or night, with each making his preference known to tournament organizers.Djokovic, left, and Nadal in their semifinal match at the 2021 French Open.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesNadal favors playing during the day, when the weather is warmer, and the ball bounces high off the clay, right into his wheelhouse, and flies off his racket.Djokovic excels at night, especially in Australia and at the U.S. Open, when conditions are colder and slower. His match against Nadal last year turned when the sun went down, the temperature dropped and Nadal struggled to hit the ball through the court. Nadal said last week he did not believe clay-court tennis should happen at night. Too cold and too damp, which makes the clay stick to balls, giving them the feel of heavy rocks on his racket.Nadal won the initial scheduling battle Sunday, playing his match on the Philippe Chatrier Court. Organizers put Djokovic on the second court, Suzanne Lenglen, a smaller and more open venue with just one level of seats, making it susceptible to high winds.Djokovic managed the challenge, making Schwartzman seem like a sparring partner who forced Djokovic to run and stay on the court long enough — a little more than two hours — but not too long. After one spirited sprint to the net for a perfectly feathered drop-shot return, he put his finger to his ear, asking the crowd to give him his due.Nadal had no such concerns, though he struggled from the start of the chilly and breezy evening. Forty minutes into the match, he was down 5-1 and two breaks of serve, the rarest of events for someone who came into the match with a 108-3 record in this tournament.Nadal often kicks clean the nub of tape in the middle of the baseline before heading to his chair for a changeover. As Auger-Aliassime, pumped his fist after clinching the first set, 6-3, Nadal spent an extra few seconds working the line with his foot, taking an extra moment seemingly to prepare for the challenging places this match was going.Nadal appeared to take control of the match in winning the second and third sets but, unlike Djokovic, Nadal has been anything but clinical at Roland Garros this year, losing opportunities to close out opponents like the assassin he has been in years past.It happened again on Sunday. In the end, at the crucial moments of the last two games in the final set, it took a magical, on-the-run forehand flick for a down-the-line passing shot, an all-out sprint to catch up to a drop volley, a perfect second serve on the T, two more all-out chases and two deep, signature forehands for Nadal to set up his showdown with Djokovic.Just as everyone was hoping. More

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      Felix Auger-Aliassime Seeks Major Success at the French Open

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      For years, tennis experts have heralded the promise of Auger-Aliassime, a young Canadian. But can he reach the top in the era of Carlos Alcaraz?PARIS — Before there was Carlos, there was Félix.It is not so easy to recall now, through the haze of the pandemic and the aftershocks of Carlos Alcaraz’s meteoric impact on tennis of late. But there was a time, beginning in roughly 2015, that the tennis cognoscenti raved about a young Canadian named Félix Auger-Aliassime, calling him a potential heir to Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.After a quality start to the year but a rocky late winter and spring for Auger-Aliassime, that concept never felt farther away than during his first two sets of the French Open on Sunday. Auger-Aliassime came out flat and wild for the first men’s match on the main stadium court. For 88 minutes he was lost against little-known Juan Pablo Varillas of Peru, 25, who is ranked 122nd and had his opponent complaining to himself and anyone else who would listen.Then, with a few flicks of his forehand, a few blasted serves and some deft drop shots, Auger-Aliassime was back, displaying his unique mix of power, precision, touch and speed. He prevailed, 2-6, 2-6, 6-1, 6-3, 6-3, in a 3-hour-14-minute scare that made for a very Félix-like afternoon.Auger-Aliassime made the final of the Roland Garros junior tournament in 2016, at age 15, and then won the U.S. Open boys’ title later that year. He was 6 feet 2 inches (on his way to 6-4), with long arms and fast feet. He could switch directions like a wide receiver. He had broad shoulders that left plenty of room for his torso to fill out and add even more power.He was also polite and courtly, approaching the game with a humility that coaches said drove him to train hard every day. Watching him play a match in his teenage years, Gastão Elias, a longtime Portuguese pro, said Auger-Aliassime “has been an adult since he was 12.”Auger-Aliassime may one day fulfill all the promise of his teenage years. He is just 21, ranked ninth in the world and the youngest member of the top 10 not named Alcaraz. But if he does, the journey will have involved plenty of fits and starts, including losses in his first eight finals and other moments when he seemed about to take off only to fall flat.“The toughest part is always what’s ahead of you, isn’t it?” Auger-Aliassime said. “What you haven’t done before.”Denis Balibouse/ReutersAnd now, as he strives to reach the level of the Big Three — along with Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev and so many others — there is Alcaraz to contend with, a 19-year-old charging from the rear, piling up trophies and wins against the game’s greats and making that last, hardest step look easy. In mere months, Alcaraz has changed the calculus for all the 20-somethings, though Auger-Aliassime’s bigger problem of late is inconsistency, not Alcaraz.“Before, it was just Nadal and Federer and Djokovic,” said Louis Borfiga, a longtime French tennis teacher and the architect of Canada’s modern tennis development machine. “Now there is an incredible player coming. He has to work very hard, and he has to stay positive, to believe in himself and his game.”Auger-Aliassime has no illusions about the difficulty of the next step.“The toughest part is always what’s ahead of you, isn’t it?” he said one afternoon last month in Portugal, before being upset in a quarterfinal at a small tournament in which he was the top seed. “What you haven’t done before.”If he can take the final step, Auger-Aliassime could be the sport’s perfect celebrity, a multiracial star with roots on three continents. He grew up in the largely French-speaking province of Quebec, the son of an immigrant from Togo, where he donates hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to children’s causes.He has since moved to Monaco and spends plenty of time in France and Spain, making him a new favorite in Europe.“Allez Félix!” the fans yelled on Sunday as he tried to come back in his match.And the proximity of his childhood to New York, among his other attributes, has endeared him to the U.S. Open crowd, earning him an invitation to last year’s Met Gala, where he wore a white dinner jacket on the red carpet.“We still have borders, but I consider myself a citizen of the world,” he said.Auger-Aliassime was as good as anyone in the world in the first six weeks of the year, leading Canada to the championship of the ATP Cup, getting to match point against Daniil Medvedev (the eventual finalist) in the Australian Open quarters, then seemingly breaking through by winning the Rotterdam Open, his first title.Auger-Aliassime playing Medvedev in an Australian Open quarterfinal match in January. He had a match point but eventually lost.Morgan Sette/ReutersNadal and Federer are invested in his success. Auger-Aliassime occasionally trains at Nadal’s academy in Majorca, working with Nadal’s uncle and former coach, Toni Nadal. Federer texted Auger-Aliassime in February when he finally won his first tournament. “I’m happy for you, well done,” Federer wrote.But more downs than ups have followed, with early losses on hardcourts, which are supposed to be his best surface, and then on clay in Marrakesh, Monte Carlo and Estoril, Portugal, where he was the top seed.“After January, we did not expect the losses, but we know consistency is very difficult,” said Frédéric Fontang, Auger-Aliassime’s coach since 2017. “He does have an ability to absorb and keep learning and always do his best, and that is the first talent that a top player must have.”This is the way it has always been for Auger-Aliassime, ever since his father, Sam Aliassime, a tennis coach in Quebec, introduced him to the sport when he was a boy. Aliassime coached his son until he was 13. Auger-Aliassime then moved to Montreal to train with Canada’s suddenly vibrant development program.Borfiga first saw Auger-Aliassime play as a 6-year-old, but it was four years later that his potential became apparent. Borfiga said he already had a “heavy ball,” a term tennis coaches and players use to describe someone whose strokes naturally produce shots that mix power and spin in a way that makes them difficult to return.Auger-Aliassime’s coach said his physical gifts and his huge serve, big forehand and soft hands made his success nearly inevitable.Cameron Spencer/Getty ImagesAuger-Aliassime said he began to grasp how good he might one day be when he won an international junior tournament in Auray, France, when he was 11.“From then on, the belief was there,” he said.His success and personal appeal have attracted plenty of blue-chip endorsements, including a partnership with BNP Paribas, the international bank that is among the biggest sponsors in tennis. For every point Auger-Aliassime wins on tour this year, the bank donates $15 and Auger-Aliassime donates $5 to children’s education in Togo.“He represents the youth,” Jean-Yves Fillion, the chief executive of BNP Paribas USA, said of Auger-Aliassime.And yet there are those vexing defeats — coughing up a two-set lead to the Russian qualifier Aslan Karatsev at the 2021 Australian Open; an early loss to Max Purcell, the 190th-ranked player, at the Tokyo Olympics; and a second-round loss at the 2021 National Bank Open on home soil in Toronto to Dusan Lajovic of Serbia. And then there was Sunday’s nervy escape during his first appearance on Philippe Chatrier Court.Auger-Aliassime’s team, led by Fontang, built his schedule in 2022 around opportunities for victories, including more smaller tournaments. If he can start winning those, then maybe winning will become a habit.Fontang wants Auger-Aliassime to be even more aggressive, to take advantage of his power and size by coming to the net more and finishing points.Ettore Ferrari/EPA, via ShutterstockFontang said players with an aggressive style like Auger-Aliassime’s might take longer to reach their full potential because they were more prone to mistakes, though few players are more aggressive than Alcaraz. He said Auger-Aliassime’s physical gifts made his success nearly inevitable in his mind. But Fontang wants Auger-Aliassime to be even more aggressive, to take advantage of his power and size by coming to the net more and finishing points, though that could hasten further inconsistency. “Of course, the future we cannot know, but he just can’t be static,” Fontang said. “What you see with the best players is that there is no part when they are standing still.”Auger-Aliassime has no intention of doing that, even though he knows the path to the top keeps getting narrower the higher he climbs. Tennis math, simple as it is, is exceedingly cruel. There are only 10 players in the top 10, and only one can be No. 1.“The elite,” he said with a shake of his head, “are just so consistent.” More

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      The Next Generation of Men’s Tennis

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      Fixing this and that in their games, these 10 players could join the elite.Novak Djokovic dominated men’s tennis this year, but with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal wearing down physically, 2021 also signaled a changing of the guard: Stefanos Tsitsipas reached the French Open final; Matteo Berrettini reached the Wimbledon final; Alexander Zverev won the Olympic gold medal; and Daniil Medvedev reached the Australian Open final and then won the United States Open. All are 25 or younger.Now a new crop of youngsters, 24 and under, is charging up the rankings, but some will stall.To separate themselves from their peers, each must refine his game; these 10 are most likely to join the sport’s elite, if they improve one aspect of their game. Following is an assessment of each player from coaches, analysts and former professionals. Rankings are through Thursday.Casper RuudNorway, age 22; world ranking: 8Ruud’s speed and all-around game shine on clay, said Tom Shimada, a coach at the Van Der Meer Tennis Academy in South Carolina, “but now he has to figure out how to play on the quicker services.”Ruud needs more free points on serve, said Jimmy Arias, director of the IMG Academy’s tennis program in Florida and a Tennis Channel analyst. “He still has to grind on his serve and in three-of-five set tournaments that makes it difficult.”Patrick McEnroe, a director of the John McEnroe Tennis Academy in New York and an analyst for ESPN, was pleasantly surprised by Ruud’s serves and instead feels Ruud needs “more firepower on his forehand, whether it’s more power or more spin.”Christian Bruna/EPA, via ShutterstockHubert HurkaczPoland, age 24; ranking: 9Hurkacz turned heads with his Miami Open win this year, but Arias said he needed to retain consistency because he sometimes lost to lesser players.McEnroe sees that as a lack of assertiveness despite his rise in the rankings: “He needs to be more aggressive with his shots, but also with his attitude. He could use a little swagger.”Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesJannik SinnerItaly, age 20; ranking: 11Sinner himself said he could not pick just one thing to improve. “I’m only 20 years old; I have to improve everything,” he said. “I have to improve the serve, my volleys and mixing up my game as well.”McEnroe and Arias said he needed variety and creativity in his approach. “He’s missing the subtleties of the game,” McEnroe said, “when to hit the ball at 60 percent or to slice it down the middle and make the other guy come up with something.”Carmen Mandato/Getty Images Felix Auger-AliassimeCanada, age 21; ranking: 12He sometimes gets tight, leading to service breaks at crucial moments. “He will just hand you a service break with two double faults and two inexplicable first-ball errors,” Arias said.McEnroe said Auger-Aliassime was a true student of the game, so he sometimes overthinks things. “He’s looking for the perfect shot, so he makes errors,” McEnroe said. “He needs to relax, just let it go and play with more freedom, trusting his athleticism.”Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesDenis ShapovalovCanada, age 22; ranking: 13Shapovalov has been captivating fans since he shocked Nadal as an 18-year-old at the 2017 Canadian Open, but Shapovalov’s power and style can work to his detriment. “He has tremendous weapons, but he’s going for a lot,” Shimada said. Trying to blast winners is “a tough way to consistently beat the guys who play unbelievable defense.”McEnroe said Shapovalov needed more high-percentage shots on his service return: “He tends to take big swings and has to be more consistent on the return, playing smart, neutral or even defensive shots to get in the rally.”Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesReilly OpelkaUnited States, age 24; ranking: 26Opelka needs confidence. “To reach the next level will require an evolution of his mind-set,” Shimada saidArias recalled watching Opelka double fault twice in a row in Atlanta this summer, then mutter repeatedly to himself, “I should have played team sports.”McEnroe said that at 6-foot-11, Opelka needed to maximize his size and power, going bigger on forehands, returns and serves. “He jokes about not wanting to be a ‘serve-bot,’ but he should play like one more often,” McEnroe said. “To beat the top players, he has to overpower them.”Scott Taetsch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSebastian KordaUnited States, age 21; ranking: 38Korda soared from 119th this year, but his continued climb requires a better serve, Shimada said, citing his loss to Karen Khachanov at Wimbledon, where Korda was broken seven times in the fifth set as Exhibit A.“You can’t have that happen,” McEnroe said. “The serve has to get better, and he needs to get stronger and impose himself more.”Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesCarlos AlcarazSpain, age 18; ranking: 40Even for this article, which is essentially nit-picking, Arias, McEnroe and Shimada were stumped when it came to the dynamic Alcaraz, who jumped in the rankings from 141 this year.“If I had to pick one guy where you can’t come up with one thing, it’s Alcaraz,” McEnroe said. “He can do it all, and he has moxie.”Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressJenson BrooksbyUnited States, age 21; ranking: 56He believes he needs to commit to being physical and running through the ball in points to avoid going on the defensive. “That’s what I’m working on the most,” Brooksby said.While Shimada, McEnroe and Arias are dazzled by his movement and feel, and his unusual strokes and style, they said his big problem was really his serve.“For his size, [6-foot-4], his serve is mediocre at best,” McEnroe said.He will need a dangerous serve to win a major, but if he improves there, Arias said, look out.“With a bigger serve, he could be the American Daniil Medvedev.”Grant Halverson/Getty ImagesLorenzo MusettiItaly, age 19; ranking: 65He is straightforward in his self-analysis. “I need to improve my serve, but especially my return and especially on hard courts,” said Musetti, a clay-court specialist. “With my one-handed backhand, I need to work on stepping to the ball.”Give him points for self-awareness. “He just doesn’t do enough with the serve,” Shimada said, while Arias said that with a one-handed backhand, Musetti needed to at least get to neutral on returns (hit them harder so he does not start rallies at a disadvantage).McEnroe said Musetti “doesn’t step in as naturally as some other guys and needs to take the ball a little earlier.” More