Australian Open (Tennis)

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      Danielle Collins Will Play Iga Swiatek in Australian Open Semifinal

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      Less than a year after an endometriosis diagnosis led to the removal of a tennis-ball sized cyst, the 27th seeded American will play No. 7 Iga Swiatek in a semifinal.MELBOURNE, Australia — Danielle Collins has played exceptional tennis to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open, but only after achieving the victory of being “able to feel like a normal person.”Less than a year after an endometriosis diagnosis led to the removal of a tennis-ball sized cyst from her uterus, as well as tissue from her bladder and bowels, the 27th-seeded Collins surged past Alizé Cornet, 7-5, 6-1, in a Wednesday afternoon quarterfinal match in Rod Laver Arena.“The advice that I had gotten over the years is that painful periods are normal, taking anti-inflammatories on a regular basis is normal,” Collins said. “I felt like it was something that I just had to deal with. It finally got to the point where I couldn’t deal any longer with it physically or mentally.”“Once I was able to kind of get the proper diagnosis and the surgery, I feel like it’s helped me so much — not just from a physical standpoint, but from a mental standpoint,” she added.Collins was able to return to competition seven weeks after surgery, at last year’s French Open.Cornet said Collins’s play had been even more powerful and stifling than she had expected.“Her ball is going really fast in the air, and she takes the ball super early,” Cornet said. “All the time you feel really oppressed. I felt out of breath all the time. I couldn’t, like, place my game. She just never let me do it, never gave me the time to do it. Yeah, she’s impressive.”Iga Swiatek of Poland celebrated after defeating Kaia Kanepi of Estonia.Tertius Pickard/Associated PressBefore the match, Cornet had compared Collins, known for roaring encouragement at herself on court, to a lion but said afterward: “Today I don’t think I gave her enough battle so she could express herself.”Collins returns to the semifinals three years after making her only other Grand Slam singles semifinal appearance here. Cornet was playing in her first quarterfinal in 63 Grand Slam main draw appearances. She said that her run had given her a newfound appreciation for the challenge of advancing deep into a tournament like the Australian Open.“I have eternal respect for the Grand Slam winner because it’s such a long way; my God, I have the feeling I’m playing this tournament for a year,” Cornet said. “I’m so exhausted mentally, physically. When you go all the way and win these freaking seven matches, it’s just huge.”In a Thursday evening semifinal, Collins will face the seventh-seeded Iga Swiatek of Poland, who needed more than three hours to beat the Estonian Kaia Kanepi, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3, later Wednesday afternoon.Thursday’s first semifinal will pit the top-seeded Australian Ashleigh Barty against the unseeded American Madison Keys. If Collins and Keys both win, it will set up the first all-American final in Melbourne since Serena Williams beat her sister Venus in 2017.Collins, 28, first reached the semifinals here three years ago in a breakout run that confirmed her arrival from collegiate standout at the University of Virginia to elite professional.Apart from her physical improvements, Collins said that some of her biggest mental growth came in late 2020 on a very different surface: when the American doubles specialist Bethanie Mattek-Sands took her rock climbing in Arizona.Collins, who has a long-held fear of heights, said she was “terrified” by the “what ifs” of rock climbing, but that the stakes involved — even with ample safety equipment in use — made tennis seem relaxing by comparison.“Halfway through it I realized every time I step out on the court, it’s not life or death,” she said. “For people in rock climbing, it can be. That was a really big realization for me and something I think helped me grow to kind of step out of my comfort zone and try something I had never done before, something that I was really scared of doing. That was a huge moment of growth for me.”The comeback win marks a new area of growth for Swiatek, who burst into the top echelon of the game when she raced to the 2020 French Open title without dropping a set. Working on winning when not playing her best has been an area of focus for Swiatek and her traveling sports psychologist, Daria Abramowicz.Last season, Swiatek only came back to win after losing the first set three times in 13 matches.“I’m proud of myself that I’m still able to find solutions and actually think more on court on what to change, because before it wasn’t that clear for me,” Swiatek said. “It’s part of the work that we have been doing with Daria to control my emotions and just maybe actually focus on finding solutions.” More

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      Rafael Nadal Beats Denis Shapovalov Amid Charge of Favoritism

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      Nadal beat Denis Shapovalov to reach the semifinals, then rejected his opponent’s complaints about unfairness, saying, “I think he’s wrong.”MELBOURNE, Australia — After missing the game he has long played with such passion, Rafael Nadal has had ample opportunity to get reacquainted with tennis at this Australian Open.At age 35, his latest comeback from injury now finds him in the semifinals, just two victories from breaking his three-way tie with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer and claiming his 21st Grand Slam singles title.But it also briefly found him on the defensive Tuesday after his opponent, Canada’s Denis Shapovalov, said Nadal had benefited from favoritism in their quarterfinal, which Nadal won by taking command of the fifth set to prevail, 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-3, in four hours and eight minutes.Nadal politely rejected the accusations by Shapovalov, a young Canadian. “I think he is wrong,” Nadal said.Shapovalov, who certainly did not help his cause by playing an edgy, error-filled game to drop his serve early in the fifth set, did not take the defeat well, smashing his racket to the blue hardcourt in Rod Laver Arena immediately after his final volley drifted wide. It was a stark contrast with Nadal, who has never broken a racket in anger during a match in his nearly 20-year professional career.Shapovalov argued with the umpire at multiple points, complaining that Nadal was being allowed too much time during breaks.Michael Errey/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut Shapovalov was both crestfallen and disappointed with Nadal, the Spanish champion whom Shapovalov first met as a nine-year-old ball boy during the Canadian Open in Montreal and then defeated, Hollywood-style, in the same city in their first match in 2017.However wide-eyed Shapovalov might once have been about the Spaniard, he did not hold back on Tuesday: complaining during and after the match that Nadal was being allowed more time between points than permitted.After winning the first set, Nadal changed his clothes and was slow to leave his chair after the umpire, Carlos Bernardes, called “Time.” Shapovalov took the balls and prepared to serve as he waited, and when Nadal finally made it on court about 45 seconds after Bernardes’s announcement, Shapovalov approached Bernardes and said Nadal should have been penalized for the delay.Bernardes did not agree, and Shapovalov returned to the baseline and then approached Bernardes again, saying Nadal still was not ready. Bernardes answered: “You’re not ready to play either because you come talk to me.”“Are you kidding me?” Shapovalov said as he retreated. “You guys are all corrupt.”Shapovalov, 22, received no code violation for the comment, although he could be fined or sanctioned by the Australian Open after further inquiry. Shapovalov later said, apologetically, “I think I misspoke.” He was involved in another exchange with Bernardes as Nadal prepared to serve the second game of the second set even though there were still several seconds on the serve clock. Nadal came toward the net. Shapovalov met him there and after a brief exchange play resumed.“It was nothing against Rafa,” Shapovalov said. “Rafa was serving, and I would expect the umpire to be looking at Rafa, and the umpire was staring me down. It didn’t make sense to me.”But Shapovalov was not done complaining about Nadal, arguing with Bernardes after the fourth set that Nadal, who had been examined briefly on court for stomach problems, was stretching the spirit of the rules by taking an extended break off court before the final set for a combined medical evaluation and toilet visit.Nadal explained later that he began feeling poorly late in the second set, most likely because of the hot, humid weather and his long break from the game. He returned to the tour this year after missing five months with a chronic foot problem and then contracted Covid-19 in late December at an exhibition in Abu Dhabi. He is seeded sixth in Melbourne, where he won the title in 2009.Shapovalov quizzed Bernardes at length as they awaited Nadal’s return, saying that he had not been allowed to combine the two breaks at a past tournament. Nadal served seven minutes after the fourth set had been completed.Asked at a post-match news conference if Nadal received preferential treatment, Shapovalov answered “100 percent he does” and said there needed to be boundaries.“Every other match that I have played, the pace has been so quick because the refs have been on the clock after every single point,” Shapovalov said. “This one, I mean, after the first two sets it was like an hour and a half just because he’s dragged out so much after every single point. He’s given so much time in between sets and all this.”Players are allowed 25 seconds between points when serving but chair umpires have discretion on when to start the shot clock. When returning serve, players are expected to play to the server’s “reasonable pace,” a phrase in the tennis rule book that leaves plenty of room for interpretation.“I respect everything that Rafa has done and I think he’s an unbelievable player,” Shapovalov said. “But there’s got to be some boundaries, some rules set. It’s just so frustrating as a player. You feel like you’re not just playing against the player; you’re playing against the umpires, you’re playing against so much more. It’s difficult. I mean, it was a big break after the fourth set and for this reason the momentum just goes away.”“They are legends of the game,” Shapovalov said of stars like Nadal, “but when you step on the court it should be equal.”Bernardes, a veteran chair umpire from Brazil, did give Nadal a time violation for taking too long before serving in the fourth set. Bernardes and Nadal have not always been in agreement, and Bernardes was kept from working Nadal’s matches during a cooling-off period in 2015. But that informal ban soon ended.Nadal rejected Shapovalov’s accusations of favoritism and said it was standard practice to take a bit more time to change clothes and equipment after a set played in such steamy conditions.“I think he really was wrong,” Nadal said in Spanish of Shapovalov. “When you lose a match like this, you are frustrated. I have a lot of affection for Denis. I think he’s a good guy with lots of talent, the talent to win multiple Grand Slams. In no way do I want to get in an argument with him. But I think he’s wrong. He’s young and when one is young, one makes mistakes.”Rafael Nadal beat Denis Shapovalov to advance to the semifinals. He is two wins from his record 21st Grand Slam title.Andy Brownbill/Associated PressNadal observed that the rules had been tightened in recent seasons to make it harder to show favoritism to the elite or any player because of the advent of electronic line-calling, shot clocks between points and, this season, stricter time limits on toilet breaks.“You have less room now to influence anything,” said Nadal, who added that he was not interested in getting an advantage on court.“I really believe that on the court you don’t deserve better treatment than the others,” Nadal said. “And I really don’t want it, and I don’t feel I have it.”Nadal was often far from his best in the second half of Tuesday’s match: missing some of his familiar forehand passing shots on the run by large margins. He also had 11 double faults, a large amount by his standards. But he was able to serve well when he needed it most, including coming up with an ace to save a break point in the opening game of the fifth set and saving two more break points in the third game.“I was destroyed honestly, physically, but my serve worked well,” Nadal said. “For me, every game that I was winning with my serve was a victory.”He got the overall victory, too, and will now have two full days to recover before facing No. 7 seed Matteo Berrettini or No. 17 seed Gaël Monfils in the semifinals on Friday afternoon. Nadal usually prefers to play in the daytime, where conditions are typically quicker and help his topspin forehand penetrate the court. But he looked as if he would have been delighted to play in the shade against Shapovalov.“I’m not 21 anymore,” Nadal said wearily in his post-match interview on court.But 21 could still be his magic number in Melbourne, where he is just two matches away from breaking a tie. More

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      Madison Keys Defeats Barbora Krejcikova at Australian Open

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      The unseeded American upset No. 4 Barbora Krejcikova to advance to the semifinals, where she will face No. 1 Asheligh Barty.MELBOURNE, Australia — Before Madison Keys plays a match, her new coach Georgi Rumenov likes to remind her that “there is no need to, there is no have to.”The message is that it is not about the implications or the expectations. It is all about the rally, the shot at hand.That is easier said than achieved for Keys, an American tennis star who despite all the thunder in her serve and groundstrokes, has long struggled to find peace in the matches that matter most.Last year, she found herself obsessing over results and comparing herself to her peers, tossing and turning at night and trying to calm her anxiety.“I wasn’t sleeping as well,” she said. “Felt like there was literally a weight on my chest just because I became so focused and obsessed with it that I wasn’t enjoying really anything, because it’s all that I was thinking about.”But even though tennis has one of the shortest off-seasons of any professional sport, it was long enough for Keys to change her thinking and form with Rumenov’s help.After winning just 11 singles matches in 2021, Keys has won 11 in less than a month in 2022: taking the title in Adelaide and sweeping back into the semifinals of the Australian Open on Tuesday with a dominant victory, 6-3, 6-2, over Barbora Krejcikova, the No. 4 seed and reigning French Open champion. She will meet the top seed, Ashleigh Barty, in the semifinals. Barty beat the American Jessica Pegula, 6-2, 6-0.“It means a lot,” said Keys, 26, who is unseeded this year after being ranked as high as No. 7 earlier in her career. “Last year was really hard, and I did everything I could with my team to really reset this off-season and focus on starting fresh and new and really just starting from zero and not worrying about last year. And wow, that’s going well so far.”Ashleigh Barty beat the American Jessica Pegula to reach her second Australian Open semifinal.Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesKeys has long played a high-risk game and she has, to her detriment under duress, often taken too much chance when in command of a point. There have been signs of progress in that department this year, as she has hit with more topspin and net clearance, and opted for placing the ball rather than pounding it.“I’ve been working on it,” Keys said when asked about her approach. “As you said, it’s not something that I used to necessarily do in the past. Really just trying to be a lot more measured and just playing within myself a little bit more, not necessarily trying to hit a winner on that ball, just constantly trying to set the point up to get to the net to try to finish off on even the next ball. If it happens to be a winner, then it happens to be a winner.”The winners keep coming in bunches. Her easy power remains. Keys hit 11 aces against Krejcikova, one of the world’s premier returners and a doubles champion before she became a singles champion. Keys dominated the short exchanges and as an Orlando resident seemed far more at ease in the humidity and heat with the temperature on-court surpassing 90 degrees.Krejcikova struggled, putting her ice-filled towel not only around her neck on changeovers but on top of her head. Down 2-5 in the opening set, she called for the trainer and was also attended to by a tournament doctor, who took her blood pressure and temperature. Though her coach Ales Kartus was telling her from the stands that she should retire from the match, she persevered as the errors piled up.Krejcikova declined to explain what was troubling her.“I have been struggling with something,” she said. “Yes, it was happening, and I didn’t feel good. I just don’t want to talk about it, because I think Madison, she really deserves the win, and she really deserves to get the credit.”Krejcikova also struggled with breathing and dizziness on a muggy night in New York last year in a tempestuous fourth-round victory over Garbiñe Muguruza at the U.S. Open.Barbora Krejcikova tried to cool down during a break in her quarterfinal match.Andy Brownbill/Associated PressKrejcikova said she was not experiencing the same issues on Tuesday. “Today it was the heat that started to bother me after five games,” she said. “From there on, I just couldn’t put it together. Still, I didn’t want to end it up. I wanted to finish up. I wanted to try to do my best. I wasn’t really able to do that.”Tuesday’s defeat guaranteed that Krejcikova, a tactically astute Czech player, cannot displace Barty at No. 1 in the next rankings. But she continues her rapid rise nonetheless. Outside the top 100 in 2020 in singles, Krejcikova has become a consistent threat in a women’s game filled with upsets and unexpected plot twists: Consider British qualifier Emma Raducanu’s run to the U.S. Open title last year.It is Keys’s turn to be the surprise so far in 2022. After dropping out of the top 50 by the end of last season, she is back in the final four in Australia, where she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal in 2015 at age 19.“It mostly feels different because I’m seven years older, and it’s not my first semifinal of a Slam,” she said. “I think I’m a little bit more prepared this time around than I was all those years ago.”Her opponent in that 2015 semifinal was No. 1 Serena Williams, the greatest women’s player of this era, who defeated her, 7-6 (5), 6-2, on her way to the title. Williams, now 40, is not playing in Melbourne this year, but Keys will face another No. 1 in Barty, who won two of their three previous meetings.Keys, who lost in the 2017 U.S. Open final to her close friend Sloane Stephens, has long been considered a potential Grand Slam champion. She is back in range again.Chris Evert, who has known Keys since she trained as a teenager at the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Fla., said it is apparent that Keys is enjoying herself on the court more than last year.“I’m seeing a very calm and focused Madison who is in control and managing her emotions like never before,” Evert wrote in a text message. “I’m seeing a fit and healthy Madison who is moving really well in and out of corners and not hitting risky shots because she can’t get back in the court. Her serve is almost unreturnable.”Evert added: “She had to find this place of calm herself, in her own time, no one could teach her this. I am thrilled for her. No one deserves a crack at a Grand Slam title more than her.”But Keys has been on tour long enough to know that thinking ahead is not the right approach for her. As Rumenov keeps telling her, “there is no need to, there is no have to.”Staying in the moment is the focus.“I think that’s really important,” she said. “I think it’s still something that I don’t think anyone is perfect at. You can kind of lose that even throughout a match, just getting a little bit ahead of yourself. I think I even did that today early in the second set. I think the biggest key is just being able to reel it back in and then refocus very quickly and catch yourself.” More

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      Is Tennis Moving Into a New Golden Age? We Can Only Hope.

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      It will be hard to let go of aging stars like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams, and troubled ones like Novak Djokovic. But the time is coming, if it is not already here.There was something for everyone. Roger Federer’s linen grace. Rafael Nadal’s punishing power. Novak Djokovic and his single-minded determination. The unwavering way Serena Williams dismantled tired tradition.For two decades, professional tennis bathed in the golden glow provided by an unalterable hierarchy of players with distinctive styles and personalities that combined to define the game in the 21st century.But time, and the coronavirus, changes everything.For the second major championship in a row, as the Australian Open plays out in searing Melbourne heat, Federer and Williams find themselves at home, healing from injuries at age 40. We may never see them play top-flight tennis again.Gone, too, of course, is Djokovic.It’s unclear when the world No. 1 will return to major championship play, and how the scorn of fans will affect a player who has spent his career yearning for adoration. Depending on how the pandemic unfolds, tennis’s most famed vaccine refusenik could end up barred from traveling to the countries hosting the year’s biggest tournaments, imperiling his quest to break well past the 20 Grand Slam logjam he is in with Federer and Nadal.Of the golden quartet, only Nadal made his way to Melbourne. A well-worn 35, he is coming off a foot injury that kept him out of the mix for most of last year.He looked sharp during the Australian’s early stanza, perhaps good enough to summon greatness again and raise the championship trophy for a second time. Even if he does, how much longer can the Nadal we have known be the Nadal we revere?What in tennis can be counted on anymore?Nothing.The days when the game could lean on the showstopping power of its rock star quartet to lure fans and add excitement — the days of penciling them in as locks to make at least the semifinals of every major title — those days are done.Remember when Naomi Osaka was supposed to be the next big thing? Right now, her last major title win, the Australian Open last winter, seems in this time-warped stretch as if it occurred a decade rather than a year ago.She left last year’s French Open midstream, using the occasion to open up about the anxiety and depression sitting heavy on her shoulders. She skipped Wimbledon, needing time away from the grind and glare. She lost early at the U.S. Open and the Tokyo Olympics. Last week, Osaka’s bid to repeat at Melbourne ended at the hands of the world’s 60th-ranked player.Remember Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, the upstart teenagers who electrified last summer’s U.S. Open by making the women’s finals? Neither has done much since. Fernandez lost in the first round last week. Raducanu got tossed off in the second.Maybe there’s a silver lining in the game’s newfound uncertainty. Free of the shadow cast by the biggest stars, it’s easier to gain enthusiasm for a wider cast.During the initial week at Melbourne Park, that meant marveling at Amanda Anisimova, 20, as she ripped backhand winners past Osaka in an upset win. Or watching Carlos Alcaraz, 18, sprint, slide and stretch to keep a point alive before suddenly hauling off and smacking a full-throttle winner.Uncertainty provided more shine to the young Italian Jannik Sinner, as stunningly gifted an upstart as there is, as he pressed his way through the draw.Ashleigh Barty in action during her fourth-round match against Amanda Anisimova.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/ReutersIt put more focus on Ashleigh Barty, last year’s Wimbledon champion, possessor of the smoothest game this side of Federer.Will Daniil Medvedev, who crushed Djokovic’s Grand Slam dreams by beating the Serb to win the 2021 U.S. Open, wrest away the world No. 1 ranking? What happens if he becomes one of the game’s consistent standard-bearers?In Melbourne last week, Medvedev flashed his quirky and almost unfathomable game. Several of his strokes look as if they were self-taught and honed at a craggy public park by playing with duffers — the reflex volley with one hand on the racket’s throat, the gawky forehand that sometimes ends with legs splayed and a strangulating follow-through.As Medvedev often has at Flushing Meadows, he showed he can be an engaging champion — witty, open and more than willing to play the villain with a wink.This year, the typically rowdy Australian Open crowd has been using Cristiano Ronaldo’s famed “Siuuu!” celebration shout during matches. That has angered several players, Medvedev included, who thought the chants were boos during his victory over Nick Kyrgios. As we might expect based on his past shenanigans at the U.S. Open, Medvedev raised hackles from the crowd when he scolded them for the chant in an on-court interview.He later explained with his customary willingness to draw ire: “It’s not everybody who is doing it. But those who are doing it probably have a low I.Q.”Imagine Federer saying such a thing about fans. Impossible. But maybe that’s a good and energizing change.It is difficult to let go of a generation.A new era has arrived. All we can do is embrace it, wait patiently, and hope for the best. More

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      Ashleigh Barty Advances to Australian Open Quarterfinals

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      Barty, the world No. 1, kept Amanda Anisimova, who upset Naomi Osaka in the previous round, moving and out of sync in the fourth round. Barbora Krejcikova also advanced.MELBOURNE, Australia — New day, very different opponent: That remains the cruel beauty of tennis.In the third round of the Australian Open, Amanda Anisimova, a 20-year-old American, got the chance to trade baseline bolts and full cuts with Naomi Osaka, bending low and swinging away to earn an upset.In the fourth round on Sunday night, the unseeded Anisimova found herself in a more subtle form of combat. If playing the 13th-seeded Osaka was toe to toe, playing the No. 1 Ashleigh Barty was cat and mouse.Barty, who had to rally to beat Anisimova at the 2019 French Open, knew firsthand the danger posed by Anisimova’s easy power and aggressive mentality and returns. Barty did a fine job on Sunday of giving her the tennis equivalent of bad pitches to hit.Barty deployed her skidding backhand slice and precise, hard-to-read serve. She changed pace and shape with her topspin forehand, moving Anisimova, who is much more at ease from stable ball-striking positions than on the stretch.New day, very different result: Anisimova lost to Barty in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, at Rod Laver Arena.“Each and every player, there are some similarities, but certainly tactics and the way that I want to play is unique to each and every player,” Barty said. “I try to adapt my game as best as I can.”Variety is not a panacea. A power player with an irresistible serve can prove too much to handle, which helps explain how Serena Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles. But Barty-style variety is a weapon, too, and she is not the only shape shifter thriving in Melbourne this year.Barbora Krejcikova, up to No. 4 in the world after her breakout singles season in 2021, is still on a roll. She trounced Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, 6-2, 6-2, in the afternoon heat on Sunday.“I take pride in having not just a Plan A but a Plan A, B, C and D,” Krejcikova said in an interview.Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, above, beat Victoria Azarenka of Belarus. Krejcikova will play Madison Keys in the quarterfinals.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesKrejcikova will face someone more inclined to Plan A in the quarterfinals on Tuesday: the huge-hitting American Madison Keys, a longtime top-10 player who arrived in Melbourne unseeded after struggling in 2021. But Keys, 26, has been exuding positive energy in the Australian sunshine as she tries to resolve her career-long conundrum: how to remain in command of her emotions in the matches that matter most.“My biggest mind-set change is just trying to enjoy tennis, take some of that just internal pressure that I was putting on myself,” Keys said on Sunday. “It was honestly freezing me. I felt like I couldn’t play at all. Just taking that away and putting tennis into perspective: that it’s a sport, something that when I was little I enjoyed doing and loved doing it. I was letting it become this dark cloud over me. Just trying to push all of that away and leave that behind last year and start fresh this year.”So far she is 10-1 in 2022, winning a title in Adelaide before arriving at Melbourne Park, where she has beaten a series of quality opponents including the 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin; Wang Qiang of China; and Paula Badosa, a new arrival in the top 10 from Spain whose hard-running athletic style was no match for Keys in the fourth round.But staying calm will become tougher for Keys as the trophy gets closer. For now, she has reached one Grand Slam event final, losing to her close friend Sloane Stephens in a one-sided match at the 2017 U.S. Open in which Keys seemed to freeze.“I think it obviously gets harder just because you get tighter, and it’s bigger moments,” Keys said. “Even in the finals in Adelaide, I started incredibly nervous, and I felt that. Just acknowledging it, accepting it — not trying to fight it and pretend that it’s not happening — has been probably the best thing that I’ve done.”Barty will have to clear her own mental hurdles if she continues to advance. No woman left in the draw has won an Australian Open singles title, and the only men’s champion remaining is Rafael Nadal, who faces a tough quarterfinal with Denis Shapovalov, the flashy, left-handed Canadian who has beaten him once and who upset one of the tournament favorites, the third-seeded Alexander Zverev, 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-3, on Sunday.Barty is trying to become the first Australian to win the Australian Open singles title in 44 years. The last was Christine O’Neil, who prevailed in 1978 over a relatively weak international field. But Barty, entrenched at No. 1, is up against much stronger opposition. Unlike O’Neil, who was unseeded, Barty is the focal point whenever she plays in Australia, even if she was spared from pretournament scrutiny this year because of the furor over Novak Djokovic’s vaccination and visa status.But Australians are paying closer attention now, wearing their “Barty Party” T-shirts; shouting, “C’mon Ash”; and watching in large numbers on television.Rod Laver, the former Australian great who made the trip from his home in California, has said that Barty is ready to do “something special.” He was in the stands at Rod Laver Arena on Sunday night.“It’s so nice to have him enjoying his own house, enjoying his own court,” Barty said. “He was unbeatable. I’m certainly not.”Jessica Pegula of the United States celebrated her victory against Maria Sakkari. Pegula will face Barty next.Daniel Pockett/Getty ImagesBarty, who skipped the end of last season to return to Australia to recharge, has yet to advance past the semifinals in singles at the Australian Open. To get that far again, she must defeat Jessica Pegula, an American who is more consistent and poker faced than Anisimova; her game is more difficult to read, too. More counterpuncher than puncher, she got the balance between patience and aggression just right in her straight sets victory in the fourth round over Maria Sakkari, who beat Pegula in a three-set thriller in Miami last year.“I feel like Ash is so tactical in everything she does,” Pegula said. “Really a smart, like perfect, kind of tennis player in that way.”But the 21st-seeded Pegula, not the quickest or most imposing athlete on tour, has made her leap into the elite by widening her range even if the core of her game remains her pure, relatively flat groundstrokes.“She’s able to hold the baseline really well,” Barty said. “Her swings are quite linear, and she gets a racket behind the ball and swings through the path. The ball comes at you at a different trajectory, and her ability to absorb pace and then add to it when she wants to is exceptional. It’s going to be a challenge for me to try to push her off that baseline and make her uncomfortable and feel like she has to create. But I know she’s also going to be doing the exact same thing to me, trying to make me uncomfortable.”That push and pull is the essence of tennis, and what works on a Sunday may no longer work come Tuesday. More

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      At the Australian Open, Taylor Fritz Finally Breaks Through

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      The American has reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in his career, and he credits believing in himself through good times and bad.MELBOURNE, Australia — Though he is only 24, Taylor Fritz had been waiting a long time for the breakthrough he finally reached at this Australian Open.Playing in his 22nd Grand Slam main draw, the 20th-seeded Fritz reached the fourth round of a major for the first time, defeating the 15th-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut, 6-0, 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, on Saturday.Fritz had reached the third round seven times previously at Grand Slam events, but he often fell short against the game’s best, losing to players like Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Dominic Thiem.Fritz had also lost five of his previous six matches against Bautista Agut, who he joked in his postmatch news conference “has basically been my dad my whole professional career.” But Fritz largely dictated the play throughout the five sets with his forehand, hitting 73 total winners compared to Bautista Agut’s 35.The win was an emotional one for Fritz, who had grown increasingly frustrated with his inability to make the round of 16 in a major draw.“I’m a very confident person, and I put a ton of pressure on myself to be better,” Fritz said in an interview. “So it’s been tough for me to not have this fourth-round experience yet with so many opportunities and, I feel like, being the caliber of player who deserved to make at least one. But at the same time, I’ve got to look back and look at all of the matches — a lot of really tough draws.”Fritz will play the fourth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas on Monday.Fritz, who won the U.S. Open boys’ title in 2015, has long been considered a great hope for American men’s tennis, which has been without a Grand Slam tournament champion since Andy Roddick won the 2003 United States Open. Ranked 22nd, Fritz currently sits atop the American ladder, but these days it is a short ladder.In 2010, there were no American men in the top 10 of the ATP rankings for the first time since the rankings began in 1973. In 2013, there was no American player in the top 20. Last year, for the first time, there were no Americans among the top 30 players.“It’s really cool to be the No. 1 American — don’t get me wrong,” Fritz said. “It’s been a dream my whole life. But with the caliber that U.S. tennis fans are used to, I can’t walk around all high and mighty and proud being the No. 1 American, I feel like, if I’m not ranked a bit higher.”Fritz, who could make his top 20 debut with his run in Melbourne, hopes to halve his ranking this year.“I want to be top 10 this year,” Fritz said. “That’s my goal, and I’ll be really disappointed if it’s anything less than that. I feel like, since Indian Wells, I’ve been playing at that level, and it’s a question of staying healthy and keeping this level up. And if I keep doing it, I think that’s where I’m going to be. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I’m really confident, but you have to be if you’re going to make it.”Fritz said that believing in himself — even in the times when he was struggling — had been a critical part of his climb.“How can you ever be good or be the best if you don’t truly — like, truly — believe that you can be?” he said. “I’m a great example of someone who wasn’t good at all when I was 15 years old. But I had this crazy false sense of confidence. Just because you believed, you put in the hard work and you make it happen.”“All the best players in the world have believed that,” he added. “Regardless of how much they’ve let on how confident they truly are. Success can never happen if they don’t really, really believe it.”Paul Annacone, the veteran American coach who has worked with Fritz, said that Fritz now feels “comfortable” that his usual level of tennis can be enough to compete with the game’s best.“To me, that’s what it takes to go from one level to the next,” Annacone said. “I think his average levels have gotten way better, and I think that that’s going to help him a lot this year.”Fritz’s profile will grow this year with or without more breakout tournaments. He is one of a handful of players being followed by camera crews this week at Melbourne Park as production begins on a new Netflix series about the professional men’s and women’s tennis tours. Fritz said he was eager to give viewers a look at himself on and off the court for the first time.“I’m a very easygoing, relaxed guy, and I’m very confident,” he said. “I believe in myself a lot, and I’m a really tough, really hard worker. And I hope that shows, and I hope that sometimes my confidence doesn’t come off as cockiness.”Christopher Clarey More

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      A Grand Slam Streak Without (Yet) a Quarterfinal

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      Since 2007, Alizé Cornet of France hasn’t missed a single Grand Slam main draw.MELBOURNE, Australia — In an era of women’s tennis defined by volatility at the top, Alizé Cornet has been a constant.Starting as a qualifier at the 2007 Australian Open, Cornet has not missed the main draw of any Grand Slam since. She is on track this year to break the women’s record for consecutive Grand Slams played. This year’s U.S. Open would be her record 63rd Grand Slam main draw, surpassing Ai Sugiyama’s record of 62 straight appearances.That target has become a possible finish line for Cornet.“After that I think it will be a good time for me to retire,” said Cornet, 32, of France. “I’m not sure. I don’t want to say it’s going to happen this way. I’m not closing any door to keep going. But I gave so much to this game and to this tennis life, yeah, I feel I’m pretty much ready for the next chapter. At least by the end of the year, I think I’ll be ready.”Cornet’s story isn’t done at this Australian Open, however; she reached the fourth round here with a comeback win over the 29th-seeded Tamara Zidansek on Saturday. Zidansek, who reached the French Open semifinals last year, led 6-4, 4-1, 30-0 before Cornet was able to swing the match in her direction.“I just kept fighting, kept trying my best, and the match turned around,” said Cornet, who won 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.Cornet, who first reached the fourth round here in 2009 when she came within points of beating third-seeded Dinara Safina, said that winning felt much like it always had.“Maybe I have a little more distance with it because I’ve played so many years and I’ve faced so many different situations,” she said. “But it feels very sweet. It still feels amazing. I think that’s why we all keep playing and keep pushing ourselves, because we’re so addicted to these feelings, this joy right after the match point.”Cornet’s love of the battle has won her matches, as well as the respect of her peers.“I think I wish that I could say I had that kind of record,” said Madison Keys, who reached the quarterfinals with a win Sunday over the eighth-seeded Paula Badosa. “But to see that she’s been able to enjoy it — I mean, she still competes at the highest level and you can tell that every single point, she wants to win it — it’s very, very impressive to watch.”The second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka said she believes that Cornet’s longevity is down to her being a “big fighter.”“Every match she’s putting everything she has,” Sabalenka said of Cornet. “I think you just have to believe in yourself and to fight for everything no matter what. She’s doing it on each match.”Cornet has had highs at Grand Slam events, including a win at this tournament in the second round over third-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza, and a win at Wimbledon in 2014 over top-seeded Serena Williams. But those highlights have come solely in the first week of such events.Cornet holds the record among active players, by far, for the most Grand Slam main singles draws played without ever reaching a quarterfinal, with 63 in total (this year’s Australian Open is her 60th in a row). Monica Niculescu, with a total of 48, is in second place among active players.Cornet, who plays against 14th-seeded Simona Halep on Monday with hopes of reaching her first quarterfinal, said she was trying not to become fixated on that goal as she plays the last 16 of a Grand Slam event for the sixth time.“I don’t want it to be an obsession; I’m enjoying so much my run here so far,” she said. “I had a really great time on the court again with the crowd supporting me; it’s just an amazing feeling. I want to fill my heart with all this energy without thinking I might finally get my quarterfinal that I’m looking for, for the past 15 years.”“We’ll see how it goes,” she added. “I will keep doing my best on the court. If it happens, great. If not, I mean, it’s still amazing what I’m living every day here.”Cornet’s joie de vivre can prove contagious. As she left the court after her win over Zidansek, Cornet realized that the on-court interviewer had forgotten to mention the most important part of the occasion: “I forgot, I was so emotional,” Cornet said as she commandeered the on-court announcer’s microphone. “But today is my birthday, guys.”Cornet conducted the crowd as they sang for her with considerable gusto, soaking in every note. More

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      Jessica Pegula Cheers on Buffalo Bills From the Australian Open

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      When Buffalo plays Kansas City in their N.F.L. divisional playoff game, Jessica Pegula, whose parents own the Bills, hopes both she and the football team keep winning.MELBOURNE, Australia — As a Pittsburgh Steelers fan whose parents ended up buying the N.F.L.’s Buffalo Bills, Jessica Pegula has had to adapt. But she is in deep now, extolling the leadership virtues of quarterback Josh Allen even as she competes in the Australian Open tennis tournament, and taking the court in an outfit whose red, white and blue hues summon the Bills’ colors, thanks to her sponsor thinking ahead.“It was so random, but I’m like this is perfect,” Pegula said.She even signed the camera lens after her third-round singles victory with a tidy note that read: “Bills you’re next.”“I’m like come on, I backed myself up, now you guys got to get the win,” Pegula said with a chuckle ahead of the Bills’ divisional playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.Stacking up wins would be an outcome to savor for the Pegula family, and Jessica has provided another strong run down under.It was in Australia that she launched her breakthrough season in 2021 by reaching the quarterfinals. At 27, she is on the verge of leaping back into the top 20 whether she wins or loses in her fourth round rematch with Maria Sakkari, who saved six match points before beating Pegula in the round of 16 at the Miami Open last year in a memorable topsy-turvy duel.But Pegula has bounced back from worse. A child of privilege by her own admission, she has shown perseverance and pluck in her quest to become a Grand Slam contender. Yes, she had access to private coaching and abundant support from her family: her 70-year-old father Terry is a billionaire businessman who made his $5.7 billion fortune primarily in natural gas and in real-estate development.Pegula, in Bills red, white and blue, cooled down during her third-round match in Melbourne.Simon Baker/Associated PressBut Pegula had to overcome major knee and hip surgery in her late teens and early 20s that required extensive rehabilitation before she finally broke into the elite.“She was on her way up twice and had to start over again,” said Michael Joyce, who coached her for six years, beginning in 2011 after coaching Maria Sharapova. “Jessie could easily have thrown in the towel obviously with her family and her situation, and the fact that she kept coming back was special. A lot of people would have said, ‘Screw this, I’m done,’ especially in her position.”Tennis, with significant coaching and travel costs, is an expensive sport to master at a high level, but top ranked stars from ultra rich backgrounds are rare on the tour. Pegula is perhaps the first on the women’s tour since Carling Bassett, daughter of Canadian brewery executive John Bassett, broke into the top 10 in the 1980s.“I know a lot of people from very wealthy families who are pretty good, good enough to play in college or something, but they usually fizzle out,” Joyce said.Pegula said she has sometimes felt self-conscious about her family’s wealth, concerned it might make others uncomfortable. Joyce said she was often hesitant to organize training sessions with outsiders at the family’s luxurious home in Boca Raton, Fla., with its two tennis courts — clay and hardcourt.“I was maybe kind of trying to hide it a little bit,” Pegula said. “Then I think I kind of embraced it a little bit, not like over the top, but I think once I became more comfortable and I knew I was doing the hard work and all that I was, like, hey I do have a different story but maybe it’s kind of a cool story. Maybe it’s OK if I embrace the Bills and the teams a little bit more and stuff like that.”She added: “But I’ve always been kind of low key. I don’t like to flaunt, and I think that’s why I’ve been able to be successful, too.”The Pegula family, from left to right: Jessica, Matthew, Terry, Kelly, Laura and Kim, at Ralph Wilson Stadium on Oct. 10, 2014, when Terry and Kim were introduced as the new owners of the Bills.Gary Wiepert/Associated PressTerry and his wife, Kim Pegula, who was born in Seoul and grew up in Fairport, N.Y. near Rochester, bought the N.H.L.’s Buffalo Sabres in 2011 when Jessica was turning 17. They purchased the Bills in 2014 for $1.4 billion.It was not until then that Pegula said she became acutely aware of her family’s fortune, but it did not change how she felt about tennis.“I’ve always been super driven, before the Bills and the money and all that stuff,” she said.“This is always what I wanted. So, when all this stuff happened to me later on in my life, people would ask me, ‘Why are you doing this?’ And I’d be like, ‘I don’t understand. This hasn’t changed since I was 6 or 7 years old. Why would it change now?’”Pegula said she has come to believe that she has a responsibility to do justice to her advantages.“I’m given this amazing opportunity. Why would I want to sabotage that if I really love what I do?” she said. “I don’t shy away from the fact that people don’t get as many opportunities, and I think people are more realizing that giving everyone equal opportunities is important. But I didn’t choose the life I was supposed to have. You are kind of born into it, and I think everyone is dealt a different hand. It’s how you deal with it, and I’m glad that I was able to do it justice and not take it for granted. To me, it would be selfish to do a disservice to that.”Pegula has exceptional timing and her even temperament is an enormous advantage in matches.Jason O’Brien/EPA, via ShutterstockPegula said she has learned to “embrace the grind” — the fitness training, practice sessions and preventive work now required to keep her healthy after the injuries that could have ended her career.At 5-foot-7, she is not the most imposing athlete on a women’s tour increasingly inhabited by taller players with explosive power and movement. But she has exquisite timing, excellent fundamentals, a fine grasp of tactics and an even temperament.“It used to drive me nuts,” Joyce said. “She could go through a whole tournament without one fist pump.”Equanimity can be useful in a brutally competitive sport where success is precarious. One of Pegula’s closest friends, Jennifer Brady, was an Australian Open finalist last year but has now missed the last two majors with a chronic foot condition.It can all seem fragile, all the more so given the coronavirus pandemic. Pegula married her longtime boyfriend, Taylor Gahagen, in October at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C., but her coach, David Witt, tested positive for the coronavirus and she, as a close contact, withdrew from the Billie Jean King Cup team event.The next day she tested positive. So did her husband. “We had a Covid honeymoon basically,” Pegula said. “We were in our house for two weeks.”Pegula with her dog Maddie, one of three, after defeating Camila Giorgi to win the women’s singles final at the Citi Open in 2019.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockThough Pegula said it took her “a few weeks” to recover, she enjoyed the extended off-season and the chance to spend time with her three dogs in Boca Raton: Maddie, a miniature Australian shepherd; Dexter, a German shepherd; and Tucker, a chocolate Labrador.“A lot of different personalities,” Pegula said. “Like three kids I guess. But you have to adapt.”Consider that her catchphrase. In earlier days, she had a dog named for Sidney Crosby, the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey star. The Pittsburgh connection was real: Her father is from Pennsylvania and graduated from Penn State. Though Jessica was born in Buffalo, the Pegulas lived in Pittsburgh when she was young.“We were really not Bills fans to be honest, but that’s obviously flipped,” she said, preparing to check the time difference carefully from Australia and watch Sunday’s big game. More