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      Rafael Nadal Loses at Australian Open After Injury

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      Nadal, who has won 22 Grand Slams, lost in the second round to Mackenzie McDonald, an American who has never cracked the top 40 in the world rankings.MELBOURNE, Australia — The end came all at once for Rafael Nadal, and then it happened slowly.Down one set and on the ropes against Mackenzie McDonald in the second round of the Australian Open on Wednesday, Nadal injured his hip while chasing down a shot in the eighth game of the second set. His eyes, filled with concern, immediately turned to his coaches seated courtside at Rod Laver Arena. He then crouched in the corner to catch his breath. Moments later, he returned to continue, because for Nadal, the one thing worse than losing is quitting.Knowing his day and his tournament were all but done, he watched two aces blaze by, bringing him to the brink of going down two-sets-to-love against McDonald, a 27-year-old American who has never cracked the top 40 in the world rankings. McDonald had played the match of his life for nearly two sets, then did what he needed to do to close out a 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 victory over an ailing Nadal, who hobbled around the court for nearly another hour like a wounded deer.Nadal’s injury came after McDonald, a former U.C.L.A. player, had spent more than 90 minutes pasting the lines with his shots when he needed to most. Nadal, the No. 1 seed, called for a trainer, left the court to receive medical treatment for what appeared to be an injury to his midsection, near his right hip, then returned and played on.Nadal receiving medical treatment on the court at Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday.Cameron Spencer/Getty ImagesThe 36-year-old Nadal struggled to move and chase after balls with the abandon that has always been the hallmark of his game. He could barely generate power from his backhand. He somehow stayed even with McDonald through the first 10 games of the second set, hobbling around, taking wild cuts to try to end points quickly. But McDonald put just enough shots out of Nadal’s reach to break his serve in the 11th, then clinched the match when Nadal netted one last backhand return.When it was over, Nadal left to a rousing ovation, taking an extra few moments to turn and wave to the crowd.In a news conference 45 minutes later, the defending Australian Open champion said his disappointment was unimaginable, his voice cracking slightly as he spoke about suffering yet another injury in a career, despite all of its success, that has been filled with them.“I can’t say that I am not destroyed mentally this time because I would be lying,” he said.The loss was the latest in a string of defeats that have plagued him recently as he has battled injuries and a wounded psyche. He also has had to adjust to fatherhood after the birth of his first child, a son, in October.Nadal had lost six of his previous seven matches coming into the tournament, with several of those coming against a younger generation of players. Once they would have been awed playing against a nearly unbeatable opponent. Now, they walk onto the court knowing that Nadal, whose body is banged up from playing an incredibly physical style over his career, is as vulnerable as he has been at any point in his career.“He’s an incredible champion,” McDonald said of Nadal after the match. “He’s never going to give up.”The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Taylor Townsend: A decade ago, she had to contend with the body-shaming of tennis leaders in the United States. Now, she’s determined to play the best tennis of her career.Caroline Garcia: The top player has spoken openly about her struggles with an eating disorder. At the Australian Open she is chasing her first Grand Slam singles title.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.McDonald’s win was the latest in a string of successes by Americans against Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam champion. For nearly two decades, they could barely touch him, especially in Grand Slam tournaments. That changed in September at the U.S. Open, when Frances Tiafoe, 24, knocked him out in the fourth round. Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz beat Nadal later in the fall in other tournaments, when the Spaniard was trying to return late in the season from an abdominal injury.Wednesday, it was McDonald’s turn, in a scene that was eerily reminiscent of last year’s Wimbledon quarterfinals, when Nadal tore an abdominal muscle while playing Fritz. On that day he somehow prevailed in five sets, even as his coaches and relatives urged him to quit. Those discussions didn’t materialize Wednesday. His wife, sister, father and coaches sat mostly silent, letting the match reach its inevitable end.McDonald met Nadal’s power and topspin with his own during the match.Martin Keep/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNadal said he had felt discomfort in his hip in recent days but nothing like what he felt in that crucial moment late in the second set.“I don’t know what’s going on, if it’s muscle, if it’s joint,” he said. “I have history in the hip. I had to do treatments in the past, address a little. It was not this amount of problem. Now I feel I cannot move.”Before the injury, McDonald stood on the baseline and beat Nadal at his own game, meeting Nadal’s power and topspin with his own flatter version of it, curling forehands just above the net and sending Nadal chasing the ball from corner to corner. When Nadal hit harder, so did McDonald. He broke Nadal’s serve early in the first and second set and kept Nadal under pressure all day, then remained steady as Nadal played through the pain.The defeat marked Nadal’s earliest exit from a Grand Slam tournament since he lost in the first round of the Australian Open seven years ago.McDonald caught a break from the inclement weather that has plagued the tournament since Tuesday, drenching Melbourne with rain. The rain on Wednesday had forced the closure of the roof, which the players say slows down the pace of the ball. Throughout the match, Nadal struggled to hit through the back of the court, his ball slowing just enough to allow McDonald to catch up to it and take his best rips.Nadal has experienced all the highs and lows of the sport during the last 18 months. He missed most of the second half of 2021 because of a series of injuries, then ventured to Melbourne a year ago, just seven weeks after being on crutches. With his foot chronically injured, he thought then it might be his last opportunity to play in Australia.He quickly returned to form and won the final in Melbourne after being two sets down against Daniil Medvedev of Russia. For the first time in 13 years, he was the Australian Open champion.At the French Open, he received injections to numb the pain in his foot before every match. Nevertheless, he rolled to his 14th title at that tournament, but left on crutches.For Nadal, the loss was the latest in a string of defeats that have plagued him recently as he has battled injuries and a wounded psyche.Loren Elliott/ReutersHe entered Wimbledon, his first official match on grass in three years, without playing a warm-up tournament. He won all five matches he played but had to withdraw before the semifinals because of the torn abdominal.He played just one hardcourt match before the U.S. Open and lost to Tiafoe in four sets in the fourth round. Tiafoe was the first American-born player to beat Nadal at a Grand Slam in nearly two decades.In late September, Nadal partnered with Roger Federer in the Swiss champion’s final competitive match. Nadal tried to get healthy for two late-season indoor tournaments, neither of which went well.Nadal arrived in Australia in December to play for Spain in the inaugural United Cup, a rare competition with both men and women. He lost both of his matches, extending one of the roughest stretches of his career.At other moments of disappointment, Nadal has been able to appear philosophical, expressing thanks for the good fortune of his life. Wednesday was different, he said, as he struggled to do that.“Can’t come here and say, lying, that the life is fantastic and staying positive and keep fighting,” he said. “Not now. Tomorrow starts another day. Now it’s a tough moment. It’s a tough day, and you need to accept that, and keep going. You know, in the end, I can’t complain about my life at all. So just in terms of sports and in terms of injuries and tough moments, I mean, that’s another one. Just can’t say that I am not destroyed mentally at this time.”Nadal will likely take a break to get healthy again, then, if he can, turn his focus to the spring clay-court season and the French Open. It is a tournament he has won 14 times, and he calls it the most special of his career.“I like playing tennis,” he said. “I know it’s not forever. I like to feel myself competitive. I like to fight for the things that I have been fighting for almost half of my life or even more.All that success will mean nothing, though, if Nadal can’t maintain his health, something that only gets harder as athletes age.Ultimately, that may be the one opponent that proves too tough, even for Nadal, but if there is any chance of delaying the inevitable a little longer, he will take it, regardless of the sacrifice.“When you like do one thing,” he said. “Sacrifices always make sense. More

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      Caroline Garcia Has Been Rethinking Her Approaches to Tennis and Eating

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      Garcia is one of the world’s top players and poised to rise in the rankings. She started her season by publicly discussing her troubles with binge eating.MELBOURNE, Australia — The 2022 women’s tennis season was, on balance, Iga Swiatek’s campaign, but the finish belonged to another thoughtful star, one who likes to rip her groundstrokes at work and read in her spare time.Caroline Garcia, an acrobatic French polyglot, found her bliss last year: solving a chronic foot condition, addressing mental-health issues and committing to playing an all-out attacking style that not only made her feel complete and eager to compete but also paid off handsomely.In August, she became the first qualifier to win a WTA 1000 event, prevailing at the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio. In September, she reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open, and in November she capped the season by winning the elite WTA Finals in Fort Worth.It was her best season but also, behind the scenes, a trying season. When Garcia took a solo vacation to Bali, Indonesia, she felt the desire to share some details in a long, open letter on Instagram to her followers. “I’ve had sleepless nights, binge eating, cried in my hotel room, cried on tennis courts, been on crutches, swore, relearned to walk,” she wrote. She continued: “But I also learned from every moment, every difficulty.”When she returned to France, Garcia gave an interview to the sports publication L’Équipe in which she spoke openly about her struggles in recent years with her eating disorder and melancholy on the circuit.“I found refuge in food. These were moments of crisis. You feel so empty, so sad, that you need to fill yourself up. It was the distress of not being able to do what I wanted to on court, to no longer win and to suffer physically,” Garcia said. “Eating gave me peace for a few minutes. We all know it does not last, but it was an escape. It was uncontrollable.”Garcia feels better now, as she made clear upon arrival in Melbourne for the Australian Open to chase the next goal on her list: a first Grand Slam singles title.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Missing Stars: Carlos Alcaraz, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios have all pulled out of the tournament. Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Holger Rune’s Rise: Last year, the 19-year-old broke into the top 10, but not without some unwanted attention. We spoke to the young Dane ahead of his second Australian Open.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.But she said she was surprised by the impact of her comments, not realizing that her new status as a top-five player would generate more interest in them.“I didn’t think it would be reported so widely,” she said last week, adding: “I felt comfortable to say it, but it’s true that after I saw so many things written about it, I felt a bit less comfortable than I had at the beginning.”The atmosphere and dialogue are indeed changing in elite sports, especially in pro tennis with stars like Naomi Osaka opening up about their psychological struggles and the emotional rigors of the tour. “Break Point,” the new fly-on-the-wall documentary series from Netflix, focuses heavily on the mental rigors of the sport, through leading players like Nick Kyrgios and Paula Badosa. “So much happens behind the scenes,” Garcia said. “So much more than people know.”Garcia said on Tuesday, after her convincing 6-3, 6-0 first-round victory over the Canadian qualifier Katherine Sebov, that Netflix had recently contacted her team to explore the idea of her taking part in the series.She remains undecided. “You have to weigh the pros and cons,” she said. “Because the process is rather intrusive, the way they film, and if you are not at ease with that, it serves no purpose to do it.”But Garcia, despite her uneasiness over the reach of her comments about eating, does think it has been helpful to share her story, not necessarily with the general public but with those close to her. She said her condition is bulimia, which often involves forced vomiting after a binge. Garcia said she did not vomit but took other extreme measures associated with bulimia, like fasting to avoid putting on weight after a binge.“I had accepted it and learned to cope with it,” she said. “My close people and my family and my team were totally aware. That’s the most important thing. You don’t necessarily need for the whole world to know to live with it well.”Alizé Cornet, a veteran French player and friend of Garcia’s, said she was unaware of Garcia’s troubles but said that many players go through “some form of depression” while on tour.“I feel like it’s almost obligatory process: to be able to bounce back and to know oneself and to get some distance from things,” Cornet said on Tuesday. She added: “I’m sad for her that she had to go through that, but when I see how she’s grown, it was perhaps something that was useful after all.”Garcia, 29, was pegged early for tennis greatness when the British player Andy Murray watched her win a set against the Russian star Maria Sharapova at the 2011 French Open and tweeted that Garcia was “going to be number one in the world one day.”Though Garcia has surged to No. 4 on two separate occasions (2018 and 2022), fixating on numbers and results played a role in her malaise. The nomadic life on tour made it easier to feel isolated and seek solace in food.“When you are alone, it’s harder to control,” she told L’Équipe. “And in tennis, we spend quite a bit of time alone in our room.”She added: “Sometimes it’s simply fatigue that makes your body crave sugar. Sometimes it’s unexplainable. I needed to fill myself up to compensate for the defeats and the suffering.”Garcia had a losing singles record in the 18 months before her run as a qualifier in Ohio, but she is flying as high as her signature airborne victory celebration now, despite the unexpected split with her coach Bertrand Perret in October, shortly before the WTA Finals.On her Instagram account, Garcia posted 10 photographs that, for her, encapsulated her 2022 season. One of the pictures was a close-up of her in tears that was taken in Mexico shortly after Perret’s decision to quit.“This photo was one of those numerous moments of doubt and sadness,” Garcia told L’Équipe. “There were others, but I did not take pictures of them.”Garcia is ranked No. 4 this week behind No. 1 Swiatek, No. 2 Ons Jabeur and No. 3 Jessica Pegula.For now, Swiatek’s position at the top remains formidable. Swiatek, who won eight singles titles in 2022, has more than double the points of Jabeur. But Garcia could close the gap as she has few ranking points to defend until August.Her main tennis goal is elsewhere, however. No Frenchwoman has won a major singles title since Marion Bartoli won Wimbledon surprisingly in 2013.At this stage, a Garcia victory in Melbourne would hardly be a shock, even if her ultra-aggressive, net-rushing style can certainly leave her more vulnerable to errors than others. She said she realizes that her bold, flashy game does not match her personality off the court. Despite her ranking, she said she was surprised to be scheduled on Rod Laver Arena, the Australian Open’s main court, on Tuesday. “Maybe it’s modesty,” she acknowledged. “But I didn’t expect it.”Her next center-court challenge on Thursday: a tricky second-round match with Leylah Fernandez, the plucky counterpunching Canadian who made the 2021 U.S. Open women’s singles final as a teenager.Cornet, beaten by Fernandez on Monday, likes Garcia’s chances on Wednesday and beyond.“It’s coming together, the pieces of the puzzle are in place,” Cornet said. “She’s 29 and mature and has gone through challenges and knows why she is here. She enjoys her time on the court more, and we can sense she’s a lot happier since last year. The stars are aligned. All she has to do is go chase that Grand Slam.” More

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      Extreme Heat, Torrential Rain Plagues Australian Open

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      At the first Grand Slam tournament of the tennis season, the heat got so intense that play was halted for most of the afternoon. In the evening, a torrential rain fell, halting play once more.MELBOURNE, Australia — This country has a well-earned reputation as a land of extremes: fatally poisonous snakes, deadly insects, killer crocodiles, drenching rains and brutal heat.The Australian Open got a fair dose of that Tuesday — well, not so much the killer bugs or crocs or snakes, though the park next to the tennis center does have signs warning visitors to beware of snakes. The heat got so intense that play was halted for most of the afternoon. In the evening, a torrential rain fell, halting play once more.Keeping with the theme of extreme, somewhere in the midst of all this weather, Andy Murray, the 35-year-old three-time Grand Slam winner and former world No. 1, somehow managed to turn back the clock and beat Matteo Berrettini of Italy in five sets, including a deciding super-tiebreaker at the end of the fifth set. The final score line looked like this: 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (10-6). The match lasted 4 hours 49 minutes. Murray, who is in the middle of a yearslong comeback from major hip surgery, saved a match point and played the final set with blood coming out of his knee after skinning it on the ground trying to win it in four.“I feel tired,” Murray said in his news conference a little more than two hours after he finished.“Impressive what he could do after so many surgeries, after all the kilometers that he ran in his career,” Berrettini said of Murray. “It just shows how much he loves the game, how much he loves these kind of matches.”Murray and Berrettini were lucky. They played in Rod Laver, one of three courts here with roofs, which were closed when organizers announced that while temperatures had not hit triple digits, the four climate factors they consider when deciding whether to halt play — air temperature, radiant heat, humidity and wind speed — had all tipped the scale.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Missing Stars: Carlos Alcaraz, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios have all pulled out of the tournament. Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player.Holger Rune’s Rise: Last year, the 19-year-old broke into the top 10, but not without some unwanted attention. We spoke to the young Dane ahead of his second Australian Open.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.A Waiting Game: Tennis matches can last a long time. Here’s how players waiting to take the court for the next match stay sharp.Taylor Fritz of the United States, who beat Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia in four sets, said he had felt far more discomfort in Washington, D.C., last summer or at the U.S. Open some years.“It’s dry heat,” said Fritz, who has spent plenty of afternoons in smothering humidity in Florida. “I don’t think it’s as bad.”The weather played havoc with the schedule, forcing many matches to postpone until Wednesday.Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesThe weather played havoc with the schedule, and with rain forecast on and off through the evening it appeared that plenty of matches might not finish until Wednesday.If you like upsets, Tuesday was not your day. Murray’s was the big one. Berrettini, a finalist at Wimbledon in 2021, was the 13th seed, and with his big serve and forehand he can be as dangerous as anyone other than the nine-time champion Novak Djokovic, who beat Roberto Carballés Baena of Sapin in straight sets in the late match on Rod Laver, a court and time slot that Djokovic loves.Murray credited a three-week journey to Florida last year to train with Ivan Lendl, the coach who has been with him for many of his biggest wins. The past success creates trust, Murray said, and the confidence he needs to compete with players a decade or more his junior. He will face the winner of the match between Thanasi Kokkinakis, a hometown favorite, and Fabio Fognini of Italy on Thursday, when the high temperature is expected to be just 64 degrees Fahrenheit.It’s worth noting in the wake of Berrettini’s loss that there is some chatter going around Melbourne Park and social media about a Netflix curse. The thinking is that if you were featured in the Netflix series “Break Point,” the tennis gods are coming for you.Nick Kyrgios, Paula Badosa, and Ajla Tomljanovic all featured heavily in “Break Point” and had to pull out with injuries. Now Berrettini is out. Then again, Fritz and Felix Auger-Aliassime have survived. Eventually, the tennis gods come for everyone except one woman and one man.As for Wednesday, Rafael Nadal is scheduled to be back in action against Mackenzie McDonald of the United States in the afternoon, but the real star power is on the night schedule.Coco Gauff, the American star who is only 18, takes on Emma Raducanu, who won the U.S. Open in 2021 as a qualifier and has graced magazine covers ever since. If ever there was an early-round match worth setting an alarm for 3 a.m., this one might be it. More

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      Nick Kyrgios Withdraws From Australian Open With Knee Injury

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      Kyrgios, the temperamental star who was a finalist at Wimbledon last year, had battled soreness in his left knee but was hoping to play.MELBOURNE, Australia — After spending the past week receiving all the laurels of a hometown favorite, Nick Kyrgios withdrew from the Australian Open on Monday with a knee injury, a little more than 24 hours ahead of his scheduled first-round match.In an interview Friday, Kyrgios, the temperamental Australian star who was a finalist at Wimbledon last year, said he had been battling soreness in his left knee during the off-season, but he expected to be able to play in the year’s first Grand Slam.Those hopes took a turn for the worse Friday after a charity match with Novak Djokovic.“Extremely disappointed,” Kyrgios said during a news conference Monday afternoon at Melbourne Park. “Pretty brutal. One of the most important tournaments of my career.”After climbing from outside the top 100 in 2021 to play deep into two Grand Slam tournaments last year, Kyrgios was among the favorites heading into the Australian Open, where he won the men’s doubles title last year with his fellow Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis.The first sign that things were not going as planned emerged in late December, when Kyrgios pulled out of the United Cup, a team competition, just before the start of the event. He then withdrew from an Australian Open tuneup tournament in Adelaide, hoping he would be healthy enough by the start of the Australian Open this week.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Missing Stars: Carlos Alcaraz, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios have all pulled out of the tournament. Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player.Holger Rune’s Rise: Last year, the 19-year-old broke into the top 10, but not without some unwanted attention. We spoke to the young Dane ahead of his second Australian Open.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.A Waiting Game: Tennis matches can last a long time. Here’s how players waiting to take the court for the next match stay sharp.Will Maher, Kyrgios’s longtime physiotherapist, said during the Monday news conference that Kyrgios underwent a magnetic resonance imaging test last week that revealed both a cyst and a slight tear in his meniscus. Maher said Kyrgios would go home to Canberra for a procedure later this week. He will spend February rehabilitating the knee and is hoping to be healthy enough to play in March in the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.“There’s a parameniscal cyst growing in his left meniscus, which is the result of a small tear in his lateral meniscus,” Maher said. “It’s not a significant injury in the sense that it’s going to be career-threatening, or anything like that.”Maher said Kyrgios had done everything he could to be able to compete. Last week, he underwent a procedure to drain the cyst. He also received injections to relieve the pressure, and while there was temporary relief, the soreness increased in recent days. Maher said playing could risk creating a more significant injury, such as a tear in his anterior cruciate ligament, or A.C.L.Kyrgios said that as soon as he lost in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in September, his mind shifted to the Australian Open, where he liked his chances on hardcourts in front of raucous home crowds.“I always wanted to just do everything right and train right and tick every box, and just be ready,” Kyrgios said. He added: “Obviously, this coming around is just bad timing. But that’s life. Injury is a part of the sport.”He said he was confident that he would be able to regain the form that made him one of the world’s most feared players, but surgery is the only way to get there.“Every time I land on serve or push off my serve, you can see on the side of my knee there’s like a little lump,” he said. “That lump will eventually just get bigger and bigger. There’s pressure on my knee, obviously hinders my movement. The only real way to get rid of it is to open up and then just get rid of it.”Kyrgios has another serious issue to deal with in Canberra in the coming weeks.In early February, he is due in court to face a charge of common assault stemming from an altercation with an ex-girlfriend, Chiara Passari, in December 2021. Kyrgios has declined to discuss the matter since it became public during his run to the Wimbledon final in July.Common assault is the least serious assault charge in Australia, but it implies that the victim experienced immediate, unlawful violence, or the threat of it, though not bodily injury. Kyrgios’s lawyers have said they will mount a defense focused on mental illness, citing his history of depression and substance abuse, struggles Kyrgios has said will always be with him but that he now has under control. If the court accepts this defense and dismisses the case, it could then decide to impose a treatment plan. The maximum penalty for common assault is two years’ imprisonment. More

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      At the Australian Open, Shang Juncheng Leads Wave of Talent From China

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      Shang, once the world’s top-ranked junior, Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen played men’s singles in Melbourne, the first time three men from China are competing at a Grand Slam in the Open era.MELBOURNE, Australia — Shang Juncheng could have chosen his father’s sport of soccer or his mother’s sport of table tennis. His father, Shang Yi, was a leading Chinese midfielder, good enough to play for the national team. His mother, Wu Na, was a world champion in doubles.Instead, their son became a tennis player, leaving home in Beijing at age 11 to train at an academy in Florida.On Monday in Melbourne, it looked as if he had made a wise choice. Shang, a 17-year-old qualifier and the youngest player in the men’s draw, showed rare skill and maturity as he made his Grand Slam tournament debut and became the first Chinese man to win an Australian Open singles match in the Open era.He did it with a gritty, often pretty victory, 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5, on opening day over Oscar Otte, an unseeded 29-year-old German with a booming serve and a full beard. Shang, who will face the American Frances Tiafoe in the second round, did it on Court 13 with hundreds of fans packed into the grandstand and shouting encouragement in Mandarin and English.“I felt like I was playing at home,” he said.Shang, nicknamed Jerry, speaks both languages fluently after spending so much of his youth in the United States. Though he was interested in soccer in his early years, he said his mother suggested tennis because she believed there were fewer injuries. Shang first played on an indoor hardcourt in Beijing and said he liked it from the start.“For me, the main goal was to become a professional tennis player, even when I was 6 or 7 years old,” he said in an interview. “We started practicing in China in Beijing. That’s where I started on an indoor hardcourt, and my dad used to play soccer in Spain, so he really liked the system and the way the Spanish athletes work.”But instead of basing themselves in Spain, the family chose for Shang to train at the Emilio Sanchez Academy operated by the former Spanish ATP player Emilio Sanchez in Naples, Fla.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Missing Stars: Carlos Alcaraz, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios have all pulled out of the tournament. Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player.Holger Rune’s Rise: Last year, the 19-year-old broke into the top 10, but not without some unwanted attention. We spoke to the young Dane ahead of his second Australian Open.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.A Waiting Game: Tennis matches can last a long time. Here’s how players waiting to take the court for the next match stay sharp.Shang later moved to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., a longtime hub of the game, and he is managed by IMG, the agency that represents several other Chinese players, including Li Na, who is retired.Li became the first Chinese Grand Slam singles champion, winning the 2011 French Open and then the 2014 Australian Open. The Chinese men have long lagged behind, and progress has been slow. In 2013 at the Australian Open, Wu Di became the first Chinese man to play in a major tournament in the Open era. It took nearly a decade for a Chinese man to win a singles match in a major.Zhang Zhizhen of China was set to face Ben Shelton of the United States on Monday at the Australian Open.William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut Shang, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave that includes Wu Yibing, 23, and Zhang Zhizhen, 26.All three were in the main draw this year in Melbourne. It is the first time three Chinese men have played singles in the same major in the Open era, which began in 1968.On Monday, while Shang was breaking through on Court 13, Wu was on adjacent Court 14, playing grinding rallies with Corentin Moutet of France before losing in five sets.Wu, who also trains at IMG Academy, reached the third round of last year’s U.S. Open, where Zhang lost in the first round. Now Shang, a dynamic left-hander who looks like the most promising talent of the group, has joined them at this level.“Now we have three players in the top 200, and I’m happy that I’m one of them,” Shang said. “The other two are like older brothers to me and have been on the tour a lot longer than me. We do practice a lot, and we do speak about how the game is right now and how we can push forward to a higher ranking. For me, each step is a learning step right now. I’m in a young stage of my career, only my second year playing professional tennis. So, for me, it’s just watching how they do things, like we’ve also watched Li Na and how she did things.”Shang wears an earring in his left ear.“That’s something my dad had for a long time,” he said. “When I was around 10 years old, I was like, ‘I want to be like dad,’ and so we went to get it together. I’ve had it for a long time.”Shang said his parents nicknamed him Jerry when he was very young after the mouse in the Tom and Jerry cartoons.“Tom was the one always getting in trouble and Jerry was the smart one, so they thought it was better to choose Jerry,” Shang said.He plays tennis cleverly, changing gears and speeds often to avoid giving opponents a consistent rhythm. But his top gear is impressive, particularly when he is dictating terms with his quick-strike forehand. Against Otte, he showed some deft volleying touch, as well as plenty of composure: avoiding the temptation to rush between points and gathering himself. He finished off the victory with a bold, leaping backhand winner.Shang won his first-round match with a performance that was both gritty and pretty.Fazry Ismail/EPA, via Shutterstock“He’s a complete player,” said his new coach, Dante Bottini. “He can read the court and the game very well, so that’s what surprised me the most when I started working with him. He knows a lot about the game for someone at his age.”Bottini coached the Japanese star Kei Nishikori and worked more recently with the Chilean Nicolás Jarry and the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, both of whom sometimes practiced with Shang at IMG Academy.Bottini began coaching Shang in the preseason after being recruited by Li Xi, Shang’s primary agent, a former Chinese player who was on the women’s team at the University of Virginia and was sitting courtside on Monday in a bucket hat next to Shang’s father, Yi.Shang has had no shortage of coaches in his short career, including Marcelo Ríos, the former No. 1 from Chile who worked with Shang for a brief period last year. Though Shang won his first Challenger title in Lexington, Ky., during their collaboration, they soon split.“It was sad it didn’t work out in the end, but he did bring things to my game,” Shang said.Once ranked No. 1 on the ATP Tour, Ríos, like Shang, is a left-hander, but Shang said his biggest source of inspiration has been another left-handed No. 1: Rafael Nadal.Shang first saw him play in person at the men’s ATP event in Beijing, and though Shang said he had not returned to China since he was 14 because of the coronavirus pandemic, he is eager to play there again once the country, which is reopening, allows international tournaments like the Beijing event or the Masters 1000 in Shanghai to resume.“It would be great to play at home in China,” he said.For now, considering the supportive atmosphere on Monday, he will have to settle for playing at home in Australia, but he should face a bigger challenge on Wednesday in Tiafoe, a U.S. Open semifinalist last year who is seeded No. 16 in Melbourne. “Jerry’s obviously having a great tournament, but we need to keep his feet on the ground,” Bottini said. “He has a lot of potential, as we can all see, but we need to go little by little. I think he has a big career ahead of him.” More

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      Novak Djokovic Returns to the Australian Open, No Longer a Villain

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      Djokovic’s deportation was major news in January 2022, but a year later, the Grand Slam tournament, country and sport seem eager to move on.MELBOURNE, Australia — It was the day before the Australian Open, and the Park Hotel in Melbourne’s Carlton neighborhood was closed with only the occasional pedestrian passing in front of the dusty, deserted entrance on a sedate Sunday.Quite a different scene than last year, when Novak Djokovic, the world’s No. 1 tennis player, was in detention in Carlton ahead of the Open. He was about to be deported by the Australian government and miss the tournament after arriving in the country unvaccinated for the coronavirus and losing his final legal appeal.“I just think the whole thing was totally embarrassing and it could have been avoided,” said Ailsa McDermid, a Melburnian who shuffled by on Sunday with a shopping bag in each hand and looked up at the now-vacant hotel.Its large sign was covered by a dark tarpaulin, which seemed an appropriate metaphor: L’Affaire Djokovic was major news worldwide in January 2022, dominating conversation in the run-up to the year’s first Grand Slam event, which Djokovic has won nine times, a men’s tournament record.But a year later, the city, country and sport seem eager to move on while getting back to tennis as usual.The Australian Open “will mark a welcome return to normalcy after three years of bushfires, pandemic and the furor last year about Novak Djokovic’s vaccination status,” The Age, one of Melbourne’s leading newspapers, wrote in an editorial that was posted online Sunday with the headline “Let’s Enjoy Great Tennis, Pure and Simple.”Djokovic, 35, remains one of the few leading professional tennis players to remain unvaccinated for the coronavirus, but Australia, which had some of the most stringent restrictions in the world during the pandemic, no longer requires proof of vaccination or a negative test for entry into the country except for travelers arriving from China.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Taylor Townsend: A decade ago, she had to contend with the body-shaming of tennis leaders in the United States. Now, she’s determined to play the best tennis of her career.Caroline Garcia: The top player has spoken openly about her struggles with an eating disorder. At the Australian Open she is chasing her first Grand Slam singles title.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.Though Djokovic was automatically barred from Australia for three years after his deportation, the new Australian government chose to overturn that ban in November, and the Serb has returned to a welcome every bit as warm as Saturday’s sultry summer weather in Melbourne.He was cheered in Adelaide as he won a lead-in tournament against a strong field, and he received more strong and vocal support Friday night as he played an intermittently intense and lighthearted practice match in Rod Laver Arena with the Australian Nick Kyrgios in front of a capacity crowd of 15,000 that had snapped up the available tickets in under an hour.“I was very emotional, honestly, coming into the court with the reception that I received,” Djokovic said Saturday. “I didn’t know how that’s going to go after the events of last year. I’m very grateful for the kind of energy and reception, love and support I got.”There is still ample resistance to Djokovic’s presence in Australia. In December, The Sydney Morning Herald commissioned a national poll in which 41 percent of the respondents said he should not be allowed to stay in the country and play in the Australian Open. Only 30 percent clearly supported his participation, and another 29 percent said they did not have a strong opinion on the matter.But those mixed feelings have not been noticeable (or audible) during his matches so far, and he was relaxed enough Friday night to dance on changeovers and wiggle as he waited to return Kyrgios’s serve.Djokovic has been hearing cheers at this year’s Australian Open from a wide fan base.Loren Elliott/Reuters“If I do hold the grudge, probably if I’m not able to move on, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “Also, I have to say that the amount of positive experiences I had in Australia overwhelm the negative experience maybe of last year. My impression of Australia, my vision of Australia, has always been very positive, and that has reflected on my performance.”Djokovic won the first of his 21 Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open in 2008 — beating then-No. 1 Roger Federer in straight sets along the way — and has reserved some of his finest tennis for the hardcourts of Melbourne Park. He has a bright and shiny 82-8 singles record at the tournament and has never lost in the final. From the early years of his career, he has received particularly vocal support from Australia’s sizable Serbian population, and there were Serbian flags in abundance Friday night, just as there were last year in front of the Park Hotel as supporters protested his detention.But the cheers this year have come from a much wider fan base.“Australians have a bit of a tall poppy syndrome, so they like cutting people down when they get too big,” said Michaela Kennedy, 26, a Melbourne lawyer who attended Friday’s practice match. “But they also love a comeback story, and now Novak is a comeback story. So that’s how it works.”The context has certainly changed in Melbourne. When Djokovic arrived in January 2022, the population was still reeling from the series of strict lockdowns and travel restrictions that had kept some family members separated. In an interview last week with Australia’s Channel Nine network, Djokovic said he understood the anger of Australians after he was initially cleared to enter the country.“I understand that it was a frustrating period for a lot of people around the world, particularly here in Australia for two years,” he said. “So I understand that when media writes in a certain way about a guy who tried to go in without a vaccine that people would say: ‘Wait, wait a second. Why is he allowed to come in when many people aren’t able or allowed to come from wherever they are around the world to their own country? So I understand why they were frustrated, but again I have to say that the media presented in a completely wrong way.”In Djokovic’s view, he was “just following the rules” and was in possession of the “valid papers,” including the exemption that had been validated by an independent body. (He did neglect to note upon arrival that he had traveled to Spain shortly before coming to Australia.)There clearly was miscommunication, or perhaps rivalry, between the regional government of Victoria, which initially supported the visa, and the federal government, which canceled it. Djokovic surely would not have boarded the plane to Melbourne if he had not believed he had what he needed to enter. Ultimately, he was deported by Alex Hawke, then the immigration minister, not because of a visa irregularity but because it was deemed in the public interest to keep him from becoming a rallying point for the anti-vaccination movement in Australia.Djokovic has his sights set on winning his 10th Australian Open.Graham Denholm/Getty ImagesDespite the debacle, there has been minimal fallout in Australian tennis. Craig Tiley, the Australian Open tournament director and chief executive of Tennis Australia, has remained in his post along with his core support team. He did not respond to requests for an interview and has not explained in detail how the mixed signals involving Djokovic came about, but he told The Australian newspaper last week that “he knew the truth” and took strength from it.“Would I prefer it didn’t happen? Absolutely,” Tiley said. “Personally, it was a very difficult period, but I was more concerned about our team and staff who were impacted indirectly and in some cases directly impacted by some of the extreme negativity and blame game that went on. But at the end of the day we were just doing our best.”What has changed is the Park Hotel, long used as a detention facility for asylum seekers, some of whom had been confined there for nine years in often spartan conditions, sparking protests from human rights groups in Australia. But Djokovic’s arrival intensified the spotlight, and in April, the facility’s last detainees were released on short-term visas.“In that respect, Novak did refugees a favor,” Ian Rintoul, a Refugee Action Coalition spokesman, said in an interview with Code Sports.Djokovic has expressed his delight for the refugees who have been released. “I stayed there for a week, and I can’t imagine how they felt for nine years,” he said in May.The Park Hotel’s future remains unclear, but Djokovic has no doubt upgraded his accommodations in 2023, and though he has been playing with a nagging hamstring injury, he has been moving well enough to be rightfully considered a strong favorite to win again in Melbourne.Doing so would allow him to tie Rafael Nadal, who won the title here last year, for the men’s record of 22 Grand Slam singles titles.I asked Djokovic on Saturday if that was motivation.“Of course it is,” he answered. “I like my chances. I always like my chances. I train as hard as really anybody out there. There’s a lot of youngsters now that are very hungry, that want to win.”Djokovic added, “The experience of being in these kind of particular circumstances helps I think to have the right approach and do things in a proper way, because I know when I’m healthy and playing my best on this court I have chances really against anybody.” More

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      Nick Kyrgios Is Coming for Tennis

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      Update: On Monday, a little more than 24 hours ahead of his scheduled first-round match, Nick Kyrgios withdrew from the Australian Open with a knee injury.MELBOURNE, Australia — Nick Kyrgios is finally home.He is in Australia, with his people and in the place he longs for during all those homesick months living out of a suitcase on the professional tennis road.For months, he soaked up the sun and trained in Sydney. But he also squeezed in a bit of time, though never enough for his liking, on the black couch in his childhood home in Canberra, Australia’s quiet, rural capital, telling his mother how safe he feels while she drinks tea a few feet away in the kitchen. He could sleep in his old room, where his cherished collection of colorful basketball shoes lines the shelves. That is next to the room with hundreds of his trophies and plaques and dozens of his smashed rackets. His pet macaw is in an aviary out back. Mornings bring brisk, 12-kilometer walks with his father, his golden retriever King and his miniature Dachshund Quincy, up nearby Mount Majura.He hit balls, and lifted weights, goofed around with and gave endless swag to the children at the tennis center in Lyneham where he got his start. Like many in Australia — and lots of other places these days — they worship their local folk hero, no matter how boorish and aggressive he can be in the heat of competition, or when a live microphone appears at his chin. Or maybe that’s why they do.Now though, everything is suddenly different.Last year, Kyrgios evolved from a temperamental talent with so much unrealized potential into the kind of transcendent showman that this supposedly genteel sport offers up every so often — the gifted bad boy who drives the tennis establishment mad but enthralls crowds in the late stages of the most important championships.At the U.S. Open, Kyrgios beat the top seed and defending champion, Daniil Medvedev.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesFans cheered for Kyrgios at last year’s Australian Open.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesWhether the tennis establishment likes it or not, no one in the sport fills a stadium like Kyrgios these days. Even his doubles matches have become raucous, packed affairs. And as the Australian Open gets underway, Kyrgios is among the favorites to challenge the nine-time champion Novak Djokovic for his home slam, which may be the ultimate double-edged sword. That level of pressure and expectation has been kryptonite for Kyrgios before, his self-destructive psyche exploding at a crucial moment, producing his unique brand of irresistible tennis theater.“It’s going to be a hard couple weeks, regardless of whether I win or lose, emotionally, mentally,” Kyrgios said in a pre-Christmas interview from his parents’ home. “I’m one of the players that has a scope lens on him all the time. Big target on my back.” With all his recent success and notoriety, so much suddenly appears to be riding on Kyrgios. The game’s leaders see him as the rare player who can reach a new and younger audience. Fans raise their beers and bump chests as Kyrgios wins points with his signature trick shots through the legs and behind the back. They wear basketball jerseys when they watch him and when they play, just as he does, and they turn his matches, even the doubles contests, into something like a rowdy night at a U.F.C. bout.“He brings something different,” said Andrea Gaudenzi, a former pro who is now the chairman of the A.T.P. Tour, which is the men’s professional circuit.Ken Solomon, chairman and chief executive of the Tennis Channel, the sport’s leading media partner, called Kyrgios “ground zero” in efforts to attract fans who have never touched a racket and perhaps never will. On Friday, Netflix released “Break Point,” its documentary series on pro tennis that the sport hopes will do for it what “Drive to Survive” did for Formula 1. The premiere episode focused almost exclusively on Kyrgios, who took a signature victory lap on Twitter.Tennis Australia announced last week that Kyrgios would play Djokovic in a charity exhibition Friday evening. Tickets sold out in 58 minutes.Before his exhibition match with Djokovic, Kyrgios hobnobbed with clients of a luxury hotel chain during a promotional table tennis game.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThree hours before the match, he hobnobbed with the top clients of a luxury hotel chain during a promotional table tennis game. Before the event started, he sat alone in a quiet hallway, feeling the pressure of what lay ahead. Moments later, holding a racket in a packed rooftop bar, the bright eyes and big smile of the star entertainer emerged.Leaning on Kyrgios as a pitchman for the game also carries plenty of risk. What makes him so irresistible, that at any time he might produce another can’t-miss moment on the court, has at times made him a walking grenade. And he’s the one with a finger on the pin.There is also the allegation of domestic violence.In early February, Kyrgios is due in court in Canberra to face a charge of common assault stemming from an altercation with an ex-girlfriend, Chiara Passari, in December 2021. Kyrgios has declined to discuss the matter since it became public during his run to the Wimbledon final in July.Common assault is the least serious assault charge in Australia, but it implies that the victim experienced immediate, unlawful violence, or the threat of it, though not bodily injury. Kyrgios’s lawyers have said they will mount a defense focused on mental illness, citing his history of depression and substance abuse, struggles Kyrgios has said will always be with him but that he now has under control. If the court accepts this defense and dismisses the case, it could then decide to impose a treatment plan. The maximum penalty for common assault is two years’ imprisonment.The incident occurred during the first weeks of Kyrgios’s relationship with his now constant companion, Costeen Hatzi, whom he met online. He had also just recommitted himself fully to tennis after years of ambivalence and mental turmoil. The sport had brought riches and fame but also loneliness, with its endless travel and solitary battles on the court, which tortured his psyche.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe withering criticism and racist attacks he endured when he lost matches he was expected to win, or broke rackets and berated tennis officials, triggered memories of those years before a growth spurt at 17 turned him into a strapping, 6-foot-4 elite athlete. As an overweight boy with dark skin and modest means in an overwhelmingly white country where everyone seemed to have more, he was mocked and bullied, despite his talent for tennis, or maybe because of it.Goran Ivanisevic, the Wimbledon champion who coaches Djokovic, has called Kyrgios a “tennis genius.” Kyrgios’s father, Giorgos, first noticed that skill when Kyrgios was a toddler hitting a ball hanging on a string from a metal pole. He never missed. Soon Kyrgios was learning the sport on dilapidated courts near his parents’ home in Canberra. His father, a house painter from Greece, would hit a bucket of balls with him after work.“Still wears the same overalls he walked off the boat in,” Kyrgios said of his father, who still paints houses. “He must have been exhausted.”His mother, Norlaila, who is from Malaysia and worked as a software engineer for health care organizations, would drive for hours to get him and his brother to tournaments. They stayed at backpacker hostels and tried to stretch $20 to cover dinner for him and his siblings at cheap Indian restaurants in the countryside.His parents knew next to nothing about tennis. Tennis Australia and the tennis authority for his provincial region worked to fill in the gaps, and Kyrgios notched his breakthrough win at 19, when he upset Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon in 2014.Kyrgios’s breakthrough came at 19, when he beat Rafael Nadal in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2014.via Getty ImagesIt nearly ruined him. After that win and all the expectations it produced, Kyrgios thought he had to solve every problem on his own. When he couldn’t, he lashed out, at tennis officials, the media and the people around him.Then, last fall, after a year in which he flirted with quitting but also showed flickers of his magical game, Kyrgios began to realize he didn’t have to do it all alone. He could talk about his fears and insecurities and the fragility of his mind to the people closest to him, and they could help.“Knowing that I am not alone anymore and I can kind of open up and talk to people, now that’s a big one for me,” he said. “It’s OK to, you know, feel like having to cry some days.”He also decided he was tired of letting himself and others down. Before last year’s Australian Open, he embarked on the kind of solid six-week training block he had not done in years. He played with top opponents for 90 minutes each day and hit the weight room. He spent two hours several times a week playing full-court basketball, his true love, with top Australian players to hone his conditioning.Asked for a scouting report on his hoops game, he put it like this:“Loves shooting mid-rangers.” “Can shoot a three-ball pretty good.” “Play like a wing.” “In the corner.” “Come off picks.” “Pretty versatile.” “Can guard a big.” “Pretty physical.” “Like Tobias Harris in his prime.”He also ate better, and he focused on getting more rest instead of more drinks.By the end of January, with Thanasi Kokkinakis, his countryman and childhood friend, he had won the doubles title for his first Grand Slam championship. Then he mostly stuck to the healthier living through Wimbledon, where he once had to be dragged from a pub at 4 a.m. on the morning of a match. Not this time, though his sublime tennis did come with multiple confrontations with chair umpires and a tense verbal-sparring match with Stefanos Tsitsipas, during which Tsitsipas tried to hit Kyrgios with a ball.Kyrgios won the Australian Open men’s doubles title last year with his friend Thanasi Kokkinakis.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesKyrgios had a few confrontations with chair umpires at Wimbledon this year but reached his first Grand Slam singles final there.Hannah Mckay/ReutersHe fell to Djokovic in the final in four sets, but he remained disciplined through the U.S. Open. There, he obliterated the top seed and defending champion, Daniil Medvedev, in the fourth round before suffering an upset loss to Karen Khachanov of Russia in the quarterfinals. Exhausted from the season and from playing mostly at night so broadcasters could maximize the television audience, he caught the first flight home and played just one more singles tournament.Kyrgios will play Roman Safiullin, an unheralded Russian, in the first round Tuesday.What happens now?Tennis, like few other sports, is an M.R.I. of the soul. Kyrgios knows he will never pursue the game with the clinical efficiency and emotional discipline that Nadal and Djokovic have showcased for so long. He is going to throw and break rackets. It’s a manifestation of how much he cares, he said, and for him to thrive, tennis has to be about who he is, someone who plays with emotion, instinct and improvisation, like a jazz solo rather than a symphony.If he can do that, maybe he can find peace on the court, even when the pressure brings the stress of a near-explosion that keeps his mother, too worried about what will happen, from being able to watch.“Not many people can say that they have become a Slam threat, they are going to have the support of the nation, well, the support of some of the nation behind him,” he said. “Just got to try to enjoy it.”For Kyrgios, that has always been the toughest task of all. More

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      At the Australian Open, Ben Shelton Is Ready to Go Global

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      Shelton, 20, is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour and his first trip outside the United States.MELBOURNE, Australia — Pro tennis is one of the most international sports, but the American Ben Shelton has only just become global.This Australian Open, which starts on Monday, is part of his first trip outside the United States. His passport is in mint condition; his eyes are almost as big as his lefty serve.“A whole lot of blue; it almost doesn’t look real,” Shelton said as he walked the grounds at Melbourne Park, with its azure signage and courts, for the first time this week. “It’s like an alternate world.”Shelton, a strapping and mop-topped 20-year-old from Gainesville, Fla., who is embarking on his first full season on tour, earned his spot in Melbourne in a hurry, making the biggest leap into the year-end top 100 of any men’s singles player in 2022.He did it by winning in the big leagues: He upset Casper Ruud, a French Open and U.S. Open finalist in 2022, in the second round of the Masters 1000 event in Mason, Ohio, in August.But Shelton did it, above all, by winning in the minor leagues, taking three consecutive titles indoors on the Challenger circuit in November to secure direct entry into the Australian Open based on his ranking. He had already guaranteed himself a wild-card slot — part of a reciprocal agreement for Grand Slam entries between the United States Tennis Association and Tennis Australia — by compiling the best results among eligible Americans in the late season. But that was not the path down under that he preferred.“Ben was like, ‘I don’t want to see that W.C. next to my name,’ and so he dug down in the final of that last Challenger,” said Dean Goldfine, one of his coaches. “I think a lot of guys would have been satisfied, and he was exhausted from playing three weeks in a row. But he powered through, and that put him in the top 100.”The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Missing Stars: Carlos Alcaraz, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios have all pulled out of the tournament. Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Holger Rune’s Rise: Last year, the 19-year-old broke into the top 10, but not without some unwanted attention. We spoke to the young Dane ahead of his second Australian Open.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.In early June, shortly after winning the N.C.A.A. singles title as a sophomore at the University of Florida, Shelton was ranked No. 547. This week, he is up to No. 92 and practicing in Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne with the likes of Rafael Nadal, the Spanish megastar and reigning Australian Open champion. Nadal was in need of a powerful left-handed sparring partner to prepare for his tricky opening-round match Monday against the rising British 21-year-old Jack Draper.Shelton, a Nadal admirer, was delighted to get the call and will face the unseeded Zhang Zhizhen of China on Tuesday in his Australian Open debut.Nadal, above, was in need of a powerful left-handed sparring partner to prepare for his tricky opening-round match. Shelton, below, was delighted to get the call.Cameron Spencer/Getty Images“I’m really excited to play main draw of my very first Slam out of the country,” Shelton said. “Maybe eight months ago I wouldn’t think I’d be in this position, but I’m lucky I have a good team around me helping me.”Shelton’s girlfriend is Anna Hall, a heptathlete who won a bronze medal at the world track and field championships in Eugene, Ore., in July. Shelton, who was competing in a Challenger event in Indianapolis that week, watched her events on his phone between matches. Both Hall and Shelton turned professional last summer and, though he has trounced her in pickleball, he likes to point out that he is not the best athlete of the two.“She’s outshining me,” he said.“It’s great, actually,” Goldfine said. “Because they challenge each other, and she totally understands what it takes to be at an elite level.”Shelton, at 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, has a percussive, all-court game, based around a big-bang forehand and serve and an attacking mentality that often carries him to the net. He is “still raw” and still figuring out the best patterns of play, according to Goldfine, who has coached the former top players Todd Martin and Andy Roddick and most recently helped coach the 22-year-old American Sebastian Korda.But, to Goldfine, Shelton’s upside is clear.“I think with the natural gifts he has — his athleticism, his love for competing and for taking challenges head-on and his mental toughness — I think Ben has the possibility to be a great player who can someday challenge for Grand Slam titles,” he said. “He has all the variables you see in the top players, and being a lefty helps, definitely.”Shelton certainly has fine tennis genes. His father, Bryan, the men’s tennis coach at the University of Florida, was ranked as high as No. 55 during his pro career and reached the fourth round of Wimbledon as a qualifier in 1994. Ben’s mother, Lisa, played junior tennis and is the sister of Todd Witsken, a three-time all-American at the University of Southern California who peaked at No. 43 in singles on the ATP Tour before tragically dying of brain cancer at age 34.Ben’s older sister Emma is a senior on the University of Florida women’s team and was the only Shelton sibling serious about tennis until Ben quit playing football when he was 11.“It was just for a year, but it turned out to be forever,” Bryan Shelton said. “Even though he wasn’t the happiest in the world to go out there on court and drill with me, as soon as he got to compete, man, I mean the lights came on, and he was so excited about it. So that part I thought was pretty special. Some people shy away from competition, and he never did.“I always say he’s like a Labrador retriever: You throw the ball, he’s going to run and go get it. And if you throw it again, he’s going to run and go get it again and again and again. So, you know, he has a passion for it,” he said.Ben’s trip to Melbourne is a full-circle moment for the Shelton family: Bryan and Lisa met in Melbourne during the 1993 Australian Open.“How cool is that?” Ben said.Lisa, who was helping her brother in 1993, has not returned to Australia. Bryan has not been back since 1997, and despite being his son’s primary coach, he won’t be returning this year either because of his college coaching commitments. But he is in daily contact with Ben and his traveling coach, Goldfine, who works for the U.S.T.A.’s player-development program.“We’ve already started watching some of the video on Zhang,” Goldfine said of himself and Bryan Shelton. “We are always bouncing ideas off each other.”Goldfine, 57, and Ben exchange plenty as well, teasing each other, in particular, about the generational gap.“Dean couldn’t believe I didn’t know ‘Hotel California,’” Ben said, briefly halting practice on Thursday to share the story. “And I was like, ‘Dean, look at my phone and you won’t know any of the songs on my playlist.’”Ben is the first reigning N.C.A.A. men’s singles champion to break into the top 100 since Tim Mayotte in 1981. He is also the youngest of the 14 American men in the Australian Open, and his breakthrough to this level gives the United States an even deeper roster of promising men’s talent. There are nine Americans in the top 50, led by Taylor Fritz, and eight of them are 25 years old or younger.Ben has met most of them. As a young boy, he remembers watching Frances Tiafoe and Reilly Opelka play a junior tournament in Kalamazoo, Mich., where Bryan Shelton was scouting potential recruits.At that stage, there was no way to know that Ben would be the future No. 1 at Florida, of course. Though the team plays on without him, he is pursuing a business degree online and following the Gators’ scores and live streams from afar.“I’m definitely going to miss being around a bunch of my best friends and being able to go out there on the court playing for something much bigger than myself,” Ben said. “But I’m excited to see what they do and be able to be in the stands cheering them on whenever I’m home during the spring.” More