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    Wimbledon: For Marketa Vondrousova, Winning the Title Was a Family Affair

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    Last year, she became the first unseeded player in the Open era to win the event’s women’s singles title. A celebration ensued.It was past dusk when Marketa Vondrousova and her coach, Jan Hernych, made it back to their rented house near the Southfields Underground Station, almost a mile from the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Hours earlier, Vondrousova had beaten Ons Jabeur, 6-4, 6-4, to become the first unseeded player in the Open era to win the Wimbledon women’s singles title.Waiting for Vondrousova at the house were family members, coaches and close friends. Many of them were inebriated from a combination of champagne and beer, including Hernych.“I just went for the press and after two hours I came back and they were all drunk,” said Vondrousova during a phone interview in late May. It is her fondest memory of that Wimbledon win and what she thinks about most often as she begins the defense of her title on Centre Court this Tuesday.“I always think about my family and the celebration with my box,” said Vondrousova, who marked the occasion by adding a tattoo of the numbers 150723, the date of the final, to a body already dotted with tattoo artistry. “That was the main thing that I wanted to do since I was playing in the final.”Vondrousova’s career has been a series of spirals. The Czech, who turned 25 last week was the top-ranked junior in the world and won her first career title, in Biel, Switzerland, when she was 17. She also reached the final of the 2019 French Open, losing to Ashleigh Barty, 6-1, 6-3, and captured a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.Vondrousova has also been injured. She has had two wrist surgeries that sidelined her for more than six months shortly after her 2019 run at the French Open.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Tennis Escape Artists Who Lifted the Trophies

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      Tennis players save match points regularly, but often crash out of a tournament soon after. But sometimes, a great save sets the stage for a big win.Holger Rune should have been out of the Paris Masters in the first round last year.Rune faced Stan Wawrinka in a contentious opening match that didn’t finish until after midnight. After saving three match points, Rune beat Wawrinka, a three-time major champion, 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3), and went on to win the whole tournament, his first Masters 1000 crown. Along the way, he upset five top-10 players, including the world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and the six-time champion Novak Djokovic in the final. The win placed him into the world’s top 10 for the first time.Match points are saved in tennis with the regularity of a metronome. Most often, a player performs these death-defying acts early in the tournament then falters before the latter rounds. But sometimes, saving a match point can motivate a player for an entire week.In 2021, winning players saved match points in 58 main-draw matches on the WTA Tour. Only four times, though, did someone come back to win the tournament. Naomi Osaka did it at the Australian Open when she rebounded from 3-5 down in the final set to beat Garbiñe Muguruza in the fourth round and then defeated Serena Williams in the semifinals and Jennifer Brady in the final.Ashleigh Barty won the Miami Open over Bianca Andreescu but only after hitting a return winner down the line to save a match point against 149th-ranked Kristina Kucova in the second round.Naomi Osaka saved match points at the 2021 Australian Open when she rebounded from 3-5 down in the final in the fourth round. She later won the tournament.Cameron Spencer/Getty ImagesAt the 2021 Italian Open, Iga Swiatek was down two match points to Barbora Krejcikova in the third round but managed to escape with a 3-6, 7-6 (5), 7-5 victory. She then won the tournament by pummeling Karolina Pliskova, 6-0, 6-0, in the final.Krejcikova got some measure of revenge when she saved a match point against Maria Sakkari in the semifinals of the French Open a few weeks later, ultimately winning, 7-5, 4-6, 9-7, on her own fifth match point. Krejcikova then defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova for her first and only major singles championship.This year alone, eight ATP tournaments have concluded with a champion who saved match points along the way. Six times it was in the final, including Djokovic’s victories over Sebastian Korda in Adelaide, Australia, and Alcaraz in the final in Cincinnati. Hubert Hurkacz also did it twice this year, saving match points on his way to titles in Marseille, France, in February and in Shanghai earlier this month.“It’s like being on the edge of a cliff,” Djokovic said in 2020 after he had saved three consecutive match points against Gaël Monfils in the Dubai semifinals before beating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final. “You know there is no way back so you have to jump over and try to find a way to survive, I guess, and pray for the best and believe you can make it.”Last year, eight male players — including Rune in Paris — saved match points, though none in the finals, and went on to win the title. Alcaraz did it twice, against Alex de Minaur in the semifinals of Barcelona and against Jannik Sinner in a five-hour-and-15-minute quarterfinal at the U.S. Open that ended at 2:50 a.m. He went on to beat Casper Ruud in the championship match.“Sometimes when you overcome [match points], it’s good because you’re like half out of the tournament so you’re just happy that you’re there and you still have opportunities to play more matches,” said Rune in an interview.“I try to play more aggressive because you think the opponent may be more tight and nervous in these moments,” he said. “But I also don’t want to miss because I don’t want to end the match by mistake. So I try to play safe but aggressive and often I play some very good tennis on the match points.” Rune will try to defend his Paris title when the tournament starts Monday.“People often say that after saving match points or winning matches like that, it frees you up a little bit, but I don’t know if there’s any evidence to support that,” Andy Murray said.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAndy Murray, a former world No. 1 and three-time major champion, typically has strong memories of matches he’s played. But when asked about winning tournaments after saving match points, Murray stumbled then chuckled when reminded that he had saved a match point against Milos Raonic during the semifinals of the 2016 ATP Finals, ultimately winning the match, 5-7, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (9). The victory was particularly significant because Murray went on to beat Djokovic in the final, securing the year-end No. 1 world ranking.“People often say that after saving match points or winning matches like that, it frees you up a little bit, but I don’t know if there’s any evidence to support that,” said Murray, who also saved seven match points in a second-set tiebreaker against Philipp Kohlschreiber in the quarterfinals of Dubai in 2017 before winning the championship over Fernando Verdasco.Murray sees a difference between saving match points in a close contest and coming back from a deep deficit.“It depends a bit on the situation of the match,” Murray said. “If you’re a set and 5-1, 40-0, down it’s different to being 6-6 in the third set and it’s just one match point against you on your serve. You’re still very close to winning that match.”Saving match points in Grand Slam tournaments holds a special place of honor for players. In 2016, Angelique Kerber saved a match point in the first round of the Australian Open against Misaki Doi and went on to win her first of three majors, defeating Serena Williams in three sets in the final.“When I played here the first round I was match point down and playing with one leg on the plane to Germany,” Kerber told the crowd after winning.In 1996, Pete Sampras became physically ill during his U.S. Open quarterfinal against Alex Corretja but still managed to save a match point and win. He then beat Michael Chang for the title. Boris Becker saved two match points, one with a net-cord winner that skipped over Derrick Rostagno’s racket in the second round of the 1989 U.S. Open. He went on to win the championship over Ivan Lendl.Andy Roddick won his only Grand Slam after saving a match point in the semifinal.Nick Laham/Getty ImagesIn 2003, Andy Roddick saved a match point in a U.S. Open semifinal win over David Nalbandian then captured his lone major by beating Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final. Djokovic saved two match points in a classic five-set U.S. Open semifinal over Roger Federer in 2011 then won the title over Rafael Nadal. Djokovic also saved two match points against Federer in the Wimbledon final in 2019.But no player can top Thomas Muster and the year he had in 1995. Muster won 12 ATP tournaments that year, 11 of them on clay, and had a 65-2 record on the surface. In six of those tournaments, he saved match points, including against Becker in a Monte Carlo final in which Becker double-faulted on his first match point and then made a forehand error.In six of the 12 tournaments Thomas Muster won in 1995, he saved match points.Clive Brunskill/Allsport, via Getty Images“Tennis is one of the few games where you can’t take a result and bring it home,” said Muster by phone from his home in Austria. “You have to win the match. It’s always open and can become a different ballgame. You can be down a set and 5-0 and still win. In any other sport, no way.“You need attitude and willpower to keep believing in yourself,” Muster added. “When you’re down match points, you have nothing to lose anymore. In my mind, I’ve already lost it. But once you save that match point you say, ‘Now I’m winning it. Now that I’ve pulled it out, there’s no way somebody can take it from me. You’ve got to beat me, you’ve got to earn it.’”As for Murray, he’ll take his victories however can get them.“I don’t mind whether I’m saving a match point or winning, 6-1, 6-1,” Murray said. “It doesn’t matter to me.” More

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      Ashleigh Barty Is Comfortable in a Life Outside Tennis

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      Barty retired from the sport at age 25 while ranked No. 1, but she says she has “slipped quite seamlessly into this life that’s just like everyone else.”The New York Times Sports department is revisiting the subjects of some compelling articles from the last year or so. In March, the tennis star Ashleigh Barty retired from the sport, less than two months after winning the Australian Open. Here is an update.As the best players in tennis regather in Melbourne, Australia, in January for the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, the reigning women’s champion Ashleigh Barty will be back among them — but not to defend her title.In one of the most surprising developments in sports in 2022, Barty retired in March at age 25, on top of the women’s rankings and on top of her sun-drenched part of the world after becoming the first Australian in 44 years to win the Australian Open singles title.Her early exit from the tour was all the more striking in a season when Roger Federer retired at age 41 and Serena Williams, now also 41, played what could be her final tournament at the U.S. Open.The leading players of the 21st century have set new benchmarks for enduring excellence, staying in the game long past the ages when previous champions let go. Barty bucked the trend.Any regrets nine months later?“To be honest, I think what has surprised me most is how comfortable I’ve been,” Barty said by telephone from Brisbane, Australia, last week. “I think there was probably a normal fear or uncertainty in not knowing what my life would look like after tennis after being so focused.”Barty had grown accustomed to the “very structured life” of the tennis circuit.“I was a bit unsure how I would deal with that because I am a person who likes to be organized,” she said. “There was probably a little bit of fear in that, but overall, that hasn’t been an issue, a concern or a worry. What’s been most surprising in a good way is that I’ve slipped quite seamlessly into this life that’s just like everyone else, which is kind of always what I wanted.”Barty, a self-described “homebody,” married her long-term partner, Garry Kissick, in July, and she has spent considerable time with friends and family since her retirement. But her life is still not quite like everyone else’s.She earned nearly $24 million in prize money and millions more in endorsements and has been able to pay off the mortgage on her parents’ homes to express her gratitude for the sacrifices they made to help her become a tennis champion. After retirement, Barty, an excellent recreational golfer, was invited to play a round on the Old Course at St. Andrews, and she extended her stay there to follow her fellow Queenslander Cameron Smith as he won the British Open.Barty golfed in Scotland during a celebrity event in July.Paul Childs/ReutersBarty, a multisport talent, has ruled out becoming a professional golfer or returning to professional cricket, which she played briefly when she took her first indefinite break from tennis at age 17, because of the mental strain and loneliness of life on tour. She returned to the game 17 months later in 2016 with a new coach, Craig Tyzzer, and went on to win three major singles titles, including Wimbledon in 2021. She spent 121 weeks at No. 1.She was entrenched in the top spot when she retired, and though Iga Swiatek, an explosive talent from Poland, quickly took over at No. 1 and dominated the season, it was hard not to wonder how Barty’s presence would have changed the equation.“It was a bit of a strange one, I suppose,” Barty said. “But I think that was probably what was least important to me: where I was sitting in the rankings. That was hard for a lot of people to understand.”How best to sum up why she did retire?“I achieved my dreams,” she said. “Everyone has different dreams and different ways of defining success. But for me, I knew that I gave everything I could, and I was fortunate to live out my ultimate childhood dream, and now it was time for me to explore what else was out there and not be, I suppose, greedy in a sense of keep playing tennis because that’s what I was expected to do, and then you blink and maybe the other things have passed you by.”After retirement, Barty worked on a series of children’s books and her autobiography, “My Dream Time,” which has been published in Australia and will be released in the United States on Jan. 10.She said the process of writing her memoir was “therapeutic.”“A way to close a chapter on some really tough moments and then to revisit and recelebrate some of the most amazing moments,” she said. “So, it was certainly a big year in that sense. There was a lot happening off the court, and I’m pretty tired at the end of the year now, and it’s scary to think that typically I’d be in the middle of a tennis preseason getting ready for an Australian summer that’s just around the corner.”Instead, Barty will spend the holidays with her family and then make appearances for her sponsors at the Australian Open, which begins on Jan. 16.Barty during the final of the Australian Open in January. She beat Danielle Collins for the title.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesShe is preparing to start her own foundation in 2023 with a focus on helping Australian youth and an emphasis on sports and education. She also has announced plans to join with Tyzzer and Jason Stoltenberg, another of her former coaches, to start an elite tennis academy in Australia. She is eager to mentor teenagers in particular but not to coach on tour.Tennis has had no shortage of comebacks: Margaret Court, Bjorn Borg, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin all returned to the tour after early retirement, and Court and Clijsters returned and won majors. But though retiring at 25 gives Barty plenty of years to reconsider, she sounds unlikely to do so, even after her comment in March that the door to a comeback “is closed but it’s not padlocked.”“The more time I’ve had to sit and think and absorb this year, I think it is never in the sense of me competing professionally again,” she said. “But I’ll never not be involved in the sport. So I think that’s where I’ll always get my tennis fix, that taste of the sport that gave me so much.” More

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      The Great U.S. Open Ball Debate of 2022

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      The Open is the only Grand Slam tournament where women use different balls than men, and the Wilson ‘regular-duty’ ball has gotten into some players’ heads.Tennis players are the Goldilocks characters of sports.The balls are too big, or too small. The courts are too fast, or too slow. It’s too cold, or too hot, or too sticky, or too sunny.“Some weeks you don’t play well, and you got to blame it on something,” joked David Witt, who coaches Jessica Pegula, the American who reached the quarterfinals on Monday with a win over Petra Kvitova.And so it has been at the U.S. Open this year as the women — well, some of them — have waged a rebellion over the Wilson balls they have used for years at the tournament. This is the only Grand Slam event where the women and the men use different balls.These yellow spheres are loved and loathed.Pegula, who has lost just one set in four matches, and that one in a tiebreaker, happens to love the balls. Iga Swiatek, the world No. 1 from Poland, has called them “horrible.” That is so tennis. Rarely is there any consensus. Players often make contradictory complaints in the same tournament, or even the same day, about the same thing.You are officially forgiven if you have lived your life thinking all tennis balls are created equal but with different names and numbers stamped on them. But now, a quick tutorial in tennis ball technology.The men at the U.S. Open use what is known as an “extra-duty” ball, which means the felt on the outside of the ball is woven slightly more loosely than the “regular-duty” ball the women use.Iga Swiatek and her sports psychologist have talked about the challenges posed by the regular-duty balls.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesEverything else about the balls is the same — their core construction, their size and weight, how they rebound and how quickly they deform, according to Jason Collins, the senior product director for racket sports at Wilson Sporting Goods.However, the regular-duty balls “play faster,” Collins said through a spokeswoman for the company. Felt that is woven more tightly doesn’t fluff up as much and can wear away, so there is not as much friction when those balls make contact with the ground or the strings of a racket.The additional friction of a fluffy ball allows players to create maximum spin. Those who rely heavily on that spin can struggle to make a regular-duty ball travel the way they want it to, especially after a few games, when the ball begins to lose whatever fluff it had right out of the can and gets smaller.Players who hit a flatter ball, like Coco Gauff, or Pegula or Madison Keys, don’t have this problem as much. But some still do. Paula Badosa, who was seeded fourth and lost in the second round, hits as flat as anyone. She said she hated the balls.“You feel more like you’re playing Ping-Pong sometimes,” Badosa said after her first-round win. Two days later, she was out of the tournament.Another point of complication and confusion: Regular-duty balls are always used on clay courts and other surfaces that are moist because they don’t collect the moisture the way the looser felt of the extra-duty balls do. Extra-duty balls are the balls of choice for outdoor hardcourts, like those at the U.S. Open, except when they are not.And then there is one more complicating factor: Tennis is run by seven separate organizations, with tournaments all over the world, many of which have different companies that pay for the right to supply the balls. That means players can end up playing with a different ball from a different manufacturer from one week to the next. And every ball is just a little bit different, and behaves differently depending on heat and humidity and air pressure.According to the United States Tennis Association, which owns and organizes the U.S. Open, the women have played with a different ball than the men for as long as anyone can remember; the WTA Tour has always wanted it that way, and the tournament abides by the tour’s preference.Stacey Allaster, who is the U.S. Open director and was the chief executive of the WTA from 2009 to 2015, said the sports science experts on the women’s tour have long felt that the faster, more aerodynamic ball helps limit arm and shoulder injuries.Every year, Allaster said, the U.S.T.A. asks the WTA what balls it wants to use, and the answer has always been the same. “As far as we know, a majority likes it, so we could end up trading one problem for another.”Amy Binder, the chief spokeswoman for the WTA, confirmed that the players and the sports science teams have favored the faster regular-duty balls, but executives have heard from “a select number of our athletes that they would like to consider a change.”The WTA will continue to monitor and discuss the matter, Binder said, though she said the decision on the ball ultimately rested with the U.S.T.A.The ball controversy has had previous iterations. After Ashleigh Barty won the Australian Open in January, her coach, Craig Tyzzer, said she would never win the U.S. Open as long as the tournament used the Wilson regular-duty balls. (Barty retired in March at age 25, while ranked as the world No. 1.) The latest gripes started earlier this summer, when the players began playing with these balls in the lead-up to the U.S. Open.Tennis, though, is all about making adjustments and finding solutions as the conditions change throughout a match, and a tournament, and a season. The challenge can be as much mental as it is physical.A tennis umpire examined one of the tennis balls during a fourth-round match.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesPegula kept switching rackets in her match against Kvitova on Monday, experimenting with different string tensions in search of one that felt just right as the humidity and the condition of the balls changed. Looser strings hold the ball for longer (think of a trampoline) and provide more time to spin the ball.“Something feels off, you have to make a change,” Pegula said “It’s important not to let it frustrate you too much.”That has been the challenge for Swiatek, who travels with her sports psychologist, Daria Abramowicz. They have talked plenty about all the challenges created by these balls that Swiatek so despises.Abramowicz does not tell Swiatek not to think about the balls because then the first thing she will think about is the balls.“It’s like I would tell you right now not to think about a blue elephant for a minute, and literally the first thing popping into your mind is this blue elephant,” Abramowicz said. “You accept the thought, because it’s already there, and move on, refocus, find anchor in something else.”Pegula and Swiatek will meet Wednesday in the quarterfinals, a match that could become a test between Pegula’s flexibility and Swiatek’s ability to think about other things besides the balls. Or maybe the balls will have nothing to do with the outcome.What will happen with the balls next year is anyone’s guess, but Allaster said the WTA would need to decide what to do soon. Wilson has already been asking which balls the U.S.T.A. needs in 2023.Someone is not going to be happy. More

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      Despite the Trend in Sports, Don’t Expect Ashleigh Barty to Un-Retire

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      When the world’s top women’s tennis player won the Australian Open in January, it became her crowning achievement. Her stunning retirement is a loss to tennis.Tennis, with all its aging and ailing superstars, has been bracing for big farewells for years. But players like Roger Federer, Serena and Venus Williams and Andy Murray have defied the timeline and the expectations, pressing on and rejecting retirement through competitiveness, stubbornness, and a love of the game and the platform.Which is why Wednesday came as such a surprise.Ashleigh Barty, by these new-age standards, was just getting started. At 25, she was ranked No. 1 with three Grand Slam singles titles in the bank, including Wimbledon last year and the Australian Open in January. Already an icon at home, she had the beautiful game and winning personality to one day become a global brand as the majors and seasons piled up.But Barty was on her own timeline, and, after long and careful consideration, she is retiring on top, the very top, which might sound neat and tidy but actually requires the self-awareness and the guts to leave quite a few things unfinished.If Barty remains retired, she will never win a U.S. Open singles title, never win the Billie Jean King Cup team event for Australia, never win an Olympic gold medal, never, with her complete set of tennis tools, achieve the calendar-year Grand Slam that her Australian predecessors Rod Laver and Margaret Court won more than 50 years ago.Barty warmed up on court P4 at the start of the fifth day of the 2019 U.S. Open.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBut there is more to a champion’s life than a checklist, and, as Federer and his enduring peer group would surely confirm, it is only worth making the trek to such low-oxygen destinations if you genuinely enjoy the journey.Barty, a teen prodigy who won the Wimbledon girls title at age 15, has long seemed like someone whose gift took her farther than she wanted to go.“I’m shocked and not shocked,” Rennae Stubbs, an Australian player, coach and ESPN analyst, said of Barty’s retirement. “Ash is not an ego-driven person wanting more. She’s happy and now comfortable and never has to leave her town and family again. And she’s content with her achievements now.”The journeys, it is true, are longer for Australians, and they had been isolated under some of the strictest lockdowns and quarantine rules in the world during the pandemic.Barty spent all of 2020 in Australia, opting to remain home in Brisbane rather than travel abroad to compete when tournaments resumed after a forced hiatus. She left the country for several months in 2021, cementing her No. 1 status by winning four titles, including Wimbledon. But after losing early in the U.S. Open, Barty, emotionally drained, returned to Australia and skipped the rest of the season.That might have been a hint that early retirement was a possibility; that balance and personal well-being were Barty’s priorities, all the more so with her financial future secure. But then came her return to competition in January, when she ended Australia’s 44-year-drought by winning the Australian Open singles title — without dropping a single set. After her forehand passing shot winner against the American Danielle Collins, she howled with delight.Barty supporters cheered as they watched her defeat Alison Riske during the 2020 Australian Open.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York TimesPerhaps, in retrospect, it was a scream of relief. What looked like her latest achievement turned out to be her crowning one. She did not pick up a racket again, even to practice, after winning the title in Melbourne. She pulled out of the prestigious hardcourt events in Indian Wells and Miami, and then retired on Wednesday, delivering the news in a prearranged conversation with her friend and former doubles partner Casey Dellacqua that was released on social media.“I don’t think Ash has ever been part of a current,” said Micky Lawler, the president of the Women’s Tennis Association, who spoke with Barty on Tuesday before her announcement. “This is not a new trend for her. I think she has always been very determined and very clear on where she stood and where tennis stood in her life.”That clarity has been hard-earned. Barty has matured and learned a great deal about herself through therapy and life experience since she stepped away from the tour and its pressures for the first time at age 17, depressed and homesick. Sports comebacks remain all the rage, as Tom Brady continues to make clear. Tennis stars of the past who retired early — see Justine Henin and Bjorn Borg — did eventually return to competition, however briefly. But the feeling in tennis circles is that another Barty comeback is against the odds.“I would guess that this is her final decision,” Lawler said. She added, “There would be a much bigger chance of her coming back if she lived in the States or in Europe. The fact she’s in Australia and loves Australia and loves being home, I think that plays a big role in how she decided this and when she decided this, and that will make a comeback that much harder.”Barty in action against Sofia Kenin in their semifinal singles match at the 2020 Australian Open.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York TimesLawler said that, in their conversation, Barty also made it clear that she did not want to continue placing travel demands on Craig Tyzzer, her veteran Australian coach.Lawler said she expects Barty to request to be removed from the rankings, likely before the end of the Miami Open, which concludes April 3. No. 2 Iga Swiatek of Poland could become No. 1 by winning her opening match in Miami, but if she loses, No. 6 Paula Badosa of Spain could also become No. 1 by winning the title.Though Swiatek, 20, and Badosa, 24, have powerful games and charisma, Barty’s departure leaves a void. Stylistically, her flowing, varied game was a refreshing change from the big-bang approach that has long prevailed. Barty, though she stood only 5-foot-5, had plenty of power and one of the most dominant serves — and forehands — in the game. But her success was also based on changes of pace, spin and tactics. She could hit over her backhand with two hands, or slice it with one hand and tremendous control, depth and bite.Her full package often bamboozled more one-dimensional opponents. Other young players possess similar variety, including Russia’s Daria Kasatkina and Canada’s Bianca Andreescu, who won the 2019 U.S. Open. But Barty was the most consistent and irresistible exemplar of variety. She was 3-0 in Grand Slam singles finals, although it bears remembering that she never faced a player ranked in the top 10 in any of the Grand Slam tournaments she won.Barty celebrated after she won her first Wimbledon title in 2021.Pool photo by Ben QueenboroughThat was no fault of her own, but her early departure will again make it challenging for the WTA to create what it has lacked for most of the last 20 years: the enduring, transcendent rivalries that have been the hallmarks of the men’s game in the age of Novak Djokovic, Federer and Rafael Nadal.Serena Williams, the greatest women’s player of this era, is 40 and has not played since injuring herself in the first round of Wimbledon last year. She may not play again. Naomi Osaka, her heir apparent in terms of global profile and commercial portfolio, has struggled with her mental health and is now ranked 77th. Emma Raducanu, the talented British teen who was a surprise U.S. Open champion last year, is a sponsor magnet but not yet ready to soar to the top.Perhaps Barty will take on other sporting challenges. During her first hiatus from tennis, she showed her potential to be a world-class cricketer, and she is an excellent golfer who is engaged to Garry Kissick, a professional golfer from Australia. Other women’s tennis stars have switched to professional golf, including Althea Gibson, but that move sounds unlikely given the global travel that sport also demands.The WTA clearly knows how to crown champions and do business without Barty. Despite finishing the season at No. 1 the last three years, she has not been a dominant presence there amid her long breaks from the sport. But however well-considered her departure, it is still sad for tennis that she did not want to carry the torch forward.Her character and game would have worn particularly well. More

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      No. 1 Ashleigh Barty, Just 25, Retiring From Tennis

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      The three-time Grand Slam champion said in a social media post, “the time is right now for me to step away and chase other dreams and to put the rackets down.”At the top of her sport, Ashleigh Barty is retiring from tennis.In a stunning move, Barty, the No. 1-ranked women’s player who won her country’s major tournament, the Australian Open, in January, announced on Wednesday that she was leaving tennis for other pursuits.Barty, who turns 26 next month, posted a video to Instagram announcing her decision through a conversation with her compatriot Casey Dellacqua, a retired player, one of her closest friends and a former doubles partner. Barty said she also would hold a news conference.“It’s hard to say, but I’m so happy and I’m so ready,” Barty said. “And I just know at the moment in my heart for me as a person, this is right.”She added, “I’m so grateful to everything that tennis has given me — it’s given me all of my dreams, plus more — but I know that the time is right now for me to step away and chase other dreams and to put the rackets down.”It was the third time that Barty had stepped away from professional tennis but the first time that she had announced her retirement. In 2014, at age 17, when she already was one of the sport’s top doubles players, she took an indefinite break from the tour, citing the pressures generated by early success. During that 17-month hiatus, she played professional cricket but returned to tennis in early 2016 reinvigorated and began her climb to the summit.Barty also took an 11-month break from the tour at the onset of the pandemic, remaining in Australia instead of traveling to tournaments abroad even after the tour’s five-month hiatus ended in August 2020.But her surprise retirement announcement, coming with the tour back in full swing and after her latest triumph in Melbourne, is clearly a decision that she has considered at length and from a position of strength.“There was a perspective shift in me in the second phase of my career that my happiness wasn’t dependent on the results and success for me is knowing that I’ve given absolutely everything, everything I can,” Barty told Dellacqua. “I’m fulfilled. I’m happy.”“I know how much work it takes to bring the best out of yourself,” she said, later adding, “It’s just I don’t have that in me anymore. I don’t have the physical drive, the emotional want and kind of everything it takes to challenge yourself at the very top level anymore and I think I just know that I’m absolutely, I am spent.”She is the first women’s player to retire while on top of the singles rankings since the Belgian star Justine Henin unexpectedly announced her retirement in May 2008. Henin, like Barty, was just 25 years old and the reigning champion at two Grand Slam tournaments: the French Open and the U.S. Open in Henin’s case. Henin later returned to the tour in 2010, although she never won another major title.If Barty sticks with her decision, she will be the first player to retire after winning a Grand Slam singles title since Pete Sampras, the American star who did not play another match after winning the 2002 U.S. Open, announcing his retirement nearly a year later.Barty winning the women’s singles final at the 2022 Australian Open.Dean Lewins/EPA, via ShutterstockBarty won 15 career singles titles, including three at Grand Slam tournaments: She won the French Open in 2019, Wimbledon in 2021 and the Australian Open this year.Barty said that winning Wimbledon, long considered the ultimate achievement for Australian tennis players with their country’s close ties to Britain, shifted her outlook on her career. Winning the Australian Open gave her a storybook ending.“To be able to win Wimbledon, which was my dream, my one true dream that I wanted in tennis, that really changed my perspective,” she said, adding, “And there was just a little part of me that wasn’t quite satisfied, wasn’t quite fulfilled. And then came the challenges of the Australian Open and I think that for me just feels like the most perfect way. My perfect way to celebrate what an amazing journey my tennis career has been.”Barty continued, “I’ve given absolutely everything I can to this beautiful sport of tennis and I’m really happy with that. And for me that is my success. And I know that people may not understand it and that’s OK. I’m OK with that. Because I know that for me, Ash Barty the person has so many dreams that she wants to chase after that don’t necessarily involve traveling the world, being away from my family, being away from my home, which is where I’ve always wanted to be.” More

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      Ashleigh Barty Wins Australian Open Women’s Singles Title

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      The top-ranked Barty defeated an American, Danielle Collins, to become the first Australian to win the Grand Slam singles title there since 1978. “I’m so proud to be an Aussie,” she said.MELBOURNE, Australia — The 44-year drought was over in Ashleigh Barty’s sunburned country. Barty, often inscrutable on a tennis court, had just finished letting her guard down with a full-flex howl of delight that could almost be heard above the roars in Rod Laver Arena.Now, Barty, Australia’s first Australian Open singles champion since 1978, was motioning to someone on the other side of the deep blue expanse, beckoning with both hands and a relaxed smile.Casey Dellacqua emerged from the sidelines. They have been close for a decade — since Barty summoned the moxie at age 15 to ask her to play doubles — and it seemed appropriate on this fulfilling Saturday night that Dellacqua, now retired, be the first to embrace her.“She brought me into the sport again,” Barty said.Dellacqua supported Barty’s decision in September 2014 to leave the tennis tour. Barty, just 18, was depressed, lonely and desperate to live a more normal life than that provided by hotels and practice courts. And when Barty had spent more than a year away from the game, playing professional cricket and leaving the jet lag behind, it was Dellacqua who invited her out for a hit and helped her realize that she did indeed want to fully explore her prodigious tennis talent.Barty returned to the tour in 2016 with no ranking but full commitment, and Saturday’s 6-3, 7-6 (2) victory over Danielle Collins of the United States was the latest proof that she made the right decision, for herself above all, but also for her sports-mad country.“She knows how proud I am of her,” Dellacqua said as she sat next to Barty on the set of Australia’s Channel Nine on Saturday. “Everybody thinks I have done a lot, but I cannot explain what Ash has done for me.”For a tennis nation like Australia, home to Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall and to grass courts in country towns and fancy clubs, it beggars belief that it would take 44 years to win any tournament, much less their own. But the drought was real in Australia, as homegrown champions like Patrick Rafter and Lleyton Hewitt and Samantha Stosur won major singles titles abroad but came up short in Melbourne.Barty, now 25, has solved the riddle — aced it actually — by not dropping a set in any of her seven matches at this year’s Australian Open.Born and raised in the steamy Australian state of Queensland, Barty has been ranked No. 1 for more than 100 weeks and has become a hugely popular figure in her home nation. Her matches during the Open this year have attracted large television audiences.But until now, her most significant triumphs also have come far from Australia. She won her first Grand Slam singles title in 2019 at the French Open and won Wimbledon last year when most Australians were unable to travel because of coronavirus restrictions.But she was able to organize a “Barty Party” at home this year, defeating the 27th-seeded Collins in prime time.After erasing two breaks of serve to rally from 1-5 deficit in the second set, she dominated the tiebreaker and finished off her victory with a forehand passing shot winner.After hugging Dellacqua, Barty was presented the winner’s trophy by another of her touchstones, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, a four-time Australian Open singles champion who, like Barty, is of Indigenous Australian heritage. The two women from different eras — Goolagong Cawley is 70 — have developed a deep connection, and Goolagong Cawley’s appearance on Saturday night was kept a surprise from Barty, who had not seen her in a year.“As an Aussie, the most important part of this tournament is being able to share it with so many people,” Barty said in her victory speech. “You guys today in the crowd have been nothing shy of exceptional. This crowd is one of the most fun I’ve ever played in front of and you guys brought me so much joy out here today. You relaxed me and you forced me to play my best tennis and against a champion like Danielle I know I had to absolutely bring that today.”In truth, it was not Barty’s best tennis: there were too many nervy shots, a first serve percentage of just 57 percent and even a missed backhand volley into an open court. But in light of the occasion and all that Aussie-Aussie-Aussie expectation, it was a stirring finish and it capped a dominant performance throughout the tournament.Barty’s final match wasn’t perfect, but it was stirring, and capped a dominant performance throughout the tournament.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesBarty swept through the draw by controlled play with her precise and powerful first serve, crisply chipped backhand and versatile topspin forehand. She won 82 percent of her first serve points against Collins, an aggressive returner, working wonders repeatedly with her sliced serve in the deuce court and fighting through some shaky patches to find the angles and lines when she needed them most.Barty has not beaten a player ranked in the top 10 in any of her three Grand Slam singles victories. That is not her fault, of course, and there were seven other top 10 players in Melbourne this year.Collins will surely harbor some regrets about the second set. She was in firm command at one stage and seemed to be relaxing under duress while Barty was tightening, double faulting twice to go down 1-5. But though Collins was within two points of winning the set in three different games, she could not close the deal as the near-capacity crowd gave Barty nothing but positive reinforcement, meeting Collins’s errors with cheers and her winners with polite applause.Collins was unusually subdued early, though was soon pumping her fist and shouting her trademark “Come on!” But she said she has struggled with back pain during this deep run in Melbourne, which explains why she has been standing up on changeovers instead of taking a seat, and neither her body nor her nerve could sustain her in the second set.“She started to push me back in the court a little bit more. I think I was having some issues really being able to fully rotate on some of my shots to be able to get my shots to where I needed them to be,” Collins said. “It was really unfortunate, but did everything I could, tried to push through it, fell short.”Collins delivered an eloquent, moving speech, breaking into tears as she thanked her mentor, Marty Schneider, doing justice to the occasion and to Barty.Danielle Collins was within two points of winning the second set in three different games.Alana Holmberg for The New York Times“It’s been tremendous to watch her climb the rankings all the way to No. 1 and live out her dream,” Collins said.It was a road game for Collins, but she has played plenty of those in her long and challenging climb from the public parks of Florida to a Grand Slam final.Collins, 28, was a two-time N.C.A.A. singles champion at the University of Virginia and did not turn fully professional until she was 22, quite a contrast with Barty, who began her professional career at age 14.Collins will rise to No. 10 in the world rankings after her run and become the top-ranked American for the first time. But she could not stop Barty from giving Chris O’Neil company. O’Neil, the last Australian to win the Australian Open in singles was an unseeded player ranked outside the top 100 who never made another deep run at a major tournament after her victory in 1978.The crowd cheered as Barty howled after winning match point.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesBarty has now solidified her spot as the world’s top-ranked player and has won her three Grand Slam singles titles on three different surfaces, red clay at the French Open, grass at Wimbledon and hardcourt in Melbourne. The only Grand Slam singles title she has yet to win is the U.S. Open, although she did win the women’s doubles title in New York in 2018 with her American partner, CoCo Vandeweghe.At 5-foot-5, Barty is not physically imposing in a sport increasingly populated by taller players like the 5-foot-10 Collins. But Barty is a complete threat, able to adjust her game on the fly and hit a particularly wide variety of shots.When she returned to tennis in February 2016, she did so with a new coach, Craig Tyzzer. They have formed quite a partnership and have worked to develop Barty’s game while preserving her mental health and enthusiasm.She did not compete on tour for most of 2020 because of coronavirus restrictions, and after her successful summer in 2021, she was weary and homesick and chose to return to Australia after losing in the third round of the U.S. Open instead of remaining overseas and competing in the WTA Finals in Mexico. Despite the similarity between the hardcourt surfaces used in Melbourne and New York, Tyzzer surprisingly said on Saturday that he does not think that Barty will win the U.S. Open unless the tournament makes a move to using heavier balls that are better suited to her game, which relies heavily on spin.But the decision to take a break certainly has paid off at the start of 2022. She is 11-0, winning the title in Adelaide and now, most significantly, seven matches at the Australian Open, giving Australians a much-needed lift after nearly two years of pandemic lockdowns and restrictions.“It can’t be easy playing with the weight of your country on your shoulders,” said Todd Woodbridge, the former Australian Open star, at the awards ceremony.But Barty’s shoulders were sturdy enough, and the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup was soon glittering in her deft hands. More

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      Ashleigh Barty and Danielle Collins Will Meet in Australian Open Final

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      Cheered by a home crowd, the top-ranked Barty defeated Madison Keys in straight sets to become the first Australian to reach the women’s final since 1980. Collins enjoyed her own straight sets win over Iga Swiatek.MELBOURNE, Australia — It is all about choices, this game of tennis and life.Down-the-line or crosscourt? Rip or chip? Stay home and rebuild your strength? Or hit the road in search of more points and glory?The coronavirus pandemic that disrupted old patterns and created new problems has made some of the choices more complicated, but Ashleigh Barty is on a hot streak, as anyone who has played her in this Australian Open can confirm.Madison Keys was the latest to swing away and come up short as Barty kept delivering pitches and tactical shifts that Keys could not handle. Barty won the first set of their semifinal on Thursday night in 26 minutes and won the match in just over an hour, 6-1, 6-3.She is the first Australian since Wendy Turnbull in 1980 to reach the women’s singles final at the Australian Open.She will face Danielle Collins of the United States, who defeated Iga Swiatek of Poland, 6-4, 6-1, in the second women’s semifinal. Barty will be the favorite based on her cool and precision under pressure over the last 11 days. Barty said she intended to embrace the opportunity rather than try to block out its significance.“You have to,” Barty said. “It’s fun. It’s brilliant to be playing in the business end of your home slam. I’m not going to lie about that. It’s amazing. I think being able to experience it multiple times has been incredible, but Saturday’s going to be a new experience for me. So I go out there and embrace it, smile, try and do the best that I can and whatever happens, happens.”Collins is one of the most ferocious competitors in women’s tennis and has been serving and returning particularly well down the stretch in Melbourne. She won 86 percent of the points against Swiatek’s second serve on Thursday.“She loves to get in your face and loves to really take it on,” Barty said.Barty leads their head-to-head series 3-1, but Collins won their most recent match in straight sets in Adelaide, Australia, last year, and has also pushed her to three sets in two of their other matches.“We’ve had some incredible battles over the years,” said Collins, the No. 27 seed. “To play against the No. 1 player in the world in her home country, I think it’s going to be really spectacular. I love the energy the fans bring whether they are for me or for my opponent.”Danielle Collins defeated Iga Swiatek in straight sets.Loren Elliott/ReutersCollins, 28, is a two-time N.C.A.A. singles champion from the University of Virginia who turned professional later than most of her rivals on the professional tour. She is a scrappy, demonstrative player but also has point-ending power and has come back convincingly in the last nine months after struggling with endometriosis. Since July, she has a 32-7 singles record and will rise to No. 10 in the rankings on Monday, becoming the top-ranked American.Collins has battled some more in Melbourne with tough three-set victories over Clara Tauson in the third round and Elise Mertens in the fourth round. Barty has yet to come close to dropping a set, and Keys met Barty at the net after Thursday’s rout with a smile on her face as if to say, “You’re in the zone, Ash, enjoy it.”“She’s just playing incredibly well. I mean, you have a game plan in your head, but she’s just executing everything so well,” Keys said in her post-match news conference. “She’s serving incredibly well, so you don’t get any free points on that. Her slice is coming in so much lower and deeper than it was in the past so it’s hard to do anything on that. Then you try to play to her forehand and she can open you up there.”Madison Keys congratulated Barty at the net after the match.Morgan Sette/ReutersBarty’s variety is her strength, and as the match with Keys developed, she rarely gave the powerful American the same type of shot for long, mixing two-handed backhand drives with one-hand slices, off-speed angled forehands with bolts up the line. “I think everything has just improved a little bit,” Keys said. “I think she’s got a little bit more precise on her serve. I think her forehand she’s doing a really good job at mixing up paces and spins, as well. It feels like you can’t really get in a rhythm off of that forehand side. Then on her backhand side, I mean, everything is coming in at your shoelaces on the baseline. So it’s not like you can really do anything with that.”Keys, who was on a 10-match winning streak, looked more resigned than glum. Tennis may not mean as much to Australia, as it once did in the days of Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong Cawley. But a Barty victory in Australia would certainly be a cultural happening. The 25-year-old from Brisbane is a particularly popular figure here with her down-to-earth personality and deep roots in the land: she is partly of Indigenous heritage.Ranked No. 1, she won her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2019 French Open and her next at last year’s Wimbledon, prevailing in a mood-swinging final against Karolina Pliskova that got complicated before she won in three sets.But there have been no edgy matches or extended challenges so far in Melbourne, where she can become the first Australian to win the singles title since Chris O’Neil in 1978.Barty was cheered by the home crowd throughout her match.Darrian Traynor/Getty ImagesO’Neil was unseeded and ranked outside the top 100: one of the biggest surprise Grand Slam champions in tennis’s long history. Barty is in a very different position as the top-ranked player in the game and the focus of attention in her country whenever she plays a match.But after choosing to cut her season short in 2021 and return home to Australia to recover after the U.S. Open where she was upset in the third round, she has started the 2022 season fresh, focused and devastatingly on target. She has dropped just 21 games in six matches and is striking a fine balance between finesse and power.Next challenge: her first Australian Open singles final on Saturday night in prime-time in Rod Laver Arena. Is she ready?“Absolutely,” she said after steam-rolling the unseeded Keys. “Let’s do it.” More

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      Ashleigh Barty and Dylan Alcott's Secret Weapon Is a Former Nike Marketing Exec

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      Some of the most important moments of this year’s Australian Open took place far from a tennis court and had nothing to do with a certain vaccine-averse Serbian champion.Ben Crowe, a mind-set and life coach whose clients include the women’s world No. 1, Ashleigh Barty, who is carrying the hopes of her nation for a championship, and Dylan Alcott, another Australian who is among the greatest wheelchair players, does little work on the court itself.Crowe and Alcott often meet in a cafe for their regular check-ins during the tournament because Alcott loves to be around people. Last week, as Barty prepared for her third-round match, against Camila Giorgi, she and Crowe did their prematch check-in while walking Molly, Crowe’s spanador, a mix of a Labrador retriever and a cocker spaniel, in Melbourne Park.“Ash loves dogs so that makes for a good setting,” Crowe said in a recent interview. “It creates a happy place to converse. And we’ll talk about anything. Dogs or house renovations.”Crowe discussed a match this week with Dylan Alcott, who has advanced to the men’s singles quad wheelchair final at the Australian Open.Tennis players and athletes in nearly every sport have been using sports psychologists and mind-set coaches for years. Never before has mental health been such a primary focus, especially in tennis, which lost one of its biggest stars, Naomi Osaka, for nearly half of 2021 as she dealt with psychological problems connected to the sport and her performance.Crowe took a circuitous route to his role as a guru to some of the biggest names in sports. He worked as a marketing executive at Nike in the 1990s, trying to connect the stories of athletes to the industry behemoth and make piles of cash for both parties.He worked closely with Australian athletes, including Cathy Freeman, an Olympic sprinter, on her campaigns ahead of the Games in Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000, but also with Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. He became close with Phil Knight, a founder of Nike, who loves both tennis and Australia.Eventually, Crowe realized it was far more important to athletes for them to truly understand who they were, their back stories and why they did what they did, rather than tying a drummed-up version of their narrative to a global corporation hoping to sell more sneakers and T-shirts.During major competitions like the Australian Open, Crowe usually watches his clients’ matches from the stands, paying close attention to their decisions and body language.“You need to separate the person from the persona, separate the self-worth from the business card,” he said. “I try to get them to answer the questions: Who am I fundamentally? And, What do I want from this crazy thing called life?”Crowe has also worked with the professional surfer Stephanie Gilmore and the Richmond club in Australian rules football.Away from tournaments and matches, he talks with clients weekly for about an hour during occasionally humorous sessions that focus on finding a balance between achievement and fulfillment. There is a simplicity in Crowe’s bedrock principles:Focusing on the future or the past is wasted energy because we can’t control either one.No point in a tennis match is worth more than any other, so why bother treating them any differently.If you have to do something or achieve something to be someone, you will never be content.We don’t know ourselves enough, and the bits we do know we don’t love enough.At a major competition like the Australian Open, Crowe usually watches his clients’ matches from the stands, paying close attention to their decision making and body language, trying to notice if the things they cannot control — the crowd, the weather, the opponent — might be distracting them. He attends their news conferences and chats with them before and after each match.Crowe is also a passionate surfer, and took a break from the tournament to hit the waves at Aireys Inlet, Australia.The deep work, though, occurs in the downtime between tournaments, when he delves with them into questions of identity and purpose.He said Alcott’s career took off and is now coming to a comfortable close because he came to understand he was playing tennis to help people like himself live better, healthier lives. This week, Alcott received a prestigious award, Australian of the year, given annually to leading citizens. He will play his last professional tennis match on Thursday, in the Australian Open wheelchair quad singles final, but his purpose will not change just because he is retiring.Barty, who left the sport for 18 months to pursue cricket, draws inspiration from playing for her country, Indigenous people and the team of coaches and trainers she is always crediting for her success. She will meet Madison Keys in a semifinal match on Thursday, and is trying to become the first Australian woman to win the tournament’s singles championship since 1978.His tennis clients, he said, have learned to accept their weaknesses and vulnerabilities and the endless uncertainty that professional sport and life ultimately bring.“If there is one thing the pandemic has shown it’s that we don’t do uncertainty very well, and uncertainty is vulnerability, and we don’t do vulnerability very well,” Crowe said. “So you either align yourself with the uncertainty or you suffer.” More