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    The Present and Future of French Men’s Tennis

    Men’s tennis in France isn’t what it used to be. But the veteran Adrian Mannarino is still winning, and the teenager Arthur Fils is quickly finding his form.Adrian Mannarino couldn’t stifle his chuckle.He had just been asked what it meant to him to be the top-ranked men’s tennis player from France.“Well,” Mannarino said in a video interview from a tournament in Astana, Kazakhstan, in early October, “this is not a good sign for French tennis.”Mannarino, at 35, is in his 20th year on the ATP Tour. He has never been ranked in the world’s top 20 and has never advanced beyond the round of 16 at a Grand Slam tournament. He did win the championship in Astana, though, his fourth career title and second of the year.The victory propelled Mannarino’s world ranking to No. 24, just two off from his career-high from March 2018. But, as he heads into the Paris Masters for the 13th time, Mannarino is keenly aware of the void of top talent in France.“We all knew that whenever Gaël [Monfils], Richard [Gasquet], Gilles [Simon] and Jo [Wilfried Tsonga] would get old, there would be a time when French tennis would be in trouble,” said Mannarino, of four French players who have all been ranked within the top 10 but are now in their late thirties and have either retired or dropped down significantly in the rankings. (Though Monfils did win his 12th career title in Stockholm last week.)“We’re still waiting for the young players to get to the top. There’s a lot of talent, but it’s taking a little bit of time to get to the top level,” he said.There are now 13 Frenchmen in the top 100, but only four — Arthur Fils, Luca van Assche, Ugo Humbert and Hugo Gaston — are 25 or younger. Fils has shown the most promise.At just 19, Fils, a finalist at the French Open junior championship in 2021, began the season ranked outside the top 250 and playing on the lower-level challenger circuit. He is now ranked No. 38.In February, Fils broke through in his home country, reaching back-to-back semifinals in Montpellier and Marseille, where he beat Stan Wawrinka. He won his first ATP title in Lyon, France, in May, and reached the semifinals in Hamburg, Germany, beating Casper Ruud before falling to the eventual champion, Alexander Zverev. Fils upset Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to the final in Antwerp, Belgium, last week before he went down to Alexander Bublik in the championship match.Arthur Fils, also a French player, after a successful shot in a match that he ultimately lost to Matteo Arnaldi of Italy at the U.S. Open in August.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesFils also made his Davis Cup debut for France alongside Mannarino in September and then was chosen by Bjorn Borg, captain of Team Europe, to be one of the team’s six representatives at the Laver Cup. He lost his lone singles match there to Ben Shelton.Fils said he has modeled his game after his countryman Tsonga, a big hitter who was runner-up to Novak Djokovic at the 2008 Australian Open and reached five other major semifinals.“Tsonga was one of my idols when I was younger,” Fils said. “He had a big serve, some great forehands and was in amazing physical condition. I’m trying to do the same and play a lot with my forehand and try to serve a lot of aces.”Mannarino’s style of play is nearly the opposite. It is best described as durable and reliable, though he benefits from a left-handed hook serve that draws opponents off court.“I’m not really powerful, so I’m trying to be a little smarter,” said Mannarino. “I’m moving pretty well and adapting to my opponent’s game most of the time. I’m like a counterpuncher; I use the power of my opponent and just try to be as consistent as I can. And if my opponent can miss some shots, I’m always happy.”Though only two years younger than Gasquet and Monfils, both of whom have seen their rankings drop out of the top 50, Mannarino is playing some of the best tennis of his life. Last year, he reached the round of 16 at the Australian Open before losing to the eventual winner, Rafael Nadal. This year, he beat Shelton and Hubert Hurkacz at the Miami Open to reach the round of 16 and has wins over Daniil Medvedev and Taylor Fritz. And yet only once, in 2020, has he reached the third round at the Paris Masters.“I’ve never had great results at Bercy, but I feel like I’m really enjoying my time when I’m playing there,” Mannarino said, referring to the site of the tournament. As a child, he would sit in the top level of the stadium with friends from his local tennis club and cheer on the French players. “It’s always good to have the French crowd supporting you, especially the Parisians, because it’s pretty noisy and a good atmosphere.”Mannarino after winning a point against Daniil Medvedev of Russia in their second-round match at Wimbledon in July.Adam Vaughan/EPA, via ShutterstockFrance has a rich and vast tennis history. Suzanne Lenglen won Wimbledon six times from 1919 to 1925. Yvon Petra won Wimbledon in 1946, and Yannick Noah became the first Frenchman in 37 years to win at Roland Garros in 1983.Mary Pierce won the Australian Open in 1995 and the French Open in 2000. Amélie Mauresmo, a former world No. 1, captured both the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006. And Marion Bartoli took the Wimbledon title in 2013.But there are no more revered French players than the Four Musketeers — Jean Borotra, Jacques Brugnon, Henri Cochet and René Lacoste — who led their nation to the Davis Cup six straight years, from 1927 to 1932.More recently, though, Mannarino and Fils met during a practice session at France’s national tennis center when Fils was just 15.“His fitness coach came to me after and said, ‘Oh, Arthur didn’t like it; it was going too fast for him and he could barely keep up,’” Mannarino said. “And then, a few years later he’s almost beating me. He’s improved so fast, and his tennis is really mature for his age.”Mannarino knows his time left on tour is limited by his age. But, so far, he does not see himself as old.“I don’t feel old because I don’t feel like my tennis level is dropping yet, even my physical condition,” he said. “I just feel like a kid in my head, and I’m trying to enjoy my life on the tour. As long as my legs can still run, I’m going to keep trying my best.” More

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    Laver Cup: Team Europe Wins Fourth Straight Title

    After Europe’s fourth straight win, an organizer promised Team World would win “at some point.” He didn’t say when.BOSTON — After three down-to-the-wire editions, the Laver Cup finally came up short of drama.It happens, and considering European players’ long-running dominance of men’s tennis, it is frankly more surprising that the first three Laver Cups were suspense magnets than that this year’s edition was a disappointing blowout.Even without the stars who make up the Big Three in men’s tennis — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — Team Europe had nothing but top 10 players in its six-man squad in Boston. Its opponent, Team World, did not have any, and it showed in the final score, 14-1, which was by far the most lopsided in the event’s brief history.Despite all the careful planning and big investment in this team competition, the bottom line is that Team Europe and Bjorn Borg, its captain, have won every Laver Cup. They have an excellent chance of remaining undefeated in London next year and beyond considering the youth and talent of rising stars like the 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev, his Russian countryman Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece and Alexander Zverev of Germany.That competitive imbalance is potentially a big problem for the Laver Cup, the international team event created by Federer and his management company Team8 in 2017.“I think a Team World win would be good for everyone,” said John McEnroe, Team World’s captain. “I think the event needs it. I was wondering why Russia was part of Europe. I don’t think it is, but that’s just me.”One cannot blame McEnroe for thinking creatively, even desperately, at this stage. Unfortunately for McEnroe, much of Russia is indeed in continental Europe, and the country traditionally takes part in European sporting competitions. Even if eastern Russia is in Asia, Medvedev and the Russians will remain part of Team Europe, according to Tony Godsick, the Laver Cup’s chief executive.“We won’t make the change,” Godsick said Sunday night. “We’re not going to adjust this thing. It will be cyclical. I promise you, the world team will win at some point.”The Laver Cup, with its three-day format and blue and red color scheme for team uniforms, was modeled after golf’s venerable and successful Ryder Cup, and certainly took the modeling too far this time by being played in the same country on the same weekend.That was not to the upstart tennis competition’s benefit, even though the crowds and the atmosphere were terrific in Boston. A search of “Cup” on Google news on Sunday night produced a top-10 that was all Ryder Cup results from Whistling Straits.Godsick said the scheduling overlap was not intentional. Both events were postponed in 2020, and he said that the Laver Cup has a designated week on the tennis schedule that could not be changed.The Ryder Cup, which was first contested in 1927 in Worcester, Mass., had to evolve to become a major event and commercial juggernaut. Originally a competition between the United States and Britain, it only became a runaway success after players from other European nations joined the British team in 1979.But if the Russians are remaining part of Team Europe in the Laver Cup, not much other tinkering can be done in the geography department. Team World already is open to every non-European nation and had players this year from Argentina (Diego Schwartzman), Australia (Nick Kyrgios), Canada (Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime) and the United States (Reilly Opelka and John Isner).For now, McEnroe is 0-4 as its captain, and his Laver Cup rivalry with his old friend Borg has not been nearly as balanced as their rivalry when they were playing classic Grand Slam finals in the 1980s.“I normally do like you,” the gray-haired McEnroe said to the gray-haired Borg on Sunday at the awards ceremony in the TD Garden. “I hate your guts right now.”McEnroe was only half kidding. Arms folded in his courtside chair, he looked like a man experiencing indigestion for much of this long weekend.Technically, the Laver Cup is an exhibition. It offers no ranking points even though it is a sanctioned ATP Tour event.But the captains and the players have never treated it as an exhibition, and Team World’s failure to compete in Boston was certainly not linked to a failure to care. Their expressions were often anguished and their body language often tense as they lost critical point after critical point, usually in the match tiebreakers that substitute for third sets.“It’s not an exhibition,” Opelka said. “If this was an exhibition, it would not have been 14-1. I can guarantee you that.”Opelka, a towering and bearded player at 6-foot-11 who lost both his matches in his Laver Cup debut, confessed that he had been skeptical until he experienced the event himself this year.“It looked too good to be true,” he said of the close finishes in 2017, 2018 and 2019. “And then I got here, and the way Johnny Mac started speaking about it changed everything. He’s a true legend. That was priceless being able to spend time with him.”The Laver Cup’s capacity to bring together tennis’s past and present stars for meaningful exchanges is one of its strengths. So is its format, in which victories are worth one point on the first day, two points on the second and three points on the third. That was intended to prevent a meaningless final day. But while four matches were scheduled on Sunday, Europe clinched victory after only one, with Zverev and Rublev defeating Opelka and Shapovalov, 6-2, 6-7 (4), 10-3. It was yet another close match that went Europe’s way. It was also a potentially edgy one.After Zverev lost in doubles on Friday night with Matteo Berrettini, McEnroe said that Zverev told him that would be the last match Team World was going to win. McEnroe later acknowledged that Zverev was teasing, but McEnroe said he was eager for “bulletin-board material.”After McEnroe informed his team of the comment on Friday, the response was predictably bellicose and Opelka responded with: “He also said he’s innocent.” That was an apparent reference to published allegations of domestic violence from Zverev’s former girlfriend, Olya Sharypova.Alexander Zverev was on court for the decisive point in the Laver Cup for the third straight iteration of the competition. Adam Glanzman/Getty Images For Laver CupSharypova has not filed criminal charges against Zverev over the incidents, which she told the publication Slate occurred in 2019. Zverev has repeatedly denied abusing Sharypova and has continued to play on the ATP Tour, winning the Olympic gold medal in singles in Tokyo and reaching the semifinals of the U.S. Open earlier this month before competing in the Laver Cup.On Sunday night, Laver Cup organizers announced before Team World’s final news conference that the team would field only “tennis-related questions.” In a separate interview, Opelka later declined to speak about Zverev.The ATP Tour announced earlier this year that it would review its approach to handling players who are accused of domestic abuse or sexual misconduct. It currently has no formal policy.Zverev turned out to be correct, though, that the Friday’s doubles win would be Team World’s last victory in Boston. His victory on Sunday with the hard-hitting Rublev marked the third straight time that Zverev has won the decisive point in the Laver Cup.He looked very much like Team Europe’s new leader in Boston on the court and in the post-match interviews. Though Federer made the trip to Boston, he did so only as a spectator and cheerleader, navigating the TD Garden on crutches after knee surgery in August.At age 40, it is unclear when or if he will return to the tour, but what is clear is that this European team was still unstoppable without him or the other members of the Big Three: Nadal and Djokovic.Carrying the Laver Cup forward without that superstar power will be a much bigger challenge.“I’m definitely not worried about the event’s future,” Godsick said. “Tennis always produces new superstars. It always has, and it always will. There are new people holding up Grand Slam trophies. You see it coming now. If anything, I think we were lucky to be able to launch it in the era of such incredible tennis players.” More

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    The Special Role of Laver Cup Captains

    John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg have filled the job since the tournament began, and it’s more than ceremonial.In the first three Laver Cups, the biggest names were the most famous players in tennis: Roger Federer (who helped create the tournament) played each year, Rafael Nadal played twice and Novak Djokovic played once.All are absent this year at the event in Boston, so while six Top 10 players are on board, the biggest names will be the most famous players in tennis circa 1980: the Team World captain, John McEnroe, and the Team Europe captain, Bjorn Borg, both returning for their fourth time.The Laver Cup brings a team sport format to tennis, and the captains have a role unlike almost any other in tennis.Captains recruit and select a team, build team spirit during practices, pick lineups according to the event’s quirky rules and provide in-match coaching.“There’s a lot to consider and a lot of tactics when making out the lineups, so in that sense the captain’s role is pretty important,” said Thomas Enqvist, vice captain of Team Europe.McEnroe takes his job seriously, but he downplays its importance. “It’s not the toughest job in the world,” he said with a laugh. “I show up at some cocktail parties and pick up balls at practiceThere is more to the job than that. Captains must persuade the top-ranked players, who are invited to the tournament based on their rankings, to participate. They also choose three lower-ranked players, called captain’s picks.“Before the first year, I had to call the players and explain the tournament,” Borg said, although having Federer’s backing made his job easier. For the captain’s picks, he added, “I’m watching so much tennis all year to see who fits the team, who may be in the best shape.”Federer, left, of Team Europe, with Borg, the team captain, at the 2018 Laver Cup.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesTeam Europe has had a huge edge in singles with its top players, so in past years McEnroe has built his roster around winning the doubles matches, relying heavily on Jack Sock, who is 7-2 in Laver Cup doubles.But without the big three playing for Team Europe, Patrick McEnroe, a vice captain and brother of John McEnroe, said, “we’re not as big an underdog in the singles as we were.”For instance, Denis Shapovalov has a career record of 10-8 against the six Team Europe players. So John McEnroe is aiming for more singles wins, choosing players like Reilly Opelka, who is approaching the Top 20, over Sock, who is an alternate for 2021.Opelka fits the model of McEnroe’s other captain’s picks, John Isner and Nick Kyrgios. “I’m bringing guys in to try and take the racket out of their opponent’s hands,” McEnroe said, referring to players with powerful serves.The week of practice leading up to the tournament serves several purposes for the teams’ leaders. “You need to figure out the doubles partners,” Enqvist said, “so you talk to the guys and try a couple of combinations. It’s important to have good chemistry.”When asked if he could have played doubles alongside Jimmy Connors had the Laver Cup existed in 1980, John McEnroe shrugged. “That would have been iffy,” he said. “I would like to think so, but one year we played Davis Cup together and didn’t talk the whole time.”Patrick McEnroe was amused by the notion. “It would definitely have been worth the price of admission,” he said, “but you’d have to be one strong captain to pull that off.”Reilly Opelka, an American player, in action at the United States Open this month. He will play for Team World at the Laver Cup.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThat chemistry goes beyond just doubles partners, Borg said.“We have at least two dinners together to build team spirit,” he said. As for potential conflicts arising from Alexander Zverev’s chastising of Stefanos Tsitsipas for bathroom breaks that he said were too long, Borg said he would be hands off and leave it to his players to work through it.Practical coaching is minimal, John McEnroe said: “The players’ coaches get very protective and call me all the time asking what I am going to do.”Still, he does try, because helping a player make even a slight improvement can make a difference. “I like to help players maximize their potential, and this is one way where they can get feedback from me,” he said. “And it’s not costing them anything.”Both captains submit lineup cards blindly (not knowing who the opponent will be) for the first day, then each gets a turn seeing the other’s lineup first for the next two days. Captains must also weigh the scoring rules: Matches are worth one point the first day, two on the next day and three on the final day.“You want to start strong on Friday, but you might want to save stronger players for Saturday because those are two-point matches,” Enqvist said.Unlike ATP Tour matches, the captains (and the team) are right there on the sideline. “I’m providing a combination of team building, tactics and psychological boosts,” John McEnroe said, though tactics take a back seat. “It’s hard to figure out something that drastic. It’s often basic reminders, but it’s not like I have to tell John Isner, ‘Serve big.’”Mostly it is an enhanced cheerleader’s role. “I give positive vibes,” Borg said.“These players are the best in the world and have played the other guys, so they know what to do and what not to do,” he said. “But if they’re not playing well, I can push them in a positive way.”With the big three replaced by newcomers like Caspar Ruud and Matteo Berrettini, Borg said, “I may be more hands-on and say a few more things this year.”McEnroe said his and Borg’s statures and personas did have an impact.“Even for Roger or Rafa, looking over and seeing Bjorn, they’ll say, ‘I want to make sure I do my thing,’ because Bjorn has an aura around him,” McEnroe said. “I hopefully bring an energy to our side.”Team Europe may be the favorite, but McEnroe has a solution: “I was suggesting that when I grew up, Russia wasn’t considered part of Europe, so we should get [Daniil] Medvedev and [Andrey] Rublev and that would level the playing field.” Medvedev won the United States Open on Sept. 12.In reality, Russia is in Europe and Asia, but the players hail from the European part.“John,” Borg said with a chuckle, “would want all the players.” More

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    John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg: A Rivalry That Ended Too Soon

    The two played each other just 14 times but created one of the greatest and still-talked-about rivalries in the history of tennis.Over the last 17 years, Roger Federer has played Rafael Nadal 40 times, including nine times in Grand Slam finals. He has played Novak Djokovic 50 times since 2006, twice in five-set Wimbledon championship matches, both won by Djokovic. And Nadal and Djokovic have played a staggering 58 times, including nine times at the French Open.By comparison, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe played 14 matches from 1978 to 1981. And yet they produced one of the greatest and still-talked-about rivalries in the history of the sport.Forty years ago, as the setting sun cast shadows across Louis Armstrong Stadium, more than 18,000 spectators saw a bizarre ending to a too-short era that involved two of the game’s all-time best. First, they watched in awe as McEnroe, a native New Yorker, won his third consecutive United States Open by beating Borg 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-3 in 2 hours 40 minutes. But what happened next caused bewilderment, followed by concern, at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens.As McEnroe was hugging his parents, Kay and John Sr., and holding the champion’s trophy aloft, Borg was nowhere to be found. He had skipped the post-match ceremony and obligatory news conference. He had left the stadium with Lennart Bergelin, his longtime coach and confidant, hastily grabbed a shower and hopped in a waiting station wagon, never again to be seen competing at the U.S. Open, or any other major.McEnroe with Borg during the Laver Cup in 2019. McEnroe was the captain of Team World and Bjorg the captain of Team Europe.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesBorg, barely 25 at the time, was a six-time French Open champion and had also won five consecutive Wimbledon titles from 1976 to 1980 before McEnroe beat him in the 1981 final. Through much of the U.S. Open final he remained close with McEnroe, even leading 4-2 after they had split the first two sets. But when McEnroe broke back and evened the third set, Borg seemed to vanish mentally. He lost the fourth set meekly, shook hands and disappeared.“To me, it was bittersweet,” McEnroe said during a phone interview in August from his home in Malibu, Calif. “The way it ended, with a whimper, with him walking out of the court before the ceremony to never play again. So even though it was a tremendous moment for me, winning Wimbledon and the Open back-to-back and taking over the No. 1 ranking, looking back I wish we could have kept playing.“For years, I would see him and say: ‘When are you coming back? This is ridiculous, let’s go,’” McEnroe, who has long been a tennis commentator for ESPN, added. “It just felt like there was a void and it took me a couple of years to accept that. I think it was too bad for the sport as well.”Borg’s manager, Per Hjertquist, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.What many did not know at the time was that Borg had received two death threats during the Open, both called in to the switchboard at the Tennis Center, though no one has ever said why. One was before his semifinal win over Jimmy Connors. The other was at 4:45 p.m. on Sunday, in the middle of the first set against McEnroe. Borg was not told about that threat until Bergelin alerted him after the match.Many of the fans that day were pulling for Borg, the suave Swede who wore a red, white and blue headband stretched across his forehead to control his shoulder-length mane of dirty-blond hair. Borg was playing in his 10th U.S. Open and fourth final without a championship. He had lost to Jimmy Connors in 1976 and 1978 and to McEnroe in 1980, just two months after beating McEnroe in a five-set Wimbledon final that featured a 34-point fourth-set tiebreaker, and an 8-6 fifth set.Their stark differences were part of the Borg-McEnroe allure. While Borg preferred to quietly stalk the baseline, swinging his two-handed backhand as if it were a pendulum, the left-handed McEnroe was all about disruption, in his game and in his behavior.“We were the perfect yin and yang,” McEnroe said. “You had someone who was naturally aggressive against someone who was a counterpuncher. Everything about us was totally different, the way we looked and the way we played.”Even their fellow competitors saw the value in the matchup.“Bjorn had a certain aloofness to him,” said Rick Meyer, who grew up playing with McEnroe and lost to him in the third round of the 1980 U.S. Open. “He never played doubles, never practiced on site, was basically perfect for the quiet atmosphere of Wimbledon. John, on the other hand, was all about the electricity of New York where people behaved as if it was a boxing match. In the end, that hurt Bjorn.”During the late ’70s and early ’80s, tennis in the United States was exploding. Everyone wanted to play and viewership, in person and on television, was at never-before-seen levels. The day before the 1981 U.S. Open men’s final, 18-year-old Tracy Austin won her second women’s title with a 1-6, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (1) win over Martina Navratilova. Navratilova, who had beaten Chris Evert in the semifinals, sobbed, not because she lost but because the New York crowd had finally embraced her six years after she had defected from Czechoslovakia.In March 1981, World Tennis magazine ran a cover photo of Borg and McEnroe, standing back-to-back, revolutionary-style guns pointed up, with the headline “McEnroe-Borg: Will Their Duels Become Legend?”In the months and years after the 1981 U.S. Open, Borg made a few attempts to return to the pro tour. He never played another major, but he captained Team Europe to victory in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Laver Cup competitions (versus Team World, captained by McEnroe). His son, Leo, has followed in his footsteps and reached the third round of the French Open junior tournament in May and the second round at Junior Wimbledon in July. Borg also started a successful fashion line.“There are a lot of reasons that Borg may have stopped playing, whether it was because he lost the No. 1 ranking, or had been doing it a long time and was a little burned out or that he was the first athlete to make enough money to be able to walk away,” McEnroe said. “But I just wanted to know if he was OK, living a happy life, feeling content and not second-guessing himself and wishing 30 years later that he had done things differently. That’s one of those things that we may never know the answer to.” More