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      Andy Murray’s Run at Wimbledon Is Short and Bittersweet

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      In a punishing second-round match played over two days, Stefanos Tsitsipas outlasted Wimbledon’s favorite son over five sets.Streams of glum British tennis fans filed quietly out of Centre Court on Friday, moments after their Scottish hero had himself departed with a quick two-handed wave before disappearing from their sight.Andy Murray, a two-time Wimbledon champion who has extended his career to age 36 after two hip surgeries, was battling to extend his run at the All England Club into the third round, and was carrying most of the 15,000 fans in the stadium along for the ride.As the match against Stefanos Tsitsipas played out over two days, Murray’s supporters shrieked at his better moments, sat hushed for the lesser ones and cheered supportively ahead of critical points, hoping to provide him with the emotional lift needed to propel his weary body onward, knowing there is always a chance they may never see him compete at Wimbledon again.But the task over five punishing sets was too formidable, and the result cast a gloom over an otherwise glorious day of sunshine and tennis at Wimbledon.Murray, still striving to regain the consistently elite form he once possessed, fell to No. 5 Tsitsipas, 7-6 (3), 6-7 (2), 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4, in a match so close that Murray outscored his Greek opponent in overall points, 176-169.“I’m obviously very disappointed right now,” he said in a news conference about 25 minutes after the match had ended. “You never know how many opportunities you’re going to get to play here.”Murray’s dreary mood was reflected all around the grounds on a difficult day for British players and their fans on Friday. The 12th-seeded Cameron Norrie, Britain’s current No. 1 player, lost to the unseeded American Chris Eubanks, 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (3), on Court No. 1, and Liam Broady, the British No. 2, fell to the Canadian Dennis Shapovalov, who won 4-6, 6-2, 7-5, 7-5.But with Murray, it is different. For two decades, British tennis supporters have watched while he converted the promise of his junior career into glory when, under great pressure in 2013, he became the first British man in 77 years to win Wimbledon, Britain’s home tournament and the premier event on the tour. Three years later, he did it again, to add to the U.S. Open title and the Olympic gold medal he had won in 2012, the latter also on Centre Court.Stefanos Tsitsipas hugged Murray after their match.Shaun Botterill/Getty ImagesHe has been No. 1 in the world, and good enough for long enough to have earned membership among the “Big Four” of men’s tennis that also included the now-retired Roger Federer, the currently injured Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, the current No. 1, who beat Stan Wawrinka on Friday on Centre Court, 6-3, 6-1, 7-6 (5).Murray’s presence on the lush green lawns of Wimbledon could barely have been expected four years ago. He underwent hip surgery in 2018 that did not take, and it appeared his career was done. But a year later he underwent hip-resurfacing surgery that allowed him to play on. It has not been easy. He has toiled on tennis’s minor league Challenger circuit and worked his world ranking to No. 40 going into Wimbledon. But recent losses in the first rounds of most of the top-flight tournaments he entered have raised doubts.Still, his public held out hope, and did its part, beginning Thursday night, when Murray and Tsitsipas began the match. When Murray won the second set in a tiebreaker, fans erupted, and optimism was rebooted. An energized Murray then had a set point in the third set, but fell to the grass in pain, yelling and clutching at the top of his right leg. It appeared serious, but he struggled to his feet, danced it out at the baseline and then served a winner to take the set as the crowd erupted.“It’s like sort of a jarring of the joint,” he said. “Can be a little bit sore.”It was 10:40 p.m., under the lights. As Murray and Tsitsipas went to their chairs for the changeover, they were informed that the match would be suspended because of the 11 p.m. curfew. Murray was riding a locomotive of momentum, but he could not argue — even though, before the tournament began, he had requested not to be scheduled for late matches.In a post-loss moment of magnanimity that many other professionals could not have mustered, Murray did not fault the decision, noting the grander implications.“The players shouldn’t necessarily just be able to make requests and get what they want,” he said. “There’s many, many factors that go into it.”On Friday, some conditions were completely different. The roof was open; the sun shone in. But the crowd was still as vociferous, both in the stadium and on Henman Hill, where many hundreds of fans baked in the sun to watch on the large video screen.Murray arrived at Wimbledon hoping it would be his breakthrough event, and he would make a bold run into the second week. With so few opportunities left to play in this hallowed venue, Murray was asked if the loss hurt even more, after all the struggles he has been through to get here. He paused and thought.“Yeah, the defeats maybe feel a bit tougher,” he said. “But, to be honest, every year that Wimbledon has not gone how I would like, it’s been hard.”He has given no indication that he intends to retire in the coming months. But decisions are sometimes made in the wake of a particularly dispiriting loss, and Murray, in his low, brooding tone, said he could not be certain.“Motivation is obviously a big thing,” he explained. “Continuing having early losses in tournaments like this don’t necessarily help with that.” More

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      At Wimbledon, Sofia Kenin Rediscovers Her Fighting Form

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      With her straight-sets win over Xinyu Wang on Thursday, Kenin had won a second consecutive match for only the fourth time all year.It has been three and a half years since Sofia Kenin put both hands to her face and teared up in Melbourne. That night, she had just won the Australian Open at 21, highlighting to the world her ferocious will to fight for every point, every shot.When her hands came down, she was not even smiling, her concentration apparently on maintaining composure as she soaked in the moment of a lifetime.To this day, Kenin says, reflecting back on that triumph requires a bit of a mental blockade.“I try not to think about it too much, because I might get a bit emotional,” she said on Thursday after her biggest win in over two years. “I mean, it happened, and I definitely believe that I can get there again.”Over the last couple of years, that possibility had seemed extremely remote for Kenin, the Moscow-born American player. But in the first week of Wimbledon, she has shown some of the skill and tenacity that once took her to the summit of women’s tennis.On Monday, she beat Coco Gauff in the first round. On Thursday, she defeated Xinyu Wang, 6-4, 6-3, to plow into the third round of a major tournament for the first time since she reached the fourth round of the 2021 French Open.She is still at the earliest stages of a campaign to claw her way back to relevance. She knows there are skeptics wondering if she can, and she said on Thursday she was motivated to prove those people wrong.“I just had to find my way,” she said. “I have been fighting. I just hope that I can keep it going.”To do so would mean upending Elina Svitolina, the 76th-ranked player on tour, in the third round on Friday.Kenin arrived at Wimbledon ranked 128th in the world and had to win three matches in the qualifying rounds just to get into the main draw. That might be beneath some former Grand Slam tournament champions, but Kenin approached the task with determination, humility and a bit of humor, saying that if she had known that entering the so-called quallies would ensure her advancing into the third round of the main draw, she would do it regularly.But there was a time when she expected to receive a high seeding at every tournament she entered. After Kenin won the Australian Open in 2020 by beating Garbiñe Muguruza, her ranking rose to No. 4 in the world, and her future appeared so promising.The ensuing three years, however, turned into a desperate struggle. Among the obstacles littering her way, Kenin suffered a grade-three ankle tear; underwent an emergency appendectomy; publicly split with her father and coach, Alexander Kenin; and contracted the coronavirus. A year ago, her ranking had plummeted to No. 426 in the world, and as recently as January it was No. 280.Kenin reunited with her father in the autumn of 2021, eight months after she had announced on social media that she had fired him. He was in the audience on Thursday, watching closely as Kenin dismantled Wang on little Court No. 4, an outer court with a capacity of only a few hundred, in the shadow of Centre Court. Kenin has worked with several coaches in recent years, but her father is back as part of the team, a constant presence again, and Kenin said he had been part of her recent success.“I definitely think things are clicking,” she said, “Obviously, with all the practices and just doing everything right. I’m working really hard, and he’s just been there for me, and I’m really grateful for that.”On the court, she dominated Wang, deploying a deft slice that is so effective on grass, and especially so with the taller Wang, who often had difficulty getting low enough to hit through the ball and fire back effectively. Kenin also relied on her improved serve and repeatedly tucked balls inside lines on all sides of the court, just as she had done against Gauff.Kenin with her father, Alexander, at the All England Club.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesIn both matches, and in the qualifying stages, she demonstrated her indisputable competitive zeal.“Obviously, she won a Grand Slam, but she’s in a tough spot in her career,” Gauff said after their match. “I knew coming in she would play with a lot of motivation.”Kenin’s victory Thursday was only the fourth time all year that she had won two matches in a row. But she credited a loss for helping her change her fortunes this year, when at Indian Wells in March she lost in straight sets to Elena Rybakina, last year’s Wimbledon singles champion. Both sets, however, went to tiebreakers, and Kenin soaked up the experience, converting it into a driving confidence.Rybakina had reached the Australian Open final in January, and Kenin used the match to measure her progress and her ability to hang with the best.“I felt like that was a little bit of a turning point for me,” she said.She then won two matches at the Miami Open before falling to Bianca Andreescu and has gone 9-6 since then, including the Wimbledon qualifying rounds.She has a long way to go, in terms of both ranking and consistency. But for the first time in two years, she is back in the fight.“I knew if I put in the work and do the right things, eventually it’s going to click,” she said, “and I’m super happy it’s clicking here.” More

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      Michelle Wie West Wants to Win the U.S. Women’s Open One More Time

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      You could see the head tilts and darting glances when people peered around Pebble Beach’s Gallery Cafe, or as visitors sat on the patio that looks toward the cypress-guarded 18th green by Stillwater Cove. They surfaced at a luncheon with Brandi Chastain and Kristi Yamaguchi, and during a climb up a flight of stairs, and a stroll through a lobby.That’s Michelle Wie West, that 6-foot fixture of collective memory and modern golf history.She did not win as much as she wanted to, and certainly not as much as many people thought she would or should have. But after close to a quarter of a century in the spotlight, she is still one of the savviest stars women’s golf has ever had, a player plenty of people outside of golf know as a star even if they do not know golf.The competitive golf part of Wie’s life will most likely be done by dusk on Sunday, when the U.S. Women’s Open is scheduled to finish at Pebble Beach. If things don’t go well, and they might not since Wie West’s husband will be her caddie for the first time and she has barely played lately, it could be over by dusk on Friday. After the Open, she has no plans to return to elite competition, though she dodges the word “retirement” in public (and confesses to sometimes using it in private).She is 33.That went fast, didn’t it?Wie West on No. 18 at Lake Merced Golf Course during the Mediheal Championship last year.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesIn 2000, when she was 10 and Bill Clinton was president, she played the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship. She won the event when she was 13, the same age she made an L.P.G.A. tournament cut and had a turn in third place on a major tournament’s weekend leaderboard. She played a PGA Tour event at 14, turned professional at 15, rattled off three top-five finishes in her first three majors as a pro, battled wrist trouble, won the Open at 24 and then spent years with more injuries, cuts and withdrawals than strong showings.So it was not that fast, after all. Soon, though, it will apparently be finished. Barring a victory this weekend or a surprise in the years ahead, Wie West will finish with five L.P.G.A. Tour wins, including the 2014 Open at Pinehurst, tied for 69th on the career victory list. It adds up to a far better career than most players, though short of the mighty expectations that followed Wie West from the start and flowed from a blend of internet-age youth, talent, celebrity and marketability. (By way of comparison, Inbee Park, a 34-year-old player from South Korea, has won seven majors but has long drawn a fraction of the public attention that Wie West commanded.)“What’s the right word for this?” Wie West said in an interview in a sun-splashed lounge, well out of earshot of any aides.“I feel very — confident that I had the career that I wanted to,” she continued eventually. “Obviously, I wish I could have done more as well. I think anyone and everyone thinks that.”But, she said, “the what-ifs and the regrets and the ‘I wish I could have done this better’ can drive you truly insane.”Even last year’s announcement of a transition, to use her publicly preferred term, got derailed when her husband came down with Covid-19 and Wie West’s parents stayed back to help with child care. Ready to detail the wind-down she had rolled out on Instagram the previous week, Wie West wound up nearly alone at the 2022 Open in North Carolina.Wie West during the second round of last year’s U.S. Open.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersShe had been mulling for years whether it was time to stop playing, frustrated by injuries and, more recently, torn by the notion of her family of three having only so much time together. In 2021, vulgar comments about Wie West by Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City, jolted her into a fresh sense of purpose.But there eventually came a point, she said, when she realized the game’s toll was ultimately too high, when she feared her body would be so broken down she would not even be able to play a round for pleasure with her daughter. Her clubs have been in her bag almost exclusively ever since.“It’s hard,” she said, “it’s hard to know when the right time is to walk away.”That is assuredly in part because, for an athlete in any sport, stepping back from competition means the statistics are done and that the résumé is, with few exceptions, frozen. For Wie West, retiring or transitioning or whatever you want to call it meant firing up the inevitable debate about whether she had been a squandered or overhyped talent.She hears it, of course. She also gets it.“People love to chirp and have their own feeling and whatnot, and they totally have the right to it: They have been invested in my career,” she said. “I know I haven’t won as many as I, quote-unquote, should have.”At the same time, she seems to wonder how fair it is. She earned a degree from Stanford and won a U.S. Open, and those two feats, she figures, are what she wanted to do anyway.And yet she can still run through all of the ways her career could have been different: if she had held onto a share of the lead at the 2005 Open at Cherry Hills, if her quest that year to earn a spot in the Masters had worked out, if she had made the cut at her first PGA Tour event instead of missing it by a stroke.She is entering this week’s 156-woman Open with measured expectations against a deep field.The reigning champion, Minjee Lee, has won two majors since 2021 and is not ranked in the top-five in the world. And there is Rose Zhang, the 20-year-old Stanford student who last month won her debut tournament as a professional. Wie West’s group, which will tee off at 8:28 a.m. Pacific time on Thursday, includes the three-time major winner In Gee Chun and Annika Sorenstam, who logged 10 major victories in her career and received a special exemption into this week’s field.Wie West celebrated after winning the U.S. Open in 2014.Streeter Lecka/Getty ImagesThis spring, Wie West was musing about how she needed to get her stamina up for the rigors of a major, how she needed to hone her iron and wedge play before returning to one of golf’s biggest stages, especially since it will be played this year on one of the sport’s most beloved courses.“Just have to believe in myself, just get to a point where I feel confident that I can execute the shots and make the putts,” she said. “And I’m hoping that it all comes very quickly.”She plans to remain closely connected to the sport — she recently hosted the L.P.G.A. tournament that Zhang won — but insisted that she does not think much about how she transformed perceptions of the game that she said still enchants her.Even now, she said, she will play with her husband and become persuaded that, like every other golfer who has won, lost or never actually contested a major, she has unlocked the sport’s mysteries.“You get that one feeling and it feels really good, and you’re like, ‘I think I’ve figured out the game. I’ve figured it out!” she said. “I still catch myself saying that almost every time I play, so I know there’s an itch to want to get better.”Soon enough, after all of this time, it will be happening away from the spotlight. More

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      Minjee Lee Looks to Defend Her U.S. Women’s Open Title at Pebble Beach

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      Minjee Lee has spent these past few years feeling golf’s glories and agonies more than most.She won her first major tournament at the 2021 Evian Championship, a come-from-behind playoff victory, and followed it less than a year later with a record-setting win at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open. Then came a tie for 43rd when she tried to defend her Evian title, worries about exhaustion and a pair of frustrating finishes in the first two majors of this year.Now ranked sixth in the world after reaching No. 2 last summer, Lee, a 27-year-old Australian, will have to conquer Pebble Beach Golf Links — the renowned course on the California coast — if she is to defend her Open title. The tournament begins Thursday.In a springtime interview at T.P.C. Harding Park in San Francisco, Lee discussed her masterful iron play, the hazards of Pebble Beach, the evolution of the women’s game and why winning a major once, never mind twice, is so difficult.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.You haven’t missed a cut at a major since 2019.I didn’t even know.How much of that represents a progression of your athletic talent versus your mind-set?You’re always trying to get a little bit better each day. So for me, for my progression and not having missed a cut over that period of time, I feel like I’ve put in a lot of hours and effort into my game and improving each day. It just shows my consistency over X amount of time.How did winning the Evian Championship in 2021 shape the subsequent years?It was a bit of a relief because there was a lot of talk: “When is she going to win her first major?” I heard a lot of things, but they were never to my face. They were always in passing or social media or a lot of things here and there. So it was kind of a relief, a monkey off my back. I knew I had it in me, but it finally happened — like, to actually get a win in a major is really, really hard.You always work toward winning majors, and your goals are very specific, so for that to be my first one, it led into my next year, as well.And as you learned last year at Evian, defending a championship is hard to do.Oh, yeah. It’s really hard.Going into Pebble Beach, how do you approach trying to defend a major?The hardest thing is to do your normal thing. Usually when you’re defending, you’re pulled in a lot of different directions: media, your practice rounds, you put in a lot of work because it’s a new venue and you have to do all of your prep starting from scratch.It’s not like Evian, where I already knew the golf course and had played it for years. [This year], it will be a little bit different. The U.S. Open has always meant a lot to me and to be able to win it was a dream come true for me. I don’t know how it will feel driving in there as a defending champion.The wind will be a factor at Pebble Beach. You grew up in Australia and dealt with the wind. You live in Texas and deal with the wind. Does it feel like an advantage this year?I like playing in the wind — I like a tough test of golf. I just feel like you can really use your creativity when it’s windy. Low shots are key, but it’s not always just the low shots. Are you going to use the wind? Are you going to fight the wind? It’s just a lot of different ways that you can play in the wind. I find it more fun when it’s harder, and because it really separates who is a good ball-striker and who isn’t as good, it really separates the field. I’ve always played in wind, so it doesn’t really feel that different for me.“I just feel like you can really use your creativity when it’s windy,” said Lee, using grass to gauge the gusts at the Mizuho Americas Open last month.Elsa/Getty ImagesThere are not many better iron players on the planet. Do you find yourself still emphasizing irons when you practice and prepare, or can you afford to spend more time on other things?I never really felt like I was better in that aspect until I saw the stat. Yeah, sure, my stats were better than the men, but I never really specifically worked on my irons — like, I always worked on my technique or how I move a certain way for a certain shot. But last year, it just happened to be better than any other year, and I’m not sure what really changed. It just kind of happened. You just work on something for so long, and then at one point, it just clicks. I probably don’t work on my swing as much right now; I’m working on other parts of my game, but only because those other areas are where I’d benefit the most.You’ve said you don’t pay attention to stats, but you set the Open scoring record last year, earning the highest payout in history ($1.8 million) for women’s golf. Do you think about those kinds of superlatives?I feel like I don’t — not as much as I should. I probably should look at it and think, “Oh, you did really well,” and then compliment myself. I just do my work, and when I’m away from the golf course, I don’t think about golf.There’s a moment in the Netflix documentary series “Full Swing” when Brooks Koepka talks about how golf is a game where, when things are going well, you think you’re never going to lose it, and when it’s not going well, you think you’ll never find your way back. This year hasn’t been a glide path for you. Where are you on that continuum?I had an off-season, like I always would in that period of time, and then played Asia and didn’t have that good of results. I was like, I’m just going to take a few weeks more at home, and I missed three events and that happened to be six weeks.Time went so quickly, and I was like, I’ve spent eight years going full-throttle, I’m allowed to take that time for myself. So I did, and I feel good. I feel quite refreshed. First week was Chevron — a major coming back for the first week — and I’m slowly working back into playing rhythms.You changed caddies recently. How has it affected you on the course?I’ve actually learned a lot about myself. When you’re younger, you rely a lot on your caddie, and I think I did that for quite a long time, just because I was young and didn’t know what I wanted as much. Now I know myself a bit better and I’ve matured a lot more.It just feels like I know what I want in a caddie and all that I need from my caddie. I don’t need the reassurance; I know what I’m doing. I just need somebody who knows me well, who is going to be a good companion out on the golf course. We spend so much time with them on the golf course, it’s like if you don’t like that person, it’s just not going to work.This is the first U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach, somewhere that looms large in golf’s imagination. What’s the bigger milestone for women’s golf: that the Open is being played at Pebble Beach, or that last year’s British Open was at Muirfield, where women couldn’t even be members until 2017?I’m a little bit mixed in that aspect. I’m really happy and grateful that we were able to play at Muirfield and have access to the golf course, and being at Pebble for the first time. I know that a lot of work goes into having those championships there. It’s not easy — nothing is easy, right? — but I am a little bit bittersweet that it took this much time to get the women on these golf courses. I’m very appreciative of the tours and the U.S. Golf Association and all of our sponsors for really pushing the women’s game and the L.P.G.A. to go to all of these great venues now, and I know it’s only going to get better.But I feel like it was a long time coming.“I just need somebody who knows me well, who is going to be a good companion out on the golf course,” Lee said of her caddie Rance De Grussa, a fellow Australian who began working with her earlier this year.John Minchillo/Associated PressIn February, you said one of your goals was not to be totally exhausted by the end of 2023. We’ve seen more and more elite athletes talk about burnout, mental illness, depression and exhaustion. How much of that weighs on your mind as you’re trying to sort out when to play?I’ve always had quite a full year. I’ve played a lot of events, and that’s what I really wanted to do. I wanted to play. But now I want to play less — like, I don’t want to be as tired coming down to some really important events at the end of the year.Now my priorities are different. I don’t need to spend all of my time playing every single event, trying to keep my card as a rookie. I’m getting older, so I want to look after my body, look after my mind. That’s what’s going to help me perform my best, so I think that’s why a lot of athletes are now talking about taking care of your well-being, taking care of your mind, where you are in your life. Just to be healthy inside and out I think is really important, and if nobody talks about it, nobody will really know about it either, so you can’t get the proper help if you need it.Does having won two majors help you feel liberated that you can take the breaks and take the pauses — that there’s maybe a little less to prove?Not really. I’ve never really thought about it in that way. Obviously, I am hungry for more: I want to win the other majors, and I don’t think that will ever change. And I’ve been close to world No. 1 a couple of times but not quite got over the line. So I still have a lot to show. I have a lot of fight left in me. I still have a lot of drive.You played for the first time when you were about 10. Looking back, do you wish you had started earlier? Started later?It was a good age for me. I swam and I played golf. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I just tried a bunch of things: different sports, dance, music, everything. I was fortunate that my parents let me try everything. I just found it in golf, and I really enjoyed practicing and going and seeing my friends at the golf course. I used to hit these squishy golf balls around on the chipping green, and it was just fun. The way I got into it, I think it was the right way.Was golf your best sport?Well, I have pretty good hand-eye coordination, but I think because we were really a golfy family — my parents and my brother and my grandparents, they all loved playing golf, so we were just always around it.As a two-time Olympian, do you want to play in Paris next year?That’s pretty high on my list. I think Paris will be a pretty amazing turnout. The Olympics are probably the greatest honor you can have of representing your country, so I think that is going to be one of my bigger goals for next year.But Pebble Beach comes first. When do you start playing it in your head?I’m not really a look-up-the-golf-course-beforehand kind of girl. I’ve seen some holes on TV but nothing too much in detail.I like seeing the course and really visualizing it when I get there. I wouldn’t be able to tell if I did it on the map. I just like to internalize it when I get there.“You just work on something for so long, and then at one point, it just clicks, and that’s kind of what it did for me,” Lee said of how she hits her irons.Matt Rourke/Associated Press More

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      Novak Djokovic Eyes a Fifth Straight Wimbledon Title

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      If Djokovic can win his fifth consecutive title at the All England Club, he will be three-quarters of the way to a Grand Slam.Novak Djokovic, bent over with a towel in hand, delighted the Centre Court crowd during a rain delay at Wimbledon on Monday when he mopped some moisture from the grass. It seemed appropriate for someone who has been doing the same general thing to his opponents over the last five years at this tournament.Djokovic has not lost a match at Wimbledon since 2017, and with a victory over Pedro Cachin of Argentina in their first-round meeting Monday, he extended his record over the last five Wimbledon tournaments to 29-0. He has won the last four men’s singles titles, and one more this year would set him up to eclipse even more names in the record book.If Djokovic can claim a fifth consecutive title at the All England Club, he will have taken home the first three major trophies of 2023 and increased his chances of winning the first men’s Grand Slam (all four majors in the same year) since Rod Laver did it in 1969. He would also become just the third man to do it, joining Laver (1962 and 1969) and Don Budge in 1938. Three women have accomplished the feat: Maureen Connolly in 1953, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.Djokovic would also tie Roger Federer for most Wimbledon men’s singles titles (eight) and tie Bjorn Borg for the most consecutive (five). Finally, he would match Court’s record of 24 major titles, and would be the only player to do it entirely in the Open era. (Court won 13 majors before 1968, during a time when professionals were not allowed to play in the majors.)On Monday, Djokovic, the No. 2 seed but the overwhelming title favorite, walked onto Centre Court absorbing a moment that only a happy few have experienced.“It’s a feeling like no other tournament in the world, of walking out on the Centre Court of Wimbledon as a defending champion, on the fresh grass,” he said. “It’s amazing, amazing to be back to a dream tournament, and to be able to get the first match out of the way.”Wimbledon was the first tennis tournament Djokovic watched on television when he was growing up in Serbia, and it has held an allure for him since. And while that is true for thousands of players, few have enjoyed it as much as Djokovic, who ingests blades of grass immediately upon winning his titles (unlike when he wins on the red clay of Roland Garros).Winning on grass, especially in an era when there are so few tournaments on the surface, and the season is so short, is particularly challenging, and Djokovic rarely plays the warm-up tournaments anymore. There are many tactical aspects that make grass distinct from clay and hardcourts, even now, when the Wimbledon surface is much bouncier and faster than it once was.“I had to learn how to move,” Djokovic said about the transition from playing on red clay to playing on grass.Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor Djokovic, who likes to slide across hardcourts and clay as he reaches for balls out wide and at the net, the grass at Wimbledon does not allow for the same kind of horizontal movement. But Djokovic has become as adept as anyone at adjusting from clay to grass in short order.“I had to learn how to move,” he said, “how to walk, how to play, how to read the bounces, etc.”But the grass was actually too slippery for a while on Monday after a light rain fell toward the end of the first set of Djokovic’s victory, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (4) over Cachin. It was Djokovic’s toughest obstacle of the day.The match was halted, the tarp spread over the court and the roof rolled closed. Normally the courts dry off in less than half an hour. But the moisture mysteriously persisted on Monday, and tournament officials and the players returned to a still slippery court.In all, the delay lasted almost 90 minutes, a surprising duration for a court with a roof. But Djokovic endeared himself to the disappointed spectators by employing his towel and joking with them, as if he could clean it all up himself. Considering his success on that patch of grass — he hasn’t lost on Centre Court since 2013 — some might have expected him to do it.Some wondered whether his good temper was an indication that Djokovic, with a men’s singles record 23rd major title safely in hand, was now in a more relaxed and jovial mood.“I wouldn’t particularly say it’s quite a unique feeling for me just because I’ve won my 23rd Slam,” he said. “I’ve always tried to have fun in particular circumstances where I guess you can’t control things. I’ve had some funny rain delays in Paris, as well, New York, where I joked around.”He acknowledged being physically and emotionally exhausted after winning the French Open in June. So he and his wife, Jelena, went to Portugal’s Azores Islands to hike and relax. They were even forced to spend an extra day there because fog grounded their original flight home.“It was great because I’ve been through a lot of different emotions during the clay season,” he said, “particularly obviously reaching the climax in Paris, and I needed to get away, get isolated a little bit.”One player Djokovic will not have to contend with this year is Nick Kyrgios, his opponent in last year’s Wimbledon final. Kyrgios, who has been recovering from surgery on his left knee in January, withdrew from the tournament on the eve of the first day after a scan revealed a torn ligament in his wrist.“I think people just forget how strenuous this sport is, how physical it is,” Kyrgios said Sunday, before announcing his wrist injury. “I dare someone to go out there and play four hours with Novak and see how you feel afterward.”Since Djokovic’s current run began in 2018, they’ve all been wiped away. More

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      Ben Shelton Arrives at Wimbledon With His Father as Coach

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      Bryan Shelton guided his son for years as a junior and in college. Now he is taking the reins on the ATP Tour. Next up: Wimbledon.Last year, when Ben Shelton decided to leave college and turn professional, he wondered aloud to his father, Bryan, a former player on the men’s tennis tour, if they ought to embark on a venture together.Sorry, Bryan Shelton told his son, he already had a full-time job coaching at the University of Florida. Bryan Shelton handed the reins to Dean Goldfine, a highly respected coach who had previously worked with the former world No. 1 Andy Roddick. Perhaps, they reasoned, it was better this way, giving the 57-year-old father and his 20-year-old son a healthy distance for his first couple years as a professional.Then Ben became the breakout star of this year’s Australian Open, riding his booming serve into the singles quarterfinals, while Bryan was back home in Gainesville, Fla., readying the Gators for the spring season. It turns out even well-adjusted, middle-aged dads can be susceptible to FOMO. In early June, shortly after Florida’s men’s team was eliminated from the N.C.A.A. Division I tennis tournament, the Sheltons announced that Ben had a new/old full-time coach.“It was the right time,” Bryan Shelton said.On June 12, father and son set out for the grass-court season and the next phase of their relationship, which has a big-stage debut this week at Wimbledon, where Shelton, who has been billed as a star in the making, is scheduled to play Taro Daniel in the first round Tuesday.“We knew eventually this is what we wanted to happen,” Ben Shelton said Saturday at the All England Club.Parent-child relationships can be fraught. Mix in coaching, which is not uncommon in tennis, especially when a parent is a former professional, and they can quickly turn “toxic and tough,” in the words of Bryan Shelton.Stefanos Tsitsipas yelling during matches at his box, with his coach and father, Apostolos, sometimes yelling back, can make spectators feel like uncomfortable guests at an awkward family dinner. Then again, things seem to be working out all right for Casper Ruud, who has made (but lost) three of the past five Grand Slam finals under the tutelage of his father, Cristian. Like Bryan Shelton, Cristian Ruud was a decent pro on the ATP Tour.Looking for the Ruuds between tournaments or on off days? Try the nicest nearby golf course, where they compete like college buddies. Still, after his loss last month to Novak Djokovic in the French Open final, Casper Ruud, 24, said he would not rule out one day getting guidance from someone other than his father.“It can always be good with new, fresh eyes on your game,” he said.For Ben Shelton, there are benefits both on and off the court in having his father around, he said. Given his strapping frame and 12-month rise from Florida Gator ranked outside the top 400 to Grand Slam quarterfinalist, it can be easy to forget just how young and raw he is in tennis years and life experiences.A late bloomer, Ben did not play most of the major junior tournaments growing up. He attended a regular high school rather than a tennis-focused academy. His journey to Australia for the Open and its lead-up tournaments was his first trip overseas.This year’s clay-court swing was his first trip to Europe. On Saturday, he confessed to feeling homesick while traveling without his parents earlier this year.Not only has he never played Wimbledon before, but until the middle of last month, he had never set foot on a grass court. He won one of his three matches on grass the past few weeks, though both losses needed a deciding third set.Expectations for Ben’s Wimbledon debut are high, and arriving alongside his dad, who has coached him before and has won his own matches at the All England Club, may bolster his chances.Ben Shelton trained on the practice courts at Wimbledon on Friday as his father looked on.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesThe young player’s pounding serve, walloping forehand and his ability to move forward on the court make grass an ideal surface for him if he can figure out how to stay low and master the quick, controlled foot movements that winning on grass requires.The first two days were rough, Ben said Saturday.“My legs were feeling weird,” he said. “And then after those two days, I started having a lot of fun.”Bryan Shelton said he has always told his son that Wimbledon is the game’s most special venue, a place where he had dreamed of playing as a teenager in Alabama watching the famous matches between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe on television. In 1989, he walked onto a field court to play Boris Becker, who was already a two-time Wimbledon champion at 22, two years younger than Bryan Shelton. Becker beat him in three sets.“Someone pulled up a video on an iPad and handed it to me so we could watch it,” Bryan Shelton said. “Better than I thought it would be.”He made the fourth round of Wimbledon in 1994, his best performance at a Grand Slam tournament, beating the second seed, Michael Stich of Germany, in his opening match.Bryan Shelton said for the past six months he and his wife, Lisa, had been discussing him leaving his college job to work full-time with Ben, but first he needed to make sure Ben still wanted him. He did.During Ben’s early teenage years, father and son would practice before Ben headed off to school, hitting the courts at 6:45 a.m. each morning. Through that experience and during Ben’s college career, Bryan learned a lesson that nearly all parents learn about their children: Despite all that shared DNA, they are not mini-me’s.Bryan loved to drill on the tennis court, honing shots through hours of practice. Drills bore Ben. Competition drives him. He needs to play more points in practice.Bryan said as a junior player there were times when Ben would come home from losing in a tournament and Bryan would ask his son what had gone wrong.This was before Ben had grown to 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds. He would tell his father he just needed to get bigger.Ben Shelton said his father has become good at picking up on the signals that it’s time to switch from coach mode into dad mode. Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesBryan didn’t necessarily like that answer. He would tell his son that there were always things he could get better at, that he should make a list of the elements of his game he needed to improve, the way Bryan had after some of his losses. But that wasn’t how Ben ticked.“I was getting in his way,” Bryan Shelton said. “What I learned that I need to do is let him think about how good he is and know that he will do the work.”Like any coach and player, they have had their moments on the court. There are times when Ben needs to let off steam, and Bryan needs him to be composed. An hour later, someone will apologize, and they move on. They share an understanding that people make mistakes, and they try to maintain their “no grudges” rule.Ben said his father has become good at picking up on the signals that it’s time to switch from coach mode into dad mode. Bryan will set a time limit on a video session, so they aren’t constantly watching and talking about tennis. So far, he’s been happy to let Ben head to dinner with friends while he stays back in his hotel room, orders in and watches golf.“He’s pretty easy to travel with,” Ben said of his father.Good thing. They will be doing a lot of it. More

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      Andy Murray Returns to Wimbledon Aiming for Another Long Run

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      A decade ago, Murray broke the 77-year singles championship drought for British men at Wimbledon. It has been up and down since. Can he recapture the magic?In late May, with most of the world’s best tennis players focused on the red clay at the French Open, Sir Andy Murray was 300 miles away on the other side of the English Channel, dialed in on preparations for the grass at Wimbledon.That had been the plan, anyway. But then his wife, Kim Sears, had to head up to Scotland for a few days to handle some business at the hotel she and Murray own. That left him solo for the morning rituals beginning at 5:30 a.m. with their four children, all younger than 8: cooking breakfast, getting everyone dressed and dropping them off at school.Three hours later, with the last child delivered, he headed to Britain’s national tennis center in Roehampton, where he received treatment from his physiotherapist and trained for several hours on the grass court and in the gym. There was also an afternoon of interviews and shooting promotional videos. It’s all part of the next phase of Murray’s quixotic, late-career quest to finish his journey on his terms, metal hip and all.Maybe that means somehow recapturing the magic of 10 years ago, when he became the first British man in 77 years to win the most important title in his sport. Maybe it’s simply cracking the top 30 or 20 once more, proving wrong all the doctors and doubters who called him foolish for entertaining a future in professional tennis after hip resurfacing surgery in 2019.Or maybe it’s pushing off for however long he can be the full-time tennis elder, entrepreneur and someone who, years ago, did that glorious thing.The default demeanor that accompanies Murray’s grueling physical play has always looked something like misery, peppered with a near-constant verbal self-flagellation that pulls spectators into his battle. But there is also joy in the training, the competing, the quest to improve and get the most out of himself while doing something that he loves, even when that means struggling against seemingly inferior opponents. Murray knows nothing else he does will ever match the feeling. So he goes on, results be damned.“I’m jealous of your Jannik Sinners and these young guys that have got an amazing career to look forward to,” he said during a recent interview at the end of that harried day as he headed for the tennis center parking lot. “I would love to do it all over again.”Murray’s Wimbledon singles title in 2013 was the first by a British man since Fred Perry won in 1936.Kerim Okten/European Pressphoto Agency‘An Outrageous Career’A decade on from the moment Britain had been waiting on since the Great Depression, Murray returns to the All England Club a version of himself that he could not have imagined in 2013, when he was just another 20-something bloke who walked his dogs in London on the south bank of the Thames.The tennis obsessive is now a man in full: a husband of eight years; a father of four; an officer of the Order of the British Empire (hence the “sir”); an art collector; an entrepreneur with a portfolio that includes a hotel, a clothing line and other investments; and the wise man, sounding board and occasional practice partner for the next generation of British tennis stars, such as Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu.Mirra Andreeva, the 16-year-old Russian phenom, would like some time with him, too. She called him “so beautiful” this spring.Regrets, he has a few, especially in those years in his 20s when he trained like a fiend and viewed time with friends and family as an impediment to a tireless search for every ounce of success. Another speed workout. More lifting, or hot yoga, or hitting practice balls. Why did he make life so difficult for his coaches? Why did he eat all those sweet-and-sour candies? Why did he stay up until 3 a.m. playing video games so often?The lazy view of Murray, who plays Ryan Peniston of Britain in the first round on Tuesday, is a player with just three Grand Slam singles titles, the same as Stan Wawrinka, who is a fine champion but no one’s idea of an all-time great. Novak Djokovic just won his 23rd. Rafael Nadal has 22; Roger Federer, 20. They are the so-called Big Three.Djokovic said recently he doesn’t much like that term because it excludes Murray, a player he has been battling since his days on the junior tennis circuit. The longtime mates practiced together on Saturday at the All England Club.There is a reason Federer included Murray as a central character in his send-off last year at the Laver Cup. Murray has beaten Djokovic, Nadal and Federer a combined 29 times, including two wins over Djokovic in Grand Slam finals. He made 11 Grand Slam singles finals during the most competitive era of elite men’s tennis. Only he, Nadal, Federer and Djokovic held a No. 1 ranking between 2004 and 2022. And he withstood unmatched pressure during his run to that first Wimbledon title.“It’s an outrageous career,” said Jamie Murray, a top doubles player who teamed with Andy, his younger sibling, in 2015 to deliver Britain its first Davis Cup triumph since 1936.Or it was an outrageous career, until that grueling physical style exacted its toll on Murray’s back and ankles and eventually led to the degenerative hip condition that stymied his run at the top in 2017. In January 2018, Murray had an initial unsuccessful hip surgery. For the rest of the season, everyone saw him suffering and limping through the pain.At the 2019 Australian Open, Bob Bryan, a 23-time Grand Slam doubles champion, put his breakfast tray down at Murray’s table and told him about the hip resurfacing surgery he had undergone the previous summer. The operation allowed Bryan to return to high-level competition doubles in just five months. Elite singles was something else entirely.“‘All I want to do is play,’” Bryan said Murray told him.Later that month, Murray posted a startling photo on Instagram that showed him lying in a hospital bed.“I now have a metal hip,” he wrote after the roughly two-hour resurfacing procedure that replaced the damaged bone and cartilage with a metal shell. “Feeling a bit battered and bruised just now but hopefully that will be the end of my hip pain.”Murray’s pain had grown so severe that the primary goal of the operation was to give him the ability to play with his children.For the next six months, he attacked physical therapy and rehabilitation the way he had attacked tennis. He was a full-time father. He played golf. He hung around with old friends.Matt Gentry, Murray’s longtime agent and business partner, said the downtime gave Murray a window into life without tennis. It wasn’t terrible.Murray has long admired American sports stars who take an entrepreneurial approach to their careers, and he and Gentry began to map out opportunities. Murray has since launched a clothing line. He has invested with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in TMRW Sports, a company that is seeking to find new ways to marry sports media and technology, including a new golf competition. He is part of a group that is building thousands of padel courts at sports clubs throughout the United Kingdom.In 2013, he purchased Cromlix House, a 15-room castle-like hotel near his childhood home in Dunblane, Scotland, for roughly $2 million. The property was especially meaningful: His grandparents held their 25th anniversary party there in 1982. He and Sears held their wedding reception there. His brother, Jamie, also got married at the property.Murray and Sears recently completed the first phase of a multimillion-dollar renovation and expansion of the property that will eventually include cabins by the nearby loch. The hotel is home to several pieces of art from Murray’s private collection, including a series of Damien Hirst and David Shrigley prints.For now, Murray said, he mostly listens to pitches and writes checks, but he plans to become more involved in his business ventures when he is done playing tennis. If he has his way, that day will not arrive for some time.‘Why Shouldn’t He Keep Playing?’Murray’s mother, Judy, a former player who was his first tennis coach, said tennis allows her son to express so many parts of his identity, beginning with a burning need to compete, but also an analytical mind that loves studying the game and its history.From the time he was a small boy, she said, if a game of cards or dominoes wasn’t going his way, those cards and dominoes would go flying across the room. He also had an older and bigger brother he desperately wanted to beat, and plenty of people who said that a boy from a small town in Scotland, where the weather was terrible and indoor courts were scarce, could never win Wimbledon. Now those same people say his time has passed.“If he still loves it, then why shouldn’t he keep playing?” Judy Murray said in an interview on Friday.Andy Murray with his mother, Judy, at the All England Club in 2019, when he played doubles while recovering from hip surgery.Hannah Mckay/ReutersMurray said he has a rough idea of when and how he would like his tennis career to end, but he knows it might not be his choice. Federer desperately wanted to play more, but his knee wouldn’t allow it. Murray has seen the videos of Nadal limping off the court in Australia in January with a torn muscle and hip injury from which he may never fully recover.Murray knows that his next desperate sprint for a drop shot, or one of his signature points earned while running the baseline back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, could be his last. Then again, he could still be doing this three years from now, which carries its own unique complications.He recently ran out of his stash of the bulky, extra-support tennis shoes that Under Armour manufactured for him until their last partnership deal expired. So Murray had to call his friend Kevin Plank, the Under Armour founder, and ask if he could make him more shoes. Plank did.In early June, when Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz and nearly everyone else of consequence was playing in Paris, Murray was playing a Challenger tournament at a racket club in Surbiton, southwest of London, in the tennis minor leagues.The field was made up of pro-tour deep cuts and some early round French Open casualties. A crowd of hundreds packed the stands, which were set on shaky scaffolding.Murray took only a few games against Chung Hyeon, a journeyman from South Korea, to show why he is certain he can beat anyone in the world on grass at a time when so few pros have mastered the surface: the slice backhands that go successively lower until they barely bounce above an opponent’s shoelaces; the dying volleys in the front of the court, and the stinging ones to the baseline; the slice serve that slides so far off the court; the softballs that look like meatballs but are really knuckleballs, wobbling in the air and twisting when they hit the grass.Two weeks and two Challenger trophies later, Murray had claimed 10 straight matches, the first five won while commuting from his home outside London, where he had decamped to a spare bedroom for the month to get some rest.Then came his final Wimbledon tuneup, at Queen’s Club in London, where he lost his first match to Alex de Minaur of Australia, a top 20 player who took advantage of Murray’s heavy legs and lackluster serve that day. Murray tried not to read too much into the result.All journeys have peaks and valleys. As the teachers in Murray’s hot yoga classes would say, the only way out is through — even on those days when the end feels closer than Murray hopes it might.Murray passed on the French Open and played two grass-court ATP Challenger tournaments in England instead. He won both.Ben Stansall/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images More

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      Cameron Norrie Goes to Wimbledon as Britain’s Top-Ranked Player

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      He is the top-ranked British player at the tournament. Seven years ago when that was Andy Murray, he won.Cameron Norrie has had two mystical moments at Wimbledon. Both took place on Centre Court, the most revered venue in the sport.The first occurred in 2021 when Norrie faced Roger Federer in what turned out to be the eight-time champion’s last Wimbledon and the final singles tournament of his career.“Playing Roger on Centre Court at Wimbledon with my home fans there was surreal,” said Norrie of Britain, who had chances to break serve and send the match into a fifth set before losing 6-4, 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. “Obviously they love him there as well. I think they supported him more than they supported me that day.”The second moment happened last year, when Norrie reached his first major semifinal at Wimbledon. He became only the fourth British man in the open era — behind Roger Taylor, Tim Henman and the two-time champion Andy Murray — to reach the semifinals there.Murray won in 2016 when he was ranked No. 2 in the world; he is the last British man to have taken the tournament. This year, Norrie will be playing Wimbledon as his country’s top-ranked singles player.“There was already expectation to do well because I am the British No. 1,” said Norrie, 27, who won the first set from Novak Djokovic before falling in four sets last year. “Obviously you feel a lot of pressure. But the only way to go in is to embrace all of that. If you just run and hide from it, you’re going to get eaten alive on the court.”Norrie, who was ranked a career-high No. 8 last year and now sits at No. 13, already has wins this year over Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz, whom he upset to win a clay-court title in Rio de Janeiro in February. Last year, he also won two Association of Tennis Professionals tournaments.Cameron Norrie played a backhand return to Jordan Thompson during their round of men’s singles at the Cinch Championships in June.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAs a junior player, Norrie was ranked No. 10 in the world. But instead of turning pro, he opted to go to college at Texas Christian University. There he met Facundo Lugones, who was a senior when Norrie was a freshman. The two would often share sideways glances as they destroyed their respective opponents. They became close friends. Now, Lugones is Norrie’s coach.“College was so valuable and so much fun for me,” Norrie said. “As a tennis player, you have to sacrifice a lot, and it’s not a normal life. I wasn’t ready for this lifestyle when I was 18 years old. I made a lot of mistakes at college that don’t really cost you so much. I enjoyed myself more than I should have. If I was doing that on tour, I would be ranked nowhere.”Norrie admits to being undisciplined in the sport during his first year at college. He showed up late for practice, scrapped his team uniform and didn’t give all of his effort. A few indoor losses caused him to be dropped in the lineup from No. 1 to No. 3.Lugones said the coaches gave Norrie an ultimatum when he came back his sophomore year. “After that, you could tell he was a different player,” Lugones said.Norrie’s on-court strength is his ability to compete on all surfaces and to fight until the end. He’s left-handed, which aids him in hitting his favorite shot: a low, flat, short backhand from the right side of the court.“He reminds me a little bit of a left-handed version of David Ferrer,” said Jim Courier, a former world No. 1. “He’s very difficult to beat, doesn’t get tired and doesn’t beat himself often.”Norrie earned the ire of Djokovic in Rome in May by taking aim on a powerful short overhead shot and hitting Djokovic in the leg when his back was turned. While Norrie apologized at the time, he has no regrets about the shot.“I wanted to win,” said Norrie, who lost the match in straight sets. “It was in the heat of the moment for me to break [serve], and I was trying everything. I was competing as hard as I could.”Lugones said Norrie’s greatest strength is his mind game.“His mental skills are different from everybody else’s,” Lugones said. “He smells blood early and then raises his level. You can’t teach that skill.” More