Cornet, Alize

Subterms

    Latest story

    175 Shares119 Views

    What You Missed at the U.S. Open While You Were Glued to Serena Williams

    by

    In case you missed it: The defending women’s singles champion, Emma Raducanu, is out, and a few players not named Serena retired, too.The Serena Williams show has come to an end, quite likely for good in competitive tennis. Even if Williams continues to say “you never know” and her current coach Eric Hechtman and long-ago coach Rick Macci have their doubts.“As of now, I guess we could say it’s over, but in her own words, the door is not slammed shut and locked, right?” Hechtman said on Saturday. “I’d say there’s a crack open.”“Just my hunch, but I think she and Venus are still gonna play doubles,” said Macci, whose Florida tennis academy was the sisters’ longtime base in their youth. “They have two of the best serves in the world and two of the best returns in the world, and in doubles you only have to cover half the court. When the Williams sisters play together, it’s the greatest show on earth. Anything’s possible.”The Williamses are indeed full of surprises and enjoy springing them. But what is 100 percent clear is that they are both out of this U.S. Open and that Serena’s prime-time farewell epic will no longer be the mega-story that blocks out all the light in the press room (or at least the American press room).“It’s completely her tournament, in my opinion,” said Daniil Medvedev of Russia, the No. 1 seed and defending U.S. Open men’s singles champion.But there has been a great big Grand Slam tournament going on for a week in New York. Let’s catch up on what you might have missed:Last year’s fairy tales are not this year’s fairy talesIn 2021, two multicultural teenagers made just about anything seem possible in tennis (and beyond). Leylah Fernandez, an unseeded 19-year-old Canadian with roots in the Philippines and Ecuador, knocked off favorite after favorite to reach the women’s singles final. Emma Raducanu, an 18-year-old Briton born in Canada with roots in China and Romania, defeated Fernandez in that final, becoming the first qualifier in the long history of the game to win a Grand Slam singles title.But midnight struck early this year, and the carriage turned into a pumpkin in the first round for Raducanu, who lost to the veteran Frenchwoman Alizé Cornet, and in the second round for Fernandez, who fell to Liudmila Samsonova of Russia.There was no dishonor in either defeat. Cornet is playing the best tennis of her career at 32 and upset No. 1 Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon. Samsonova, 23, won two hardcourt titles leading into the U.S. Open.But the early exits certainly do underscore how wild and crazy the Open was last year. Truly.Sam Querrey was one of a handful of players who said they would retire after the U.S. Open.Vera Nieuwenhuis/Associated PressSome players are retiring and locking the doorWhile Serena Williams was dragging her sneakers and talking about “evolving away from tennis,” some of her lesser-known peers had no trouble being more direct, including two longtime American pros, Christina McHale and Sam Querrey.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open was very likely the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Glorious Goodbye: Even as Serena Williams faced career point, she put on a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.The Magic Ends: Zoom into this composite photo to see details of Williams’s final moment on Ashe Stadium at this U.S. Open.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Court: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to each other’s.McHale, a thoughtful 30-year-old from New Jersey, announced her retirement discreetly after losing in the first round of the qualifying tournament. She turned pro at 17 and soon reached the third round of all four majors, peaking at No. 24 in the world in 2012.“I am so grateful to have had the chance to live out my childhood dream all of these years,” she said on her Instagram account.Querrey, a 34-year-old Californian with a laid-back manner and a power game best suited to fast courts, won 10 tour singles titles and peaked at No. 11 in the singles rankings in 2018, the year after he rode his big serve to the semifinals at Wimbledon. The All England Club was also where Querrey recorded his biggest victory: upsetting No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who then held all four major singles titles, in the third round in 2016.Germany’s Andrea Petkovic, also 34, had some big victories of her own and broke into the top 10 in 2011 after reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and the U.S. Open. She came back from a major knee injury early in her career and became a hard-running baseliner. She has been a fine player but probably an even better wordsmith: writing articles and giving interviews full of wisdom and wit in German and English, as she did again at the U.S. Open after her first-round loss to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.“I think I brought everything to the game that I had to give,” she said. “Obviously it’s not in the amount as Serena, but in my own little world, I feel like brought everything to it, and my narrative was done.”She may play one final European tournament to give her European friends and family a chance to help her say farewell, but she looked like an ex-player already this week with a beer in hand at the beach.“First day of retirement,” she wrote on Instagram. “Enjoying my six-pack while it lasts.”And maybe there are some advantages to retiring in America after all, despite Europe’s bigger social safety net.“Every American that I encountered and told them I’m retiring, their first reaction was, ‘Congratulations,’” Petkovic said. “Every European I told this, they were, ‘Oh my God, what are you going to do now?’ I have to say the last few days I’ve embraced the American way of looking at it a little bit more.”Iga Swiatek remains the favorite to win the women’s singles title.Peter Foley/EPA, via ShutterstockThere will be a new champion and she just might speak FrenchThere will be no seventh U.S. Open singles title for Serena Williams, but someone is winning their first. None of the women who reached the fourth round have taken the singles title at Flushing Meadows.If Iga Swiatek continues to rumble, she deserves to be the favorite. Swiatek is No. 1 in the rankings by a huge margin after a 37-match winning streak earlier this year that included three hardcourt titles. The new champ could be American: Jessica Pegula, the new top-ranked American, and the big-hitting Danielle Collins, who reached the Australian Open final in January, are both contenders.So is Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American who is seeded 12th and reached the quarterfinals in style after defeating Zhang Shuai of China, 7-5, 7-5, and covering the court like few women have covered it before. But the player rising the fastest is actually Gauff’s next opponent: the 17th-seeded Caroline Garcia, a French veteran who has been steam-rolling the opposition.Garcia, 28, once a top-five player, has been back on the rise since June and became the first qualifier to win a WTA 1000 event when she took the Western and Southern Open title last month in Ohio. She is playing with near-relentless aggression, standing well inside the baseline to return, frequently pushing forward to the net and ripping her groundstrokes, above all her potent forehand. It is all clicking, and she is on a 12-match winning streak after defeating Alison Riske-Amritraj of the United States, 6-4, 6-1.“I’m afraid to get too close to you,” said Blair Henley, the on-court interviewer. “Because you are red hot.”Garcia’s signature airplane-inspired celebration — arms spread wide — seems quite appropriate. She is in full flight, but Gauff has beaten her in their two previous matches and will have the nearly 24,000 fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium behind her on Tuesday in what will be the first U.S. Open quarterfinal for both players.Should be a good one. Could be a great one.Victoria Azarenka of Belarus will face Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic on Monday in the round of 16.Cj Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockWimbledon was a different worldIn the last major tournament, Wimbledon barred Russians and Belarusians from participating because of the invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. Open did not follow that lead to the dismay of some Ukrainian players.One week into this major, no Ukrainians are left in singles, but Russians and Belarusians comprised a quarter of the remaining singles players in the fourth round.Ilya Ivashka of Belarus and Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov, all of Russia, reached the men’s round of 16.Victoria Azarenka and Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and Samsonova and Veronika Kudermetova of Russia reached the women’s round of 16. One other big difference from Wimbledon: Novak Djokovic, the men’s singles champion at the All England Club, is absent from New York because he was not allowed to enter the United States due to his remaining unvaccinated against Covid-19. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Tennis

      Defending U.S. Open Champion Emma Raducanu Loses in the First Round

      by

      Raducanu, who won the U.S. Open women’s singles title as a qualifier without dropping a set last year, fell to Alizé Cornet in straight sets.Emma Raducanu, who won last year’s U.S. Open as a little-known 18-year-old qualifier without losing a single set, will not defend her title this year after losing in the first round to Alizé Cornet on Tuesday night.For Cornet, a 32-year-old Frenchwoman ranked No. 40, the win, 6-3, 6-3, was her second major surprise victory of the year after she upset No. 1 Iga Swiatek in straight sets in the third round of Wimbledon. Cornet achieved the best Grand Slam result of her career earlier this year at the Australian Open, where she reached the quarterfinals before losing to Danielle Collins, who went on to reach the final.For Raducanu, now 19, the loss came in what has been a challenging year for her in Grand Slam tournaments. Raducanu reached only the second round at each of the first three majors, losing to Danka Kovinic at the Australian Open, Aliaksandra Sasnovich at the French Open and Caroline Garcia at Wimbledon.“I’m sorry I beat her tonight but I’m really happy with my performance,” Cornet said on the court after the match. “I felt like I played a really solid match, I was fighting my heart out and hanging in there. I think my game at the net was pretty good, I think it was a bit of everything, playing with a bit of variation, and it definitely worked tonight.”Alizé Cornet of France celebrating after defeating Raducanu.Elsa/Getty ImagesCornet and Raducanu stepped into a breezy Louis Armstrong Stadium on Tuesday as the American flag hanging above the court moved swiftly from the start of the match through the end. They played before a modest crowd on a night that featured Rafael Nadal on the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium at the same time.“Alizé’s defense was pretty good,” Raducanu said after the match, with a hat over her eyes. “I thought she was just scrapping everything back. There were junk balls in the middle of the court. With the wind blowing around, it was really difficult. She just kept getting it back.”Raducanu added that she thought she wasn’t going for as many balls because of the windy conditions.The match got off to a close start, with each player splitting the first six games. Then, down 4-3 in the first set, Raducanu failed to tie up the set on her serve, double faulting to bring the match to 5-3.Up 40-30 in the next game, Cornet threw her arms up into the air, calling for cheers from a crowd that had been supporting Raducanu from the beginning. Cornet went on to take the set, 6-3, with a forehand winner.The set was the first Raducanu had dropped in her career at the U.S. Open.“I’m going to drop down the rankings and climb my way back up,” she said. “In a way the target will be off my back slightly. I just have another chance to claw my way back up there.”After the first set, a medical trainer was called onto the court, and appeared to be treating Raducanu’s right hand. Raducanu struggled with blisters earlier this year.Raducanu said she has been dealing with blisters while in the United States, adding that it could be because of the humidity in some cities along the tour.“You tape it up and move on it,” she said. “It’s a blister — not much you can do about it. It is what it is. Sometimes these things happen in these conditions.”Cornet took the first game of the second set, and Raducanu took the next game, and then another, winning the final point with an ace.Then down 40-15, Cornet decided to go with a drop shot that Raducanu could not reach, but Raducanu came back quickly, winning the next point to go up 3-1.Cornet pushed the set to 3-2 with a backhand winner, and she then tied the set at three games apiece without giving up any points. Cornet took the next game to go up 4-3, as Raducanu lost the break with a backhand unforced error into the net.As she stepped back onto the court, down 4-3, Raducanu looked up into the crowd as if she were searching for someone or something. The crowd responded with several people yelling “c’mon, Emma.”Serving at 4-3, Cornet took the next game, with Raducanu hitting into the net on the final point.Raducanu failed to extend the match on her serve. Down 40-30, Raducanu hit a backhand volley out, giving Cornet the win.The match would have been significant for Cornet even if she had lost. This year’s U.S. Open is Cornet’s 63rd consecutive appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament, a record streak in the Open era that started at the 2007 Australian Open, where she lost in the first round.While the U.S. Open is the last Grand Slam of the year, Raducanu said she will consider playing in other tournaments.“It could be exciting for me to start my kind of climb back up there,” she said. “How far can I go till the end of year?” More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Tennis

      Iga Swiatek Falls at Wimbledon, Ending a Long Win Streak

      by

      Frustrated by low bounces on the grass courts that took away her most powerful weapons, the top-seeded women’s singles player lost in straight sets to Alizé Cornet of France.WIMBLEDON, England — Iga Swiatek, the world No. 1 and the top seed at Wimbledon, did something she had not done in more than four months Saturday. She lost a tennis match.Swiatek, the 21-year-old two-time Grand Slam champion from Poland, lost in the third round to Alizé Cornet, the veteran Frenchwoman, 6-4, 6-2, ending her winning streak at 37 matches, one of the longest in modern women’s tennis.Swiatek, though, did not lose the match so much as Cornet won it, emphatically even.Playing with strapping on her left thigh, Cornet came out swinging hard, matching Swiatek’s power and taking advantage of the Polish champion’s discomfort on grass.Alizé Cornet celebrated Saturday during her straight-set victory over Swiatek.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAfter losing the first set, Swiatek seemed to right things quickly, and surged to a 2-0 lead. But Cornet reeled off six straight games with Swiatek losing the final point with a forehand into the middle of the net.Swiatek shook hands with her opponent, quickly stowed her rackets and headed for the exit of the No. 1 court, where she had been pushed to three sets by a relative unknown only two days earlier.She waved and gave a thumbs up to the crowd as she walked, then stopped to sign a series of autographs before leaving.The result had a familiar feel for Cornet. In 2014 she beat Serena Williams, then the world No. 1 and the top seed at the tournament, on the same No. 1 court.That was relatively early in her career, though. Eight years later, in just 93 minutes, she pulled off another monumental upset and made the second week of a Grand Slam for the second time this year. Then, fittingly, she compared herself to another French favorite.“Like good wine,” she told the crowd. “It ages well.”The afternoon was really about Swiatek, though.Anyone who has ever picked up a racket knows the most basic adage of the game — it is hard to win a tennis match but incredibly easy to lose one. A few errant shots, a bad quarter-hour of serving, the briefest lapses of concentration, and one set and then another slips away in what feels like minutes. Hopelessness sets in, and getting off the court as quickly as possible can feel like the best and only alternative, even though it isn’t.Hopelessness, however, was not what led to Swiatek’s demise Saturday. It was Cornet. A fearless opponent can be just as fatal.That is just part of what made Swiatek’s accomplishments during the first half of this year, in an era of women’s tennis when the competition is intense from the first round of nearly every tournament, so remarkable.Swiatek lost to Jelena Ostapenko, the free-swinging Latvian, on Feb. 16 in the quarterfinals of the Dubai Tennis Championships. Since then she has won six consecutive singles titles, including her second French Open. She won three tournaments at the Masters 1,000 level, just below the Grand Slams.In March and April she won the so-called Sunshine Double — the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif., and the Miami Open. Only three other women had done that before. At the French Open, she lost just one set. Other players talked about just trying to get past the one-hour mark on the court with her. Many failed.During her winning streak, Swiatek won the women’s singles title at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSwiatek, though, always figured the grass court season might spell the end of her streak. She is most comfortable taking balls on the rise and using her topspin and her power to put opponents on the back foot from the very first moments of the match.After she won the French Open in early June, she faced the choice of playing a warm-up tournament or two to get more comfortable on her least favorite surface or taking a break and arriving at Wimbledon feeling refreshed. She chose to rest and hoped that her cresting confidence would help her solve the puzzle of grass. It did not.In practice, her timing was off. In matches, balls skidded along the grass instead of bouncing into her strike zone, taking her most potent weapon, that topspin power, out of her quiver, forcing her to play more conservatively.On Saturday afternoon, she reverted to Plan A, trying to hit Cornet off the court. Unable to control the ball, she dropped the first three games against a player who truly believed she could do the thing that had not been done in a long while.Swiatek rallied her way onto the scoreboard, but Cornet never gave up the advantage and finished off the first set with an emphatic overhead. She then left the court before the start of the second set, leaving Swiatek to sit in her chair and ponder her fate.In the second set, Swiatek went back to Plan A and surged to a 2-0 lead, but before long she had fallen out of her groove once more. On break point in the fifth game, Cornet jumped on a second serve and laced a forehand down the line. Swiatek dropped her chin and walked to her chair for the changeover.From there, the only question was whether Cornet could stay solid enough to get across the finish line. The answer came quickly.Swiatek, bidding farewell to Wimbledon for this year, lost 12 of the last 14 points in the match. “I just didn’t know what to do,” she said.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Usually when I’m coming back, I have some kind of a plan, and I know what to change,” Swiatek said. “Here I didn’t know. I was confused. On grass courts everything happens so quickly.”Cornet won the next three games and 12 of the final 14 points.“I didn’t tank it, but I just didn’t know what to do,” Swiatek said.Swiatek will get a bit more rest now. Before long, though, she will journey to North America for the hard court season. Clay still reigns in her mind, but after she won the Miami Open in April, two weeks after winning Indian Wells, she said hard courts were a very very close second.Another streak could be in the offing. Few would be surprised. And if not, she will always have 37. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Tennis

      Danielle Collins Will Play Iga Swiatek in Australian Open Semifinal

      by

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

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Tennis

      A Grand Slam Streak Without (Yet) a Quarterfinal

      by

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