Djokovic, Novak

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      At the French Open, Novak Djokovic Aims for His 21st Slam Win

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      The world No. 1 seemed poised to set the men’s record for major titles. Now, after a crushing loss and a vaccine controversy, Djokovic looks to get back on course at the French Open.Novak Djokovic has been here before, nipping at the heels of major title No. 21.He had a chance at the U.S. Open last summer. Winning the men’s singles final against Daniil Medvedev would have been a signal moment in sports. Djokovic would have burst through the logjam he’d shared with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal: 20 titles in majors, then the high-water mark in men’s tennis.And Djokovic would have become the first male player since Rod Laver in 1969 to achieve a Grand Slam, capturing Wimbledon and the French, Australian and U.S. Open titles in the same year.It wasn’t to be.Then he seemed destined to record his 21st victory in a Grand Slam event at this year’s Australian Open, the major where he has emerged victorious nine times. He makes playing in the Melbourne hothouse look like a stroll through a shady summer garden.But we know what happened instead.Djokovic was detained and then deported after a tense standoff over whether he should be allowed to compete in Australia despite having proudly refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.Novak Djokovic walking in Melbourne Airport in January, after his visa to play in the Australian Open was canceled.Loren Elliott/ReutersPoint made and the moment lost by both the Australian government and one of the world’s best-known anti-vaccine athletes.With the French Open underway, Djokovic is, at long last, trying again for his 21st major win. By virtue of his No. 1 ranking, he is the top seed in the men’s draw. “I’m going to Paris with confidence and good feelings about my chances there,” he said before the tournament.He said much the same the last two times he reached for the grail of 21 Grand Slam events. But it was Nadal who notched that historic record first, ahead of Djokovic and Federer, when Nadal stepped back into the vaults of greatness and beat Medvedev at the Australian Open in jaw-dropping fashion.Can Djokovic get out of the stall and tie Nadal? If he doesn’t do it soon he may begin drawing comparisons with an equally talented, complex and perplexing champion — Serena Williams, who remains stuck one major behind Margaret Court’s record mark of 24.Like Williams, who at 40 is not playing on the tour and may be heading toward retirement, Djokovic faces snarling pressure to keep up with his peers. It is not getting any easier. On Sunday, he turned 35. His window is closing — the ability to call on match-to-match consistency narrows with each grinding season.Consider all he has faced this year. Global anger over his determination to steer clear of vaccination. The hangover from the crushing loss in the final of the U.S. Open. The months when he looked like a meager facsimile of his old self on the tennis court.After Australia, he was barred from playing in two big hardcourt tournaments, in Indian Wells and Miami, because the United States wisely required foreign visitors to be vaccinated to enter the country. Then came a stretch of choppy, angst-riddled play, which we had not seen from him in years. There were early-round defeats to the 123rd and 46th players in the world. Before adoring hometown fans, he struggled through the Serbia Open and crumbled in the finals. He fell in Madrid to the 19-year-old Spanish upstart Carlos Alcaraz.Can Djokovic win his 21st at the French Open? There was little hint he would be up to the task until this month in Rome, at the last big tuneup before Roland Garros.In Rome, it was all there again for Djokovic: lithe, deep and consistent returns, a pickpocket’s moxie during the tensest moments. Djokovic did not lose a set all tournament. In the final, where he defeated fourth-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas, he took the opening stanza, 6-0.Djokovic returned to form, defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Italian Open final two weeks ago.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesHe looked back on Australia and the brutal aftermath in a news conference and spoke of how the experience would not bow him. Djokovic promised to turn the jagged pain of having been barred from play and the pressure he felt from the backlash to his favor. “It will fuel me,” he said, steely eyed, “for the next challenge.”Such a mind-set is as vintage Djokovic as his scythe-like down-the-line backhand.Left unmentioned was how he has been hailed a hero among the anti-vaccine crowd for his refusenik stance, a view that is impossible to fathom when the coronavirus has caused the death of at least six million people across the globe. He has even vowed that if it came between choosing whether to be vaccinated or keep playing professional tennis, he would remain on the sideline.His commitment to that stance is foolish, but his resistance offers a window into what makes Djokovic tick. Enduring stubbornness sets him apart more than his movement, consistency or dart-like accuracy.He is a true believer — on the court and off it — and he has long latched himself to some of the self-help movement’s wildest false claims, everything from telepathy to the notion that loving thoughts can change the molecular structure of water.Now you might think those ideas are pretty ridiculous. I sure do. But for Djokovic, clinging to belief in what may seem impossible has worked in astonishing ways.We’ve seen it countless times on the biggest stages.Remember his great escapes against Federer. The victories after facing two match points against Federer’s serve at the U.S. Open in 2010 and 2011. The marathon final win at Wimbledon in 2019, when he turned Federer away after the grass-court master held yet another pair of match points.Djokovic’s relentless belief in himself helped power some of his greatest victories, as in the 2019 Wimbledon final against Roger Federer, right.Nic Bothma/EPA, via ShutterstockI was there and can still hear the frenzied Centre Court crowd yelling, “Federer! Federer! Federer!” ringing in my ears. But that’s not what Djokovic heard. He said after the match that as the roars rose like a storm for his opponent, he mentally converted the rhythmic chants to something that spurred him on — “Novak! Novak! Novak!”Remember, too, the French Open of 2021, the bruising semifinal win against Nadal, the most recent act in the duo’s 58-match rivalry. The Serb followed that with a comeback from two sets down against Tsitsipas to win the championship.Now the French Open is again underway. Victory at Roland Garros is as intense a journey as exists in sports — especially now, as players deploy a mix of power, touch, bounding topspin and athleticism in ways that not long ago would have been unimaginable.Age and years of leg-churning wear on tour add another layer of difficulty. Look at Nadal, also 35 and currently battling foot and rib injuries severe enough to stir rumors of imminent retirement.These two will again try to fend off a cast of younger stars in Paris. They will have eyes steady on one in particular: Alcaraz, who plays with the limitless élan of a teen and a veteran’s wisdom and strength.All three are in the same half of the draw in Paris, bidding for a spot in the finals. Can Djokovic make it that far and finally win No. 21? I won’t bet against a player so capable of conjuring unshakable magic. More

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      Carlos Alcaraz, at 19, Is a Favorite at the French Open

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      Alcaraz, 19, has arrived in Paris with an unusual level of buzz and momentum for his age.PARIS — When the future No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero was 19, he came to Roland Garros for the 1999 French Open qualifying tournament and lost in the first round.His pupil, Carlos Alcaraz, is on a more accelerated timetable. At 19, Alcaraz has arrived in Paris as the No. 6 seed in the main draw and one of the clear favorites.With his all-action style, Alcaraz, the emotive Spanish teenager, plays as if plugged into some renewable source of energy and already has won four titles this season. He beat Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic back-to-back on red clay in nerve-jangling duels in Madrid that seemed as much a tribute to Alcaraz’s appetite for combat as to his incandescent talent.On Friday, two days before the start of the French Open, a photo of Alcaraz, roaring with his right fist clenched, occupied nearly all the space on the front page of L’Équipe, the leading French sports publication.The word is justifiably out. Now, it is time to learn whether Alcaraz, who is in the top half of a top-heavy men’s draw, can manage the moment and the grind of best-of-five-set matches in just his sixth Grand Slam tournament.Djokovic congratulating Alcaraz at the end of their match at the Madrid Open.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“If everything stays normal, and there is no injury, I think he is absolutely ready for best of five,” Ferrero said in an interview this week. He added: “His character on the court is so big. He loves to go for the big points and for the big moment and is one of the few guys that you can see who is like this.”Since the Big Three — Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer — took collective command of the men’s game in the late 2000s, this is the first time that a next-generation player has come into a major men’s tournament with this level of buzz and momentum.“It seems to me, he’s not feeling the pressure, but let’s see when the time comes,” Ferrero said. “I have experience with that. I talk to him a lot. I think his commitment to practice and compete is the same as ever. So, let’s see where the limit is for him. And let’s see if he has no limits.”Ferrero, 42, who won the 2003 French Open and was ranked No. 1 the same year, knows more than most about scaling tennis summits. He has coached Alcaraz since 2018 out of his academy in Villena, Spain, in the stark countryside near Alicante that is long on dust and hilltop castles and short on modern-age distractions.When he is not traveling on tour, Alcaraz, who is from El Palmar, a suburb of Murcia, boards at the academy on weekdays before making the hourlong drive to spend weekends with his family.“Here we are really tranquilo,” or calm, Alcaraz said in a recent interview in Villena. “Here it’s tennis, tennis and more tennis. The town is five minutes away by car, but in reality it’s farther than that.”Alcaraz serving to Djokovic.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFerrero has been well aware of Alcaraz’s potential since he first saw him in a low-level professional tournament in Murcia at age 14. Ferrero has taken a considered and caring approach to developing Alcaraz’s game. They are clearly close, which showed during the Miami Open in March when Ferrero surprised Alcaraz before the final after traveling from Spain following his father’s funeral.In training, the focus is on accentuating Alcaraz’s varied game: He spends a great deal of time at the net and in transition, not just at the baseline. In terms of hours on court, the goal is quality over quantity, which preserves Alcaraz’s body for the long run while emphasizing intensity.“The way you practice will affect the way you play,” Alcaraz said. “If you don’t train every ball with that intensity and seriousness, how are you going to know how to do it in a match?”Ferrero tries to draw on his own experience and mistakes. He soared to the top but peaked early at age 23, before falling back because of injuries and the rise of Federer and Nadal. After winning the French Open in 2003, he never advanced past the third round there before retiring in 2012.Ferrero sometimes did not heed his body’s signals and overplayed, which factored into Alcaraz’s decision to withdraw from the Italian Open earlier this month after winning back-to-back tournaments on clay in Barcelona and Madrid. The goal was to give Alcaraz time to recover from the sprained right ankle and blister on his foot that surfaced in Madrid but also to give him a break from the commotion and inevitable French Open questions before Paris.“Let’s just say that he wanted to go to Rome, but let’s just say also that he was thinking of the future, of what was best for him to arrive at Roland Garros at 100 percent,” Ferrero said.After winning in Madrid, Alcaraz took three days off and returned home to El Palmar, where he beamed and brandished the Madrid trophy on the balcony of his family’s apartment with his parents behind him and a large crowd of fans gathered below, including a group of drummers.One can only imagine the din in El Palmar if Alcaraz were to prevail in Paris.Ferrero said they did unusually long training sessions in Villena — up to three hours — to prepare for best-of-five-set matches. On Tuesday, Alcaraz had one of his regular sessions at the academy with a Spanish performance psychologist, Isabel Balaguer.“A lot of players get lost on the way trying to manage everything, and I think psychologists can help a lot to keep them on a good track,” Ferrero said. “It helps with establishing good routines on and off the court. Carlos does not do a lot of visualization. They work in another way, talking about the things that have happened to him, how to manage everything, how to stay calm and how to stay with the feet on the ground.”“Tennis is a team sport all the time except when you are on the court,” Alcaraz said. Denis Doyle/Getty ImagesThat could be nearly as challenging as outlasting Djokovic from the baseline, but Alcaraz has emphasized that big success does not have to lead to a big head.“Tennis is a team sport all the time except when you are on the court,” he said.This moment in Paris stirs memories of Nadal, the ultimate Spanish prodigy, who arrived at Roland Garros on a roll in 2005 as the No. 4 seed and won his first Grand Slam title at 19. Nadal’s body of work was superior at that early stage. He had helped Spain win the Davis Cup in 2004 and won five tournaments on clay in 2005 before arriving in Paris. That was Nadal’s first French Open but only because he missed the tournament in 2003 and 2004 with injuries.Alcaraz was only 2 years old at that point and not yet pounding balls obsessively in El Palmar against the hitting wall at his family’s sports club. But Alcaraz does remember the 2013 French Open semifinal, when Djokovic was up a break of serve on Nadal in the fifth set only to lose his edge and the match after dropping a point for touching the net after tapping a seemingly routine overhead winner.“I watched plenty of tennis, but that’s my first really clear memory of a match,” Alcaraz said.Nine years later, he looks like the biggest threat to Nadal and Djokovic at Roland Garros, where all three of them are in the top half of the draw. Alcaraz is clearly at home on hardcourts — he won the Miami Open this year — but grew up training almost exclusively on clay.Alcaraz may be the biggest threat to Nadal and Djokovic at Roland Garros this year.Denis Doyle/Getty ImagesHe already has played in the French Open: He lost in the third round last year to Jan-Lennard Struff, a veteran German. But Alcaraz’s game, strength and confidence have grown considerably since then.“I see Carlos as a blend of the Big Three,” said Craig O’Shannessy, an Australian tennis-analytics specialist who was part of Struff’s team last year. “You’ve got the mentality and tenacity of Nadal and the exquisite timing and willingness to come to the net of Federer. And then you have the aggressive baseline play like Djokovic: the power and flexibility to hit big off both sides from the backcourt.”For now, Alcaraz says his goal is to win one of the three Grand Slam tournaments remaining in 2022. He was beaten in the third round of this year’s Australian Open in a fifth-set tiebreaker by Matteo Berrettini, double faulting on match point.“I think it was the right time to lose a match,” Ferrero said. “Maybe he could have won and gone on to the semifinals like Berrettini, but maybe that would not have been useful as a loss.”Four months later, after four titles, coach and pupil sound less inclined to see the bright side of defeat. Ferrero already has gone all the way in Paris, and as Alcaraz spoke at the academy in Villena, he did so in a room filled with Ferrero’s trophies, including the smaller model of the Coupe des Mousquetaires presented to the men’s champion at Roland Garros.“They should have given him the big one,” Alcaraz said with a chuckle. “I was a bit young to remember some of these, but this place is full of memories and important trophies to Juan Carlos. It’s obviously an inspiration. I hope one day I can match it or go past it.” More

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      Tennis Tours Penalize Wimbledon Over Ban on Russian Players

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      PARIS — The men’s and women’s tennis tours responded to Wimbledon’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players on Friday by stripping the event of ranking points this year, the most significant rebuke to date of efforts by global sports organizations to ostracize individual Russian athletes as punishment for their country’s invasion of Ukraine.It is a move without precedent in tennis, and without the points, Wimbledon, the oldest of the four Grand Slam tournaments, will technically be an exhibition event, bringing no ranking boost to those who excel on its pristine lawns this year.“The ability for players of any nationality to enter tournaments based on merit, and without discrimination is fundamental to our Tour,” the ATP said in a statement, saying that the ban undermined its ranking system.The International Tennis Federation, a governing body that operates separately from the tours, also announced it would remove ranking points from the junior and wheelchair events at Wimbledon this year.Though Wimbledon, for now, is the only one of the four major tournaments to ban Russians and Belarusians, the power play by the tours could lead to countermeasures, including the possibility of Grand Slam events considering an alternative ranking system or aligning to make more decisions independently of the tours.Organizers of Wimbledon, a grass-court tournament and British cultural institution that begins on June 27, announced the ban on Russian and Belarusian players last month in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was undertaken with the support of Belarus. Other British grass-court tournaments that are staged in June, including the Wimbledon prep events at Eastbourne and at Queen’s Club in London, have announced similar bans.So have sports as diverse as soccer, auto racing, track and field and ice hockey. Russia has been stripped of the hosting rights to events and has seen its teams ejected from major competitions like soccer’s World Cup. But only a few sports, notably figure skating and track and field, have barred individual athletes from Russia and Belarus from competing.Both tours condemned the invasion of Ukraine but argued that individual athletes should not be prevented from competing, in the words of WTA chief executive Steve Simon, “solely because of their nationalities or the decisions made by the governments of their countries.”But Sergiy Stakohvsky, a recently retired Ukrainian men’s player now in the Ukrainian military, expressed bitterness at the decision, calling it a “shameful day in tennis” in a post on Twitter.Standing by its ban, Wimbledon expressed “deep disappointment” and said stripping points was “disproportionate” in light of the pressure it was under from the British government.The ATP’s and WTA’s move was made after extensive internal debate and despite considerable pushback from players. A sizable group of men’s and women’s players was gathering support for a petition in favor of retaining Wimbledon’s points before the tours made their announcements. But removing the points is expected to have little effect on the tournament’s bottom line.The world’s top players who are not from Russia and Belarus are still expected to participate. Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1 men’s player from Serbia and a six-time Wimbledon champion, made it clear on Sunday after winning the Italian Open in Rome that he would not support skipping the event in protest even if he remained against the decision to bar the Russian and Belarusian players.“A boycott is a very aggressive thing,” Djokovic said. “There are much better solutions.”This year’s Wimbledon champions will still play in front of big crowds, lift the same trophies hoisted by their predecessors and have their names inscribed on the honor roll posted inside the clubhouse of the All England Club. They will be considered Grand Slam champions although it remains unclear whether Wimbledon will maintain prize money at its usual levels.Stripping points will have consequences on the sport’s pecking order. Daniil Medvedev, a Russian ranked No. 2, is now in excellent position to displace No. 1 Novak Djokovic after Wimbledon because Djokovic’s 2,000 points for winning Wimbledon last year will come off his total without being replaced. Medvedev, who reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon last year, will only lose 180 points.The leadership of the ATP, including its player council, which includes stars like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, ultimately decided that it was important to dissuade tournaments from barring players — now or in the future — based on political concerns.“How do you draw the line of when you ban players and when you don’t?” Yevgeny Kafelnikov, a Russian and a former No. 1 singles player, said in a telephone interview from Moscow.Unlike Wimbledon, the lead-in events in Britain have retained their ranking points despite being formally part of the tours. Wimbledon, as a Grand Slam event, operates independently but does have agreements with the tours on many levels. But the ATP and WTA chose not to strip points from the British lead-in events because other European tournaments were still open to Russian and Belarusian players during those three weeks of the season. The WTA did announce that it was putting the British tour events in Nottingham, Birmingham and Eastbourne on probation because of the ban.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Russia’s punishment of Finland. More

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      What the Italian Open Is Foretelling About the French Open

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      Though at opposite poles of their careers, the top singles players, Iga Swiatek and Novak Djokovic, both cruised to titles in Rome and are looking strong heading into Paris.ROME — We will soon find out how much of what happened Sunday at the Italian Open was foreshadowing.The main draw for the French Open, the only Grand Slam tournament played on clay courts, begins in a week. But Iga Swiatek’s and Novak Djokovic’s decisive victories in Rome certainly solidified two key themes heading into Paris.Swiatek continues to look irresistible, and Djokovic now looks fully revitalized.Both are ranked No. 1 in singles and playing like it. Neither dropped a set on the way to their Italian Open titles, and both polished off their runs convincingly against top-10 players in Sunday’s finals. Swiatek defeated Ons Jabeur, 6-2, 6-2, to stop Jabeur’s 11-match winning streak and extend her own to 28. Djokovic followed her lead, defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas, 6-0, 7-6 (5).Swiatek and Djokovic are at opposite poles of their careers.Swiatek, 20, is just now harnessing the full force of her hard-charging power game, grasping that she can be not only a serial champion but also an intimidator as she crowds the opposition with her heavy-topspin forehand and acrobatic, tight-to-the-baseline defense.Djokovic, who will turn 35 on the opening day of Roland Garros, established himself years ago as one of the game’s greatest players. He is the oldest man to win the Italian Open in singles in the Open era: slightly older than his longtime rival Rafael Nadal was when he beat Djokovic to win the title at 34 last year.Djokovic has endured long enough that he was not the only Djokovic playing for a title on Sunday. While he was prevailing in Rome, his 7-year-old son, Stefan, was winning the title at his debut tournament at a club in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.“I just received that news: a sunshine double today,” Djokovic said with one of his biggest smiles of the week.I mentioned to Djokovic that it has been said that the only thing more mentally challenging than being a tennis player is being a tennis parent.“Not a single day have I told him you have to do this; it’s really purely his own desire to step on the court,” Djokovic said. “He’s really in love with the sport. Last night, when I spoke to him, he was up till late. He was showing me forehand and backhands, how he’s going to move tomorrow, kind of shadowing, playing shadow tennis without a racket. It was so funny to see that. I used to do that when I was a kid. I could see the joy in him, the pure emotion and love for the game.”Djokovic, like his career-long reference points Nadal and Roger Federer, has underscored his passion with long-running excellence and by persistently ignoring the hints that his peak years might be behind him.For Djokovic, this has been a season and a challenge like no other: His decision to remain unvaccinated against the coronavirus led to a standoff with Australian authorities that ended with his deportation on the eve of this year’s Australian Open, and it kept him out of the Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami Gardens, Fla., in March.But with the health protocols now relaxed in Europe, Djokovic returned to regular action on clay last month. Though he struggled in his initial matches with his timing and his endurance, he has slowly but convincingly resumed hitting his targets, and he has gathered momentum just in time for Roland Garros.“I always try to use these kinds of situations and adversity in my favor to fuel me for the next challenge,” he said of Australia. “As much as I’ve felt pressure in my life and my career, that was something really on a whole different level. But I feel it’s already behind me. I feel great on the court. Mentally as well, I’m fresh. I’m sharp.”Against Tsitsipas, the hirsute Greek star who pushed Djokovic to five sets before losing last year’s French Open final, Djokovic controlled most of the baseline rallies with as much patience as panache. When Tsitsipas failed to serve out the second set, Djokovic proved the more reliable force in the tiebreaker, perfectly content, it seemed, to wait for Tsitsipas to crack.“To some extent, it’s a relief because after everything that happened at the beginning of the year, it was important for me to win a big title,” Djokovic said.Stefanos Tsitsipas, who lost to Novak Djokovic in the final in Rome, considered Djokovic a favorite at Roland Garros.Andreas Solaro/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIt might have been even more reassuring if his title had come against a full-strength field. But Carlos Alcaraz, the 19-year-old from Spain who has been the revelation of the season, chose to rest and skip the Italian Open after beating Nadal and Djokovic to win the title in Madrid. Nadal, the greatest clay-court player in history, lost in the quarterfinals, limping and wincing in the final set of his defeat against Denis Shapovalov of Canada as he struggled anew with the chronic pain in his left foot that threatened his career in his teens and imperils it again now at age 35.Nadal has won the French Open a mind-boggling 13 times; Djokovic a more terrestrial two. But as counterintuitive as it is to count Nadal out in Paris, it seems right to bump him down the list of favorites this year, all the more because he might not even compete.“Right now, Carlos Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic,” said Tsitsipas, who lost to both men this month. “They both play great, great tennis. I would put them as favorites.”It is tempting to lean toward Djokovic considering that Alcaraz has so little experience in the best-of-five-set format and no experience in managing the stress that can come with being placed on a Grand Slam shortlist. But he held up astoundingly well in Madrid despite all the pressure from Djokovic’s groundstrokes and timely first serves down the stretch.Alcaraz is undoubtedly special. The question is just how special, which seems a fine line of inquiry for Swiatek, as well. She was on a roll even before Ashleigh Barty retired suddenly in March while holding the No. 1 ranking. But Swiatek has filled the role with true swagger, solving all manner of riddles by lopsided margins.Since her winning streak began in February, she has lost just five sets and came genuinely close to losing a set only once in Rome, prevailing over the 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu in a first-set tiebreaker in the quarterfinals before closing her out, 6-0.Jabeur, a tactic-shuffling Tunisian, won the title in Madrid on clay this month in Swiatek’s absence. But Sunday represented a big step up as Swiatek not only hunted down most of Jabeur’s trademark drop shots but also dealt firmly with most of Jabeur’s full-force bolts into the corners.There was not much genuine danger, but when it surfaced Swiatek was prepared. Up, 4-2, in the second set but down, 0-40, on her serve, Swiatek saved three break points with winners, and then saved a fourth with a backhand drop volley to cap a full-court exchange.She was soon sobbing on the clay behind the baseline after securing her fifth straight title. Clearly, winning is more taxing than Swiatek is making it look, but after wiping away the tears, she was back to grinning in the Roman sunshine and holding up yet another trophy to go with those won in Doha, Qatar; Indian Wells; Miami Gardens, and Stuttgart, Germany.“Today, I’m going to celebrate with a lot of tiramisù, no regrets,” she said, suddenly much more relatable than when she was pounding the opposition into clay dust.It will come as no surprise if another sweet finish awaits in Paris. More

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      In Tennis, Racket Smashing Gets Out of Hand

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      Long accepted as an entertaining idiosyncrasy of the sport, the act of hurling one’s racket has led to some close calls, as ball people and chair umpires dodge injury.After blowing a golden opportunity to break his opponent’s serve late in the second set of his match on Monday at the Miami Open, Jenson Brooksby, the rising American star, whacked his foot with his racket several times in frustration.It was progress for Brooksby, who earlier in the tournament had escaped an automatic disqualification that many tennis veterans — and his opponent — thought was justified after he angrily hurled his racket to the court and it skittered into the feet of a ball person standing behind the baseline.Gets away with it. #Brooksby pic.twitter.com/QGRFA5Uy5w— Tennis GIFs 🎾🎥 (@tennis_gifs) March 24, 2022
      A week earlier, Nick Kyrgios, the temperamental Australian, narrowly missed hitting a ball boy in the face when he flung his racket to the ground following a three-set loss in the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. The ATP punished Kyrgios with a $20,000 fine and another $5,000 for uttering an obscenity on the court, but he was allowed to play a few days later in Miami.Kyrgios was at it again on Tuesday during his fourth-round match against Italy’s Jannik Sinner. He threw his racket to the court on his way to losing a first-set tiebreaker, prompting a warning and a point penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct as he shouted at the umpire, Carlos Bernardes. Then, during the changeover, he battered his racket four times against the ground, earning a game penalty.“Do we have to wait until someone starts bleeding?” an exasperated Patrick McEnroe, the former pro and tennis commentator, said recently when asked about the flying rackets.Racket-smashing tantrums have long been accepted as part of the game. Like hockey fights, they are a way for players to blow off steam. But as the broader culture becomes less tolerant of public displays of anger, and with an increasing number of close calls on the court, racket smashing suddenly no longer seems like an entertaining idiosyncrasy.Mary Carillo, the former player and longtime commentator, said the tantrums have never been worse, especially on the ATP Tour, calling them “the most consistently uncomfortable thing to watch.” But chair umpires still resist meting out the most serious punishment.“The reason for conspicuous leniency is that they have to somehow keep a match alive; there are no substitutions,” Carillo said of the chair umpires. “Tennis players, especially tennis stars, know they have incontestable leverage over the chair.”Alexander Zverev smashed his racket on the umpire’s chair after losing a doubles match at the Mexican Open in February.MexTenis, via Associated PressLike most people in tennis, McEnroe was stunned when the ATP recently handed down a suspended eight-week ban to Alexander Zverev, who repeatedly beat on the umpire’s chair at the end of a doubles match at the Mexican Open in February, coming with inches of cracking his racket into the official’s feet.Psychologists have found that expressing anger physically tends to hurt performance and can encourage subsequent outbursts. In an oft-cited 1959 study by the psychologist R.H. Hornberger, participants listened to insults before being divided into two groups. One group pounded nails. The other sat quietly. The group that pounded nails was far more hostile to those who criticized them.And yet these days, racket smashing feels contagious. There was Naomi Osaka’s display during her third-round loss to Leylah Fernandez at the U.S. Open last year. Novak Djokovic’s during the bronze medal match at the Tokyo Olympics. Even Roger Federer has had his moments. Rafael Nadal, by contrast, is famously gentle with his equipment and has said he never will smash his racket.Even Andy Roddick, the former world No. 1, got cheeky on the subject, taking to Twitter last week with a tongue-in-cheek tutorial on how to safely smash a racket and whack a ball without endangering anyone.Smashing and throwing a racket, not to mention swats of the ball — that hit, or nearly hit, and possibly injure people on the court or in the stadium — fall under equipment abuse in the sport’s rule books. To the frustration of some of the biggest names in tennis, those codes are more gray than black and white.Martina Navratilova, the 18-time Grand Slam singles champion who is covering the Miami Open for Tennis Channel, expressed the sentiments of many after Brooksby’s racket made contact with the ball person.“If it hit the ball boy, they need to disqualify him,” she said.Brooksby and Kyrgios lost in Miami on Tuesday, but Zverev advanced to the quarterfinals and has a good chance of winning one of the top titles on the ATP Tour, even though some in tennis believe he should be on the sidelines serving a suspension.A spokesman for the ATP, which does not publicly discuss individual penalties, said Brooksby received a $15,000 fine, $5,000 less than the maximum $20,000 a player can receive for an incident from tournament officials. That amounted to less than half of the $30,130 he guaranteed himself by winning the match, and the $94,575 he ultimately collected for making it to the fourth round.Kyrgios was fined $20,000 for nearly hitting the ball boy following his loss to Nadal at Indian Wells, where he collected nearly $180,000 for making the quarterfinals. He, too, will earn, $94,575 in Miami, less whatever fines he receives for his behavior on Tuesday.Zverev, who has earned more than $30 million in career prize money, had to forfeit his earnings from the Mexican Open, and the ATP fined him $65,000, but the suspended ban has allowed him — in less than two tournaments — to more than triple in prize money what his outburst cost him.The ATP is considering whether, given recent increases in prize money, an increase in fines could deter players. Fines for racket abuse on the ATP Tour begin at $500, compared with $2,500 on the WTA Tour.Other than that, the codes for men and women are similar: No violently hitting or kicking or throwing a racket — or any piece of equipment for that matter, and no physical abuse or attempted abuse against ball people, umpires, judges or spectators.Still, tennis officials have a somewhat ambiguous understanding of when disqualification is warranted. It goes sort of like this: If you throw a racket, or whack a ball at someone intentionally in an attempt to hit or intimidate them, then you are automatically disqualified, whether you succeed or fail. However, if you throw or smash a racket or whack a ball without consideration of its direction, and it ends up hitting someone, then tournament officials have to assess whether an injury has occurred.If someone is indeed injured, as when Djokovic inadvertently hit a line judge in the throat at the 2020 U.S. Open, the player is automatically disqualified. But if no one is injured, as when Brooksby’s racket skittered into the ball person’s foot, the umpires will assess a penalty and tournament officials will fine the player — no disqualification necessary.Both Brooksby and Zverev quickly posted apologies for their actions on social media and personally apologized to the people involved. “I was grateful to have a second chance,” Brooksby told Tennis Channel on Monday.Kyrgios is a repeat offender. In a news conference following the Indian Wells match, he berated journalists who questioned him about the racket toss that nearly clipped a ball boy’s head, and was unapologetic.“It most definitely wasn’t like Zverev,” he said. “It was complete accident. I didn’t hit him.”Only after an avalanche of criticism on social media did Kyrgios issue an apology. The next day, he posted a video of himself giving the boy a racket.Following his match on Tuesday, Kyrgios played the victim, criticizing Bernardes for speaking to the crowd while Kyrgios was trying to serve. He seemed not to understand why the ATP had come down so hard on him for the incident at Indian Wells, given, he said, that Dennis Shapovalov had inadvertently hit a fan with a ball and received just a $5,000 fine. In fact, Shapovalov hit a chair umpire and was fined $7,000.“I can throw a racket at Indian Wells,” Kyrgios said, “didn’t even hit anyone, and I’m getting 25 grand.” More

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      The End of the Endless Final Set: Grand Slams Adopt Same Tiebreaker

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      The French Open was the last major tennis tournament that allowed an “advantage final set” without a tiebreaker. Once the maker of many classic, marathon matches, the system is no more.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Tennis is entering a new era: one in which the marathon final sets that have concluded some of its greatest and longest matches are no longer an option.The Grand Slam Board announced Wednesday that beginning in May with the French Open, all four major tournaments will put in place a tiebreaker at 6-6 in decisive sets: the third set in women’s singles matches and the fifth set in men’s singles.The first player with at least 10 points and a 2-point margin will win the tiebreaker. The move was announced as a one-year trial, but is likely to be adopted permanently considering the extensive consultation behind it.The winds have been blowing in this direction for some time amid concerns about the pace of play, match lengths, player health and recovery times.“It’s good they have that uniformity now, but I guess what made them unique was also how each fifth set was different, so I can see both sides to it,” said John Isner, the American veteran whose first-round victory over Nicolas Mahut of France at Wimbledon in 2010 established a logic-defying record by stretching to 70-68 in the fifth set.If the new rules are embraced permanently, that mark will forever remain untouchable.“It was never going to get broken anyway, so those are my thoughts,” Isner said.It is difficult to argue. The final set of Isner-Mahut stretched across three days, monopolizing Court 18 at the All England Club and generating global interest for an otherwise obscure early-round match.There is a fascination created by two players pushing each other to their physical and mental limits; a particular sort of tension fostered by a marathon final set after competitors and spectators have invested so many hours in the outcome.“That’s just like an absolute battle,” said Taylor Fritz, the 24-year-old American who reached the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open.Fritz said ultralong final sets make it all but impossible for the victor to advance much further in a tournament. “You’re so done for your next match if you have one of those,” he said. “But it’s tradition, and I will miss seeing those crazy battles.”Before the Open era, there were no tiebreakers in any set at the Grand Slam tournaments or in the Davis Cup, the premier men’s team competition. A set was won by winning a minimum of six games by a margin of at least two. In one extreme example from the first round of Wimbledon in 1969, 41-year-old Pancho Gonzales defeated his fellow American Charlie Pasarell, 22-24, 1-6, 16-14, 6-3, 11-9, in a match that stretched over two days.The next year, a tiebreaker at six games all was introduced at the 1970 U.S. Open for all sets and was gradually adopted by the other Grand Slam tournaments and major team competitions for all sets except the final one.But after more than a century, the Davis Cup opted for a final-set tiebreaker in 2016 and the Australian Open and Wimbledon followed suit in 2019, though in different ways. The Australian Open opted for the extended first-to-10-points tiebreaker at 6-all and Wimbledon adopted a traditional first-to-seven tiebreaker at 12-all.The French Open continued to play out the fifth set, which left the four Grand Slam tournaments with four different methods of resolving decisive sets — a discrepancy that confused some players.In the middle of the fifth set of the 2019 Wimbledon men’s singles final, Novak Djokovic had to double check with the chair umpire when the tiebreaker would be played.The Grand Slam tournament leaders clearly wanted a tidier solution.“The Grand Slam Board’s decision is based on a strong desire to create greater consistency in the rules of the game at the Grand Slams, and thus enhance the experience for the players and fans alike,” the board said in its statement.Uniformity at least will provide clarity, and the first-to-10-points tiebreaker should allow for more suspense and momentum shifts than the first-to-seven system.But if the new rules are adopted after the trial, it will shrink the horizons of what constitutes an epic match.Many matches that are ranked among the greatest went into the tennis equivalent of overtime, which is certainly no coincidence.Bjorn Borg’s victory over John McEnroe in the 1980 Wimbledon final went to 8-6 in the fifth set; Rafael Nadal’s victory over Roger Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon final went to 9-7 in the fifth; Djokovic’s victory over Federer in the 2019 Wimbledon final went to 13-12 in the fifth with a tiebreaker at 12-all.At the French Open, Monica Seles’s victory over Steffi Graf in the exquisite 1992 final went to 10-8 in the third, and Jennifer Capriati’s victory over Kim Clijsters in the 2001 final stretched to 12-10 in the third.But marathons will not be out of the question in this new, streamlined tennis world. Consider the 2012 Australian Open men’s final, between Djokovic and Nadal, the longest singles final in Grand Slam history in terms of elapsed time. They played for 5 hours 53 minutes and were so spent by the time Djokovic finished his victory that both needed chairs at the award ceremony.But that match, undoubtedly one of the greatest in tennis history, would not have been shortened by a tiebreaker under the unified rules announced on Wednesday.It ended at 7-5 in the fifth. More

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      Novak Djokovic Might Be Able to Play in French Open After Covid Ruling

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      With France set to end its vaccine requirements later this month, the unvaccinated Serbian champion appears poised to defend his title at Roland Garros.Novak Djokovic’s bet that countries would begin to relax their vaccination requirements in time for him to play major tournament tennis has begun to pay off.Officials in France announced Thursday that the country would no longer require visitors to show proof of a Covid-19 vaccine to enter indoor establishments after March 14, most likely clearing the way for Djokovic, who was the world’s top-ranked tennis player until this week, to defend his championship at the French Open this spring.A spokesman for the French Open said the tournament planned to follow government regulations in effect at the time of the tournament, which begins May 22.Djokovic, who confirmed this year that he had decided not to receive a Covid vaccine, was deported from Australia in January after immigration officials there ruled he was a danger to society because he could energize an anti-vaccination movement in that country.Djokovic had received an exemption to enter Australia even though he was not vaccinated because he produced a test result showing he had recently recovered from Covid-19 in time for the Australian Open. The exemption angered many Australians, who have dealt with some of the strictest pandemic restrictions in the world during the past two years. The deportation prevented Djokovic, a nine-time Australian Open champion, from defending his title.Instead of receiving a vaccine so he could return to top-level tennis, Djokovic doubled down on his stance against vaccine mandates. In an interview with the BBC last month, Djokovic argued that the decision to be vaccinated should be a personal choice. He said he was prepared to miss the biggest tennis tournaments in the world to maintain control of his body.“The principles of decision making on my body are more important than any title or anything else,” Djokovic said in the interview, which was his first since the controversy in Australia.Djokovic was the only player ranked in the top 100 in Australia who had not received a Covid-19 vaccination, which experts have long said will not eradicate the virus unless most of the population receives one. Djokovic said he understood the important role that the vaccines and mass participation in vaccination programs played in allowing the world to move beyond Covid-19, but he remained unwilling to take one.Djokovic’s biggest rivals at the top of the sport and in the race for winning the most Grand Slam men’s singles titles in a career, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, were vaccinated as soon as they became eligible and have been outspoken about its importance.The men’s and women’s professional tours and the other major governing bodies in tennis do not require players to be vaccinated and have instead chosen to adhere to the rules where their tournaments are taking place.Djokovic played in a tournament in Dubai last month. He lost a quarterfinal match to Jiri Vesely of the Czech Republic. That loss, combined with the recent success of Daniil Medvedev of Russia and Djokovic’s inactivity this year, caused Djokovic to drop to No. 2 in the world rankings after nearly two years in the top spot.Djokovic announced this week that he was splitting with his longtime coach, Marian Vajda.Unless rules for entering the United States change immediately, Djokovic will miss two important tournaments during the next month — the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and the Miami Open. Those events are as important as any on the tennis calendar other than the four Grand Slams.Britain, the site of Wimbledon in early summer, began relaxing its rules regarding vaccination and masking in January, and it is likely that Djokovic will be able to defend his championship there.While Covid-19 has waned before, only to return with a variant that has scuttled hopes for a quick end to the pandemic, Prime Minister Jean Castex of France told the French broadcaster TF1 that the government had decided to stop requiring proof of a vaccination for participation in most activities, especially those indoors, because “the situation is improving.”The changes, which are part of the government’s gradual easing of restrictions over the past few months, would begin a little over a month before the presidential election.New daily coronavirus cases and hospitalizations have been falling in France since early February. Castex said masks and proof of full vaccination would no longer be mandatory in venues such as restaurants, bars, stores, movie theaters and museums. Masks will still be mandatory on public transportation, and people will need to show proof of full vaccination, recovery or a negative test to enter health care settings like retirement homes. Vaccine mandates for health workers will still stand, he added.Aurelien Breeden More

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      Daniil Medvedev Intrudes on the Big Four’s No. 1 Perch

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      After nearly two decades of four men trading places at tennis’s top slot, Russia’s Medvedev put an end to their reign on Monday.Daniil Medvedev was 7 years old and living with his family in Moscow when Roger Federer rose to No. 1 in the ATP rankings on Feb. 2, 2004.There was no suspecting it then, but Federer’s achievement was the start of an extraordinary period of tennis domination by a small group of men who came to be known as the Big Four.Together, Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and, to a lesser degree, Andy Murray hoarded the Grand Slam singles titles and the regular tour’s most prestigious titles, taking turns at No. 1 for more than 18 years.On Monday, Medvedev, a lanky 26-year-old Russian with a technique that is far from orthodox, will finally put an end to the Big Four’s numerical dominance, displacing Djokovic at No. 1.“These guys have been amazing,” said Paul Annacone, the veteran coach and Tennis Channel analyst who once coached Federer.Medvedev’s timing on the court is amazing, too: It creates wonderment at how someone whose long limbs seem to be flying in such contradictory directions can make such clean contact again and again.But his timing in reaching No. 1 is not nearly so close to perfection.Nadal, not Medvedev, is the ATP’s hottest player: resurgent at age 35 and 15-0 in 2022 after rallying to defeat Medvedev in a classic five-set Australian Open final and then defeating him again last week in much more straightforward fashion on his way to another title in Acapulco, Mexico.Medvedev also has benefited from Djokovic essentially sidelining himself because of his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19, which led to his deportation from Australia ahead of the Australian Open and is expected to keep him out of the prestigious American tournaments in Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami next month.Then there is the issue of Medvedev’s nationality. The wider world is not much in the mood to celebrate Russia or Russian athletic achievements at the moment. The country’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine has sparked outrage, protests and international sanctions, and even before the invasion, there were hints of crowds turning against Medvedev.During his quarterfinal victory over Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada at the Australian Open, a fan at Rod Laver Arena shouted, “Do it for Ukraine, Felix!”But Medvedev has spoken out against the war since it began on Feb. 24.“By being a tennis player I want to promote peace all over the world,” he said in Acapulco. “We play in so many different countries. I’ve been in so many countries as a junior and as a pro.”He added: “It’s just not easy to hear all this news. I’m all for peace.”Medvedev’s next tournament is scheduled to be next month’s BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, where some players are already planning to show support for Ukraine by wearing outfits that feature blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine’s national flag.On Sunday, just hours before he officially became the No. 1-ranked men’s singles player, Medvedev made another plea, this time on social media.“Today I want to speak on behalf of every kid in the world,” he said. “They all have dreams. Their life is just starting, so many nice experiences to come: first friends, first great emotions. Everything they feel and see is for the first time in their lives. That’s why I want to ask for peace in the world, for peace between countries. Kids are born with inner trust in the world, they believe so much in everything: in people, in love, in safety and justice, in their chances in life. Let’s be together and show them that it’s true, cause every kid shouldn’t stop dreaming.”Medvedev, like many leading Russian players, moved abroad in his teens to further his tennis career. While his Russian contemporaries Andrey Rublev, 24, and Karen Khachanov, 25, landed in Spain, Medvedev went to southern France and now lives in Monte Carlo, long a sunny and tax-friendly base for tennis stars.He has been coached by the Frenchman Gilles Cervara since 2016 and speaks fluent French and English — useful skills in a global sport with post-match news conferences and interviews.But Medvedev, by turns endearing and alienating, is hardly a typical tennis ambassador. He has taunted and criticized crowds when they have turned against him, and he was fined in Australia last month for a tirade against a chair umpire for not policing the coaching that Medvedev believed his opponent, Stefanos Tsitsipas, was receiving illegally during the match from his father, Apostolos.Tsitsipas was indeed warned for a coaching violation later in the match, but Medvedev, who had called the chair umpire “stupid” and, more cryptically, “a small cat,” was apologetic, as he often is after, in his own words, “losing my mind.”“I regret it all the time, because I don’t think it’s nice; I know that every referee is trying to do their best,” he said in Melbourne. “Tennis, you know, we don’t fight with the fists, but tennis is a fight. It’s a one-on-one against another player, so I’m actually really respectful to players who never, almost never, show their emotions because it’s tough. Because I get and can get really emotional. I have been working on it.”Medvedev may be No. 1, but Rafael Nadal, left, is the hottest player on the tour. Nadal has a 15-0 record i 2022, including a win over Medvedev at the Mexican Open this month.Eduardo Verdugo/Associated PressMedvedev has a performance psychologist, the Frenchwoman Francisca Dauzet, on his team, and despite his outbursts in Melbourne, his on-court behavior has much improved from his earlier, more combustible years on tour. It has been quite an unexpected journey to the summit, and Medvedev is the 27th man to reach the top spot since the ATP computer rankings began in 1973. He is also the tallest at 6-foot-6: a reflection of the increase in average height among the men’s tennis elite.Unlike the members of the Big Four, he is not yet a true multi-surface threat: his best results have come on hardcourts. But he clearly has the skills to thrive on grass. Unsurprisingly, the towering Medvedev has a big serve, which he overhauled several years ago, that has been essential to his rise. But what separates him from the tennis giants of the past is his mobility and ability to thrive in extended rallies, often camped far behind the baseline. His groundstrokes, ungainly at first (and second) glance, are unusually flat, staying low off the bounce and often depriving opponents of the chance to attack from their comfort zones.With his reach, speed and anticipation, he is a world-class defender, but he can also up the tempo by striking the ball early and making surprise moves into the forecourt. Just when an opponent may think he has Medvedev figured out, he changes tactics — and, after winning his first major title at last year’s U.S. Open by stopping Djokovic’s bid for a Grand Slam, Medvedev has now ended Djokovic’s latest run at No. 1 and the Big Four’s even-longer run at the top.Whatever the timing, that is quite a feat. More