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      Roger Federer’s Retirement Makes Room for a New Era of Champions

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      Roger Federer’s retirement will auger opportunities for a new generation of players not named Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic.Upon learning that Roger Federer will retire after the upcoming Laver Cup, Judy Murray, the Scottish tennis coach and mother of Andy Murray, one of Federer’s great opponents, noted on social media that it signifies “the end of a magnificent era.”But Federer’s pending retirement, announced Thursday, also foretells the conclusion of a larger era defined by more than just him.For many, it is the greatest era of men’s tennis, one that includes the unsurpassed greatness of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Collectively, the three helped define a transcendent and remarkably durable period in tennis history that also parallels the career of Serena Williams, who announced she was stepping away from the sport last month.On the men’s side, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic’s collective reign, which endured for two decades, was glorious for tennis fans. Their stubborn persistence also prevented numerous “next generations” from finding the spotlight.Nadal, 36, and Djokovic, 35, who won Wimbledon this year, will presumably still carry on a bit longer. But Federer’s announcement on Thursday reminded the tennis world that the end will eventually come for all three of them, leaving the stage to a host of hungry new players, some of whom have already muscled their way into the breach.Carlos Alcaraz, right, keeps a photo of himself with Federer on a bookshelf at his home in El Palmar, Spain.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“Roger has been one of my idols and a source of inspiration,” Carlos Alcaraz, the new United States Open champion, posted on his Twitter account in tribute to Federer. “Thank you for everything you have done for our sport! I still want to play with you! Wish you all the luck in the world for what comes next!”What comes next is a peek into a future of men’s tennis minus one of its greatest male stars, and eventually all three of them.Alcaraz became the youngest men’s player to reach No. 1 when he captured the U.S. Open on Sunday at only 19. Others — including Casper Ruud, whom Alcaraz beat in the final; Daniil Medvedev, last year’s U.S. Open champion; Jannik Sinner, the promising 21-year-old from Italy; Nick Kyrgios; Frances Tiafoe; Felix Auger-Aliassime; and Denis Shapovalov — now can all ponder the possibilities that tennis mortality presents to them.“It’s been a privilege to share the court with you,” Shapovalov, 23, told Federer on social media Thursday.It will be a different kind of privilege — and opportunity — to play without him.But on the court, Federer’s retirement does not constitute a sudden change in the landscape. There were few expectations that, even if he could have rediscovered his health, Federer would come back to win more majors — not at 41, and not after three frustrating years trying to regain his footing. Nadal and Djokovic, on the other hand, remain the agenda setters in men’s tennis.Since 2019, they have combined to win 12 of the 15 major tournaments that were held. Had Djokovic not been barred from entering the United States this year, he likely would have been favored to win the U.S. Open, and if he had won, it would have given him and Nadal a sweep of this year’s majors.Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic before their French Open semifinal earlier this year.James Hill for The New York TimesTwo of the big three are still as dangerous as ever, and there is no fixed expiration date on either of them. There are concerns, though. Health has long been a nagging issue for Nadal, as it was at the U.S. Open, when he was ousted by Tiafoe in the fourth round after he returned from an abdominal strain that forced him out of Wimbledon.For Djokovic, there is the matter of his refusal to be vaccinated for the coronavirus, which prevented him from competing in this year’s Australian Open and U.S. Open. At least some doubt remains about Djokovic’s availability for those events next year, lending even more hope to the younger stars.So, can promising young players like those previously mentioned, plus No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas, No. 5 Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem, who won the 2020 U.S. Open, take advantage, as Alcaraz did? For the first time in 20 years, it seems possible, even with Nadal and Djokovic still standing in the way. But tennis has seen this before.In 2017, the A.T.P. launched the Next Generation Finals in Milan. Zverev, Medvedev and Karen Khachanov, who reached a U.S. Open semifinal last week, were all invited, along with Shapovalov, a Wimbledon semifinalist last year, and Jared Donaldson, who retired with an injury. Tiafoe and Tsitsipas were alternates.Since then, only Medvedev, 26, has won a major title. The rest of the time, he and the others were thwarted, often by one of the big three. It was the same for older players, too, like Andy Roddick, Stanislas Wawrinka, David Nalbandian, David Ferrer and Mikhail Youzhny, all of whom played for leftovers.Daniil Medvedev, who beat Djokovic to win the 2021 U.S. Open, is among the emerging generation of stars.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesSince 2004, Federer, Nadal or Djokovic has finished as the year’s No. 1 player except one, when Andy Murray earned the distinction in 2016.In 2018, when Youzhny retired, he said, “Sometimes these guys didn’t give anyone else chances to win. I can’t say I would have won more, but this is a great era for tennis.”Federer came into the game first, turning professional in 1998 and winning his first Grand Slam event at Wimbledon in 2003. Nadal was next, playing professionally since 2001 and winning the first of his 22 majors in 2005. Djokovic turned professional in 2003 and won his first major title in Australia in 2008.It seems natural that they should go out in the same order. Only then can a new generation of stars finally establish a new era, one that has been decades in the making. More

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      The Void Serena Williams Left in Tennis Doesn’t Need to Be Filled

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      Tennis has long thrived on singular stars, no one bigger than Serena Williams. But perhaps women’s tennis doesn’t need one big name to be interesting.Serena Williams is gone from the game; at least, we think so. Given the sharp, competitive way she played at the U.S. Open last week, maybe, just maybe, she’ll end up coming back for an encore.Let’s take her at her word, despite the malaise that settled on the grounds at Flushing Meadows in the days following her defeat to Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia. Their three-hour match Friday night featured some of the most thrilling tennis played at this tournament in years.Now what? That was the question fans were asking over the Labor Day weekend, many of whom had bought their tickets just before the tournament began, gambling that Williams would keep playing and that they could watch her last great run. With her gone, not even the players who are left in the tournament have a firm grasp of who will take her place in women’s tennis.“I don’t know,” said Jessica Pegula last week, echoing a typical locker room sentiment. Pegula, an American barely known outside of tennis even though she is currently ranked No. 8, made note of the remarkable explosion of talent on the women’s tour, which features its deepest-ever bench, but lamented that nobody has been up for filling the Serena void.“It’s open for someone to step up,” she said. “That’s why you look at someone like Serena, dominant over several eras, and it’s pretty crazy.”Of course, tennis, like most sports, thrives on big names. On the women’s side, in the modern era of professionalization, the racket passed from Billie Jean King to Chris Evert to Martina Navratilova to Steffi Graf and Monica Seles. Then it was Venus Williams’s turn, and finally, Serena, who not only pushed the game in popularity and reach, she helped changed the way the game was played.“It’s hard to picture tennis without her,” Pegula added, dolefully.Steffi Graf with the U.S. Open trophy in 1988 the year she won the Grand Slam.Peter Morgan/Associated PressDoes women’s tennis need such a dominating figure to be interesting?Maybe it’s a matter of perspective. Rivalries and dynasties are great things. Many fans seem content to follow a small handful players or, in other sports, teams. The few players who win big and win consistently — like Williams and Novak Djokovic — are the ones whose stories take up most of the oxygen.But is there another more satisfying way of looking at sports?Is the N.B.A. at its best when the Golden State Warriors are in the finals, year after year, and winning the league title, in four out of eight seasons?Did we only care about the N.F.L. when the New England Patriots were bullying everyone in sight?Simone Biles had her well-documented struggles at the Tokyo Olympics, but how cool was it to watch Sunisa Lee emerge from relative obscurity and win gold in the all-around event?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.In men’s tennis, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Djokovic are pure genius. Bless the Big Three. But after reigning over the game for nearly two decades, each one of this trio feels past his due date.Despite Monday’s stunning loss to Frances Tiafoe, Nadal may play for at least another year. Djokovic looks like he has no plans to slow down until he is 70. Federer says he will give it one last hurrah when he can return from yet another knee injury.All to the good, unless, like me, you want some spice and variety and you like not knowing with near 100 percent certainty who is going to dominate every big tournament.Over the last several days, I spent time in Manhattan, randomly asking strangers what they knew about Iga Swiatek, the top women’s seed at the U.S. Open. The standard response was a quizzical, dumbfounded look. “Who?”Swiatek, a 21-year-old from Poland, won her second French Open in June. She also won 37 straight matches this year, the longest such streak in the 21st century.She has a compelling, all-court game. She is intelligent, contemplative, and engaging.But let’s face it, outside of tennis fans, in America, arguably the most critical market in tennis because of its size and spending power, Swiatek isn’t well known. She does not seem poised to fill the void left by Serena Williams. But that’s fine. No player will. The game, with its drama, athleticism and skill, should be able to attract fans.Iga Swiatek is the top seed at the U.S. Open. Will she be the next player to dominate tennis?Mike Segar/ReutersIt’s been interesting to watch the matches at Flushing this week, not only on the big courts but on the outskirts of this glammed-up tennis mecca — which, unlike, say, lush and intimate Wimbledon, has the look and feel of public tennis courts on steroids, with a looming football stadium stuck in the middle.Serena’s influence is everywhere. Remember how she spoke of “evolving” away from tennis? What a perfect word, because that is what she has done for tennis. She’s been the prime force in its evolution.You can see her fingerprints in every women’s match. The powerful, percussive groundstrokes hit from every corner. The biting serves. The aggressive, swinging volleys. The strength and speed. Virtually every player looks like they could be competing in the Olympic Heptathlon.Women’s tennis has never contained this much depth. Yes, you can watch the young and talented Coco Gauff, 18, ranked 12th, now into her first U.S. Open quarterfinals on Tuesday, and make the obvious comparison to a young Serena Williams because of their race — and because Gauff has steadily pointed to Serena and Venus for laying down the path for her tennis journey.It helps that Gauff also has the same sort of ambitious grit. As she came from behind in each set of her Sunday match against China’s Zhang Shuai, Gauff channeled Serena’s moxie, giving a Dikembe Mutombo finger wag, pumping her fists, flying from corner to corner to hit groundstrokes that echoed with a boom across Arthur Ashe Stadium.But throughout this tournament the grounds have been filled with competitors like the 86th ranked player in the world, Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska — who, like so many other, credits Serena Williams for sparking her love for tennis as a girl. The shots that fly off Yastremska’s racket, no surprise, look like they’re ripping out of a cannon.Serena isn’t truly gone from the sport. She left a lot behind and remains part of tennis in a profound way. Her influence is all over the grounds.But that the void she left can’t be filled and doesn’t need to be. More

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      Is Serena Williams the GOAT? Probably. Maybe. Without a Doubt.

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      Follow live as Serena Williams plays Danka Kovinic at the U.S. Open.In the stands this month at the Western & Southern Open in Ohio there seemed to be no debate.There were shouts of “GOAT!” in Serena Williams’s direction and banners that read “GOAT” in her honor.In February, Williams appeared to be in a similarly conclusive frame of mind during Milan Fashion Week when she wore a black sweatshirt with “GOAT” in large white letters: a product of her own fashion line.With her retirement now imminent, it is certainly time to celebrate her long and phenomenal career, one of the most extraordinary from start to near-finish of any athlete.A successful Black woman in a predominantly white sport, she has beaten the odds, and talented opponents from multiple generations, across four decades. She has swatted aces and baseline winners, hustled for drop shots, lunged for returns and scrapped back from adversity on and off the court with the sort of sustained tenacity and triumph that only transcendent champions can muster.As she bids farewell, emotions are rightly running high, yet to unreservedly proclaim her the GOAT (greatest of all time) in women’s tennis is not as straightforward as a short overhead into an open court.Serena Williams in 2017 winning her seventh Australian Open title after defeating her sister Venus. She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles.Mark R. Cristino/European Pressphoto AgencyGreat will mean different things to different people. Performance is part of it but surely not all of it, and it seems fitting that the first athlete to embrace the GOAT acronym was Muhammad Ali, who billed himself understandably as “the Greatest” and managed some of his business interests through a company named G.O.A.T. Inc. Ali was no doubt a fabulous boxer but also a deeply symbolic figure.GOAT arguments are passionate and often unresolvable no matter what the sport. In the case of Williams, larger than life herself, it deserves to be a debate, not a processional.Though they are likely to be inconclusive, there are legitimate reasons to lean toward one of Williams’s predecessors, in particular Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graf, if you don’t want to travel through the mists of time to Margaret Court, who achieved the Grand Slam in 1970 and was the best player of her era.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Decades of Greatness: Over 27 years, Serena Williams dominated generation after generation of opponents and changed the way women’s tennis is played, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and cementing her reputation as the queen of comebacks.Is She the GOAT?: Proclaiming Williams the greatest women’s tennis player of all time is not a straightforward debate, our columnist writes.An Enduring Influence: From former and current players’ memories of a young Williams to the new fans she drew to tennis, Williams left a lasting impression.Her Fashion: Since she turned professional in 1995, Williams has used her clothes as a statement of self and a weapon of change.Tennis history is long for a modern sport: Wimbledon dates to 1877 and the U.S. Championships to 1881. The game and equipment have improved drastically (Navratilova and her friendly rival Chris Evert once played with wooden rackets), and the measures of success have shifted, too.“It’s really difficult to compare one generation to another,” Williams once said. “Things change — power, technique, technology.”While there are still formidable obstacles to fair comparisons, and though Williams’s 23 Grand Slam singles titles, an Open-era record and her signature achievement, loom like Mount Rushmore, the title count was not the coin of the realm in earlier eras.“Nowadays, the Grand Slams are much more revered than they were in my time,” Navratilova said.Achieving a Grand Slam, by winning all four majors in the same calendar year, was a clear goal after Don Budge became the first to do it in 1938, but a player’s total number of Grand Slam singles titles was not always a major talking point.“We really weren’t concerned with the number,” Rod Laver, the red-haired Australian who completed Grand Slams twice in singles, in 1962 and 1969, once told me. “I’m not sure I even knew exactly how many I had.” (He had 11 Grand Slam singles titles.)Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships, now the U.S. Open, have had cachet nearly from the start, but the prestige of the other two Grand Slam tournaments, the Australian Open and the French Open, has fluctuated greatly. International stars regularly skipped them until the 1990s, dissuaded by distance and Christmas-season dates that came with the Australian Open and by more lucrative and sometimes binding commitments.Players have always had to miss major tournaments because of injury, but champions like Billie Jean King, Navratilova and Evert missed quite a few by choice. So did Court, who retired early, only to reconsider, and later had two pregnancies that interrupted her career.Margaret Court in the second round of the U.S. Open Championships in 1970.Associated PressCourt, an imposing net rusher from Australia who dominated her rivalry with King, finished with 24 Grand Slam singles titles and 64 Grand Slam titles overall. Both are records. And though 11 of Court’s major singles titles came in Australia when it had smaller draws and often weaker fields than other majors, 24 is still the number that Williams has been chasing openly and unsuccessfully since taking her own maternity leave in 2017.Graf, the only player to have won all four majors at least four times, finished with 22 Grand Slam singles titles despite playing about a decade less than Williams. Evert and Navratilova finished with 18 apiece and would surely have won more if they had committed to all the majors like Williams and other contemporary stars.Evert and Navratilova also had a still-fledgling tour to carry, which meant a busier schedule than today’s biggest stars.“There was definitely more of a commitment from the WTA standpoint because it was early on and we really had to prove ourselves,” Evert said.Williams has blown hot and cold on the tour, sometimes skipping its bigger events, including the year-end tour championships.That lighter schedule probably extended her career but also helps explain why Williams ranks third in total weeks at No. 1 with 319. Graf leads with 377; Navratilova is next with 332. Though Williams finished as year-end No. 1 on five occasions — another significant measure of success — Navratilova did it seven times and Graf a record eight times.There is also a big disparity in tour singles titles. Williams’s total of 73 puts her fifth on the Open-era career list, far behind Navratilova, who won 167 singles titles and 177 doubles titles in a period when doubles had more cachet than it does now. Navratilova also had a long period of genuine dominance, losing just 14 singles matches in five years from 1984 to 1988. Evert, also a consistent threat, won 157 singles titles; Graf won 107 even though she retired at age 30.Two other points in Graf’s favor: She had a career winning percentage in singles of 89 percent, the best of the modern GOAT contenders (Williams’s is at 85 percent). Graf is also the only player, male or female, to complete the so-called Golden Slam, winning all four majors and the Olympic singles title in 1988.Navratilova and Williams both had great runs in majors: Navratilova won six straight in 1983 and 1984; Williams twice won four in a row, the so-called Serena Slams, from 2002 to 2003 and from 2014 to 2015. But neither Navratilova nor Williams could cope with the heavy pressure that came with finishing off the true Grand Slam, falling two matches short.Williams was stunned in the semifinals of the 2015 U.S. Open by Roberta Vinci, an unseeded Italian whose sliced backhand caused Williams big trouble, but not as much trouble as Williams’s nerves.“She lost to the Grand Slam more than anything else,” Navratilova said that night, speaking from experience.Martina Navratilova, left, and Chris Evert, right, posing for a photo with Serena Williams after she won the 2014 U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York.Mike Segar/ReutersWhat bears remembering is that Williams was 33, retirement age for many a previous champion, and yet she was seemingly still peaking: a tribute to her talent, competitive drive and work with Patrick Mouratoglou, an ambitious Frenchman who became her first formal coach on tour other than her parents, Richard and Oracene.With Mouratoglou, she chose a racket with a larger head and changed strings to add more spin and develop more margin for error and a more effective Plan B.They also emphasized competing more often week to week to make her sharper at the majors.Her results and confidence soared. With Mouratoglou, she went on to win 10 more Grand Slam singles titles, all in her 30s. That had no precedent in women’s tennis, and it is one of the strongest arguments for bestowing GOAT status on Williams. She and her older sister Venus changed the game and raised the bar for the opposition, many of whom could not keep up, fading or retiring while the Williamses continued.Serena Williams was not consistently dominant: She had more dips in form and barren patches than Navratilova, Graf and Evert, and even dropped out of the top 100 in 2006. Arguably, she also lacked a transcendent rivalry, dominating Venus, 7-2, in major finals and playing her in only one final at any level after 2009. Though they had some memorable duels, the rivalry between the sisters was, particularly early on, sometimes as uncomfortable for the viewers as for the siblings.“Martina had Chrissie; Steffi had Martina and Monica Seles; Court had Billie Jean and Maria Bueno,” said Steve Flink, an American tennis historian and author.“During Serena’s great years in her 30s, she had no formidable rival to test her to the hilt; that is not her fault but a factor,” Flink added, of the GOAT debate. But Williams, despite her dips, did rule over the best talent available, compiling a 176-72 record against players who have been ranked No. 1. She went 20-2 against her tennis muse Maria Sharapova, a blond Russian who out-earned her in sponsorships for years, which Williams understandably viewed as an injustice in light of her superior résumé.Williams would agree that she knew how to channel a grudge.In her essay in Vogue this month announcing her imminent retirement, she wrote: “There were so many matches I won because something made me angry or someone counted me out. That drove me.”Serena Williams playing Naomi Osaka in the women singles finals of the U.S. Open in 2018.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesWilliams endured and excelled, reaching four Grand Slam singles finals after returning from pregnancy in 2018 despite some in her close circle counseling against a comeback at age 36.Matching or breaking Court’s record, however flawed, at that late stage might have truly ended the GOAT debate. But Williams has still moved many as a working mother and as a superstar willing to put herself back on the line past her prime.Williams, unlike Navratilova, one of the first openly gay superstar athletes, has not been a political crusader. She has declined, most recently, to comment on Roe v. Wade being overturned. Her approach has been shaped perhaps by her faith (she is a Jehovah’s Witness) and perhaps because of the risk athletes from earlier generations ran with sponsors for straying outside the lines (“Republicans buy sneakers, too,” Michael Jordan once said).But Williams’s 14-year boycott of the tournament at Indian Wells, where she and her family were booed and, according to her father, Richard, subjected to racist taunts, spoke louder than words. She has had major outbursts that have cost her some fans. But she has been consistently inspiring, as a champion and a Black woman who roared back after major setbacks in her professional and personal life.Those include the murder of her half sister Yetunde Price; the separation and divorce of her parents; a blood clot in her lung in 2011 that she said had her on her “death bed”; and another dangerous blood clotting issue during the birth of her daughter, Olympia, in 2017.Resilience is a mark of greatness, too, and though she may or may not be the greatest in a very strong field, it is certainly one more reason to appreciate her as she walks into the din on Monday night — less than a month from her 41st birthday — to play in one last U.S. Open.

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      Novak Djokovic Says He Will Miss U.S. Open

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      Djokovic said he would not be able to travel to New York for the tournament that begins next week. The United States has travel restrictions that require foreign visitors to be vaccinated for the coronavirus.The stalemate between Novak Djokovic and the U.S. government reached its inevitable conclusion Thursday as the unvaccinated Wimbledon champion pulled out of the U.S. Open.The U.S. has lifted many of the restrictions related to the coronavirus and travel. However, unvaccinated foreigners are still not allowed to enter the country. Djokovic, who has had Covid-19 at least twice, has been steadfast in his refusal to get vaccinated, arguing that it should be a personal decision rather than a requirement.“Sadly, I will not be able to travel to NY this time for US Open,” Djokovic wrote on Twitter Thursday morning, hours before the draw for the tournament that is scheduled to start on Monday. “Thank you #NoleFam for your messages of love and support. Good luck to my fellow players! I’ll keep in good shape and positive spirit and wait for an opportunity to compete again. See you soon tennis world!”Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated set off a political firestorm in January when he announced he had received a special exemption to enter Australia to play in the Australian Open, the first tennis major of the year.Djokovic ultimately left the country without defending his singles title there.Djokovic was able to play in the French Open and Wimbledon after France and England relaxed their requirements that visitors be vaccinated. But as he sat next to his Wimbledon trophy in July after winning his 21st Grand Slam title, Djokovic said it appeared unlikely that he would play in the U.S. Open because he had no plans to get vaccinated and did not anticipate the U.S. government changing its rules.The U.S. government has retained the restriction because people who are not vaccinated are far more likely to contract and pass on the virus and to end up in the hospital than people who are not.The U.S. Tennis Association said earlier this summer it would not seek an exemption on Djokovic’s behalf.By not playing, Djokovic is giving up a chance to draw even with Rafael Nadal for the most men’s singles Grand Slam titles (Nadal has 22 and Djokovic has 21). More

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      Tennis Is Done With Covid-19, but the Virus Isn’t Done With Tennis

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      With testing, quarantine and isolation requirements all but gone, tennis finally seems to have entered a stage of pandemic apathy, much like a lot of society.WIMBLEDON, England — With the final match looming, this year’s edition of Wimbledon has already proven many points.Rafael Nadal can play top-level tennis with a zombie foot and a tear in an abdominal muscle, but only for so long. Iga Swiatek is beatable, at least on grass. With the Moscow-born, Kazakhstan-representing Elena Rybakina making the women’s singles final, barring Russian players does not necessarily make a competition free of Russian players.But perhaps most surprisingly, after 27 months of tournament cancellations, spectator-free events, constant testing and bubblelike environments, tennis may have finally moved past Covid-19.For nearly two years, longer than just about every other major sport, tennis struggled to coexist with the pandemic.Last November, when the N.F.L. the N.B.A., the Premier League and most other sports organizations had resumed a life that largely resembled 2019, tennis players were still living with restrictions on their movements, conducting online video news conferences, and having cotton swabs stuck up their noses at tournaments.A month later Novak Djokovic, then the No. 1 men’s singles player, contracted a second case of Covid just in time to secure, he thought, special entry into Australia to play the Australian Open, even though he was unvaccinated against Covid-19 and the country was still largely restricted to people who had been vaccinated. Australian officials ended up deporting him because they said he might encourage other people not to get vaccinated, a drama that dominated the run-up to the tournament and its first days.The episode crystallized how tennis, with its kinetic international schedule, had been subjected to the will and whims of local governments, with rules and restrictions shifting sometimes weekly. The frequent travel and communal locker rooms made the players something like sitting ducks, always one nasal swab away from being locked in a hotel room for 10 days, sometimes far from home, regardless of how careful they might have been.Tennis, unlike other sports that surged ahead of health and medical guidelines to keep their coffers filled, has had to reflect where society at large has been at every stage of the pandemic. Its major organizers canceled or postponed everything in the spring and early summer of 2020, though Djokovic held an exhibition tournament that ended up being something of a superspreader event.The 2020 U.S. Open took place on schedule in late summer without spectators. To be at the usually bustling Billie Jean King National Tennis Center those weeks in New York was something like being on the surface of the moon. A rescheduled French Open followed in the chill of a Paris fall with just a few hundred fans allowed. Australia largely subjected players to a 14-day quarantine before they could take part in the 2021 Australian Open.As vaccinations proliferated later in the year, crowds returned but players usually had to live in bubbles, unable to move about the cities they inhabited until the summer events in the U.S. But as the delta variant spread, the bubbles returned. Then came Australia and Djokovic’s vaccine confrontation, just as disputes over mandates were heating up elsewhere.In recent months though, as public attitudes toward the pandemic shifted, mask mandates were lifted and travel restrictions were eased, even tennis has seemingly moved on, even if the virus has not done the same.Matteo Berrettini wearing a mask after his quarterfinals match at Wimbledon in 2021.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressThere was no mandatory testing for Wimbledon or the French Open. People are confused about what they must do if they get the sniffles or a sore throat, and tennis players are no different. Many players said they were not sure exactly what the rules were from tournament to tournament for those who started not to feel well. While two widely known players, Matteo Berrettini and Marin Cilic, withdrew after testing positive, without a requirement to take a test, they, and any other player, could have opted not to take a test and played through whatever symptoms they were experiencing.“So many rules,” Rafael Nadal said. “For some people some rules are fine; for the others rules are not fine. If there are some rules, we need to follow the rules. If not, the world is a mess.”After nearly two years of bubble life though, hard-edge complaints about a don’t-ask-don’t-tell approach and safety mandates were virtually nonexistent.Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia, whose country had some of the strictest pandemic-related policies, said she remained cautious, especially at the bigger events, but she had reached the point where she needed to find a balance between safety and sanity.“I just try to take care of myself as much as I can where I’m still not completely isolating myself, where it’s not fun to live,” said Tomljanovic, who lost to Rybakina in the quarterfinals.Paula Badosa, the Spanish star, said she has stopped worrying about the virus.“I had all type of Covids possible,” said Badosa, who first tested positive in Australia in January 2021 and has had it twice more. “I had vaccination, as well. So in my case, if I have it again, it will be very bad luck.”Officials with the men’s and women’s tours said regardless of infection levels, their organizations had no intention of resuming regular testing or restricting player movements. They said they will follow the lead of local officials.With testing, quarantine and isolation requirements having all but disappeared, or merely existing as recommendations, tennis finally seems to have entered stage of pandemic apathy, much like a lot of society, Omicron and its subvariants be damned.There is, of course, one major exception to all of this, and that is Djokovic, whose refusal to be vaccinated — unique among the top 100 players on the men’s tour — will seemingly prevent him from playing in the U.S. Open.U.S. rules require all foreigners entering the country to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Djokovic has said he believes that individuals should be allowed to choose whether to do so without pressure from governments.Also, because he was deported from Australia, Djokovic would need a special exemption to return to the country to compete in the Australian Open in January. He has won the men’s singles title there a record nine times.Unless the rules change, he may not play in another Grand Slam tournament until the French Open next May, something he said he was well aware of but would not shift his thinking about whether to take the vaccine.In other words, Covid really isn’t done playing games with tennis. More

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      Djokovic vs. Kyrgios: How to Watch the Wimbledon Men’s Singles Final

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      Djokovic, a six-time Wimbledon champion, plays Nick Kyrgios, who is appearing in his first Grand Slam singles final.Sunday, the final day of Wimbledon, features the men’s singles championship at 9 a.m. Eastern between Novak Djokovic, a six-time Wimbledon champion, and Nick Kyrgios, who is playing in his first Grand Slam singles final.Kyrgios earned a spot in the final with some ease, after Rafael Nadal pulled out of the tournament with an abdominal injury the day before their scheduled semifinal.How to watch: In the United States, on ESPN with the pre-match show beginning at 8 a.m. and streaming on ESPN.com and the ESPN app. In Canada, on TSN1 and TSN4, with the pre-match show beginning at 8 a.m. More

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      Novak Djokovic Defeats Cameron Norrie to Get to Wimbledon Final

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      Kyrgios is playing in his first Grand Slam singles final, and Djokovic may be playing in his last until next year’s French Open.WIMBLEDON, England — In the last year, Novak Djokovic has experienced the highest of tennis highs, coming within one match of winning a rare calendar-year Grand Slam and the lowest of lows, including detainment and deportation after he arrived in Melbourne in January to try to defend his Australian Open title.On Sunday, he will get a chance to win a seventh Wimbledon singles title against an opponent, Nick Kyrgios of Australia, that few, including Kyrgios himself, thought would ever find the mental strength required to arrive at the biggest stage in the sport.Djokovic earned his spot in the final with a four-set win over Cameron Norrie of Britain on Friday afternoon, overcoming some early-match inconsistency that is becoming a bit of a habit. He withstood both a strong start from Norrie and a raucous hometown crowd on Centre Court to win the semifinal, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.It was the only men’s semifinal played Friday.On Thursday, Rafael Nadal withdrew from the tournament with a tear in his abdominal muscle. Nadal’s decision not to play after he aggravated the tear in his five-set, quarterfinal victory over Taylor Fritz, allowed Kyrgios to advance without effort into his first Grand Slam singles final. It also ended the hope for a coveted showdown between Djokovic and Nadal, who have won a combined 42 Grand Slam titles but have played each other for the trophy at Wimbledon only once, in 2011. Djokovic won.What the matchup with Kyrgios in the final might lack in terms of historical value — no one, not even Kyrgios, expects him to evolve, at 27, into an all-time great — it may well make up for with drama. It is a duel between two players that many in and around the sport view as villains.Djokovic’s impetuous and contrarian behavior, especially compared with his chief rivals, the gentlemanly Nadal and Roger Federer, has long made him more feared than loved, a crasher of the binary tennis rivalry that Federer and Nadal first created more than 15 years ago.Kyrgios, a temperamental and explosive talent who has spent his career battling the tennis establishment and his own demons, is an uncontrollable and disruptive force who has put himself in the heat of the Wimbledon spotlight since the first days of this tournament.He can explode at any moment, and he has repeatedly in the past two weeks, at chair umpires, opponents, fans or anyone he views as treating him unjustly. Sometimes it is genuine, other times it is merely to shake up and distract his opponent. He has earned $14,000 in fines this tournament but has played to packed stadiums, with fans lusting for his booming serve, or the occasional underhanded one, and his through-the-legs trick shots.On Tuesday, news broke that Kyrgios was due in court on Aug. 2 to face allegations of assaulting a former girlfriend. Chiara Passari told police Kyrgios grabbed her during a domestic dispute in December. On the advice of his lawyers, Kyrgios has declined to comment on the allegations.“There’s going to be a lot of fireworks emotionally,” said Djokovic, a favorite in the match even though he has never beaten or even won a set against Kyrgios.Djokovic and Kyrgios have not played since 2017, and they have never played in a Grand Slam event. But the two sparred verbally at the Australian Open in 2021, a tournament that took place during the height of the pandemic.Djokovic criticized tournament organizers for the restrictions they placed on players arriving in Australia for the tournament. Most players were under a limited two-week quarantine, but many ended up confined to their rooms for 14 days after a handful of people on their special flights into the country tested positive for Covid-19.Kyrgios had remained in Australia for most of the first year of the pandemic, dedicating time to delivering food and other supplies to people who struggled to get them during the country’s strict lockdowns. Djokovic, who has refused to get vaccinated, has been skeptical of the public health community’s management of the pandemic.Long before officials began to give the green light to public gatherings, he staged a tennis exhibition that turned into a superspreader event. Then, shortly after arriving in Australia, he criticized the rules.“Djokovic is a tool,” Kyrgios wrote on Twitter.Djokovic then said in a news conference that he respected Kyrgios’s tennis talents but had no respect for him off the court.Kyrgios hit back, saying he could not take Djokovic’s criticism seriously, given Djokovic’s behavior.“He’s a very strange cat, Novak is,” he said. “A heck of a tennis player but unfortunately someone who’s partying with his shirt off during a global pandemic, I don’t know if I can take any slack from that man.”They have since reached a détente of sorts. It began earlier this year, when Kyrgios spoke up on Djokovic’s behalf after Djokovic was detained in Australia during the controversy over his vaccination status, which ultimately led to his deportation.Kyrgios even described it Friday as a kind of “bromance.” Djokovic would not go that far.“I think everyone knows there was no love lost for a while there,” Kyrgios said. “I think it was healthy for the sport. I think every time we played each other, there was hype around it.”Djokovic said relations were far better than they had been.“When it was really tough for me in Australia, he was one of the very few players that came out publicly and supported me and stood by me,” he said. “That’s something I truly appreciate.”Djokovic remains unvaccinated, and unless the United States and Australia change their rules, Sunday’s final may be his last Grand Slam match for nearly 11 months, and he does not expect it to be easy.“He plays lights-out every time he steps out onto the court,” Djokovic said of Kyrgios. “Just a lot of power in his serve and his game. So I’m sure he’s going to go for it.”Djokovic struggled to go for it initially Friday on a sun-splashed, 80-degree day that meteorologists in London were calling a heat wave. Norrie, a steady, never-say-die lefty, was the better player early and into the first games of the second set, going toe-to-toe and trying to out-rally the best rallier in the world.Djokovic struggled with his serve and to find his trademark precision on his groundstrokes. He also doesn’t much care for playing in the heat. Midway through the first set, with Norrie pushing ahead, Djokovic settled into his chair and draped a towel over his head as the packed Centre Court crowd roared for a countryman with a home just up the road.Norrie, who lives so close to the All England Club that he cycled to the grounds earlier in the tournament, smacked an ace to win the set, pumped his fist and basked in the sound. In addition to the crowd inside the stadium, there were thousands more picnicking and downing beers and Pimm’s on Henman Hill as they watched the match on a big screen.But Djokovic is so good at taking an opponent’s best — and the chiding of a crowd — and biding his time for an opening to appear. He did so when he dropped a set in the fourth round to the hot, Dutch unknown, Tim van Rijthoven, and in the quarterfinals when he dropped the first two sets to Jannik Sinner of Italy, one of the world’s great young players.Djokovic put a baseball cap on to protect himself from the heat of the sun, and midway through the set he stopped giving free points to Norrie. Suddenly, Norrie found himself fighting off break points every time he served. In the eighth game of the set, Norrie sent a forehand long to give Djokovic a 5-3 lead. Djokovic turned to his box and clinched his fist, as if to say, “Don’t worry, I got this.”There was never any doubt. Djokovic sprinted through the third set as Norrie’s game slipped, and he grabbed an early service break in the fourth. Norrie battled to keep it close, but ultimately that was all he could do. A small victory but not the one he wanted.On the final point, Djokovic, who has played 68 Grand Slam tournaments and made the finals 32 times, crushed a serve down the middle, then turned to bait a fan who had yelled to try to disrupt his last stroke. He later claimed with a smile that he was blowing kisses to one that had supported him.Now he faces Kyrgios, a player he said he and others had long seen as among the most dangerous in the world if he could ever get control of his emotions and be committed to the sport, which he has, at least for now.“For the quality player that he is,” Djokovic said of Kyrgios, “this is where he needs to be, and he deserves to be.” More

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      For Sunday’s Wimbledon Final, ‘Fireworks’ and a Contrast in Style

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      Despite their previously contentious relationship, Nick Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic have developed “a bit of a bromance,” Kyrgios said. They meet for the Wimbledon men’s singles title on Sunday.WIMBLEDON, England — With the Wimbledon title at stake, it will be the maximizer versus the man who seemingly makes it up as he goes along.Both Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios were identified early as players of surpassing talent and great potential. But while Djokovic, long the No. 1 player in the world, has turned over stones and sifted through the gravel in his restless quest for enduring excellence, Kyrgios has struggled to find the motivation, equanimity and clarity of purpose to challenge for the game’s biggest prizes.But on Sunday, they will share, however briefly, the same objective as they clash — the verb seems just right — on the grass of the All England Club.“Well, one thing is for sure, there are going to be a lot of fireworks emotionally from both guys,” Djokovic said on Friday.This final, the capstone to one of the weirdest of Wimbledons, will be a contrast in styles.Kyrgios, with his huge and hard-to-read serve, can undoubtedly bring the heat. Djokovic, the premier returner in the game, is an expert at extinguishing such flames.Kyrgios can make any shot look spectacular, turning routine strokes into between-the-legs performance art. Djokovic has long been underappreciated because he can make an excruciatingly difficult shot look routine and smooth.But the starker contrast is in their résumés. This will be Djokovic’s 32nd appearance in a Grand Slam singles final, breaking his tie for the men’s record with his longtime rival Roger Federer.It will be Kyrgios’s first, which he said was a big reason he had a nearly sleepless night on Thursday after Rafael Nadal, his would-be opponent, withdrew from the tournament with an abdominal tear. That allowed Kyrgios to skip the semifinal phase altogether on a journey to uncharted territory for him.Kyrgios beat Djokovic in their two previous matches.Ryan Pierse/Getty Images“I was just restless, so many thoughts in my head about a Wimbledon final; that’s all I was thinking about,” Kyrgios said, estimating that he got just one hour of sleep. “That’s where Djokovic has the advantage from the get-go. He can draw from experience. He’s done it so many more times. He knows the emotions he’s going to be feeling. I don’t know that. I don’t know anything like that.”Kyrgios does know what it is like to defeat Djokovic, however. They faced off twice in 2017 in back-to-back tournaments on hard courts, and Kyrgios, serve and big game clicking, won both matches without dropping a set: He prevailed, 7-6 (9), 7-5, in the quarterfinals in Acapulco, Mexico, and won, 6-4, 7-6 (3), in the round of 16 in Indian Wells, Calif.Djokovic was in a slump at that time, falling back because of an elbow injury and personal problems after a long period of dominance. Kyrgios was just 21 and seemingly on an upward trajectory.But the past five years have been full of surprises, and while Djokovic, 35, recovered his mojo and resumed piling up major titles before his vaccination standoff in Melbourne, Kyrgios continued to bedevil his elders on court, including chair umpires. Yet he has failed to get past even the quarterfinals in a Grand Slam singles draw until now.He has faced, by his own account, mental health challenges, including self-harm, suicidal thoughts and abuse of alcohol and drugs. But his upside was never in doubt for the champions who had faced him.“I think, between us players, we always know how dangerous he is, on grass particularly, because of his game, because of his attitude on the court being so confident, just going for it, being a very complete player,” Djokovic said.Djokovic joked that he would start by trying to win a set, and said that he was well aware that this final, despite the yawning gap in achievement, had the potential to be something spectacular.“Honestly, as a tennis fan, I’m glad that he’s in the finals, because he’s got so much talent,” Djokovic said. “Everyone was praising him when he came on the tour, expecting great things from him. Of course, then we know what was happening throughout many years with him mentally, emotionally. On and off the court, a lot of different things were distracting him, and he was not being able to get this consistency.”Djokovic then finished the thought on a welcoming note.“For the quality player that he is, this is where he needs to be and he deserves to be,” he said.The Djokovic-Kyrgios relationship was once publicly tense, but it sounded more like a mutual-admiration society on Friday, and Djokovic made it clear that he appreciated that Kyrgios, an Australian, offered him support in January when he was deported from Australia before the Australian Open. He had arrived in Melbourne convinced that he would be given a waiver to enter because he had recently recovered from the coronavirus — even though he hadn’t been vaccinated.“We definitely have a bit of a bromance now, which is weird,” Kyrgios said. “I think everyone knows there was no love lost for a while there.”Though Djokovic was not quite prepared to second the bromance, Kyrgios said they had begun exchanging Instagram direct messages. “Earlier in the week, he was like, ‘Hopefully, I’ll see you Sunday,’” Kyrgios said.So it has turned out, but win or lose, Kyrgios’s ranking will not reflect the breakthrough. Kyrgios arrived at Wimbledon ranked 40th in the world, and his ranking will actually drop next week because of the ATP Tour’s decision to strip Wimbledon of ranking points this year in response to the tournament’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.On Monday, the points from last year’s Wimbledon will also fall off players’ rankings, dropping Kyrgios to about 45. Djokovic, who has won 27 straight matches at Wimbledon and is on the verge of a fourth straight title here, will also drop back: from No. 3 to No. 7.It is unprecedented and, frankly, unjust. Though the men’s and women’s tours made their move to mark their territory and try to discourage future bans over political issues, the point stripping has clearly been more of a short-term hit to the players than to Wimbledon, which has been bustling with full crowds after a lighter-than-usual first few days and has continued to generate global buzz. (Kyrgios vs. Djokovic won’t hurt there.)But it also has been a Wimbledon full of odd twists and big letdowns, with three leading men’s players, including Matteo Berrettini, withdrawing after testing positive for the coronavirus, and with Nadal unable to play his semifinal against Kyrgios and continue his quest for the calendar-year Grand Slam. One of the twists: Elena Rybakina, born and raised in Russia and often still training there, is in the women’s final and now representing Kazakhstan. Even the British government was unable to finish the tournament, with British ministers resigning en masse before Prime Minister Boris Johnson took the hint.Djokovic did have to play his semifinal, however, and the suspense did not last much more than a set and a half on Friday before he found his flow against Cameron Norrie of Britain and accelerated to the finish with a victory, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.It was, as it so often is with Djokovic involved, two against one: Norrie and a partisan Centre Court crowd versus Djokovic.It was loud, often thunderously loud, in the early stages as Norrie took the lead, but it is much less clear which way the crowd will blow on Sunday. Kyrgios’s often-confrontational approach and foul-mouthed dialogues (and monologues) run counter to the codes that are typically embraced at the All England Club, whose crowd trends older, particularly on Centre Court.Kyrgios, who leads the tournament in fines, is also facing legal trouble, having been summoned to appear in court in Australia on Aug. 2 in relation to an assault allegation from his former girlfriend. He has declined to address the allegations at Wimbledon, and on Friday, when his name was mentioned in Djokovic’s on-court interview, there was a brief flurry of cheers followed by a much louder round of boos.“I believe that the crowd are going to support Novak in the final,” said Mark Petchey, a British coach, television analyst and former player. “It will be interesting to see how that affects Novak, who is so used to being the underdog.”Sunday’s duel will be interesting indeed and just maybe transcendent. Kyrgios, after three full days of waiting, could either rise to the most significant opportunity of his career or fall flat after too many restless nights of anticipation.“It’s definitely a shock to the system because I’ve been playing so many matches,” he said of his unexpected break.But it certainly appears that Kyrgios has a game and a temperament made for the sport’s biggest occasions. We already know that Djokovic does. More