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      Can Nadal Extend His Grand Slam Record at the French Open?

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      Nadal could strike quickly for Grand Slam singles title No. 22, particularly if Novak Djokovic, the only man to beat him twice in Paris, is unable to play because he remains unvaccinated.MELBOURNE, Australia — After Rafael Nadal’s stupendous comeback in the Australian Open final on Sunday night, it is he — not Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer — who is the first man to win 21 Grand Slam singles titles.Fairly or unfairly, it is the tennis record that matters most these days. Though Sunday’s outcome hardly ends the debate about who is the greatest men’s player of all time (don’t forget Rod Laver), there is no doubt that Nadal is the greatest men’s clay-court player of all time.The French Open, which is played on red clay in Paris, begins on May 22. Nadal has won it 13 times, dominating as no man has dominated any major tennis tournament.It would be no surprise if Nadal struck quickly for Grand Slam singles title No. 22, particularly if Djokovic, the only man to beat him twice at Roland Garros, is unable to play in this year’s French Open because he remains unvaccinated against the coronavirus.Djokovic, who is still No. 1, was deported from Australia on Jan. 16, on the eve of the Australian Open, after his visa was revoked. For now, his chances of competing in Paris are unclear.The French government is banning athletes, both French and foreign, from accessing sports venues or taking part in events if they do not have a vaccination pass. But unvaccinated individuals can still hold a valid pass if they have had a recent coronavirus infection.For now, the exemption from vaccination is six months from the date of infection, but on Feb. 15, the grace period will be reduced to four months. That would mean Djokovic, who has presented evidence that he tested positive in Serbia on Dec. 16, would be eligible to compete in France until late April without being vaccinated.But the French government could change the rules on vaccination passes if case numbers or hospitalizations drop by the spring. The outcome of the French presidential election in April could also affect health policy, and there is the possibility, however remote, that French Open organizers could negotiate an exemption or extension of the grace period for unvaccinated players, even though there are hardly an overwhelming number of unvaccinated tour-level players at this stage.It seems too early to rule Djokovic, 34, out of Roland Garros, where he won the title last year. He beat Nadal there in a semifinal that peaked in a bravura third set before Nadal faded, in part because of the chronic foot pain that forced him to miss most of the rest of the season, including Wimbledon, the Olympics and the U.S. Open.“Look, if Novak does return, I think we’re talking about Rafa and Novak going into the French as the co-favorites,” said Darren Cahill, the ESPN analyst and leading coach. “Obviously you’ve got to be able to beat Rafa over five sets on clay, and we’ve seen how difficult that’s been, but Novak has been pretty damn impressive there the last few years.”Novak Djokovic at the Davis Cup in December.Juanjo Martin/EPA, via ShutterstockFor now, Djokovic is short on match play in 2022 after watching the Australian Open from afar (and sending a congratulatory message to Nadal, who was supposed to be in Djokovic’s section of the draw).Djokovic is entered and expected to play in the ATP tournament in Dubai that begins on Feb. 21. But if he remains unvaccinated, he would require an exemption to fly to the United States to compete in March in the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. and in the Miami Open. A prior coronavirus infection is not grounds for an exemption, but individuals with “documented medical contraindications” to receiving the vaccine can be granted one. It is unclear whether that provision could apply to Djokovic, who also holds a Serbian passport, or if he is even interested in traveling to the U.S. in March.But if Djokovic heads to Dubai, that will be a big hint that he is eager to compete, and a fired-up Djokovic will be a dangerous Djokovic given the frustration and humiliation he experienced in Australia.“I think Novak uses this to fuel the fire he’s always played with,” Cahill said. “I think he’s still searching for improvement in his game, and I think we’ll still see an unbelievable level from Novak over the next couple years.”Daniil Medvedev, who is ranked No. 2, was poised to become the top hardcourt player. He had already beaten Djokovic in last year’s U.S. Open final, a loss that prevented Djokovic from completing the Grand Slam.But Nadal’s victory, surprising and stirring, could open up new perspectives for Djokovic and Federer, who is 40 but training for the possibility of returning later this year, perhaps in time for Wimbledon, after another knee surgery in 2021. It is difficult to see Federer as a title favorite anywhere, but why not as a factor on grass or hardcourts?Nadal’s victory could serve as motivation for Federer.Neil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock“I think what Rafa did can put a little fuel in Roger’s tank, too,” Cahill said. “Roger could say, ‘If Rafa is out there still doing it, why can’t I do it if I get healthy and still have that love of the game?’ So, I think this energizes the Big Three.”Nadal should feel energized once he recovers from his reaffirming run down under. He was walking gingerly on Monday as he posed for photos with the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup in a Melbourne park after not getting to sleep until 5 o’clock that morning.A rout would not have felt right against Medvedev, considering how much Nadal relishes a good fight. He has talked about the joy in “suffering.” When he won his first Australian Open in five sets in 2009, he told a small group of us the next day, in his still-evolving English, that, “Maybe I like more fighting to win than to win.”That phrase still rang true 13 years later as Nadal escaped from big tennis trouble. Though Nadal has done prodigious things in his years on this earth (and clay), he had never rallied from a two-set deficit to win a Grand Slam title.His five-hour-and-24-minute triumph over Medvedev was one of Nadal’s trademark victories, up there with his defeat of Federer in the 2008 Wimbledon final that is on every short list of the greatest matches.“That Wimbledon was two athletes in the prime of their careers playing unbelievable tennis,” Cahill said. “This was a little bit different because of the road Rafa had traveled to get there and the history behind it.”Nadal confirmed that the post-match emotions were more powerful at age 35. Medvedev might take note. He was so deflated by losing his lead and hearing the crowd cheer his errors — and roar for Nadal — that he said he was disillusioned with the sport and might not play past age 30.“The kid that was dreaming is not anymore in me after today,” Medvedev said. “It will be tougher to continue tennis when it’s like this.”Yevgeny Kafelnikov, the first Russian to man to win a major singles title, said Medvedev “will get over it in 10 days” as the disappointment fades.But Medvedev certainly has much to learn, not just from the final but from Nadal, who, unlike Medvedev, has never taunted a crowd or humiliated a chair umpire, both of which Medvedev did in Melbourne.Nadal has earned his passionate fan base, which was all the louder on Sunday because he was an underdog. But the Big Three’s collective staying power should make it clear to Medvedev and other young players that there is life after 30 on tour.Nadal has not only won 13 French Opens — a record that may never be broken — he has also won four U.S. Opens, two Wimbledons, two Olympic gold medals (one singles, one doubles), five Davis Cups and scores of other titles.But Sunday’s triumph was especially savory because it seemed so unlikely a few weeks earlier. Nadal’s foot condition, which had been slow to improve even after he had surgery on Sept. 11, had left him feeling powerless.Nadal said his condition, which affects a small bone in his foot, will never be entirely resolved, but he said it did not bother him in Melbourne as he chased down Medvedev’s drop shots and smacked forehand winners on the sprint.“His tennis I.Q. is off the charts,” his coach, Carlos Moyá, told L’Équipe, the French newspaper. “I don’t know if he’s the best player in the world, but he reads the game better than them all.”When an increasingly weary Medvedev began trying to shorten points with drop shots and unusually risky tactics, the message was not lost on Nadal.“I think that gave Rafa a lot of energy,’” Cahill said. “Just hang in there and keep pushing and pushing. You never know what’s going to happen.”Well, we know now, and it was extraordinary. More

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      After Australia, Djokovic Is Likely to Meet Problems in France and U.S.

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      With Novak Djokovic back in his native Serbia, unable to compete in the Australian Open because he is not vaccinated against the coronavirus, a big question mark looms over what comes next for the world’s top male tennis player.The French authorities said this week that players must be vaccinated to compete in the French Open — the next of the four Grand Slam tournaments, scheduled for May.If Mr. Djokovic refuses to get vaccinated, he is likely to miss a second major tournament in a row, reflecting a major shift in how public officials approach Covid requirements and potential exemptions. As emblematic as Australia’s refusal to give Mr. Djokovic special treatment has been, it might just be the beginning.The authorities in Spain, where Mr. Djokovic owns a house, have urged him to “lead by example” and get vaccinated. In Monte Carlo, where Mr. Djokovic also has a house, the organizers of a tournament that he has previously won said they were awaiting guidelines from the French government for the 2022 edition in April.Mr. Djokovic might be able to compete in Wimbledon in June, but under current guidelines he could be barred from competing in the U.S. Open a few months later, since foreign travelers must be vaccinated to enter the United States, with very limited exceptions.After France adopted a Covid pass law on Sunday requiring people to be vaccinated to enter restaurants, cinemas and sporting arenas, the country’s Sports Ministry said that no exemption would be made for athletes.“Who would understand if we asked our citizens to make an effort and respect the rules if we authorize some to get out of them?” Stanislas Guerini, the leader of President Emmanuel Macron’s party, said on French radio this week. He called Mr. Djokovic’s behavior in remaining unvaccinated “irresponsible.”The French Open is scheduled to begin on May 22, and Mr. Djokovic is chasing a record 21st Grand Slam title. He, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have each won 20.Mr. Djokovic is one of only three top-100 men’s players to be unvaccinated, and some of his rivals welcomed the French decision.“At least they’re saying, ‘OK, no unvaccinated players are allowed to play in the French Open,’” said Alexander Zverev, who is currently world No. 3 in men’s tennis. “We know that now in advance, and I can imagine there’s not going to be any exemptions, and that’s OK.” More

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      Novak Djokovic’s Fight to Play Tennis Unvaccinated Could Be Just Starting

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      The days-long battle to enter Australia to defend his Open title presages headwinds he may face if he attempts to travel the world without being vaccinated for Covid-19.Novak Djokovic has fought through adversity of his own and others’ making for as long as he has been playing tennis.He beat extraordinary odds to become a champion, emerging from the former Yugoslavia despite economic hardship and a conflict that turned Serbia, his homeland, into an international pariah and made it difficult for him to travel and train. Once on tour, he had to contend with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, well on their way to becoming two of the game’s greatest players. Djokovic caught up to them and now holds a career edge in both rivalries. He has also been ranked No. 1 for 356 weeks, a record.Djokovic, stubborn and resilient, has had tougher fights in his career than the one he has faced this month with the Australian government over his visa. But this battle, which continues, is unlike any other he has encountered. It could do him lasting damage despite his surprise victory in Australia on Monday, when a federal court overturned the revocation of his visa on procedural grounds. The ruling still does not guarantee he will not be deported by Australian immigration authorities ahead of the Australian Open, which begins next Monday.Djokovic’s five-day detention, ended by the court ruling, was a blink of the eye compared with the detentions of some longstanding asylum seekers with whom he shared his Melbourne hotel. Djokovic, unlike some of his fellow lodgers, was also free to leave the country at any time. But the experience had to be draining, and it came after a phenomenal but emotionally taxing season in which he came within one match of achieving a Grand Slam before losing the U.S. Open final to Daniil Medvedev. He was also beaten at the Olympics and the ATP Finals by Alexander Zverev.Serbian tennis fans and antivaccination protesters rallied outside the Park Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, in support of Djokovic. Diego Fedele/Getty ImagesBased on transcripts provided to the federal court, he landed in Melbourne near midnight on Wednesday with the seeming belief that all his papers were in order, including his medical exemption from vaccination. He soon learned otherwise.While it is highly unlikely that Djokovic, an outspoken skeptic of vaccines, will find himself sequestered again in any other country over visa issues, the trouble in Melbourne presages some of the headwinds he could face in the months ahead if he continues to attempt to travel the world without being vaccinated for Covid-19.Governments are running out of forbearance in instituting or debating vaccine mandates, and some tennis officials are running out of patience, too. And the pace and direction of the coronavirus pandemic and its variants are unknown.The next major events on tour after the Australian Open are the Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells, Calif., and Miami, which both start in March. But the United States now requires that visitors be fully vaccinated to travel to the country by plane unless they are U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents or traveling on a U.S. immigrant visa. Only limited exceptions apply, and it is unclear whether Djokovic would qualify for one or would even want to try to qualify for one after the Australian imbroglio.The French Open, which is the next Grand Slam tournament of the season after the Australian Open, begins in May and appears less problematic. The French sports minister, Roxana Maracineanu, told French national radio last week that she expected Djokovic would be allowed to enter the country and compete if unvaccinated because of the health protocols that are planned for major international sporting events in France.Djokovic’s family held a news conference on Monday in Belgrade, Serbia, after Djokovic was to be released from an immigration detention center in Melbourne after a court order.Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty ImagesBut in the same interview, Maracineanu emphasized that any athlete, French or foreign, who was a resident in France would be required to show proof of vaccination to have access to sports training facilities. That is a sign of which way the mistral is blowing. Some professional leagues have left loopholes in place, but gaps are also closing for the unvaccinated.Djokovic, who has long held nontraditional views on science and taken unorthodox approaches to his health, finds himself in the distinct minority with more than 90 percent of the top 100 players on the ATP Tour now vaccinated. If the ATP has made no official statements of public support for Djokovic during his detention, that might not be because Djokovic is now leading a new player group that has been critical of the ATP but because the ATP has pushed increasingly hard for its members to be vaccinated.In 2022, the tour will not require vaccinated players to take more than an initial test once they arrive at a tournament unless they develop symptoms. Unvaccinated players and team members will have to be tested regularly, and the tour will no longer cover the cost of follow-up testing for the unvaccinated.That will pose no hardship to Djokovic, who has earned about $154 million in career prize money and hundreds of millions more off court. But the tour rules do emphasize that Djokovic and the few remaining unvaccinated players are outliers.The Australian authorities have hardly wrapped themselves in glory during L’Affaire Djokovic. There were mixed signals, conflicting memos and other miscommunication between state and federal officials and Tennis Australia, which runs the Australian Open.If there had been a united, coherent effort that sent a clear message about the grounds for medical exemptions from vaccination, Djokovic’s overnight interrogation and visa cancellation could have been avoided.Djokovic after winning the Australian Open last year.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesHe most likely would not have risked going to Australia if he had understood that the federal government did not consider a recent case of Covid-19 to be grounds for an exemption. But while Djokovic won in court on Monday, he has undoubtedly lost support in some chambers of the court of public opinion, though he has become a martyr for the anti-vaccine movement and among his countrymen.The Novak Djokovic Standoff with AustraliaCard 1 of 4A vaccine exemption question. More

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      Iga Swiatek, Voted a Fan Favorite, Turns to the Finals

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      She shocked the sport when she not only won the French Open, but dominated it. Building Legos helps her relax.Iga Swiatek likes Legos and long books. Both help keep her mentally sharp for the grueling matches she plays on the WTA Tour.While quarantined in her hotel room for two weeks before the Australian Open in February, Swiatek, 20, completed the contents of two giant Lego boxes that she carried from her home in Poland. When she began competing at the United States Open in August, she was three weeks into reading “Gone with the Wind,” a long American classic.A year ago, after shocking the sport by winning the French Open without dropping a set (she lost just 28 games in seven matches), Swiatek became the lowest-ranked woman, at No. 54, to win the title. She was also the first player from Poland to capture a major and the youngest woman to win at Roland-Garros since then-18-year-old Monica Seles in 1992.Swiatek qualified for her first WTA Finals, the eight-woman championship, last year, but the event was canceled because of the pandemic. A year later, after winning the Adelaide International and Italian Open and reaching No. 4 in the world in September, Swiatek, now ranked No. 10, has qualified again.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.How disappointed were you when last year’s finals was canceled?I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed because last year was pretty tricky for me. I was happy that Roland-Garros was the last tournament because I could learn how to deal with all the new reality and new obligations. And it wouldn’t have been fair [to contest the finals] since there were so few tournaments and many players didn’t play. I know that the Covid situation and the break that we had on tour probably helped me a lot. I don’t know if I would have had the same success if we didn’t have Covid.Iga Swiatek returned a shot to Anett Kontaveit, of Estonia, during the third round of the U.S. Open in September. Last year, she became the lowest-ranked woman to win the French Open. Elise Amendola/Associated PressWhen you were a little girl, did you ever imagine being among the Elite Eight?I never thought about it because there are so many other players with great experience. But after I won Roland-Garros I had the feeling that anything could happen in tennis right now.In Guadalajara, you will be playing with pressureless tennis balls to combat the effects of the 5,000-foot altitude. How will you adjust?I have no idea. I have to try this. I played in Madrid (about 2,100 feet) for the first time this year, and my shots were flying like crazy. So we made some adjustments, and by the end I played really solid tennis. Guadalajara is going to be even worse, so I really need to get used to the conditions.In Indian Wells you had the chance to visit with Andy Murray, and now you want to practice with him. What do you want to learn?I told him we should practice on grass because, even though I reached the fourth round at Wimbledon this year, I feel like every day can be tricky on grass, and I need some more power and more experience to be solid there.You were voted the WTA’s fan favorite for your drop shot and your singles play. What did that mean to you?It meant a lot because when I have a hard time finding the motivation to practice I always remember that tennis is entertainment. I love playing in stadiums, especially when I win, and I love the support I get from people.You recently donated $50,000 in support of World Mental Health Day. What have you learned about yourself and your own mental wellness after traveling for so many years with your own sports psychologist?It’s hard to separate what I’ve learned from the new experiences I’ve had and from just growing up. When I won Roland-Garros I was 19, and that’s a period of life when you learn a lot about yourself even when you’re not an athlete. I feel like there is a pretty crazy mix between my personal and work life because being an athlete is a 24-hour job. But I wouldn’t change this experience for anything because I think it gave me a lot of knowledge about myself and wisdom that I can use later in life. More

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      For Barbora Krejcikova, Tennis Grew on Her

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      She first played for fun, but she has gone on to win the French Open and is half of a formidable doubles team.Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic never dreamed of a pro tennis career.She did not wallpaper her bedroom with posters of great Czech players, hit balls against a wall late at night while pretending she was playing match point at Wimbledon or spend hours as a 7-year-old working out in the gym. She did once, however, after winning a local junior tournament, receive an Andre Agassi promotional poster, but does not remember what she did with it.“I always loved tennis, always wanted to play, but only played for fun,” Krejcikova said in a video conversation last month. “I only realized later, when I was 16 or 17 and playing junior slams, that this was something that I would love to do. That I wanted to be in the same locker room as the superstars and play against them someday.”Three years ago, Krejcikova was ranked outside the world’s Top 200 in singles, but reached No. 1 in doubles with her countrywoman Katerina Siniakova. Now she is ranked a career-high No. 3 in singles and is the first player since another fellow Czech, Karolina Pliskova in 2016, to qualify for the WTA Finals in singles and doubles. Pliskova will also compete in the event, in Guadalajara, Mexico, which makes two of the eight singles players Czech.Krejcikova qualified by winning the French Open in June and reaching the quarterfinals at the United States Open and the round of 16 at Wimbledon.“What happened this season, it’s really hard to describe it,” Krejcikova said. “I mean, it’s just perfect. It was this amazing season and really my big breakthrough. I’m really glad that things went the way that they went.”Krejcikova, 25, is the latest in a long line of great Czech women tennis players. Vera Sukova reached the Wimbledon final in 1962. Martina Navratilova reached two major finals while representing Czechoslovakia in 1975, then won 18 majors, including nine Wimbledons, after she defected to the United States.Hana Mandlikova, Jana Novotna and, more recently, Petra Kvitová, are all major champions, and Pliskova, who reached the final at Wimbledon this year before losing to Ashleigh Barty, was ranked No. 1 in 2017. Sukova’s daughter, Helena, won 14 majors in doubles.Barbora Krejcikova, right, with her doubles partner, and fellow Czech, Katerina Siniakova, during a match at the U.S. Open in September.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesThe Czech Republic won the Fed Cup six out of eight years, from 2011 to 2018. Krejcikova made the team, playing doubles in 2018 and ’19. She made her singles debut in the competition, now renamed the Billie Jean King Cup, in Prague last week.“There is only one reason that so many Czech players have been successful, and it’s because the coaches there all teach good technique,” said Mandlikova, winner of four majors in the 1980s before she served as the coach of the 1998 Wimbledon winner Novotna who, in turn, became Krejcikova’s mentor. “Sometimes that takes a little longer to develop, but it stays with you for your whole life.”Krejcikova was not unknown as a junior. At 17 she won the 2013 European Junior Championships in singles and doubles. The same year, she and Siniakova captured junior doubles titles at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.Still playing together on the WTA Tour, the pair won the French Open and Wimbledon in 2018 and the French this year. They also won a gold medal at the Olympics in July. This is the third time they have qualified for the WTA Finals, where they were runners-up in 2018. Krejcikova is also a three-time Australian Open mixed doubles winner.“I remember when we played the Australian Open in 2020, she was in qualifying for singles and was ranked like 120, 130 in the world,” said Nikola Mektic, half of the world No. 1 doubles team. “To be Top 5 now is a major accomplishment for her. And she still keeps playing doubles and mixed, so hats off to her.”Krejcikova has been trying to improve her singles game. From 2014 to 2019, she played the qualifying tournaments at the four majors 16 times, advancing to the main draw only once. She trained for several years at the TK Agrofert Prostejov, the same club where Kvitova trained.“Petra is a legend,” Krejcikova said. “I used to watch her a lot, and I always wished that I could hit some balls with her. But then we were on the Fed Cup team together, and now I have a different perspective. It’s just crazy.”Kvitova said she believed that doubles success had made Krejcikova a better singles player. “It’s the variety of her game and how she is seeing it from the doubles as well,” said Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon winner. “She has a kick serve too which not many players have. And she has drop shots, slice, topspin, serve and volley, whatever, it’s all there.”In January 2014, when she had just turned 18 years old, Krejcikova and her mother, Hana Krejcikova, knocked on the door of Novotna’s house in Brno, looking for advice. Novotna agreed to work with Krejcikova.“I would say that the connection to her was a huge guiding light for me, and I really appreciate that she gave me her time and wanted to help me and not someone else,” Krejcikova said of Novotna, who died of cancer at age 49 in 2017. Because of Novotna, Krejcikova has become involved with the WTA’s Aceing Cancer campaign.“Even when everyone else was in the Top 100 and I was playing I.T.F.s [International Tennis Federation tournaments] and qualifying, she always told me: ‘Be patient, you’re going to be like me. Keep improving, and you’ll get there one day.’ And, out of nowhere, I’m here.” More

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      Chasing a Grand Slam: It’s Rarer Than You Think

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      Novak Djokovic has claimed this year’s Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon. Only the U.S. Open is left to be won. But no man has achieved a Grand Slam since 1969, and no woman since 1988.Most fans know about the tennis Grand Slam: winning the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open in the same calendar year. More

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      Naomi Osaka Is Talking to the Media Again, but on Her Own Terms

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      The tennis superstar is guest-editing Racquet magazine and has written a cover essay for Time. What’s left for traditional sports journalism?In early May, a couple of weeks before she tweeted that she wouldn’t appear at a required news conference at the French Open, Naomi Osaka was on a Zoom call with a writer for Racquet magazine who was trying to gain insight into the athlete’s inner life.Ms. Osaka said she’d gone to the protests in Minneapolis last year and had been moved by what she saw.“It was a bit of an eye opener,” she said of the experience, “because I’ve never had time to go out and do anything physically.”Ms. Osaka ignited a furious debate over the role of the tennis media with her announcement that she’d pay a $15,000 fine rather than attend a news conference that she said was bad for her mental health. Her decision, and the response from tennis officials, ended with her withdrawal from the French Open. The British tennis writer Andrew Castle called her decision “a very dangerous precedent” that would be “hugely destructive and a massive commercial blow to everyone in the sport.”If the freak-out over the cancellation of an inevitably boring news conference seemed a bit oversized, it was because Ms. Osaka didn’t just open a new conversation about mental health in sports. She touched a raw nerve in the intertwined businesses of sports and media: the ever-growing, irresistible power of the star. We journalists are touchy about retaining what is often pathetically minimal access to athletes. The media was once the main way that sports stars found fame, glory and lucrative endorsements, and a glossy profile can still play a role in elevating an obscure player. But the rise of social media and of a widening array of new outlets has produced a power shift, as my colleague Lindsay Crouse wrote in June, “redistributing leverage among public figures, the journalists and publications that cover them.”Ms. Osaka walked into the middle of that dynamic during the French Open. While tennis news conferences can be quite weird — some local journalist in the room amuses the traveling press by confusing one Russian player for another, or asks a particularly off-the-wall question — the mood is usually pretty sedate. Most players roll with them without complaint. And Ms. Osaka wasn’t being grilled about her personal life or her mental health. She was bothered by questions about her performance on clay courts. Another recent question concerned what she planned to wear to the Met Gala, a high-society Manhattan event of which she is a co-chair.She has become the best-paid woman in sports, earning about $60 million last year according to Forbes, and almost universally positive coverage hasn’t hurt her ability to build a portfolio that includes swimwear and skin care lines, two Nike sneakers and the Naomi Osaka bowl at Sweetgreen. And she drew broad and favorable coverage when she provoked a tournament into taking a day off to make a statement on police killings of Black Americans. She has a cover essay in the next issue of Time that is conciliatory toward the media even as it expands on her statements about mental health, a person familiar with it said.“The press is a willing accomplice to what most of these athletes are trying to accomplish,” said the Tennis Channel commentator Brett Haber.Ms. Osaka at the Australian Open. She set off a debate about the media’s role with her announcement at the French Open that she’d rather pay a fine than attend a news conference.Mackenzie Sweetnam/Getty ImagesI have an impulse to defend the need for athletes to give news conferences, on the principle that what Naomi Osaka does today, Joe Biden will do tomorrow. But there’s an additional layer that muddies the media’s position, which is that athletes are only talking to us because they’re under contract. “I’m just here so I won’t get fined,” the running back Marshawn Lynch groused repeatedly in a video Ms. Osaka also posted. There’s something a bit compromising in athletes appearing at a news conference not because they need, or even respect, the power of journalism but because a corporation is paying them to sit on the dais and reluctantly have no comment.Enterprising reporters can still get insight from news conferences, and many athletes don’t share Ms. Osaka’s stress about them. “It’s like pretty easygoing,” the Polish tennis player Iga Swiatek said last week. But while independent journalists can still deliver everything from breakthrough investigations to commentary, the role of journalism as a mere conduit for athletes’ words doesn’t make that much sense anymore. Ms. Osaka “could do a press conference on Instagram live if she wanted,” her agent, Stuart Duguid, told me.The ritual is “a relic of an era when they needed the press — when the press were the accepted conduit between athletes and the public,” a Guardian sportswriter, Jonathan Liew, said in an interview.But the Osaka story has broader resonance because sports, and the media that covers them, are often leading indicators of the direction in which we’re all headed. In 2007, Hillary Clinton’s top spokesman, Howard Wolfson, told me he was preoccupied with Major League Baseball’s site, MLB.com, and how the league had created a media entity that it totally controlled. Why couldn’t a politician and her campaign do the same, he wondered? It didn’t quite work for her, but by 2008, Barack Obama was producing videos far more compelling than anything the networks were making. In 2016, the Trump Show was the best thing on TV, syndicated to your local cable network.The assault on the independent sports media reached its peak with the 2014 introduction of The Players’ Tribune, with the promise of giving players their own voice. But that effort pretty much fizzled, selling to an Israeli media company in 2019. Though it occasionally published powerful essays, it mostly had that sterile quality of a glorified news release.Athletes’ more successful ventures into media have avoided taking on journalism directly. The model is the Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James, who has spent a decade building a media company that has done deals for TV shows and movies with HBO, Netflix, Warner Brothers and others. And at its best, these platforms can elicit more than you’d get at a news conference. Mr. James built his company, in part, on the insight that athletes would open up to one another, and “didn’t want to be asked questions that everyone should know the answers to,” said Josh Pyatt, the co-head of WME Sports, who has been at the center of building media companies for athletes.On a recent episode of “The Shop,” produced for HBO by Mr. James, the quarterback Tom Brady acknowledged the wooden quality of many athletes’ comments to the press.“What I say versus what I think are two totally different things,” said Mr. Brady, who co-founded another media company, Religion of Sports, with Michael Strahan, the former New York Giant and current “Good Morning America” host. “Ninety percent of what I say is probably not what I’m thinking.”Who wants that? But somewhere between the compulsory news conference and the glory days of Sports Illustrated, there’s space for a new independent sports journalism, one that reckons with the power athletes now wield on their own platforms but also retains a degree of journalistic independence that most of the athlete-owned media companies don’t attempt.That, at least, is the thinking behind Racquet, a gorgeous print tennis quarterly that started in 2016 with literary ambitions (the first issue included not one but two reconsiderations of the novelist David Foster Wallace) and has an ambitious, diverse roster of writers. Its next issue, due in August, will be guest edited by Ms. Osaka. It includes the interview with her (by Thessaly La Force, who is also a features director of T: The New York Times Style Magazine); an essay on the Japanese discovery, through Ms. Osaka, a Japanese citizen, of the Black Lives Matter movement; and a photo essay on the tennis culture in Ms. Osaka’s father’s native Haiti.An illustration for Racquet magazine that accompanies an interview with Ms. Osaka.Photo illustration by Johanna Goodman/Getty Images for Racquet MagazineA tennis media that revolves around daily news cycles is “still living in an age where pulling quotes from a presser makes a headline, makes a story,” said Caitlin Thompson, a former college tennis player and veteran journalist who is Racquet’s publisher and co-founder, with David Shaftel. “They’re not operating in a world where an athlete can reach more people and be more attuned to the larger cultural and social contexts than they are.”Racquet has tried to straddle those worlds. Its contributors include Andrea Petkovic, a top German player (and another Foster Wallace fan), and the Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas, who is also a photographer. But it also published a tough investigation of allegations of domestic abuse against the German tennis star Alexander Zverev. And Thompson said that younger players “understand what we’re doing because they’re children of the internet — they’re all Gen Z.” The Australian Nick Kyrgios, for instance, has a “context in which he wants to be seen, which is this kid playing Call of Duty between matches and being more into the Celtics than the men’s tour,” Ms. Thompson said. (The August Racquet issue also explores Ms. Osaka’s medium of choice, manga.)Ms. Osaka skipped Wimbledon, but she’s expected to be back for the Tokyo Olympics this summer. And the Racquet issue offers a bit of the texture of a young star’s strange life — between hotel rooms and tennis courts — that you would be hard-pressed to find at a news conference.Ms. Osaka sometimes describes herself as shy, but she told Racquet: “Tennis is a thing that I’m least shy about. At the end of the day, even if I don’t win that match, I know that I have played better than 99 percent of the population, so there’s not anything to be shy about.” More