Garcia, Caroline (1993- )

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    WTA Finals Finds a Last-Second Home in Mexico

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    Mexico landed the event this year at the last second, the third year in a row the tournament has been in limbo. That creates havoc with players’ schedules.It was early September, and Iga Swiatek had no idea where her season would end.For the third year in a row, the WTA Finals were in limbo through the start of the United States Open.“For sure, it’s pretty unfortunate and annoying we don’t have any decision yet,” Swiatek said in late August, shortly before the WTA announced that Cancún, Mexico, would host this year’s championship for the world’s top eight singles players and top eight doubles teams. “We, as players, are not involved in all of the discussions.”Professional tennis players are highly structured athletes who plan their schedules months, sometimes years, in advance. Because the WTA Tour competes in nearly 30 countries across six continents with barely an off-season, the women spend much of their lives on the road, crisscrossing time zones and navigating their complicated travel. Knowing when and where they are going to compete is essential to their well-being and injury prevention.In 2019, the WTA began what it thought was to be a 10-year deal for the Finals to be held in Shenzhen, China. When Covid hit the country was shut down. Then, when Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA, said the tour would not return to China until it could establish the safety and whereabouts of the former player Peng Shuai, who had disappeared after accusing a high-ranking government official of sexual abuse, the situation became precarious. Peng eventually resurfaced and retracted her claims of abuse.Now the deal is officially dead. The big question is, will it move to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and, if so, when?Current and former players have mixed feelings about moving the Finals to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesThe WTA board supported a move for this year, but it was scuttled before the announcement was made. Simon then traveled to Riyadh during the tour’s China swing earlier this month to work out details. But then war broke out in the Middle East, delaying an announcement.While the ATP Tour is playing its Next Gen ATP Finals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, starting at the end of November, there has been dissension among the women. Many current players, including Jessica Pegula, Aryna Sabalenka and Ons Jabeur, are willing to go.“Unfortunately, a lot of places don’t pay women a lot of money and, like a lot of women’s sports, we don’t have the luxury to say no to some things,” Pegula, a member of the WTA Players’ Council, said during the U.S. Open.“I think if the money was right and the arrangement was something that we could get behind, where we could go and create change, then I would be OK playing there,” she added.Maria Sakkari said she thought players needed to be more open-minded. “If the WTA can help women there move forward, then it’s a win for both of us,” she said by phone two weeks ago.Some former players don’t agree.“Why would the leading sport for women go to a country with such a poor track record for women’s rights?” Pam Shriver, a 10-time WTA Finals doubles winner with Martina Navratilova, said by phone. “They’re compromising a payout with core values.”Navratilova wants to see progress before play.“I’m all for opening up a dialogue,” Navratilova, also an eight-time WTA Finals singles champion, said by phone. “But I need to see a commitment to women. I want to know their goals and their education plans. You can’t just go in good faith. If they’re just going for money, it’s a big mistake. The WTA will lose credibility for looking the other way and ignoring Saudi’s human rights violations.”Sabalenka and Jabeur are scheduled to join Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz in an exhibition in Saudi Arabia called the Riyadh Season Tennis Cup in December. They will play at Kingdom Arena, which has a seating capacity of about 40,000.The cost of the tournament, including $9 million in total prize money, is to be divided among the WTA, the promoters and the state of Quintana Roo, where Cancún is.Daniel Berehulak for The New York TimesBy comparison, the WTA Finals will be played in a 4,300-seat temporary stadium in Quintana Roo. The venue, on the grounds of the Paradisus Cancún hotel, will also feature two on-site practice courts for the players. Operational costs are estimated to be $6 million, which includes building the stadium. The cost, including $9 million in total prize money, is to be divided among the WTA, the promoters and the state of Quintana Roo, where Cancún is.“Staging the WTA Finals in Cancún was one we could meet and tick off lots of boxes,” said Fabrice Chouquet, a director of the tournament. “The culture, the fans, giving players from around the world the opportunity to be in Mexico, where we have great weather and good conditions to host the event and vibrant hospitality because that’s also the signature of Mexico.”Two years ago, the Finals were held in nearby Guadalajara and won by Garbiñe Muguruza. Last year, after much delay in announcing the venue, the event was moved to the 14,000-seat Dickies arena in Fort Worth, which experienced a dearth of attendance until the final weekend. Caroline Garcia won the title.For more than 20 years from 1979-2000, the year-end championships were played at Madison Square Garden in New York and routinely attracted more than 15,000 fans.This year, total prize money for singles and doubles will be $9 million. If the champion goes undefeated in round-robin play, she will pocket $3 million.This year’s singles competitors include the Australian Open champion Sabalenka, the French Open winner Swiatek, the U.S. Open champ Coco Gauff, the Wimbledon winner Marketa Vondrousova, Elena Rybakina, Pegula, Jabeur and Sakkari. Karolina Muchova was the eighth qualifier, but she was forced to withdraw last week because of a wrist injury, allowing room for Sakkari.Sabalenka, Swiatek and Sakkari are playing for the third straight year, while Pegula, Gauff and Jabeur are second-year competitors. Rybakina and Vondrousova are making their Finals debut this year.One other issue facing the WTA Finals this year is its proximity to the Billie Jean King Cup, the international team competition for women, which begins in Seville, Spain, just two days after the end of the Finals in Cancún. Pegula, Gauff and Swiatek have declined to play in the King Cup. It is the second year that the two signature events have conflicted.“We’ve had our date for a long time,” said King in a video conference this month. “I think we all need to figure out a better calendar for the players and everybody knowing what’s going to happen because you can’t start making these decisions on the Finals in September. It’s only fair.”Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic has a busy end of the season.Sean M. Haffey/Getty ImagesThe issue is requiring masterful juggling, not to mention mental gymnastics, for Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic. After reaching the final in Zhengzhou, China, two weeks ago, Krejcikova flew 1,000 miles to Zhuhai, China, where she was the top seed in last week’s WTA Elite Trophy, a year-end competition for 12 top singles players and six doubles teams who just missed the cut for the WTA Finals.But Krejcikova and her partner, Katerina Siniakova, also qualified for doubles at the WTA Finals, which begins on Sunday. That requires a 9,000-mile trip from Zhuhai to Cancún.Then, as soon as the WTA Finals end, Krejcikova will fly yet another nearly 5,000 miles from Cancún to Seville for the Billie Jean King Cup. But she will at least have company as her Czech teammates Siniakova and Vondrousova are also playing in Cancún and Seville.Regardless of scheduling difficulties, travel headaches and the politics involved in choosing tournament sites, players who qualify for the WTA Finals relish the opportunity to compete.“I always felt that it was a celebration, a reward for a great season,” said Sakkari, who reached the semifinals last year with wins over Sabalenka, Pegula and Jabeur. “It’s huge. There are just seven other players there, and you’re playing against the best of the best. That’s very unique.” More

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      U.S. Open Draws Pave the Way for a Rematch of Djokovic vs. Alcaraz in Final

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      Novak Djokovic, the No. 2 seed, does not have an easy path to a 24th Grand Slam title, and neither does Iga Swiatek, the defending women’s champion.After a marathon match between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz on Sunday in the final of the Western & Southern Open in Ohio, Djokovic said he hoped to play Alcaraz again at the U.S. Open “for the crowd.”The crowd may get to see that rematch.The men’s and women’s singles draws for the U.S. Open, which begins on Monday in New York, revealed the path for Djokovic and Alcaraz to meet again in the final, which would also be a rematch of last month’s Wimbledon final, a thrilling five-setter that Alcaraz won after nearly five hours on the court.“Every match we play against each other goes the distance,” Djokovic said after the final on Sunday, adding that the match felt like a Grand Slam.Djokovic returns to New York after missing the U.S. Open last year because he was unvaccinated against the coronavirus and travel restrictions would not allow him to enter the United States. Now, with an injured Rafael Nadal and a retired Roger Federer not in his way, Djokovic will seek his 24th Grand Slam title and his third of the season after winning in Australia and France earlier this year.Djokovic, who will play Alexandre Muller of France in the first round of the tournament, will not have an easy path to the final. He could potentially face the No. 7 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in the quarterfinals, and in the semifinals, Djokovic could play Holger Rune of Denmark or Casper Ruud, the Norwegian who reached last year’s U.S. Open final.Alcaraz, who will face Dominik Koepfer of Germany in the first round, could also see some formidable opposition as he looks to defend his U.S. Open title. Alcaraz could play against Jannik Sinner of Italy in the quarterfinals, followed by one of two Russians, either Andrey Rublev or Daniil Medvedev, the 2021 U.S. Open champion.The women’s draw could also lead to several rivalries and rematches. Iga Swiatek, the No. 1 women’s player in the world, could end up in the final against Aryna Sabalenka, this year’s Australian Open champion.In defending her U.S. Open title, Swiatek could face Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals. Before this month, Swiatek had won seven matches against Gauff, but the 19-year-old American finally found a way to defeat Swiatek this month in the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open. Gauff went on to win the tournament for her first WTA 1000 title.On the other side of the draw, Sabalenka could play a quarterfinal match against Ons Jabeur, the Tunisian No. 5 seed who reached the U.S. Open final last year and lost in the Wimbledon final in July. In the semis, Sabalenka could meet either Caroline Garcia of France or Jessica Pegula, the American No. 3 seed.While both draws offer promising matchups, this year’s tournament will miss some big names: An injury has kept Nadal sidelined since the Australian Open, with hopes to return next year. Naomi Osaka, a two-time U.S. Open champion, will miss the tournament after giving birth to her daughter this summer, and Emma Raducanu, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, is out as she recovers from three minor procedures.Simona Halep, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, was withdrawn from the tournament because of a provisional suspension she received last year after she tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug during the 2022 U.S. Open.This year’s U.S. Open will also miss trick shots from Nick Kyrgios, who withdrew from the tournament because of a wrist injury.But despite the notable absences, the tournament will open with some strong first-round matches: Tsitsipas, who lost to Djokovic in this year’s Australian Open final, will start off against Milos Raonic, a Wimbledon finalist in 2016. Venus Williams, the 43-year-old seven-time Grand Slam champion, will play Paula Badosa, who won at Indian Wells in 2021. And Sloane Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion, will play in the first round against Beatriz Haddad Maia, a Brazilian player who has had a decent season, reaching the French Open semifinals this year and the round of 16 at Wimbledon. More

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      At Roland Garros, the French Get Behind Their Own

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      Had you been at Roland Garros around supper time Wednesday evening and heard the crowd of nearly 10,000 fans chanting Lucas Pouille’s name at a near deafening level, you would have assumed you had just missed a triumphant performance.Not even close. Pouille, a 29-year-old Frenchman, on the court named for Suzanne Lenglen, the French tennis star of the 1920s, lost in straight sets to Cameron Norrie, a Briton to add insult to injury, in less than two hours.No matter.For 105 minutes, the French faithful had serenaded Pouille and met his every winner with rousing roars. A four-piece band with a horn and a bass drum tooted and banged away between points. If you are French at the French Open, it’s what you do.Each of the four Grand Slam tournaments has its unique charms and intangible quirks, rhythms and characteristics.Fans waited for the Frenchman Arthur Fils to sign autographs after his first-round match on Monday.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesFrench flags fluttered in the stands during the Fils match.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesThe Australian Open is a two-week summertime party held when much of the world is shivering. Wimbledon has its mystique, the sense that the grass, especially on Centre Court, is hallowed ground, and the hear-a-pin-drop silence of the most proper of crowds. The U.S. Open delivers noisy chaos, the rattle of New York’s subways and the teeming crowds that joyfully ignore the idea that big-time tennis is supposed to unfold amid quiet.Roland Garros’s signature is the near limitless abandon with which the French fans unite behind anyone who plays under the bleu-blanc-rouge as the French standard is known. There are spontaneous renditions of the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” as though they are at Humphrey Bogart’s cafe in “Casablanca.”This happened after Pouille, once ranked 10th in the world and currently 675th following struggles with injuries and depression, beat Jurij Rodionov of Austria in the first round in waning light Sunday.“It made me want to keep working to get back and experience it again,” said Pouille, who stayed and listened to the serenade.When a French player is on the court — any French player, on any court — there is a distinctly louder, higher-pitched and fuller sound that rises from the stands. It’s like the crescendo of a symphony, over and over, hour after hour.Supporters of Alice Robbe of France serenaded her during a qualifying match last week.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesFils enjoyed the crowd’s backing after winning a game during his first-round match.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesAmazingly, it keeps going on even though the French have been mostly terrible at this event for a long while — or maybe that’s why it happens. A Frenchman has not won the singles tournament since Yannick Noah in 1983, or made the final since Henri Leconte in 1988. A Frenchwoman has not won since Mary Pierce in 2000, which was also the last time the country was represented in the women’s singles final.Albert Camus, the French philosopher, famously wrote that we must consider Sisyphus, the Greek mythology figure, to be happy, even though he spends his life repeatedly pushing a rock uphill because “the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.”Camus would have made a perfect modern French tennis fan.The zenith of this tournament for the French came Tuesday night as Gael Monfils, whose Gumby-like athleticism and ambivalent relationship with the sport have made him a tennis folk hero, came back from the brink to beat Sebastian Baez of Argentina in five sets.Monfils, 36, who has been battling injuries and played little the past year, cramped so badly in the fifth set he could barely walk. He fell behind by 4-0, but the crowd never relented and willed him back to life. The roars at the main court, Philippe Chatrier, could be heard more than a mile away. It was obvious what was unfolding simply by opening a bedroom window.Monfils told the crowd the victory was as much theirs as his after he prevailed 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 1-6, 7-5.The ecstasy ride ended 24 hours later when Monfils called a late-night news conference to announce his withdrawal from the tournament because of a wrist injury.Caroline Garcia, seeded fifth, seemed to be the French’s best hope of having their first women’s singles finalist since 2000.James Hill for The New York TimesGarcia lost her second-round match to Anna Blinkova of Russia in three sets, despite the encouragement of the crowd.James Hill for The New York TimesIt came at the end of an awful day for the French players, who dropped all their singles matches. That included Caroline Garcia, the fifth seed and the only seeded Frenchwoman.Garcia had spoken earlier in the week of trying to capture the enthusiasm of the crowd and use it to her advantage. In the past, she has experienced it as pressure that has caused her to disappoint in front of the hometown fans. She has never made it past the quarterfinals.“I try and take all of this energy,” she had said of the support. “It’s a great opportunity.”No such luck. Garcia was cruising, up a set and a break in her second-round match Wednesday against Anna Blinkova of Russia. But she tightened up and frittered away the lead. The crowd helped her draw even at 5-5 in the third set, rattling Blinkova into double faults as Garcia saved eight match points before she lost, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.“She managed the crowd very well and kept very calm,” Garcia said of Blinkova.There was more pain Thursday as French players lost their last three singles matches, but those uniquely throaty urgings were an accompaniment all the same. When the last Frenchman, Arthur Rinderknech, lost Thursday night to the ninth-seeded Taylor Fritz, the crowd booed Fritz so loudly he could not hear the questions during his on-court interview. And a year from now, the French fans will push the rock up the hill again, and again, and again.James Hill for The New York Times More

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      Caroline Garcia Has Been Rethinking Her Approaches to Tennis and Eating

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      Garcia is one of the world’s top players and poised to rise in the rankings. She started her season by publicly discussing her troubles with binge eating.MELBOURNE, Australia — The 2022 women’s tennis season was, on balance, Iga Swiatek’s campaign, but the finish belonged to another thoughtful star, one who likes to rip her groundstrokes at work and read in her spare time.Caroline Garcia, an acrobatic French polyglot, found her bliss last year: solving a chronic foot condition, addressing mental-health issues and committing to playing an all-out attacking style that not only made her feel complete and eager to compete but also paid off handsomely.In August, she became the first qualifier to win a WTA 1000 event, prevailing at the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio. In September, she reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open, and in November she capped the season by winning the elite WTA Finals in Fort Worth.It was her best season but also, behind the scenes, a trying season. When Garcia took a solo vacation to Bali, Indonesia, she felt the desire to share some details in a long, open letter on Instagram to her followers. “I’ve had sleepless nights, binge eating, cried in my hotel room, cried on tennis courts, been on crutches, swore, relearned to walk,” she wrote. She continued: “But I also learned from every moment, every difficulty.”When she returned to France, Garcia gave an interview to the sports publication L’Équipe in which she spoke openly about her struggles in recent years with her eating disorder and melancholy on the circuit.“I found refuge in food. These were moments of crisis. You feel so empty, so sad, that you need to fill yourself up. It was the distress of not being able to do what I wanted to on court, to no longer win and to suffer physically,” Garcia said. “Eating gave me peace for a few minutes. We all know it does not last, but it was an escape. It was uncontrollable.”Garcia feels better now, as she made clear upon arrival in Melbourne for the Australian Open to chase the next goal on her list: a first Grand Slam singles title.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Missing Stars: Carlos Alcaraz, Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios have all pulled out of the tournament. Alcaraz’s withdrawal means that the Australian Open will be without the men’s No. 1 singles player.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Holger Rune’s Rise: Last year, the 19-year-old broke into the top 10, but not without some unwanted attention. We spoke to the young Dane ahead of his second Australian Open.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.But she said she was surprised by the impact of her comments, not realizing that her new status as a top-five player would generate more interest in them.“I didn’t think it would be reported so widely,” she said last week, adding: “I felt comfortable to say it, but it’s true that after I saw so many things written about it, I felt a bit less comfortable than I had at the beginning.”The atmosphere and dialogue are indeed changing in elite sports, especially in pro tennis with stars like Naomi Osaka opening up about their psychological struggles and the emotional rigors of the tour. “Break Point,” the new fly-on-the-wall documentary series from Netflix, focuses heavily on the mental rigors of the sport, through leading players like Nick Kyrgios and Paula Badosa. “So much happens behind the scenes,” Garcia said. “So much more than people know.”Garcia said on Tuesday, after her convincing 6-3, 6-0 first-round victory over the Canadian qualifier Katherine Sebov, that Netflix had recently contacted her team to explore the idea of her taking part in the series.She remains undecided. “You have to weigh the pros and cons,” she said. “Because the process is rather intrusive, the way they film, and if you are not at ease with that, it serves no purpose to do it.”But Garcia, despite her uneasiness over the reach of her comments about eating, does think it has been helpful to share her story, not necessarily with the general public but with those close to her. She said her condition is bulimia, which often involves forced vomiting after a binge. Garcia said she did not vomit but took other extreme measures associated with bulimia, like fasting to avoid putting on weight after a binge.“I had accepted it and learned to cope with it,” she said. “My close people and my family and my team were totally aware. That’s the most important thing. You don’t necessarily need for the whole world to know to live with it well.”Alizé Cornet, a veteran French player and friend of Garcia’s, said she was unaware of Garcia’s troubles but said that many players go through “some form of depression” while on tour.“I feel like it’s almost obligatory process: to be able to bounce back and to know oneself and to get some distance from things,” Cornet said on Tuesday. She added: “I’m sad for her that she had to go through that, but when I see how she’s grown, it was perhaps something that was useful after all.”Garcia, 29, was pegged early for tennis greatness when the British player Andy Murray watched her win a set against the Russian star Maria Sharapova at the 2011 French Open and tweeted that Garcia was “going to be number one in the world one day.”Though Garcia has surged to No. 4 on two separate occasions (2018 and 2022), fixating on numbers and results played a role in her malaise. The nomadic life on tour made it easier to feel isolated and seek solace in food.“When you are alone, it’s harder to control,” she told L’Équipe. “And in tennis, we spend quite a bit of time alone in our room.”She added: “Sometimes it’s simply fatigue that makes your body crave sugar. Sometimes it’s unexplainable. I needed to fill myself up to compensate for the defeats and the suffering.”Garcia had a losing singles record in the 18 months before her run as a qualifier in Ohio, but she is flying as high as her signature airborne victory celebration now, despite the unexpected split with her coach Bertrand Perret in October, shortly before the WTA Finals.On her Instagram account, Garcia posted 10 photographs that, for her, encapsulated her 2022 season. One of the pictures was a close-up of her in tears that was taken in Mexico shortly after Perret’s decision to quit.“This photo was one of those numerous moments of doubt and sadness,” Garcia told L’Équipe. “There were others, but I did not take pictures of them.”Garcia is ranked No. 4 this week behind No. 1 Swiatek, No. 2 Ons Jabeur and No. 3 Jessica Pegula.For now, Swiatek’s position at the top remains formidable. Swiatek, who won eight singles titles in 2022, has more than double the points of Jabeur. But Garcia could close the gap as she has few ranking points to defend until August.Her main tennis goal is elsewhere, however. No Frenchwoman has won a major singles title since Marion Bartoli won Wimbledon surprisingly in 2013.At this stage, a Garcia victory in Melbourne would hardly be a shock, even if her ultra-aggressive, net-rushing style can certainly leave her more vulnerable to errors than others. She said she realizes that her bold, flashy game does not match her personality off the court. Despite her ranking, she said she was surprised to be scheduled on Rod Laver Arena, the Australian Open’s main court, on Tuesday. “Maybe it’s modesty,” she acknowledged. “But I didn’t expect it.”Her next center-court challenge on Thursday: a tricky second-round match with Leylah Fernandez, the plucky counterpunching Canadian who made the 2021 U.S. Open women’s singles final as a teenager.Cornet, beaten by Fernandez on Monday, likes Garcia’s chances on Wednesday and beyond.“It’s coming together, the pieces of the puzzle are in place,” Cornet said. “She’s 29 and mature and has gone through challenges and knows why she is here. She enjoys her time on the court more, and we can sense she’s a lot happier since last year. The stars are aligned. All she has to do is go chase that Grand Slam.” More

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      A Surprising WTA Finals Victory Mirrors the Year in Women’s Tennis

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      Caroline Garcia, ranked just 79th in May, won the season-ending championship and will finish at No. 4 in a year that saw Serena Williams and Ashleigh Barty retire.FORT WORTH — A sometimes shocking women’s tennis season neared an end here on Monday night with Caroline Garcia’s unexpected victory at the WTA Finals — one more surprise in a year full of them.In May, Garcia was ranked 79th in the world and was still recovering from chronic foot problems that had forced her to switch to a different brand of shoe. But the French veteran will finish the season at No. 4 after winning the biggest singles title of her career with a convincing victory, 7-6 (4), 6-4, over Aryna Sabalenka on Monday that capped a resurgent second half of the season.“I came from way back this year,” Garcia said in an interview near midnight conducted with one of her prizes — a new cowboy hat — perched on her head. “I would never have thought I’d be here today, but it was really a day-by-day project, and I progressively got more confident in my game again, and I started feeling better and better physically.”She needed all her quickness and agility to prevail in this elite tournament reserved for the top eight singles players. After losing in group play to tournament favorite Iga Swiatek, this year’s runaway No. 1, Garcia came within two points of elimination before winning her last round-robin match against Daria Kasatkina, a resourceful Russian who can defend brilliantly and likes to loop forehands and shift spins and paces.Sabalenka, a six-foot tower of power from Belarus with a large tiger tattoo on her left forearm, posed an entirely different challenge in Monday’s high-velocity final, which was full of big serves, full-cut winners and Sabalenka’s thunderous grunts. The margin for error was minimal, with both women ripping shots low over the net. Long rallies were rarer than aces and quick-strike groundstroke winners, and yet given Garcia’s yen for positioning herself inside the baseline and rushing the net, it was an eye-catching contrast in styles.An only child and self-described introvert, Garcia plays extroverted tennis: bold and often spectacular as she pounces on short balls and lunges to punch volleys or use her soft hands to generate more acute angles.“It’s true that being really sure of yourself in sports is an important factor,” she said. “But I think over the years I’ve become more mature and am more at ease with my mentality on the court, which is quite a bit different than who I am off the court, which is rather timid and reserved. It’s true I sometimes have had trouble harmonizing these two parts of my personality, but tennis helps you learn a lot about yourself, and I’ve gotten better at it this year.”More on Women and Girls in SportsHawaii Sex Discrimination: A lawsuit alleging Title IX violations at a Hawaii high school could be a landmark stress test for the law.Abuse in Women’s Soccer: The publication of the Yates Report, detailing “systemic abuse” throughout the sport, is only the beginning.Pretty in Any Color: Women’s basketball players are styling themselves how they want, because they can. Their choices also can be lucrative.Title IX’s Racial Gaps: Because race has never been part of the law, Title IX has heavily benefited white women over women of color.Though her game is high-risk, it translates to different surfaces. She was the only WTA player to win titles on clay, grass and hardcourts this year and also won the WTA Finals on the indoor court in Dickies Arena. She is the second Frenchwoman to win the season-ending singles championship since its inception in 1972, joining Amélie Mauresmo, the 2005 champion who also liked to attack and won her title in the United States.Mauresmo’s came in Los Angeles, Garcia’s in Fort Worth — a city she had barely heard of before the WTA announced it as the host less than two months before the tournament after it was moved from Shenzhen, China.“All I knew about was the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport,” Garcia said.But her first trip to Texas turned out to be a joyride, and Monday was so transcendent that she neglected to do her trademark “Fly with Caro” airplane celebration in victory.“It’s true! You’re right!” she said later when asked about it. “There was just so much emotion that I completely forgot the airplane. I’ll have to do it at the hotel or tomorrow.”Garcia’s run in Fort Worth came despite splitting with her coach Bertrand Perret, a key figure in Garcia’s revival. Perret quit shortly before the WTA Finals.“These last few weeks, there have been problems, and they ended up ruining the atmosphere,” he told L’Équipe, the French sports publication. “I do this job for pleasure and there was less of it.”Perret did not elaborate other than to say he had no problem with Garcia herself.Instead of folding, Garcia quickly rebuilt, arriving at the WTA Finals with a coaching consultant, Juan Pablo Guzman, and her parents, Louis-Paul and Mylène; Louis-Paul, long the architect of his daughter’s career, served again as the principal coach for the week.“Of course it was unexpected and complicated to handle,” Caroline Garcia said of Perret’s resignation. “I tried to rebound and keep in mind all the good memories we made this year and all we had worked on.”Much has changed this year in the women’s game. The season began with Ashleigh Barty entrenched at No. 1 after winning her home Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open, in January.In March, without playing another match, Barty shocked the tennis world by announcing her retirement from competition at age 25. Though ruling out a comeback seems imprudent considering how many tennis retirements have come undone through the decades, Barty insisted this week that she meant it. “You can never say never, but no,” she said of a comeback in an interview in Melbourne with the Australian Associated Press. “No, no, no. I’m done.”This was also the year that Serena Williams, now 41, likely bid farewell to the game that she once dominated, playing in her farewell U.S. Open and showing flashes of long-ago form in reaching the third round.Garcia made her deepest run yet at a major in that event, advancing to the U.S. Open semifinals before losing to Ons Jabeur in straight sets. Though Garcia had struggled to recapture that form in recent weeks, she said she used her U.S. Open disappointment for fuel in Fort Worth.“I think that experience served me well today,” Garcia said.She served magnificently in the final, never facing a break point and repeatedly coming up with aces and service winners on pivotal points to keep Sabalenka, a streaky and aggressive returner, from building momentum.Garcia, ranked just 79th in May, will finish the season No. 4.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesGarcia’s toughest service game came last, but though Sabalenka saved a match point with a backhand winner and pushed Garcia to deuce, Sabalenka could not generate a break point. When Sabalenka’s last forehand missed, Garcia tumbled to the court with delight while Sabalenka smacked her racket twice in anger on the indoor court. She embraced Garcia at the net and then took a seat, covered her head with a white towel and sobbed at length.Though she began the year ranked No. 2 in the world, Sabalenka failed to win a tournament in 2022 and was banned from Wimbledon, like all players from Russia and Belarus, because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The WTA Tour took a more inclusive tack, allowing those players to compete as neutrals, and they had a strong finish in Fort Worth, with Veronika Kudermetova of Russia teaming up with Elise Mertens of Belgium to win the women’s doubles title.The war continues, but Steve Simon, the WTA chairman and chief executive, said the tour intends to keep the door open for Russian and Belarusian players to compete as individuals in 2023 and will push for Wimbledon to restore access, as well.“We can’t condemn strongly enough the reprehensible actions of Russia against Ukraine,” Simon said. “But we will continue to stand for that principle, which is that our athletes need to be able to compete if they qualify for entry, irrespective of where they’re from.”Russia and Belarus are banned from team competitions, however, meaning that Sabalenka’s and Kudermetova’s seasons are over. Garcia will return to France to play in a playoff for the Billie Jean King Cup against the Netherlands, with matches in Le Portel on Friday and Saturday.She might not take off her cowboy hat until then.“It’s a nice souvenir,” she said Monday night. “And I got one just after I arrived here, so now I have two.” More

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      Ons Jabeur Will Play Iga Swiatek for the U.S. Open Women’s Singles Title

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      Top-ranked Swiatek will play for her third Grand Slam title. Jabeur, who lost this year’s Wimbledon final, will get another chance to win her first major title.There will be a new U.S. Open women’s singles champion this year, and Ons Jabeur and Iga Swiatek remained in contention in very different ways on Thursday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium.Jabeur needed just 66 minutes to dispatch Caroline Garcia, a quick-striking Frenchwoman who likes to imitate an airplane after her victories but was grounded by the weight of this occasion. Swiatek needed more than two hours to scrap and come back against Aryna Sabalenka, the Belarusian star who is a force of nature and one of the exceedingly rare ball-strikers powerful enough to dictate terms to the explosive Swiatek.But Swiatek, still the world No. 1 by a cavernous margin, found a way to navigate in heavy weather, rallying from losing the first set and from falling behind by 4-2 in the third to prevail by 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 and reach her first major final on a surface that is not red and slippery.She has won two French Opens on clay, the first out of close to nowhere in October 2020 and the other as the heavy favorite this June. But Swiatek, who has won six tournaments during this breakthrough season, can take her campaign and career to a new level if she can win her first hardcourt major on Saturday night.She said she was proud that she had learned to adjust on the run and at rest; sitting on changeovers with her eyes closed while trying to solve tennis riddles. It is a method she has long emphasized in her work with Daria Abramowicz, her performance psychologist.“Earlier I felt like my emotions kind of were taking over and I was panicking a little bit when I was losing,” Swiatek said. “For sure I grew up. I learned a lot, and the work we’ve put in with Daria for sure helped. Right now it’s just easier for me to actually logically think what I can change. And I feel like I have more skills to do that than one type of way to play. So I’m pretty happy that it changed because I think that’s basically the most important thing on the highest level.”Jabeur has also worked on her body and mind and has been rewarded with the best season of her career. Sitting at No. 2 in the yearlong points race behind Swiatek, Jabeur, whom her fellow Tunisians have nicknamed the Minister of Happiness, brought some more sunshine to her country and her season on Thursday.Garcia had the hottest hand in tennis with a 13-match winning streak. But Jabeur met the moment with power and precision; with variety and guile. She won the first set in 23 minutes as Garcia pressed and Jabeur slammed aces and chipped backhands that skidded low on the blue Arthur Ashe Stadium hardcourt.She closed out the match, 6-1, 6-3, d punctuating the rout with a shout and a tumble before rising quickly to embrace Garcia, a friend, at the net.Jabeur, who is good company as well as an increasingly great tennis player, has many friends on tour. And there is much to celebrate. After reaching her first Grand Slam singles final in July at Wimbledon, where she lost to Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, Jabeur has followed that up with a run to the final in New York.But Swiatek, 21, deserves to be the favorite on Saturday, even though she and Jabeur have split their four previous matches and Jabeur has had a more straightforward run to her first U.S. Open final.“Two in a row feels amazing,” Jabeur said in her on-court interview. “After Wimbledon, there was a lot of pressure on me, and I’m really relieved that I can back up my results.”Jabeur, seeded fifth after being ranked as high as No. 2 earlier this year, is not only a symbol for Tunisia. She is a symbol for a region and a continent as the first Arab and African woman to reach a U.S. Open singles final.“I take it as a great privilege and as good pressure for me,” she said in a recent interview. “I love that I have that kind of support, and I always try to be positive in my life and see even bad things in a positive way. I don’t just play for myself. I play also for my country.”But the goal, as Jabeur’s poised and relentless performance made clear Thursday, is a first major title. She has made her serve a bigger weapon and though Garcia leads the tour in aces this season, Jabeur had the edge on Thursday, finishing with eight aces to Garcia’s two. Though her first-serve percentage was below 50 percent, she won 83 percent of the points when she put her first serve in play while Garcia, who played far below the level she had shown in recent weeks, struggled to win points quickly with her serve. Garcia finished with 23 unforced errors and just 12 winners despite her aggressive tactics. Jabeur had 21 winners and 15 unforced errors.“She knows now where she’s going, and she knows now what she wants,” said Melanie Maillard, a French performance psychologist who has worked with Jabeur since 2016. “She’s given herself the means. She’s dedicated and so determined.”Jabeur was poised and relentless, closing out the match in 66 minutes.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesIt has been a long haul for Jabeur, 28, to believe that someone from a modest background and a nation that had never produced a top-10 tennis player could hit the highest notes in a global sport. She spent long stretches training in France and away from home despite her close connections with her family and her roots.But Jabeur knew what she had been hearing since her youth about her talent: her innate feel for the ball; her capacity to create angles and change speeds and spins, even on the move.“I’ve always believed in mental coaching,” Jabeur said. “I had a mental coach since the age of maybe 12 or 13, long before Melanie, but we’ve been working together with Melanie for a long time, and I’m very lucky I found the right person who could push me through and know me much better. It’s all about the connection between both of us. We did a great job, and we’ve come a long way. But I’ve always been someone who believed in the importance of mental health.”As at Wimbledon, Maillard was in Jabeur’s player box on Thursday night alongside Jabeur’s coach, Issam Jellali, and Jabeur’s husband, Karim Kamoun, who is also her fitness trainer.”Though Thursday’s duel in Ashe Stadium represented new ground for Jabeur and Garcia — neither had been in a U.S. Open semifinal — it also was a flashback. They were junior rivals who played in the U.S. Open girls event in 2010 in the quarterfinals and also played three more times in junior Grand Slam events.Jabeur won all those matches and has now beaten Garcia three times on the pro tour, all in major tournaments. Garcia said that though Jabeur’s spin and variety clearly posed her problems, she was not thinking back during Thursday’s defeat:simply struggling in the present to find solutions and let her game flow freely.“It helped and not at the same time,” Jabeur said of her long-running head-to-head edge. “Because I know she was playing amazing tennis, and that puts a lot of pressure on you.”The pressure should be bigger still against Swiatek, who is gathering strength after failing to win a title since the French Open. Against Sabalenka, Swiatek’s quality of defense and returns ultimately made the small difference, and though Sabalenka has shored up her faltering serve in New York, she was still unable to put first serves in play when she needed them most in her closing service games.The loss hit her hard. Sabalenka arrived at her post-match news conference wearing mirrored sunglasses and kept them on for the entirety of her interview as she spoke in tones much more subdued than her high-intensity, high-volume approach to thumping tennis balls.This was a big opportunity indeed: a wide-open major tournament. But only two players still have a chance to win it, and it seems fitting that they have been, on balance, the two best players of the season.“She has different game style than most of the players,” Swiatek said of Jabeur. “She has a great touch. All these things mixed up, she’s just a tough opponent. She fully deserves to be in the final. I think it’s going to be a great battle.” More

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      U.S. Open Semifinals: The 4 Women Left

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      Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesCaroline Garcia, 28, of France, beat Gauff on Tuesday, adding to an exceptional summer that has included victories in Cincinnati, Warsaw and Bad Homburg, Germany. She also reached Wimbledon’s round of 16, but this will be her first Grand Slam semifinal. More

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      Coco Gauff Drops U.S. Open Quarterfinals Match to Caroline Garcia

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      Garcia, the No. 17 seed from France, beat the 18-year-old American, who was playing her first quarterfinal at the U.S. Open, in straight sets.So how do you say steamroller in French?It is a fine time to find out because nothing has been able to stop Caroline Garcia of late: Not even the rising American Coco Gauff and a packed partisan crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium.Garcia, a 28-year-old from the French city of Lyon, did not appear unsettled in the least on Tuesday.In her first night-session appearance in the biggest stadium in tennis, Garcia swept the first four games of this U.S. Open quarterfinal in just 17 minutes to take quick command and then rumbled to a 6-3, 6-4 victory with timely serving, deft volleys and big baseline hitting that routinely paid dividends.“It was super important to get a quick start,” said Garcia, concerned about keeping the latest sellout crowd of 23,859 at Ashe from making her life more difficult.“That was the goal,” she said. “That crowd can get fired up very quickly.”Garcia subdued them by playing the same brand of aggressive, attacking tennis that had carried her to 12 straight victories this summer.Make it 13.“I just go for my shots, even when I’m stressed and don’t feel it,” she said in her on-court interview after the match. “The way to improve for me is to move forward, and I just try to flow that way.”While Gauff, 18, did manage to narrow the gap after Garcia’s opening salvo, she could never manage to stop Garcia’s momentum. A Gauff run to the title here this year would have had powerful narrative arc. Gauff, a Black prodigy from Florida, was inspired to take up the game by the success of the Williams sisters, and Serena Williams, soon to celebrate her 41st birthday, played what was likely her final official match last week in a third-round defeat in Queens.This would have been quite the time for a torch passing, and Gauff may well run with it someday. But despite reaching the French Open final in June, she still needs to shore up some aspects of her big game. She remains prone to double faults and had six more on Tuesday as she won just 27 percent of her second-serve points.Ranked No. 1 in doubles, Gauff has a terrific net game but is still learning to make the right choices on when to push forward. She also made too many unforced errors from the baseline, leaning back as she tried to counter Garcia’s percussive strokes and often getting unsettled by the pace.Gauff had beaten Garcia in their previous two singles matches, but Garcia and her doubles partner, the Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic, defeated Gauff and Jessica Pegula in the French Open women’s doubles final in June: a victory that helped relaunch Garcia. Ranked outside the top 70 in singles after Roland Garros, she has simplified her approach with great success under the coach Bertrand Perret. It is grip-it-and-rip-it tennis, designed to overwhelm the opposition, but there is also great technical skill and timing involved as she stands sometimes three steps inside the baseline to smack returns.“I would say she’s definitely striking the ball much better,” Gauff said. “Kudos to her, and her team because I think she’s gotten a lot better since the last time I played her.”It was the first U.S. Open quarterfinal in singles for both players, and now Garcia, seeded 17th but playing much better than that, will face Perret’s former pupil Ons Jabeur in her first Grand Slam semifinal on Thursday.“Of course he knows her well, but that goes back a few years now,” Garcia said. “Everybody knows everybody on tour. I’m not sure he is a secret weapon. I think our main goal will be to see how I can put my game in place.”Jabeur, a Tunisian seeded fifth, advanced earlier on Tuesday by stopping Ajla Tomljanovic’s run in the quarterfinals by 6-4, 7-6 (4).Tomljanovic, an unseeded Australian who is based in Florida, recorded the biggest victory of her career when she defeated Williams in a gripping, emotional three-setter on Friday night.She then, to her credit, backed that up by defeating Liudmila Samsonova of Russia in the fourth round, but in her return to Ashe Stadium she could not win a set against Jabeur, who reached the Wimbledon final in July, delighting the Centre Court crowd along the way with her acrobatic footwork and taste for drop shots.Jabeur, like Garcia, is 28, and they have known each other since their junior days, some of which Jabeur spent based in France. They are on friendly terms and speak French together, but they have never faced each other in a match of this import.“It’s a big challenge in front of me,” Garcia said. “We go back a long way, and she has a special game that you don’t often see on the tour. She has had a solid year and has that experience now in these big matches like Wimbledon. So it’s going to be very interesting to see how we can find a solution to counter her.”Caroline Garcia continued playing the aggressive, attacking tennis that has now carried her to 13 straight victories this summer.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesMichelle V. Agins/The New York TimesGarcia, long considered a promising junior in France, put herself on a bigger map early at age 17 by going up a set and 4-1 on the Russian superstar Maria Sharapova in the second round of the 2011 French Open. The British star Andy Murray, who follows women’s tennis closely, tweeted during the match that “the girl Sharapova is playing is going to be No. 1 in the world one day.”That was quite a leap of faith, and Sharapova eventually came back to win. Garcia, flattered by Murray’s comment but not remotely ready to start living up to it, needed more time. She reached No. 4 in the world in 2018 before fading. But she has roared back this summer and now has six straight victories over top-20 players after losing the previous 12.She was asked on Tuesday night if Murray, despite his good intentions, had hurt her with his grand prediction.“Yes,” she said with a grin. “I’m very happy that he thought that at the time, but I was 17 and ranked 150 or 200, and I was capable of producing this level for a match but not capable to produce it other weeks. At first, I put pressure on myself, saying I wanted to play like that, and that’s when things went wrong.”Not much has gone awry in New York. It is no easy task to overpower Gauff, one of the best defenders and quickest movers on the women’s tour. Gauff will break into the top 10 in singles next week for the first time.“She is of course very fast,” Garcia said of Gauff in an interview on the eve of the match. “But my game can negate that, because I am not looking to get in too many long rallies.”So it turned out. The average rally length was 3.53 shots. After winning the title as a qualifier at the Western and Southern Open in Mason, Ohio, last month, Garcia has not come close to dropping a set in five matches at the U.S. Open.And in case you’re still curious, steamroller in French is rouleau compresseur. More

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      A Surprising Year Could Culminate in a Surprising U.S. Open

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      Two unseeded players won in a big U.S. Open warm-up tournament, another unexpected result in an odd tennis season.Who is going to win the United States Open, which starts next week? Given the results over the weekend in an important warm-up tournament near Cincinnati, the answer seems like it could be “almost anyone.”Though the fields were strong, both the men’s and women’s singles tournaments in Ohio were won by unseeded players. The men’s winner was Borna Coric of Croatia, ranked 152nd in the world last week after being injured for a year and returning in March. The victory made him the lowest ranked player ever to win a Masters 1000, the elite events rated just below the Grand Slams.Along the way, he beat the 2, 4, 7, 9 and 15 seeds. Did he think there was a chance to win going in? “Absolutely not,” he said.The women’s winner was Caroline Garcia of France, the 35th-ranked player last week. She became the first qualifier ever to win a WTA 1000 title and beat the 4, 6 and 7 seeds to do so. “It’s hard to believe I am standing here today; it’s been such a week,” she said in her post-match speech.The results continue an unexpected year in tennis. The previous men’s Masters 1000 event, in Montreal, was also won by an unseeded player, Pablo Carreño Busta of Spain. The seven 1000 events this year have had six different winners. (Carlos Alcaraz won two but has never made the semifinal of a Grand Slam event.)The men’s Grand Slam events have been won by the familiar duo of Rafael Nadal (Australian and French Opens) and Novak Djokovic (Wimbledon), but at ages 36 and 35 their dominance seems to be wavering. They each had to survive at least one five-set match on their way to their Grand Slam titles this year. And Nadal, who lost to Coric last week, has been dealing with an injury to his abdomen that led to his withdrawal from Wimbledon.On the women’s side, Ashleigh Barty won the Australian Open as the top seed, then retired. Iga Swiatek of Poland seemed to take up her mantle, going on a run earlier in the year that culminated in a French Open win and the No. 1 ranking. Then she lost in the round of 32 at Wimbledon and the round of 16 in both Toronto and Cincinnati. The Wimbledon winner was Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the second-lowest-ranked woman ever to win there at No. 23.Caroline Garcia of France won the Western & Southern Open on Sunday. She became the first qualifier ever to win a WTA 1000 title.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAt the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 29, the bookmakers are keeping the faith with Djokovic as the men’s favorite at about 8-5. If he plays. His vaccine status means he may not even be allowed in the country. And the No. 2 player in the world, Alexander Zverev, is out after an ankle surgery.Daniil Medvedev is the next choice at about 5-2, probably in large part because he is the reigning champion. He hasn’t won a big event this year and is the No. 1 player almost by default. After that come Alcaraz, Nadal and Nick Kyrgios. Coric is 35-1. Particularly if Djokovic is out, the tournament result looks much more uncertain than usual.Despite her recent struggles, Swiatek is the 3-1 favorite on the women’s side, perhaps for lack of a better option. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. Most oddsmakers have Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep, Coco Gauff and the defending champion, Emma Raducanu, all in the 7-1 to 16-1 range, plus at least another eight or 10 players with a real shot at 22-1 or less, including Rybakina and Garcia.Generally, tennis fans put a fair amount of stock in the hardcourt warm-ups for the U.S. Open, if not to show the winner at least to point out players to watch. The upset-filled events this year could be a harbinger for a U.S. Open full of surprises. More