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      In Comebacks, Serena Williams Showed ‘You Can Never Underestimate Her’

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      Big moments on the biggest stages cemented Williams’s reputation as the queen of comebacks.During the 2012 U.S. Open final, Serena Williams was so close to losing that the idea of a comeback seemed out of the question.Her opponent, Victoria Azarenka, had gone up 5-3 in the final set, giving her numerous ways to put Williams away.“I was preparing my runners-up speech,” Williams said.Instead, she delivered what became a signature comeback of her career, breaking Azarenka’s serve twice and winning the championship without losing another game.The significance of that victory went beyond the title itself, as it turned around a year in which she had lost in the first round of the French Open. And as Williams comes close to retiring, that win illustrates how many fans will remember her tennis career — Williams coming back time and again under difficult circumstances.Here are some of the moments that helped Williams build that reputation.Australian Open, 2007Dean Treml/Agence France-Presse – Getty ImagesAfter struggling with a knee injury for much of 2006, Williams went into the 2007 Australian Open unseeded and ranked No. 81. But she went on to win the tournament, defeating Maria Sharapova.“She goes months without playing a match, loses in a tuneup and then runs the table,” Jon Wertheim, a Tennis Channel commentator and author, said.Pam Shriver, an ESPN tennis analyst, said that Williams entered the Australian Open that year in poor shape, but that by the end of the tournament, “she almost looked like a different player.”“That was one of the most memorable comebacks that I can remember that resulted in a major championship,” Shriver said.After the match, Sharapova said to the crowd in Rod Laver Arena that “you can never underestimate her as an opponent.”“I don’t think many of you expected her to be in the final, but I definitely did,” Sharapova said.2011 Health ScareChris Trotman/Getty ImagesIn February 2011, Williams was hospitalized with a pulmonary embolism. Williams recovered in time to play Wimbledon, and later revealed the seriousness of her health scare.“I was literally on my deathbed at one point,” Williams said at the time. The circumstances, she said, changed her perspective, and she went into Wimbledon that year with “nothing to lose.”Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Decades of Greatness: Over 27 years, Serena Williams dominated generation after generation of opponents and changed the way women’s tennis is played, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and cementing her reputation as the queen of comebacks.Is She the GOAT?: Proclaiming Williams the greatest women’s tennis player of all time is not a straightforward debate, our columnist writes.An Enduring Influence: From former and current players’ memories of a young Williams to the new fans she drew to tennis, Williams left a lasting impression.Her Fashion: Since she turned professional in 1995, Williams has used her clothes as a statement of self and a weapon of change.Williams made it to the round of 16. Then, she won her next two tournaments, the Bank of the West Classic in California and the Rogers Cup in Canada. She finished her year by reaching the U.S. Open final, where she lost to Samantha Stosur.“That comeback was unbelievable,” Shriver said. “No matter the score, no matter whatever, she still thought she could win.”2012 Summer RunDoug Mills/The New York TimesWilliams was eliminated from the 2012 Australian Open in the round of 16, and she was upset at that year’s French Open, where she was knocked out in the first round.“When she lost in the French Open in the first round, the career buzzards came circling,” Wertheim said. “There were plenty of times her career was supposed to be over, and she came back. The obvious one is 2012.”Williams responded to the losses by training under a new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, who went on to work with her for the next decade.And after that French Open, Williams went on a streak. She won Wimbledon before taking the gold medals in women’s singles and doubles at the London Olympics, and then she delivered her win against Azarenka at the U.S. Open, “playing some of the most inspiring tennis of her career,” Wertheim said.French Open, 2015Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesAt the French Open in 2015, Williams lost the first set of three consecutive matches. Each time, she came back to win in three sets.“Opponents were points away from eliminating her, and Serena simply refused to go off the court anything other than the winner,” Wertheim said.Williams went on to win the semifinal while dealing with a bout of the flu.The day after the semifinal, still sick, Williams said she briefly thought about withdrawing from the final.“Out of 10 — a 10 being like take me to the hospital — I went from like a 6 to a 12 in a matter of two hours,” she said at the time. “I was just miserable. I was literally in my bed shaking, and I was just shaking, and I just started thinking positive.”Williams won the final for her 20th major singles title.Pregnancy ComebackClive Mason/Getty ImagesIn 2017, Williams surprised the tennis world when she shared that she had won that year’s Australian Open while she was close to two months pregnant.Williams missed the rest of the 2017 tennis season, and had another major health scare after she gave birth to her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian. Williams was bedridden for her six weeks after she had blood clots in her lungs. Severe coughing caused her cesarean section wound to open. And doctors found a large hematoma, a collection of blood outside the blood vessels, in her abdomen.She returned to tennis in 2018, when she reached the Wimbledon final (where she lost to Angelique Kerber) and the U.S. Open final (where she lost to Naomi Osaka). The following year, she reached the Wimbledon final (losing to Simona Halep) and the U.S. Open final again (losing to Bianca Andreescu).“To have a child in the north half of your 30s and reach four major finals is an extraordinary feat that hasn’t gotten the full due,” Wertheim said.The Farewell ComebackHiroko Masuike/The New York TimesWilliams was forced to withdraw early in her first-round Wimbledon match last year because of an injury. She was given a standing ovation as she walked off the court in tears, as many began to wonder whether it would be the last time Williams would appear at the All England Club.She returned to Centre Court at Wimbledon this year but was defeated in the first round. She continued to struggle after that, losing early in the tournaments she has entered. At the National Bank Open in Toronto, Coco Gauff said that she was moved by how Williams has continued playing and “giving it her all.”“There’s nothing else she needs to give us in the game,” Gauff told reporters. “I just love that.”Williams will attempt one more comeback at this year’s U.S. Open. Along with her singles draw, she will also play in the women’s doubles tournament, partnered with her sister Venus. While we wait to see how this comeback takes shape, one certainty, Shriver said, is that Williams will be playing with the support of her fans.“The crowd is going to be crazy,” Shriver said. “I think the noise on a Serena win will be some of the loudest noise we’ve ever heard at the U.S. Open.” More

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      in Soccer

      Two Chances, Two Goals and Two Wins for Germany

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      Spain had more of the ball and did more with it. But Germany, the standard of excellence at the Euros, did enough to reach the quarterfinals.LONDON — It was the ruthlessness that caught the eye in those few vital moments, the cold and clinical efficiency of it all.Spain looked, in many regards, to be a better team than Germany at the European women’s soccer championships on Tuesday night. It had more of the ball and did more with it, and it offered more style and more industry and, at times, even a bit more bite. And in a showdown that was widely seen as a meeting of a continent’s soccer past — Germany has won this tournament a record eight times — and its soccer present, it was Spain that, for frequent stretches, offered a glimpse at European soccer’s future.The problem for Spain, though, was that it gave up two golden chances, Germany pounced on both of them, and that was that. The Germans won, 2-0, to claim a place in next week’s quarterfinals, and the Spanish were left to wonder if this tournament would really be their coming-out party after all.“There were two big mistakes that we paid for,” Spain Coach Jorge Vilda said, “but we know that’s how it is against Germany.”These are already looking like the Euros of What Could Have Been for Spain: if the veteran Jenni Hermoso hadn’t sprained a knee ligament a month before the tournament; if the world player of the year, Alexia Putellas, hadn’t torn a knee ligament only days before the opener; if this cross had delivered a little more bend and that shot had arrived with a bit more curl.Center backs Marina Hegering, left, and Kathrin Hendrich helped Germany post its second shutout at the Euros.John Sibley/ReutersGermany has had nothing of those concerns. Its deep and talented team merely went about its work again on Tuesday: clearing the shots that needed clearing, saving the ones that sneaked through, winning the battles that needed winning. Style points hardly mattered when the final whistle blew. Germany, which has scored six goals and surrendered none since arriving in England, had what it had come to take.In some ways, oddly, Spain’s second game at the Euros was an improvement over its first. In its opener, it had conceded a goal in less than a minute. On Tuesday, it took nearly three to do the same.The goal had come seemingly out of nothing: Spain was calmly working the ball around the back, maneuvering out of some pressure, when goalkeeper Sandra Paños collected it in her goalmouth and fired a clearing ball directly into Germany forward Klara Bühl’s midsection. Bühl settled the ball, sidestepped a defender and coolly slotted it under Paños and into the side netting.Goalkeeper Sandra Paños and Spain surrendered an early goal for the second game in a row.Dylan Martinez/ReutersStunned by an early goal for the second game in a row, Spain dusted itself off and went back to work. In its opening game against Finland, it atoned for its early mistake by scoring four goals. On Tuesday, it went searching for them again, controlling possession by more than two to one, completing several hundred more passes than the Germans, stroking the ball around the grass in a soothing geometry of neat zigzags and diamonds and triangles.But the goals never came. And then, about a half-hour after the first goal, Germany won a corner, fired it toward the forehead of striker Alexandra Popp and watched her nod it past Paños. Spain led nearly all the statistics by then, including oohs and ahs, but trailed in the only one that truly mattered.Germany’s victory was more than symbolic: By winning and taking control of Group B, Germany most likely will avoid a quarterfinal meeting against England, which thrashed Norway on Monday night, 8-0, in Group A — even if that collision arrives eventually.“In Europe, we have the best teams in the world,” defender Marina Hegering said. “If you want to reach the final, you have to beat everyone.”On the other side, the defeat came on what was already a grim day for Spanish women’s soccer. Hours earlier, F.C. Barcelona, Putellas’s club team, had confirmed that her knee had been repaired by a surgeon, but that she would most likely miss as much as a year while she recovered. Her injury already has affected Spain’s prospects at these Euros. Now it might bleed into its hopes at next summer’s World Cup.But that is a tomorrow problem for Spain, which will look to bounce back against Denmark on Saturday, and hopefully again after that in what is now a looming quarterfinal against England.Germany, meanwhile, marched methodically ahead with its second straight shutout, looking like soccer’s past still has quite a bit more time to go. More

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      in Soccer

      World Cup 2022: What to Know as Teams Prepare for Qatar

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      The World Cup draw is Friday in Qatar, even though the entire field isn’t yet complete. While we don’t know all the teams, we do know quite a bit about how things will play out. Here’s a primer on the world’s greatest sporting spectacle.When is the World Cup?The opening match is Nov. 21 (three days before Thanksgiving in the United States). Over the month that follows, all the games will take place in a tight circle of eight stadiums in and around Qatar’s capital, Doha, making it the most compact World Cup in history.The final is Dec. 18 — a week before Christmas, which means the Doha airport on the morning of Dec. 19 is going to look like the entrance to a Walmart on Black Friday.Wait, don’t they play the World Cup in July?They always had, until Qatar got it.Qatar, like the other bidders, initially proposed holding the tournament in its normal summer window, and brushed aside any suggestion it could not do so with the help of cooling technology that did not, at the time, exist. As The Times wrote on the day of the vote in 2010:“Qatar’s bid overcame concerns about heat that can reach 120 degrees there in the summer. Officials say they will build air-conditioned stadiums, spending $4 billion to upgrade three arenas and build nine new ones in a compact area connected by a subway system.”It took more than four years, but in 2015 FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, eventually concluded that a summer World Cup in 120-degree temperatures might bring unneeded problems (like, say, fans and players dying) and agreed to move the tournament to the relatively cooler months of November and December.The Education City stadium in Al Rayyan, one of eight built or remodeled for the 2022 World Cup.David Ramos/Getty ImagesWhat about the league games that normally take place then?Oh, the leagues grumbled. A lot. But they lost.The switch to winter will disrupt not only league competitions in Europe and elsewhere, but also the lucrative UEFA Champions League, and it will require starting seasons earlier or finishing them later, or both.A winter World Cup also would leave those professionals who do not go to Qatar — less than 800 of the world’s players take part — with a midseason break that could extend to two months, once pretournament camps and friendlies and post-Cup rest is factored in.Fox Sports, which paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the United States broadcast rights, will have to wedge in a month of soccer games around another fall sport that tends to demand attention that time of year. Maybe you’ve heard of the N.F.L.?How many teams get in?A total of 32. They’ll be split into eight groups of four. The top two finishers in each group advance to the round of 16. After that, the World Cup is a straight knockout tournament.Which countries have qualified?Qatar qualified automatically as the host, and 28 other teams so far have joined it. Those include most of the biggest teams from Europe and South America: England and Germany, Brazil and Argentina, France and Spain.Canada is in. The United States and Mexico joined the field on Wednesday night.Ukraine might still go. Russia will not.Three places remain unclaimed. One will come from Europe, where Ukraine’s playoff against Scotland was postponed by war. Those teams will meet in June, with the winner to face Wales for Europe’s final place.The other two entries will come from two intercontinental playoffs that month: Costa Rica will face New Zealand, the Oceania survivor, in one game, and Peru, the fifth-place team from South America, will face an Asian team, either Australia or the United Arab Emirates.Are Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo going?Yes and yes.Argentina, and Messi, qualified in November. But Portugal, and Ronaldo, needed to sweat out a European playoff after botching its guaranteed route to the finals in the group stage.Will Qatar be Lionel Messi’s last World Cup?Franklin Jacome/Pool Via ReutersWho won’t be there?Erling Haaland, for one. (Norway didn’t qualify.) Mohamed Salah. (Egypt lost to Senegal on penalty kicks for the second time in a month.)Oh, and Italy. But then that’s not new for them. The Italians missed the 2018 tournament, too. Whoops.When will the games take place?Qatar is in the same time zone as Moscow. So whatever strategy you used to wake up early (or stay up late) for the games in 2018 will work this time, too. But it will mean kickoffs as early as 4 a.m. Eastern, and no later than 2 p.m. Eastern.How can I find out who my team is playing?The World Cup draw is Friday in Qatar. In it, all 29 teams that have qualified and the three still to be determined will be placed in groups. So by the end of the day, you’ll know which three teams your team will face in the group stage, and have a good idea of who might await in the knockout rounds.Harry Kane and England made the semifinals at the last World Cup and the final at last summer’s European Championship. Could 2022 be their year at last?Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWho are the favorites?The usual suspects qualified early, so many of them, in fact, that our soccer columnist, Rory Smith, wrote in November that “the likelihood is that the winner is already there.”Quite what the tournament, riddled with scandal and concern from the day Qatar was announced as the host, will be like cannot yet be known. The identities of the teams who will contest it, though, are — for the most part — extremely familiar.Most, if not quite all, of the traditional contenders are already there: a 10-country-strong European contingent led by France, the defending champion, and Belgium, officially the world’s best team, as well as the likes of Spain and England and Germany. They have been joined by the two great powerhouses of South America, Brazil and Argentina.More than a dozen more teams have joined the party since those sentences were written last year. Which is to say that, in March, it’s still wide open. More

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      in Soccer

      Gerd Müller, Soccer Star Known for His Scoring Prowess, Dies at 75

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      He scored 566 goals for Bayern Munich, helping the club to four German titles, four German Cup wins and three European Cup victories in 15 years.Gerd Müller, the German soccer scar who became known as “Der Bomber” for his scoring prowess, died on Aug. 15 in Wolfratshausen, Germany. He was 75.Bayern Munich, the club for which he played from 1964 to 1979, announced his death. Bayern did not specify the cause, but it had announced in October 2015 that Müller had had Alzheimer’s disease for “a long time” and had been receiving professional care since that February.Müller scored 566 goals for Bayern, helping it to four German titles, four German Cup wins and three European Cup victories in 15 years. He still holds the record for the most goals scored in the Bundesliga, Germany’s primary football league: 365 goals, scored in 427 league games.“Gerd Müller was the greatest striker there’s ever been,” Bayern’s president, Herbert Hainer, said in a statement.Müller made 607 competitive appearances for Bayern and was the league’s top scorer on seven occasions. He played as important a role in making Bayern Germany’s powerhouse team as his former teammates Franz Beckenbauer and Uli Hoeness.Müller’s record of 40 goals scored in the 1971-72 Bundesliga season was beaten only last season, when the current Bayern forward Robert Lewandowski scored his 41st goal in the last minute of the last game.Müller became a youth coach after his playing days ended.Andreas Rentz/Getty ImagesMüller also helped West Germany (now Germany) win the European championship in 1972 and then the World Cup two years later, when he scored the winning goal in the final against the Netherlands. Altogether he scored 68 goals in 62 appearances for West Germany, a national record not surpassed until 2014 — and Miroslav Klose, who broke Müller’s record, needed 129 appearances to match him.Müller became a youth coach at Bayern after his playing days ended.“His achievements are unrivaled to this day and will forever be a part of the great history of FC Bayern and all of German football,” Bayern’s chairman, Oliver Kahn, said.Müller was born on Nov. 3, 1945, in Nördlingen, Germany. His survivors include his wife, Uschi, and a daughter, Nicole. More