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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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      Elena Rybakina Wins Wimbledon and Her First Grand Slam Title

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      Rybakina, who was born and raised in Russia, started representing Kazakhstan after the Russian tennis federation gave up on her. She beat Ons Jabeur in three sets to win the women’s singles title.WIMBLEDON, England — There was no way anyone could have known four years ago, when the Russian-born-and-raised Elena Rybakina decided to play tennis for Kazakhstan that the move would pay off as fortuitously as it did in the summer of 2022.Rybakina beat Ons Jabeur to win the Wimbledon singles title Saturday, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, giving the native Russian the sport’s most prestigious championship a little more than two months after tournament organizers barred players representing Russia from participating.Rybakina, who began representing Kazakhstan four years ago after the former Soviet republic agreed to fund her career, overpowered Jabeur, who faltered and succumbed to inconsistency after taking an early lead.Rybakina, 23, was nervous and shaky early on, missing seemingly easy rally balls long and struggling to get her dangerous first serve into the court, but she settled down as the match stretched on. Once she found her rhythm, Jabeur had few answers. She had a chance to draw even in the third set as Rybakina fell behind 0-40 serving at 3-2, but Jabeur couldn’t finish the game and Rybakina cruised over the finish line from there.On the final point, Rybakina watched Jabeur, the No. 2-ranked player in the world, send one last backhand return wide and strutted to the net with barely a celebration. A few minutes later she climbed the stairs to her box to embrace her team.It was Rybakina’s first Grand Slam title and the first for a singles player representing Kazakhstan, which has recruited several men and women from Russia to represent it in tennis in the last 15 years, financing their development as part of an effort to make the country more appealing to the West.It was a match that was never going to lack for a story no matter who won.Jabeur, a 27-year-old from Tunisia, was the first Arab and the first African woman to reach the Wimbledon final, and the first Arab woman to make any Grand Slam final. She is Muslim and the match fell on, Eid al-Adha — the feast of the sacrifice. The holiday commemorates the story of Allah asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, as a sign of faith.There was a time when it seemed like every year an American would play for this championship on July 4. But the sport and its calendar have shifted. The Wimbledon final happens a week later, and American players, and those from every other country that dominated tennis for most of the last 100 years, face far more competition from places where the sport has only recently taken hold.“I feel really sad, but it’s tennis. There is only one winner,” Jabeur said while holding the runner-up trophy. “I’m trying to inspire many generations for my country.”The ease Jabeur showed early in the match disappeared in the second set.Alastair Grant/Associated PressRybakina told the Centre Court crowd that it had been an honor to play in front of the royal box. She also thanked Bulat Utemuratov, the billionaire who is the president of the Kazakhstan Tennis federation for believing in her.“I never felt anything like this,” she said, with Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, standing a few feet away. Prince William did not attend the match. Kate was accompanied onto the court by Ian Hewitt, the chairman of the All England Club, and the man in charge of explaining the decision to bar Russian and Belarusian players back in April.Rybakina, the 23rd-ranked player in the world, had never before this week advanced past the quarterfinal of a Grand Slam tournament. Tall and long and powerful with one of the most dangerous serves in the game, she was born in Russia and lived there until she became an adult. Her parents still live in Russia.After turning 18, she accepted an opportunity to receive funding for her tennis career from Kazakhstan. She represented Kazakhstan at the Olympics in Tokyo last year.Her run to the final made for an awkward tournament, bringing politics into the fray after tournament organizers had tried to keep them at bay by barring Russian and Belarusian player because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Organizers made the move at the behest of the British government and the royal family. The Duchess of Cambridge traditionally hands the trophy to the winner of Wimbledon. Few in Britain wanted to see her giving it to a Russian while Britain has been among the leaders in providing aid and weapons to Ukraine.Asked about her feelings on the war at her post-match news conference, Rybakina said her English was not good enough to understand the question, the only time during 30 minutes of questioning she made that claim.Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, left, giving the Venus Rosewater Dish trophy to Rybakina.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn the court, Jabeur and Rybakina also promised one of the sport’s ultimate contrasts in styles. Jabeur’s name rarely is mentioned without “crafty” following it a few words later. Her game is filled with just about every kind of tennis shot there is.At any moment, she can cut the ball on an angle and with a spin that makes it knuckle as it clears the net and finds the unguarded area of the court or smack a forehand down the line. Tennis, for her, is a profession and a sport but also a game and a means to express her innate creativity.The question was whether Rybakina would give Jabeur the chance to hit her shots or whether the power of her serve and her slingshot strokes would hit Jabeur off the court.Early on, finesse prevailed over power. Jabeur drew first blood, forcing a nervy Rybakina to hit from deep in the court. Rybakina struggled with her forehand as Jabeur danced across the grass showing off the array of her arsenal. In the fourth game, she cut one of her signature slicing backhands past Rybakina, who had closed in at the net. A game later, she jumped on a second serve and sent a searing forehand that had Rybakina backpedaling.Jabeur is not a fist-pumper, but when she likes a winner she has just hit, especially one on the move, she jogs across the grass like a basketball player who has just sunk a three pointer. She did a lot of jogging in the first set, which she won when Rybakina sent a forehand into the middle of the net.“I was going to fight to the end,” Rybakina said after the match. Gerald Herbert/Associated PressJabeur rarely plays complete matches, though, even when she appears headed for a quick afternoon. Especially in pressure situations, there is often a wobble, sometimes a fatal one, and it arrived early in the second set on Saturday.Whether the idea of being a set away from becoming Wimbledon champion suddenly seemed too big only she knows. She focused on this tournament since January, even putting a picture of the Wimbledon winner’s trophy on the lock screen of her phone. But in an instant, the ease and steadiness that she had displayed in the first set disappeared.“I told myself, ‘Don’t lose the second set,’” Jabeur said after the match.She didn’t get the message.Rybakina broke Jabeur’s serve in the first game of the second set, and Jabeur never truly recovered. She tried to lighten the atmosphere, heading one errant ball to a ball boy at the end of a game and trying a between-the-legs shot while chasing a lob, but she grew more erratic as the set wore on.Rybakina, meanwhile, shook off her early jitters, telling herself something different from what Jabeur did.“I was going to fight to the end,” she said.She began to fire her first serve. Forehands that had sailed long at the beginning began diving into the corners and hitting the edges of the lines. She charged the net to close out points, running as she had never before in a match and sealed the set with an ace that Jabeur could only stare at.The third set brought more of the same, even as the crowd roared each time she began a service game, and when she got three chances to even the set midway through, desperately trying to lift her and keep the Duchess sitting in the front row of the royal box in the brightest yellow dress in all of Centre Court from her starring role in the oddest of post-match trophy ceremonies.“She was super nice,” Rybakina said of the Duchess.Nothing was going to stop Rybakina this year at Wimbledon: not Jabeur, not the crowd and not even an edict from the government to keep players from Russia from participating. More

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      Ons Jabeur, an Entertainer Who May Soon Be a Wimbledon Champion

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      Jabeur, the first Arab or African woman to reach a Grand Slam singles final in the Open era, will face Elena Rybakina in Saturday’s women’s final.WIMBLEDON, England — In Tunisia, her home nation and inspiration, Ons Jabeur has acquired the nickname “The Minister of Happiness.”Though there have been plenty of dark and down times along her rare and winding path to Saturday’s Wimbledon singles final, she was spreading the joy around the All England Club on Thursday.Up on Henman Hill, the Guizanis, a Tunisian family living in London, cheered from their picnic blanket on the sloping lawn as Jabeur defeated Tatjana Maria of Germany, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, to become the first Arab or African woman to reach a Grand Slam singles final in the Open era, which began in 1968.“It’s very important for women to be successful, to play sports,” said Ibtissem Guizani, who was attending Wimbledon for the first time with her husband Zouhaeir and their 4-year-old son, and was dressed in red in honor of Jabeur and Tunisia.“We see ourselves in Ons,” she continued. “And she makes us proud of her and proud of us.”The Guizani family after watching the match. “We see ourselves in Ons,” Ibtissem Guizani said. “And she makes us proud of her and proud of us.”Christopher Clarey/The New York TimesThe second-ranked Jabeur and the 103rd-ranked Maria had used the whole grand canvas in their semifinal match on Centre Court: They ventured frequently into the lush, underutilized grass in the forecourt as they chopped approach shots and rushed the net; pounded overheads; or caressed deft drop volleys.It was old school but hardly passé, and the crowd responded with roars and murmurs, not only because of their element of surprise and novelty, but because of their panache.Jabeur, in particular, relishes exploring the range of shotmaking possibilities in a manner reminiscent of Roger Federer, to whom she has been compared since she was 12 years old. Like Federer, Jabeur does not simply play the ball. She plays with it and not only with her strings. Let a tennis ball land near her feet, and her soccer juggling skills quickly become apparent, too.She is an entertainer who may soon be a Grand Slam tournament champion if she can get past Elena Rybakina in Saturday’s final, but she was not so wrapped up in her win on Thursday to forget about Maria, her good friend.Moments after Jabeur’s victory, she insisted on sharing the spotlight instead of taking the normal tack and saluting the crowd on her own. She clasped Maria by the wrist and pulled her back onto the court despite her protestations and pointed appreciatively in her direction to acknowledge Maria’s own unexpected journey to this semifinal as an unseeded 34-year-old mother of two young children.“She’s such an inspiration for so many people, including me, coming back after having two babies,” Jabeur said. “I still can’t believe how she did it.”Jabeur, right, with Tatjana Maria, her opponent and good friend.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesJabeur, 27, has worked hard on believing in herself. She came from a country and region that had produced some professional women’s players — including Selima Sfar, a Tunisian who reached a top ranking of 75 in 2001 — but had never produced a talent capable of challenging for the biggest prizes.Jabeur has worked with sports psychologists since her teens and has developed a particularly fruitful connection in recent years with Melanie Maillard, a Frenchwoman introduced to her by Sfar, who has worked with French tennis players and other athletes for more than 20 years.“I’m very lucky that I found the right person that could push me through and know me much better,” Jabeur said. “It’s all about the connection. We did a great job, and we’ve come a long way.”Maillard was not at this year’s French Open, where Jabeur, one of the favorites, was upset in the first round. But Jabeur has long planned on having Maillard back with her at Wimbledon. She was with Jabeur last year when she reached the quarterfinals, finally fell in love with grass-court tennis and told Maillard, “I’m coming back for the title.”Now, she is just one match away.“It’s rare that someone dares to say it and dares to accept it,” Maillard said on Thursday at Wimbledon. “Ons was once a shy young woman. She matured through effort and by questioning herself and searching constantly for better approaches and solutions. She is very open in spirit and has a family who support her a lot. She has a husband who accepted to leave everything behind for her, to follow her everywhere, and that’s powerful, too.”Jabeur, born in the coastal town of Ksar Hellal in Tunisia, grew up in a family of four children playing on courts at local hotels and a local club. Though her all-around athletic talent had coaches in other sports like soccer and team handball trying to lure her away, she stuck with tennis and left to train and study at a sports school in Tunis, the capital, at age 13.Jabeur, with her quick wit, was a fan in her youth of Andy Roddick and used to pretend as she trained that she was Kim Clijsters or Serena or Venus Williams.She won the French Open junior title at 16 and has spent time training in Belgium and France but has long been back in Tunisia, where she lives with her husband, Karim Kamoun, who is also her fitness trainer. She remains deeply connected to the country.“Now tennis is like soccer in Tunisia, people are following my matches,” Jabeur said in a recent interview. “And that I appreciate so much, and I appreciate that tennis is becoming more popular. What has always been missing is the thing that we have to believe more we can do it, no matter where you come from.”Her lifelong attachment to Tunisia is quite a contrast with Rybakina, her surprise opponent in Saturday’s final. Rybakina, born in Moscow and long considered a promising Russian junior, began representing Kazakhstan four years ago while continuing to train regularly in Moscow.A vast former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan has recruited several top-flight Russian players since gaining independence and provided talents like Rybakina with the major funding and support they were often lacking.Though Wimbledon has barred Russian and Belarusian players from this year’s tournament because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ban does not apply to Rybakina, a 23-year-old who became Kazakhstan’s first Grand Slam singles finalist on Thursday by overwhelming the 2019 Wimbledon champion Simona Halep, 6-3, 6-3.“I’m playing already for Kazakhstan for a long time,” Rybakina said, pointing out that she has represented the country at the Olympics and in the Billie Jean King Cup team competition.“I’m really happy representing Kazakhstan,” she said. “They believed in me. There is no more question about how I feel.”Asked if she still felt Russian in her heart, Rybakina responded, “What does it mean for you to feel? I mean, I’m playing tennis, so for me, I’m enjoying my time here. I feel for the players who couldn’t come here, but I’m just enjoying playing here on the biggest stage, enjoying my time and doing my best.”With her huge serve, long reach and penetrating baseline power, the 17th-seeded Rybakina could be a formidable obstacle for Jabeur. This will be the first Wimbledon women’s final in the Open era between two players without a Grand Slam singles title, and neither Rybakina nor Jabeur had been past the quarterfinals at a major in singles until now.Saturday’s final comes on the same day as much of the Muslim world, including Tunisia, begins celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Adha.“If I make it on that special holiday, one of my favorite actually, it’s going to be great,” Jabeur said.The Guizanis, part of her growing Tunisian fan club, plan to be back on Henman Hill on Saturday.“We’re going to celebrate with Ons, inshallah,” Ibtessem Guizani said. More

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      Close Friends Ons Jabeur, Tatjana Maria to Meet in Wimbledon Semifinal

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      Neither Tatjana Maria nor Ons Jabeur had been to a Grand Slam singles semifinal until this week. The close friends will play each other at Wimbledon on Thursday for a place in the final.WIMBLEDON, England — A working mother of two, Tatjana Maria had the child care under control on Tuesday.As she and Charles-Edouard, her husband and coach, headed to No. 1 Court for the biggest match of her career, their daughters, 8-year-old Charlotte and 1-year-old Cecilia, were happily ensconced in the Wimbledon day care center, one of Charlotte’s favorite spots on tour.By the time the family reunited, Maria was a Wimbledon semifinalist.“I’m so glad that Charlotte is old enough to understand all of this,” Maria said after her gutsy, resourceful 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 victory over her 22-year-old German compatriot Jule Niemeier.There have been greater shocks in women’s tennis: see the British teenager Emma Raducanu winning the U.S. Open women’s singles title as a qualifier in her first visit last year.But Maria’s run has certainly been a major and moving surprise. She is 34 and gave birth to Cecilia little more than a year ago. She arrived at Wimbledon ranked 103rd in singles and having lost in the first round in her last eight Grand Slam singles tournaments.“I’ve got goose bumps all over,” she said after defeating Niemeier in one of the most diverting matches of the women’s tournament, dropping her racket and covering her face with both hands after converting match point.Maria, who lives with her family in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has a throwback game seemingly more in harmony with the 20th century than the 21st with her heavy reliance on slice, including forehand slice, and a yen for the net.But at this wild and often wide-open Wimbledon, she will now face her close friend Ons Jabeur on Thursday for a spot in the final. Jabeur, the No. 3 seed, defeated unseeded Marie Bouzkova, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, on Centre Court on Tuesday.“I love Tatjana so much, and her family is really amazing,” Jabeur said. “She’s my barbecue buddy, so it’s going to be tough to play her obviously.”Ons Jabeur, right, with Maria’s daughters Cecilia and Charlotte. “She’s one of the examples I wish players would look up to,” Jabeur said of Maria. Ons JabeurThis is uncharted territory for both, and Jabeur, a 27-year-old Tunisian with an eye-catching all-court game, has quite a story of her own. She will be the first Arab woman to play in a Grand Slam singles semifinal and has become a symbol of hope and new possibilities in her region.But Jabeur, a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon last year, already has been in close range of such tennis success. Maria had not been past the third round in a Grand Slam singles tournament until now and had made it past the second round only once: at Wimbledon in 2015.“I always believed that I have something inside,” Maria said. “I always believed in this, but to be now here in this spot. …”Maria paused for a moment.“One year ago, I gave birth to my second daughter,” she said. “If somebody would tell me that one year later you are in a semifinal of Wimbledon, that’s crazy.”Consider her husband crazy.“Of course, it’s surprising to others, but I believe in my wife, and I tell her always that I know she’s capable of doing bigger things,” he said in an interview in French on Tuesday that was often interrupted by congratulatory back slaps and handshakes from other players and coaches.“Tatjana’s a warrior,” he continued. “From the first to the last point, from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, she never gives anyone a free point. That’s her strength, but she’s also able to put it all in its proper perspective because we have the family.”Maria is the first mother to advance this far at Wimbledon since Serena Williams, another Palm Beach Gardens resident, reached the final in 2019. But Maria was touring with a child in tow well before Williams, whose daughter, Olympia, is 4. Williams and Maria exchanged tips when Williams returned to play at Wimbledon this year at age 40 after nearly a year away from the tour.“When Serena arrived, I told her the crèche was already open, because she didn’t know, and her little one went over there,” Maria said. “It’s great that Serena’s still playing tennis with a child.”Maria said her main role model as a tennis-playing mother was Kim Clijsters, the Belgian who is now definitively retired but who won three Grand Slam singles titles after giving birth to her daughter Jada in 2008.“I was one of the first ones after Kim,” Maria said. “She was my inspiration, and I hope I can maybe be an inspiration to others.”Clijsters, 39 and now a mother of three, was watching at Wimbledon on Tuesday. “Amazing to see,” she said of Maria’s unexpected success.The Marias travel the world but do not need to leave the house to be international.At home, Tatjana Maria speaks German to their children and Charles-Edouard, a French former professional who played on the satellite tour, speaks French. His mother, a frequent visitor, speaks her native language of Spanish to her grandchildren while Charlotte is enrolled in an online academy whose primary language is English.“Charlotte speaks four languages,” Charles-Edouard Maria said.She is also a promising and enthusiastic tennis player, coached primarily by her father but also a frequent practice partner for her mother. She even warms her up before matches, although not at Wimbledon this year. Surprisingly, their frequent practice sessions have not helped only Charlotte’s game.Maria’s ability to hit heavily sliced strokes off both wings keeps the ball particularly low on grass, which makes it harder for opponents to attack.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have a court at the house, and every day during the lockdown and the pandemic Tatjana trained with her,” Charles-Edouard said. “And it’s really been a plus for Tatjana’s game, because by showing things to Charlotte, she had to go back to the basics and that has refreshed her game, and she has built on it. It’s one of the reasons she’s playing much better than before.”Maria won a WTA 250 event in Bogotá, Colombia, this season on clay: her second singles title on the main tour. The other one came in Majorca in 2018 on grass, which was foreshadowing for this Wimbledon.She has a strong, relatively flat first serve, and her ability to hit heavily sliced strokes off both wings keeps the ball particularly low on grass. That makes it harder for opponents to attack, and Maria has defused some powerful opposition here, upsetting three seeded players: No. 26 Sorana Cirstea of Romania, No. 5 Maria Sakkari of Greece and No. 12 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia.Niemeier, making her Wimbledon debut, had big and varied weapons, too, despite being ranked just 97th. Watching her all-court tussle with Maria often felt like entering a tennis time machine with both players chipping and charging the net and Niemeier frequently serving and volleying and hitting overhead after overhead as Maria threw up towering, often beautifully placed lobs.Niemeier appeared to have command, going up, 4-2, in the third set, but Maria kept scrapping and improvising on the run to close the gap. She saved a break point at 5-5 and then held to 6-5 after a scrambling point that earned a standing ovation from much of the crowd. She broke Niemeier’s serve to close out her most significant victory.A few hours later, Jabeur closed out her own at Wimbledon. Next up: a surprise semifinal against her barbecue buddy.“She’s one of the examples I wish players would look up to,” Jabeur said of Maria. “Because she really suffered to play and win rounds in the Grand Slams and now look at her. A Wimbledon semifinalist after having two babies. It’s a really amazing story.” More

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      Returning to Singles, Serena Williams Will Face an Unseeded Player

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      After a year away from singles, she risked drawing the world’s No. 1, Iga Swiatek, in the first round. Instead, she will face a player ranked 113th.In her first singles match in a year, Serena Williams could have faced one of the new leaders of the game that she once dominated.As an unseeded wild card at Wimbledon, Williams could have been drawn to play No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who has won six tournaments in a row. Or Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American who is on the verge of breaking into the top 10 and just lost to Swiatek in the French Open final.But when Friday’s draw was done, Williams was spared an established threat in the first round. Instead, she will play Harmony Tan, an unseeded French 24-year-old who is ranked 113th and will be making her main-draw debut at Wimbledon.The match will almost certainly be played on Centre Court, where Williams has won seven Wimbledon singles titles, six women’s doubles titles and two Olympic gold medals when the All England Club staged the tennis event at the 2012 London Games.But though Tan will be stepping on to that famous patch of grass for the first time, Williams will also be in new territory. At age 40, she remains arguably the biggest star in women’s tennis (Naomi Osaka makes it a debate), but Williams has played very little tennis in the last three years and played none at all on tour for nearly a year until returning in Eastbourne this week for two doubles matches with Ons Jabeur.They won them both before Jabeur withdrew with a right knee injury as a precautionary move before Wimbledon, where unlike Williams, Jabeur is one of the leading favorites for the title despite never reaching a Grand Slam final.That is a reflection of Jabeur’s shotmaking talent and recent victory at the grass court tournament in Berlin, but it is also a reminder that the women’s game is in transition. The reigning Wimbledon women’s champion, Ashleigh Barty, sent shock waves through the sport by retiring in March at age 25, weary of the travel far from her home in Australia and lacking the drive to continue pushing for the biggest prizes.Iga Swiatek, celebrating her French Open victory, has won 35 straight matches going into Wimbledon.Thibault Camus/Associated PressSwiatek, a 21-year-old from Poland, has stepped convincingly into the gap, winning 35 straight matches, and she could make it 36 by defeating a Croatian qualifier, Jana Fett, in the first round of Wimbledon. But Swiatek has played little on grass at this early stage in her career and below her, the hierarchy on tour is constantly shifting.In winning her six straight titles, Swiatek beat six different players in the finals. Anett Kontaveit, seeded No. 2 at Wimbledon behind Swiatek, has lost in the first round in three of her last four tournaments and has not played a match on grass this season, attributing her recent struggles to her continuing recovery from Covid-19.This year’s Wimbledon, which begins Monday, will not offer a full-strength field for women or men. Wimbledon barred Russian and Belarusian players from competing, in part because of pressure from the British government after the invasion of Ukraine.The tours responded by stripping Wimbledon of ranking points for the first time, and despite extensive discussions, both sides held firm to their positions.Wimbledon has maintained its prize money at normal levels, and though there was speculation that players might skip the tournament because of the lack of points, that has not materialized. Of the highest ranked players, the only ones who will be absent are either injured, like Alexander Zverev, Leylah Fernandez and Osaka or barred, like Daniil Medvedev and Aryna Sabalenka.Wimbledon is the only major tennis tournament to bar the Russians and Belarusians, and the ban has excluded four of the top 40 men, including No. 1 Medvedev and No. 8 Andrey Rublev, both of Russia. But Novak Djokovic, who has won the last three editions of Wimbledon, and his longtime rival Rafael Nadal are both in the men’s field. So is Andy Murray, now unseeded and trying to recover from an abdominal injury after an encouraging run to the final on grass in Stuttgart.Roger Federer, an eight-time Wimbledon singles champion who is still recovering from knee surgery at age 40, will miss the tournament for the first time since 1997 (he won the boys title in 1998 before playing in the main draw in 1999).Djokovic, who has a good draw, will face Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea in the first round. Nadal, playing Wimbledon for the first time since 2019, will face Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina. Murray, the British star, will face James Duckworth of Australia.Wimbledon’s ban has excluded six of the top 40 women, including No. 6 Sabalenka, a Belarusian who was a Wimbledon semifinalist last year; No. 20 Victoria Azarenka, a former No. 1; and No. 34 Aliaksandra Sasnovich, who was Serena Williams’s most recent opponent at Wimbledon.Sasnovich advanced last year when Williams retired in the opening set of their first-round match after reinjuring her right hamstring in a slip on the fresh grass on Centre Court. Partly in response, Wimbledon, for the first time, allowed players to train on Centre Court before the tournament to wear in the grass and improve the footing during the early rounds.Williams, who has played more at Wimbledon than anyone in the women’s field, already knows her way around the grass, but she has been increasingly prone to injuries and will now have to try to find form in a hurry.Williams will face the unseeded Harmony Tan of France, who is ranked 113th in the world, in the first round at Wimbledon.Miguel Sierra/EPA, via ShutterstockTan, despite her world ranking, has the tools to create some doubt and trouble. She is an effective counterpuncher who likes to change pace with slices and drop shots and could force Williams to dig low and move more than she might like at the beginning of her comeback.Williams, with her first-strike power and deep experience, certainly looks like the favorite, but if she gets past Tan, she will quickly run into clearer threats. She could face No. 32 seed Sara Sorribes Tormo, a tenacious Spaniard, in the second round and could then face No. 6 Karolina Pliskova, who lost to Barty in last year’s Wimbledon final. Williams has never played Tan or Sorribes, and she has split her four previous matches with Pliskova, losing to her in the semifinals of the 2016 U.S. Open and quarterfinals of the 2019 Australian Open.Advance past the third round and Williams could face Gauff for the first time, in a match that would certainly generate major interest. But it seems most premature to start talking about the fourth round when Williams has played no singles at all in a year. This is the second longest break of her remarkable career, ranking only behind the 13-month break she took after winning the 2017 Australian Open when she was already two months pregnant with her daughter, Olympia.She looked understandably rusty and slow off the mark in the early stages of her doubles matches with Jabeur in Eastbourne, but she soon found her timing and came up with some trademark first serves under duress in both victories. Her ball striking when in position was often solid, but the trick will be putting herself in prime position in singles, where there is so much more court to cover and the potential for extended rallies if Williams cannot dominate with her serve and full-cut returns.The new wave of women’s players, led by Swiatek, have adapted to the power and generate plenty of it themselves. A deep Williams run would be quite an achievement, but if there is any Grand Slam where she could achieve it with so little preparation, it would be Wimbledon. More

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      What the Italian Open Is Foretelling About the French Open

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