Keys, Madison

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares99 Views

    Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka to Meet in U.S. Open Final

    by

    After a lengthy delay caused by protesters, Gauff and Sabalenka emerged as winners. Both will play the first U.S. Open final and second major final of their career.They grow up fast these days, and none faster than Coco Gauff.In early July, she was a shaky tennis teenager possibly heading into the sport’s wilderness, struggling to answer questions about how someone who had once appeared so precocious, so destined for greatness, could still be waiting for her big moment.In September, she is a U.S. Open finalist, the star attraction of her home Grand Slam tournament and the new face of her sport in America.Gauff, the 19-year-old prodigy from steamy South Florida, beat Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 7-5, to reach her first U.S. Open singles final on a warm and heavy Thursday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Gauff had been tested as never before by Muchova’s all-court game and the strangest of atmospherics, but in the end the night went her way in front a crowd that exploded for her over and over along the way.“Some of those points were so loud I don’t know if my ears are going to be OK,” she said in her on-court interview.Aryna Sabalenka beat Madison Keys, 0-6, 7-6 (1), 7-6 (10-5).Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesGauff will face Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus in the final. Sabalenka, who will become the world No. 1 when the new rankings come out next week, clinched her spot in a topsy-turvy, three-set slugfest against Madison Keys, 0-6, 7-6 (1), 7-6 (10-5), that stretched until nearly 1 a.m. Keys served for the match at 5-4 in the second set and was up a service break midway through the third. But she could not get across the finish line to set up an all-American final, as Sabalenka’s error-strewn power game proved just good enough.“Amazing player,” Sabalenka said of Gauff. “I’ll be fighting for every point.”Gauff was controlling her match when a climate protest early in the second set caused a nearly 50-minute delay. The New York Police Department and security officials struggled to remove protesters, one of whom had used an adhesive to glue his feet to the concrete in an upper level of the stadium.Gauff had won the first set and led 1-0 in the second when protesters interrupted the match.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAt the time of the interruption, Gauff held a lead of 6-4, 1-0 and was playing as well as she needed to take advantage of a seemingly tight Muchova, who played with a black compression sleeve covering her right arm from her biceps to her wrist and, she said, tape beneath the sleeve.During the delay, Gauff and Muchova headed off the court and tried to stay loose in the locker room and the warm-up area. Muchova got a massage and jogged lightly in the hallway outside the locker room. Gauff, seemingly loose, wandered over to a worker from the United States Tennis Association and leaned over to see pictures of the protesters circulating on social media.She said later that she woke up Thursday morning thinking that a climate protest might break out, as they had at the French Open in 2022 and Wimbledon this year.Maybe that was a premonition. Maybe it was preparation by a player with a reputation for always doing her homework. She earned her diploma on time in the spring of last year despite spending all her high school years on the pro tour. She and her family celebrated in Paris, then she won six matches at the French Open before losing to the world No. 1, Iga Swiatek, in the final on a day when she said the moment overwhelmed her.The delay on Thursday took the early juice out of a capacity crowd of nearly 24,000 fans who arrived ready to celebrate a new American tennis queen a year after watching Serena Williams play her last match, signaling the end of an era for American tennis.Over the past four years, Gauff has evolved into the most likely candidate to fill the void, breaking out at Wimbledon when she was 15 and making her French Open run last year. Since then, though, her progress seemed to stall, especially on the big stages, and she had yet to move past the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, the tournament where the spotlight shines brighter on her than anywhere else.Gauff made her second career major final. She lost the 2022 French Open championship match to Iga Swiatek of Poland.Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times“I’m having way more fun than I was three years ago,” she said.Two months ago, this run, and a championship that is now one match away, didn’t seem possible, but Thursday night Gauff showed every reason it suddenly is. She has long had so many of the tools needed to join the sport’s elite — a dangerous serve, a tough-as-nails backhand, and the speed and athleticism that combine for the best court coverage in the women’s game.In the past five weeks, she has learned just how to use those tools, stabilizing the shaky forehand that was her nemesis. Against Muchova, she mixed power forehands with looping ones, and she hammered serves while also slicing some into the corners. She cut backhands and charged the net. She took control of points and rallied with Muchova until the Czech star fumbled them away. She got her first match point on a feathered drop shot.“She’s moving well, she really gets that extra point back,” Muchova said of Gauff. “So you have to be focused and finish points. You have to be really there on the court and then see where she is running. You have to think where to put the ball to finish it at the net or try to play it earlier.”Gauff wobbled midway through the first set, losing three straight games after taking a 5-1 lead as Muchova started to hit out and pushed Gauff onto her heels. Gauff lost her serve once more as she tried to close out the match at 5-3 in the second.It would take another three games; one more break of Muchova’s serve; five more match points; a nearly endless, penultimate lung-busting, 40-shot rally filled with a slew of shots hit within inches of the net; and moon balls that floated 10 feet above it.Gauff had inklings both before and in the middle of that marathon point. She said she knew a point like that was coming, and knew that she had both the legs and the lungs for it and that it would just be a matter of patience. As the balls flew back and forth, she began to think that this point would change the match, and if she could win it, Muchova would not be able to survive yet another long test on the next match point.“She was definitely going to go for the winner or miss,” she said. “That’s what happened.”Gauff fought off one last sharp serve from Muchova and hung on until one last backhand sailed long.New York has been hers since her first match of the tournament, and now this night, and a spot in the finals, was hers, too. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Tennis

      Coco Gauff Plays Karolina Muchova in US Open Semifinal Thursday

      by

      Gauff, 19, is one match win away from making the U.S. Open singles final for the first time in her career.Two American women will play on Thursday for spots in the U.S. Open final.One, Coco Gauff, the No. 6 seed, will play in the semifinals against 10th-seeded Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic. On the other side of the draw, 17th-seeded Madison Keys of the United States will face off against second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, this year’s Australian Open champion.Much of the spotlight in this tournament has been on Gauff, 19, in part for how far she has advanced on the tour while still a teenager. She reached the French Open final last year, and she is the first American teenager to reach the U.S. Open semifinals since Serena Williams did it in 2001.To reach the final, Gauff will need to defeat Muchova, who reached the French Open final this year.Here’s what to know about the match between Gauff and Muchova, set for Thursday at 7 p.m., Eastern time.How did they get here?Muchova has effectively cruised into the semifinals. Through her first five matches, she has dropped only one set, which came in the fourth round against Wang Xinyu. She advanced to the semifinals after defeating Sorana Cirstea, 6-0, 6-3, in the quarterfinals.Some of Gauff’s matches have gone on longer than she would have liked. She played a full three sets in the first round against Laura Siegemund, in the third round against Elise Mertens and in the fourth round against Caroline Wozniacki. In the quarterfinals, Gauff defeated Jelena Ostapenko, 6-0, 6-2, in just over an hour.Gauff says she’s feeling fresh.Gauff has spent a lot of time on court this tournament. In the single’s draw alone, she has played 9 hours 19 minutes. She has also played four matches through the quarterfinals in the women’s doubles draw with her partner, Jessica Pegula. She also played one match in the mixed doubles draw with Jack Sock.But despite all the court time, Gauff said after her victory over Ostapenko that she has been working to build her endurance for the later stages of Grand Slam tournaments.“I’m still in the mind-set that I’m in the beginning of the tournament,” Gauff said. “I just feel so fresh, to be honest. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been tricking myself or maybe when this is over I’m going to hit a wall. But I’m really proud of how I’m able to get through these matches.”Gauff beat Muchova recently.Gauff and Muchova have played each other only once. That match was in August in the final of the Western & Southern Open in Ohio, which Gauff won, 6-3, 6-4.Gauff said she was going to plan a different approach to playing Muchova this time because she thought Muchova was struggling physically in that match.“I don’t think that will be the case again,” Gauff said.Muchova didn’t want to reveal too much about her tactics against Gauff in the semifinal, saying she would focus on her own game. But Muchova said she knows Gauff has several tools to use in matches.“She’s very athletic,” Muchova said. “She never gives up, runs for every ball, doesn’t do many mistakes. She has kind of all the strokes.”Both players have reached a Grand Slam final.Now they want to win one. Muchova reached the final of the French Open this year, but lost in three sets to Iga Swiatek. Gauff experienced the same thing last year at the French Open, where she also lost the final to Swiatek.But while experience in a Grand Slam final is important, Muchova will also face a loud crowd that will be eager to cheer for an American in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday night.Aryna Sabalenka or Madison Keys will be next.The winner of the Gauff-Muchova match will play the winner of the other semifinal matchup, between Sabalenka and Keys, which follows. Sabalenka is favored to win, but, like Gauff, Keys will have an American crowd backing her in Arthur Ashe.“Of course, they will support her more than me,” Sabalenka said of Keys on Wednesday. “I’ll just try to stay focused and try to play my best tennis.”The women’s final is scheduled for Saturday at 4 p.m. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      At the U.S. Open, Coco Gauff Is Playing With a Veteran’s Confidence

      by

      On Thursday, Coco Gauff saw a photo memory from five years ago. It had the caption “courtside seats” at Arthur Ashe Stadium as she had watched one of her idols, Venus Williams, play.“I was trying to flex to my friends that I had courtside seats, and now I’m on the court,” Gauff said while laughing in a post-match interview.A day after that five-year anniversary, the No. 12 seed Gauff handily defeated the 20th seed, Madison Keys, 6-2, 6-3, and warmed up the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium for the second time this week for her other idol, Serena Williams, who was scheduled to play at 7 p.m. The win avenged a loss that Gauff had against Keys in Adelaide, Australia, in January.“I just told myself I’m going to go down swinging,” Gauff said. “The last time, I think I got a little bit passive, so she just overpowered me, and today I was like, I’m not going to let that happen.”Serena Williams and Gauff are in the bottom half of the single’s draw. Gauff has been watching Williams’s matches closely, not only because she is one of Gauff’s favorite players and biggest inspirations, but also because she is hoping to face her.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Strong Showing: As her successes on the field prove, Serena Williams did not come to New York to receive a ceremonial send-off, but to put her best on the line against the world’s finest players.Tournament Prep: Analytics, scouting first-time opponents, additional coaching input, new footwork drills and treating doubles like practice — so far it’s adding up to winning.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Field: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to one another.“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine,” Gauff said.Gauff will take on Shuai Zhang, who is ranked 36th in women’s singles and defeated Rebecca Marino on Friday, in the fourth round.The fourth round is the furthest Gauff has reached in singles at the U.S. Open. Three years ago, Gauff, then 15, left the court in tears as she was overpowered by Naomi Osaka, then the world No. 1, in the third round. Fighting through tears in the post-match interview that Osaka suggested she do, Gauff then said she would learn from the loss.Gauff will play Shuai Zhang in the round of 16 on Sunday.Cj Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockSince then, she’s lost in the first and second rounds at the Open, but on Friday her evolution on the court showed. Gauff, now 18, looked like a confident veteran, wearing her blue, pink and light green “Coco CG1” signature shoe and responding to everything Keys threw her way.“I was really delusional then,” Gauff said of that 2019 match with Osaka. “It was my first U.S. Open, and I thought I was going to go out flying colors. And, yeah, I didn’t.” She added: “I’m definitely happy that people expected things of me, but I think it’s more focused on my expectations of myself than other people’s.”After Keys won the opening game of the first set, Gauff won six of the next seven to take the set. The victory did not come as easily as the game differential would indicate, though, as Keys forced Gauff to sprint across the court and hit shots from strenuous angles.In the second game, both struggled to secure a win, constantly going from an advantage back to deuce. As Keys forced Gauff to run seemingly everywhere on the court with powerful shots and with Gauff holding the advantage, it seemed as though the game were heading back to deuce. But Gauff connected on a forehand close to the net that landed just behind Keys to take the game and let out an emphatic scream as the crowd roared with her.Gauff, one of the most popular players in tennis, has had a significant crowd advantage through her first two matches, receiving a stadium’s worth of roars when she wins and sighs of disappointment when her opponent gets the best of her. Friday was slightly different as the crowd consistently celebrated Keys, a fellow American. It was a luxury Gauff’s other opponents didn’t enjoy. Three siblings sitting next to each other close to the court seemed to be having a match of their own as one screamed, “Go Madison!” as loudly as possible while another yelled, “Go, Coco!”The cheers for Keys faded, though, as she launched a ball and let out a frustrated scream while the crowd clapped for Gauff. Then, she bounced back, and so did the crowd roars, winning that game and the next to bring the total to 4-3 in the second set. But Keys’s run ended there, and Gauff dominated the remainder of the set to win the match.Gauff and Zhang have faced each other once in singles. Gauff won, 7-6 (1), 7-5, at the Miami Open in March. Last year, they played each other in doubles as Zhang and Samantha Stosur won the U.S. Open women’s doubles title over Gauff and Caty McNally.Zhang, 33, remembers Gauff’s talent from the match in Miami and how “cute” Gauff’s younger brother was cheering in the stands. She said it was hard for her to picture Gauff, who reached the French Open final earlier this year, which she lost to Iga Swiatek, as an 18-year-old because she remembers her as the “14, 15-year-old” who was beginning to play professionally. And because it makes her feel old, she added.Like Zhang, Gauff’s first thought about her fourth-round opponent didn’t have much to do with tennis. Zhang is one of the most liked people on tour, Gauff said. She remembers how Zhang congratulated her when Gauff became the No. 1 doubles player, despite her overtaking Zhang, whose career-high doubles ranking is No. 2.“She’s such a tough competitor on the court, but also, as soon as it’s over, she has so much respect for everyone,” Gauff said. “So, I’m just happy that tennis has someone like her in the sport.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      Ashleigh Barty and Danielle Collins Will Meet in Australian Open Final

      by

      Cheered by a home crowd, the top-ranked Barty defeated Madison Keys in straight sets to become the first Australian to reach the women’s final since 1980. Collins enjoyed her own straight sets win over Iga Swiatek.MELBOURNE, Australia — It is all about choices, this game of tennis and life.Down-the-line or crosscourt? Rip or chip? Stay home and rebuild your strength? Or hit the road in search of more points and glory?The coronavirus pandemic that disrupted old patterns and created new problems has made some of the choices more complicated, but Ashleigh Barty is on a hot streak, as anyone who has played her in this Australian Open can confirm.Madison Keys was the latest to swing away and come up short as Barty kept delivering pitches and tactical shifts that Keys could not handle. Barty won the first set of their semifinal on Thursday night in 26 minutes and won the match in just over an hour, 6-1, 6-3.She is the first Australian since Wendy Turnbull in 1980 to reach the women’s singles final at the Australian Open.She will face Danielle Collins of the United States, who defeated Iga Swiatek of Poland, 6-4, 6-1, in the second women’s semifinal. Barty will be the favorite based on her cool and precision under pressure over the last 11 days. Barty said she intended to embrace the opportunity rather than try to block out its significance.“You have to,” Barty said. “It’s fun. It’s brilliant to be playing in the business end of your home slam. I’m not going to lie about that. It’s amazing. I think being able to experience it multiple times has been incredible, but Saturday’s going to be a new experience for me. So I go out there and embrace it, smile, try and do the best that I can and whatever happens, happens.”Collins is one of the most ferocious competitors in women’s tennis and has been serving and returning particularly well down the stretch in Melbourne. She won 86 percent of the points against Swiatek’s second serve on Thursday.“She loves to get in your face and loves to really take it on,” Barty said.Barty leads their head-to-head series 3-1, but Collins won their most recent match in straight sets in Adelaide, Australia, last year, and has also pushed her to three sets in two of their other matches.“We’ve had some incredible battles over the years,” said Collins, the No. 27 seed. “To play against the No. 1 player in the world in her home country, I think it’s going to be really spectacular. I love the energy the fans bring whether they are for me or for my opponent.”Danielle Collins defeated Iga Swiatek in straight sets.Loren Elliott/ReutersCollins, 28, is a two-time N.C.A.A. singles champion from the University of Virginia who turned professional later than most of her rivals on the professional tour. She is a scrappy, demonstrative player but also has point-ending power and has come back convincingly in the last nine months after struggling with endometriosis. Since July, she has a 32-7 singles record and will rise to No. 10 in the rankings on Monday, becoming the top-ranked American.Collins has battled some more in Melbourne with tough three-set victories over Clara Tauson in the third round and Elise Mertens in the fourth round. Barty has yet to come close to dropping a set, and Keys met Barty at the net after Thursday’s rout with a smile on her face as if to say, “You’re in the zone, Ash, enjoy it.”“She’s just playing incredibly well. I mean, you have a game plan in your head, but she’s just executing everything so well,” Keys said in her post-match news conference. “She’s serving incredibly well, so you don’t get any free points on that. Her slice is coming in so much lower and deeper than it was in the past so it’s hard to do anything on that. Then you try to play to her forehand and she can open you up there.”Madison Keys congratulated Barty at the net after the match.Morgan Sette/ReutersBarty’s variety is her strength, and as the match with Keys developed, she rarely gave the powerful American the same type of shot for long, mixing two-handed backhand drives with one-hand slices, off-speed angled forehands with bolts up the line. “I think everything has just improved a little bit,” Keys said. “I think she’s got a little bit more precise on her serve. I think her forehand she’s doing a really good job at mixing up paces and spins, as well. It feels like you can’t really get in a rhythm off of that forehand side. Then on her backhand side, I mean, everything is coming in at your shoelaces on the baseline. So it’s not like you can really do anything with that.”Keys, who was on a 10-match winning streak, looked more resigned than glum. Tennis may not mean as much to Australia, as it once did in the days of Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Margaret Court and Evonne Goolagong Cawley. But a Barty victory in Australia would certainly be a cultural happening. The 25-year-old from Brisbane is a particularly popular figure here with her down-to-earth personality and deep roots in the land: she is partly of Indigenous heritage.Ranked No. 1, she won her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2019 French Open and her next at last year’s Wimbledon, prevailing in a mood-swinging final against Karolina Pliskova that got complicated before she won in three sets.But there have been no edgy matches or extended challenges so far in Melbourne, where she can become the first Australian to win the singles title since Chris O’Neil in 1978.Barty was cheered by the home crowd throughout her match.Darrian Traynor/Getty ImagesO’Neil was unseeded and ranked outside the top 100: one of the biggest surprise Grand Slam champions in tennis’s long history. Barty is in a very different position as the top-ranked player in the game and the focus of attention in her country whenever she plays a match.But after choosing to cut her season short in 2021 and return home to Australia to recover after the U.S. Open where she was upset in the third round, she has started the 2022 season fresh, focused and devastatingly on target. She has dropped just 21 games in six matches and is striking a fine balance between finesse and power.Next challenge: her first Australian Open singles final on Saturday night in prime-time in Rod Laver Arena. Is she ready?“Absolutely,” she said after steam-rolling the unseeded Keys. “Let’s do it.” More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      Madison Keys Defeats Barbora Krejcikova at Australian Open

      by

      The unseeded American upset No. 4 Barbora Krejcikova to advance to the semifinals, where she will face No. 1 Asheligh Barty.MELBOURNE, Australia — Before Madison Keys plays a match, her new coach Georgi Rumenov likes to remind her that “there is no need to, there is no have to.”The message is that it is not about the implications or the expectations. It is all about the rally, the shot at hand.That is easier said than achieved for Keys, an American tennis star who despite all the thunder in her serve and groundstrokes, has long struggled to find peace in the matches that matter most.Last year, she found herself obsessing over results and comparing herself to her peers, tossing and turning at night and trying to calm her anxiety.“I wasn’t sleeping as well,” she said. “Felt like there was literally a weight on my chest just because I became so focused and obsessed with it that I wasn’t enjoying really anything, because it’s all that I was thinking about.”But even though tennis has one of the shortest off-seasons of any professional sport, it was long enough for Keys to change her thinking and form with Rumenov’s help.After winning just 11 singles matches in 2021, Keys has won 11 in less than a month in 2022: taking the title in Adelaide and sweeping back into the semifinals of the Australian Open on Tuesday with a dominant victory, 6-3, 6-2, over Barbora Krejcikova, the No. 4 seed and reigning French Open champion. She will meet the top seed, Ashleigh Barty, in the semifinals. Barty beat the American Jessica Pegula, 6-2, 6-0.“It means a lot,” said Keys, 26, who is unseeded this year after being ranked as high as No. 7 earlier in her career. “Last year was really hard, and I did everything I could with my team to really reset this off-season and focus on starting fresh and new and really just starting from zero and not worrying about last year. And wow, that’s going well so far.”Ashleigh Barty beat the American Jessica Pegula to reach her second Australian Open semifinal.Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesKeys has long played a high-risk game and she has, to her detriment under duress, often taken too much chance when in command of a point. There have been signs of progress in that department this year, as she has hit with more topspin and net clearance, and opted for placing the ball rather than pounding it.“I’ve been working on it,” Keys said when asked about her approach. “As you said, it’s not something that I used to necessarily do in the past. Really just trying to be a lot more measured and just playing within myself a little bit more, not necessarily trying to hit a winner on that ball, just constantly trying to set the point up to get to the net to try to finish off on even the next ball. If it happens to be a winner, then it happens to be a winner.”The winners keep coming in bunches. Her easy power remains. Keys hit 11 aces against Krejcikova, one of the world’s premier returners and a doubles champion before she became a singles champion. Keys dominated the short exchanges and as an Orlando resident seemed far more at ease in the humidity and heat with the temperature on-court surpassing 90 degrees.Krejcikova struggled, putting her ice-filled towel not only around her neck on changeovers but on top of her head. Down 2-5 in the opening set, she called for the trainer and was also attended to by a tournament doctor, who took her blood pressure and temperature. Though her coach Ales Kartus was telling her from the stands that she should retire from the match, she persevered as the errors piled up.Krejcikova declined to explain what was troubling her.“I have been struggling with something,” she said. “Yes, it was happening, and I didn’t feel good. I just don’t want to talk about it, because I think Madison, she really deserves the win, and she really deserves to get the credit.”Krejcikova also struggled with breathing and dizziness on a muggy night in New York last year in a tempestuous fourth-round victory over Garbiñe Muguruza at the U.S. Open.Barbora Krejcikova tried to cool down during a break in her quarterfinal match.Andy Brownbill/Associated PressKrejcikova said she was not experiencing the same issues on Tuesday. “Today it was the heat that started to bother me after five games,” she said. “From there on, I just couldn’t put it together. Still, I didn’t want to end it up. I wanted to finish up. I wanted to try to do my best. I wasn’t really able to do that.”Tuesday’s defeat guaranteed that Krejcikova, a tactically astute Czech player, cannot displace Barty at No. 1 in the next rankings. But she continues her rapid rise nonetheless. Outside the top 100 in 2020 in singles, Krejcikova has become a consistent threat in a women’s game filled with upsets and unexpected plot twists: Consider British qualifier Emma Raducanu’s run to the U.S. Open title last year.It is Keys’s turn to be the surprise so far in 2022. After dropping out of the top 50 by the end of last season, she is back in the final four in Australia, where she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal in 2015 at age 19.“It mostly feels different because I’m seven years older, and it’s not my first semifinal of a Slam,” she said. “I think I’m a little bit more prepared this time around than I was all those years ago.”Her opponent in that 2015 semifinal was No. 1 Serena Williams, the greatest women’s player of this era, who defeated her, 7-6 (5), 6-2, on her way to the title. Williams, now 40, is not playing in Melbourne this year, but Keys will face another No. 1 in Barty, who won two of their three previous meetings.Keys, who lost in the 2017 U.S. Open final to her close friend Sloane Stephens, has long been considered a potential Grand Slam champion. She is back in range again.Chris Evert, who has known Keys since she trained as a teenager at the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Fla., said it is apparent that Keys is enjoying herself on the court more than last year.“I’m seeing a very calm and focused Madison who is in control and managing her emotions like never before,” Evert wrote in a text message. “I’m seeing a fit and healthy Madison who is moving really well in and out of corners and not hitting risky shots because she can’t get back in the court. Her serve is almost unreturnable.”Evert added: “She had to find this place of calm herself, in her own time, no one could teach her this. I am thrilled for her. No one deserves a crack at a Grand Slam title more than her.”But Keys has been on tour long enough to know that thinking ahead is not the right approach for her. As Rumenov keeps telling her, “there is no need to, there is no have to.”Staying in the moment is the focus.“I think that’s really important,” she said. “I think it’s still something that I don’t think anyone is perfect at. You can kind of lose that even throughout a match, just getting a little bit ahead of yourself. I think I even did that today early in the second set. I think the biggest key is just being able to reel it back in and then refocus very quickly and catch yourself.” More

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      in Tennis

      Ashleigh Barty Advances to Australian Open Quarterfinals

      by

      Barty, the world No. 1, kept Amanda Anisimova, who upset Naomi Osaka in the previous round, moving and out of sync in the fourth round. Barbora Krejcikova also advanced.MELBOURNE, Australia — New day, very different opponent: That remains the cruel beauty of tennis.In the third round of the Australian Open, Amanda Anisimova, a 20-year-old American, got the chance to trade baseline bolts and full cuts with Naomi Osaka, bending low and swinging away to earn an upset.In the fourth round on Sunday night, the unseeded Anisimova found herself in a more subtle form of combat. If playing the 13th-seeded Osaka was toe to toe, playing the No. 1 Ashleigh Barty was cat and mouse.Barty, who had to rally to beat Anisimova at the 2019 French Open, knew firsthand the danger posed by Anisimova’s easy power and aggressive mentality and returns. Barty did a fine job on Sunday of giving her the tennis equivalent of bad pitches to hit.Barty deployed her skidding backhand slice and precise, hard-to-read serve. She changed pace and shape with her topspin forehand, moving Anisimova, who is much more at ease from stable ball-striking positions than on the stretch.New day, very different result: Anisimova lost to Barty in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, at Rod Laver Arena.“Each and every player, there are some similarities, but certainly tactics and the way that I want to play is unique to each and every player,” Barty said. “I try to adapt my game as best as I can.”Variety is not a panacea. A power player with an irresistible serve can prove too much to handle, which helps explain how Serena Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles. But Barty-style variety is a weapon, too, and she is not the only shape shifter thriving in Melbourne this year.Barbora Krejcikova, up to No. 4 in the world after her breakout singles season in 2021, is still on a roll. She trounced Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, 6-2, 6-2, in the afternoon heat on Sunday.“I take pride in having not just a Plan A but a Plan A, B, C and D,” Krejcikova said in an interview.Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, above, beat Victoria Azarenka of Belarus. Krejcikova will play Madison Keys in the quarterfinals.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesKrejcikova will face someone more inclined to Plan A in the quarterfinals on Tuesday: the huge-hitting American Madison Keys, a longtime top-10 player who arrived in Melbourne unseeded after struggling in 2021. But Keys, 26, has been exuding positive energy in the Australian sunshine as she tries to resolve her career-long conundrum: how to remain in command of her emotions in the matches that matter most.“My biggest mind-set change is just trying to enjoy tennis, take some of that just internal pressure that I was putting on myself,” Keys said on Sunday. “It was honestly freezing me. I felt like I couldn’t play at all. Just taking that away and putting tennis into perspective: that it’s a sport, something that when I was little I enjoyed doing and loved doing it. I was letting it become this dark cloud over me. Just trying to push all of that away and leave that behind last year and start fresh this year.”So far she is 10-1 in 2022, winning a title in Adelaide before arriving at Melbourne Park, where she has beaten a series of quality opponents including the 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin; Wang Qiang of China; and Paula Badosa, a new arrival in the top 10 from Spain whose hard-running athletic style was no match for Keys in the fourth round.But staying calm will become tougher for Keys as the trophy gets closer. For now, she has reached one Grand Slam event final, losing to her close friend Sloane Stephens in a one-sided match at the 2017 U.S. Open in which Keys seemed to freeze.“I think it obviously gets harder just because you get tighter, and it’s bigger moments,” Keys said. “Even in the finals in Adelaide, I started incredibly nervous, and I felt that. Just acknowledging it, accepting it — not trying to fight it and pretend that it’s not happening — has been probably the best thing that I’ve done.”Barty will have to clear her own mental hurdles if she continues to advance. No woman left in the draw has won an Australian Open singles title, and the only men’s champion remaining is Rafael Nadal, who faces a tough quarterfinal with Denis Shapovalov, the flashy, left-handed Canadian who has beaten him once and who upset one of the tournament favorites, the third-seeded Alexander Zverev, 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-3, on Sunday.Barty is trying to become the first Australian to win the Australian Open singles title in 44 years. The last was Christine O’Neil, who prevailed in 1978 over a relatively weak international field. But Barty, entrenched at No. 1, is up against much stronger opposition. Unlike O’Neil, who was unseeded, Barty is the focal point whenever she plays in Australia, even if she was spared from pretournament scrutiny this year because of the furor over Novak Djokovic’s vaccination and visa status.But Australians are paying closer attention now, wearing their “Barty Party” T-shirts; shouting, “C’mon Ash”; and watching in large numbers on television.Rod Laver, the former Australian great who made the trip from his home in California, has said that Barty is ready to do “something special.” He was in the stands at Rod Laver Arena on Sunday night.“It’s so nice to have him enjoying his own house, enjoying his own court,” Barty said. “He was unbeatable. I’m certainly not.”Jessica Pegula of the United States celebrated her victory against Maria Sakkari. Pegula will face Barty next.Daniel Pockett/Getty ImagesBarty, who skipped the end of last season to return to Australia to recharge, has yet to advance past the semifinals in singles at the Australian Open. To get that far again, she must defeat Jessica Pegula, an American who is more consistent and poker faced than Anisimova; her game is more difficult to read, too. More counterpuncher than puncher, she got the balance between patience and aggression just right in her straight sets victory in the fourth round over Maria Sakkari, who beat Pegula in a three-set thriller in Miami last year.“I feel like Ash is so tactical in everything she does,” Pegula said. “Really a smart, like perfect, kind of tennis player in that way.”But the 21st-seeded Pegula, not the quickest or most imposing athlete on tour, has made her leap into the elite by widening her range even if the core of her game remains her pure, relatively flat groundstrokes.“She’s able to hold the baseline really well,” Barty said. “Her swings are quite linear, and she gets a racket behind the ball and swings through the path. The ball comes at you at a different trajectory, and her ability to absorb pace and then add to it when she wants to is exceptional. It’s going to be a challenge for me to try to push her off that baseline and make her uncomfortable and feel like she has to create. But I know she’s also going to be doing the exact same thing to me, trying to make me uncomfortable.”That push and pull is the essence of tennis, and what works on a Sunday may no longer work come Tuesday. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      At Wimbledon One Final Day of Rest, and One Last Manic Monday

      by

      Starting in 2022, the tournament will eliminate its traditional “middle Sunday” off and instead spread fourth-round matches across Sunday and Monday.WIMBLEDON, England — Wimbledon paused midtournament for the last time on Sunday. The practice courts were busy, but as usual no fans were admitted to the grounds and no official matches were played despite the rare presence of sunshine. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Tennis

      2021 French Open: What to Watch on Friday

      by

      Serena Williams, John Isner and Victoria Azarenka will play on Court Philippe-Chatrier as the third round of the French Open begins.How to watch: 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time on Tennis Channel; streaming on Tennis Channel+ and the Peacock app.The third round of the French Open begins on Friday, and 12 Americans will play singles matches in the next two days. John Isner and Reilly Opelka, who are seeded, will be looking to fix a recent issue: There are no American men ranked in the top 30 for the first time in more than 50 years. There are no such issues on the women’s side, with Sofia Kenin and Serena Williams in the top 10 and five more Americans behind them in the top 30.Here are some matches to keep an eye on.Because of the number of matches cycling through courts, the times for individual matchups are estimates and may fluctuate based on when earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern.Court Philippe-Chatrier | 6 a.m.Victoria Azarenka vs. Madison KeysVictoria Azarenka of Belarus, the 15th seed, reached the semifinals of the French Open in 2013, but has not been past the third round since. In the past year, she reached the U.S. Open final, but was also knocked out in the first round of the Australian Open. After injuring her back at the Madrid Open in early May, it was unclear whether Azarenka, 31, would be able to play at Roland Garros. So far, Azarenka, a former world No. 1, has performed well, but she will be facing a formidable opponent in the third round.Madison Keys of the United States, the 23rd seed, has also struggled in 2021, not winning consecutive matches until this week at the French Open. Keys, 26, reached the semifinals in 2018 and the quarterfinals in 2019, but lost in the first round last year. Both players are hard-hitting baseliners. It should be an electric match.Court Philippe-Chatrier | 10 a.m.Serena Williams vs. Danielle CollinsSerena Williams celebrated after winning a long point in a tough match against Mihaela Buzarnescu in the second round on Wednesday.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesSerena Williams, the seventh seed, showed signs of vulnerability in the second round against Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania. After losing the second set, Williams, 39, limited her errors and ended up storming through the third set, 6-1, with a dominant performance returning serves. After some early-round exits during the clay-court swing, Williams must take every challenge seriously.Danielle Collins, an American ranked No. 50, swept past Anhelina Kalinina in the second round, losing only two games. Collins, who had surgery for endometriosis in the spring, did not play a tournament on clay in preparation for the French Open, but she has shown match fitness in the first two rounds. Collins, 27, will be a troublesome opponent for Williams. When the two met on hardcourts in January, Williams barely won in a third-set tiebreaker. Now, on a less favorable surface, there is the potential for an upset.Court Philippe-Chatrier | 3 p.m.Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. John IsnerJohn Isner has a booming serve, but his ground game will be tested in the third round.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesJohn Isner, the 31st seed, does not have a game that would traditionally favor clay. Isner, a 6-foot-10 American, has a booming serve that favors him on hardcourts and grass, but he has worked in recent years to improve his ground game. This helped him as he broke his second-round opponent, Filip Krajinovic, three times in the second set. Now, Isner’s ground game will be tested to its limit as he looks for an upset.Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the fifth seed, has had a strong clay-court season, winning the Monte Carlo Masters and the Lyon Open and reaching the final of the Barcelona Open. Tsitsipas, 22, swept through the first two rounds of the French Open without dropping a set, and is a favorite to reach the final from his half of the draw. On Friday, he will have to find a way to adjust to Isner’s strong serve. If he can settle in on return games and get some early breaks, he should be able to control the flow of the match.Court 14 | 5 a.m.Casper Ruud vs. Alejandro Davidovich FokinaCasper Ruud, the 15th seed, has spent the last few years knocking down national records that were once held by his father, Christian. This time, he will look to be the first Norwegian player to reach the round of 16 at more than one Grand Slam event after doing so for the first time at the Australian Open this year. Ruud picked up his second ATP title, and his second on clay, in Geneva last week.Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, ranked No. 46, struggled in a five-set match against Botic van de Zandschulp in the second round. The match lasted 3 hours 42 minutes, with far more errors than winners coming from both players as they attempted to grind out long points and exhaust each other. It will be a challenge for Fokina, 21, to recover in time.Here are a few more matches to keep an eye on.Aryna Sabalenka vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova; Court Simonne-Mathieu, 5 a.m.Pablo Carreño Busta vs. Steve Johnson; Court Simonne-Mathieu, 10 a.m.Daniil Medvedev vs. Reilly Opelka; Suzanne Lenglen Court, 10 a.m.Paula Badosa vs. Ana Bogdan; Court Simonne-Mathieu, noon. More