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    WTA Finals Finds a Last-Second Home in Mexico

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

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      Leylah Fernandez and Coco Gauff Advance at the French Open

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      She outlasted Amanda Anisimova, a hard-hitting American, showing the kind of big-stage composure that got her to the final of last year’s U.S. Open.PARIS — It is a new season and a different surface, but Leylah Fernandez, still tenacious and still a teenager, is back in the deep end of another Grand Slam tournament.She needed all of her resourcefulness and upbeat energy on this unseasonably chilly Sunday afternoon at Roland Garros.Amanda Anisimova, a 20-year-old American seeded 27th, is one of the biggest pure hitters in women’s tennis, capable of generating phenomenal pace with a seemingly casual swipe of the racket.She has a new model this season, which has helped her control her easy power. The 17th-seeded Fernandez spent nearly two hours digging in the corners and lunging for returns, but in the end, the counterpuncher beat the puncher 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 as Fernandez’s quickness, consistency and yes-I-can positivity made the small difference as she advanced to her first French Open quarterfinal.“She’s very offensive,” Fernandez said. “I just tried to be as offensive as her and just take my chances, and the balls went in today.”That is no coincidence at this stage. Fernandez, a 19-year-old Canadian, looks like a big-stage player and was part of perhaps the biggest surprise in tennis history when she and another unseeded teenager, Emma Raducanu, advanced to the U.S. Open final last year with Raducanu, a qualifier, winning in straight sets.The rest of the women’s field has certainly taken notice.“I’m thinking, especially if the U.S. Open taught us anything, that anybody can win on any day,” said Coco Gauff, an 18-year-old American who is seeded 18th at Roland Garros.Gauff played one of the better matches on Sunday, defeating No. 31 seed Elise Mertens 6-4, 6-0 to return to the French Open quarterfinals, where she lost last year to the eventual champion Barbora Krejcikova in an error-strewn match that Gauff ranks as one of the biggest disappointments of her short career because of the way she managed the most significant points.“I think that was the biggest lesson I learned last year in my quarterfinal,” Gauff said. “I had a couple of set points, and I think I freaked out when some of those points didn’t go my way. Today I didn’t freak out.”Instead, she gathered strength and showed increased patience on the clay, often engaging in long rallies with Mertens before going for winners (or hitting a lunging backhand around the net post).Her work on herself and with her new coach, Diego Moyano, seems to be paying dividends, and Gauff will next face one of Moyano’s former pupils, Sloane Stephens, in an all-American, intergenerational duel.Stephens, 29, is unseeded this year but has long thrived on clay and was a French Open finalist in 2018. On Sunday, she overwhelmed Jil Teichmann 6-2, 6-0. Stephens defeated Gauff 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of last year’s U.S. Open when they played for the first time on tour. But that was hardly the first meeting. Both are based in South Florida, and Stephens attended Gauff’s 10th birthday party and practiced with Gauff for the first time when Gauff was 12 and already planning on facing Stephens on much bigger stages.“Today I didn’t freak out,” Coco Gauff said of her straight-sets win on Sunday.Yoan Valat/EPA, via Shutterstock“I had a very competitive mind-set since I was a little girl,” Gauff said. “Yes, I looked up to her and all that, but I knew that I was going to be playing against her.”For those who followed the dueling Cinderella stories, Fernandez and Raducanu will be forever linked, but though both were seeded here in Paris, they have not been on parallel paths since New York.Neither has come close to taking the regular tour by storm. That has been reserved for a player who is only slightly older: the new No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who at age 20 has won 31 straight matches and remains a prohibitive favorite at Roland Garros, where she was a surprise teenage champion herself in 2020.But while Raducanu has signed a series of major endorsement deals and shuffled coaches, she has yet to get past the quarterfinals of a regular tour event since the U.S. Open. Fernandez has often lost early as well but she did defend her singles title in Monterrey, Mexico, in March and is now making her best run in Paris with a fine chance to go further considering that she will face the unseeded Italian Martina Trevisan in a rare quarterfinal between left-handers at Roland Garros.Sloane Stephens will face Gauff, her fellow American, in the quarterfinals.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFernandez said she put too much pressure on herself to succeed after the U.S. Open final.“I just wanted to be more offensive, more aggressive and improve my game as fast as possible,” she said. “I think I just understood that there is a process, and it’s still a long year, a very long year, and I just need to calm myself down, calm my mind down. And just accept that things are going to be tough, things are going to go sideways in a match, in a practice. And just understand that I’ve got more tools in my toolbox that I can use and just find solutions.”That last sentence sounds like she has been studying the Rafael Nadal phrase book, and there is indeed a touch of Nadal in Fernandez on court. She, too, is a speedy lefty with unorthodox technique. Nadal has his bolo-whip finish on the forehand; Fernandez has extreme grips of her own and often hits her two-handed backhand with her hands far apart.There are the intangibles, too: the in-the-moment combativeness; the resolute walk between points and the ingrained rituals. Anisimova might want to jot down a few notes considering her lingering tendency to get negative. She often grimaced at her errors on Sunday, mocking her own shots and flinging her racket across the red clay in frustration late in the final set to the sound of a few scattered boos from stands that were never more than half full on the main Chatrier Court.Fernandez seemed like a more composed and focused presence. Even if her game was a flickering flame, her commitment was not.“Every time I step out on the court I still have something to prove,” she said. “I still have that mind-set I’m the underdog. I’m still young. I still have a lot to show to the people, to the public so that they can just enjoy the tennis match.” More

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      Madison Keys Defeats Barbora Krejcikova at Australian Open

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      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

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      Ashleigh Barty Advances to Australian Open Quarterfinals

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      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

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      For Barbora Krejcikova, Tennis Grew on Her

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

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      What to Watch on Sunday at the U.S. Open

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      Barbora Krejcikova and Garbiñe Muguruza meet in a battle of players ranked in the top 10 in the world. Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime plays Frances Tiafoe.How to watch: From noon to 6 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN, 7 to 11 p.m. on ESPN2, and streaming on the ESPN app. In Canada, on TSN from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and streaming on TSN.ca and the TSN app.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.ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | NoonElina Svitolina vs. Simona HalepElina Svitolina, the fifth seed, has never been past the semifinals of a Grand Slam event, while Simona Halep, the 12th seed, has won two major titles on the “natural surfaces,” grass and red clay. The two stars have met nine times on tour, and Svitolina holds a slight edge, with five victories. Although both missed out on the U.S. Open last year, they have had plenty of experience in Arthur Ashe Stadium and will be sure to provide a wonderful match to start the day.ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 7 p.m.Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Frances TiafoeOn Friday night, both Felix Auger-Aliassime and Frances Tiafoe battled opponents for five sets under the lights of the two main stadiums at Flushing Meadows. Tiafoe upset the fifth seed, Andrey Rublev, in a tight match; Tiafoe won 150 points, while Rublev won 148, and every other stat line provided similar margins. Auger-Aliassime pushed past Roberto Bautista Agut, the 18th seed, riding behind a dominant service performance that included 27 aces. As the two heavy hitters face off, viewers can expect an explosive match under the lights.ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 8 p.m.Barbora Krejcikova vs. Garbiñe MuguruzaThe WTA tour has been defined by a lack of predictability. New stars appear, and consistent champions struggle through major events. In contrast, this year’s U.S. Open has been a much more favorite-friendly venue. Today’s match between Barbora Krejcikova and Garbiñe Muguruza will be the first since the 2020 Australian Open played between top 10 players at a major. Krejcikova won the French Open this year, and Muguruza has won two Grand Slam events, making this a particularly well-matched pair; neither will be hindered by the nerves that can accompany a deep run at a major tournament.Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain playing in a first-round match on Monday.Elsa/Getty ImagesLouis Armstrong STADIUM | 1 p.m.Leylah Fernandez vs. Angelique KerberLeylah Fernandez knocked out Naomi Osaka in a three-set battle on Friday night, outlasting the defending champion. Fernandez won her first WTA title on hard courts at the Monterrey Open in March and has backed up her breakthrough year with fearless ball striking.Angelique Kerber, a three-time major champion, reached the semifinals at Wimbledon, her first time past the fourth round of a major since her victory at Wimbledon in 2018. Kerber has faced tough opposition through the first three rounds but has looked thoroughly in control, using her counterpunching style of play to push around more aggressive opponents.Sleeper match of the day.Grandstand | 5 p.m.Carlos Alcaraz Garfia vs. Peter GojowczykPeter Gojowczyk, ranked No. 141, upset Ugo Humbert, the 23rd seed, in the first round after a grueling set of qualifying matches to get into the main draw. Having never been past the second round of a Grand Slam event, even with 17 main draw appearances, Gojowczyk is flying in rarefied air.Carlos Alcaraz Garfia broke into the public consciousness on Friday after a career-defining upset over the third seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas. The 18-year-old Alcaraz played a near-perfect match to reach the fourth round of a major event for the first time, using his flat baseline shots to power past Tsitsipas, a former ATP Tour Finals champion.As this is the only main draw singles match out on the grounds today, expect New York fans to pull for either the veteran underdog or the young star based on whichever will help elongate the match. More

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      Barbora Krejcikova, on a Roll, Is a Contender at the U.S. Open

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      When Open qualifying was canceled in 2020, the Czech player who was outside the top 100 doubled down on her game, fitness and work ethic. Now she’s a top 10 player and in the final 16.Barbora Krejcikova missed out on last year’s U.S. Open when the qualifying draw was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, she played small tournaments in her native Czech Republic in hopes that she might earn enough ranking points to move closer to her goal of breaking into the WTA top 100 singles rankings for the first time.Krejcikova cracked the top 100 last October, but that was only the beginning. This year, she is not only playing the U.S. Open, she’s ranked in the top 10, moving from afterthought to juggernaut.Beginning with a WTA title in Strasbourg in May, Krejcikova is on a 28-3 roll, which included a stunning run to the French Open title, and another WTA title in July in Prague. Her three losses in that time came at Wimbledon and Cincinnati to top-ranked Ashleigh Barty, who was the eventual champion at both events, and to eventual gold medalist Belinda Bencic at the Olympics.“It feels good, for sure,” Krejcikova said in an interview. “I’m still feeling like I’m dreaming, but I’m also improving with every single match. I’m just very happy that I can play all the big tournaments, and get to see all the big players, to learn from them a lot and have a chance to play against them. All of this is something very special, and I’m just extremely happy it’s happening.”The eighth-seeded Krejcikova will face the ninth-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza in the fourth round on Sunday, the first Grand Slam match between two women ranked in the WTA top 10 since the 2020 Australian Open (Muguruza is ranked 10th).Muguruza, who beat Krejcikova in March in Dubai and lost to her last month in Cincinnati, called her steep ascent “quite shocking,” and said she could already sense a difference in Krejcikova’s game and attitude. “She has way more confidence now after winning a slam,” Muguruza said. “I can feel it in her shots.”Krejcikova, 25, said that her work ethic changed and sharpened during the pandemic, when she pushed herself to do more fitness, physiotherapy, and recovery work than she had before.“I had more time, so I spent more time with my coach,” Krejcikova said. “I started to be a little more professional. I didn’t expect that it’s going to help, but as I see it right now, it’s helping and I’m moving forward. That’s where I get the craziness in my head saying ‘OK, you’ve got to go again, you’ve got to go again.’”Krejcikova said that “craziness” has led to a single-mindedness about her craft. “I just work really hard, and I dedicate everything to tennis,” she said. “All my focus is around tennis, around the things about tennis. Tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis. Even sometimes my family says I have to stop at some moments, but I’m at this stage where I’m playing this well, and I just want to keep improving. That’s my mentality.”Simona Halep, who first played against Krejcikova five years ago when she was ranked 200th, said she had always recognized a strong drive in Krejcikova, on top of her quick hands and stable demeanor. “She’s a great player, and I think she deserves to be there,” Halep said. “Every time I saw her in the gym and on the court, she was working super hard. Yeah, credit to her.”Krejcikova said she isn’t sure what kept her from reaching her goals sooner, but said that she wanted to enjoy every moment now.“I’m just really happy I’m here,” she said. “Playing the smaller tournaments, it’s not the same. Being here, playing Grand Slams, playing WTAs, being able to play on a big stage, on a big court, you cannot really describe it. You have that feeling in your stomach when you step on a court and you’re very nervous and you don’t know what to expect. You just want to play your best tennis, and you don’t know if you’re going to play your best tennis or not.“Then the first point starts, and for me time stops, and I’m just there. I’m just enjoying the moment, and I think during that moment it’s where I’m playing my best tennis. I just want to get to this mood, to this point. I just want to fight for every single point in every single match, because it took me so long to get here, and who knows how long I’m going to be here? You never really know, so I want to take every chance that I get.”Krejcikova, who is ranked second in the WTA year-to-date rankings behind Barty, said her next goal is to be considered worthy of the sport’s largest stages: the main courts and marquee sessions at Grand Slam tournaments.She said that despite her impressive results, she does not feel like a star attraction.“Right now I don’t feel that even after all that I did, and all that’s happening, I still don’t feel that T.V. wants to see me or the tournaments want to see me,” she said. “I don’t know why; it doesn’t really matter. I just want to get to that point where I’m going to play my first round on a huge court, and there will be people who want to see me.“I’ll want them to be entertained, and to do the best show for them. I’m not at this point yet. My motivation is not winning or losing; my motivation is to get to this stage.” More

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      To Get Better at Being Single, Coco Gauff Is Making It a Double

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      The American teenager keeps winning at Wimbledon, and has used her doubles matches with Caty McNally to improve her tactics playing singles. She’s not the only one.WIMBLEDON, England — Coco Gauff, 17, and Roger Federer, 39, are at opposite ends of their playing careers, but they keep sharing the same highly desirable real estate. More