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    Jessica Pegula Is Still in the Hunt for her First Major Title

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    She is the top female American tennis player and knows that she has to be more aggressive to win more.Jessica Pegula strode into Wimbledon’s cavernous interview room, bucket hat perched on her head, and stared at the empty room. When she realized that there were no media members there to ask her about her second-round win over Cristina Bucsa, Pegula chuckled, got up and walked out.Pegula is never entirely shocked when attention is diverted away from her. Though ranked No. 3 in the world, the highest among American women, and the champion at the Canadian Open two weeks ago, Pegula, 29, has never advanced to the semifinals in singles at a Grand Slam tournament. She is 0-6 in quarterfinal appearances at the majors, including at this year’s Australian Open and Wimbledon. The United States Open, where she lost to Iga Swiatek in a tight two-setter last year, is her final chance this season.At 5-foot-7, Pegula doesn’t have a thunderous serve, like Aryna Sabalenka. And she doesn’t possess flashy movements like the No. 1 Swiatek. Pegula can also flutter emotionally, as when she let a 4-1 lead slip in the third set against the eventual Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova. Instead, it is her consistency that sets her apart.“Her ball-striking is really, really good,” said David Witt, her coach since 2019. “If I were to think of a player who hits this clean it would be [former No. 1] Lindsay Davenport.”Pegula’s game is durable and reliable. She has a wide wingspan and hits with tremendous power off the forehand and backhand. Because of her doubles success with Coco Gauff, she has become a more-than-competent volleyer.She also studiously avoids the histrionics that many of her compatriots get entangled in.“I’m pretty chill, pretty laid-back,” said Pegula in an interview during Wimbledon in July. “It takes a lot to get me going emotionally, excited or upset. Maybe that’s good for the U.S. Open, because I’m able to stay well-balanced.”For Pegula, the Open is a mixed bag. A Buffalo native (her parents own the Buffalo Bills of the N.F.L. and the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League), she likes the fan support in New York but struggles with the mayhem.“I feel like the Open is really hot and crowded,” said Pegula, who failed to qualify four times at the Open before reaching the third round in 2020. “Everything is kind of against you. There’s so much going on. You’re usually really hyped up, and it’s kind of like you’re running on fumes. There’s just so much energy, and it can be really fun, but it can also zap a lot out of you. It’s something you have to learn how to balance.”Jessica Pegula serving during a singles semifinal at the Mubadala Citi DC Open on Aug. 5. “Her ball-striking is really, really good,” said her coach, David Witt.Geoff Burke/Usa Today Sports, via ReutersBalance is particularly important for Pegula, who weathered career-threatening knee and hip injuries that kept her out of the U.S. Open a decade ago, and then she faced the emotional turmoil of her mother’s heart attack last June.Jimmy Arias, a former top five player who has worked with Pegula, once tried to impress upon her that there were two types of competitors: a lion and a rat. Pegula, with her fearsome ground strokes, has long been a lion. What she needed to adopt was the rat part.“In a nuclear explosion, a rat is the only animal to survive,” Arias said. “J.P. had the weapons of a lion, but she needed the mentality of the rat. She had to learn how to dig, claw and scratch her way out. Now, when she’s in trouble, she can find her way out of a point.”Pegula understands that; it’s just the execution that can be tricky.“I’m doing everything to put myself in a good position,” she said. “It’s just a little more belief in myself in the later stages of tournaments and being more aggressive in the bigger moments.”And if she doesn’t break through and win a major, will she feel unfulfilled?“If I had to stop tomorrow, I think I’d be pretty satisfied,” she said. “I got to have this amazing career, proved a lot to myself and to a lot of other people. Obviously, there’s more that I want to do, but I’ve gotten through the really tough parts and a lot of really big lows. To come out of that has been a win in itself.” More

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      Spanish Fans Rejoice at World Cup Win

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      The final against England brought out fans of all stripes and rallied girls in both countries to hit the field and play.In the game’s last seconds, Ona Sánchez couldn’t sit still. Then, when the referee finally blew the whistle to confirm that Spain had won the Women’s World Cup, she and the crowd around her — girls, boys, parents and other fans who had gathered to watch the match in Sant Pere de Ribes, near Barcelona — erupted in cheers.“Campeonas! Campeonas! Olé, olé, olé!” Ona and her friend Laura Solorzano, both 11, and draped together in a Spanish flag, sang in the small town’s central cobblestone square as other supporters splashed water from a nearby fountain. The two friends, both players in a local soccer club, said they couldn’t have hoped for a better ending.“It was the first time I watched a World Cup,” Ona said, emerging from a group of dancing children. “And we won! I’m so happy! It fills me with hope.”Laura Solorzano, left, and Ona Sánchez, both 11, seconds after Spain won the Women’s World Cup.Constant Méheut/The New York TimesSpain’s first victory in the Women’s World Cup and England’s run to the final were not only formidable achievements for teams that have transformed into perennial title contenders in the space of just a few years. They were also a fortifying message to the many girls in both countries who have increasingly been taking up the sport: Women, too, can elevate a nation to the summit of world soccer.The final has reflected the increasing interest and investment in women’s soccer in Spain and England, with more and more girls joining clubs and leagues that are growing in size and professionalism — a profound change in countries where soccer was long the preserve of all-powerful men’s teams, and one that is likely to accelerate after this year’s World Cup.“The perception of women’s soccer has changed,” said Dolors Ribalta Alcalde, a specialist in women’s sports at Ramon Llull University in Barcelona. “It is now seen as a real and exciting opportunity for girls. This World Cup, with its high profile, will have an impact on how people view women’s soccer. It will help make a big step forward.”In England, the mood was more somber as the national team’s hopes to follow up its European Championship victory were dashed. Even so, professional and recreational leagues have seen a surge of interest in recent years from women and girls, in a nation that has considered itself the spiritual home of the game. The advancement of the Lionesses to the final has only fueled that optimism.England fans watching in London. Interest in women’s soccer has surged in Britain.Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“It’s a catalyst for change,” said Shani Glover, an equal game ambassador for the London Football Association, which has pledged to encourage women and girls to play at both professional and recreational levels. An advocate for that shift, Ms. Glover said she had seen growing interest in girls signing up to the sport, particularly after England’s European Championship win. “Having the women center stage — it shifts the public’s mind-set,” she said.“If it was like before, I wouldn’t feel motivated; it was quite isolated,” Cerys Davies, 15, said while watching the final from an East London community center. Cerys trains several times a week at a football academy focused on giving underprivileged players a pathway to elite careers. “It’s good that women are getting the recognition and support they need,” she said, adding that she was heartened to see the crowds in the stadium for the final. “It allows me to know that I’ll be supported,” she said.Cerys Davies, 15, trains several times a week at a football academy focused on giving underprivileged players a pathway to elite careers.Isabella Kwai/The New York TimesIn Sant Pere de Ribes, residents did not have to wait for this year’s World Cup to benefit from the new spotlight on women’s soccer.Aitana Bonmatí, the Spanish star midfielder who was named the tournament’s best player, grew up in the town and played for the local youth soccer club for several years. As Ms. Bonmatí rose to success, many girls took up soccer, hoping to follow in her footsteps.“Our club has grown a lot,” said Tino Herrero Cervera, the club’s manager, noting that the number of girls’ teams has jumped from one to 10 since 2014. Girls now make up a third of the club’s players.“To see Aitana become such a great player motivates me,” said Laura, who wants to become a soccer pro herself. Her team won a youth league championship this year with a 14-point lead over the runner-up.“They’re the next Aitana,” Mr. Herrero said of Laura and Ona, grinning. He added that the high caliber of the girls’ play had helped the club rise in the league rankings. “It’s simple,” he said, “we want more girls to play.”Tino Herrero Cervera, the manager of the local youth soccer club, in Sant Pere de Ribes, south of Barcelona.Constant Méheut/The New York TimesThat has not always been the case. Dr. Ribalta, the sports academic, also oversees women’s soccer at Espanyol, a professional club in Barcelona, where she previously played for over a decade. “A girl playing soccer used to be a trauma for the family,” she said.Until recently, she said, female players were sometimes insulted on the pitch and denied access to proper training equipment and professional coaches, and they had to reconcile their sporting ambitions with the impossibility of earning a living from soccer.Women’s soccer teams were long disregarded — if not simply banned, as was the case in England in 1921. The country’s Football Association was alarmed by the popularity of women’s games, which had gained a following while the men’s league was suspended during World War I. The ban was in place for 50 years.In Spain, the women’s national team long lacked elite training facilities and even jerseys designed to be worn by women. It reached its first Women’s World Cup only in 2015, under a long-serving coach infamous for dismissing the players as “chavalitas,” or immature girls.Change came only in recent years. England created a professional domestic league for women in 2018, and Spain followed suit three years later. Corporate sponsors flocked in and elite women’s clubs such as Arsenal and Barcelona Femení started to attract more attention. The Barcelona team won two of the past three editions of the Women’s Champions League.Barcelona players celebrating after winning the Women’s Champions League final against Germany’s Wolfsburg in June.John Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat trend is filtering down to smaller and more amateur leagues, as well as younger players. In England, the number of teams playing in one girls’ league at Hackney Marshes, a famed playing ground for recreational soccer in East London, expanded to 44 teams from 26 in one season. In Spain, the number of registered female players has more than doubled since 2015, reaching nearly 90,000 today.That is still a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of men playing in both countries. But many are convinced that this year’s World Cup will inspire more girls to take up soccer and join talented youth teams, a pipeline for national women’s teams.“Many girls have watched these players on big screens for several weeks and followed them on social media,” said Soraya Chaoui López, the founder of the Women’s Soccer School in Barcelona, an academy begun in 2017 to help girls play soccer and to promote the role of women in the sport. “They are references they will listen to and imitate. They can look forward to becoming professional players themselves now.”Destiny Richardson, 14, left, and Dejaunel Bass, 15, watched the World Cup final on Sunday in London.Isabella Kwai/The New York TimesLooking up at the faces of the Lionesses loom on the screen in London, Destiny Richardson, 14, said, “Even if we come second, it’s still good.”She added that she was inspired as a player, saying, “You want to be there one day.”In London, a rare young player elated by the win was Mariam Vasquez, 9, who cheered when Spain triumphed, in honor of her family’s Spanish side.“I’m so happy to be with her to watch it,” her mother, Hind Aisha, said, adding that the whole family was supporting Mariam’s own soccer dreams. “I’m very proud — it’s a women’s game.” More

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      The Strawberry Fields of Wimbledon

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      A team of workers has been racing to pick, pack and transport the more than two million strawberries that are expected to be served over the course of the tournament.It was midmorning and the sun was still rising across the English countryside, but Shakhboz Yakhshiboev had been awake since the early hours. Against the backdrop of first light, Yakhshiboev had been making his way through one of the many 50-yard-long polytunnels that were his assignment for these two weeks.His hands appeared to blur as they ran across strawberry after strawberry, their plants all placed at shoulder height. Yakhshiboev’s fingertips squeezed and his eyes scanned each berry. Split-second judgments were required: Too large or too small? Ripe or not yet? Is the color just right?To pick or not to pick?Yakhshiboev, 30, a seasonal fruit picker from Uzbekistan, is part of a 32-person team that, for the duration of Wimbledon, has been the first link in a chain that brings fresh, British strawberries from Hugh Lowe Farms in Mereworth, Kent, to be eaten at the two-week Grand Slam tournament held roughly 30 miles away.A serving of strawberries and cream has become as synonymous with Wimbledon as a Honey Deuce cocktail at the U.S. Open in New York or a pimento cheese sandwich at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga. More

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      The Tennis ‘Pilgrimage’ to the Wimbledon Queue

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      Thousands are waiting, even camping out, in rainy England for a chance to see one Wimbledon match. For some, it is an annual ritual, a pilgrimage for the love of tennis.Tom O’Neill and Roz McArdle stood in Wimbledon’s famous ticketing queue with barely a hope of getting inside the grounds. It was 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, there were 4,000 people ahead of them, and they were told by a steward that it was “enormously unlikely” they would get inside.But they, and hundreds of others, clinging to the tiniest flicker of hope that they might get to see at least one match in the citadel of tennis, persistently inched along the snaking line.“We might as well give it a shot,” McArdle said. “We left work around 4 and got here about 5. If we don’t make it, maybe we’ll come back on Friday.”They were doing what people have done for more than a century, joining a line that weaves through an adjacent golf course and down Church Road to a ticket office, where each person, some of whom wait in line for over 24 hours, can purchase one ticket, for that day only, to attend the most famous tennis tournament in the world.Wimbledon sells tickets months in advance through a public ballot system, and allocates some tickets to tennis clubs and residents who live near the All England Club.Jane Stockdale for The New York Times“It’s totally worth it,” said Shreyas Dharmadhikari, a defense lawyer from Jabalpur in central India. “It is a pilgrimage you make for the love of tennis, for the love of Wimbledon.”With a capacity of roughly 42,000 for the grounds, Wimbledon sells tickets months in advance through a public ballot system, and allocates some tickets to tennis clubs and people who live near the All England Club, and through other select means. It is among the hardest tickets to get in sports, but the tournament does provide thousands of daily tickets to the public, if they are willing to wait hours for one.The queue is one of the longest, old-fashioned box office lines in the world, the sports equivalent to the infamous Studio 54 line, but a lot older.Roz McArdle and Tom O’Neill hoped they would get inside for at least one match on Wednesday.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesShreyas Dharmadhikari and his son Arjun waited 5 ½ hours to get inside.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Dharmadhikari brought his son, Arjun, who wore a sticker given out by stewards that read, “I queued in the rain.” They were given holding cards with Nos. 11,466 and 11,477, waited five and a half hours to get inside and were delighted to see several matches and eat strawberries and cream.But on Monday, some people waited nearly twice that long under periodic bursts of persistent rain on a disastrous opening day for the queue. Tournament organizers blamed the delays, which slowed the pace of the line to a crawl, on heightened security searches due to the threat of a climate protest.A protester threw confetti during a match between Sho Shimabukuro and Grigor Dimitrov on Court 18 on Wednesday.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesThe ball crew picked up confetti and jigsaw pieces that had been thrown on the court.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockThe threat became reality on Wednesday when two protesters ran onto Court No. 18 and flipped over a box of orange confetti. The protesters were led away rather quickly and the match resumed — but only after another rain delay in a tournament plagued by them. After weeks with virtually no precipitation in London, it rained intermittently during the first three days of the tournament, causing havoc within the schedule and in the soggy queue.But even without special circumstances, the queue can be a long (sometimes over a mile), tiresome, adventurous, wet, fun and uniquely British institution.Two schoolboys, Simon, 10, and his brother Stefano, 8, calmly read comic books as they waited on Wednesday, hoping to see their favorite player, the Italian 21-year-old Jannik Sinner, who beat Diego Schwartzman of Argentina in straight sets on Court No. 1.“We have been waiting for maybe two hours,” Simon said, and his brother asked, “Do you think we will make it?”Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesStewards helped organize the queue on Wednesday.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesAbout an hour later, a steward announced to a group somewhere in the middle of the line that there were 1,600 people ahead of them and that he was informed by a ticket manager only 250 more tickets would be released. Gasps of incredulity and disappointment rang out from the group, but no one immediately left.“How you receive this information is entirely up to you,” said the steward, who did everything short of ordering everyone to go home.That would not have been easy for Danielle Payten and her husband, David Payten, who flew from Sydney, Australia, with their three children. They took no chances of being shut out from the daily queue by doing what hundreds do daily. They camped overnight in tents.David Payten, top center, flew from Sydney with his family and camped overnight in tents.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesThe tent area, where spectators spend the night to ensure they’ll have a good spot in line the following day, is the more festive area of the queue: People play soccer, cards, cricket or read and sip cocktails. The sun broke out Wednesday afternoon, prompting young men in the line to remove their shirts for some spontaneous sunbathing.“It’s like a carnival atmosphere,” said one steward, who asked not to be named because they are not permitted to speak to reporters.The Paytens arrived at 3:30 p.m. and met some folks from the neighboring tents, one of whom had a dog. They chatted, ate and drank as they prepared for a cricket game on a patch of flat grass later that evening. Danielle’s brother, Chris Kearsley, who lives in London, arrived early to set up three tents for them (only two people per tent are given tickets). His daughter, Eliza Kearsley, lives a 15-minute walk from the same mystical venue that her relatives traveled 10,000 miles to see.She popped over just to see her relatives, for neither she nor her father planned to camp out and attend the next day’s matches.“If I stayed overnight, I’d been too drunk to go inside,” Chris Kearsley joked.But with only about 200 people in front of their group, the Australian cousins were virtually guaranteed entrance for Thursday’s matches.“It’s well worth it,” David Payten said. “It’s an adventure.”One traveler from Japan, who planned to stay for most of the two weeks of the tournament, brought a portable, solar powered clothes washer.Maria Balhetchet, a professional violinist from Dorset in southern England, and Felix Bailey, her tennis-playing son, arrived at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, aiming for Thursday’s action. They were given card No. 101, meaning only 100 people were ahead of them. Balhetchet camped out last year with her other son, and even though they scored third-row tickets to an explosive match between the eventual men’s singles finalist Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas, the experience was generally exhausting. Moisture infiltrated the tent, she did not get any sleep and she vowed never to do it again.But there she was on Wednesday.“It’s like giving birth,” she said. “You go through it and say, ‘Never again,’ but then of course you want to.”They were prepared to awake at 6 a.m. Thursday (after being in line almost 18 hours). Campers are given 30 minutes to dismantle their tents and put them in daily storage, then get into the line and wait — wait for it — for four more hours until the gates open. Some people, after watching the tennis, go back to the park, pick up their tents and queue up all over again — hence the need for the washing machine.Among those still hoping to get in on Wednesday was a group of teenage tennis players from the Time to Play Tennis Academy in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. Their coach, Doug Robinson, said the group flew from Harare to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and then to London, where they hoped to see Wimbledon live, and then play some matches around England.Late Wednesday afternoon they were still far back in the queue. The kids sat on the ground chatting, and Robinson sized up the situation.“It’s not looking too good from here,” he said. “But it’s Wimbledon. You have to take the chance.”Jane Stockdale for The New York Times More

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      Before Wimbledon, There’s Practice on Grass at an English Garden Party

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      The Boodles, which draws elite players on their way to the All England Club, is unlike nearly anything else on the tennis calendar — a Gatsby-like few days on an estate outside London.Even for the best tennis players in the world, the days before a Grand Slam can be filled with nerves and stress, especially the time leading up to Wimbledon, the grandest Grand Slam of them all.Days can become a blur of hunting for hitting partners and time on the limited practice courts a tournament has available, or one last try to win some tour-level matches at competitions in Eastbourne or Majorca.A handful of pros, including several clients of Patricio Apey, a longtime agent, end up at a classic English garden party called the Boodles that is unlike nearly anything else on the tennis calendar — a Gatsby-like few days on an estate outside London that makes Wimbledon’s All England Club, supposedly the apotheosis of tennis elegance, feel like a gathering of the masses at the local park.The Boodles tennis exhibition, set on a sprawling estate outside London, is unlike nearly anything else on the sport’s calendar.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesDriving in this morning, I was kind of shocked,” Lorenzo Musetti, the rising star from Italy, said of the 300-acre property, whose owner since 2021 has been Reliance Industries, a company run by the Ambani family of India, which bought it for roughly $70 million. “Not every day you see a property like this.”Or a high-end jewelry show masquerading as a tennis event at a sprawling former country club called Stoke Park.“The best event we do all year,” said Michael Wainwright, the managing director of Boodles, the Liverpool- and London-based jewelry company that his family has owned since 1880.Guests in the outdoor seating area before the matches began.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesStoke Park was bought by Reliance Industries, a company run by India’s Ambani family, for roughly $70 million in 2021.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesWhen he started the Boodles two decades ago, Apey wasn’t thinking about putting on a tennis event that would feel more like a polo match. He just knew that players who won Wimbledon made more money than players who won the other major tournaments. (Wimbledon’s men’s and women’s singles champions will earn nearly $3 million each this year.)He represented a number of players who excelled on clay courts but not on grass. They struggled to acclimate during the few weeks between the French Open and Wimbledon because they often lost early in the few tournaments available during the brief grass court season.“I needed to get them more matches,” Apey said.The only way for him to do that, he reasoned, was to create a grass court exhibition event near London ahead of Wimbledon. Stoke Park, with its some two-dozen-bedroom mansion, a rolling golf course — tennis players love to relax with rounds of golf — and immaculate grass tennis courts provided the perfect location.Through an acquaintance, he landed a meeting with Wainwright and his older brother, Nicholas, who warmed to the idea. It was a soft sell opportunity: Put their jewelry in front of hundreds of their top customers and thousands more in the upper echelon of the tennis demographic (think pocket squares and long, flowery summer dresses) whiling away a summer afternoon drinking champagne and Pimm’s, eating multicourse catered lunches, enjoying high tea, browsing a tented pavilion filled with sparkling baubles and perhaps taking in some tennis in a small stadium under high trees surrounded by perfectly manicured gardens.Who doesn’t love mixing grass court tennis and expensive jewelry?Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBoodles sponsors another high-end sports event, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a well-heeled equestrian race, but women like tennis more, Wainwright said, and horse racing doesn’t offer the same “dwell time” that tennis does.In other words, with all of tennis’s changeovers and the breaks between sets and matches, and the fact that the matches don’t actually matter, the 10,000 patrons who come to the five days of the Boodles tennis event have plenty of time to peruse that $2.9 million diamond ring, or the more affordable $80,000 necklace. There were several cases of Patek Philippe watches on display as well.Boodles also threw an evening gala on the Stoke Park grounds for roughly 40 of its top customers Wednesday night. Wine and champagne flowed, and jewelry was sold, into the small hours of the morning.Andrey Rublev took advantage of the grass courts at Stoke Park to practice before his match.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesBorna Coric worked out after a match.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesCoric, left, and Sebastian Korda answer questions during an interview.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesFor players, the Boodles can offer an appearance fee and — just as valuable — a chance to chill. Sebastian Korda and his coach, Radek Stepanek, joined Wainwright for a round of golf earlier in the week.There is an expansive gym for the growing cohort of lifting obsessives on the tour. Perhaps most important are the moments of calm practice on the Stoke Park grass before the chaos of Wimbledon.“It’s a chance to work on a few things,” said Korda, who played in Eastbourne the week before Wimbledon last year and lost his first match.Borna Coric of Croatia, who was winless in two grass court tournaments this year, said he had arrived at Stoke Park this week harried and worried about his form. He had then climbed into bed in a luxurious room.“I had the best night of sleep I’ve had in weeks,” Coric said. More

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      Once the Prince of Tennis and a Prison Inmate, Boris Becker Starts Again

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      Becker, who is featured in a new documentary, is beginning a third act after serving eight months in prison. “I’m sort of in late summer, fall of my life,” he said.There is something about athletes achieving a level of greatness as teenagers that makes watching them progress into middle age especially jarring.The toll of life replaces the exuberance of youth. Paunch overtakes once-chiseled physiques. In the most unfortunate cases, bad decisions from the triumphant years, the years after, or both, lead to an existence that seemed unimaginable back when life brought the glory of championship after championship and the attendant glamour.This is what comes to mind when Boris Becker — a Wimbledon singles champion at 17, an inmate in a British prison at 54 and now a free man at 55 — appears on a laptop screen in his first interview with The New York Times since he was released from prison late last year. Becker served eight months of a two-and-a-half year sentence for hiding and transferring money and assets during a bankruptcy proceeding. He was previously convicted of tax evasion in Germany in 2002.Now, he hopes, all that is behind him, and he can begin to reclaim the better parts of his pre-incarceration life, doing what retired tennis greats of a certain age generally do — commentating on television and picking up work as an occasional coach and adviser for younger players. Becker, a six-time Grand Slam champion, has a sadly unique but valuable perspective on the perils and pitfalls of life as a modern tennis star.“I have now a little bit of wisdom of what to do and certainly what not to do,” he said.The prison uniform is gone, replaced with a neatly tailored blue suit. Sitting in front of a camera in Dubai, where he had traveled for business meetings and interviews, Becker was noticeably thinner than before his incarceration, though his blue eyes were once again bright and hopeful, compared with his sagging, heavy-lidded demeanor of a year ago.Becker at Wimbledon in 1990.Dave Caulkin/Associated PressBecker’s rise and crash are portrayed in a new two-part documentary, “Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker,” by the filmmakers Alex Gibney and John Battsek. Becker participated in and is promoting the film, which premieres on Apple TV+ on Friday, but unlike many celebrity documentaries these days, “Boom Boom” is not a vanity project in which the subjects or members of their management teams serve as executive producers, craft the narrative and gain from the film’s financial success.That is not how Gibney (“Enron,” “The Armstrong Lie,” “Going Clear”) and Battsek (“Searching for Sugar Man,” “One Day In September”) work. It’s also not what Becker, who has always gone his own way, both on and off the tennis court, with occasionally calamitous results, was interested in.“If you are a co-producer, you’re going to cut the corners, you’re not going to show yourself the way that maybe the outside world sees you,” Becker said. “It shows a you in a much better light than you truly are. And for me, you know, honesty was always important.”The result is a bare-knuckles portrait of a player who as a teenager rose to the pinnacle of his sport and peak celebrity in Germany, his home country. His seemingly perfect marriage to Barbara Feltus, a Black woman, served as an inflection point for race relations in Germany (after eight years, the marriage ended in divorce).But in retirement, Becker’s life degenerated into a sordid story of philandering, failed business ventures, bankruptcies, tabloid scandals and prison time. Along the way, there was also a nearly three-year stint coaching the world No. 1 Novak Djokovic through one of the most successful periods of his career.Gibney, the writer and director who is a self-described “tennis freak,” said he had been drawn to footage from a 1991 documentary in which Becker said he enjoyed falling behind by a set or two in matches. That would focus his mind, Becker said, and then he would roar back.“Not such a good plan in real life, and not a really great plan for tennis, either,” Gibney said.Battsek, the producer, said he initially approached Becker about making a documentary in 2018, before Becker’s bankruptcy cascaded into a criminal conviction. Gibney interviewed him extensively in 2019, and again last year after his conviction and just days before his sentencing, when an overweight and scared Becker tried to have his say for what he anticipated could be the last time for several years.Becker and his partner, Lilian de Carvalho, in London before Becker’s sentencing in 2022.Andy Rain/EPA, via Shutterstock“His biggest mistake was to mistakenly think the swagger that carried him through everything would carry him through tricky ground when it came to his financials,” Battsek said of Becker. “You’ve got to be smart enough to know, ‘I can’t swagger through this.’”Becker was released from prison early under a fast-track deportation program for foreign nationals, but not before what he described as eight challenging months in two prisons.“Very difficult, especially from the life that I came from,” he said.During his first weeks of incarceration, the man who once had ruled hallowed Center Court at Wimbledon was locked inside his cell for 22 hours a day, let out only for lunch and dinner, a shower and a brief period outdoors.In Becker’s early 20s, when he nearly retired from tennis on multiple occasions, he would spend hours at night in his hotel room writing in his journals. Similarly, the isolation in prison gave him plenty of time to reflect on where his life had gone wrong, he said. He remembered plenty of poor choices — putting too much trust in managers and advisers, impregnating a woman in the back room at a Nobu restaurant in London, making a series of poor investments. He also thought about the good times, though, the great moments of his career and all the high-flying luxuries his success afforded him.He said he feared for his safety in prison, but that he checked his ego and fell in with a group that protected him. He declined to provide details.“There’s a code of honor that you don’t speak about prison on the outside,” he said. “I have too much respect for the inmates.”He knows his life did not have to go the way it did and that he should have spent more time during his playing days locked in an office, familiarizing himself with all those documents he signed, instead of on a beach or a tennis court.He also was not mentally prepared when he retired, he said, for the shock of being called old at 35 and of having to start a second career from scratch.But now he is starting over once more. Eurosport hired him to commentate on the Australian Open. He is hopeful that some of his other partners and employers will return as wellFor the first time, he is keeping his goals small.“I’m sort of in late summer, fall of my life, so I want to really work on the next 25 years,” he said. “You look back on your life incarcerated, you look back on your professional life as a player, as a coach, as a commentator. You want to learn from the experience, you want to improve on some of the things that you started. And so that’s my goal.” More

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      Boris Becker Returns to Germany After Release From British Prison

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      The tennis champion left for his home country after serving time in Britain for hiding his assets in a bankruptcy case.Boris Becker, the three-time Wimbledon champion, returned to his home country of Germany on Thursday after he was freed from prison in Britain, his lawyer said.The Southwark Crown Court in London sentenced Mr. Becker to 30 months in prison in April for hiding his assets after he was declared bankrupt.Mr. Becker’s lawyer, Christian-Oliver Moser, said in a statement that the former tennis player left for Germany after he was released from prison. “Thus he has served his sentence and is not subject to any restrictions in Germany,” Mr. Moser said.Mr. Becker, 55, was sentenced to prison after he was found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act in Britain, where he had lived since 2012.Neither Mr. Becker’s lawyer nor the British authorities said whether he had been ordered to leave the country.“Any foreign national who is convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence is considered for deportation at the earliest opportunity,” the Home Office, which oversees immigration in Britain, said in a statement.Under Britain’s Early Removal Scheme, foreign nationals who are imprisoned in Britain and are subject to deportation can be removed from the country up to 12 months before they would have otherwise been eligible for release. From 2020 to 2021, the Home Office removed more than 1,100 people under this program.After Mr. Becker was declared bankrupt in June 2017, he was legally obligated to disclose all of his assets so they could be used to pay his creditors. The London court found in April that he had concealed, failed to disclose and removed assets, including a loan of 825,000 euros (around $875,000) and property valued at €426,930.90 (around $453,000), according to Britain’s Insolvency Service.As he tried to fend off creditors, Mr. Becker made an unsuccessful bid for diplomatic immunity from the British courts in 2018, after the Central African Republic had in April of that year named him as its attaché to the European Union for sports, culture and humanitarian affairs.Nearly two decades earlier, in 2002, Mr. Becker was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined nearly $300,000 after being found guilty of income tax evasion in Munich.The court battles followed a stellar career in tennis.In 1985, Mr. Becker, then 17 years old, became the youngest champion in the history of men’s singles at Wimbledon. He won six Grand Slam titles, including three at Wimbledon, before he retired from tennis in 1999. He was a frequent commentator for the BBC at Wimbledon and coached Novak Djokovic, a 21-time Grand Slam singles champion, for three seasons. More

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      Taylor Fritz Almost Beat Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon. The Loss Still Hurts.

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      He had beaten Nadal earlier this year to win his first ATP Masters 1000 and is now representing Team World for the first time since 2019.Taylor Fritz leaned across the long table, his cheeks cupped in his hands, his face flushed with exhaustion and emotion.It was not long after Fritz had lost a four-hour, 21-minute Wimbledon quarterfinal to Rafael Nadal in July — a match that featured a fifth-set super tiebreaker in addition to a medical timeout to tend to Nadal’s torn abdominal muscle — and the magnitude of Fritz’s heartbreak engulfed the room.“I really, really wanted this match,” Fritz said at the time. “I was sitting there and felt like crying. I’ve never felt like that after a loss.”Six weeks later, the loss still stung.“Those kinds of matches hurt the most to lose,” Fritz said by phone just before the start of the United States Open. “It was my first major quarterfinal, so I had to take a step back and look at the positives. I was so close, so maybe next time I’ll get it.”Taylor Fritz lost in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon to Rafael Nadal in July. The match went to a super tiebreaker in the final fifth set.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressFritz has been highly thought of since he won the Junior U.S. Open in 2015. His mother, Kathy May, was ranked No. 10 in the world in 1977 and his father, Guy, is a coach.This year has been up and down for Fritz. The Californian, 24, is the top-ranked American male and No. 12 in the world. In March, he won his first ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Indian Wells, beating Nadal in the final.But just when he thought he was on track to win a major, Fritz was upset in the first round of the U.S. Open by the qualifier Brandon Holt, ranked No. 303 at the time. Fritz has also been nursing an ankle injury but is confident it won’t be an issue when he plays for Team World at the Laver Cup, which begins on Friday in London.The following conversation has been edited and condensed.The last time you played Laver Cup, in 2019, you lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas and beat Dominic Thiem. What brought you back now?I would have played every single year if I was invited to be on the team. It’s an honor to represent Team World and it’s such a fun, amazing event. Just the energy, it’s tough to find at anything like the team competition.What will it be like playing against Team Europe? It’s a pretty stacked team, with Roger Federer, Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Casper Ruud and Tsitsipas.I look forward to it. I think that on any given day I can beat anybody, and that’s what the team is going to be asking of me, so I’m ready.You’ve talked a lot about innate confidence. Where does that come from?It’s just something I’ve always had. I’ve always felt that how can you ever succeed and be the best if you don’t believe that?Do you have a sports idol outside of tennis?Yeah, a big role model of mine is [the soccer star Cristiano] Ronaldo. His work ethic really made me a fan.Who would your ideal mixed doubles partner be?I suppose I’d have to say my mom.What’s the most important thing she taught you?Probably just to have fun with it and not take everything so seriously. My dad was much more into all the coaching and tennis stuff. My mom was more relaxed about it all.In terms of coaching, the smarter players are the ones who want to figure it out for themselves. Do you put yourself in that category?Absolutely, when it comes to being analytical and strategic on the court and figuring out what the opponent is doing, I feel like my tennis I.Q. is really high. I think it’s one of my best assets.You were 18 when you got married and had a son very young. Does Jordan understand who you are and what you do?Yeah, he’s 5 and he knows what I do. He’s pretty disappointed when I tell him that I’m actually not the best tennis player in the world. He kind of expects that, so it’s tough to impress him. More

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      At the Laver Cup, Federer, Djokovic, Nadal and Murray Make Team Europe Formidable

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      Team World has never won the cup, and now it will face the rare dream team of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and the retiring Roger Federer.When he announced his retirement from professional tennis last week, Roger Federer put a cap on one of the most storied careers in the sport. That he chose to end competitive play at the Laver Cup, the Ryder Cup-style event that he and his management team founded in 2017 as a chummy atmosphere of star players to showcase great tennis, speaks volumes.He will say goodbye to his fans while competing alongside his greatest rivals — Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray — demonstrating just how important the Laver Cup, which starts on Friday in London, is and will continue to be for Federer.“This is a bittersweet decision because I will miss everything the tour has given me,” he said on Twitter on Sept. 15. “But at the same time there is so much to celebrate. I consider myself one of the most fortunate people on Earth. I was given a special talent to play tennis, and I did it at a level that I never imagined, for much longer than I ever thought possible.”The Big Four, as they have been known, have faced off countless times at Grand Slam events, but never have they been teamed together, until this weekend when they form the nucleus of Team Europe in the Laver Cup.Those four players have been formidable. Between them, they have won 329 ATP titles over the last two decades. They have amassed 66 major championships, including 19 at Wimbledon, 17 at both the Australian and French Opens and 13 at the United States Open. They have won more than 4,000 matches and earned nearly half a billion dollars in prize money.Novak Djokovic, left, and Andy Murray, will also play for Team Europe. This is the first time the four players, who have won a total of 66 major championships, have all played together on a team.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesEvery year since 2004, one of them has ended the season ranked No. 1 in the world. Federer, the oldest at 41, won his first match in September 1998 just after his 17th birthday, when he beat Guillaume Raoux in Toulouse, France.“Let me first say, this is legendary,” said a grinning Stefanos Tsitsipas, who is ranked No. 6 in the world and is playing in the Laver Cup for the third straight time. “This team is a joke. This is Michael Jordan with the Chicago Bulls.”When the Laver Cup started, Federer said at the time, “We need to see the legends of our sport more frequently, who we’d like to thank. It’s not just the players standing on court today, there’s so many more that have paved the way for us so we can enjoy playing in front of a crowd like this, earn a living and live our dream. All of us, all we wanted to do all our life is play tennis, and here we are.”The fifth edition of the competition will again include singles and doubles matches and also feature Casper Ruud, No. 2, and Tsitsipas for Team Europe against a contingent representing the rest of the world. Called Team World because it includes players from other parts of the globe, the team includes Taylor Fritz, No. 12; Felix Auger-Aliassime, No. 13; Diego Schwartzman, No. 17; Frances Tiafoe, No. 19; Alex de Minaur, No. 22; and Jack Sock, No. 128.Tiafoe, who upset Nadal in the U.S. Open and then beat Andrey Rublev before falling in the semifinals to the eventual champion, Carlos Alcaraz, is a last-minute replacement for John Isner, who fractured his left wrist at the U.S. Open.The captain of Team Europe is the six-time French Open, five-time U.S. Open champion Bjorn Borg. Leading Team World, which has lost every year since the event’s inception, is the seven-time major winner John McEnroe.“I love being part of this event in any way, shape or form,” said McEnroe, an ESPN commentator. “Just seeing my buddy Bjorn on the other side. Obviously, my days are getting numbered because my record isn’t too good. But the law of averages states that at some point Team World can come through. Since it’s more unpredictable this year we go in with a solid puncher’s chance.”The last time Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray were in the same major tournament was the 2019 Australian Open when Djokovic won his record seventh championship.McEnroe’s uncertainty centers on the health and ages of Federer, Nadal and Murray and the lack of tournament play for Djokovic. The average age of Team Europe’s four marquee players is almost 37, while the average age of Team World is about 26.Djokovic, 35, who was barred from playing the Australian Open and the U.S. Open because of his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19, has played just seven tournaments this year. He won two of them, including Wimbledon, but his ranking has dropped to No. 7.Murray, 35, has shown stretches of brilliance this year, notably when he beat Tsitsipas and Nick Kyrgios en route to the final in Stuttgart in June. But he also failed to win back-to-back matches from mid-January to early May.Nadal, 36, has been hampered ever since he tore an abdominal muscle at Indian Wells in March. Then, after beating Fritz in a five-setter in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, Nadal was forced to withdraw before his semifinal match against Kyrgios. He also struggles with chronic foot pain.Still, Nadal is looking forward to supporting his longtime friend Federer. Asked if he would play doubles with him, as he did in a win over Sock and Sam Querrey in 2017 — a match that featured a near midair collision and giggles between them — Nadal said he would jump at the chance. “If the captain chooses us as teammates, why not?” Nadal said with a smile.Federer will clearly be the biggest draw of the weekend. He has not competed since last year’s Wimbledon, when he lost in the quarterfinals to Hubert Hurkacz. Federer had knee surgery last year in August and struggled to return to the tour, prompting his decision to retire.Roger Federer played with Alexander Zverev in a doubles match at the 2019 Laver Cup.Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFederer is part owner of the Laver Cup. He missed last year’s event because of his knee, but arrived on crutches to cheers from the fans and sat on the bench encouraging Team Europe. This year he will do everything he can to play, even if it is just in doubles with Nadal.For the younger players, just being able to share the Laver Cup experience with Federer is valuable.“I’ve learned so much from these greats,” said Tsitsipas, who played doubles with Federer at the 2019 Laver Cup. “I get to share something very meaningful with them through the course of the three-day performance period. More than that, we get to connect and share great ideas on court, off court, be part of something very extraordinary for our sport.”When asked the nature of those off-court experiences, Tsitsipas deferred.“I signed an N.D.A., so I’m not allowed to share,” he said with a laugh, referring to a nondisclosure agreement.As for Ruud, who played in his first Laver Cup last year in Boston and finished second in the U.S. Open this month, just playing with the Big Four is magical.“It’s going to be so special, and a small dream come true,” Ruud said. “For all the tennis fans around the world to see the Big Four on the team together for the first time, and maybe the last time. To know that I can be a part of that team and learn from them and be around them for that week will be incredible.”“Roger has always been an inspiration to everyone,” Ruud added. “For me as well. He shows that what we thought was impossible is possible. I can’t wait to see him at the Laver Cup.” More