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    Not All Tennis Balls Are Equal

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    In tournaments, the old balls are swapped for new ones after several games. Those livelier new ones can change a player’s strategy.Keep your eye on the ball. That’s the mantra for tennis players, from beginners to whoever lands in the finals at this year’s United States Open.But each ball will be seen only briefly because in tournament play, six balls are used to start a match, then ditched after seven games; for the rest of that match, the balls will be replaced after every nine games. (The Open generally stocks about 100,000 new balls and goes through about 70,000 each year.)“I change my racket at every ball change,” said the 18th-ranked Lorenzo Musetti of Italy.Adam Vaughan/EPA, via ShutterstockThose life spans, punctuated by the chair umpire’s call for “new balls, please,” are necessarily brief because the balls take a beating. In the course of a ball’s court time, the pummeling causes them to get fluffier as their hairs shake loose. This slows them as they travel through the air, making it easier to control placement but more difficult to blast a winner.The balls are changed regularly to maintain consistency of play, but also used balls feel heavier on the racket, requiring more wrist, elbow and shoulder torque to generate power. Changing them reduces the risk of injury.Players are acutely aware of the way the balls degrade.“When the balls are getting old, it gets tougher to hit winners and make easy points, especially on slower courts,” said the eighth-ranked Andrey Rublev of Russia.Anders Bjuro/Agence France-Presse, via Tt News Agency/Afp Via Getty Images“When the balls are getting old, it gets tougher to hit winners and make easy points, especially on slower courts,” said the eighth-ranked Andrey Rublev of Russia.The aging process leads players to seek smoother, less-worn balls for a first serve to gain more speed. They look for fluffier balls for the second serve to attain more control and to slow their opponent’s return.Then the players need to adjust again when the new balls arrive.Francisco Cerundolo said players used more topspin on serve returns and ground strokes in the first game or two after the change.Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse /Getty Images“I’m conscious of the ways the balls change, and I have the count in my head until the new balls,” Francisco Cerundolo, the world No. 20 from Argentina, said.Jessica Pegula, an American ranked No. 3, added that while the fans might not be aware of the shift, the players were thinking “very strategically” about the change.The most common maneuver is switching rackets when new balls are introduced.“I change my racket at every ball change,” said the 18th-ranked Lorenzo Musetti, of Italy, explaining that the strings lose some tension over the course of nine games and the new racket will enable a player to capitalize on the smoother, slimmer ball to hit them hard while still maintaining control. (Roger Federer used to switch rackets one game early so he’d be comfortable with the new racket when the fresh balls arrived.)Changing rackets has become more common in the past 20 years, said Patrick McEnroe, an ESPN analyst and a former pro, although he noted that Ivan Lendl was the pioneer in making it a consistent practice timed to the new balls. In earlier eras, players used gut strings and had to change rackets more frequently, McEnroe said, but modern players are more meticulous about every detail in their game.Also, modern synthetic strings last longer, but they may be past their peak well before they break. So while some players change rackets for new balls because they feel it’s advantageous, others simply use the balls as an automatic reminder to grab a fresh stick.“With more explosive frames, rackets and strings that can grab the ball more to create spin, players can now feel the slightest change in tension,” McEnroe said. “There’s definitely more awareness of adapting when the new balls come in, and I think some players tinker more with their tactics as a ball goes through its life span.”In addition to switching rackets, many players change their game plan when the new balls arrive.The faster balls give the biggest advantage to the server, who can pound first serves or skid them out wide to win quick points, McEnroe said.Musetti serving.Vaughn Ridley/Getty ImagesMusetti said it was important to serve well with the new balls: “I try to be more aggressive.”Not only are the serves coming in faster, but the returns are also tougher to control, said Giuliana Olmos of Mexico, who’s ranked 18th in doubles. “When they first put new balls in, they tend to fly a lot. The other balls are old and heavy, so it’s a drastic difference and can be hard to adjust. I just remind myself and my partner and try not to go for too much, then you can start hitting normally again after a little bit.”Echoing complaints other players (including Rafael Nadal) have made about the recent quality of the balls, Rublev said this year many new balls “are super tough to control in the first game. It feels like they’re breaking your wrist, and the balls feel like stones and fly without control.”But even if the balls are not problematic, Cerundolo said players used more topspin on serve returns and ground strokes in the first game or two after the change. “If you hit the ball too flat, it may fly out.”McEnroe said that while the differences in the balls and in the string tension of the new rackets were real, they were fairly small concerns for players skilled enough to be at or near the top of the pro game. Still, the issue is in players’ minds.“Anything that gives you a little edge helps, and whether it’s a reality or not almost doesn’t matter,” McEnroe said, adding that if players barely miss a shot after the introduction of the new balls, they may blame it on the change and next time may switch rackets to enable them to control their shots better.“Players may be overthinking the differences with the new balls a little bit,” he said, “but just because a lot of it is likely psychological doesn’t mean it’s not important.” More

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      A Decade After U.S.T.A. Sidelined Her, Taylor Townsend Is Moving On

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      When Townsend was the world’s top junior player, the leaders of tennis in the United States told her to hit the gym. A decade later, she’s determined to play the best tennis of her career.MELBOURNE, Australia — Taylor Townsend is getting very good at moving on.It is happening more and more these days in tennis tournaments, including this year’s Australian Open, where in the first round Townsend destroyed Diane Parry, a promising French 20-year-old, in every possible way. And she has moved on from the body-shaming and benching by the United States Tennis Association a decade ago, when she was just 16 years old.Townsend, a 26-year-old mother of a toddler, lost, 6-1, 2-6, 3-6, in the second round Thursday to Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia, the No. 19 seed. But on Tuesday, she delivered a thorough and merciless beating to Parry during a 67-minute, 6-1, 6-1 rout. Her powerful serve topped out at 116 miles per hour, and her lacing backhand painted the lines; Parry never figured out how to handle Townsend’s whipping forehand and could not reach the precise volleys. The win was her first in the main singles draw of a Grand Slam tournament in three years, and the first since Townsend, ranked 135th in the world, became a mother in March 2021.And she’s not done in Australia; her women’s doubles tournament starts later this week.“Taylor is a top-20 player who right now is not in the top 20,” John Williams, Townsend’s coach, said moments after she finished off Parry with her seventh ace. “If you’re that kind of player, you should do top-20 things, like she did today.”Townsend has been the best of the best before, on the junior level. But then she — and her still-developing teenage body — became an early flash point in the debate about what top athletes are supposed to look like, and how much coaches should push their own definitions of fitness on young women.In 2012, Townsend, a star of the U.S.T.A.’s then four-year-old development program, was the No. 1 junior player in the world. That January, she was the girls’ singles champion at the Australian Open. In July 2012, she won the girls’ doubles title at Wimbledon with Eugenie Bouchard of Canada.But just weeks later, as The Wall Street Journal revealed, after a loss in the first round of qualifying at a lower-tier professional event in Canada, coaches at the U.S.T.A. decided the 16-year-old Townsend needed to work on her fitness. They requested her to pull out of the national girls championships and sent her back to their training center in Boca Raton, Fla.Townsend was the girls’ singles champion of the Australian Open in 2012.Lucas Dawson/Getty ImagesThey turned her down that August when she asked for a wild-card entry into the main draw of the U.S. Open, a spot she could have earned had she won the national girls title. They refused to cover her expenses to play in the U.S. Open girls tournament. She paid her own way, made the quarterfinals of the singles tournament and won the doubles.Flash forward a decade, to last September. Townsend is standing at midcourt in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the U.S. Open, accepting the runner-up trophy in the women’s doubles tournament with her partner, her fellow American Caty McNally.The master of ceremonies for the trophy presentation is Patrick McEnroe. Ten years ago, he was the general manager of the U.S.T.A.’s player development program, the guy who sent Townsend back to Boca Raton.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Taylor Townsend: A decade ago, she had to contend with the body-shaming of tennis leaders in the United States. Now, she’s determined to play the best tennis of her career.Caroline Garcia: The top player has spoken openly about her struggles with an eating disorder. At the Australian Open she is chasing her first Grand Slam singles title.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.“I’ve put in the work, I’ve earned my way to be here, and I think everyone sees that,” Townsend said that day, wearing a body suit without a sponsor name in sight that has become her signature outfit of choice. “And I’m going to continue to put my head down and grind, and this is going to motivate me to go even harder. So watch out for 2023.”Townsend said Tuesday that, until it was pointed out to her, she was not aware of the moment’s awkwardness, her steely stare while on the podium and the seeming chill between her and McEnroe. What she said in that trophy presentation was about making one thing clear to herself and anyone listening.“I’m coming,” she said, sitting on a couch in a lounge above a steamy Melbourne Park after her first-round win. “Everything that I’m working for, all of the goals and everything that I’m doing, is slowly aligning, and I don’t know when it will happen, but I’m coming, and you know to be ready and to be on the lookout because I know inside of myself what I can do and I know, that you don’t know the timing. I believe that things will happen.”Townsend and her doubles partner, Caty McNally, were interviewed on the court at the U.S. Open by Patrick McEnroe, who was the general manager of the U.S.T.A.’s player development program 10 years ago.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn a text message from Connecticut, where he is working as part of ESPN’s television coverage of the Australian Open, McEnroe said all he had ever wanted for Townsend was success at the highest level. Asked whether his perspective on the fitness issue had changed, McEnroe said:“I could not be happier to see Taylor back on the courts, and continuing to do well. I have always, and will always, continue to wish her nothing but the best on and off the court.” That, he said, has always been his perspective on the issue.Every tennis journey is unique. The sport can seem like a conveyor belt of prodigies who survive the gantlet of development programs and academies followed by years of dues-paying and ropes-learning in the hinterlands, and finally the promised land of the pro tours and the Grand Slam tournaments. Each one has its own bends and twists, setbacks and injuries.Townsend’s, though, is as different as they come. A childhood in Chicago; the pinnacle of junior tennis and the birth of her pro career as a teen in Florida, despite the body-shaming; then several years of struggling to figure out what kind of player she was during the first part of her career; a mother at 24; a stint as a television analyst during her maternity leave; a rise to the top echelon of doubles; and now a slow and steady re-emergence as a singles player. Her goal, she said, is to be better than she was before she left the sport to have her baby.She is getting closer. Last year, Townsend won two tournaments at the International Tennis Federation level, the sport’s third tier. She also made the round of 16 at the Silicon Valley Classic.Williams said Townsend has achieved “clarity” in the last year about who she is on the court. She is an all-court player with a big serve and a powerful forehand that can be especially dangerous since it comes off her left hand and punishes right-handed backhands when she fires it across the court.“The quality of her ball was hard to control,” Parry said Tuesday.As a top doubles player — she and the American Asia Muhammad are seeded 12th in Melbourne — Townsend can come forward when she needs to, as well. In every match, she wants to be the one to dictate the play.Townsend and McNally were runners-up at the U.S. Open in September.Al Bello/Getty Images“She got away from that for a little while,” said Williams, who first worked with Townsend in 2009.Townsend represented the United States at the Billie Jean King Cup last year, enjoying the full embrace of the U.S.T.A. The organization has offered her and Williams whatever resources it can provide to assist in her continuing evolution.Kathy Rinaldi, the national coach for women’s tennis at the U.S.T.A., calls or texts Townsend after all her matches. She has noticed Ola Malmqvist, the organization’s director of coaching, watching her play. Townsend said she has no hard feelings. She wanted to take control of her narrative the same way she tries to take control of matches, to make it mean what she wanted it to mean, and she did.“We’re seeing people succeed who look totally different than the normal, from all industries, from athletics, sports, entertainment, acting, everything,” she said. “The fact that I could be a part of that and to live it and just to be an example for people, that’s the biggest thing for me.” More

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      The Next Generation of Men’s Tennis

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      Fixing this and that in their games, these 10 players could join the elite.Novak Djokovic dominated men’s tennis this year, but with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal wearing down physically, 2021 also signaled a changing of the guard: Stefanos Tsitsipas reached the French Open final; Matteo Berrettini reached the Wimbledon final; Alexander Zverev won the Olympic gold medal; and Daniil Medvedev reached the Australian Open final and then won the United States Open. All are 25 or younger.Now a new crop of youngsters, 24 and under, is charging up the rankings, but some will stall.To separate themselves from their peers, each must refine his game; these 10 are most likely to join the sport’s elite, if they improve one aspect of their game. Following is an assessment of each player from coaches, analysts and former professionals. Rankings are through Thursday.Casper RuudNorway, age 22; world ranking: 8Ruud’s speed and all-around game shine on clay, said Tom Shimada, a coach at the Van Der Meer Tennis Academy in South Carolina, “but now he has to figure out how to play on the quicker services.”Ruud needs more free points on serve, said Jimmy Arias, director of the IMG Academy’s tennis program in Florida and a Tennis Channel analyst. “He still has to grind on his serve and in three-of-five set tournaments that makes it difficult.”Patrick McEnroe, a director of the John McEnroe Tennis Academy in New York and an analyst for ESPN, was pleasantly surprised by Ruud’s serves and instead feels Ruud needs “more firepower on his forehand, whether it’s more power or more spin.”Christian Bruna/EPA, via ShutterstockHubert HurkaczPoland, age 24; ranking: 9Hurkacz turned heads with his Miami Open win this year, but Arias said he needed to retain consistency because he sometimes lost to lesser players.McEnroe sees that as a lack of assertiveness despite his rise in the rankings: “He needs to be more aggressive with his shots, but also with his attitude. He could use a little swagger.”Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesJannik SinnerItaly, age 20; ranking: 11Sinner himself said he could not pick just one thing to improve. “I’m only 20 years old; I have to improve everything,” he said. “I have to improve the serve, my volleys and mixing up my game as well.”McEnroe and Arias said he needed variety and creativity in his approach. “He’s missing the subtleties of the game,” McEnroe said, “when to hit the ball at 60 percent or to slice it down the middle and make the other guy come up with something.”Carmen Mandato/Getty Images Felix Auger-AliassimeCanada, age 21; ranking: 12He sometimes gets tight, leading to service breaks at crucial moments. “He will just hand you a service break with two double faults and two inexplicable first-ball errors,” Arias said.McEnroe said Auger-Aliassime was a true student of the game, so he sometimes overthinks things. “He’s looking for the perfect shot, so he makes errors,” McEnroe said. “He needs to relax, just let it go and play with more freedom, trusting his athleticism.”Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesDenis ShapovalovCanada, age 22; ranking: 13Shapovalov has been captivating fans since he shocked Nadal as an 18-year-old at the 2017 Canadian Open, but Shapovalov’s power and style can work to his detriment. “He has tremendous weapons, but he’s going for a lot,” Shimada said. Trying to blast winners is “a tough way to consistently beat the guys who play unbelievable defense.”McEnroe said Shapovalov needed more high-percentage shots on his service return: “He tends to take big swings and has to be more consistent on the return, playing smart, neutral or even defensive shots to get in the rally.”Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesReilly OpelkaUnited States, age 24; ranking: 26Opelka needs confidence. “To reach the next level will require an evolution of his mind-set,” Shimada saidArias recalled watching Opelka double fault twice in a row in Atlanta this summer, then mutter repeatedly to himself, “I should have played team sports.”McEnroe said that at 6-foot-11, Opelka needed to maximize his size and power, going bigger on forehands, returns and serves. “He jokes about not wanting to be a ‘serve-bot,’ but he should play like one more often,” McEnroe said. “To beat the top players, he has to overpower them.”Scott Taetsch/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSebastian KordaUnited States, age 21; ranking: 38Korda soared from 119th this year, but his continued climb requires a better serve, Shimada said, citing his loss to Karen Khachanov at Wimbledon, where Korda was broken seven times in the fifth set as Exhibit A.“You can’t have that happen,” McEnroe said. “The serve has to get better, and he needs to get stronger and impose himself more.”Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesCarlos AlcarazSpain, age 18; ranking: 40Even for this article, which is essentially nit-picking, Arias, McEnroe and Shimada were stumped when it came to the dynamic Alcaraz, who jumped in the rankings from 141 this year.“If I had to pick one guy where you can’t come up with one thing, it’s Alcaraz,” McEnroe said. “He can do it all, and he has moxie.”Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressJenson BrooksbyUnited States, age 21; ranking: 56He believes he needs to commit to being physical and running through the ball in points to avoid going on the defensive. “That’s what I’m working on the most,” Brooksby said.While Shimada, McEnroe and Arias are dazzled by his movement and feel, and his unusual strokes and style, they said his big problem was really his serve.“For his size, [6-foot-4], his serve is mediocre at best,” McEnroe said.He will need a dangerous serve to win a major, but if he improves there, Arias said, look out.“With a bigger serve, he could be the American Daniil Medvedev.”Grant Halverson/Getty ImagesLorenzo MusettiItaly, age 19; ranking: 65He is straightforward in his self-analysis. “I need to improve my serve, but especially my return and especially on hard courts,” said Musetti, a clay-court specialist. “With my one-handed backhand, I need to work on stepping to the ball.”Give him points for self-awareness. “He just doesn’t do enough with the serve,” Shimada said, while Arias said that with a one-handed backhand, Musetti needed to at least get to neutral on returns (hit them harder so he does not start rallies at a disadvantage).McEnroe said Musetti “doesn’t step in as naturally as some other guys and needs to take the ball a little earlier.” More

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      The Special Role of Laver Cup Captains

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      John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg have filled the job since the tournament began, and it’s more than ceremonial.In the first three Laver Cups, the biggest names were the most famous players in tennis: Roger Federer (who helped create the tournament) played each year, Rafael Nadal played twice and Novak Djokovic played once.All are absent this year at the event in Boston, so while six Top 10 players are on board, the biggest names will be the most famous players in tennis circa 1980: the Team World captain, John McEnroe, and the Team Europe captain, Bjorn Borg, both returning for their fourth time.The Laver Cup brings a team sport format to tennis, and the captains have a role unlike almost any other in tennis.Captains recruit and select a team, build team spirit during practices, pick lineups according to the event’s quirky rules and provide in-match coaching.“There’s a lot to consider and a lot of tactics when making out the lineups, so in that sense the captain’s role is pretty important,” said Thomas Enqvist, vice captain of Team Europe.McEnroe takes his job seriously, but he downplays its importance. “It’s not the toughest job in the world,” he said with a laugh. “I show up at some cocktail parties and pick up balls at practiceThere is more to the job than that. Captains must persuade the top-ranked players, who are invited to the tournament based on their rankings, to participate. They also choose three lower-ranked players, called captain’s picks.“Before the first year, I had to call the players and explain the tournament,” Borg said, although having Federer’s backing made his job easier. For the captain’s picks, he added, “I’m watching so much tennis all year to see who fits the team, who may be in the best shape.”Federer, left, of Team Europe, with Borg, the team captain, at the 2018 Laver Cup.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesTeam Europe has had a huge edge in singles with its top players, so in past years McEnroe has built his roster around winning the doubles matches, relying heavily on Jack Sock, who is 7-2 in Laver Cup doubles.But without the big three playing for Team Europe, Patrick McEnroe, a vice captain and brother of John McEnroe, said, “we’re not as big an underdog in the singles as we were.”For instance, Denis Shapovalov has a career record of 10-8 against the six Team Europe players. So John McEnroe is aiming for more singles wins, choosing players like Reilly Opelka, who is approaching the Top 20, over Sock, who is an alternate for 2021.Opelka fits the model of McEnroe’s other captain’s picks, John Isner and Nick Kyrgios. “I’m bringing guys in to try and take the racket out of their opponent’s hands,” McEnroe said, referring to players with powerful serves.The week of practice leading up to the tournament serves several purposes for the teams’ leaders. “You need to figure out the doubles partners,” Enqvist said, “so you talk to the guys and try a couple of combinations. It’s important to have good chemistry.”When asked if he could have played doubles alongside Jimmy Connors had the Laver Cup existed in 1980, John McEnroe shrugged. “That would have been iffy,” he said. “I would like to think so, but one year we played Davis Cup together and didn’t talk the whole time.”Patrick McEnroe was amused by the notion. “It would definitely have been worth the price of admission,” he said, “but you’d have to be one strong captain to pull that off.”Reilly Opelka, an American player, in action at the United States Open this month. He will play for Team World at the Laver Cup.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThat chemistry goes beyond just doubles partners, Borg said.“We have at least two dinners together to build team spirit,” he said. As for potential conflicts arising from Alexander Zverev’s chastising of Stefanos Tsitsipas for bathroom breaks that he said were too long, Borg said he would be hands off and leave it to his players to work through it.Practical coaching is minimal, John McEnroe said: “The players’ coaches get very protective and call me all the time asking what I am going to do.”Still, he does try, because helping a player make even a slight improvement can make a difference. “I like to help players maximize their potential, and this is one way where they can get feedback from me,” he said. “And it’s not costing them anything.”Both captains submit lineup cards blindly (not knowing who the opponent will be) for the first day, then each gets a turn seeing the other’s lineup first for the next two days. Captains must also weigh the scoring rules: Matches are worth one point the first day, two on the next day and three on the final day.“You want to start strong on Friday, but you might want to save stronger players for Saturday because those are two-point matches,” Enqvist said.Unlike ATP Tour matches, the captains (and the team) are right there on the sideline. “I’m providing a combination of team building, tactics and psychological boosts,” John McEnroe said, though tactics take a back seat. “It’s hard to figure out something that drastic. It’s often basic reminders, but it’s not like I have to tell John Isner, ‘Serve big.’”Mostly it is an enhanced cheerleader’s role. “I give positive vibes,” Borg said.“These players are the best in the world and have played the other guys, so they know what to do and what not to do,” he said. “But if they’re not playing well, I can push them in a positive way.”With the big three replaced by newcomers like Caspar Ruud and Matteo Berrettini, Borg said, “I may be more hands-on and say a few more things this year.”McEnroe said his and Borg’s statures and personas did have an impact.“Even for Roger or Rafa, looking over and seeing Bjorn, they’ll say, ‘I want to make sure I do my thing,’ because Bjorn has an aura around him,” McEnroe said. “I hopefully bring an energy to our side.”Team Europe may be the favorite, but McEnroe has a solution: “I was suggesting that when I grew up, Russia wasn’t considered part of Europe, so we should get [Daniil] Medvedev and [Andrey] Rublev and that would level the playing field.” Medvedev won the United States Open on Sept. 12.In reality, Russia is in Europe and Asia, but the players hail from the European part.“John,” Borg said with a chuckle, “would want all the players.” More