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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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      Sabalenka Struggles, Then Prevails as Top Women Fall at Australian Open

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      The No. 2 seed looked shaky in her opening service game in the second round but pushed through, indicative of the women’s game: unpredictable and deep in talent.MELBOURNE, Australia — Thursday was another rough day for the leading women at a major tennis tournament. Garbiñe Muguruza, the No. 3 seed, and Anett Kontaveit, the No. 6 seed, lost within five minutes of each other in their second-round matches at the Australian Open after playing in the championship match of the WTA Finals in Mexico in November.Thursday’s setbacks were hardly surprising in the spinning roulette wheel that is the women’s game, which is so unpredictable and deep in talent that Emma Raducanu, as a little-known 19-year-old British qualifier, managed to win last year’s U.S. Open title without dropping a set in only her second appearance in a Grand Slam tournament.Raducanu was seeded 17th in Melbourne, and as if to prove the point she made in New York again, she was beaten in the second round on Thursday, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, by 98th-ranked Danka Kovinic.The prospects were not looking much better for second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka. She has more cabinet-rattling power than anyone in the women’s game, but she also has developed the yips on her second serve: a sudden inability to rely on the muscle memory that she had acquired throughout many years of pounding tennis balls and opponents into submission.On Thursday, in a 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory against 20-year-old Wang Xinyu of China, Sabalenka was not just missing second serves, she was missing some of them by 15 feet or more as they landed closer to the baseline than the service box.In her opening service game alone, she made six double faults and finished the first set with 12, losing the set, 6-1. Some in the crowd began closing or covering their eyes as if not to intrude on her grief. A double fault gets personal. True, it counts no more or less than a groundstroke that lands long, a misjudged volley that is parried wide or a drop shot that lacks the steam to make it past the net.But the serve remains the only shot in tennis over which a player has total control, from the toss to contact, and when it goes off, or, worse yet, completely off, the psychology gets tricky, particularly when the serve is the cornerstone of one’s game. (See the strapping Sabalenka, who is nearly 6 feet and can rain down aces.)“If you see me serving on the practice court, it’s perfect; it’s an amazing serve,” she said this week.“I just. I think it’s all about in here,” she said, pointing to her head.Double faults have been a recurring problem for her despite her rise in the rankings, and there were signs of bigger trouble in November at the WTA Finals near Guadalajara, Mexico, where she hit 19 double faults in a round-robin loss to Maria Sakkari.Sabalenka after she lost to Maria Sakkari of Greece in the women’s title game of the 2021 WTA Finals.Ulises Ruiz/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the off-season clearly did not help her resolve the issue, and she has been double-faulting at an unsettling clip since arriving in Australia. There were two lead-in tournaments in Adelaide, and she lost in the first round of both to opponents ranked far below her: hitting 18 double faults against Kaja Juvan and 21 against Rebecca Peterson.Mark Philippoussis, an imposing and big-serving Australian who lost to Roger Federer in the 2003 Wimbledon final, felt for Sabalenka and sent her a text after her second defeat, offering to help as soon as he had finished his television commentary duties.They went on court that night.“We served a lot, and he gave me some tips about what I should focus on during the game when I’m like struggling with my serve,” she said. “And my coach was there. They had a nice conversation. We had a nice conversation.”In fact, Sabalenka said they talked much more than they served. “Maybe a few hours,” she said in Melbourne. “But I was really worried going here about my serve, what was going to happen in the match. But I just tried to stay positive during this practice week.”A combustible competitor even in better times, she said she has also done her best to stay positive with the Australian Open underway. Her service problems are not behind her, but she rallied to defeat Storm Sanders in three sets in the opening round on Tuesday despite 12 double faults, most of which came early.“I was thinking a lot on my serve,” she said. “I tried to control everything, and that’s not how it works. I have muscle memory, and I just have to trust myself, and that’s what I did in the middle of the second set.”But the problem quickly resurfaced against Wang, and she had to pull off a greater escape: 19 double faults is the equivalent of giving away nearly five service games.“There’s just so much overthinking going on,” said Roger Rasheed, a veteran Australian coach who has worked with Lleyton Hewitt, Grigor Dimitrov and Gaël Monfils. “She is technically fine, but the moment she misses her first serve, she is already in trouble as the mind is controlling her in a negative way.”The Australian Open has certainly seen worse in the second round from a star. In 1999, Anna Kournikova, a 17-year-old Russian who was seeded No. 12, served 31 double faults against Miho Saeki of Japan.“I’m really frustrated about it, like everybody who’s watching,” Sabalenka said. “When I practice, I have no problem, but when I come to the line, something happens. I’m just going to have to fight through it.”She finished the match by putting a towel over her head in her chair — not the usual Kournikova approach — but she had won in three high-wire sets.Wang in action during her second-round match.James Gourley/ReutersConsider that foreshadowing for Sabalenka, who powered through her problem to a degree by hitting her second serves as hard as she typically hits her first. She also tried to focus on her strengths, not her weaknesses, and, in truth, played some phenomenal, acrobatic offense and defense from the baseline once the ball was in play.“I’ve already had a lot of experience with playing without the serve, and I kept telling myself you have enough other shots to win the game even without the serve,” Sabalenka said with a shrug.But this does not seem like a sustainable approach for winning her first Grand Slam singles title at this Australian Open. “It just puts unwanted pressure on the rest of her weapons: no room to breathe,” Rasheed said.Kournikova, after all, did not make it past Round 4 when she had the yips. Next up for Sabalenka: Marketa Vondrousova, a French Open finalist and Olympic silver medalist who is seeded 31st this year. More

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      Garbiñe Muguruza Wins WTA Tour Finals in Mexico

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      The sport’s final tournament, an elite event for the best in the game, produced a veteran champion, and a glimpse of where women’s tennis is headed in 2022.GUADALAJARA, Mexico — As her final shot forced one final error, and Garbiñe Muguruza beat Anett Kontaveit and slammed an exclamation point onto the tennis season by winning the WTA Finals, the veteran player claimed more than just an individual triumph.This was not simply a win for a single player, but for power and aggression in women’s tennis and the unique form of mental toughness it requires.Muguruza, who prevailed, 6-3, 7-5, in 99 minutes, had her opponent on her heels from the start, finding opportunities to break Kontaveit nearly every time she served in the first set, pushing forward and making Kontaveit backpedal far behind the baseline and scramble across the back of the court. Kontaveit, an Estonian, made a battle of it, forcing Muguruza to raise her level of play in the second set. But after an hour and a half, Kontaveit resembled a prize fighter whose arms were still swinging but whose wobbly legs could not sustain her any longer.“A dream come true to play here,” said Muguruza, a Spaniard the Mexican fans adopted as one of their own during the tournament.Trying to guess the next dominant player in women’s tennis long ago became an act of futility. The game produces surprise champions practically every week. But what unfolded a mile above sea level in the middle of Mexico in the past week provided plenty of hints about where the women’s game is going. Players hoping to make it at the elite level would do well to figure out how to hit the ball as hard as they can, and then try to hit it even a little bit harder, and not care much when inevitable misses occur.“It doesn’t always go your way,” said Kontaveit, who survived an onslaught from Maria Sakkari of Greece in the semifinals and figured out the modern power game of the moment as few others have during her white-hot final month of the season. “You miss some shots. Be kind to yourself, and look forward to the next point.”The WTA Finals is different from other tournaments, where top players can usually spend a few rounds getting a feel for the ball against inferior competition. The WTA Finals includes only the best eight available players of the season. Every match is a test the caliber of a Grand Slam quarterfinal, or something even tougher, making it clear what it takes to win at the highest level, night after night.The tennis of the past eight days was not for the faint of heart. This was a collection of women blasting ball after ball after ball, mostly trying to pummel opponents into submission rather than outthink them.Muguruza powered her way to the trophy over eight days in Mexico.Carlos Perez Gallardo/ReutersThe eight-player field in Mexico included two players — Iga Swiatek of Poland and Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic — who approach the court with an old-style mix of finesse and artistry. Swiatek and Krejcikova went a combined 1-5 in round robin play and failed to advance to the semifinals. The last four was made up of players whose specialty is hitting untouchable balls through the back of the court at withering speed. When the ball is landing inside the lines, the strategy wins points and games and crushes an opponent’s spirit.Muguruza, a two-time Grand Slam champion who is 28, has been doing this for a while, though this was her first time reaching the final in the year’s ultimate tournament.A dozen years ago, after she had sprouted to six feet tall, she realized that following in the stylistic footsteps of the Spanish greats of the previous generation was not going to work for her. They were classic defenders, so-called dirt-ballers who honed their games on clay and fought tennis wars of attrition.“I’m a tall woman, big arms, and my personality did not match the classic Spanish game,” Muguruza said Tuesday. “I wanted to dominate.”She did plenty of that in Guadalajara, and it was fitting that to get to the finals, Muguruza had to first beat the next iteration of herself in Paula Badosa, a 23-year-old Spaniard who modeled her game after Muguruza’s. Like Muguruza, Badosa is six feet tall, and she saw in Muguruza another way to play.“Other Spanish players play different,” Badosa said. “She was the only one who played super aggressive.”It’s true that had Ashleigh Barty of Australia, the world’s top-ranked player, opted to play this championship, finesse might have played a larger role in the past week. Barty’s greatest weapon is a slice backhand, though she, too, hits plenty of forehands through the back of the court and is among the game’s leaders in service aces. But Barty ended her season in September after spending six consecutive months on the road because of Australia’s restrictive rules for international travelers.And so, the 2021 WTA Finals unfolded mostly as a series of slugfests in which brute strength was as potent a weapon as a drop shot.There was a three-set brawl between Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and Sakkari, the tour’s reigning gym rat. After outlasting Sabalenka, Sakkari spoke of using her supreme strength and fitness as weapons.“It makes a lot of players be kind of like intimidated because they know that I can last long,” Sakkari said.Playing with relentless aggression, though, is a high-risk, high-reward game, a tightrope walk without a safety net that brings wild swings within a season, or even a match.Kontaveit returning a shot to Muguruza on Wednesday.Hector Vivas/Getty Images for WTAKontaveit lost four straight matches and nearly all of her confidence during the summer when she could not make enough consistent and true contact with the ball. Then she got on a roll in the fall and won the final two tournaments to grab the final spot in this championship.Sabalenka seized the momentum and a 3-1 lead in the final set Monday night against Sakkari. Then the nerves kicked in, and her balls couldn’t find the court. With a game that is all power all the time, Sabalenka was out of options and barking at herself like a dog in the night as Sakkari reeled off five straight games to win their nearly three-hour battle.But 21 hours later, in the semifinal, those same crushing, crosscourt backhands from Sakkari kept floating long and wide or getting hammered right back across the net by Kontaveit. Sakkari then found her groove and got within three games of the finish line. But her blasts started hitting the net and flying long once more, and she could not find a way out of a rut that was both physical and mental.“A missed opportunity,” she said through tears when it was over.Wednesday night’s championship match was one last heavyweight bout.Muguruza muscled a backhand to earn her chance to win the first set, and oddly won it with a magical topspin lob, one of the few that anyone tried all week in Mexico. Soon, though, it was back to big hitting, serves darting for the corners and deep drives at the lines at the earliest opportunities. She fell behind late in the second set and needed one last burst of power to thrash through the final three games, collapsing on her back when Kontaveit’s final ball hit the middle of the net.Great tennis players have remarkable long-term memories and terrible short-term ones.They remember details of points played a decade earlier and can recall an opponent’s catalog of tendencies in the heat of competition.But they also have a knack for forgetting a lost point, game or set as soon as it’s gone. They play each point, each shot, on its own merits. Blast a forehand into the net. Fine. Here comes the next one, hit just as hard and with the strongest belief that it will find the back corner of the court.That is what Muguruza was able to do in the crucial moment Wednesday night.With the power game ascendant, it’s the likely path anyone who wants to compete for championships and make it to this elite finale will have to take in 2022. More

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      WTA Finals, a Nomadic Tournament, Lands in Mexico

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      A last-minute deal brings the event to Guadalajara. But what about that altitude?After two decades of wandering the globe, the WTA Finals had finally found a home, or so it seemed in 2019.That was the first year the finals were held, to great fanfare, in Shenzhen, China, under a deal that would keep the tournament there for 10 years.The event has not been back since, and on Wednesday it will instead be played in Guadalajara, Mexico, after an agreement in September.The tournament, which has been played under different names over the years, has long been a bit nomadic. It was held at Madison Square Garden from 1979 to 2000 and has moved five times from 2001 to 2013. It then spent five years in Singapore.The pandemic forced the cancellation of last year’s tournament, the first time it had not been held since the finals began nearly 50 years ago, when the finals were called the Virginia Slims Championships.This year, with the Akron WTA Finals Guadalajara, that means some players will be competing in one of the biggest tournaments outside of the Grand Slams in the third different city in the last three finals.“I personally don’t care if the location changes every year; it’s always exciting to be able to compete in the event,” said Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain, who qualified three times from 2015 to 2017 and is one of the eight players invited to play singles this year.For months, the WTA planned a return to Shenzhen, while having parallel discussions with other cities, including Hong Kong.“Knowing the situation was less than clear, we had a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C,” said Micky Lawler, the WTA president. “We wanted to give our top players a chance to compete the way they deserved to end 2021, but putting on events is really tough during a pandemic, and circumstances keep changing and are out of your control.”The tour ended up going with Plan D: Guadalajara.“I personally don’t care if the location changes every year,” Garbiñe Muguruza said of the WTA Finals.Dean Lewins/EPA, via Shutterstock“It’s very difficult to plan an event at this scale, and they offered a great solution in a market where we already had a tournament,” Lawler said, referring to the lower-level tournament held there in March. (The No. 1 seed was 46th-ranked Nadia Podoroska of Argentina.)The WTA was impressed by the team that ran that tournament, but also there was no Plan E, Lawler said. “This wasn’t a situation of ‘Let’s choose between places,’” she said. “It was, ‘We don’t want a second year in a row without a WTA Finals, so let’s put all our resources together and make this work.’”Lawler said that Steve Simon, the WTA chief executive, was running weekly board meetings and that the tour held constant discussions with the players and the sponsors. “Everyone’s attitude was that this was not what we planned for, but they would support it because it was better than no tournament.”While Lawler is certain that there will be challenges — she points to a sudden Covid-related lockdown that started during a recent tournament in Moscow — she is confident that they will be surmountable. Many of the players are certainly eager for the tournament, even if there are obstacles. (The exception is Ashleigh Barty, the tour’s top-ranked player and the defending champion. She is skipping the tournament to avoid another stint in quarantine after returning to her native Australia.)Karolina Pliskova said reaching the WTA Finals was always a personal goal when the season started. This is her fifth straight year at the tournament, making her the only player besides Muguruza with experience in the event. The newcomers competing in singles are Paula Badosa, Anett Kontaveit, Barbora Krejcikova, Aryna Sabalenka, Maria Sakkari and Iga Swiatek.Pliskova, who is the only person to play in Singapore, Shenzhen and now Guadalajara over three consecutive WTA Finals, said the shift in locales erased some of her advantage.“It’s better for players who have never played in the tournament because if it was in the same place each year, players who had been there would know how the courts play and know all the activities and would feel more relaxed,” she said. “This year, everybody is basically starting from zero.”The biggest difference between Guadalajara and pretty much any other WTA Finals location is the altitude. The city is about 5,000 feet above sea level, which will make the ball fly faster but trickier to control, while also challenging players to catch their breath after long rallies.Guadalajara is about 5,000 feet above sea level, an altitude that will affect how the ball flies and how players breathe.Getty Images“The altitude is a salient factor, and it came up in conversations with the players, but everyone’s in the same boat,” Lawler said, adding that it is no different from having a surface that favors certain players. “These players are the best of the best, so while some will love it less, they’re going to adjust.”Krejcikova said that she had no experience playing at that altitude, but that she did not care about how it would change the game. “I’m just happy to be going to the WTA Finals,” she said. “I always wanted to play against the other top players to see where my level is.”She said that she believed that the bigger hitters and servers might benefit from getting extra velocity on their power shots, resulting in shorter points, but that she would not decide how to adjust her game until she practiced there.Muguruza said the strongest players might benefit from the altitude. But the extra velocity comes with a catch. “It will be the ones who can control their power who will have more opportunities,” she said, because balls could easily sail long or wide.Pliskova said she might change the tension on her strings to give her more control or more spin.“I don’t want to change too much — my game is my game — but I may change a little,” she said, adding that someone who was good at defending might benefit if players could not control their shots, as long as they were in good enough condition to handle long points at that altitude.Although the WTA hopes to return the finals to Shenzhen in 2022, there is hope that this rare visit from the game’s best players will give the sport a boost in Mexico. Heather Bowler, a spokeswoman for the International Tennis Federation, said in an email that at the recreational and amateur level Mexico had the lowest ratio in the region of players to population and the lowest percentage of female players.“Bringing an elite-level tournament, WTA Finals will drive awareness and increase an appetite for the game, so it certainly is a good basis on which to build on in the future,” she wrote, “and the WTA should be a great catalyst for sport in the region and for Mexico as a nation.”Lawler said that while nothing was in the works, increased interest could eventually lead to bigger tournaments and more resources for young players in the region, creating a positive cycle. “If there is an appetite to build something in Mexico, we would do everything we can to support it,” she said.Krejcikova said she thought about the way the sport and the players were seen by girls at every tournament, but especially when it was someplace new.“I hope we are good examples for them,” she said, “and can have a big impact on the younger generation in Mexico.” 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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      Players to Watch at the Australian Open

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPlayers to Watch at the Australian OpenWe know who’s likely to be in the spotlight at 2021’s first Grand Slam event, but here are six players who could be surprises.Daniil Medvedev on his way to winning the ATP Finals in November.Credit…Toby Melville/ReutersFeb. 6, 2021, 6:46 p.m. ETThe Australian Open has largely belonged to just two men since 2004, with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer winning 14 of 17 titles. With Federer sidelined by an injury, Djokovic is the obvious favorite, and there are just two other clear-cuts: Rafael Nadal, who captured his 20th Grand Slam singles title last year in France and could claim his record 21st in Australia, and Dominic Thiem, who earned his first at the 2020 United States Open. (Thiem also beat Nadal in last year’s Australian Open and pushed Djokovic to five sets in the final.)The women’s draw is more open, but it has a few players in the spotlight. As with the men’s side, it starts with the top three in the rankings: Australia’s own Ash Barty, the world No. 1, who did not play in 2020 after the lockdown; Simona Halep, who reached the semifinals of the Australian Open last year, and had a win streak of 17 matches and three titles; and Naomi Osaka, winner of three Grand Slam events, including the 2019 Australian Open.Then there’s Serena Williams, whom people will watch because of her all-around greatness. If she wins this year she will tie for the most Grand Slam singles titles among women with 24.But there are less-recognizable players who could have deep runs into the second week and might even win. Here are six to watch in 2021.Daniil MedvedevThe men’s Top 10 has several rising stars like Stefanos Tsitsipas or Alexander Zverev, but Daniil Medvedev is the best bet to take home the title. To win, a player will likely have to take down two of the top three seeds, and he is the best candidate.While Medvedev’s 16-19 record versus Top 10 players may sound poor, it’s the highest for a player without a Slam. He’s winless against Federer, so that absence improves Medvedev’s odds.Medvedev, the 6-foot-6 Russian with the big serve and persistent baseline game, emerged as one of the game’s top returners and a Top 5 player in 2019. Grinding his way to two Masters 1000 titles, he also reached six straight finals, including the U.S. Open, where he took Nadal to five sets.Most notable was his triumph in November at the ATP Finals, where he had five straight wins, over Diego Schwartzman, Zverev, Thiem, Nadal and Djokovic. That level of sustained excellence gives him an edge.Credit…James Ross/EPA, via ShutterstockNick KyrgiosKyrgios, of Australia, has an overpowering serve, making him especially dangerous on the Open’s hard courts. His hard-court winning percentage is among the highest of players competing at the tournament. But he has so far failed to live up to his enormous potential. Temperamental and undisciplined, he has fallen through the years from 13th in the world to 47th.At 25, he’s still young, and he is prodigiously talented.His athleticism and flash always make him riveting to watch. If he can stay focused for two weeks, he’s 5-5 lifetime versus Nadal and Djokovic, which should give the front-runners pause.Credit…Julian Finney/Getty ImagesTaylor FritzThe younger players who could make a mark in Australia include Denis Shapovalov, Félix Auger-Aliassime, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. The most likely American would be 30th-ranked Taylor Fritz. Fritz has wins over Thiem, Zverev and top veterans like Fabio Fognini and Schwartzman. Last year, Fritz reached the finals in Acapulco, Mexico. A quarterfinal slot might be a stretch, but if he survives until the second week, it will herald a big step forward.Credit…Lintao Zhang/Getty ImagesBianca AndreescuThe cancellation of WTA’s year-end tournament gave the top players a long break before the Australian Open. But no top contender has been off the court as long as the eighth-ranked Bianca Andreescu, who has been sidelined with injuries since 2019.That year, she won 31 of her first 34 matches, including the BNP Paribas Open as a wild card because of a wide array of shots and a fearlessness in going for them. She capped her rise by upsetting Williams in the U.S. Open finals. If her shoulder and knee are healthy, she has the aggressiveness, the power and the Grand Slam experience to tear through the tournament.Credit…Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesVictoria AzarenkaShe may be ranked only 13th, but she is, once again, a definite threat. Winner of the Australian Open championship in 2012 and 2013, Azarenka reached No. 1 in the world. She was the game’s top returner, breaking her opponent’s serve more than half the time. But she fell off the map after having a baby and then getting caught in a custody battle. When she did play, she struggled, reaching the fourth round of a major just once.But in 2020, Azaernka rediscovered her magic in a five-tournament run, where she won a title, reached two more finals, including the U.S. Open, and beat six players in the Top 20.Credit…Pool photo by Riccardo AntimianiGarbiñe MuguruzaShe finished 2019 ranked 36th. Then she went to the Australian Open in 2020 and reminded everyone that she was a former No. 1 and a Wimbledon and French Open champion. Muguruza used improved net play to topple the Top 10 players Elina Svitolina, Kiki Bertens and Halep en route to the finals. She lost to Sofia Kenin.Muguruza’s big serve and potent, albeit high-risk, ground strokes also looked impressive in Rome in September, and she defeated Sloane Stephens, Coco Gauff, Johanna Konta and Azarenka before falling to Halep. With both of those 2020 tournaments, Muguruza, now ranked 15th, showed she still had what it takes for a deep Grand Slam run.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More