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      Novak Djokovic and Ashleigh Barty Are Top Seeds at the French Open

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      Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who is a heavy favorite to win for the 14th time in Paris, are all in the top half of the draw. Naomi Osaka is the No. 2 seed and Serena Williams No. 7.Rafael Nadal, the 13-time French Open champion who is seeking a fifth consecutive title at Roland Garros beginning Sunday, bears an ill-fitting label in the men’s singles draw this year: the No. 3 seed.Nadal, whose indomitability on the clay in Paris has been all but inevitable, was placed into the top half of the draw, meaning that a match against top-seeded Novak Djokovic would come in the semifinals.Nadal will be a heavy favorite in every match he plays at Roland Garros, where he has a 100-2 record, but his path to a 14th title does include some hurdles. If he beats 62nd-ranked Alexei Popyrin in the first round, Nadal will face a Frenchman, either the veteran Richard Gasquet or the wild card Hugo Gaston. Gaston, 20, made a surprise run to the fourth round of the French Open last year, beating Stan Wawrinka before losing in five sets to Dominic Thiem.Nadal could face seventh-seeded Andrey Rublev, whom he lost to at the Monte Carlo Masters in April, in the quarterfinals before what would be a highly anticipated match against Djokovic in the semifinals.Nadal beat Djokovic in the final of the Italian Open this month, and dominated to win, 6-0, 6-2, 7-5, in the previous French Open final in October. Djokovic has tilted their rivalry in his favor, 29-28, by not losing a match to Nadal on hardcourts or grass courts since the 2013 United States Open final, but Djokovic lost their last five meetings on clay.Roger Federer, who has played only three matches this season after undergoing two knee operations last year, is seeded eighth and could face Djokovic in the quarterfinals.Daniil Medvedev could prove to be a shaky second seed, having won just one of his three matches on clay this year. A hardcourts specialist, Medvedev has lost in the first round of the French Open in his previous four appearances.Medvedev faces Alexander Bublik in the first round, a player who, like Medvedev, is inclined to monologue moodily when things are not going his way.The fourth-seeded Thiem, who won last year’s U.S. Open, is the only Grand Slam event champion in the bottom half of the draw. Thiem, a three-time French Open runner-up, will arrive in Paris having lost three of his last four matches.Fifth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas, a champion at the Monte Carlo Masters in April, is in Medvedev’s quarter of the draw; sixth-seeded Alexander Zverev, a champion at the Madrid Masters this month, is in Thiem’s quarter.American men occupy the three lowest seedings in the draw, with the American Taylor Fritz seeded 30th, John Isner 31st and Reilly Opelka 32nd. Isner opens against another American, Sam Querrey.No player in the women’s draw has built up a French Open track record close to Nadal’s, but two players who won their most recent appearances find themselves in the top half.Top-seeded Ashleigh Barty, who won her lone Grand Slam event title at the French Open in 2019 but missed last fall’s edition of the tournament because of travel restrictions during the pandemic, is joined in the top half of the draw by the defending champion, Iga Swiatek, who is seeded eighth after winning the Italian Open title this month.Barty opens against the American Bernarda Pera. She could also face a tricky test in the fourth round, against either 13th-seeded Jennifer Brady, the Australian Open runner-up in February, or 17-year-old Coco Gauff, who is seeded 24th after winning her second career title last week in Parma, Italy.Swiatek, who opens against her close friend Kaja Juvan, could face 2016 French Open champion Garbiñe Muguruza in the fourth round. In the quarterfinals, Swiatek could see fourth-seeded Sofia Kenin in a rematch of last year’s final, though Kenin has struggled this season and has a difficult opening round test against the 2017 champion, Jelena Ostapenko.Serena Williams, seeded seventh, is on the bottom half of the draw, along with second-seeded Naomi Osaka. Williams and Osaka were dealt favorable draws, but neither has produced a strong result on clay this year. Each is 1-2 on the surface.Williams, who is seeking her 24th Grand Slam event title, opens against the 74th-ranked veteran Irina-Camelia Begu.Osaka announced on Wednesday that she would not participate in news conferences at the tournament, writing, “I’m just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me.” Though her confidence may be low from playing poorly on clay, her draw at the French Open proved favorable. She opens against 63rd-ranked Patricia Maria Tig, and then will face either 102nd-ranked Ana Bogdan or a qualifier in the second round. The only seeded player Osaka could play in the first week of the tournament, 27th-seeded Alison Riske, has not won a match since August.Aryna Sabalenka, seeded third, and Bianca Andreescu, seeded sixth, join Williams and Osaka on the bottom half of the draw.As is often the case, there are many high-profile women’s matches in the first round, including 10th-seeded Belinda Bencic against last year’s surprise semifinalist, Nadia Podoroska, and 15th-seeded Victoria Azarenka against the 2009 champion, Svetlana Kuznetsova.Sloane Stephens, the 2018 runner-up, will open against Carla Suárez Navarro, the Spanish veteran who is returning to competition after overcoming Hodgkin’s lymphoma. More

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      French Open Is Delayed a Week

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      The tournament will begin May 30, about two weeks after France is expected to ease its current national lockdown.The French Open has been postponed by one week and will be played from May 30 to June 13, the second year in a row it has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.France, which has faced a third wave of coronavirus infections, on Saturday entered a new nationwide lockdown that could last for more than a month. Nonessential shops and schools have been shut, and the authorities have maintained a nighttime curfew that has been in place for months.Organizers said on Thursday that they hoped the new dates would allow spectators to attend in a safe way and give the public health situation more time to improve. The lockdown is expected to lift in mid-May, giving tournament officials about two weeks to prepare for the Grand Slam event.“Every week is important and can make a difference,” the French Open organizers said in a statement.The two-week tournament in Paris, one of the sport’s four Grand Slam events, was supposed to begin on May 23 and run through June 6. It will now start on May 30 and finish on June 13, only two weeks before the start on June 28 of Wimbledon, which will not be delayed.The president of the French tennis federation, Gilles Moretton, also suggested fans would be able to attend the event. The delay, Moretton said, “will give the health situation more time to improve and should optimize our chances of welcoming spectators at Roland Garros.”“For the fans, the players and the atmosphere,” he added, “the presence of spectators is vital for our tournament.”The plan — an agreement with both government officials and international tennis leaders — means that for a second consecutive year the competition will not take place as scheduled. And while Wimbledon will keep to its schedule, the change in France probably will cause some shuffling of the series of grass-court tournaments that precede it.Last spring, organizers shifted the start of the French Open to late September, believing that the pandemic that ravaged western Europe in the first months of 2020 would recede over the summer. The move, made with little consultation with organizers of other tennis events, caught the sport off guard.It also ultimately helped cause several top European players, including the former world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, to skip the United States Open, which took place in early September. Players had little time to recover from a Grand Slam event played on a hardcourt and prepare for one on clay. The move paid off for Nadal, who won a record 13th French Open men’s singles title in October. Organizers limited crowds to just 1,000 spectators each day.For months, as infection rates in France have remained stubbornly high and as the European Union has struggled to distribute coronavirus vaccines, organizers of the French Open have been studying situations for once again holding the signature event in front of smaller crowds. Last week, however, President Emmanuel Macron of France enacted a third national lockdown as the rate of coronavirus infections continued to escalate, imperiling the tournament.Afterward, Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Tennis Federation, said if France’s citizens were still under restrictions next month the organization might have to consider canceling the event.“If we are told a general confinement for two months, we will necessarily have to take measures — at worst, complete cancellation, but I dare not imagine that,” Moretton told Agence France-Presse.Before the new lockdown, Macron had tried to keep France open, hoping that increasing vaccinations would help slow the spread of the virus. Instead, with the country’s death toll from Covid-19 approaching 100,000, he closed all but the most essential businesses, limited citizens to a six-mile radius from their homes, prohibited travel between regions and set a curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Professional sports are still allowed to take place, but without spectators.Rafael Nadal won his record 13th French Open men’s singles title in 2020. The tournament was played in the fall instead of its traditional spring dates.Julien De Rosa/EPA, via ShutterstockMacron has said he hopes to reopen the country by mid-May, which would leave mere days for organizers to prepare for the arrival of hundreds of players from dozens of countries, though many of them would presumably be coming from Italy after having played the Italian Open.Touring tennis players have been living for months in a series of bubblelike settings that each tournament has created with the goal of keeping players and the local populace from transmitting the virus.At the year’s first Grand Slam event, in Australia, which has all but eliminated community spread of the virus, organizers forced players arriving from overseas into a limited quarantine for two weeks before they could mix with the rest of the population, and dozens of them ended up in a hard two-week quarantine, after multiple people tested positive upon arrival.The restrictions have begun to wear on players, who are unable to travel with their usual support teams and family members and must limit their movements to their hotels and the tennis venues.“I understand the reasons for it, but from a physical and mental health perspective I don’t know if it is sustainable,” Danielle Collins, a top American player, said last week after her exit from the Miami Open. “It can be very challenging.” More

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      A Big Tennis Tournament Is About to Happen in Miami. Really.

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      The Miami Open is the lone significant North American tennis event before late summer, and a glimpse of what the sport might look like for the foreseeable future.There is a significant tennis tournament beginning its main draw in Miami this week. It is one of the most important annual events in the sport, attracting hundreds of players from all over the world, including multiple Grand Slam winners, competing for one of the largest prize purses of the year.So why doesn’t it feel that way?Maybe it’s because several of the biggest names in the sport — including the grand troika of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in the men’s game, plus Serena Williams — are skipping the event. Or because attendance will be limited to a maximum of 1,000 spectators a day, compared with nearly 400,000 over two weeks in 2019, despite state rules in Florida that would allow far more.Maybe it’s because the Miami Open is taking place without the opening act of the March winter hard court swing, the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., which officials in the state wanted no part of in the winter when infection rates were surging in Southern California.Or maybe it’s because the Miami Open is a microcosm of tennis in 2021 — an unpredictable puzzle of player scheduling, travel advisories and health precautions in a season that has forced players to set priorities in a way they never have before. Many, especially the biggest stars, now view tournaments not simply as a means to compete or a chance for a paycheck but for whether an event fits into their broader life.“It’s so many different reasons,” James Blake, the former player who is the tournament director in Miami, said when asked what has influenced players’ decisions to play or skip the event. “As a former tour player, I can tell you are programmed to want to compete against the best players in the world. That is always your main motivation.”Except when it isn’t. Williams withdrew Sunday, announcing she had not fully recovered from recent oral surgery. Djokovic, who is the top-ranked men’s player and recovering from a torn abdominal muscle, pulled out Friday afternoon. Djokovic’s management agency, the sports and entertainment conglomerate, W.M.E.-I.M.G., owns the Miami Open, but that was not enough for him to make the trip. He announced on Twitter that he had “decided to use this precious time at home to stay with my family. With all restrictions, I need to find balance in my time on tour and at home.”Daniil Medvedev, the world No. 2 and a 2021 Australian Open finalist, is playing, as are the rising stars Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev. But the women’s draw, which includes Naomi Osaka, Ashleigh Barty and Simona Halep, may provide much of the heat.Nadal announced earlier this month that he was skipping Miami to continue healing his sore back and to prepare for the spring clay-court season, during which he usually excels.Roger Federer, the defending champion in Miami who returned to professional tennis earlier this month after two knee surgeries and a 14-month hiatus, said his goal is to be 100 percent healthy for Wimbledon in late June. A two-week jaunt to the United States for a single hard court event didn’t make sense. He also has not committed to playing much on clay this season.Roger Federer won’t be at this year’s Miami Open to defend his 2019 title.Rhona Wise/EPA, via ShutterstockAustria’s Dominic Thiem, the 2020 United States Open champion, is slumping and taking a pass. Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland, a three-time Grand Slam winner, said he was too tired. Nick Kyrgios lives in Australia, which has strict quarantine rules for travelers, and has yet to figure out how much tennis he wants to play this year.It is the new normal of tennis. To play or not to play is a complicated question, and an unexpected result of that is Miami foreshadows what tennis will look like eventually. No Big Three. No Serena Williams.“It’s always nice to have two of the biggest names in sports on your air, but there is so much talent out there and that gives the chance for different stories to be told,” said Ken Solomon, chief executive of The Tennis Channel, which will air 125 hours of live coverage of the event in the United States. “We get 128 phenomenal athletes competing in this thing, you don’t start thinking about who is not there.”For months in the United States, many sports have more or less proceeded, even as most people faced significant limitations on travel and contact with those outside their households. The N.F.L. held a Super Bowl with 22,000 fans, the N.C.A.A. started two Division I basketball tournaments with 132 teams from across the country descending on the Indianapolis and San Antonio regions, and hockey players scrap cheek-to-jowl on the ice every night.However, with Florida essentially ridding itself of most pandemic-related restrictions, the roles of have flipped. Players arrived in Florida during the past few days along with spring break revelers who are filling Florida’s beaches, bars and nightclubs. The players, who are used to indulging in Miami’s culture, restaurants and nightlife when they are not playing tennis, are living under strict guidelines that the men’s and women’s tennis tours created to keep them as safe as possible.During the tournament, they must live in one of two hotels for players and officials. Had she played, Williams could not have commuted from her home, roughly 75 minutes away. The players’ movement is limited to the tournament and the hotel. No ventures to Joe’s Stone Crab, South Beach or Coconut Grove until they’ve lost.“It does make it harder when you are part of the bubble,” Lauren Davis, the veteran U.S. player, said. “The experience is more draining. There is no outlet for the stress.”Miami Open organizers did not construct the temporary 14,000-seat court inside the Miami Dolphins’ stadium this year. The most important matches will take place on three smaller courts.Prize money has been slashed to $6.7 million from $16.7 million in 2019, though it is among the largest prize purses outside of the Grand Slams and the tour finals. Nearly everyone at the tournament site will have to wear a mask at all times, except for players while they are on the court.Crowds enter and exit South Beach in Miami during the spring break season.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesTennis will likely look this way for some time. The All England Club, the host of Wimbledon, announced last week that players will have to stay in specified hotels for the tournament, set to begin in late June, despite Britain’s success with its vaccine program. Crowd sizes will be reduced and spectators will not be able to line up during the day to search for a ticket.Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, ranked No. 5 on the men’s tour, said during last week’s tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, that the tour sorely missed Indian Wells this year because it gathers so many top players in front of rabid and casual tennis fans in the United States during the first half of the year. The opportunity to play in front of a crowd of any size — Acapulco allowed roughly 3,000 spectators for each session — had vastly enhanced the experience.“I feel really connected,” he said of the experience of playing in front of fans. “I feel like I can enjoy the game.”But the challenges of the pandemic have forced Tsitsipas and other players to focus almost entirely on larger tournaments for the time being, and the biggest stars to focus almost exclusively on the Grand Slams. Events like Miami may offer plenty of money and rankings points, but everything is just a little different this year. More

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      Novak Djokovic Wins Australian Open Final Over Daniil Medvedev

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenOsaka Wins TitleMen’s Final PreviewDjokovic’s RideWilliams’s Future?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNovak Djokovic Wins Third Straight Australian Open TitleThe victory for the top-ranked Djokovic, in three sets over the fourth-ranked Daniil Medvedev of Russia, gave him his 18th career Grand Slam title.Novak Djokovic of Serbia after his victory in the Australian Open men’s singles final against Daniil Medvedev of Russia.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesFeb. 21, 2021Updated 9:26 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — They come nearly every year now, this new crop of challengers in men’s tennis who so desperately want to begin their time in the sun, to win the championships that everyone in the game values most and beat the three players considered the best to ever play on the biggest stage.And each year, they fall short, making the task seem even more impossible.This is how it went Sunday night at Melbourne Park, where Novak Djokovic did what he always does. Djokovic, the veteran from Serbia ranked No. 1 in the world, both defeated and discouraged the fourth-ranked Daniil Medvedev of Russia, 7-5, 6-2, 6-2, in the Australian Open men’s singles final.The victory gave Djokovic his ninth Australian Open singles championship, a tournament record on the men’s side, and the 18th Grand Slam title of his career. Djokovic has made nine Australian Open finals and won each time, including in the last three years.With this Grand Slam championship, Djokovic is now just two behind Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the race to achieve the most major men’s singles titles in a career. Djokovic, 33, is a year younger than Nadal and six years younger than Federer, who will soon begin his comeback from two surgeries on his right knee, though it remains to be seen whether he will be a championship contender or embarking on a farewell tour.Grand Slam titles are the first measuring stick in any discussion of who is the greatest player of the modern and professional era of tennis, also known as the Open era, which began in 1968.The Big Three of men’s tennis, as they are known, have 58 now. Players under 30 years old have just one. The younger ones, like Medvedev, 25, who moments after the loss called Djokovic and his cohorts “cyborgs of tennis,” are all too familiar with the math.“When they are in the zone they are just better tennis players,” Medvedev said.Djokovic was in the zone Sunday night, playing what his coach, Goran Ivanisevic, called “a masterpiece.”It was a victory Djokovic needed badly, Ivanisevic said, after he was disqualified from the United States Open in September for swatting a ball that hit a line judge, and the drubbing Nadal gave him in the French Open final in October.“I have to agree with my coach,” Djokovic said of Ivanisevic’s assessment of the past few months. “I wanted to start this year in the best possible fashion.”His prospects did not look promising.Shortly after arriving in Australia, Djokovic became a public enemy when he requested special treatment for 72 players put on 14-day hard quarantines because 10 people on three chartered flights those players took to Australia tested positive for coronavirus upon arrival.Then came an injured abdominal muscle — doctors, he said, have told him it is torn — that nearly forced Djokovic out of the tournament. Yet he survived a five set test in the third round and a four-set challenge with two tiebreakers in the quarterfinals.He managed the abdominal injury better than he expected, then vanquished the hottest player in tennis. Medvedev had a 20-match winning streak heading into Sunday night.Attempting to place a little more pressure on his challenger, Djokovic called Medvedev “the man to beat” in the tournament. In reality though, few doubted Djokovic’s edge. He entered the match as the two-time reigning champion and with a well-earned aura of invincibility at Rod Laver Arena in the late rounds.Djokovic’s 18 Grand Slam singles titles place him two behind Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer’s career record in men’s tennis. Djokovic is the youngest of the three.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesRod Laver Arena sits a few hundred yards from the Yarra River, and just a few miles from Port Phillip Bay. When evening comes and the lights turn on, gulls flock to the rafters and squawk through the night. With Djokovic playing so many of his matches at night here, it becomes difficult not to imagine those birds as his personal vultures, bearing witness as he slays his latest victim.The reasons for Djokovic’s dominance here are both physical and psychological. The final always takes place at night. Those night matches that the birds come for, along with legions of Serbs who scream the “Olé, olé, olé, olé,” chant when their favorite son most needs it, are often played in cooler temperatures than those that take place during the warm, dry days of the Australian summer. Heat has always tended to melt Djokovic. A cool evening, like the one on which he met Medvedev, is his favorite playing partner.Also, players say the shift in the weather completely changes the conditions of the court. Balls stop popping off the ground, keeping so many of Djokovic’s hard, flat groundstrokes below his opponent’s knees and out of their strike zones. What looks like a simple backhand is anything but, especially when the player hitting the original shot has never lost the ultimate match here, and too often the opponent’s counter ends up wide, long or in the middle of the net.Medvedev made 67 errors, 30 of them unforced, though against Djokovic the difference between a forced error and an unforced one is negligible. Djokovic served just three aces, but he won 73 percent of the points on his first serve and 58 percent on his second serve, numbers that usually translate to a dominant night.Djokovic won seven of 11 break points and 16 of the 18 points when he came to the net. He outsmarted a player considered to be among the smartest and most creative in the game by keeping Medvedev guessing and setting the kinds of traps Medvedev has been known to lay for his opponents, hitting three shots to set up the winner on the fourth.Neither Djokovic, Federer nor Nadal have been beaten in a final to a player currently younger than 30.Dominic Thiem of Austria came close, outplaying Djokovic for long stretches in last year’s Australian Open final before Djokovic prevailed in five sets. That match appeared to hint at a shrinking gap between the veterans and the young players trying to nip at their heels.But as Djokovic lifted the trophy once more in Melbourne, he made it clear that he had no intention of giving up ownership of the crown he claims as his own and the court he calls his second backyard anytime soon.Djokovic said it was a matter of time before Medvedev and his peers started winning Grand Slams, but at the moment he is in a race against history and his two biggest rivals. It drives him, and there is no thought of slowing down.“I don’t feel like I am older or tired or anything like that,” he said.Daniil Medvedev broke his racket in frustration during the second set.Credit…Brandon Malone/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNor does he look it.Before Sunday’s match, Lleyton Hewitt, a former world No. 1 and a two-time Grand Slam champion in the 2000s, said Medvedev was going to need to create a moment to make himself believe that he could beat Djokovic on this night, on this court, like when Hewitt won the first-set tiebreaker against Pete Sampras in his first triumph at a Grand Slam final.The first test came early for Medvedev, after Djokovic broke him in his first service game and cruised to a 3-0 lead. But a game later, Medvedev outclassed Djokovic on a 28-shot rally that had both players sliding from sideline to sideline to get his first chance to break Djokovic’s serve. Minutes later it was 3-3. Game on.Five games later the set appeared headed for a tiebreaker, but the moment of truth for Medvedev arrived sooner. Serving at 5-6 and down a point, he sent a forehand wide with Djokovic pushing to the net, and caught a bad break as what could have been the winning shot on the next point ticked the top of the net cord and gave Djokovic a sitter for an easy passing shot.Just like that, triple set point. Big serves saved the first two, but then Medvedev sent a forehand into the net. The big hill that no one in Medvedev’s generation has been able to summit suddenly seemed that much higher.After prevailing in that first set, Djokovic shifted from a steady run into a sprint. He broke Medvedev three times in the second set and had him breaking one racket, swatting the ground with its replacement and shrugging his shoulders at his coach, as if to say there was nothing he could do.“Even if I would have done better, it doesn’t mean that the score would be different,” he said.On match point, Djokovic rose for a lob, stretched and whipped one last winner past Medvedev. He collapsed in celebration on the court then rose quickly, pumping his arms at his box and the crowd. By March, he will have spent more weeks holding the No. 1 ranking than any other man. The reign goes on, for Djokovic and for the Big Three.“Roger and Rafa inspire me,” Djokovic said as he sat next to the winner’s trophy. “That is something I have said before. I will say it again. I think as long as they go, I’ll go.”And then he just might go some more.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      2021 Australian Open: What to Watch on Tuesday Night

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowFans in Virus LockdownAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story2021 Australian Open: What to Watch on Tuesday NightTwo Americans, Jennifer Brady and Jessica Pegula, feature in a quarterfinal at the Australian Open.Jessica Pegula of the U.S. has dropped only one set on her way to the quarterfinals at the Australian Open.Credit…Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/ReutersFeb. 16, 2021Updated 10:14 a.m. ETHow to watch: 6 to 9 p.m., Eastern time on the Tennis Channel and 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. on ESPN2 in the United States; streaming on the ESPN+ and ESPN3 apps.The quarterfinals of the Australian Open continue on Tuesday night. As Ashleigh Barty and Rafael Nadal look to continue their dominance, young challengers will try to unseat them on the way to the final.Here are some matches to keep an eye on.The times for individual matchups are estimates and may fluctuate based on when earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern.Rod Laver Arena | 7 p.m. TuesdayAshleigh Barty vs. Karolina MuchovaAshleigh Barty withdrew from the WTA tour in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, deciding to stay in Australia to keep herself and her team safe. Critics believed that it would be nearly impossible for Barty, the No. 1 seed, to meet expectations, but she has been in scintillating form. She has not lost a match in the past two weeks, winning the Yarra Valley Classic and not dropping a set on her way to the Australian Open quarterfinals.Karolina Muchova has reached the quarterfinals after two exceptional performances against Karolina Pliskova and Elise Mertens, the sixth and 18th seeds. The 24-year-old may have won both matches in straight sets, but she needed to win seven games in each to complete her upsets. Now, up against the consistent Barty, Muchova will need to temper high unforced error counts if she’s to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal.Rafael Nadal of Spain is a clear favorite to make the final at the Australian Open.Credit…Dave Hunt/EPA, via ShutterstockRod Laver Arena | 9 p.m. TuesdayJennifer Brady vs. Jessica PegulaAfter Jessica Pegula upset the No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina, she turned to the camera and finished off her signed message with, “See you in the next round Jen B.” Jennifer Brady returned the love after her victory over Donna Vekic, writing, “Bring it Jess.” The two Americans are good friends and have been supportive of each other’s progress.Before this tournament, Pegula had never reached the round of 16 at a major event. With wins over two top-20 players her run to the quarterfinals has been impressive with only one set dropped. Her aggressive style is well suited to the faster courts at this year’s Australian Open.Brady, who reached the semifinals at the United States Open in September, was the only female player placed in a more restrictive quarantine after arriving in Melbourne to reach the second week. On average, Brady has lost fewer than five games per match on her way to the quarterfinals, and it’s hard to see how Pegula might be able to upset the 22nd seed.Rod Laver Arena | 11 p.m. TuesdayAndrey Rublev vs. Daniil MedvedevAndrey Rublev and Daniil Medvedev secured the ATP Cup for Russia earlier this month, with neither player losing a singles match throughout. In their three meetings on the ATP Tour, Medvedev has come out on top each time, including in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in September.This may be Rublev’s chance to finally overcome his friendly rival. He has looked particularly dominant, not dropping a set throughout the tournament. His match against Casper Ruud ended after only two sets when the Norwegian withdrew with an injury. Going into the quarterfinals, Rublev has led the field in both percentage of first service points won and second service points won, a sign of how hard it has been for opponents to break his serve.Medvedev has also been playing well, aside from a chaotic, disorganized third round match against Filip Krajinovic. He has now won 18 matches in a row, with his last loss coming in October at a tournament in Vienna. Although the fast surface fits Medvedev’s flat baseline shots, Rublev’s open stance is well suited in defense, and we’re sure to see many dynamic, aggressive points.Rod Laver Arena | 3:30 a.m. WednesdayRafael Nadal vs. Stefanos TsitsipasRafael Nadal, the No. 2 seed, has moved smoothly through the first four rounds, no surprise for a player with 20 Grand Slam titles. Although Nadal won his only Australian Open title over a decade ago, he has reached the finals on four other occasions since, and is a clear favorite in his half of the draw to do so again. Nadal’s powerful topspin shots are well-suited to clay courts where he can drag opponents around with tightly angled shots. Nadal’s ability to exploit his opponent’s weaknesses with relentless pressure can break most players on their best days.Stefanos Tsitsipas, the ATP finals winner in 2019, is a study in unpredictability. The fifth seed has a capable all-court game, but lacks the consistency to execute match after match. The 22-year-old has worked to improve this aspect of his game, but needed five sets to push back unseeded Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second round. After receiving a walkover in the round of 16, Tsitsipas will be well rested and hoping for an advantage against one of the most mentally tough players on tour.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      An American Made Week 2 at the Australian Open. He Avoided Djokovic and Nadal.

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowFans in Virus LockdownAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAn American Made Week 2 at the Australian Open. He Avoided Djokovic and Nadal.The next generation of American men are still searching for a big win on a Grand Slam stage against the best players.Mackenzie McDonald was the only American man to make it to the fourth round of the Australian Open.Credit…Andy Brownbill/Associated PressFeb. 14, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — American men had an awfully good start at the Australian Open. They won seven of 10 matches, placing the most male players from the United States in the second round of the tournament since 2017.Then things got real in a hurry.Only Mackenzie McDonald, 25, a former N.C.A.A. champion out of U.C.L.A. who is battling his way back from hamstring tendon surgery, and Taylor Fritz, a big-serving Californian who is 23 and still evolving, survived to Round 3. By late Saturday afternoon, only McDonald remained.The names of the two men responsible for a lot of the American carnage are familiar: Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. In the span of roughly 55 hours from Wednesday afternoon through Friday night, Djokovic and Nadal dispatched Francis Tiafoe, Michael Mmoh and Fritz.Those wins continued what has become more than a decade of mostly frustrating efforts for American men going up against the game’s so-called Big Three — Djokovic, Nadal and Roger Federer — especially in the Grand Slam tournaments.According to Greg Sharko of the ATP, the master of match records for men’s tennis, the last American to beat Djokovic at a Grand Slam event was Sam Querrey, who bested him in the third round of Wimbledon in 2016. Since then, Djokovic has won 16 straight matches against American men at all tournaments.Nadal’s win over Mmoh was his 10th straight over an American. The last American to beat Nadal was John Isner, the 6-foot-10 serving machine, at the 2017 Laver Cup. Earlier that year, Querrey beat Nadal at a tournament in Acapulco, Mexico. At the time, Nadal had won 16 consecutive matches over Americans, dating to the summer of 2011.Federer has not lost to an American in a Grand Slam tournament in the past 15 years. Andre Agassi beat Federer at the 2001 United States Open, when Federer was 20.There is, of course, little shame in struggling against Djokovic, Nadal and Federer, who skipped the Australian Open to recover from knee surgery. They are the best of the game’s modern era, the winners of 57 Grand Slam singles championships. For years, they mostly lost to one another in the biggest events.But the failure of an American man to register the kind of signature win that can imbue a fledgling career with invaluable confidence is emblematic of the larger struggle. A country that once dominated the sport has struggled for years to find a successor to Andy Roddick, the last American man to win a Grand Slam tournament, at the 2003 U.S. Open, even as American women continue to thrive.Isner, 35, is the lone American in the top 30. In the 1990s, just as tennis was becoming a truly global sport, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Jim Courier were mainstays of the top 10. Canada, which is about one-tenth of the size of the United States, has three men in the top 20. Also, the Australian Open takes place on a hardcourt, the surface that most Americans grow up playing on.“I think I’m more than capable, but it’s a matter of not what I do against Novak but what do you do every day,” Tiafoe, 23, said after he had lost his hard-fought four-set, three-and-a-half-hour battle with Djokovic. “Those matches, losing matches, I don’t think I should.”Fritz came a step closer to beating Djokovic on Friday night, pushing him to five sets as Djokovic struggled through an injury he described as a torn muscle on the right side of his midsection. Fritz appeared to have Djokovic beaten early in the fifth set but fell short as Djokovic began pounding serves and ripping forehands into the corners, as he had early on in the match.An hour after it ended, Fritz remained distraught over too many missed first serves and errors off his forehand. He had taken Djokovic to a tiebreaker in the first set and had then lost seven of the next eight points.“It’s very motivating that we’re so close, but at the same time, we are so far,” Fritz said. “These guys are so good.”And so it was that McDonald, perhaps the most unlikely of all of his countrymen, became the last hope to put an American into the second week of the year’s first Grand Slam. McDonald showed promise three years ago when, not long after leaving U.C.L.A., he made it to the fourth round of Wimbledon, where he lost to Milos Raonic of Canada.Less than a year later, he sustained a torn hamstring tendon while playing doubles at the French Open and underwent surgery. After the operation, he couldn’t leave his apartment for three weeks, and he couldn’t walk for the better part of two months. Slowly, week by week, he began to allow his leg to bear more weight.During the last two years, he has clawed his way back, training at the United States Tennis Association complex in Orlando, Fla., and playing a mix of lower-, middle- and top-tier tournaments. He was No. 192 in the world rankings entering the Australian Open, where he has played nearly flawless tennis and has also been blessed by a friendly draw.His highest-seeded opponent, Borna Coric of Croatia, was the No. 22 seed. After beating Coric in four sets in the second round, McDonald faced Lloyd Harris, 23, of South Africa, who was playing in the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time and is ranked No. 91. It was close early, as McDonald won the first set in a tiebreaker, but not after that. McDonald cranked 12 aces and punished Harris with deep, hard backhands all afternoon.In the fourth round, he gets Daniil Medvedev, the crafty and powerful Russian who is searching for his first Grand Slam title. With Djokovic ailing and Nadal battling a balky but improving lower back, many experts consider Medvedev a favorite to win this tournament.After his win over Harris, McDonald insisted that American players had the raw material to challenge the greats, and everyone else who reaches the later rounds of a Grand Slam event.“The talent is there,” McDonald said. “We just have to stay focused and keep working hard.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      2021 Australian Open: What to Watch on Wednesday Night

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowTesting Australians’ VIrus AnxietiesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story2021 Australian Open: What to Watch on Wednesday NightRafael Nadal and Ashleigh Barty will play on Day 4 of the tournament.Sam Stosur of Australia will face Jessica Pegula, the American who upset Victoria Azarenka in the first round.Credit…James Ross/EPA, via ShutterstockFeb. 10, 2021Updated 7:51 a.m. ETHow to watch: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern on the Tennis Channel, 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on ESPNEWS and 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. on ESPN2 in the United States; streaming on the ESPN+ and ESPN3 apps.Jessica Pegula of the United States upset the 12th seed, Victoria Azarenka, in the opening round for her first match victory at a major tournament, and she will now face the Australian veteran Samantha Stosur. Although Stosur has focused on playing doubles over the past few years, she is still a force in singles, especially with a home-court advantage.Her fellow Australian Alexei Popyrin certainly benefited from that advantage in his first-round upset of the 13th seed, David Goffin, and he will now meet Lloyd Harris. A win would put Popyrin, who is ranked 113th in the world, into the third round for a third straight year.Here are more matches to keep an eye on.Because of the number of matches cycling through courts, the times for individual matchups are best guesses and are certain to fluctuate based on when earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern.Rod Laver Arena | 9 p.m. WednesdayAshleigh Barty vs. Daria GavrilovaAs the world of professional sports slowly reopened amid the coronavirus pandemic, Ashleigh Barty, the world No. 1, decided not to travel to tournaments and stayed in Australia. That decision, which she attributed to concerns about bringing the virus back to her home country, kept her out of the U.S. Open and prevented her from trying to defend her French Open title.Questions about the level of Barty’s preparations were quashed as she won the Yarra Valley Classic last week and then defeated her first-round opponent in the Open without dropping a game.Ashleigh Barty in her first-round victory.Credit…David Gray/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDaria Gavrilova, a former Russian national who now represents Australia, received a wild-card entry into the main draw of the Australian Open. Struggling with chronic foot injuries, she took a year away from tennis after the 2019 U.S. Open. She returned in time for the rescheduled French Open in October, defeating Dayana Yastremska in the first round. However, she has not been playing at her peak, and she will certainly struggle against the overpowering, aggressive brand of tennis that Barty has mastered.Court 13 | 9 p.m. WednesdayCasper Ruud vs. Tommy PaulCasper Ruud, the 24th seed, last year became the first Norwegian to win an ATP title and became the highest-ranking Norwegian in tour history, surpassing the mark set by his father, Christian Ruud, who reached No. 39 in 1995. Now Ruud is aiming to reach the third round for a third consecutive time at a major, solidifying his place in the top 25. In his way is a familiar opponent. Ruud defeated Tommy Paul in the second round of the French Open in October.Paul, the world No. 53, had his best result at a Grand Slam last year, reaching the third round of the Australian Open by upsetting Grigor Dimitrov in a thrilling five-set match. Paul followed that up with an impressive win over Alexander Zverev in Mexico just a month later but was unable to carry that momentum into the second half of the season. Now he must be hoping that the quicker surface in Australia will favor him against Ruud, who tends to prefer playing out longer, more strategic points.Rod Laver Arena | 3 a.m. ThursdayCoco Gauff vs. Elina SvitolinaCoco Gauff seemed fully in control of her first-round match, easily beating Jil Teichmann. Just a week before, in a tuneup tournament, Gauff had needed three sets to defeat Teichmann. On Tuesday, Gauff increased her intensity, choosing to dictate as many points as possible rather than giving Teichmann the time to settle into craftier exchanges.Coco Gauff in her first-round win.Credit…Jason O’Brien/EPA, via ShutterstockElina Svitolina, the fifth seed, is a gifted defensive player who tends to soak up pressure, coaxing unforced errors out of offensively minded opponents. Svitolina’s consistency allows her to await the proper moment to unleash a counterattack, usually in relatively low-risk situations. For Gauff, this will present a particularly tough challenge. Although Gauff has shown from her breakthrough at Wimbledon in 2019 that she is mentally tough, being worn down by a defensive veteran can be unusually disheartening.Rod Laver Arena | 5 A.m. ThursdayRafael Nadal vs. Michael MmohWhen he secured his 13th French Open title in October, Rafael Nadal tied Roger Federer for the most Grand Slam singles titles among men. Of Nadal’s 20 Grand Slam titles, only one was captured at the Australian Open, in 2009. Nadal, 34, has been the runner-up in Melbourne four times, losing in memorable matches to Federer, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka. Now, as he seeks to surpass Federer’s total, he will need to hold off some rising stars.Rafael Nadal in a training session at Melbourne Park this week.Credit…David Gray/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNadal’s opponent tonight, the 23-year-old Michael Mmoh, has never been past the second round at a Grand Slam tournament. Now ranked 177th in the world, he had to play in the qualifying draws to make it into the Australian Open, and he struggled through a grinding five-set match against a fellow qualifier, Viktor Troicki, in the first round. Mmoh’s quick, aggressive style can put an opponent on his back foot, but that will be tough to do against Nadal, whose defensive skills, while often overlooked, are just as exceptional as his offensive prowess.Here are a few more matches to keep an eye on:Feliciano López vs. Lorenzo Sonego — 7 p.m.Mackenzie McDonald vs. Borna Coric — 11 p.m.Jessica Pegula vs. Sam Stosur — 6 a.m.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      At the Australian Open: Rafael Nadal’s 17-Year-Old Heir Apparent

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowTesting Australians’ VIrus AnxietiesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ‘Next Rafa’: Nadal’s Heir Apparent Is 17 and Playing in the Australian OpenCarlos Alcaraz is thriving on the men’s tennis tour and reminding a lot of people of a teenage sensation in the early 2000s who was also from Spain.Carlos Alcaraz is getting hype in Spain as a 17-year-old prospect — with some in tennis calling him “the next Rafa.”Credit…Jason O’Brien/EPA, via ShutterstockFeb. 10, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — There are two Rafael Nadal story lines swirling about during this first week of the Australian Open.One involves the 20-time Grand Slam winner’s lower back, which, in his words, is not great, though it did not get in the way of his efficient, straight-sets win over Laslo Djere of Serbia in the first round Tuesday.The second story line involves a 17-year-old Spaniard named Carlos Alcaraz who has suddenly become known as “the next Rafa.” Nadal’s decision to practice with Alcaraz last week, in the final days leading up to the year’s first Grand Slam, raised the volume of the hype surrounding the teenage prodigy.And as Nadal was preparing for his first-round match, Alcaraz was pumping his fist to celebrate his first win in a Grand Slam tournament, over Botic Van de Zandschulp of the Netherlands, a solid 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 beating.“He has intensity, he has the passion, he has the shots,” Nadal said of Alcaraz. “Then it’s all about how much you are able to improve during the next couple of years. It depends on how much you will be able to improve that will make the difference of whether he’s going to be very good, or if you’re going to be an amazing champion.”Prematurely declaring a teenager a future legend is as much a part of tennis as fuzzy yellow balls. For several years Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria was called “Baby Fed” because his precocious creativity and all-around game resembled that of the Swiss great Roger Federer. That was nearly a decade ago. Dimitrov is now 29, ranked 21st and still looking for his first Grand Slam title.There is always a yearning for the next big thing, and so the buzz around Alcaraz persists.Alcaraz, left,  practicing with Rafael Nadal this week. The teenager learned that Nadal hits the ball as hard in practice as he does in Grand Slam matches.Credit…Jason O’Brien/EPA, via Shutterstock“It’s been a while since we had a young Spaniard came along like this with the promise he is showing at his age,” said Jim Courier, the former world No. 1 and a two-time champion in Australia, referring to when Nadal announced himself with a win over Federer at 17. The expectations are indeed a lot for Alcaraz to shoulder, Courier said, but Nadal once felt that pressure, and so have others. “I suspect Carlos will keep the blinders on pretty tight,” Courier said.Alcaraz is hardly a Nadal clone. He does not hit with Nadal’s next-level topspin, and his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, said hardcourts would probably be his best surface rather than clay. Alcaraz shares none of Nadal’s on-court compulsions, such as making sure the labels of his water bottles face a certain way during matches or following a specific pattern as he walks to his chair on a changeover. But a Spanish player breaking out at 17 has implications.Alcaraz beat David Goffin of Belgium, ranked No. 13, last week during a warm-up event in Australia, which kick-started the “next Rafa” buzz at Melbourne Park. Then he drew the ideal first-round opponent — Van de Zandschulp, a 25-year-old who has never sniffed the top 100 and looked the part as Alcaraz ran him around the court and pressured him into 73 errors.Ferrero, the former world No. 1 who has been working with Alcaraz the past three years, said Alcaraz’s time practicing last week with Nadal and Andrey Rublev of Russia, the No. 7 seed, was a key to his success in the first round.“He got to see what great players do,” Ferrero said.That did not start out so well. Late last week, Alcaraz walked onto the court at John Cain Arena for a hitting session with Nadal, who immediately began pelting him with forehands and backhands, because Nadal practices as if he is playing a Grand Slam final, even when he has a sore back.“He hits the ball very hard,” Alcaraz said of Nadal. “He tries to hit harder on every ball.”Alcaraz struggled at first to keep the rallies going more than a few shots. Nadal did not relent. Alcaraz took a while to adapt to the pace.There is no shame in that, since 17-year-olds are not supposed to be able to compete at this level of men’s tennis in 2021. The game is supposed to be too physically demanding for a teenager who is balancing professional tennis with his final year of online high school. But Alcaraz is already 6-foot-1 (the same height as Nadal), with broad shoulders and thick quadriceps muscles.But Tuesday’s win was his first best-three-of-five-sets match. He still has the complexion of a high school senior, and he prefers Instagram to TikTok. He worships the soccer team Real Madrid (Nadal does, too), though he gave up organized soccer when he was 10 to focus exclusively on tennis. He lives mostly at Ferrero’s tennis academy in Villena, near Spain’s southeastern coast, roughly an hour by car from Alcaraz’s home in El Palmar, where he returns every other weekend.Spain’s top men’s players, who dominated the top 50 not long ago and are still a force, have for years been a very close-knit group. They show up at one another’s matches and gather on the road to share meals and watch soccer.As Alcaraz battled Van de Zandschulp on Tuesday, he kept looking over and pumping his fist in the direction of Ferrero and Pablo Carreño Busta, the No. 15 seed at the Australian Open. Carreño Busta is 12 years older than Alcaraz and has become something of a big brother to him at Ferrero’s academy.Alcaraz played on Court 17, which is tucked in near a construction site, a busy railroad junction and the backsides of John Cain Arena and the Melbourne Cricket Ground. There are just a few hundred seats. It is Melbourne Park’s version of the boonies.Alcaraz does not figure to have many more matches there, but just before he headed onto the court, Carreño Busta reminded him to take a minute to savor the start of his Grand Slam career.“I was a little nervous,” Alcaraz said. “He told me to enjoy the moment.”He did. He won the first set in 25 minutes, tormenting Van de Zandschulp with nasty overheads, endless hustle and timely breaks of serve, often when Van de Zandschulp seemed to have the game in hand. “He’s very good, he’s very young,” Nadal said. “I really believe that he will have a great future because he’s a good guy, humble, a hard worker.”Nadal, with his questionable lower back, will face Michael Mmoh of the United States in the second round Thursday. Alcaraz will play Mikael Ymer of Sweden. Both Mmoh and Ymer, neither of whom has made the third round of a Grand Slam, needed five sets to survive their first-round matches, not exactly ideal preparation for facing off against the real Rafael Nadal and the player considered his heir.“It’s been a very fast progression for him, not that we are in a rush,” Ferrero said of Alcaraz. “This year I think he is going to make a really big step.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More