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      An Unplayed Australian Open Is a Turning Point for Novak Djokovic

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      Djokovic has rebounded from demoralizing periods in the past, but talented players are coming behind him, and his anti-vaccine stance has made him a global target.MELBOURNE, Australia — Even after being ejected from Australia, Novak Djokovic will remain No. 1 in the men’s tennis rankings at the end of the Australian Open, which began on Monday without him.He still holds the titles at the French Open and Wimbledon; still has supple limbs, formidable tennis skills and a deep history of resilience in the face of hostile crowds and long odds.But in a what-have-you-won-for-me-lately sport that is often categorized by eras and the champions who define them, it would come as no surprise if Sunday marked a turning point, symbolized by his long, grim walk to the airport gate in Melbourne under the escort of immigration officials.Djokovic is 34, and as he left Australia against his will after his visa was canceled, a new generation of taller, talented stars in men’s tennis was preparing to pursue the title at the Grand Slam tournament he has dominated like no other and may never play again, if his three-year ban from the country is not rescinded.“This certainly could knock him back,” John Isner, a friend of Djokovic’s and one of the top-ranked American players, said on Sunday. “I honestly don’t know which way it will go. It could take him a long time to recover, or light a fire under him.”Djokovic has rebounded from demoralizing periods in the past and resumed winning. In 2017, after perhaps the most dominant phase of his career, he struggled with his motivation and lost his edge for more than a year amid personal problems and a persistent right elbow injury. He had a commitment to natural healing that foreshadowed his decision not to be vaccinated for the coronavirus. But after playing and struggling at the Australian Open in 2018 with his elbow supported by a compression sleeve, he decided, tearfully he has said, to undergo surgery.Five months later, he was a Grand Slam champion again, winning the 2018 Wimbledon title and soon re-establishing himself as No. 1, at the expense of his career-long rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.In early 2020, Djokovic was still on a roll, starting the year with 18 straight victories before the pandemic shut down the sport for five months in 2020. He organized an ill-advised exhibition tour in Serbia and Croatia in June during the enforced break that turned into a superspreader event and public-relations bonfire as he and other players and team members, including Djokovic’s coach Goran Ivanisevic, danced and partied unmasked in a Balkan nightclub, thoroughly out of sync with the global mood.The tour was canceled. Djokovic; his wife, Jelena; Ivanisevic; and others tested positive for the coronavirus, and when Djokovic did return to Grand Slam action, at the 2020 U.S. Open, he proceeded to eliminate himself from the tournament in the fourth round by hitting a ball in frustration after losing his serve and inadvertently hitting a lineswoman in the throat. He was defaulted by the tournament referee and returned to Europe to regroup. A young Austrian, Dominic Thiem, eventually won the title.After all the dubious decisions and dents to his image, another Djokovic tailspin was hardly out of the question, but in a reflection of his tenacity and talent, he roared back in 2021 with one of his finest seasons: winning the first three Grand Slam tournaments and coming within one match of achieving the first men’s Grand Slam in singles in 52 years before losing to Daniil Medvedev in the U.S. Open final.That display of resilience in 2021 should give pause to all those who might expect Djokovic to curl himself into a ball on the floor of his Monte Carlo apartment in the aftermath of the Australian affair.A spectator inspected a banner of the 2021 champion on opening day at the Australian Open. Darrian Traynor/Getty ImagesWe are talking about a player who became a champion despite growing up in Belgrade during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, when NATO bombing forced him to interrupt tennis practices. He left home at 12 for a tennis academy in Germany as his parents and family borrowed and improvised to fund his training in the hope that the sport would be his route, and theirs, to better days. Djokovic told me that his father, Srdjan, once gathered the family and slammed a 10 Deutsche mark on the kitchen table and explained that this was all the money they had left.“He said that more than ever we have to stick together and go through this together and figure out the way,” Djokovic said in that interview. “That was a very powerful and very impactful moment in my growth, my life, all of our lives.”What is one deportation in comparison with all of that?The answer seems self-evident, but the body blows can add up. Djokovic is accustomed to being the outsider, to hearing the roars of support for Federer and other opponents and winning anyway. He has even gone so far as to imagine that the crowds are chanting his name instead, but he has never been a global target to this degree.Though he insists he does not want to be an anti-vaccine champion, the fallout from his iconoclastic stance in Australia — he is one of only three top-100 men’s players to be unvaccinated — means that he will be indelibly associated with the issue. And as long as he remains unvaccinated, he will face challenges entering some other countries and tournaments.Energy is one of Djokovic’s hallmarks. Spend time with him one on one and his life force and restless curiosity come through, but he has expended a great deal of effort in recent years on causes beyond winning tennis matches: taking on the status quo on the men’s tour and creating a new player group to promote — so far unsuccessfully — change and more decision-making power for players at all levels of the rankings. He has helped start a new tournament in Belgrade, done charitable work in Serbia and the Balkan region and has cooperated with a behind-the-scenes documentary that is expected be released in 2022.It should have no dearth of content: no shortage of major triumphs and brutal setbacks. At what point does it all dull his edge? The answer could be right about now.The Novak Djokovic Standoff With AustraliaCard 1 of 5A vaccine exemption question. More

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      Rafael Nadal Returns to Australian Open With More Modest Expectations

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      The 20-time Grand Slam tournament champion has cut himself, and even his rival, Novak Djokovic, some slack. “I want to be back on the tour, even if the preparation is not fantastic,” he said.MELBOURNE, Australia — As he begins his 20th season on the ATP Tour, Rafael Nadal, famously exacting and particular on the court, is allowing himself — and others — some grace.In a news conference last week, a reporter asked Nadal how he felt about the conditions in Melbourne, given that “you haven’t reached the semifinals at the Australian Open since you won the title in 2009.”After an initial look of puzzlement while listening to the question, Nadal, amused, gently pushed back on its premise, given that he has reached the final at Melbourne Park four times since winning the 2009 title. “I am very sorry to tell you,” Nadal said, listing the years in which he had made the final. “I don’t want to.”Even if you aren’t a sports journalist and are doing a favour for a friend, it’s called basic research no? 🤦‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/TsjLvhmwyV— Anu Menon (@ExLolaKutty) January 10, 2022
      In an interview, Nadal said that while “normally I don’t play if I don’t think that I will be good,” that he was ready to lower expectations for himself out of a desire to compete.“Because I didn’t play for five, six months, I really take it in a different way,” Nadal said. “I said, OK, I want to be back on the tour, even if the preparation is not fantastic. I need to be back if I want myself to be competitive again as soon as possible. I need to be there. I need to practice with the guys. I need to be playing some professional matches — and that’s what I did.”Nadal had looked ready to return to the tour when he entered an exhibition in Abu Dhabi in December, but he became one of six players at the event to contract the coronavirus. After testing negative on the morning of his trip home to Spain, Nadal began to feel ill on the plane. Out of concern for older relatives, he went straight from the airport to a hospital to get tested before returning home, and he stayed isolated after receiving his result.After four days of painful symptoms and high fevers, Nadal had another three days of fatigue. “I was destroyed, like super-tired,” said Nadal, who said he was vaccinated. “I was not able to move much.”Nadal climbed back onto an exercise bike eight days after his diagnosis and slowly began pedaling uphill toward a recovery. After just two practices near his home in Spain, Nadal decided to take the trip to Australia for more preparation and to play some real, if low-stakes, matches.In his first tournament since last August, Nadal won a small ATP 250 competition in Melbourne in the first week of the season. He faced one of the least daunting paths of his career — three opponents ranked outside the top 90 and his quarterfinal opponent pulled out before their match.Those breaks gave Nadal a quick road to extending a long streak: his 7-6(6), 6-3 win in the final over the American serve-and-volleyer Maxime Cressy made this the 19th straight season in which he has won at least one ATP title. (In all but the first of those years, Nadal had always won at least two.)There has, of course, been quality in Nadal’s quantity, including the 20 Grand Slam singles titles that have him in a three-way tie with Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.Nadal after beating Novak Djokovic in the French Open men’s singles final in 2020, Nadal’s last Grand Slam tournament victory.Ian Langsdon/EPA, via ShutterstockAsked how his win in the warm-up tournament might set him up for the Australian Open, where Nadal could take sole possession of the record for the first time, Nadal, who missed both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last year, quickly set expectations.“I mean, I didn’t play five-sets matches since Roland Garros,” he said. “And, of course, my preparation could be better. But here I am. I don’t expect; I just try to go day by day. I know the situation is not ideal for me to try to have an amazing result on the first Grand Slam. But you never know. If you are not here, it is difficult to have any chance. Being here, I want to try my best.”Nadal spoke with generosity, if audible frustration, about Djokovic, who had been a clear favorite to win a record 10th Australian Open men’s singles title this month before complicating his chances by attempting to enter the country and play while unvaccinated. After being detained at an airport when the exemption he provided to get around the country’s vaccination requirements was deemed insufficient, Djokovic’s ordeal ended on Sunday when a court in Melbourne denied his request to overturn the government’s decision to revoke his visa.“Of course it’s not good for tennis, not good for him, not good for distracting the attention from what’s important to talk about tennis and in our world,” Nadal said. “But in that way, I really feel sorry for him, you know? Even if we think a different way and we have different perspectives of the things that you have to do in these tough moments of the pandemic. I really feel a lot of sorry for him.”Though Nadal has spoken this month of a need to listen to medical experts and of “consequences” — Djokovic is one of only three players in the ATP Top 100 to remain unvaccinated — in this interview Nadal said that he wanted to discuss Djokovic, whom he has faced an ATP-record 58 times, “more about a human person than a tennis player, no?”“I have a huge respect for him, in general terms,” Nadal said. “We did a lot of things together; we enjoyed a lot of important moments on court. We did important things for our foundations together, too. So, in some way, I wish him all the best. I really believe that it’s important that he goes out, he explains everything.”He added: “But I wish him the best. Even if we think different, he’s a colleague on the tour, and I respect his decisions. Even if we are not agreeing.” More

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      At the Australian Open, Everyone Not Named Djokovic Is Ready to Star

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      After Novak Djokovic’s immigration troubles, he is gone, but don’t worry: Plenty of other stars and story lines are ready for the spotlight.MELBOURNE, Australia — It has been an exhausting two weeks, as if a Grand Slam tennis tournament has been contested already — albeit in courts instead of on them, and with all the focus on two missed shots.Novak Djokovic’s battle with the Australian government ended on Sunday, when a court in Melbourne denied the unvaccinated tennis star’s request to overturn the government’s decision to revoke his visa. After dominating the news cycle and even delaying release of the match schedule, Djokovic left the country, unable to compete in the Australian Open, which begins Monday.“Australian Open is much more important than any player,” Rafael Nadal said in his pretournament news conference. “If he’s playing finally, OK. If he’s not playing, Australian Open will be great Australian Open with or without him.”Rafael Nadal practicing in Melbourne on Saturday.Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesContemporaries, and contenders?Djokovic’s cohort of champions, including Nadal himself, could make noise at this event. Nadal, who is also going for a record 21st Grand Slam title to break the three-way tie with Djokovic and Roger Federer, won a small tournament in Melbourne in the first week of the season and has been able to practice at full strength less than a month after contracting the coronavirus. Nadal, seeded sixth, opens against Marcos Giron of the United States on Monday.Andy Murray, the only player consistently able to hang with the Big Three during their primes, also enters the Open with confidence after reaching the final of the ATP tournament in Sydney last week.Ashleigh Barty of Australia is the favorite to win women’s singles.Andy Cheung/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA midtournament showdown loomsAshleigh Barty and Naomi Osaka ended their seasons after losses at the U.S. Open last year, and both looked rested and ready in the first week of this season. Barty, who had to complete a lengthy quarantine upon her return home, said on Saturday that she had made the decision to stop when she did last year for “the right reasons” for herself.“Ultimately I felt like I’d had a fantastic year,” Barty said. “I was tired. I knew that for me to give myself the best chance to start well here in Australia was to go home and rest. I have absolutely no regrets.”Barty, the top-ranked player in women’s tennis, won the singles and doubles titles in Adelaide in the first week of the season, positioning herself as a favorite to win her first Australian Open title. Barty has embraced being the home favorite and the pressure that comes with trying to be the first Australian man or woman to win a singles title here since 1978, the longest such home champion drought of any Grand Slam event.“I just have to hope that everyone understands that I’m giving it my best crack,” she said. “It doesn’t always work out exactly how you want to. But you go about it the right way, you do the right things and try to give yourself the best chance — that’s all you can do. That goes for all the other Aussies as well.”When the draw came out, the match that was quickly circled as Barty’s toughest test in her path to the title was a potential fourth-round encounter with the defending champion, Osaka, who is seeded 13th. After saying she was taking an indefinite break from tennis after her third-round loss at the U.S. Open, Osaka played well in her first tournament back this month, reaching the semifinals of a small event in Melbourne before withdrawing with a minor abdominal injury.Emma Raducanu will face Sloane Stephens in her opening match.Mike Frey/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRaducanu readies for returnEmma Raducanu, the shock 2021 U.S. Open champion who marched through qualifying and the main draw without dropping a set, has begun this season less auspiciously. After contracting the coronavirus last month, she said, her training has been limited to “maybe six, seven” hours on court before she played her first match in Sydney last week.It showed. Raducanu was blitzed, 6-0, 6-1, by Elena Rybakina.Raducanu has a tough test in her opening match, facing the 2017 U.S. Open champion, Sloane Stephens. Stephens, who married her longtime boyfriend, the soccer player Jozy Altidore, on New Year’s Day, also comes to the tournament without much competitive preparation.“Obviously you don’t win a Grand Slam without being very capable,” Raducanu said Saturday, referring to Stephens. “I think it’s going to be a tough match for sure. I’m going to go out there and enjoy the match, because just playing in this Grand Slam, I had to work so hard to be here.”Another first-round match of particular interest features two rebounding Americans: 11th-seeded Sofia Kenin, whose 2020 Australian Open title helped her earn WTA player of the year honors that season, opens against Madison Keys.Kenin, who struggled with injuries and family problems last season, showed promise during a run to the quarterfinals this month in Adelaide in her first tournament since Wimbledon. Keys, whose ranking had slipped to 87th, won a tournament in Adelaide the next week and rose to No. 51.Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas, left, and Italy’s Matteo Berrettini during a practice session on Saturday.Andy Cheung/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBurst bubblesThough the Djokovic news might make it seem otherwise, there are far fewer restrictions for vaccinated players at the tournament this year compared with the strict hotel quarantines last year that compromised preparations for many athletes.But while the reins loosen on players, the landscape regarding the coronavirus pandemic has shifted drastically around them. At one time, there were only a handful of cases in the country each day; the rolling average is now over 100,000. Australia is heavily vaccinated, which has greatly reduced deaths and serious illness, but the tournament has still “paused” ticket sales at 50 percent for sessions that had not yet exceeded that amount in sales. All purchased tickets will be honored.Dylan Alcott of Australia has said he will retire after the Open.Martin Keep/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhen g’day means goodbyeTwo Australian fan favorites are calling it a career at this year’s tournament. Samantha Stosur, the 2011 U.S. Open champion, has said that this will be her last tournament in singles. Stosur, 37, has said she may continue to play doubles with Zhang Shuai; the two won last year’s U.S. Open.Dylan Alcott, who won a “Golden Slam” last year in quad wheelchair singles, by winning all four majors and a Paralympic gold medal in the same year, will also retire. Alcott’s face is one of the most prominent in promotional posters for the tournament around the city, and the tournament plans to hold the final of his event in Rod Laver Arena.Alcott’s odds of a happy ending seem good: He has won 15 of the 19 Grand Slam singles events he has contested in his career.The top American, Taylor Fritz, is one of the players participating in a Netflix series about the men’s and women’s pro tours.Kelly Defina/Getty ImagesGame, set, match; lights, camera, actionLong envious of the popularity that Formula 1 racing received as a result of its Netflix series “Drive to Survive,” tennis players have expressed excitement about the start of production on their own documentary series.With cooperation between the tours and the four Grand Slams providing access to camera crews around the tour, filming is underway at Melbourne Park. Though the full cast of key characters from the men’s and women’s tours is not yet known, Stefanos Tsitsipas and the top American, Taylor Fritz, are known to be participating.Novak Djokovic won’t defend his Australian Open title this year.John Donegan/Associated PressHow to watch the Australian OpenWith a 16-hour time difference between Melbourne and the Eastern time zone, watching the year’s first Grand Slam tournament can make for its own sporting challenge, with sleep a ferocious opponent, depending on where in the world you are watching from.For the most part, the tournament’s day sessions begin at 7 p.m. Eastern time, with the night sessions in Melbourne beginning at 3:30 a.m. (Match times are subject to change.)In the United States, matches will be broadcast on ESPN and the Tennis Channel, and in Canada they will be on TSN.The complete match schedule can be found on AusOpen.com. More

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      As the Australian Open Nears, There Seems to Be Only One Story

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      With just days to go before the start of the tournament, some players felt that the Novak Djokovic situation was overshadowing everything else.MELBOURNE, Australia — One by one, some of the world’s greatest tennis players took off their masks on Saturday for a day of news conferences, but they did not necessarily let their guards down.It is a delicate situation, l’affaire Novak Djokovic. A fluid situation, too, with a federal court hearing scheduled for Sunday to try to determine whether the world’s No. 1-ranked men’s tennis player will have his visa restored and be allowed to defend his Australian Open title, despite not having been vaccinated against the coronavirus.On Saturday, as the cameras rolled and Djokovic returned to detention at the Park Hotel, Media Day went on without the reigning champion at Melbourne Park. (Normally, he would have been included in the event — where players were alone on the dais and members of the news media were socially distanced — but Djokovic was not interviewed on Saturday given the situation.)But he was still present — his case a feature of nearly every interview, as his fellow athletes played the question-and-answer game before the start of the Australian Open on Monday (with or without Djokovic).Naomi Osaka, the Japanese star who has often been one of the sport’s most outspoken players on social issues, was more circumspect this time, saying the decision was ultimately up to the government and not to tennis players, but suggesting that she understood how the scrutiny felt.“I know what it’s like to kind of be in his situation in a place that you’re getting asked about that person, to just see comments from other players,” she said. “It’s not the greatest thing. Just trying to keep it positive.”“I know what it’s like to kind of be in his situation,” Naomi Osaka, who has often been one of the sport’s most outspoken players on social issues, said of Djokovic.Diego Fedele/EPA, via ShutterstockBut Rafael Nadal, one of Djokovic’s longtime rivals, was willing to play closer to the lines.“I tell you one thing,” Nadal said. “It’s very clear that Novak Djokovic is one of the best players of the history, without a doubt. But there is no one player in history that’s more important than the event, no? The player stays and then goes, and other players are coming.“Even Roger, Novak, myself, Bjorn Borg, who was amazing at his times, tennis keeps going,” he said, referring to Roger Federer. “Australian Open is more important than any player. If he’s playing finally, OK. If he’s not playing, the Australian Open will be a great Australian Open.”Some players had surely prepared for the Djokovic question, talking over the issue with their agents and entourages to try to get their messaging right. But Nadal’s body language seemed as spontaneous as his freewheeling English on Saturday, full of gesticulations as he searched for the right words in his second language.I asked him what lessons might be drawn from the Djokovic mess (I didn’t call it a mess).Though Nadal said it had no effect on his personal preparation, he said things had gone too far, dominating the headlines and obscuring the early-season results. Other players shared that sentiment, including Alex de Minaur of Australia, Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain and Emma Raducanu, the thoughtful British teenager who was last year’s shock United States Open champion.“I feel that the situation has taken away a little bit from the great tennis being played over the summer,” Raducanu said, referring to the Australian summer.She pointed to the feel-good story of Andy Murray, who made it into the final in Sydney at age 34: his first tour final since 2019, and all the more remarkable because he now has an artificial hip. Raducanu also could have mentioned Nadal, who returned after chronic foot problems and his latest extended break to win the singles title last Sunday at a preliminary ATP 250 event in Melbourne.Rafael Nadal practicing on Saturday. “There is no one player in history that’s more important than the event, no?” he said, admitting he was tired of the Djokovic drama.Quinn Rooney/Getty Images“Honestly I’m a little bit tired of the situation because I just believe that it’s important to talk about our sport, about tennis,” Nadal said of Djokovic’s case.In truth, there has been no shortage of pretournament distractions through the years in Melbourne.Reports of widespread match-fixing dominated the run-up to the 2016 tournament. Bush fires obscured much of the tennis in 2020, as did the pandemic quarantine restrictions in 2021, which reduced some players to hitting balls against walls and mattresses in their hotel rooms to try to maintain some sort of rhythm (and sanity).But what separates 2022 from its predecessors is that the focus is on the fate of a single player, and not just any player. Djokovic is a nine-time Australian Open champion, in his record 355th week as No. 1 and increasingly the consensus pick as the greatest men’s player of this golden era, despite still being tied with Nadal and Federer at 20 Grand Slam singles titles.The French Open has belonged to Nadal — he has won an astounding 13 titles on the red clay in Paris — but the Australian Open has been Djokovic’s domain, and it will be interesting many years from now to see what effect the pandemic standoff in Melbourne has on his legacy, down under and beyond.Nick Kyrgios, a young star who was not at the news conference because he is isolating in Sydney after testing positive for the coronavirus, offered support for Djokovic on Saturday in the podcast “No Boundaries.”“We’re treating him like he’s a weapon of mass destruction at the moment; he’s literally here to play tennis,” Kyrgios said, suggesting that Australians were using Djokovic as a punching bag to vent their frustrations over all of their pandemic privations.“As a human, he’s obviously feeling quite alienated,” said Kyrgios, who said Djokovic had reached out to him via social media to thank him for the support. “It’s a dangerous place to be when you feel like the world is against you, and you can’t do anything right.”Alexander Zverev, another young star who is close to Djokovic, argued on Saturday against reading too much into the current drama.“He still won 20 Grand Slams. He still has the most weeks at No. 1. He still has the most Masters Series,” Zverev said. “Still for me one of the greatest players of all time. I mean, this is obviously not a nice thing for everyone, for him especially. But don’t question his legacy because of this.”Legacies are, of course, not just about results. They are also about the intangibles: the memories and the delight that fans hold close after years of following a champion.A mural depicting Djokovic in Belgrade, Serbia, where the tennis star is a national hero.Oliver Bunic/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDjokovic is a complex, often contradictory figure who can be both self-interested and magnanimous, devoting, for example, considerable time and energy to promoting the cause of lower-ranked players and to helping support athletes from Serbia and the wider Balkan region. The Novak Djokovic Standoff With AustraliaCard 1 of 4A vaccine exemption question. More

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      If Djokovic Goes, What Happens to the Australian Open Bracket?

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      “Limbo,” the former Australian Open tournament director Paul McNamee had said this week, “is the worst scenario for the tournament.”Yet for days, the uncertainty of Novak Djokovic’s status had hung over the event. The decision on Friday to cancel his visa for the second time could yield some clarity. His plan to appeal that ruling will only extend it.But coming when it did, a day after Djokovic was placed in the No. 1 spot in the men’s draw, the cancellation of his visa — if it is upheld — could force a reshuffling of the men’s bracket.If Djokovic were to be kicked out of Australia, the draw for the men’s singles tournament would have to be reconfigured. According to Grand Slam rules, the No. 5 seed, Andrey Rublev, would move into Djokovic’s vacant slot in the draw. Rublev’s place at No. 5 would then be filled by another seed as part of a series of cascading changes.But if Djokovic appeals and delays his departure, or if his withdrawal were to come after the order of play for opening day has been released, his place would be taken by a so-called lucky loser: a player who had lost in the qualifying tournament and then been drawn by lot to receive a newly open spot.And instead of having Djokovic as the favorite to win his record 10th title, and 21st Grand Slam singles championship over all, the focus would shift to three of his most likely rivals for the trophy: the U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev; the Olympic champion Alexander Zverev; and the 20-time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal.None of it, of course, is ideal for the Open.“If Novak was going to be kicked out,” McNamee said, “the time to do it was before the draw.” More

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      Serena Williams and Her Fellow Tennis Greats Are Limping Toward the Exits

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      Graceful final chapters in tennis can be difficult to achieve, as Serena Williams and Roger Federer are learning firsthand.Serena Williams’s announcement of her withdrawal from the U.S. Open included 78 words and a heart emoji.It was cool and clinical, referring to her medical team’s advice to rest a torn hamstring to avoid further injury and a nod to New York, “one of the most exciting cities in the world and one of my favorite places to play,” even if it has also been the site of her most disturbing meltdowns.Williams became the third aging tennis giant in 10 days to withdraw from the U.S. Open, the year’s final Grand Slam, following Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s revelations about their own injury struggles. It was also the latest reminder of how messy and cruel the end of even the most storied tennis careers usually are, especially for those who stay even slightly past their sell-by dates.Nadal, 35, may have some good miles left in his bones, despite their occasional fragility, but Federer turned 40 this month, and Williams turns 40 in September.“Forty in tennis is like 65 in another job,” said John McEnroe, the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion and ESPN commentator.There are many reasons that tennis does not lend itself to perfect endings. The modern game imposes immense physical demands and a relentless schedule. Its ranking system rewards consistent, elite play and punishes those whose aging bodies only allow them to dabble with lower seeds and more difficult early-round matches. The knockout format prevents anyone, regardless of past performance, from being guaranteed a grand setting for a final match, which can easily occur on a random Tuesday in a half-empty stadium.The result is a stark choice for even the best tennis players: Go out on top while most likely leaving some championships on the table, or meander through a frustrating descent into being OK at best, which can be less than fun in a sport that shines its brightest lights on the top two or four players and lumps nearly everyone else into something of an also-ran category.A star on a team sport can flicker then fade amid the protection of teammates. There’s an unforgiving loneliness to stardom in tennis.The tennis equivalent of Derek Jeter’s gift-collecting farewell tour as the Yankees’ shortstop — an unproductive .256 batting average over 145 games coupled with not good but not embarrassing defense — is a lot of early-round losses to journeymen.Martina Navratilova was still winning doubles titles at 49, but few top singles players have followed her lead, and those who have opted to relinquish chances at future glory are rare.Steffi Graf won the 1999 French Open for her 22nd Grand Slam title, and made the Wimbledon final a month later in July. That August, she suffered a pulled hamstring and decided to retire. She said she had lost the motivation to do what was necessary to continue to play at the top of the sport. She was just 30.Paul Annacone, who coached Pete Sampras, the winner of 14 Grand Slam singles titles, said Sampras spent months following his victory at the 2002 U.S. Open figuring out whether he wanted to keep playing. He practiced, he stayed in shape, and he pondered what he still wanted from the game.Pete Sampras after winning the men’s singles final at the U.S. Open in 2002.Amy Sancetta/Associated PressThen, one day in the spring of 2003, Sampras called Annacone and told him he had figured it out. He said he was done, that he had nothing left to prove to himself. Sampras was just 32, and Annacone is certain he had more big titles left in his racket.“I don’t know how you can win and never play another match, but Pete had such clarity,” Annacone said.Compared with so many final chapters in tennis, the Sampras exit has a certain grace.Andy Murray, once a member of the game’s so-called Big Four with Federer, Nadal, and Novak Djokovic, is continuing his attempt to come back from hip replacement surgery but remains outside the top 100.“It’s tough to watch Andy Murray right now,” said McEnroe, who spoke of the increased pressure he once felt as an aging player with a diminished amount of sand left at the top of the hourglass.At the moment, Federer’s final act may be at Wimbledon, losing a set 6-0 on Centre Court with his injured knee to Hubert Hurkacz of Poland in the quarterfinal.Nadal won his 13th French Open and 20th Grand Slam singles title last October, but he fell in four sets in June to Djokovic at Roland Garros in the 2021 French Open semifinals, where he has been nearly unbeatable. He skipped Wimbledon and the Olympics, and he was last seen losing to Lloyd Harris of South Africa in the second round of the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. His comeback will hinge on solving a congenital foot problem.Williams injured her hamstring early in her opening match at Wimbledon and limped off the court.​​In an interview on Wednesday, Patrick Mouratoglou, Williams’s coach, said that the entire team knew as soon as she suffered the injury at Wimbledon that it would be a challenge for Williams to be ready for the U.S. Open, given the severity of the damage. She spent weeks resting and receiving treatments to try to nurse her leg back into shape while trying to maintain her fitness and form.“We tried everything. She did everything she could,” Mouratoglou said.He said that if the tournament was being played in three or four weeks she might be able to compete, but the risk of long-term damage if she played now was too great. The U.S. Open starts on Aug. 30 in New York.“She still wants to play and still loves to play, still wants to win Grand Slams,” Mouratoglou said of Williams. But to do that she needs to be able to train and practice at the highest level, and lately that has been a challenge. An Achilles tendon injury at last year’s U.S. Open hampered her preparations for the Australian Open in February.Williams during her semifinal match against Naomi Osaka at this year’s Australian Open. Williams lost to Osaka in straight sets.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesHe said there had been no discussion about retirement and would likely speak about what comes next for his star player in a few weeks. “I don’t have any certainty for the future at this point,” he said.The storybook ending that a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title would provide seems increasingly unlikely, given the depth of the sport and the demands of the competition over two weeks, said Pam Shriver, the former top player and Grand Slam doubles champion. Williams has reached four Grand Slam finals since returning from maternity leave following the birth of her daughter and has not won a set in any of those matches.“I don’t have enough evidence to tell me that she is going to be able to win seven matches and be the last one standing,” Shriver said Tuesday afternoon.Eighteen hours later, Williams joined Federer and Nadal on the U.S. Open sideline. More

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      Rafael Nadal Pulls Out of U.S. Open and Will Miss Rest of 2021

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      The four-time U.S. Open champion said he was withdrawing because of a chronic problem with his left foot.Rafael Nadal announced on Friday that he was withdrawing from this year’s U.S. Open and would miss the rest of the 2021 season because of the chronic left-foot condition that has troubled him intermittently since his teens.“I have been suffering too much with my foot for the last year now,” Nadal said in a video posted on social media.Nadal, 35 and a four-time U.S. Open champion, most recently won the singles title in New York in 2019. He defeated Daniil Medvedev in a five-set classic and then unusually broke down in tears courtside in his chair as he watched a commemorative video honoring his career.But Nadal chose not to defend his title last year when the U.S. Open was played without spectators and with significant health restrictions in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.This year, after losing in the semifinals of the French Open to Novak Djokovic, Nadal did not play at Wimbledon or the Olympics as he tried to resolve his foot problem. He returned to action in Washington this month, but his movement was clearly still affected by the injury as he defeated Jack Sock in his opening match and then lost to Lloyd Harris in the next round. Nadal traveled to Toronto but withdrew from the Masters 1000 event there and returned home to Spain to weigh his options.“I needed to talk with my family, with my team and with my doctors especially to understand what is going on,” the fourth-ranked Nadal said on Friday. “But the foot is not the proper way today and during the last year I was not able to practice and prepare myself the way I need to to be competitive at the standard I want to be. So we had to take that decision, but I am confident that I will recover myself 100 percent and I will be able to fight again for the most important things.”Nadal’s left-foot condition first hampered him on tour during the 2004 season when he was 17 years old, forcing him to miss much of the clay court season. That delayed his debut at the French Open to 2005, when he won the first of his record 13 singles titles at Roland Garros.But Nadal’s foot began troubling him again in October 2005 at the Madrid Open. He has explained that doctors determined it was a congenital problem: a deformation of a small bone in his foot. He was also told that he might not play professional tennis again. But at 19, Nadal found a way to reduce the stress on the bone with custom-made insoles and returned to action in 2006, winning five titles including the French Open.“The injury is nothing new,” Nadal said on Friday. “It’s the same injury I am having since 2005. In that moment, the doctors were very negative about my future career, but honestly I was able to have a career that I never dreamed about, so I am confident I will recover again and if the foot is better I am content my tennis and mentality will be there again soon. You can be sure I am going to fight every single day to make that happen.”Nadal’s withdrawal means that for the second straight year, he and Federer will miss the U.S. Open. Federer, 40, announced last week that he would miss the rest of the 2021 season and would need a fourth knee surgery. Dominic Thiem, who won the U.S. Open last year, has a right wrist injury and is also out for the remainder of the season.The longtime rivals Nadal, Federer and Djokovic have each won 20 Grand Slam singles titles, sharing the men’s record. But Djokovic will chase his 21st alone in New York if he is able to recover from the shoulder injury that caused him to withdraw from the bronze medal mixed doubles match at the Olympics in Tokyo.Djokovic will also be trying to complete the first Grand Slam in men’s singles since Rod Laver managed it in 1969. Djokovic has won the first three legs of the Grand Slam this year: the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon. More

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      Dominic Thiem Will Miss the Chance to Defend His U.S. Open Title

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      Out with a wrist injury, Thiem is one of many players on both the men’s and women’s tours who are struggling with injuries ahead of the season’s final Grand Slam.The spectators will be back for the 2021 U.S. Open but the reigning men’s singles champion will not make the journey to the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.Dominic Thiem announced on Wednesday that he would not play again this season because of a lingering right wrist injury that began troubling him in June at the Mallorca Open and also forced him out of Wimbledon.“The past six weeks I’ve been following the medical advice, wearing the wrist splint, doing exercise to stay in shape before starting to train back on court,” Thiem said in a social media post on Wednesday. “My recovery was going really well, but then last week I hit a ball during training and started to feel some pain again. I went straight to see the doctors. After some tests, they said that my wrist needs more time, so we’ve all agreed on being conservative.”Even without that setback, Thiem’s chance of returning for best-of-five-set matches in New York was a long shot. He has an intense, full-throttle style and takes huge cuts at the ball that produce exceptional spin.Returning to his previous level will be a major challenge. Wrist injuries can bedevil tennis players, keeping great talents like Juan Martin del Potro and Kei Nishikori off tour for extended periods.Thiem’s withdrawal from this year’s U.S. Open is the latest blow to the men’s tournament. The five-time champion Roger Federer withdrew this week shortly after his 40th birthday, announcing that he would undergo a fourth knee surgery. Participation by the four-time champion Rafael Nadal is in doubt because of a recurrence of the left foot condition that first troubled him in his teens.Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1 and the only of the so-called Big Three to take part in the Olympics, failed to win a medal in Tokyo and withdrew before the bronze medal mixed doubles match, citing a shoulder injury.Some leading women are also in danger of missing the U.S. Open. Serena Williams has not played on tour since retiring in the first round of Wimbledon last month because of a right hamstring injury. She has yet to confirm whether she will play in New York. No. 13 Simona Halep, a former No. 1, withdrew from the Western and Southern Open on Wednesday because of a torn right adductor muscle. No. 14 Jennifer Brady, an Australian Open finalist this year, retired from her match on Wednesday against Jelena Ostapenko because of a left knee injury.Djokovic will presumably do all he can to make it to New York as he chases the first Grand Slam in men’s singles since Rod Laver did it in 1969. Djokovic has already secured the first three legs of the Grand Slam, winning the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon. But the physical and emotional load of playing in the Olympics far from New York or Djokovic’s home base of Monte Carlo, Monaco, could certainly make his U.S. Open challenge more daunting.A new generation is rising, led by Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev. All three have won significant titles, and Zverev just won the Olympic gold medal in singles, defeating Djokovic in the semifinals. But for now, they have been unable to beat Djokovic or any of the Big Three to win a Grand Slam title.Thiem’s best results have traditionally come on clay, and he reached the French Open final in 2018 and 2019. But he has established himself as a multisurface threat, and last year in New York, he managed to prevail in a nervy, five-set U.S. Open final against Zverev in which both combatants often looked overwhelmed by the prospect of winning their first Grand Slam singles title.Thiem managed it by becoming the first player to rally to win from two sets down in a U.S. Open final since Pancho Gonzales in 1949.“We both had it on our rackets,” Thiem said of his friend Zverev.At 27, Thiem became the first currently active player in his 20s to win a men’s Grand Slam singles title, putting an end to the winning streak of the Big Three even if Thiem did not have to face any of them along the way.But instead of getting wings from that breakthrough victory, Thiem has gone in a more earthbound direction, struggling not only with his wrist injury but his motivation during the coronavirus pandemic, which has made travel on tour a psychological burden for many tennis players.Since the 2020 U.S. Open, Thiem has failed to win another tour title and has been unable to advance past the quarterfinals in any of the three major tournaments he has played.He will get no chance to improve on that in New York and for the second straight year, the reigning men’s singles champion will not defend his title. Nadal chose not to make the trip in 2020, and at this stage it also appears unlikely that he will make the trip in 2021. More