Osaka, Naomi (1997- )

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      Naomi Osaka Finds New Motivation Despite a Loss in Miami

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      A couple of years ago, Naomi Osaka told Iga Swiatek she was too good to quit tennis. On Saturday, Swiatek proved her right.MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — A little more than two years ago, over dinner during the Australian Open, Iga Swiatek told Naomi Osaka that she wasn’t sure a career in tennis was going to go her way, so she was thinking of going to college. Osaka, who was 22 then and had already won two Grand Slam titles, told Swiatek that was a terrible idea. You’re really good, Osaka told Swiatek, who at the time was still cramming in high school homework. Don’t divert your energy to college just yet, Osaka advised.Swiatek took Osaka’s advice, and good thing she did. Nine months later she came out of nowhere to win the French Open while she was ranked 54th in the world. Saturday, in a clash of styles, narratives and friends in the finals of the Miami Open, Swiatek ended a run that Osaka hopes will mark the beginning of the next chapter of her turbulent career with a 6-4, 6-0 win to cement her remarkable rise to the top of her sport.Next week, Swiatek will officially take over the No. 1 ranking, the first player from Poland to rise to that lofty perch. As she held the winner’s trophy, Swiatek called Osaka “an inspiration” and said she would never have imagined when they were having that dinner that they might actually be playing each other for championships one day.“I think it’s the start of a great rivalry,” Swiatek said.For Osaka, this tournament marked a remarkable turnaround that few saw coming, even if she felt like it was not far off. Just three weeks ago at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, a lone heckler rattled her during her second round match, bringing her to tears and triggering memories of the racist treatment Serena and Venus Williams endured at the event two decades ago.But it also seemed to suggest that Osaka, who lost 6-0, 6-4 to Veronika Kudermatova that night, might not be up for the grind and pressures of the professional tennis tour after a year filled with breaks and setbacks, a disclosure of a yearslong struggle with her mental health and questions about whether playing tennis could ever make her happy.In South Florida though, her home for most of her childhood, a far-steelier Osaka took the court, and she played a lot like she had when she won four Grand Slam tournaments. She won eight consecutive sets on the way to a semifinal match in which she battled back against an opponent, Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, who had beaten her repeatedly for years.Osaka was once more ripping forehands through the court and coming up with unreturnable laser serves when she needed them most. Beyond the tennis, though, there has been a lightness to her experience. Even in defeat Saturday, she could not help but grin as the hometown crowd smothered her with cheers.They were never louder than when James Blake, the former pro and the tournament director for this event, gazed at Osaka during the awards presentation and said, “I can’t tell you how good it makes me feel to see you happy again.”Then it was Osaka’s turn. “I know I haven’t been in this position for a little while,” she told the crowd after her first final since the 2021 Australian Open. “The outcome wasn’t what you wanted, but hopefully I can keep working hard and be in a position to do this again soon.”Swiatek entered Sunday’s final on a 16-game win streak.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via ShutterstockIn the past, she would say later, she would be crying with disappointment following a day like Saturday. Instead, she experienced it as “a sad outcome but a fun day. “It’s cool to see where the level of No. 1 is and to see if I can reach that,” she said.In Swiatek, Osaka ran into a version of a player that didn’t exist when Osaka was last a mainstay of important tournaments.With the sudden retirement of Ashleigh Barty last week, Swiatek earned the No. 1 ranking, owing largely to a white-hot start to the year. Since her loss in the semifinal of the Australian Open, Swiatek has won three masters-level titles, in Doha, Indian Wells, and Miami, events that are just below the Grand Slams.Saturday’s final riding a 16-match winning streak. But it is the manner in which she has managed all the winning that has her opponents leaving the court with a dazed and glazed look in their eyes.Gone is the shaky mind that used to rattle after a handful of lost points or games or a set. She has evolved into a ruthless problem solver who tears through opponents, especially in finals. She has seemingly gained a half-step — or maybe just a willingness to embrace the next level of fatigue — that allows her to extend points and force opponents to hit extra shots when they thought the point was over.She also is just about the only player in the world who can consistently pull off a kind of tennis magic trick when a ball comes rocketing across the net and lands inches from her feet. In a split second, Swiatek squats so low that her skirt is basically on the ground and fires a kind of swinging half-volley that allows her to go back on the attack. She seems to invent a new shot in every match these days. Saturday it was a back-spinning squash shot lob that landed within inches of the baseline.Osaka, who entered the tournament ranked 77th, had little to lose in the final. She had never lost the final of either a Grand Slam or a Masters 1000 tournament, but neither had Swiatek. Osaka positioned herself several steps into the court on Swiatek’s second serve, trying to rely on her quick hands and instinctive skill to punch the ball back and keep Swiatek off balance.The strategy never quite clicked. “I could never really figure out what to do,” Osaka said.Swiatek never faced a break point, and she had Osaka on the defensive from the start. It took Osaka 11 minutes to hold her serve in the first game. On the afternoon, she won nearly two-thirds of the points on her first serve, which hovered in the neighborhood of 120 m.p.h., but just one-third of those on her second, which was often in the mid-70s.Osaka’s next move will be closely watched. The clay court season in Europe is fast approaching. Clay has long been her worst surface. Grass is no picnic for her either. But she said she will travel to Europe later this month to prepare for the Madrid Open, and has an extra week of preparation built into her schedule. After months of questioning what she wanted from her tennis life, she desperately wants to do well, she said. She wants to be seeded for the French Open, which would likely mean being around the top 30. And she wants to be in the top 10 by the end of the year and reclaim the top ranking next year. “It feels kind of good to chase something,” she said. “That is a feeling I have been missing.” More

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      Naomi Osaka Brought to Tears by Heckler at Indian Wells

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      “I don’t know why, but it went into my head,” said Osaka, who otherwise had ample support from the crowd in her loss to Veronika Kudermetova of Russia.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Crying on court after being heckled by a spectator, Naomi Osaka was knocked out of the BNP Paribas Open in the second round on Saturday.Osaka, the Japanese star who has struggled with her mental health and with ambivalence toward professional tennis, spoke to the crowd directly at her request after her 6-0, 6-4 defeat against the No. 21 seed, Veronika Kudermetova.Fighting for composure, Osaka explained that the heckler, who shouted, “Naomi, you suck!” after the opening game, had made her flash back to footage she had seen of Venus and Serena Williams being booed and jeered at Indian Wells during the tournament in 2001.“To be honest, I’ve gotten heckled before, and it didn’t really bother me,” Osaka said. “But, like, heckled here? I watched a video of Venus and Serena getting heckled here, and if you’ve never watched it, you should watch it.“And I don’t know why, but it went into my head, and it got replayed a lot,” she continued, apparently referring to Saturday’s match.Osaka then thanked the crowd, slung her bag over her shoulder and left the court.Osaka, a former No. 1 whose ranking has dropped to No. 78, was unseeded this year at Indian Wells, where she made a major breakthrough by winning her first WTA singles title in 2018 as an unseeded player. She has gone on to win four Grand Slam singles titles, most recently at the 2021 Australian Open. But since then, she has played infrequently and has not won another tour event, or even reached another final. Saturday’s defeat was her latest setback, and her latest vulnerable moment in the public eye.“I feel like I’ve cried enough on camera,” she said in teary post-match remarks to the crowd. She skipped her post-match news conference.Osaka fought back tears in her brief remarks to the crowd after her defeat.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAfter the tension in 2001, the Williams sisters did not return to the tournament in Indian Wells for more than a decade, with Serena only coming back in 2015 and Venus in 2016. Serena, now 40, and Venus, now 41, are still active players but neither is participating in the event this year.During the Williams sisters’ early years as professionals, there was speculation on tour that their father and co-coach, Richard Williams, was prearranging the results of their matches against each other. At Indian Wells in 2001, the Russian player Elena Dementieva spoke about her suspicion publicly after losing to Venus Williams in the quarterfinals.When Venus withdrew from the semifinal against Serena only minutes before it was to begin, citing tendinitis in her right knee, the crowd responded by booing. Dementieva later insisted her comment had been joke, and the sisters and Richard Williams denied that any of their match results were prearranged.But two days later, Serena Williams was booed throughout the tournament final, and Richard Williams, who was watching from the stands with Venus, said he was subjected to racial slurs. Serena Williams won in three sets but has said that the experience was traumatic and “haunted” her and her family for years.The circumstances on Saturday seemed vastly different. Osaka, 24, had ample support from the overwhelming majority of the crowd. There were several thousand fans scattered throughout the stands in the 16,100-seat main stadium on a chilly evening, and after the heckler’s insult — clearly audible on the television broadcasts of the match — there were loud cheers for Osaka’s few winners in the opening set and even more support for her down the stretch as she raised her game.Osaka defeated the former U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens in three sets in the first round on Thursday. But she faced another tough test in Kudermetova, a powerful Russian on the rise whom she had never played in singles.“I want to play that match because I want to see what I can improve, what I need to improve,” Kudermetova said. But the match ended up illustrating more about Osaka’s vulnerabilities and tennis weaknesses than about Kudermetova’s strengths.Osaka took a three-month break from the game after losing to Leylah Fernandez in the third round of last year’s U.S. Open, explaining that she was no longer finding joy in competing. She returned to the tour in Australia in January with a more upbeat mind-set but was beaten in the third round of the Australian Open by the American Amanda Anisimova.Indian Wells was only Osaka’s third tournament in six months, and while she conceded that she needed more matches to get back “into the swing of things” she only got two more here.Kudermetova broke Osaka’s serve in the opening game, and the spectator’s shout came as Osaka prepared to return serve. She approached the chair umpire, Paula Vieira Souza, and appeared to ask about having the spectator ejected, but Souza politely demurred. Kudermetova held serve, and Osaka began to tear up as she prepared to serve the next game.“I didn’t hear what the lady say because I really so focus on my game, on my service game,” Kudermetova said of the heckler. “I didn’t understand what she said, but after that moment, I saw that Naomi, she start to cry.”After Osaka was broken again, she had another extended conversation with Souza, who reassured her that if the spectator heckled her again, the person would be identified and ejected. Osaka asked if she could use the referee’s microphone to address the crowd directly.Souza declined, and the WTA Tour supervisor Clare Wood was called to the court and discussed the matter with Osaka as the player sat on her chair.When play resumed, Osaka continued to struggle to find her range and lost the set at love. Wood spoke with Osaka again before the start of the second set, which was much more competitive. But Kudermetova broke Osaka’s serve in the seventh game and went on to close out her victory.Osaka shook hands with her opponent and then waited for Kudermetova to give the customary victor’s on-court interview before walking to the microphone herself. Though Osaka thanked the crowd in her brief remarks, Osaka’s decision to connect her treatment on Saturday to the Williams sisters’ experiences in 2001 was surely unwelcome linkage for tournament organizers.Andrew Krasny, the on-court interviewer at the BNP Paribas Open, tried to reassure Osaka as she finished her remarks and headed for the exit.“Out of about 10,000 people, one person’s voice can’t weigh out 9,999 others,” he said. “We love you here.” More

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      Naomi Osaka Loses at Australian Open to Amanda Anisimova

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      The unseeded American Amanda Anisimova eliminated the four-time Grand Slam champion in a tense match, bringing an early end to her latest return to the tour.MELBOURNE, Australia — Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam singles champion who nearly walked away from tennis last year, was eliminated from the Australian Open on Friday by the unseeded American Amanda Anisimova.Anisimova prevailed in three tense sets, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10-5).Osaka, 24, was returning to major-tournament action in Melbourne after taking an extended break from the game to rekindle her love of the sport. Her return came after an unusually emotional year in which her openness about her mental health struggles had altered the discussion of both her successes and her more recent — and painfully public — disappointments.Osaka was seeded just 13th here but showed plenty of fire and desire in her third-round match against Anisimova: generating trademark thunder with her heavy groundstrokes and pumping her fist and shouting “Come on!” to commemorate her successes. But Anisimova, long considered one of the most promising young players in the game, held remarkably firm, coming back from an inconsistent opening set and finding her range in her first match against Osaka.“Going into this match I knew I had to be playing sharp if I wanted to give myself a chance,” Anisimova said. “Naomi is always going to be playing well, and she’s an absolute champion, so I knew that I really had to step up my game and try to be aggressive. I think that’s what I started doing in the second set. Honestly, I’m so grateful that I was able to play so well today.”A semifinalist at the French Open at age 17 in 2019, Anisimova looked ready to play a leading role in the game consistently in her teens, but that was before family tragedy: the death of her father and longtime coach, Konstantin, of a heart attack in August 2019 shortly before the United States Open.Osaka, who had not played a competitive match since the U.S. Open, had predicted her return might not go as planned.Simon Baker/Associated PressOsaka entered their meeting carrying her own burdens. Last year had been a forgettable one for Osaka, 24, who entered it as the dominant figure in her sport and the world’s highest paid female athlete, and ended it as something else altogether.Her game began to unravel in the early spring, and a confrontation with French Open officials over her refusal to appear at mandatory postmatch news conferences led to her withdrawal from the tournament. Afterward, she went public with her yearslong battle with depression, took two months off, then returned at the Tokyo Olympics, where she lit the torch but lost in the third round amid relentless pressure to excel.“There was a time after the French Open where I felt like everyone was judging me,” she had said after her first-round win at the Australian Open Monday. “It feels a bit weird when you go into a stadium to play and you’re kind of concerned what everyone’s gaze means.”Anisimova’s victory broke up the most anticipated match of the tournament, a potential fourth-round duel between Osaka and the world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty of Australia. Now Anisimova will face Barty instead. More

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      Naomi Osaka Returns to the Court at Australian Open

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      On Dec. 31, as the final hours of 2021 ticked away, Naomi Osaka wrote on Twitter: “I’ve never been more excited for a year to be over.”Osaka, who had not played a competitive tennis match since losing in the third round of the U.S. Open to the world’s 73rd-ranked player, was getting a jump on the start of 2022 in Melbourne, Australia, after her second lengthy break from the game in seven months. And who could blame her.In the 10 months since she won her fourth Grand Slam title, in Australia, her destiny had gone from can’t-miss superstardom to something far more concerning.As last winter closed, Osaka was the dominant figure in her sport and the world’s highest paid female athlete at just 23 years old, as well as a respected voice on social justice issues. And then she became something else entirely.“There was a time after the French Open where I felt like everyone was judging me,” she said after her first-round win at the Australian Open Monday. “It feels a bit weird when you go into a stadium to play and you’re kind of concerned what everyone’s gaze means.”Her game began to unravel in the early spring, especially as the competition moved to clay, where she has never been comfortable. A confrontation with French Open officials over her refusal to appear at mandatory postmatch news conferences led to her withdrawal from the tournament. She went public with her yearslong battle with depression, took two months off, then returned at the Tokyo Olympics, where she lit the torch but lost in the third round amid relentless pressure to excel.Osaka lighting the Olympic torch in Tokyo in July.James Hill for The New York TimesThen came the upset in the U.S. Open, where she was a favorite to successfully defend her title, but exited with a tearful admission that playing tennis no longer made her happy, if it ever did. Suddenly, that moment of triumph at the 2020 U.S. Open felt ominous: After prevailing in three sets, she barely smiled and instead lay in the center of the court, staring at the dark sky.“It was just like an extreme buildup, and you just happened to see it all release last year,” a rusty Osaka said this month, after her first tuneup match in Melbourne, a messy three-set win over Alizé Cornet.Osaka grew sharper, and calmer, in her next two matches, both straight-set wins, then pulled out of the warm-up tournament ahead of her semifinal, saying her body was in shock after playing three matches in five days after a layoff that she had expected to last much longer.“I actually really thought I wasn’t going to play for most of this year,” she said. “I was feeling kind of like I didn’t know what my future was going to be. I’m pretty sure a lot of people can relate to that.”In some ways, relating to Osaka, who plays Madison Brengle in the second round at the Australian Open on Wednesday, has never been easier. Her story — though no one knows how it will end — is a cautionary tale for anyone pursuing a dream that may not be her own or for anyone who needs to press the pause button, regardless of the consequences.Despite her vast wealth and early success, or perhaps because of them, she has never seemed more vulnerable. And yet there will always be a remove with Osaka, who can be painfully shy, a kind of wall that even people who have been close to her have struggled to break through. That has only gotten more difficult as her persona has grown, because so have the barriers and the team of gatekeepers surrounding her as the pressures of success and fame mount.Osaka tossed her racket in frustration during her loss at the 2021 U.S. Open.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“In some ways, this all can be easier with a more outgoing person,” said Harold Solomon, the former pro who coached Osaka when she was a teenager. “Naomi is quiet and introspective. I’m not sure if she was really clear of what all of this would mean.”Now, back in Australia, the place where things last appeared right in her world, is she ready for the crucible? Even if she prevails, in matches, in the biggest tournaments, is that an appropriate way to measure the success and well-being of someone who just four months ago could not find joy on a tennis court? Is this really the life Osaka wants?Osaka, a self-described introvert, rarely grants interviews. She speaks in tightly controlled settings or postmatch news conferences during tournaments, where she has said she would prefer not to appear. (It’s also possible that her complaints about news conferences were merely a vessel for her larger complaints about the life of a pro tennis player.)Her parents, including her father, Leonard Francois, who pushed his daughters to pursue tennis, following the blueprint of Richard Williams, no longer speak publicly. Osaka declined through her representatives to be interviewed for this article. Behind microphones, she communicates deliberately, in clipped phrases that are turned over and over. When she has emoted, it has usually been on Instagram or Twitter.Osaka at the French Open before she withdrew form the tournament over concerns about her mental health.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesSascha Bajin, who coached Osaka to her first two Grand Slam titles, at the 2018 U.S. Open and the 2019 Australian Open, said he initially had to figure out how to get her to trust him enough to participate in the most basic communication.“Naomi was so shy in the beginning, she didn’t even talk,” he said in a recent interview. Bajin noticed that she liked anime. So he began watching it, and learning about it, then made casual references to it before or after practice, which began to draw her out. “She saw that I showed interest in something that interested her. With Naomi it takes trust and belief.”Never celebrated winning points or games.There is a very basic and fair question to ask when considering Osaka’s career: Does she actually like tennis? Did she ever?“Yeaahhh?” Solomon said in a singsong, the way people intonate when they are not quite convinced of what they are saying.Solomon was one of several South Florida coaches who shared his services at little or no cost to help Francois fulfill his dream of producing the next iteration of Venus and Serena Williams.Mari, who is 18 months older than Naomi and as free with her emotions as Naomi is bottled up, initially had more drive to achieve stardom, Solomon and the other coaches said. She ultimately lacked the size, speed and power of her younger sister, who at 5 feet 11 inches is about a half-foot taller. Mari Osaka’s singles ranking peaked at 280 in 2018. She retired last year.Mari, left, and Naomi Osaka played doubles in 2017.Koji Watanabe/Getty ImagesHer younger sister’s motivations were more of a mystery.Bill Adams, who coached the girls when the family first moved to Florida from New York in 2006, said Naomi Osaka was tough to read even as a 10-year-old. She never refused to do a drill or “made a face,” Adams said, but she never celebrated good shots or winning points or games. A dozen years later, Adams ran into Osaka at the Evert Tennis Academy after she won the Indian Wells Masters, the first significant title of her career.“I told her I was pleased because I didn’t think you really liked it in the beginning,” Adams said.For years, the coaches said, beating her older sister was Osaka’s primary motivation. Once that became possible, her dreams expanded. Patrick Tauma, who coached the Osaka girls when Naomi was in her midteens, said he once asked her what she dreamed of accomplishing on the tennis court. She told him it was to beat Serena Williams in the final of the U.S. Open.She accomplished that in 2018, but the win was somewhat tarnished by Williams’s meltdown amid confrontations with the chair umpire, who penalized her for receiving coaching during the match. At the trophy ceremony, Osaka was in tears.“I feel like she lost her purpose,” Tauma said. “She is so young. It all went so fast for her.”Osaka after her first Grand Slam event title, beating her idol and rival, Serena Williams, in 2018.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesOsaka’s relationship with Solomon, who coached her when she was 16, was less harmonious. It ended not long after he questioned her definition of working hard, every day. He said the dynamic of their relationship was backward, with the coach pulling the student instead of the other way around.“I’m not saying it wasn’t there at times, but to bring out the full potential, you need to do that on a consistent basis,” Solomon said. “She was young, I was maybe too impatient, but I’m not going to spend time on the court with you if you are not willing to do that.”Work, wins, and then a crash.Clearly, Osaka figured out how to work hard consistently enough to win four Grand Slam titles, but eventually winning offered relief rather than happiness or fulfillment, despite the money, fame and platform that it also gave her.Did she understand everything that would come with her success on the court, Tauma wondered — the heat of the spotlight, the obligations to sponsors, the weight of being a symbol of a new, more multicultural and open Japan?A supporter with a Japanese flag cheered Osaka during her opening match.Alana Holmberg for The New York Times“She just wants to be a tennis player,” Tauma said. “Now she is a money machine. All these people working around her like a company. She feels like I am not a player anymore.”In the fall, he reached out to Osaka’s team and offered to spend a little time on the court with her as a way of getting back to her roots and remembering the good things about the game and “the smell of when you were starving.” Tauma never heard back.At the time, Osaka was busy with things she did not get to do growing up, like driving from her home in Los Angeles to the Bay Area to have sleepovers.“I didn’t really have that many friends, so I didn’t really talk to anyone,” she said.Eventually her desire to be on the court once more returned. She texted her coach and trainer and asked if they would be willing to work with her again. “I was just sitting in my house wondering, what do I want to do in the future?” she said. During her first practices, she tried to be acutely aware of whether she wanted to be there, whether she could be fully committed in each moment, because if she did not, she knew she was wasting everyone’s time.“I’m not sure if this is going to work out well,” she said this month in Melbourne.Osaka was mostly solid in her first-round win over Camila Osorio of Spain. She said that she often feels happy starting the year in Australia. Whether she can stay that way is anyone’s guess.Osaka entered Rod Laver Arena on Day 1 of the 2022 Australian Open.Alana Holmberg for The New York Times 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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      Where Is Peng Shuai? The Question the I.O.C. Is Too Weak To Ask.

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      Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai went missing after publicly accusing a former government official of sexual assault. Tennis stars, led by Naomi Osaka, and the WTA have all asked #whereispengshuai?Where is Peng Shuai?That’s the question the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, should be shouting right now — loud, demanding, and aimed squarely at the leadership in China, set to host the Beijing Games in February. But instead of firm demands, we’re hearing not much more than faint, servile whispers from Olympic leadership.Peng, 35, a Chinese tennis star and three-time Olympian, has been missing since Nov. 2, when she used social media to accuse Zhang Gaoli, 75, a former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her at his home three years ago. She also described having had an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang.Peng wrote that the assault occurred after Zhang invited her to play tennis at his home. “I was so scared that afternoon,” she noted. “I never gave consent, crying the entire time.”“I feel like a walking corpse,” she added.The message was quickly deleted from China’s government-controlled social media site.There have been no verifiable signs of Peng since — no videos or photographs to prove she is safe. Instead, all the outside world has seen is a stilted message, said to have been written by Peng and sent to the WTA, in response to its demand for an inquiry into her allegations. Peng’s supposed response, released by China’s state-owned broadcaster on Wednesday, immediately raised concerns.“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai,” it read, before calling her accusation of sexual assault, made just weeks ago, untrue. “I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe. I’ve been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.”It reads like a message from a hostage, a natural concern given the Chinese government’s long history of using force and heavy-handed pressure to crush dissent and flatten those it deems guilty of going against the state.So, what has been the I.O.C.’s response to a potentially endangered Olympian? A neutered, obsequious statement.“We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe,” read an official I.O.C. declaration on Thursday.What world of fantasy is the I.O.C. living in? Given China’s history, we can reasonably assume the latest missive supposedly written by Peng is a fraud. Peng dared to speak up with force and candor, but not the I.O.C., a Swiss-based organization with a history of cowing to dictators that goes back to Adolf Hitler and the 1936 Summer Games.After some criticism, the committee followed up with another statement, hinting its representatives were talking to the Chinese.“Experience shows that quiet diplomacy offers the best opportunity to find a solution for questions of such nature,” it said, offering no evidence of prior success. “This explains why the IOC will not comment any further at this stage.”Responding to a message purportedly written by Peng, the I.O.C. said in a statement, “We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe.” Valery Gache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBach and the wide cast of leadership at the I.O.C. typically use every chance possible to claim the Olympic mission stands for humanity’s highest ideals. They say all Olympic athletes are part of a family. Peng was among those ranks in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Once an Olympian, they say, always an Olympian.That’s an admirable idea, but it gets tossed to the wayside when the stakes grow too high.Looming are Beijing’s Winter Games, fueled by huge fees for broadcasting rights and corporate sponsorships and the billions spent by the Chinese government in an effort to gain respect on the international stage.Do Bach and the I.O.C. have the guts to stand up for one of their own and call out the dictatorial host of its next showcase for a frightening human rights abuse?The answer, so far at least, is no.Contrary to the official I.O.C. statement, nothing is encouraging about this situation.Not if you know the long history of Chinese authoritarianism. Not if you know how it has been hammering at dissent and silencing anyone with enough clout to threaten national order — including prominent cultural and business figures like Jack Ma, founder of the internet firm Alibaba.Not if you know about how China has suppressed protest in Hong Kong and Tibet, or if you pay attention to the treatment of Muslim minorities — deemed genocide by the United Nations and dozens of nations, including the United States — despite Chinese denials.As predicted by critics, or anyone watching with even a bit of common sense, the I.O.C. finds itself compromised. That’s the cost of cozying up to authoritarian hosts like China, which held the Summer Games in 2008, and Russia, the site of the 2014 Winter Games.Compare the typical fecklessness of Bach and the I.O.C. with the uncompromising approach taken by the women’s pro tennis tour, which has been unafraid to stand up boldly for Peng, a former world No. 1 in doubles.“I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believe what is being attributed to her,” wrote Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA Tour, in a statement. “Peng Shuai displayed incredible courage in describing an allegation of sexual assault against a former top official in the Chinese government.”Simon continued: “Peng Shuai must be allowed to speak freely, without coercion or intimidation from any source. Her allegation of sexual assault must be respected, investigated with full transparency and without censorship.The voices of women need to be heard and respected, not censored nor dictated to.”That’s putting people over profit. That’s guts. Professional tennis in China is a lucrative, fast-growing market. The men’s and women’s tours hold high-profile tournaments there, and the WTA Finals are slated for Shenzhen in 2022.Given the way female tennis players have long led on matters of human rights, it is no surprise that Billie Jean King, Serena Williams, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova have stood strongly for Peng. And it is no surprise younger stars have followed suit, led by Naomi Osaka, the torch bearer in the Tokyo Games this past summer, who has added her significant stature to the chorus asking “Where is Peng Shuai?”But Bach and the I.O.C., peddlers of Olympic mythology, have yet to join that chorus. Peng Shuai is part of the Olympic family, but the I.O.C. overlords lack the spine to stand up for one of their own. More

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      With Crowds Back at the U.S. Open, Young Stars Give Them a Show

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      Novak Djokovic failed to win a Grand Slam, but there was a sense of renewal, exciting new players named Raducanu and Fernandez, and a sense that tennis is in capable hands.To fully appreciate the unmasked roars of 2021 at the U.S. Open, it was best to have experienced the silence and vast empty spaces of 2020.It was the contrast that made such a difference this year in the collective mood.“The crowd was the third player this year,” said Chris Evert, one of tennis’s grande dames, who played in her first Open in 1971. “The crowds at the U.S. Open have always been like this, but this year they just seemed louder.”Established stars like Novak Djokovic had missed the noise. Relative newcomers like Emma Raducanu were hearing it for the first time. The fans had missed the experience.The surprise upon everyone’s return to the tournament was how forcefully the newest generation of rising stars would storm the gates.Serena and Venus Williams, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were absent at once for the first time in 25 years, and though it seemed that void would be much too big to fill, the young players piled in gleefully. With so many stars missing and so much prime tennis real estate available, young Americans like Frances Tiafoe and Jenson Brooksby became fixtures on the main show courts, playing thrilling matches. The Spanish 18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, playing in his first U.S. Open, reached the quarterfinals and soon had fans chanting “Carloooooos” as loudly as they usually chant “Rafaaaaaa.”“I definitely think guys are trying extra hard because there isn’t Roger and Rafa,” Tiafoe said. “I see guys foaming in the mouth. Pretty funny to watch. I’m in the locker room cracking up.”Attendance was down from 2019, the most recent year when fans were permitted to attend. But volume and emotion were up, and the fans who watched from home or streamed back through the gates — after showing proof of vaccination — were rewarded with one of the most exceptional tournaments in tennis’ long history.“The crowd was the third player this year,” said Chris Evert, a former player who is now a broadcaster.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesAt one end of the continuum was Djokovic, 34, one of the biggest stars in global sport, chasing a rare Grand Slam — victories in all four major tournaments in the same year — and the crowning moment of a long career spent in pursuit of his rivals, Federer and Nadal.At the other end was the women’s singles tournament, which was improbably commandeered by the 19-year-old Leylah Fernandez and the 18-year-old Raducanu. But both singles tournaments turned out to be surprises. The top-ranked Djokovic was beaten soundly in Sunday’s final, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 by Daniil Medvedev, the No. 2 seed. Medvedev, a gangly trilingual Russian, had never defeated Djokovic in a best-of-five-set match and was trounced in straight sets when they met in this year’s Australian Open final. But he was the fresher, more reliable player in New York, serving and returning better than Djokovic, who looked weary and off target. At one stage, he smashed a racket in frustration, and at another looked ready to smash a ball in the direction of a ball girl before stopping his swing.But this was still No. 1 vs. No. 2 for the trophy. Both Fernandez and Raducanu were unseeded, and Raducanu had to qualify for the main draw. But they surprised more experienced players round after round, in very different fashion, to set up perhaps the most improbable women’s singles final in the four Grand Slam tournaments. Raducanu, playing in only her second major tournament, prevailed on Saturday, but the players will long be linked for the spirit they conveyed together.Their appeal snowballed beyond their home markets — Britain for Raducanu and Canada for Fernandez. Fernandez’s parents have roots in Ecuador and the Philippines; Raducanu’s parents have roots in Romania and China, and on Saturday night Raducanu showed she was made for 21st century tennis stardom when she recorded a video message in fluent Mandarin for the Chinese audience.But on the ground in New York, Raducanu and Fernandez’s arrival on center stage created a sense of discovery and wonder. One long shot in a U.S. Open women’s final is rare enough, but two long-shot teenagers made it a scene. “There was a pent-up desire of people wanting to get out and wanting to experience events in person and time with family and friends and just to celebrate human greatness,” said Ellen Cummings, a fan from New Canaan, Conn., on Sunday before the men’s final.“I really turned out this year for Novak,” she said, “but the women’s tournament was like this unbelievable bonus. What Raducanu and Fernandez did was such a surprise and such a delight to watch.”Leylah Fernandez, left, and Emma Raducanu made surprise runs to the women’s singles final. Raducanu advanced through the qualifying draw to win the tournament.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesThere has been much to bemoan of late and professional tennis has hardly been immune: from quarantines and isolation to Naomi Osaka’s existential crises that have often left her in tears in news conferences as she strained to manage her public role and private struggles in a sport she plainly excels at but that seems to bring her little delight at this stage.But the 2021 U.S. Open brought a sense of renewal and a sense that, in spite of it all, some of the kids were more than all right, able to summon the energy and optimism to take center stage and make the shots that mattered most. They lit up the largest tennis stadium in the world and then read the room beautifully, with Fernandez hitting just the right note as she talked about New Yorkers’ resilience on Saturday, the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.“We’ve witnessed such heaviness and pressure in the last year,” Evert said. “Such expectations and intensity and these two girls brought joy.”Youth, at this U.S. Open at least, was not wasted on the young, but the veterans reveled in the experience, too. On Sunday, Samantha Stosur, a 37-year-old Australian, won the women’s doubles title with her partner, Zhang Shuai of China, over the teenage Americans Coco Gauff and Caty McNally, two more young players full of hope and promise.It was a return to Arthur Ashe Stadium for Stosur, who won the 2011 U.S. Open singles title, upsetting Serena Williams in the final. Stosur is now very near the end of her career and has long been on the road, away from her family, because of the pandemic-era travel restrictions that make it difficult for Australians to return home.Samantha Stosur, top left, and Zhang Shuai, top right, in their match against Caty McNally, bottom left, and Coco Gauff.Al Bello/Getty Images“This year has been tough for everyone,” Stosur said. “This is the last two days of a trip that’s going to be four months for me away from home. I haven’t done that for a long, long time. To be going home with this trophy just means the absolute world to me. It makes everything worth it.”Stosur, like several other leading Australian players, did not make the journey to New York last year because of the pandemic. She had seen this year’s U.S. Open billboards with the slogan “The Greatest Return.” “Absolutely on point for this event this year,” Stosur said.David Mihm, a Djokovic fan from the small city of Eveleth, Minn., who had never attended a professional tennis match, bought a ticket for the men’s singles final after Djokovic won the penultimate leg of the Grand Slam at Wimbledon. “Right after the Wimbledon final, I thought this is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’ve got to just go for it in case he does make it,” Mihm said.“I guess I was waiting for something real special,” he said.He did not get a Djokovic victory, but he did get something special. This U.S. Open, full of surprises and full of life, spilled over with signs of renewal and tennis’s bright future. Even Djokovic, who came one victory short of the sport’s ultimate achievement, chose not to end on a down note. A year ago, he had eliminated himself from the U.S. Open, inadvertently striking a lineswoman in the throat with a ball he hit in frustration after losing his serve early in his fourth-round match against Pablo Carreño Busta. Djokovic was defaulted from the match, played in an all but empty Arthur Ashe Stadium.Long the villain in New York, he returned this year, fighting his way through a series of intense tussles on the same court, gradually hearing more and more crowd support as he worked his way to the final. Microphone in hand, he made his appreciation clear through the disappointment on Sunday. “You guys touched my soul,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this in New York.”He was hardly alone in that sentiment this year at the U.S. Open, a tournament that felt all at once, both smaller and bigger than itself, and tennis too. More

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      The Teenagers Are Taking Over Tennis. That Might Not End Well.

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      The U.S. Open play of Leylah Fernandez, Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu has been exhilarating. But if the past is prelude, rough seas are ahead.It has been quite a run for the teenagers at the U.S. Open, especially a bright-eyed and beguiling troika that has managed to turn the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center into its personal playground.Like young stockbrokers who have yet to see a bear market, Emma Raducanu, Leylah Fernandez and Carlos Alcaraz are experiencing the best of tennis life: match after match of effusive crowds that chant their names and ask for selfies, passing shots that nick the back of the line, and the freedom of swinging their rackets on a stage where they cannot lose, because no one was counting on them to win in the first place.And yet, they do not have to look far to see how quickly it can all go off the rails.“Buckle up, it’s a long ride,” Shelby Rogers, the veteran American and Raducanu’s latest casualty, said Sunday when asked what advice she could offer the trio of teenagers for when their U.S. Open runs end.Naomi Osaka had just emerged from her teens three years ago when she upset Serena Williams to win this tournament. Three years, three Grand Slam titles, nearly $20 million in prize money and tens of millions more in sponsorships later, Osaka’s tournament ended this time with a loss to Fernandez followed by a tearful announcement that she will take an indefinite leave from tennis. Iga Swiatek, the Polish star who won the 2020 French Open at 19 without losing a set, spent much of her upset loss Monday against Belinda Bencic of Switzerland screaming at her coach and the sports psychologist who travels with her.By now it is accepted wisdom that tennis has a tendency to eat its young like few other sports. Managing life as a young star on the tennis tour is a physical and mental test that trips up nearly every player at some point, especially those who break through early and then are suddenly expected to compete at the highest level nearly every time they take the court.Emma Raducanu siged autographs and took selfies after defeating Sara Sorribes Tormo over the weekend.Elsa/Getty ImagesA ranking and seeding system places a number next to their name, letting them and the world know in the starkest way who should win any given match. Guaranteed payments from sponsors can relieve the burden of playing for your next meal or plane ticket. However, those contracts are often laden with incentive bonuses for winning tournaments and climbing the rankings. There is an implicit understanding that the contract will, at best, be reduced and at worst not be renewed if players don’t maintain a certain level of proficiency.The attention, from millions of fans but also from family, cuts both ways, sports psychologists say, especially in a sport that has so many parent coaches. Fernandez’s mother has had a front-row seat for her daughter’s upsets of Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the former world No. 1. She leaned over the rails and screamed when Fernandez prevailed on the biggest points. Success naturally brings that kind of enthusiasm but can also produce a fear that the love will vanish if the winning stops.Fernandez’s father, Jorge, doubles as her coach. He is at home in Florida with her younger sister, she said, but he calls every day with a game plan for the next match, “just telling me what to do in the day before, and then he trusts in me and in my game, that I’m going to execute it as much as I can.”They may not be exhibiting poise under pressure as much as they are playing without pressure, which allows them to swing freely without the fear of not living up to expectations.Carlos Alcaraz and Leylah Fernandez continued to impress with their play into the second week at the U.S. Open.Frank Franklin II/Associated PressJohn Minchillo/Associated Press“I think it’s just the young people” who can play this way, Kerber said Sunday after Fernandez bested her in three sets with blistering forehands and fearless serves at the corners of the service box. Kerber, 33, has won three Grand Slam titles and was ranked No. 1 as recently as 2017. For several years she has battled injuries, inconsistency and the idea that she should still be at the top of the sport.“Playing completely without pressure, in this position, it’s impossible, but I wish,” she said.Oddly, for much of the past decade, players, coaches and tennis officials generally accepted that the sport had moved beyond teenagers. Equipment that allowed for powerful shots from previously impossible angles extended points and matches, accentuating the importance of mature strength and conditioning to a degree that made it too hard for teenagers to compete at the top level of the game, especially on the men’s side.Then Coco Gauff, the rising American, started winning matches at Wimbledon in 2019, when she was just 15. Now a collection of her physically advanced peers are making their mark.Raducanu beat Rogers in her debut in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday. On Tuesday, Fernandez plays Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in the quarterfinals, while Alcaraz takes on Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada.Raducanu, who is in her first summer of playing top level competitions, impressed once again Monday. She dropped the first two games, then reeled off 11 of the next 12 games and won 6-2, 6-1, showing off her exquisite combination of graceful athleticism and smooth, lacing groundstrokes. She has lost a combined total of just four games in her last two matches. When Rogers’ last ball settled into the net, Raducanu dropped her racket, fell to her knees and covered her eyes in disbelief.Young fans waited for Fernandez after her match on Sunday.Elsa/Getty ImagesMartin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the United States Tennis Association, said in recent years the better, and more physically developed, older teenagers had begun to shun junior tournaments, instead cutting their teeth in low-level professional events, while still finding a balance between competition, training and rest.“So they come in under the radar and then they emerge on the big stage,” he said.There is nothing that can come close to guaranteeing that they will not succumb to the challenges of the game — being on the road for months on end, living up to rising expectations, and dealing with the inevitable losses and physical ailments.“It is a perilous prospect,” said David Law, a tennis commentator for the BBC who previously worked for ATP, said Sunday as he settled in for Raducanu’s match. “It can go wrong. We’ve seen it go wrong.”Law does not have to look far to be reminded of that. One of his BBC colleagues is Laura Robson, who at 18 made the fourth round of the U.S. Open in 2012 with wins over Kim Clijsters, one of the top players in the world, and Li Na, the Chinese star. She appeared on her way to greatness. Two years later she was battling a wrist injury from which she would never fully recover.Raducanu during her upset win on Monday.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersFrances Tiafoe, the 23-year-old American, spoke Sunday night after his fourth-round loss to Auger-Aliassime about his efforts to work his way back from the hype surrounding his quick rise into the top 50 in 2018, when he was seen as the savior of American men’s tennis.“I thought I was just going to just keep going,” he said. “It doesn’t work like that. Same work you did to get up there, the same work you need to keep going, keep working harder.”Despite the cautionary tales, it is nearly impossible not to be swept up in the excitement of watching new talent burst onto the scene at one of the biggest showcases in sports. It is a breathless experience that tennis has long thrived on.Alcaraz, a Spaniard already burdened with the nickname “the Next Rafa,” a reference to his countryman, the 20-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal, said he knows that he has become a subject of fascination back home over the past few days.“I’m trying not to think about this,” he said Sunday after beating Peter Gojowczyk of Germany in the fourth round, his second consecutive five-set win. “Just focus on New York, on every day here.”That is a good start, said Mary Carillo, the tennis commentator and former Grand Slam doubles champion. Carillo has seen tennis crack so many rising stars, from Andrea Jaeger, who tanked matches, to Mardy Fish, who battled anxiety and mental illness at the peak of his career. Her heart sinks every time she sees players checking their phones for what is being said about them on social media as soon as they walk off the court.Survival, she said, comes down to the stuff we learn in kindergarten: Get enough sleep; don’t talk to strangers; don’t listen to what they say about you; stay away from bad people.“You really better make sure you have the right people on your ball club,” Carillo said. “People who understand your values, your ambitions, how much you can take and most importantly when you need some time to step away.” More