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      French Tennis Chief Defends Handling of Naomi Osaka

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      “I think we did very, very well,” said Gilles Moretton, the new president of the French Tennis Federation. He has faced several challenges during the first French Open of his term.PARIS — Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Tennis Federation, removed his mask and leaned into the conversation across a vast table Tuesday morning at Roland Garros.Three months in, Moretton’s term is not exactly off to a flying start. The French Open, run by his organization, has been blessed with sunshine through most of its first 10 days, but not much else.Pandemic restrictions have reduced the number of spectators allowed on the grounds and cut deeply into revenue just as the federation needed to start paying back hundreds of millions of euros borrowed for the recent renovations at Roland Garros. For the first time in history, no French singles player made it past the second round. The biggest story of the tournament’s first 10 days has been not the matches played, some of them outstanding, but the ones never started.There was the second-round withdrawal of Naomi Osaka, the brightest rising star in the women’s game, following a disagreement with Moretton and other Grand Slam tournament leaders over media duties. Roger Federer, still the biggest draw in the men’s game at age 39, withdrew after three rounds to preserve his postoperative right knee and his energy for Wimbledon.But Moretton, who was once good enough to face Bjorn Borg at the French Open (taking a loss), did not bemoan his timing during an interview in the presidential box with a grand view of the main stadium, Philippe Chatrier Court, however empty.“I have come in at a time when the situation is very difficult because of the pandemic and the results in French tennis,” he said. “But at the same time I see that as an extraordinary opportunity. Because we have a saying that when you are at the bottom of the pool, you are bound to start heading back toward the surface.”Naomi Osaka during her first-round win at the French Open. She withdrew soon after.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesMoretton defended the handling of the second-seeded Osaka’s refusal to participate in news conferences and other mandatory media duties, an announcement she made through social media ahead of the French Open that caught the Grand Slam officials by surprise.Osaka’s initial announcement mentioned a need to preserve her mental health, without offering specifics. According to several tennis officials, Osaka did not respond to multiple requests to explain the situation further. She was fined $15,000 for skipping one post-match news conference in Paris. Moretton and the leaders of the three other Grand Slam tournaments — Wimbledon and the Australian and United States Opens — then issued a stern statement that warned of escalating penalties, including a potential expulsion from the tournament if she continued to abstain.“I think we did very, very well,” Moretton said, adding that the officials had hoped to avoid expelling Osaka. “The goal was not to penalize her. It was to say clearly: Here’s the rule.”Osaka withdrew the next day via social media, where she explained that she had experienced long bouts of depression since winning the U.S. Open in 2018.Rennae Stubbs, a former player who is a coach and an ESPN analyst, said the French federation had “handled this horribly.” She and other former players said the officials should have shown more sensitivity and avoided publicly threatening to penalize Osaka.“I think we would have kept giving her fines,” Moretton said. “I don’t think we would have gone to a tougher sanction, because we understood the situation. But it’s the rule. The rule is there to be fair to all the players.”Osaka has since announced that she would take a break of indeterminate length from the tour.Moretton, 63, said he was concerned about players’ mental health. “The problem she raised is a real problem, a real topic for discussion,” he said.But he said he was also concerned about preserving equal treatment among players and the news media’s ability to cover the sport.“Perhaps we will change the rules, and then everyone only comes to press if they want to,” Moretton said. “You will see that there are not many who will come.”“Everyone will be their own journalist,” he added, “speak when they want to speak, say what they want to say, respond only to questions they want to answer. And I think it’s a serious problem. So yes of course to measures that will provide help and support to players, but let’s keep the freedom of the press to ask a question that might be uncomfortable and that interests the public, who are the ones who provide a living for the athletes and the personalities.”Roger Federer in his third-round win over Dominik Koepfer on Saturday. Federer withdrew from the French Open the next day.Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAs for Federer’s withdrawal, Moretton said he had “too much respect for Roger” to question his decision. Federer was not fined for the withdrawal. Guy Forget, the French Open tournament director, told the French news organization L’Équipe that Federer had cited his knee as an official medical reason for his withdrawal.“Everyone wants to see him play as long as possible,” Moretton said. “We know he will be 40 soon. It will be difficult. We can see it, and he knows it himself, and he needs to preserve himself.”Moretton is intent on building stronger links with the other Grand Slam tournaments and creating more unity that will give tennis leaders a stronger collective voice. The stern statement on Osaka was perhaps a product of that zeal.The French federation, under the previous president, Bernard Giudicelli, ruffled feathers within the sport last year by moving the start of the French Open from May to September without approval from other tennis entities. The tournament also was moved back a week this year, but Moretton insisted that was done in consultation with other tennis leaders.The one-week postponement this year was made to allow for more fans during the tournament’s second week, when French government restrictions were set to soften. The number of spectators allowed on the grounds will more than double from 5,300 to 13,000 on Wednesday and Thursday, and Moretton said there would be 5,000 spectators at Chatrier for both singles finals.The last night session without fans was on Tuesday, when the fifth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas beat the second-seeded Daniil Medvedev, 6-3, 7-6 (3), 7-5, in a quarterfinal.“Our match was match of the day, and Roland Garros preferred Amazon to people,” Medvedev said, referring to Amazon Prime Video, which has been broadcasting the night sessions in France.Revenue is still way down at an event that normally draws 38,000 spectators per day. In 2019, the tournament generated 260 million euros, or about $316 million. In 2020, it generated about 130 million euros, and Moretton said the numbers would be similar this year.“We are going to be hit hard,” he said.Government relief and loans and the federation’s ample reserves have helped soften the blow and, most important to Moretton, preserve financial support for tennis clubs and leagues in France.Moretton retired from the sports event management business and made two long treks to Nepal before being persuaded by friends to run for the federation’s presidency.Though he is from Lyon, he also considers Roland Garros home. At age 12, he slept in a tent on the grounds when he played in a national junior tournament. He later lived on site for a year, sharing a small house with other aspiring French pros, including Yannick Noah.Noah won the French Open in 1983, and stands as the last Frenchman to do so. Moretton will now try to help develop Noah’s successor and work to make the rest of his four-year term smoother than the start. More

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      What to Watch at The French Open on Wednesday

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      Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Iga Swiatek all feature on the second day of quarterfinals at Roland Garros.How to watch: 5 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on the Tennis Channel, streaming on Tennis Channel Plus.Iga Swiatek is the only player remaining in the women’s draw who has previously reached the final of a Grand Slam event. Swiatek, the defending champion, is still the favorite to win the tournament, but the inspired performances of those left in the draw means that it won’t be easy for her to reach the women’s singles final on Saturday.Here are some matches to keep an eye on.Because of the number of matches cycling through courts, the times for individual matchups are estimates and may fluctuate based on when earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern.Phillipe Chatrier Court | 5 a.m.Coco Gauff vs. Barbora KrejcikovaBarbora Krejcikova, the world No. 33, is primarily a doubles specialist, having won two Grand Slam tournament events and reached at least the semifinals on six other occasions. After a fourth-round breakout in singles at the French Open last year, Krejcikova has bettered her performance once again, by outmaneuvering opponents who focus on the power of their shots.Coco Gauff, the 24th seed, has secured a spot on the U.S. Olympic tennis team and is now playing in her first major quarterfinal. She has often impressed with her mental strength and has improved her point construction over the past few years. This match promises to be tactically astute, and a good lesson for any tennis player on how to play patiently.Iga Swiatek after winning her fourth-round match against Marta Kostyuk on Monday.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersPhillipe Chatrier Court | 7 a.m.Iga Swiatek vs. Maria SakkariIga Swiatek, the eighth seed and the defending champion, has barnstormed back into the quarterfinals at Roland Garros without dropping a set, an impressive show of consistency from the 20-year-old.Maria Sakkari, the 17th seed, has reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal after an impressive upset over last year’s finalist, Sofia Kenin. Sakkari’s powerful baseline shots can unsettle even the steadiest players, and Swiatek will need to counter with some inventive play.Rafael Nadal has looked unstoppable at this year’s French Open.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesPhillipe Chatrier Court | 9 a.m.Rafael Nadal vs. Diego SchwartzmanDiego Schwartzman, the 10th seed, has not dropped a set on his way to the quarterfinals. The clay court specialist reached the semifinals of the French Open last year but lost to Rafael Nadal in straight sets.Nadal, a 13-time French Open champion, has once again looked like an unstoppable force. However, a change in style has become clear this year. When he was younger, Nadal won matches on clay by slowly grinding his opponents down. He has switched to more aggressive points, putting shots away and coming to the net more quickly. This style has won him 35 straight sets over the past couple of years, and it seems likely that he will continue to cruise through to the next round.Novak Djokovic had to fight back from two sets down during his fourth-round match against Lorenzo Musetti on Monday.Ian Langsdon/EPA, via ShutterstockPhillipe Chatrier Court | 2 p.m.Novak Djokovic vs. Matteo BerrettiniNovak Djokovic, the first seed, was pushed by Lorenzo Musetti to five sets in his round of 16 match. Djokovic lost the first two sets in tight tiebreakers as Musetti played an inspired stretch of tennis before Djokovic rallied, losing only one game before Musetti retired in the fifth set.Matteo Berrettini, the ninth seed, had a bit of luck, getting a walkover as Roger Federer withdrew from the French Open ahead of their round of 16 match. Now, well rested, Berrettini will be trying to take the initiative and draw on his striking power to push Djokovic to the edge of his capabilities. More

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      Paula Badosa’s Body Was Ready to Win, but Her Mind Was Not

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      The Spanish player is yet another in the sport who has battled depression and spoken openly about it.PARIS — For Paula Badosa, the winning and accompanying expectations came far too quickly, as they often do for women in tennis, with some pretty terrible effects.In 2015, she became the French Open junior champion, and began to hear all the talk of the glamour and glory that she would soon achieve. Two years later, she was struggling with depression, unsure what future she might have in the sport she loved, even as she tried to believe she could live up to all that had been predicted for her.“It was very tough for me,” she said of that dark three-year period.Badosa, 23, of Spain, lost on Tuesday in her first Grand Slam tournament quarterfinal, coming up heartbreakingly short in a marathon match against Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia, 7-5, 4-6, 8-6. She struggled to hold her serve and could not find precision on her groundstrokes in the biggest moments. At 6-6 in the third set, she had three break opportunities for a chance to serve out the match, but she could not convert them.Tuesday’s other women’s quarterfinal was a close copy of the Badosa-Zidansek match: Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia beat Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, 6-7 (2), 6-2, 9-7.Badosa’s success is especially poignant because she is part of a growing chorus of players who are speaking openly about the toll the game has on their mental health.When Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam event champion, withdrew from the French Open after a showdown with tournament organizers over whether she would appear at mandatory news conferences, she said she had struggled with depression since winning her first United States Open championship in 2018.The direct beneficiary of Osaka’s withdrawal was Ana Bogdan, 28, of Romania, who got a free pass to the third round. There, she lost to Badosa in three tight sets. Afterward, Bogdan said she completely understood Osaka’s decision because she, too, had battled depression this year.“It’s not something very easy to handle,” Bogdan said.The pandemic has been hard on athletes in every sport, but tennis players have had a particularly rough go. Their sport requires continual international travel. To gain permission to hold tournaments, organizers have had to cut the support staff players can travel with and largely limit player movements to designated hotels and practice and competition venues.The open discussion of mental health issues has rattled some people at the highest levels of the sport. They have pledged to pay closer attention to the mental health needs of the players and significantly improve the resources available to them, especially during such a mentally wearing period.Like so many fans and followers of the sport, some organizers may have forgotten that just because everything might look fine on the outside, turmoil may be just beneath for the teenagers and young adults who compete alone.That is the story of tennis at the moment, and there may be no better example of this than Badosa. On the surface, she would appear to have a near perfect life, blessed with athletic talent, intelligence (she speaks three languages and is learning a fourth) and a stable family.She is nearly six feet tall and often described as extremely marketable, which is what people in tennis say when a female player is very good at her sport and could have a career in modeling. Of course, that does not make winning tennis matches any easier.It is not so different from the treatment Coco Gauff, who made her first Grand Slam quarterfinal on Monday, received when she made the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2019 at age 15.“People came out with a lot of expectations for me, saying I was going to be the next this or next that,” Gauff, 17, said last week. “I realized I’ve just got to be myself.”Badosa had to learn the hard way that success at a young age and good genes did not make her immune to depression.“We are not robots,” she said.“The expectations from outside were tough,” Badosa said.Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockBorn in New York to parents who worked in the fashion industry, sometimes as models, Badosa spent the first seven years of her life living in New Jersey. She moved to Barcelona at 7, began playing tennis and soon was a top junior in one of the leading countries in the sport.When that French Open girls’ title arrived six years ago, so did the chatter about her future. Badosa heard every word of it.“The expectations from outside were tough,” she said. She added: “You’re 18 and 19 years old. Your head isn’t ready to get that kind of information.”When the wins stopped piling up, she sank into depression. She began therapy and searched for a support team that would value improvement. She found a kindred spirit in a new coach, Javier Martí. Like Badosa, Martí was once tapped to be a future star. He never made it.Martí said when he first began with Badosa, she connected much of her self-worth to the scoreboard.Badosa said the one thing that did not stop during the roughly three years she battled depression was her ability to keep working, though she knows not everyone struggling with their mental health can do that.“‘If I win, I’m great. If I lose, I’m not good enough for tennis,’ was her way of thinking,” Martí said Monday. “She was not enjoying the process.”Now she is, not only because this is the first time she made it past the second round in a Grand Slam event, but because, win or lose, she is trying only to improve a little bit each day. There is not much subtlety to her game. If she can find a way to hit the ball hard, and she nearly always does, she will.It does not always work. Badosa said on Tuesday after her loss that she could not control her nerves in the biggest match of her career. “It’s complicated the first time you are in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam and you want it so, so much,” she said.If you believe tennis is not simply a sport but a form of self-expression, as nearly every pro does, then Badosa’s play at Roland Garros represents someone who has learned the body cannot do much without a healthy head, no matter how rosy life may appear.She faced a match point against Bogdan but prevailed. In the fourth round, she rebounded after a second set filled with errors to win the third one against 20th-seeded Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic, who started making her own errors as the pressure mounted.“That is the challenge of tennis, because it is very, very mental, all the time playing with your mind,” Badosa said. “If the head is not ready when the body is, the pressure and the anxiety and depression are going to come. It’s just a very tough sport.” More

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      A Very Strange Version of the Paris Night

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      PARIS — It happens every night, and yet it feels so strange each time.All across the city, as the 9 p.m. curfew part of the pandemic restrictions approaches, chairs and tables at bars and cafes that usually remain open until small hours get stacked and stored.Parisians used to lazy strolls on long summer nights head home. The sidewalks go quiet. The city slams shut as fast as a window.At Roland Garros, where the French Open is holding one match each night for the first time, ominous announcements come through the loudspeakers beginning around 8:30 p.m.“The gates will be closing in 15 minutes,” a prerecorded voice says in French then English. The stands selling flutes of champagne, crepes and pains au chocolat begin to pack it in. A 10-minute warning follows, then a five-minute one then finally, “Ladies and gentlemen, the gates are now closed.”A digital screen, which shows matches during the day, asks spectators to leave and explains the curfew in the Musketeers Square at Roland Garros.“It’s very frustrating,” Benoit Jaubert, a Parisian who comes to the tournament every year with his wife, Anne, said of the curfew and forced exit as he hustled toward the exit on Saturday.Usually they remain on the grounds until night falls and the matches end. This year, even though Roger Federer was about to take the court, the Jauberts were on their way out. “We should be having the late matches and then a party,” he said.The pandemic began turning cities into ghost towns nearly a year and a half ago. There is something especially strange about seeing this nightly routine in the so-called City of Light. This is a place famous for its 3 a.m. jazz sets, where the Lost Generation argued all night about the meaning of life in smoke-filled bars on the Left Bank.For the handful of Americans here on business (if that’s what you can call a cushy sportswriting assignment to cover this elegant tournament), it has felt like drifting back in time a month or two. We left a country that had begun leaving behind masks and pandemic restrictions.The streets of Paris are lively before curfew.Calling it a night at 9 p.m. is about the most anti-Parisian occurrence, especially this time of year, when twilight does not arrive until after 10 p.m. and the last thing anyone wants to do as the sun drifts down is go home.The curfew is no joke though. If you somehow forget to eat and do not have much in the fridge at home, you are out of luck. There are no late-night steak frites to be had. All the kitchens, grocers and ice cream parlors are, unnaturally, locked.Listen to Thibaud Pre. He runs a gourmet pizza joint on the Canal Saint-Martin in the northeast part of the city. It’s where the youngish folks hang out. Think of the northern neighborhoods of Brooklyn, like Williamsburg or Bushwick, or the eastern part of London.On Friday evening, just before 8 p.m., the cool kids and the older adults who wanted to be like them were drinking on the edge of the canals, and in Acqua e Farina, Pre’s pizza place, and all of the other bars and restaurants in the neighborhood.An hour later, they were mostly gone, scurrying home or rushing to the Metro, where, just after 9 p.m., security officials could begin asking for the pass required to be out and about post-curfew.A waiter removing outdoor tables just before curfew at Acqua e Farina.As he stacked the tables and collected payments from the few customers who lingered until the final minutes, Pre said on a usual late spring Friday at 9 p.m. there would be 50 people waiting for a table. He would keep the restaurant open until 2 a.m. and bring in roughly five times as much money as he is right now. Without generous government aid, his business most likely would not have survived.He said his customers had gotten used to the routine after so many months, showing up earlier, filling their stomachs until the regulations say they can’t stay any longer, then morphing into citizens of one of those places like Switzerland where the sidewalks thin long before they should.“For how much longer it goes like this, we don’t know,” Pre said.It has been so long, and so strange, that Pre does not want to bank on the current plan to push the curfew back two hours on June 9, which seems more civilized by Parisian standards, but only slightly.People paused to take selfies in front of a wall made out of Roland Garros’s trademark clay as they leave the stadium complex.In July, the curfew could go away completely, and the sidewalks by the Seine could be alive all night once more, though the nightclubs are supposed to stay closed.Someday perhaps, maybe even by the next French Open if that great night owl of French tennis, Yannick Noah, has any say in the matter, those 3 a.m. jazz sets and the real Paris just might return. More

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      What to Watch on Tuesday at the 2021 French Open

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      Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev will clash as the quarterfinal matches begin at Roland Garros.How to watch: 5 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on the Tennis Channel, streaming on the Tennis Channel+.With eight players remaining on each side of the singles draw, two divergent narratives have taken shape. Six women will be making their first quarterfinal appearance in a major event, a record for the Open era. On the men’s side, there will be only one first-timer, and there will be seven players in the top 10. In either case, though, each side is sure to have at least one first-time French Open finalist.Here are some matches to keep an eye on.Because of the number of matches cycling through courts, the times for individual matchups are estimates and may fluctuate based on when earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern.Court PhilipPe-Chatrier | 6 a.m.Paula Badosa vs. Tamara ZidansekPaula Badosa, the 33rd seed, defeated the 20th seed, Marketa Vondrousova, in a three-set fourth-round match to reach her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. Badosa, a 23-year-old Spaniard, had plenty of winners, but more often she was forcing errors out of her opponent.Tamara Zidansek, a 23-year-old Slovenian who ranked No. 85, upset the No. 6 seed Bianca Andreescu in the first round to record her first main-draw victory at Roland Garros. Zidansek had tight matches in the third and fourth rounds, and Badosa will pose a tough test for a player who has performed near her peak at this tournament.Elena Rybakina defeated Serena Williams to earn a quarterfinal appearance.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCourt Phillipe-Chatrier | 8 a.m.Elena Rybakina vs. Anastasia PavlyuchenkovaElena Rybakina of Kazakhstan and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia, a doubles team that has advanced to a Wednesday quarterfinal, will oppose each other in a singles quarterfinal the day before.Rybakina, the 21st seed, powered past Serena Williams on Sunday for a straight-sets win that put her in her first Grand Slam singles quarterfinal. The 21-year-old has found success mostly on hardcourts in the past, but she has used flat baseline shots to push opponents around the clay courts of Roland Garros.Pavlyuchenkova, the 31st seed, upset two Belarusian players, Aryna Sabalenka and Victoria Azarenka, in three-set matches on her way to the quarterfinals. Pavlyuchenkova, 29, won two junior Grand Slam titles, but she has never advanced past the quarterfinals of a major event. On Tuesday, in her seventh attempt, she has to hope that her experience will let her outlast her doubles partner.Court PhilipPe-Chatrier | 10 a.m.Alexander Zverev vs. Alejandro Davidovich FokinaAlexander Zverev, the sixth seed, started the tournament by dropping the first two sets rather quickly before clawing back and losing only four more games on his way to victory. The 24-year-old German then won each of the next matches in straight sets, but he looked convincing only in his fourth-round dismantling of Kei Nishikori. With two previous French Open quarterfinals under his belt, Zverev will be hoping to draw on his experience.Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, ranked No. 46, has reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal after a grueling gauntlet of matches. The 22-year-old Spaniard went to five sets in his second- and third-round matches, and four sets in his round-of-16 slog against Federico Delbonis. Fokina’s aggressive style has put opponents on shaky ground, and it will be interesting to see if he can unsettle a top-10 player with that approach.Stefanos Tsitsipas returned the ball during his fourth-round match.Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCourt PhilipPe-Chatrier | 3 p.m.Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Daniil MedvedevStefanos Tsitsipas, the fifth seed, has lost only one set so far, in the third round against the hard-serving John Isner. The 22-year-old Greek has reached three major semifinals, including at the French Open last year.Daniil Medvedev, the second seed, was knocked out in the first round of the French Open in each of the past four years, but he has lost only one set on the way to the quarterfinals. The 25-year-old Russian appears to have made peace with his least favorite surface, leaning into the strengths that make him such a fearsome opponent on hard courts.Although Medvedev has won six of his previous seven matches on tour against Tsitsipas, only one of those matches was on clay, where Tsitsipas is generally favored. The quarterfinal between these two young stars should be full of shifting dynamics because Medvedev and Tsitsipas tend to spar with the variety of their shots rather than try to overpower each other.Here are a few more matches to keep an eye on.Karolina Pliskova/Kristyna Pliskova vs. Katerina Siniakova/Barbora Krejcikova; Court Simonne-Mathieu, 6 a.m.Wesley Koolhof/Demi Schuurs vs. Aslan Karatsev/Elena Vesnina; Court Simonne-Mathieu, 10 a.m. More

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      In Paris, Coco Gauff Is Confident, Consistent, and Off to the Quarterfinals

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      The 17-year-old, the last American player in singles, will face Barbora Krejcikova in her first Grand Slam tournament quarterfinal on Wednesday.PARIS — It was Coco Gauff’s first appearance on the main stage at the French Open, and it was not the classic Parisian scene she had imagined with fewer than 100 fans in the stands at Court Philippe-Chatrier for the opening matches in this pandemic period of limited crowds.But Gauff’s performance was dreamy: a resounding 6-3, 6-1 victory in the fourth round over the 25th-seeded Tunisian veteran Ons Jabeur, a drop-shot artiste who, in theory, loves clay more than Gauff and had beaten her on the surface earlier this year.But Gauff, the gifted American teenager, has shifted into a higher gear since then, improving her consistency and growing more confident after reaching the semifinals of the Italian Open last month and winning both a singles and doubles title in Parma, Italy. You could see the belief in her body language on Monday as she patrolled the red clay, setting a measured pace between points and playing with power, depth and precision once the rallies began.At age 17, she is into her first Grand Slam quarterfinal and is the last American remaining in singles after Sofia Kenin’s 6-1, 6-3 loss in the fourth round to Maria Sakkari and Sloane Stephens’s 6-2, 6-0 loss to Barbora Krejcikova.The 24th-seeded Gauff, who will face the unseeded Krejcikova on Wednesday, has not dropped a set in Paris. Against Jabeur, she did not face so much as a break point and made just nine unforced errors and zero double faults.“Sooner or later, she will win her first Grand Slam title,” Jabeur said.Such comments, however sincere, can be problematic with young talents like Gauff. Focus too much on what she could do, and it is easy to not fully appreciate what she is doing now.So, let’s consider what other aspiring tennis stars her age are achieving. No other women’s player under the age of 18 is ranked in the top 300. Gauff is on the verge of breaking into the top 20 and has locked up an Olympics singles spot.“I just feel this is the most consistent tennis I have played at this level,” Gauff said. “Hopefully I can keep that going.”Gauff believes she’s playing the most consistent tennis of her young career.Ian Langsdon/EPA, via ShutterstockAfter reaching the fourth round of both her first Wimbledon appearance in 2019 and her first Australian Open in 2020, she has now made the final eight in her second French Open.She was asked to compare her mind-set during Monday’s match with her previous fourth-round matches at majors.“To be honest, I think I was just more hungry for it,” she said. “I feel like in the past I felt like I was satisfied with the run I made in the tournament, so maybe I feel like I came into the matches I guess not as hungry, and I know it’s probably not a good thing to say, but it’s the truth. But I think with a lot of young players we tend to get satisfied with just, you know, the small results, not small results but certain results before we realize that we can really shoot for more. My message has always been: Dream big and aim higher.”Gauff has wanted to be No. 1 with a career like Serena Williams’s since her early teens, but her Wimbledon breakthrough at age 15 did not point her straight to the top.Her last visit to Roland Garros in September 2020 was a reminder of the difficulty of the challenge. She lost in the second round to the Italian qualifier Martina Trevisan while making 19 double faults. Gauff has indeed found a better rhythm in recent weeks. “That’s obviously been a hurdle in my game,” she said. “I truly feel like I’m, you know, getting over that hurdle.”She has also shored up her forehand, cutting down on the errors on that less reliable wing and regularly doing great damage with it in midcourt and in extension. She continues to be comfortable at the net, something her father and coach Corey Gauff has long emphasized.“I mean at the end of the day, she’s basically a junior in high school,” Corey Gauff said. “And anybody knows in high school you are still developing and learning so there’s a big growth between 15 and 16 and more big growth between 16 and 17. She just has the uniqueness of growing up on tour and on TV, so every time she does something it’s news, and everybody is watching everything she’s doing. But she’s just developing, and she’s developing actually pretty quickly and playing more matches this year compared to 2020, where she played so few matches, is really helping her develop.”The tour’s five-month hiatus last year was both a burden and a blessing, isolating for a teenager but also a chance to work on improving her weaknesses outside the spotlight. But Corey Gauff said Coco struggled mentally when the tour resumed because of the restrictions.“This year is better,” Corey Gauff said. “Last year was tough. You could see that it was weighing on her. She was ranked high enough that she was more in the senior hotel, and her friends weren’t in that hotel. And the restrictions were much stricter last year than now. You literally just went to the court and came back and that wasn’t a lot of fun for her. It showed up in her tennis, too. She just wasn’t happy, wasn’t as excited being in the bubbles last year.”They are back in the same Paris hotel as in last year’s French Open, back to playing the card game Uno in the evenings, but now able to spend an hour outside the bubble daily. Though Coco has not yet been vaccinated, Corey Gauff said he and his wife Candi have been, which alleviates some concern and testing regimens.“That hour outside the bubble makes a world of difference,” he said.Candi Gauff was not traveling with her husband and daughter earlier in the clay-court season, but she has joined them for Roland Garros, leaving the Gauffs’ two younger sons at home in Delray Beach, Fla., with grandparents. “It’s nice to have her here,” Coco Gauff said. Corey Gauff said that Coco benefits from her mother’s presence and also her expertise. Candi Gauff was a hurdler and heptathlete at Florida State.“She needs her mom,” he said. “Teenage girls need their mother, because those are the ones who help them become young women and help them deal with things and pressures and of course my wife was a world-class athlete, so she understands the pressures and the discipline and preparation and proper nutrition and all the physiology that goes with it. It’s better her mom telling her than her dad telling her.”Iga Swiatek, the defending champion and eighth seed, remains the rightful favorite in Paris and is in Gauff’s half of the draw. Swiatek beat Gauff en route to the Italian Open title, and they could meet again in the semifinals if Gauff defeats Krejcikova and Swiatek defeats Sakkari.Whatever happens next at Roland Garros, Gauff is making progress even if she still prefers hardcourts and grass to clay.“Only thing about clay I don’t like, it’s just whenever you fall you just get all dirty,” she told me.But there were no tumbles or stumbles on Monday on the most important clay court in the world. More

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      In French Open, Rafael Nadal Is the Same as Always, and Yet He’s Different

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      The player who turned defense into an art form fights to avoid the wars of attrition he battled as a younger athlete. At 35, that is what he must do.PARIS — His hair is thinning on top. His knees can be shaky. In January, he suddenly came down with a balky back that almost forced him to withdraw from the Australian Open.And yet, with his win Monday over Jannik Sinner of Italy, a 19-year-old rising star, Rafael Nadal surged into the final eight once again at the tournament he has essentially owned since 2005. It’s just that he owns it in a different way than he used to.Nadal was not perfect Monday in his 7-5, 6-3, 6-0 win. He was down 5-3 in the first set before winning four straight games. He coughed up a 4-0 lead in the second. But as he nearly always has on the clay at Roland Garros, he made all the necessary shots, joy-sticking Sinner around the court as though he had a metal rod inserted into his chest.“At some point he was playing and I was only running,” Sinner said.Nadal has won the French Open 13 times. France’s tennis federation unveiled a statue of him on the grounds here before the tournament began, a steel abstraction of the final moments of his powerful forehand shot. Monday’s win was his 104th at Roland Garros.The victory moved Nadal, seeded third because of his current ranking despite all his success in Paris, closer to a semifinal showdown with Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1. Djokovic beat the 19-year-old Italian upstart Lorenzo Musetti in one of the more bizarre matches of this tournament. Djokovic appeared lost for the first two sets, missing his targets and uncharacteristically dropping two tiebreakers.Then he took a bathroom break and returned a steadied player, winning 12 of the next 13 games to knot the match at two sets each. He won four more games before Musetti retired down 4-0 in the fifth set.But the 35-year-old version of Nadal looming in the semifinals for Djokovic, 34, is plenty different from the Nadal who started winning in Paris long ago.Back then, Nadal was a defender of the first order. He hunkered down behind the baseline, chased down every ball and, especially on the red clay he loves so much, turned his matches at Roland Garros into wars of attrition.That was not the Nadal whom Sinner met Monday in the round of 16, or the one Cam Norrie of Britain ran into in the third round over the weekend. The Nadal of today, who knows there are only so many five-hour marathon matches a veteran player can survive, targets speed and efficiency nearly as much as victories.“I do what I can in every moment of course,” he said. “If I can win quicker, better.”Nowadays Nadal works to win matches faster.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesBy now, several years into this latter era of Nadal dominance on clay, opponents have become accustomed to what to expect, but they still come away staggered from the experience.“It’s amazing how quick he was after his serve to find his forehand,” Norrie said after his loss. Norrie felt like he was playing pretty well against Nadal, but as he spoke his eyes appeared glazed, as though he had just seen something he could not quite believe. “The guy is relentless.”Between points, Nadal is as deliberate as ever. He sweats profusely, and towels off at every opportunity he can manage.He swears he does not have obsessive compulsive disorder, but he still must carry through with his series of tics and tasks before play starts, sweeping lines clean with his foot, whacking his shoes with his racket three times before his first serve to free the soles of the clay, bouncing the ball over and over until it feels just right in his hand before he tosses it.Once the point starts though, Nadal has become more relentless with each passing year, especially since 2016, when he began working full-time with Carlos Moya, the retired Spanish player and former world No. 1 who won the French Open in 1998.Shifts in tennis strategy can appear subtle on the surface, but they can have outsized effects on the way points, games and matches unfold.In Nadal’s case, Hawkeye’s laser cameras, which have become more prevalent during the past decade and take hundreds of measurements per second of the ball and the court position of each player, tell the story.When Sam Maclean, a data analyst with Hawkeye, combed through the numbers, the data showed exactly how Nadal had tweaked his playing style in his 30s, becoming more aggressive and trying to end points as quickly as he can, even if he will never be someone who finishes many points at the net.Not surprisingly, the change is especially apparent during Nadal’s service games, when he has the best chance to control what happens during the point.From 2012 to 2016, Nadal hit 30 percent of his first shots after his serves from inside the baseline. But each year he has worked with Moya, that number has risen, first to 36 percent, then to 39 percent, then to 41 percent, and last year to 42 percent.Nadal served against Jannik Sinner during their fourth round match on Monday.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesWhy is that so important? Because when Nadal hits that first shot from inside the baseline, he wins 74 percent of the points. When he hits the first shot from behind the baseline, he wins just 59 percent of the points.And while Nadal often drifts deep into the back court when his opponents serve, the points quickly evolve into a fight for him to get forward, to that nub of tape in the middle of the baseline he earlier kicked clean to give himself a target to scurry toward during the point.Even though Nadal is giving himself less time to set up by stepping into the court for that first shot, he is still hitting the ball back as hard as he always did, on average about 75 miles per hour, according to Hawkeye, with a fierce level of topspin that makes his ball feel like a rock on his opponents’ rackets.“He’s the only guy who is playing like that with his forehand topspin,” said Richard Gasquet of France, who managed to win just seven games against Nadal in their second-round match.Gasquet said it was impossible to prepare for Nadal because there was no one to practice against who hits the ball even remotely like he does. Gasquet is the same age as Nadal and has been playing him since they were teenagers. He spent years in the top 10. He is 0-16 against him in ATP Tour events, and the victories are as decisive as ever, even as Nadal should be deteriorating.“It was really hard for me to play,” Gasquet said after his loss.Alexei Popyrin of Australia, Nadal’s first-round victim, was proud just to come close to winning a set.“It’s his court,” Popyrin said after his defeat. “It will always be his court.” More

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      Martina Navratilova Has Plenty to Say

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      FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Martina Navratilova sat at a dockside restaurant in Florida this spring, wearing worn-out jeans, a denim button-down shirt that hung loosely at her waist and a 1619 cap that one of her five dogs had gnawed on. It’s her favorite hat these days.Athletic tape wrapped a thumb and forefinger, not to buffer a tennis racket, but to cover a skin condition that causes discoloration. She has not played in a while — the pandemic, aching joints, the usual excuses.A woman about Navratilova’s age, which is 64, said a star-struck “hello” on her way out of the restaurant. But a young waitress had no idea she had served a tuna salad platter with a side of asparagus to someone who, four decades ago, was working to become the model for the modern, socially aware athlete.During Navratilova’s heyday in the 1980s, the world did not have much appetite for an outspoken, openly gay woman whose romantic partners sat courtside while she dominated her sport as no one else had — winning 18 Grand Slam singles titles and 59 in all, the last coming in 2006, when she was 49.Navratilova won the U.S. Open mixed doubles title with Bob Bryan in 2006, when she was almost 50.Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesNowadays, that combination of success and fearlessness can make you an icon. Witness the empathy in recent days for Naomi Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam tournament winner who withdrew from the French Open, citing concerns for her mental health, after tournament organizers threatened to disqualify her if she did not appear at news conferences. Navratilova — an enthusiastic supporter of Osaka and a vocal champion of causes including climate change and animal welfare — may simply have been born too soon. After paving the way for the modern athlete, Navratilova still has plenty to say, and the world seems more willing to listen now, though not everyone agrees with her.She faced vehement backlash from L.G.B.T.Q. advocates when she argued in the Sunday Times of London in support of rules for transgender female athletes competing against other women, and was dropped from the advisory board of Athlete Ally, a group focused on supporting L.G.B.T.Q. athletes. And still, Navratilova wishes Twitter and Instagram had been around back in her playing days, consequences be damned.As a child in Prague, Navratilova read the newspaper every day. She studied the atlas, imagining where life could take her. She believes now that living out loud helped turn her into the greatest player on the planet. Defecting from Czechoslovakia at 18 saved her soul, she said, and living as an openly gay superstar athlete set her free.She has no shortage of thoughts and opinions, usually expressed on social media, even if the next day she is providing expert analysis on The Tennis Channel from the French Open.Navratilova talked with sportscaster Ted Robinson while calling a match at the French Open.Pete Kiehart for The New York Times“I lived behind the Iron Curtain,” she said, her eyes still capable of the glare that terrified opponents on the court. “You really think you are going to be able to tell me to keep my mouth shut?”Whatever the political and social culture is buzzing on, Navratilova wants a piece of the action. She tosses Twitter grenades from the left, caring little about collateral, and sometimes self-inflicted, damage. There was this on the Republican Party last month. Do not get her started on vaccine conspiracy theories. And she could not resist weighing on the Liz Cheney fracas.Do people change over time or just become more like themselves? Navratilova — who lives in Miami with her wife, the Russian model Julia Lemigova, their two daughters, five Belgian Malinois dogs, turtles and a cat — certainly has not changed so much as the world has.Navratilova and her wife, Julia Lemigova, chatted with Britain’s Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in the royal box at Wimbledon in 2019.Pool photo by Ben CurtisAs a newly arrived immigrant, Navratilova was called “a walking delegate for conspicuous consumption” by The New York Times in 1975. The article elaborated:She wears a raccoon coat over $30 jeans and a floral blouse from Giorgio’s, the Hollywood boutique. She wears four rings and assorted other jewelry, including a gold necklace with a diamond insert shaped in the figure 1. The usual status symbol shoes and purse round out the wardrobe. She owns a $20,000 Mercedes-Benz 450SL sports coupe.She was labeled a whiner and a crybaby (by Nora Ephron, no less) and a danger to her sport, because she was so much better than everyone else.After Navratilova criticized the government of her adopted country, Connie Chung suggested during a CNN interview that she return to Czechoslovakia. “She was always opinionated, and always principled,” said Pam Shriver, Navratilova’s close friend and longtime doubles partner. “It would have been so great for her and her fans not to have her voice filtered.”Mary Carillo, the former player and tennis commentator, remembers being next to Navratilova in the locker room as a teenager at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills and noticing sculpted arms “with raised veins and sinewy muscle barely holding them all together.”“She was smart and quick and funny and emotional, with a game so strong and assertive that it seemed like fans automatically felt the need to cheer for the woman across the net,” Carillo said. “Like Martina’s game wasn’t … what? Feminine? Fair? That drove me nuts.”The EvolutionName the qualities that allow a professional athlete to transcend the game. Publicly challenging authority? Being an openly gay superstar? Transforming how people play and train for their sport? Navratilova checked each box.She was a Wimbledon quarterfinalist in the summer of 1975, when her country’s Communist government was deciding whether to allow her to participate in the United States Open in New York later that year. She hated being unable to speak her mind, or tell anyone of her sexual attraction to women. Navratilova during the 1975 U.S. Open.Focus on Sport, via Getty ImagesWhen she received permission to leave for the tournament, she told her father, who was also her coach, that she would not be coming back. She did not tell her mother.After a semifinal loss to Chris Evert, she headed to a Manhattan immigration office to request asylum. Three hours later, she was free. By the time she woke up the next morning at the Roosevelt Hotel, the story of her defection was in The Washington Post.Navratilova kept her sexuality private for six more years, because it might have disqualified her from becoming a U.S. citizen. After she was naturalized, a sports reporter tracked her down following an exhibition match in Monte Carlo and told her he planned to write about an off-the-record conversation they’d had about her being a lesbian.She urged him not to. She said she had been told it would be bad for women’s tennis. The tour was managing a recent controversy with Billie Jean King, who had been sued for palimony by a former girlfriend. King at first denied the affair, then acknowledged it during a news conference with her husband at her side.The reporter rejected Navratilova’s request, and after years of silence, she found herself shoved from the closet. From that moment on, though, Navratilova appeared with girlfriends and went about her life as she had always longed to.“I didn’t have to worry anymore,” she said. “I didn’t have to censor myself.”Navratilova greeted Judy Nelson, her girlfriend for several years, as she entered the court at Wimbledon in 1988.Professional Sport/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesThat September, Navratilova lost a third-set tiebreaker to Tracy Austin in the U.S. Open final and cried during the awards presentation. The crowd roared for Navratilova that day, but rarely afterward, even as she won the next three Grand Slam singles titles, and then 13 more after that. Along the way, Navratilova essentially changed not only the way people played the game, but also the way tennis players — men and women — went about their business.Don’t believe it? Take a look at the physiques of male tennis players before Navratilova became Navratilova.That evolution began in the spring of 1981, when Navratilova was at the Virginia Beach home of the basketball star Nancy Lieberman. She called Navratilova lazy and said she could train much harder.Cross-training was barely a concept then, but soon Navratilova was playing an hour of one-on-one basketball with Lieberman several times a week. She played tennis for up to four hours a day, began weight training with a female bodybuilder and sprinted daily at a local track.A nutritionist put Navratilova on a diet high in complex carbohydrates and low in fatty proteins. Her physique went from borderline lumpy to sculpted.With the help of Renée Richards, a new coach who played professional tennis in the 1970s after undergoing transition surgery, Navratilova learned a topspin backhand and a crushing forehand volley. Her game, powered by her lethal left-handed serve, became about aggression, about attacking the opponent from everywhere on the court.In 1983, Navratilova played 87 matches and lost only once. In three Grand Slam finals, she lost zero sets and just 15 games.Navratilova with the 1983 U.S. Open trophy.Leo Mason/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesSoon Evert started cross-training, and the next generation of stars looked a lot more like Navratilova. They adopted her fierce style on the court.Tennis careers generally ended around age 30 back then. Navratilova won the Wimbledon singles title at 34 in 1990 and continued to win doubles championships until 2006, becoming a groundbreaker in longevity.She has no doubt that her dominance on the court and her stridency off it worked hand in glove. “It lifts the pressure off you,” she said. “It’s like having a near-death experience. Once you go through it, you embrace life.”The CommentatorThe social and political commentary, and the requisite blowback, would come in time, starting almost by accident.In 1991, when Magic Johnson announced he had been diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS, saying he was infected through sex with women, Navratilova was asked for her thoughts. She questioned why gay people with AIDS did not receive similar sympathy, adding that if a woman caught the disease from being with hundreds of men, “they’d call her a whore and a slut, and the corporations would drop her like a lead balloon.”Imagine dropping that in your Twitter feed.In 1992, she campaigned against a Colorado ballot measure that would have outlawed any legislation in the state that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. She said President Bill Clinton had wimped out with his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military. She demanded equal pay for women and bashed tennis parents who behaved badly.The pushback reached critical mass in 2002 when a German newspaper quoted her saying policy decisions in America focus on money instead of “how much health, morals or the environment suffer.”When Chung took her to task on CNN, Navratilova shot back, “When I see something that I don’t like, I’m going to speak out because you can do that here.”Navratilova at a gay rights march in Washington D.C. in 2000.Shawn Thew/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNow her eyes light up when she discusses Coco Gauff, the 17-year-old budding tennis star who spoke forcefully at a Black Lives Matter rally near her Florida home last year after the murder of George Floyd. And when she thinks of Osaka — who wore a mask naming a Black victim of racial violence before each of her matches at the U.S. Open last year — Navratilova is certain the masks, and speaking out, helped Osaka win the championship. A protest doesn’t take energy away from you, Navratilova explained, it does the opposite.She never knows where the blowback will come from, and knows that it won’t always be from the right. She will continue to write and tweet about her belief that elite transgender female athletes should have transition surgery before being allowed to compete in women’s events.“It can’t just be you declare your identity and that’s it,” she said. She feels similarly about intersex athletes who identify as women.The Black Lives Matter sticker on her car garners the occasional heckle. Navratilova said someone recently saw a photograph of her in the 1619 cap, then announced he was pulling out of a tennis camp where she was scheduled to appear.That is fine, she said. She will keep wearing the cap. More