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

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

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      At the Australian Open, Bianca Andreescu Is the Great Unknown

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAt the Australian Open, Bianca Andreescu Is the Great UnknownShe won the United States Open in 2019 but has barely played since then because of injury and the pandemic. Yet it is after long layoffs she has been the most dangerous.Bianca Andreescu of Canada won her first match in 15 months, a three-set nail-biter against Romania’s Mihaela Buzarnescu at the Australian Open on Monday.Credit…Paul Crock/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 9, 2021, 7:45 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — As Bianca Andreescu vaulted from No. 152 in the world to the United States Open champion during 2019, she appeared to be playing with a tennis angel on her shoulder.And then good fortune left Andreescu, the 20-year-old Canadian, shortly after she lifted that U.S. Open trophy.Andreescu sustained a torn meniscus that October. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, which, combined with the knee injury, kept her from competing for all of 2020. She trained through the fall and into the new year to hit the ground running upon landing in Australia. Then her coach tested positive for the virus shortly after he arrived on a flight from Abu Dhabi, sending Andreescu into a hard lockdown for 14 days because of their contact. She pulled out of an Australian Open warm-up tournament last week rather than risk injury by doing too much too soon. “It’s super easy to ask yourself: ‘Why, why, why? Or what is the reason?’” Andreescu said recently as her quarantine was winding down. “Some of these things you cannot control.”Andreescu was one of 72 players who could not leave their hotel rooms, even to train, for two weeks. Several former Grand Slam winners and 21 women over all in the main draw were classified as close contacts to those who tested positive for the coronavirus after landing in Australia, which put them in them hard lockdown.Women’s tennis has been something of a free-for-all for years. Factor in a forced lockdown and the return of a player who a year and a half ago seemed to have limitless potential, and the uncertainty becomes nearly unprecedented.A dozen women have won a Grand Slam singles title over the past four seasons. At the French Open in October, Iga Swiatek, 19, of Poland, entered the tournament ranked No. 54 and won the championship. Only Naomi Osaka of Japan and Simona Halep of Romania have won more than one Grand Slam title since 2017.But no one embodies that uncertainty here at the 2021 Australian Open more than Andreescu, who passed her first round test on Monday when she won her first match in 15 months, a three-set nail-biter against Mihaela Buzarnescu of Romania.Andreescu will face Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan in the second round.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThere were moments when Andreescu created shots and found the unseen angles, and plenty of others when she looked overwhelmed by a player ranked 138th in the world. She faces Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan on Wednesday (Tuesday evening, Eastern time).To Mary Carillo, the former player and longtime tennis analyst, Andreescu is among the most compelling players in the tournament. Carillo compared her to Juan Martín del Potro, who beat Roger Federer to win the U.S. Open when he was just 20, then sustained a series of injuries and never fulfilled the promise of that triumph.“When you see players like Juan-Martín and Bianca burn a hole in the sport the way they did, you know they’ve got the goods,” Carillo said. “You want to watch them put their games up against the very best. You know they can win majors. You want them to hang around and prove it was real, time after time, year after year, become one of the true greats.”Everyone in tennis knows Andreescu has talent to burn. She has power from the baseline and on her serve. She has the athleticism to chase down balls in the corners. At any moment, from any spot on the court, she can cut a slice with so much spin it dances when it lands. All this, plus the experience of winning a Grand Slam title, and she has only played about 50 WTA singles matches.But coming to Australia, Andreescu had not played a match since October 2019. The inactivity would leave most players with little more than a puncher’s chance for success. Andreescu, though, has shown a freakish ability to shake off rust and play deep into tournaments. A back injury kept her out of competition for two months in the fall of 2018. When she came back she won two titles on the lower tier I.T.F. circuit.In 2019, an injury to her right shoulder largely sidelined her from April until August. She returned for the Rogers Cup in Toronto, one of the most high profile tournaments outside of the four majors, and won after Serena Williams retired from the final with back spasms four games into the match. Then she reeled off another seven consecutive wins and became the U.S. Open champion.That is not normal. Angelique Kerber of Germany, the three-time Grand Slam winner, said that when injuries cause long layoffs, it can take months to find the motivation to get on court and go to your limit. “I think that’s the hardest challenge,” Kerber said.Andreescu can burn hot. She breaks rackets sometimes in practice, though fewer than she used to. She said she cried Sunday night in anticipation of her first round match here in Australia.The first 48 hours after she learned that her coach, Sylvain Bruneau, had tested positive were tough to grapple with. As she and others on her team continued to test negative, Andreescu snapped back into preparation mode.She did strength and fitness sessions on the stationary bicycle in her room with her trainer over Zoom. Her coach, who has remained healthy, put her through shadow hitting sessions, allowing her to work on her footwork. A devotee of visual imagery training, she spent hours imagining herself playing matches.Andreescu, pictured in Toronto after her U.S. Open win in 2019, practiced visualizing past wins to boost her confidence heading into the Australian Open.Credit…Carlos Osorio/ReutersShe watched her matches from 2019 and reliving those wins boosted her confidence. She also read — Charles Duhigg’s “Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity,” and Michio Kaku’s “Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100” — and played Call of Duty and NBA2K on her Xbox. She fiddled around with her new hobby, composing music.She watched the 2020 U.S. Open and the French Open on television with a mix of hurt and hope. Not being on the court bothered her, but as she took in the action, she pictured herself in that moment again and it felt good.And on Monday, when the two-hour, three-set test was over, she sunk into an ice bath and considered the silver lining in this first, uneasy duel. “Those matches are super good for me,” she said. It really shows that I can scramble when I really need to, or if there is some pressure I can dig my way through it somehow.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      At the Australian Open, Sports Flirts With Normalcy

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationCalifornia Anti-Vaccine ProtestsFans celebrate a point during Nick Kyrgios’s first round win at the Australian Open 2021.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesAt the Australian Open, Sports Flirts With NormalcyFans, noise, lines for food and booze. In a country that has the coronavirus under control, a tennis championship delivers a glimpse of what sports can one day be again.Fans celebrate a point during Nick Kyrgios’s first round win at the Australian Open 2021.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 8, 2021Updated 5:10 p.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — “It’s so good to see people.”This was Naomi Osaka, the three-time Grand Slam champion, moments after her first-round win Monday afternoon at the Australian Open. She stood at a microphone on the court at Rod Laver Arena and peered up at a crowd that seemed, if not normal, then something like it.That was how it was all across the grounds of Melbourne Park on Monday, where international sports returned, however temporarily, to something like it was before most people knew the difference between a coronavirus and the seasonal flu or used the phrase “social distancing” every third sentence.Spectators lined up for tickets. They waited in security lines and figured out if they wanted to eat burgers or stuffed pitas or fish and chips, and decided how many $13 beers they could stomach. Despite a light gray sky, a stiff breeze and temperatures in the low 60s, some lounged on the grass or on couches. The fancier people hung out in the restaurant with a champagne sponsor.Spectators, some wearing masks and some not, watched Nick Kyrgios practice ahead of his match.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesIt could only safely occur now because the Grand Slam tennis season happens to start in a country that has arguably controlled Covid-19 better than anywhere else, thanks to months of enforced lockdowns, closed borders, thorough testing and contact tracing. Just 909 people in Australia, which has a population of more than 25 million, have died of Covid-19. The country has averaged a half-dozen cases a day during the past two weeks, nearly all of them international arrivals.Photographers lined the show courts that featured the stars, producing a clatter of clicks at choice moments. A video camera operator wandered the stands, capturing fans that wanted to dance and wave on the stadium screens. Music blasted anda stadium M.C. encouraged them to act goofy during breaks in the action.And then there were the roars, missing since games sputtered back to life inside largely empty stadiums, especially when a winner or perfectly played volley came off the racket of an Australian player or one of the stars. There were plenty of both on the courts on Monday — both Williams sisters, Osaka, Novak Djokovic and the local favorite Nick Kyrgios.The smaller the venue, the grander the roar, like on Court 3, a cozy jewel box court where John Millman of Australia played in front of a half-sized crowd of roughly 1,500 fans.“That’s one of the biggest motivations that we have, the source where we draw our energy and strength and motivation,” Djokovic, the world No. 1, said in anticipation of the noisy welcome he received at Rod Laver, on the court where he has won this championship eight times. “Especially at my age and stage of my career, I’m looking to feed off that energy from the crowd.”Dorn Cooper, 73, and Bev Brown, 71, have been friends for 50 years and have come to the tennis for 45. They say they have enjoyed the quiet of this year’s event with smaller crowds.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesTwo Australian tennis fans, Karen Outram, 62, and Glenys Bryce, 63, proudly displaying their country’s colors.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe players had to endure varying degrees of quarantines for two weeks after they arrived, and 72 of them were forced to remain inside their hotel rooms for 14 days after 10 people on three chartered flights tested positive upon arrival. Then they were set free, and after a week of preparation, Monday delivered its payoff.“Definitely nice to have some people, a lot of people out there,” said Serena Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam champion, after she tore through Laura Siegemund of Germany, 6-1, 6-1.With spectators capped at 30,000 per day, about half that would show up in normal times, Day 1 at Melbourne Park was a far cry from the summer festival that this tournament is supposed to be. Just 17,922 fans showed up, with plenty of tickets going unsold for any number of reasons — weather, a rejiggered schedule that pushed the tournament back three weeks, Aussie kids no longer on summer break, anger that tennis players, tournament officials and international media members got special exemptions to enter the country and brought in new cases of Covid-19.The roar of the crowd has returned with fans celebrating a point during Nick Kyrgios’s match.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe fans who attend will find differences from previous tournaments.There were Q.R. codes at each gate with spectators expected to register their seats to allow for contact tracing if someone in their section tests positive.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      Serena Williams and Tom Brady: Ageless Wonders With a Difference

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021N.F.L.’s Most Challenging YearGame HighlightsThe CommercialsHalftime ShowWhat We LearnedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFrom a World Away, One Ageless Wonder Marvels at Another“Amazing!” Serena Williams said of Tom Brady’s seventh Super Bowl win. Of course, he’s never won a title while pregnant.Serena Williams dropped only two games in her first-round win at the Australian Open.Credit…William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 8, 2021Updated 3:57 p.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — As fans fished for autographs by tying cords around oversize tennis balls and dangling them over the rail for Serena Williams, her mind drifted to the other side of the world.“How amazing!” Williams muttered, as much to herself as anyone else, while she scribbled her signature after her 6-1, 6-1 first-round victory against Laura Siegemund at the Australian Open on Monday. “Can you imagine winning the Super Bowl at 43?”In the lead-up to this year’s Open, Williams, 39, had repeatedly expressed her admiration for Tom Brady, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback who delivered his seventh Super Bowl title on Sunday night. His determination and excellence have inspired her “since when he beat Kurt Warner,” she said, referring to the New England Patriots’ victory over the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl in February 2002.Brady’s only misstep, Williams joked last week, was his choice of teams last year as a free agent. “I mean, he just should have come to the Dolphins, really,” said Williams, who owns a minority stake in Miami’s N.F.L. franchise along with her sister Venus.Williams sees in Brady a kindred spirit, someone whose appetite for competition and desire to succeed have not receded over time. “I look at Tom Brady, it’s so inspiring,” she said.With his latest title, his first outside New England, Brady brought to a boil the long-simmering debate about sports’ greatest athlete. That discussion must include Williams, a 23-time major winner whose next Grand Slam singles title will tie Margaret Court’s career record. And Williams may be the only member of the greatest-ever debate to have won one of her titles while pregnant. She delivered her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, via an emergency C-section on Sept. 1, 2017, nearly seven months after she won the Australian Open. She said they haven’t spent a day apart since.“Is that healthy?” Williams said Monday. She laughed. “Not at all. Not even close. But every single day I just want to be around her.”Williams’s choice to be a doting parent, come hell or hard quarantine, may be where her path most clearly diverges from Brady’s. Two weeks before the Super Bowl, Brady was reportedly alone in his Tampa mansion, having sent away his wife and three children so he could give his undivided attention to football for the 12 days leading to the big game.Two weeks before the Australian Open, Williams was finishing a mandatory 14-day self-isolation, which required her to hole up in a hotel for 19 hours a day with her husband, the tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, and their high-spirited daughter.Williams’s daughter, Olympia, with her father, Alexis Ohanian, at an exhibition match last week in Adelaide.Credit…Mark Brake/Getty ImagesWilliams acknowledged that Brady’s preparation made more sense, but said, “I wasn’t strong enough to do the banishment.”She added: “I would not have been able to function without my 3-year-old around. Not even close. I think I would be in a depression.”Elite athletes typically don’t do much in their downtime on the days or weeks in which they are competing, preserving their energy for the bursts of effort their sports demand. For Williams, the accelerating and downshifting processes are compressed. She’s a drag racer, going in a flash from mama to megastar.One of her matches at a tuneup event last week at Melbourne Park ended just after 8 p.m., leaving Williams caught in parenting territory similar to the terra incognita between the service line and baseline. Olympia’s bedtime was 8:30. Should she rush back to tuck in her baby or go through her usual postmatch paces and make peace with not seeing her daughter until the morning?Her instinct was to rush home. “But I’m a little torn,” Williams said in her postmatch news conference that day. “I’m like, maybe I should just let her go to bed so she doesn’t get too moody.”Williams added: “She’s too hyper. She needs her rest. She’s a busy kid. She has a fully booked schedule.”Like mother, like daughter. “She really is,” Williams said with a reflective sigh.Before another of Williams’s matches last week, Ohanian walked to his seat. In his arms he carried a squirming Olympia, who pointed to Williams on the court and said, “Hey, that’s my mama!”Williams said her daughter knows that the court is her office. But does she assume every working woman plays tennis? Williams isn’t sure. Sometimes when Olympia attends matches or practice sessions, she’ll freak out Williams by mimicking everyone else and calling her Serena.Williams said: “I’m like: ‘You can’t say Serena. You have to call me Mama.’”Williams’s second-round opponent will be a 24-year-old Serb, Nina Stojanovic, who was younger than Olympia when Serena won the first of her 73 WTA Tour titles. Stojanovic would do well to tune out the player introductions Wednesday since it requires a sizable chunk of the six-minute warm-up period to recite Williams’s achievements.“When the announcer said on the court, ‘23 Grand Slam titles, seven Australian Opens,’ he was like, ‘14 doubles titles,’ then he starts talking about mixed doubles, I’m like jeez,” Williams said last week.But none of what Williams has done matters as much to her as what is left to accomplish. When Brady said before the Super Bowl that his favorite championship is his next one, it resonated with Williams. “That would absolutely be my answer, for sure,” she said.Why?“Because otherwise you’re living off of what you already did,” she said.That mind-set is why Williams can conduct a tour of the trophy room in her house in Miami, as she recently did for Architectural Digest, and struggle to identify which trophies are from which tournament.It was why she is unbothered that one of her seven Wimbledon trophies disappeared after a party she threw with Venus several years ago. Or maybe it was one of Venus’s five that vanished. “Was that my Wimbledon trophy or was that her Wimbledon trophy?” Williams said. “The argument is still going on.”She added wryly, “Conversations in the Williams home.”Since her daughter’s birth, Williams has appeared in four Grand Slam finals but has yet to win one. With her next Grand Slam title, she can show everybody, as Brady did Sunday in Tampa, that she still has the power to amaze.“You can’t say it was the system he was at formerly,” Williams said, referring to Brady’s six Super Bowl titles under Coach Bill Belichick in New England. But she knows better. “It’s definitely Tom Brady.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Australian Open Preview: Battle of the Women’s Champions

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAustralian Open Preview: Battle of the Women’s ChampionsSerena Williams will once again go for her 24th Grand Slam title. Among her competition: three women who won titles in their most recent Grand Slam appearances.Serena Williams is still on the hunt for her 24th Grand Slam singles title. She won her 23rd at the Australian Open in 2017.Credit…Loren Elliott/ReutersFeb. 7, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETTennis has returned to Melbourne, the site of the last Grand Slam event before the coronavirus pandemic, finding itself both profoundly changed since the last Australian Open and yet eminently recognizable. The top men are still dominating, Serena Williams is still seeking a 24th Grand Slam title, and a growing cast of talented young champions is vying for a sturdy foothold atop the ever-undulating women’s tennis ladder.Here are the biggest stories of the Australian Open, which begins Monday.Serena Williams Is Still in the ChaseAfter winning her Open era-record 23rd Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open four years ago, Williams has returned to Melbourne for an 11th attempt at adding one more to her lofty haul.Since returning from maternity leave in 2018, Williams has repeatedly put herself in position to contend for an elusive 24th singles title, having reached four Grand Slam finals and a semifinal but come up just short each time. Williams looked sharp in her three matches at a warm-up event in Melbourne last week, reaching the semifinals on the strength of strong all-court play with particular acuity in her serve, which was reaching speeds upward of 120 miles per hour. That semifinal would have been a blockbuster against top-ranked Ashleigh Barty, but Williams withdrew well before it would have begun, citing a shoulder problem (and most likely not relishing such a high-caliber throwdown just two days before a Grand Slam).A video from Architectural Digest of Williams nonchalantly giving a tour of her trophy room went viral last week but did not do justice to the hunger Williams has maintained, in a career that has already had so much, to keep working for more. Courtney Nguyen, a senior writer for WTA Insider, drew laughter when she told Williams that “the way we look for a fork in a drawer is the way you look at your trophies.”Margaret Court, whose overall record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles includes many won during the amateur era, is again proving polarizing in Australia after an honor from the government once again shined a spotlight on her history of bigoted remarks. As Williams reaches as close to underdog status as she might ever allow herself to get, public sentiment toward Williams in her quest to equal and surpass Court’s record might never be higher.Young Champions Lead the Women’s SideIn a testament to the depth of women’s tennis — and the lack of any player who has emerged as a consistently dominant presence — there are four women in the Australian Open draw who won their most recent matches at Grand Slams. One is Williams, who withdrew from the French Open in September after winning her first-round match. The other three women all won titles in their most recent Grand Slam appearances, solidifying themselves as emerging stars: Iga Swiatek, 19, last year’s French Open champion; Naomi Osaka, 23, last year’s United States Open champion; and the 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu, 20.Add to that mix the top-ranked Barty, 24, and the defending Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, 22, and it becomes clearer still that women’s tennis is spoiled for possibilities for a potential standard-bearer for women’s tennis at Grand Slams.Andreescu, who has not played since the fall of 2019 after a knee injury, is the most enigmatic of the bunch. She overwhelmed all comers while healthy that season, winning the U.S. Open, Indian Wells and the Rogers Cup in Toronto, but she was not healthy enough to vie for almost any other title. Her return to the tour has been full of stops and starts, but she has said she feels “ready to go” in the Australian Open.Andreescu said that watching her matches from 2019 had helped her get “into the mood, into the mind-set.”“I felt the same things like I did in 2019, which I think really helps me just get in character,” Andreescu said on Friday. “It really inspired me, too, just watching myself play again. I don’t normally like to do that, but I think it was good for me since I haven’t played for so long. Hopefully that can help me bounce back on the court quicker.”The Men Can Run Up the ScoreRafael Nadal has a chance to beat Roger Federer’s record of 20 Grand Slam singles titles — without having to beat Federer, who is not competing at the Australian Open.Credit…Loren Elliott/ReutersWhile the women have vanloads of trophy-bearing contenders in Melbourne, just who will leave with the men’s title in two weeks doesn’t seem as open a question.Top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who has won the tournament a men’s record eight times, is consistently at his best in Melbourne. Second-ranked Rafael Nadal, who thrashed Djokovic in October’s French Open final, equaling Roger Federer’s total of 20 Grand Slam titles, has consistently been one of the most opportunistic competitors in the sport. He might pounce on his long-awaited first chance to surpass Federer’s mark. (Federer, who has not competed since an injury at last year’s Australian Open, is entered in a March ATP event in Doha, Qatar.)The sole interruption to the Big 3’s hegemony in the last four seasons came last year when Djokovic, the lone member of the trio to compete at the U.S. Open, got himself defaulted from his fourth-round match by unintentionally hitting a ball into a lineswoman’s throat. His absence cleared a path for Dominic Thiem to win his first Grand Slam final on his fourth attempt. The third-ranked Thiem, and fourth-ranked Daniil Medvedev, are finding success at smaller events, but they haven’t yet shown an ability to beat Nadal or Djokovic — or, more likely, both — to steal a Grand Slam title.Pandemic Uncertainty LingersLast year’s Australian Open was largely overshadowed by the wildfires burning across the country, occasionally in a literal sense as smoke hung in the air over Melbourne.This time, the haze over the tournament and the sport is far more existential. Australia has been among the most successful countries in combating the coronavirus pandemic, with fewer than 1,000 people having died of the illness in a population of over 25 million, because of strict lockdowns and collaborative measures.The decision to stage an international tennis event — and to afford arriving players some exemptions from the strict 14-day hotel quarantine that others international travelers entering the country have endured — has proved divisive. Despite affordable tickets, attendance at the warm-up events at Melbourne Park last week was meager, and a positive test from a worker in the hotel quarantine program announced midweek did little to draw locals. And with the difficulties around both domestic and international travel, the crowds are going to be almost entirely local this year.Even if the Australian Open goes smoothly and is completed without any further coronavirus scares, the sport will leave Melbourne with an unclear outlook. Indian Wells, the major tournament in the California desert each March, has already postponed this year’s edition.To get back to anything resembling normal, the professional tennis tours will require both reliably easy international travel and crowds who are able and eager to attend large public events. As long as the trip to Australia has always been, those destinations feel even farther away right now.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How to Watch the Australian Open Tennis Matches

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySet Your Alarm to Watch Great TennisFor two weeks starting Sunday, more than 1,000 hours of Australian Open matches will be available to American audiences during the night and into the morning.Naomi Osaka, last year’s U.S. Open champion, will be seeking a fourth Grand Slam title.Credit…Andrew Brownbill/Associated PressFeb. 6, 2021Depending on your appetite and geographic location, the Australian Open can be the equivalent of a midnight snack or an after-hours all-you-can-eat buffet. Held in Melbourne, Australia, which is 16 hours ahead of the East Coast of the United States, the Grand Slam event is an annual tennis treat for nocturnal American sports fans. This year, more than 1,000 hours of coverage of the singles, doubles and wheelchair competitions will be broadcast in the United States through the night and the morning.The tournament, which begins Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern (30 minutes after the kickoff of the Super Bowl), may not get too much attention in its opening hours. But once a champion is declared in Tampa, Fla., the Australian Open could find itself in a unique position to hold the attention of the sports world for the next two weeks, not overlapping with the most crucial stretch of any major sport’s season.How to WatchIn the United States, the matches will be broadcast on ESPN platforms. If you can stream ESPN3 or ESPN+, either online or with a Roku, Apple TV or similar device, you will have to do the least searching to find which app or site is airing the tennis at any given time. You will also exert the most control over what you watch, with the ability to pick streams from up to 16 live match courts, as well as on-demand replays of matches you may have missed.If you rely on traditional cable, you may have to do a bit more work to keep up with where to find the matches. On the first day, the tournament will begin on ESPN for three hours before shifting to ESPN2. Coverage for the next nine nights will be primarily live on ESPN2, beginning (all times Eastern) at 9 p.m., though the first two hours of play on those days, from 7 to 9 p.m., will be available on ESPN’s streaming platforms. On Feb. 17 at 10 p.m., coverage shifts to ESPN from ESPN2, starting with the women’s semifinals. The men’s semifinals are scheduled to begin at 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 18 and Feb. 19. The women’s final will be at 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 20, and the men’s final will be at 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 21.If you’re a more diurnal viewer who still prefers tuning into live terrestrial television, ESPN2 will show replays of the previous day’s matches at various times on most afternoons, or starting in the late morning on weekends.What to Keep in MindFor the second year in a row, understanding the Australian Open will require understanding the distinct Australian geopolitical and health backdrop. After last year’s tournament was largely overshadowed by ravaging wildfires, this year’s tournament, like all other sporting events, is at the mercy of the coronavirus pandemic. Australia has combated the virus more effectively than nearly any other country, which makes it both uniquely capable and uniquely anxious when it comes to staging a major international event at this time. Up to 30,000 fans could attend the tournament each day, but whether Melburnians are ready to embrace the event remains to be seen; the special treatment tennis players received during the quarantine process rankled many locals, and crowds were scant at the warm-up event held at the same facility last week.The Players to WatchSerena Williams is once more vying to extend her Open-era record of 23 Grand Slam singles titles to 24, matching the record set by Australia’s Margaret Court. Williams won her last Grand Slam title four years ago in Melbourne, during the early stages of her pregnancy with her daughter, Olympia. Naomi Osaka, last year’s United States Open champion, will be seeking a fourth Grand Slam title. The top-seeded woman, Australia’s Ashleigh Barty, is seeking a second Grand Slam title after not competing most of last year because of the pandemic.In the men’s draw, the top-seeded Novak Djokovic will be vying for his ninth Australian Open title, while the second-seeded Rafael Nadal looks to increase his overall Grand Slam haul to 21, breaking his current tie at 20 with Roger Federer, who will not be in attendance.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Players to Watch at the Australian Open

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

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      Because of Covid-19, Even Getting to the Australian Open Is a Battle

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBecause of Covid-19, Even Getting to the Australian Open Is a BattlePlayers not only must be quarantined upon arrival, but then they are mostly confined to their rooms.The courts at Melbourne Park will have a limited number of spectators during the Australian Open.Credit…David Gray/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 6, 2021, 6:44 p.m. ETAngelique Kerber was all dressed up with nowhere to go.It was Kerber’s 33rd birthday, and the German tennis player was stuck in a hotel room in Melbourne, Australia, on Jan. 18 unable to even open the door for more than the time required to grab a bag of food left outside.But rather than mope about her inability to celebrate, or even to practice for the Australian Open because of a strictly enforced two-week quarantine, Kerber decided to make the best of it. So the 2016 Australian Open champion videotaped herself donning a fancy party dress, dipping strawberries in chocolate, opening a bottle of champagne and dancing around the room, all by herself.Because of the pandemic, athletes in Australia and around the world have had to make major adjustments to earn a living. Tennis players, who spend their lives on airplanes and in hotels, are among the most vulnerable.Players, including Angelique Kerber, and staff members were required to spend 14 days in quarantine after they arrived in Australia in accordance with tournament protocols.Credit…Daniel Pockett/Getty Images“These days, traveling is just an absolute nightmare,” said Reilly Opelka who, at 6-foot-11, struggles on long flights during the best of times. “With Covid, tests, quarantining and paperwork, it’s the biggest headache.”A year ago, the Australian Open was hit by the environmental effects of bushfires that ravaged the country. At Melbourne Park, where the tournament is played, haze and smoke from the nearby fires left some players gasping for air during their qualifying matches.If 2020 was jarring, the 2021 Australian Open, postponed by three weeks from its customary summer dates, seems apocalyptic.“Last year feels like 10 years ago,” said Rajeev Ram, who won the Australian Open men’s doubles title last year with Joe Salisbury. “Not only did we have the bushfires last year, but we had our first inklings that the coronavirus was becoming significant because some of our Chinese players weren’t able to go home. That now feels like forever ago.”This year, Ram was confined to his hotel room for 14 days from the moment his chartered flight from Los Angeles landed in Melbourne on Jan. 15. His coach, physiotherapist and Salisbury were just steps away in other single rooms, but physical contact was prohibited.Tennis players and support staff arriving at the Grand Hyatt hotel on Jan. 15.Credit…William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe original plan, as laid out by Tennis Australia, the governing body of the Australian Open, was for everyone associated with the tournament to fly into Melbourne on carefully orchestrated chartered flights from Los Angeles, Miami, Abu Dhabi (where a WTA tournament had just concluded), and Dubai and Doha, both sites of the Australian Open qualifying tournaments.Planes were just 20 percent full to allow for social distancing, and players, coaches and support staff members were tested for Covid-19 before takeoff. Players would quarantine for two weeks, though they were allowed out of their rooms for a total of five hours per day to practice, do physical training and eat at the tournament site.The intent was to keep everyone safe, including Australians, who have endured strict lockdown mandates. With Covid-19 positivity near zero in the country, fans are permitted to attend the Australian Open, though in limited numbers. Tickets are available for one of three zones, each containing one of the show courts, but fans are required to stay within their specific zone for the duration of the session.The Coronavirus Outbreak More