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      At Indian Wells, the Players Have a Playground of Their Own

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      To protect the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, the tournament’s founder took a “get off my lawn” approach so that tennis players could always count on getting on his lawn.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — More than $100 million has been spent building a tennis temple in the California desert with its two main stadiums, dozens of other courts, a gargantuan video wall, a courtyard full of restaurants and murals honoring past champions.But many players’ favorite spot at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden is the one place where the tournament built nothing at all.It is the player lawn: a big rectangle of natural grass just inside the west entrance that can serve as an outdoor gym, social nexus, soccer field, meditation center, makeshift television studio and children’s playground — sometimes all at the same time.“It’s funny, but I think when a lot of us are thinking about Indian Wells, it’s the lawn,” Marketa Vondrousova, a Czech star and a 2019 French Open finalist, said as she headed to the grass on Friday afternoon.The lawn, with its dramatic view of the Santa Rosa Mountains, is directly in the flow of traffic for the players: a transitional space between their restaurant and the practice courts.The player lawn is distinct because it allows fans to interact with the players, like Carlos Alcaraz, top, or Ben Shelton, above.“I love it,” said Holger Rune, the powerful Danish player already ranked in the top 10 at age 19. “I don’t know why more tournaments don’t do something like this.”It is not quite without parallel: the Miami Open, now held in cavernous Hard Rock Stadium, allows players the same sort of free rein on a stretch of the natural grass football field inside the main stadium that hosts the Dolphins.But the lawn at Indian Wells remains without peer, and what makes it so rare is that, unlike most player areas, it is in plain view of the public. Fans pile into the adjacent area known as “the corral” to chase autographs and photographs, or they fill up the bleachers and elevated walkway that form the border on two sides of the lawn.“It’s the zoo,” Marijn Bal, a leading agent and a vice president of IMG Tennis, said as he watched the fans observe player behavior and the players observe the fans.The concept was, in part, borrowed from golf, said Charlie Pasarell, a driving force behind the creation of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.Pasarell, 79, grew up in Puerto Rico and was a leading tennis player in the 1960s and 1970s, excelling at U.C.L.A. and on tour. But he made a bigger impact as a tournament director and entrepreneur, founding and elevating the Indian Wells event with his business partner, the retired South African tennis player Ray Moore. The Tennis Garden, built on barren land at an initial cost of $77 million, opened in 2000, giving the longstanding tournament a grander setting before it was sold in 2009 to the software billionaire Larry Ellison, guaranteeing that the event would remain in the United States.Maria Sakkari of Greece, left, and Iga Swiatek of Poland worked out on the lawn.Pasarell said the tournament was one of the first to make practice sessions a happening: constructing bleachers around the practice courts.“It reminded me of when you go to a golf tournament, and you go to the driving range where you have people watching the players hit balls and they put up stands and announce the players’ names,” Pasarell said. “I always wanted to do that here, and the players loved it, although there were a few like Martina Navratilova who wanted to keep their practices private.”The lawn was an extension of the open-access philosophy, even if Pasarell acknowledged that the space was created “a little bit by accident.”“We had this area, and all of the sudden, the players started using that as a place to do their roadwork and to stretch,” he said. “One day somebody got a soccer ball and started kicking it so we put up soccer nets.”A few years after the Tennis Garden opened, it was continuing to expand, and Pasarell said there was a serious proposal to build another show court on the lawn.“I said, ‘Do not touch that grass!’” Pasarell said. “They were saying we could build a real nice clubhouse court there, and I said, ‘This is really important.’ And I was able to convince them, and so far, so good. I mean the players love that area, and it just sort of evolved into a great thing for the tournament.”The lawn has been used for competition: above all pickup soccer. Rafael Nadal scored at the 2012 tournament in a game that also included Novak Djokovic.An elevated walkway forms a border on one side of the lawn.Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece played soccer on the lawn. Pickup games sometimes break out on the lawn.But above all, it is used for warming up for practices and matches, and to spend a few hours watching players and their increasingly large support teams come and go is to realize how the game has changed.The warm-ups are now dynamic: full of quick-fire footwork combined with hand-eye challenges. Bianca Andreescu, the Canadian who won the Indian Wells title in 2019, was balancing on one leg on Friday, leaning forward and catching a small soccer ball with one hand. Aryna Sabalenka, the imposing Belarusian who won this year’s Australian Open, was running side by side with her fitness trainer as they tossed a medicine ball to each other.Pierre Paganini, the cerebral longtime fitness coach for Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka, popularized this approach, tailoring exercises to fit precisely with the complex demands of tennis. The emphasis was on repeating short bursts of speed and effort to mimic the rhythm of a match.During Andreescu’s warm-up, she quick-stepped through a sequence of cones that were of different colors, reacting to her coach Christophe Lambert’s call of “red” by quickly moving to the red cone.“It’s a lot more professional,” said Michael Russell, a former tour-level pro now coaching Taylor Fritz, the top-ranked American man at No. 5. “Everybody is doing dynamic warm-ups. Some might go 15 minutes. Some might go 30. But there’s a lot more preparation and bigger teams also.”Reflecting that, players often navigated the lawn in small packs, typically in groups of four.Jabeur, right, in a training session with a member of her team.“There’s the physio, the strength and conditioning coach and the coach,” Russell said. “So, you have teams of three or four people whereas before it was just the coach, and they would use the physios provided by the tournaments. But now with increased prize money, more players can have bigger teams of their own.”The added support has extended careers but also the workday. “It’s getting longer and longer,” said Thomas Johansson, the 2002 Australian Open champion who coaches Sorana Cirstea of Romania. “When I played here, if we started at 11 a.m., maybe we left the hotel at 10:20, got here at 10:35 and ran back and forth two or three times, swung my arms a little bit and then you were ready. Now, some who play at 11 are starting their warm-up at 9:30. It’s a different world now, and it’s positive because now you know how to eat, drink, train and recover, but you have to find the balance. You cannot live with your tennis 24/7 or you burn out.”But at least life on the lawn is not all about tennis. It’s a place where Ben Shelton, the rising American player and former youth quarterback, can throw a football 60 yards. A place where the Belarusian star Victoria Azarenka’s 6-year-old son Leo can run free with other players’ children or with players like his mother’s friend Ons Jabeur. A place where Vondrousova can juggle a soccer ball with her team, shrieking with mock horror when it finally strikes the ground.“Today’s record was 84,” she said on Friday, a day that she did not have a match but still chose to spend some quality time in pro tennis’s version of a public park.“Thank God we didn’t build on it,” Pasarell said.Leylah Fernandez of Canada played soccer during last year’s competition. More

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      The Carlos Alcaraz Show Returns to Raves

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      The 2022 U.S. Open champion, Alcaraz battled injuries in fall and winter. At Indian Wells, he is nearly at full power, dominating opponents and dazzling fans.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — It’s a pretty easygoing crowd at the BNP Paribas Open in the heart of the Coachella Valley.Spectators soak up the sun. They wander the grounds while gazing at the mountains. They drink cheap beer priced expensively. Sometimes they watch tennis. Often they don’t.And then Saturday night rolled around, and just about every seat in Stadium 1 was occupied on a breezy night in the desert that was chilly enough for puffer jackets.Carlos Alcaraz was in the house, tender hamstring and all, trying to deliver this tournament — and really the sport itself — the kind of juice that only he seems able to deliver these days, especially with Rafael Nadal sidelined with an injury and Novak Djokovic prohibited from entering the United States because of his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19.To do that, though, Alcaraz, the 19-year-old Spanish star, needs to be on the court, and that has not happened much since he blasted his way to his first Grand Slam title and the No. 1 ranking at the U.S. Open in New York last September.That effort required a series of marathon matches, including one that lasted until nearly 3 in the morning. He has been mostly hobbling ever since. He battled an abdominal injury through the fall. Then, in his final practice before his scheduled journey to the Australian Open, he pulled a hamstring as he sprinted and stretched to reach a short ball.Alcaraz, whose foot-on-the-gas style may make him more prone to injuries, like his compatriot Nadal, returned to play two small tournaments last month in South America. He won the title in Buenos Aires. Then, in Rio de Janeiro, he made the final but aggravated his hamstring midway through his three-set loss to Cameron Norrie of Britain. He pulled out of his next tournament, in Acapulco, to rest for Indian Wells, where tournament organizers fretting over the loss of Nadal and Djokovic were praying that Alcaraz could recover in time.“The tennis insiders knew that there was this new kid, maybe the next Rafa,” Tommy Haas, the German former pro who is the tournament director here, said of Alcaraz in the tense days before the start of the tournament. “And all of a sudden he just has a blowout year and becomes the youngest No. 1 of all time and you go, ‘How is this possible, and how amazing is he to watch?’”There are a handful of players that can make an early-round match feel like a big event, and Alcaraz did so on Saturday night as he ambushed Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia and won in straight sets.Iga Swiatek of Poland, the women’s No. 1, had played in the afternoon in a mostly empty stadium. Taylor Fritz, the defending champion and top American, and Ben Shelton, also an American and the young season’s brightest surprise, then dueled in a tight, three-set battle that filled a good majority of the Stadium 1 seats. But it was nothing compared with the packed crowd that Alcaraz drew for the night’s final match.Even Jimmy Connors, who knows something about putting on a show, stuck around, sitting high in the stadium in the media seats. Alcaraz was at it again on Monday night, playing in the headliner’s spot — albeit in front of a thinner, school night crowd — against Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands. The basketball great and tennis obsessive Dirk Nowitzki was courtside.Alcaraz made a nearly unreachable shot against Tallon Griekspoor on Monday.Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThere is that crackling forehand that sounds different from everyone else’s, more like an ax splitting a log than polyester strings thumping a fuzzy ball. There are all the desperate sprints after nearly out-of-reach balls that so many players ignore. He has the most delicate and deceptive drop shot and stinging volleys.When a willowy drop shot clipped the tape and trickled just over the sideline, he twisted in anguish. How dare the gravity and subtle currents of the desert air conspire to interfere with his attempts at perfection.“I try to make the people enjoy watching tennis,” Alcaraz said after his first win. “And I think the way that I play, they love it.”He will play Jack Draper of Britain in the round of 16 Tuesday evening.The game wears on many younger players. The pressure of expectations, the constant attention and the relentless schedule have toppled top talents, either temporarily, in the case of Nick Kyrgios, or permanently. A year ago, Ashleigh Barty retired as the world No. 1 at 25.There are also players a few years older than Alcaraz who have flirted with his level, or achieved it, only to fall back before fans could get on the bandwagon.Daniil Medvedev won the U.S. Open in 2021 and rose to the top spot in the rankings early last year but won just two minor titles. At the moment, he is on a 16-match winning streak. Stefanos Tsitsipas has made two Grand Slam finals, but nerves and Djokovic got the better of him both times.As for the players who are of Alcaraz’s vintage, they know his early success has set a standard that will be hard to match.“I will try,” Lorenzo Musetti of Italy, who is 21 and grew up playing in junior tournaments with Alcaraz, said unconvincingly with a shake of his head after his second-round loss here over the weekend.So far, Alcaraz has seemed immune to the usual anxieties. His approach?“Live the moment, play the match, and go for it,” he said.Alcaraz has had some help this week in producing the kind of buzz the sport is always seeking. Emma Raducanu of England, who won the 2021 U.S. Open as a qualifier, has gone on a roll, winning three consecutive matches for just the second time since her breakout Grand Slam win.The success has come largely out of nowhere. Raducanu, who last month deleted Instagram from her phone to better focus on herself, has been battling injuries and illnesses, most recently a wrist problem. She hardly prepared for this tournament and didn’t practice for four days ahead of her first match.But on Monday afternoon against Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil, the 13th seed, Raducanu was once more whipping her lethal forehands into the corners and rolling her windmill backhand with a freedom that had been largely absent for the past year. And she was doing it in front of a raucous field-court crowd, just like in the not-so-old days of the 2021 U.S. Open. She was scheduled to play Swiatek on Tuesday in a matchup between the two most recent U.S. Open champions.“I did a really good job mentally of just staying, you know, keep hitting through the shots and trying to be committing to everything, even when it’s tight,” she said after her three-set win.In other words, what the player everyone now calls Carlito plans to do on Tuesday night against Draper, who at 21 may be a rival for long time.“I’m going to enjoy it,” Alcaraz said.More than likely, so will pretty much everyone watching. More

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      Emma Raducanu was ASLEEP in treatment room two minutes before winning return at Indian Wells

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      TIRED Emma Raducanu has revealed she was ASLEEP two minutes before starting her first tennis match in two months.The Brit was having a quick SNOOZE just moments before she took to the Indian Wells court to face Danka Kovinic of Montenegro on Thursday night in the California desert.
      Emma Raducanu was sleeping just two minutes before her win over Danka KovinicCredit: Getty
      Indeed, the 20-year-old says she only made a decision to play the first-round contest about “20 minutes before” due to wrist pain that had bothered her in the build-up.
      Raducanu’s previous match had been against American Coco Gauff on January 18 in the Australian Open second round and since then she had a bout of tonsillitis.
      Raducanu – who was heard repeatedly coughing into her towel during changerovers – said: “I just woke up (on Thursday) feeling not great to be honest. I felt quite ill.
      “Before the match I did not warm up. Two minutes before I was called (to the court) I was sleeping in the treatment room. I’m just proud to have got out there and win.
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      “The wrists were manageable not 100%. But I think we’re trying to find some good strategies to manage the pain.”
      Raducanu, who is positioned 77th on the WTA world rankings, will play Poland’s Magda Linette on Saturday.
      Yet there is a danger she could drop out of the world’s top 100 come Wimbledon if results don’t pick up.
      To her credit, she has buckled down in training and done plenty of physical conditioning back in London these past few weeks.
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      BETTING SPECIAL – BEST SPORTS BETTING APPS IN THE UK
      Raducanu says she has tried to stay off social media and messaging services to clean her mind as she tries to kick-start her career after a dip following the 2021 US Open fairy tale.
      There have been seven messages on her Instagram account – to her 2.5million followers – since leaving Melbourne
      But four of those are linked to sponsors and it is likely they have been posted by her management team for contractual reasons.
      The Kent youngster said: “After the AO (Australian Open) I just deleted WhatsApp and Instagram off my phone. I’ve just been living under my own little rock.
      “Because I felt like it. Sometimes you go through some patches where you feel like you just want to zone in on yourself.
      “I was very content with my life, what I was doing without it.
      “That is a part of social media. I feel that it affects you.
      “But I think that I’ve just learned regardless of what you do – if you do good, if you do bad – people are going to come at you regardless.
      “So now it doesn’t really bother me so much. I don’t really let it affect me.”
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      Andy Murray required three hours and three sets before winning 6-7 6-1 6-4 against Argentine Tomas Martin Etcheverry at the BNP Paribas Open on Thursday.
      The Scot, 35, will now face Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain in the last 64 and the winner of that tie will take on a Brit — either Jack Draper or Dan Evans. More

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      CVC Capital Partners Will Invest $150 Million in WTA

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      CVC Capital Partners, the former owner of Formula 1, will take a 20 percent stake in a commercial subsidiary as the tour seeks to expand its marketing of events and players and increase prize money.SAN DIEGO — CVC Capital Partners, a global private equity firm that once owned the Formula 1 racing series and has remained a major sports investor, is joining forces with women’s professional tennis.The WTA announced Tuesday that CVC had become a commercial partner after making a $150 million investment that would give CVC a 20 percent stake in a new commercial subsidiary named WTA Ventures. The subsidiary will focus on generating revenue by managing, for example, sponsorship sales as well as broadcasting and data rights.“Hopefully this partnership will allow us to begin addressing that valley between the commercial rights that we are able to secure and the rights that the men are able to secure,” Steve Simon, the WTA’s chairman and chief executive, said in a telephone interview from Indian Wells, Calif., where the BNP Paribas Open is set to begin this week.Though prize money is equal for men and women at the four Grand Slam events, the gap in prize money for many stand-alone men’s and women’s events has widened in recent years. The chasm reached the highest levels in 20 years in 2022, with the men earning on average about 70 percent more than the women outside the majors.Last year, the ATP Finals, the season-ending championships on the men’s tour, offered $14.75 million in prize money. The equivalent women’s event, the WTA Finals, offered $5 million, with Iga Swiatek, the No. 1 women’s singles player, expressing disappointment at the disparity.The WTA has lost significant revenue because of the lack of tournaments in China. The tour had a major presence there and had signed a lucrative 10-year deal to stage the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, which offered $14 million in prize money in its first year as host in 2019. But China has canceled most professional sports events since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and the WTA suspended all Chinese tournaments in late 2021 because of the allegations of sexual assault made by Peng Shuai, a Chinese former player who remains in China.The WTA has said it will not reinstate Chinese tournaments until it can have direct contact with Peng and a full and transparent investigation is conducted by the Chinese authorities into her allegations.Simon said on Monday that neither condition had been met and that the WTA was continuing to explore a multiyear deal to stage the WTA Finals in other cities in case the China window remains closed.“We will make a decision at the end of this month how we are going to proceed,” he said.Simon said he hoped the new CVC partnership would lead to a near-term increase in prize money at tour events. “You certainly will see a plan with respect to that, which will be forthcoming,” he said.But above all, he said, CVC’s investment will allow the tour to invest more in marketing the women’s game and in producing or commissioning media programming that will raise the profiles of players and tournaments.“To tell the story and to build the brand and to get directly to the consumer, which are some of the key things I think we have to do a better job of than we do today to enhance the commercial results,” Simon said. “As we improve the commercial results, things like player compensation become a lot easier discussion.”Simon said most of the WTA’s current rights deals would expire in 2026. He declined to disclose a timetable for when the tour would receive CVC’s $150 million investment.“But it’s certainly not something that is a drip effect,” he said. “We have significant funding coming in that’s going to allow us to invest over the next several years at levels we’ve never been able to before.”Iga Swiatek, the No. 1 player in women’s singles, expressed disappointment in the disparity in the prize money offered at the ATP Finals and the WTA Finals last season.Karim Sahib/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSimon said the CVC deal was not directly linked to the lost Chinese revenue. “This hasn’t been done because of China,” he said. “I have had the concept for many years of bringing in some capital investment into our company, which I felt we needed to go to the next level.”But Simon was only recently able to get support for the move from the WTA board, and he emphasized repeatedly that the WTA still had autonomy despite the CVC deal.“The way we set all this up, WTA Tour Inc. is not touched,” he said. “The WTA still controls 100 percent all of the governance, regulatory and calendar issues.”But he acknowledged that tour and CVC officials would communicate to ensure that WTA decisions did not hurt commercial opportunities.“Absolutely we will,” he said. “But the WTA has complete control of both entities and can make the decisions it feels are in its best interest.”CVC will have no representative on the WTA board, but it will have two of the eight seats on the new WTA Ventures board, which will be chaired by Simon.CVC, based in Luxembourg, was founded in 1981 and has 25 offices worldwide and more than $100 billion under management. The WTA investment is relatively modest compared with the more than $2 billion it spent in 2021 to acquire a 10 percent stake in the commercial arm of La Liga, Spain’s leading soccer league. CVC also paid more than $700 million in 2021 to acquire the Ahmedabad cricket franchise in the Indian Premier League and about $500 million more the same year to take a 14.3 percent stake in the Six Nations rugby union series. CVC agreed to sell its controlling ownership stake in Formula 1 to the American company Liberty Media in 2016.Tennis has had some spectacular misfires with outside investors. In 1999, ISL Worldwide, a Switzerland-based marketing company, signed a 10-year agreement for $1.2 billion with the ATP that fell apart two years later. In 2018, the International Tennis Federation signed a 25-year, $3 billion deal with Kosmos, a Spanish investment group, that led to radical changes in the Davis Cup team event, but the partnership imploded this year.CVC has held talks with the ATP, but its tennis investment is only in the women’s game. For now.Simon continues to favor convergence and has even expressed interest in a merger between the ATP and the WTA at some stage.“If we can ever get to the point where we could bring it all together, this agreement with CVC allows for that to happen,” Simon said. More

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      How Tennis and Djokovic Are Pushing Against the U.S. Covid Vaccine Rule

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      Djokovic, the world No. 1, who is unvaccinated against Covid-19, has lobbied the Biden administration for an exemption so he can play at Indian Wells and the Miami Open. So far, he has come up short.Late last month, Novak Djokovic and the tight group of managers and coaches who help run the life of the world’s best male tennis player, realized they had a problem.Djokovic had recovered from the hamstring tear he suffered in January, just ahead of the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam event of the year. He won the tournament, of course, but with his injury healed he was ready to return to the ATP Tour. The next two important tournaments were in the United States, which does not allow foreigners who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 into the country.The rule, which even some staunchly pro-vaccine experts say is obsolete, has been in effect since late 2021. It includes certain exemptions, but it wasn’t exactly clear how Djokovic, who is unvaccinated against Covid-19 and has long said that vaccination should be an individual’s choice, might qualify for a waiver. He desperately wanted to play, and so began a flurry of phone calls and lobbying of people Djokovic and his team knew who might have connections to the Biden administration, including Billie Jean King, one of the game’s greats.The process, for now, has proved unsuccessful, but it is likely to continue in the coming weeks as the tennis tour shifts from the BNP Paribas Open, which begins this week in Indian Wells, Calif., to the Miami Open, which starts later this month. If nothing changes, professional tennis, which is already missing the injured Rafael Nadal, figures to be without its biggest stars during its most significant swing through North America before the U.S. Open in late summer. That is a major blow for a sport battling to find its way following the retirements of Roger Federer and Serena Williams and as Nadal has struggled with injuries since the middle of last year.Andrea Gaudenzi, chairman of the ATP Tour, called the necessity of Djokovic’s withdrawal from the BNP Paribas Open a “big disappointment.”“The decision is unfortunate not only for him but for our tournaments and fans, especially given the easing of Covid-19 restrictions around the world and in the U.S.,” Gaudenzi said. “He is the No. 1 player in the world and everyone in tennis wishes for him to have a chance to compete at our biggest events.”One chance ended Sunday night when a spokesman for Indian Wells put out a two-sentence statement.“World No. 1 Novak Djokovic has withdrawn from the 2023 BNP Paribas Open. With his withdrawal, Nikoloz Basilashvili moves into the field.”A spokesman for Djokovic did not return an email message, nor did his longtime manager, Edoardo Artaldi.It was the moment that Tommy Haas, a former world No. 2 who is the tournament director for Indian Wells, had been working to avoid for more than a week.“He could just be saying, ‘Listen, I’m just going to focus on the French Open and Wimbledon, trying to surpass Nadal,” Haas said last week of Djokovic, who is tied with Nadal with 22 Grand Slam singles titles. “But here he is playing in Dubai and finding a way to win and wanting to come to Indian Wells and Miami.”The efforts that went into trying to get Djokovic, the Serbian tennis star, into the country were described by four people who work in tennis, the U.S. government, and with Djokovic, several of whom requested anonymity so as not to jeopardize their relationships with the Biden administration.The only criteria Djokovic could have met to receive an exemption involved proving that his presence in the United States “would be in the national interest, as determined by the Secretary of State, Secretary of Transportation, or Secretary of Homeland Security (or their designees),” according to the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Djokovic and Artaldi both reached out directly to Ken Solomon, the chief executive of the Tennis Channel and a major fund-raiser for both President Biden and the former President Barack Obama. Solomon began calling top Biden administration officials to plead Djokovic’s case, arguing that barring him from the U.S. was unfair and that Djokovic’s presence would significantly bolster attendance at Indian Wells and the economies of the Coachella Valley and South Florida.“Nearly a million fans attend over their combined near four weeks in Southern California then Miami, and the economic impact means many millions in revenue for these local communities, which if successful in attracting fans will either prosper or otherwise cost people jobs,” Solomon said Monday.Djokovic lost in the fourth round at the Miami Open in 2019, the last time he played in the tournament.Rhona Wise/EPA, via ShutterstockHe said letting Djokovic into the U.S. had nothing to do with him being more important than others and that athletes have often received special considerations because of fans and “the larger history and greater good sports represent.”King, who worked with the Biden administration last year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark legislation that guarantees girls and women in America equal opportunity in sports, reached out to her contacts at the White House on his behalf. The Professional Tennis Players Association, the fledgling organization that Djokovic has spearheaded since 2020, worked its contacts, too.IMG, the sports and entertainment conglomerate that represents Djokovic, enlisted its government relations and immigration teams, which often work with the government on regulatory matters and to ensure entry for its foreign clients under routine circumstances.For IMG, the interest goes beyond its relationship with Djokovic. The company owns the Miami Open. IMG executives reached out to Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, who along with Senator Rick Scott, another Florida Republican, wrote a letter urging the Biden administration to end the vaccination requirement.One person who did not get involved is Ari Emanuel, the chief executive of Endeavor, which owns IMG. Emanuel’s brother, Rahm Emanuel, was chief of staff to Obama during his first term. His other brother, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, was a health policy adviser in the Obama White House. While Ari Emanuel may eventually get involved on Djokovic’s behalf, it’s not clear whether that would help. It could also backfire, causing the Biden administration to worry about the optics of doing a favor for someone with access to the highest levels of the government.For Haas and others who support Djokovic, and even some experts on infectious diseases, the continued ban on unvaccinated foreign travelers remains baffling. There is no requirement to receive boosters. So anyone who two years ago received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which was only moderately effective and whose health benefits have likely long since lapsed, is able to enter the country, but unvaccinated individuals are not, even if they test negative before boarding a flight.Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, is a huge proponent of the vaccine, for the health of those who are vaccinated and everyone around them, but she acknowledged a vaccination from two years ago would probably provide little protection today. Also, she said it’s unlikely that a rule like the one in place would compel more unvaccinated individuals to get vaccinated.“If they haven’t done it by now, I don’t know if it will provide any inducement,” she said.A spokesman for the C.D.C. said last month that the rule is the result of a presidential proclamation that is separate from the health emergency provisions that the Biden administration plans to end on May 11. The travel rule will end only when President Biden decides to lift it.The Biden administration has said it will defer to health experts regarding its decision on this rule and all other policies related to Covid-19. More

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      With Indian Wells Days Away, Novak Djokovic Hopes for a Miracle

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      The world No. 1, Djokovic remains unvaccinated against Covid-19 and still cannot enter the United States without an exemption. He has asked for one and is awaiting an answer.Novak Djokovic, last seen winning the Australian Open with a three-centimeter tear in his hamstring, has been back on the tennis court this week, steaming his way through the field in Dubai like he usually does.But as the tennis calendar gets serious again, with two of the most significant tournaments outside the Grand Slams scheduled to be held in California and Miami later this month, the Djokovic train seems destined to screech to a halt.Djokovic, once again the world’s No. 1 men’s singles player, desperately wants to play next week at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and later this month at the Miami Open. In recent weeks, he requested an exemption from the rule prohibiting people who are not permanent residents of the United States from entering the country if they have not been vaccinated against Covid-19.To the great consternation of Djokovic and some of the biggest names in the sport, it’s not going well, and time is running out for Djokovic to withdraw from the tournament before his not being able to play leaves a giant hole in the top quadrant of the bracket.John McEnroe, the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion and a television commentator, has called Djokovic’s inability to play in the U.S. “absurd.” If President Biden does not change his mind — and that is what it would take at this point — Djokovic must withdraw by Sunday or a player ranked about 100 spots lower may end up taking his favored spot on the draw sheet, Tommy Haas, the tournament director for Indian Wells, said in an interview on Wednesday.Haas, a former world No. 2 who is from Germany, has been lobbying multiple organizations to try to find a way to get Djokovic into the U.S. The United States Tennis Association has been in touch with its government contacts but has stopped short of formally lobbying on Djokovic’s behalf.“Novak’s situation is obviously frustrating for us,” Haas said. “We want the best tennis player in the world to be here. He’s writing me, he wants to be here. So of course, you’re like, OK, let’s try to make this happen. How can we figure this out that’s going to be realistic? But at the end of the day, unfortunately, that’s not in our hands and that’s what’s frustrating.”A spokesman for Djokovic did not respond to an email seeking comment. Djokovic said earlier this week that he was still awaiting a ruling on his request for an exemption.“Everything is currently in the process,” Djokovic said late last month in Belgrade, Serbia. “I have a big desire to be there.Djokovic, who has won at Indian Wells five times, has not explained why he believes he should qualify for an exemption. He is not vaccinated but the only reason he has ever given for his choice is that he believes people should have the right to decide whether to get vaccinated.The Djokovic situation isn’t the only bothersome development for the Indian Wells tournament.Rafael Nadal, who is still recovering from a leg injury he sustained in the second round of the Australian Open, withdrew earlier this week. Nadal hates missing Indian Wells, and not only because he has won the tournament three times. Nadal often stays at the home of Larry Ellison, the founder of the tech company Oracle who owns the tournament, and Nadal also gets to play plenty of golf in downtime.In another worrisome development for both Indian Wells and tennis, during a match in Rio de Janeiro last weekend, Carlos Alcaraz, the 19-year-old Spanish sensation, aggravated the hamstring pull that kept him out of the Australian Open. The injury forced him to pull out of a tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, this week. Alcaraz thrilled crowds as he won the U.S. Open in September, the last time he competed in America.Carlos Alcaraz of Spain has been dealing with a hamstring injury and may not play at Indian Wells.Bruna Prado/Associated PressEven without some of the biggest stars, Indian Wells will always be one the highlights on the schedule. Players repeatedly rank the tournament among the best in the world. It is a destination for locals and tourists. The snow seems to have cleared out of Southern California for now. The overwhelming majority of the roughly half-million fans who attend the two-week event (including qualifying) come from outside the Palm Springs area.It also helps that tennis in the United States is in the midst of a small boom. The U.S.T.A. announced last month that participation grew in 2022 for the third consecutive year, with more than one million new participants. Overall, 23.6 million people played tennis at least once in 2022, an increase of 5.9 million, or 33 percent, since the start of 2020, when the pandemic drove hordes of new and lapsed players back to the sport.And yet, barring a last-minute change in policy or a decision to grant an exemption, the man who plays the sport better than anyone won’t be there.It’s not clear why Djokovic believes he might qualify for an exemption. The only criteria he would seem to be able to meet involves proving that getting vaccinated would be harmful to his health or that his presence in the United States “would be in the national interest, as determined by the Secretary of State, Secretary of Transportation, or Secretary of Homeland Security (or their designees),” according to the website for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill rescinding the vaccination requirement 227-203, with seven Democrats joining all Republicans voting in favor. Supporters of the bill said the U.S. policy is out of step with the rest of the world, where vaccination requirements for foreigners have largely gone away. The Senate has not voted on the matter, which, according to the C.D.C., will not end automatically in May when the Biden administration plans to end the Covid-19 national and public health emergencies declared in 2020.Ending the vaccination requirement for foreign travelers will most likely require a separate order from President Biden ending the presidential proclamation that put it into effect.Haas, the Indian Wells tournament director, said there is a silver lining to the absences of Djokovic, Nadal and possibly Alcaraz, at least for the other players.“If I’m like a young American coming up, I’m like, listen this is my time to hold up the trophy,” Haas said. “Now from my point of view as the tournament director and one of the best players can’t compete here, it’s obviously a sad thing, a frustrating thing.” More

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      in Soccer

      Pelayo Novo dead aged 32: Spanish football star who was paralysed from hotel fall dies after being ‘hit by a train’

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      EX-SPANISH footballer Pelayo Novo has died aged 32 after reportedly being hit by a train.Novo had turned to wheelchair tennis five years ago after an horrific fall from the third-floor of his team’s hotel.
      Tragic Pelayo Novo played for second-tier Spanish clubsCredit: Getty
      Novo, pictured at the British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships in Nottingham last July, has died after another horrific incidentCredit: Getty
      Spanish media said on Tuesday night the former second-tier midfielder was crushed to death by a train in Oviedo.
      Novo was a second-tier midfielder for Elche, Cordoba, Lugo and Albacete – and also briefly turned out for Romanian side CFR Cluj
      And tributes from past clubs, as well as teams he was connected with, have poured in.
      Real Oviedo posted a message on Twitter.

      It read: “With a broken heart. We deeply regret the death of Pelayo Novo, captain of our Foundation. Family, friends: we are with you. Rest in peace Pelayo.”
      A statement from Cordoba read: “We deeply regret the death of our former player Pelayo Novo at the age of 32.
      “He will always remain in the memory of the Cordobesistas, since a cross of his made us ‘touch the sky in Las Tendillas’.Our sincere condolences to family and friends.”
      Novo was 27 when he was seriously hurt after falling from Albacete’s team hotel in the North Eastern city of Huesca in March 2018.
      Most read in Football
      He spent 51 days in a Zaragoza hospital following that accident.
      And when he was moved to the Toledo National Paraplegic Hospital he captured hearts with his attitude once he realised he’d never play football again.
      He became an ambassador for professional and aspiring disabled athletes in his country.
      Novo discovered a love for wheelchair tennis and eventually became a member of the board of directors of the Asturian Tennis Federation.
      He was also an active player who entered competitions and played at the Open de Catalunya most recently.
      Novo was seen as an inspiration for disabled sports people.
      Talking about his accident, a few years ago he said: “The human being adapts to the circumstances that he has.
      “It is logical that it takes time because there are times when it is bad.
      Read More on The Sun
      “I managed to get out of that and now I am having a great time.”
      Now the world of Spanish sport is trying to comprehend his tragic death following a second horrifying incident. More

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      in Tennis

      Diana Shnaider Is Mixing College Tennis With the Pro Tour, for Now

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      A freshman at North Carolina State, Shnaider, a Russian, is the first woman ranked in the top 100 of the pro game to play college tennis since 1993.Last August, Diana Shnaider, a teenage tennis player from Russia, was traveling solo in Europe with a world-class forehand but no working bank card because of financial sanctions against her country. She had to pay for hotels, flights and food with cash.Last week, she led the North Carolina State women’s tennis team, which is ranked ninth in Division I, to a victory over second-ranked Ohio State.“Things were bad, but they’re better now,” Shnaider said on Wednesday on a video call from Columbus, Ohio.Shnaider, a left-hander with a flashy and powerful style of play, has found stability in the game, even though many observers never believed she would choose college tennis over playing on the professional tour full time. The skeptics included her college coach, Simon Earnshaw.“I didn’t think she was going to come,” Earnshaw said in a telephone interview. “But she’s kind of unique. As an 18-year-old, she’s still a kid, but she’s very clear on how she sees the game and what’s important to her and what’s not important to her. And, really, the only thing that’s important to her is, ‘How do I get better?’”When she arrived in Raleigh, N.C., last summer, she ranked 249th on the WTA Tour in singles. She is up to 90th after a surge in Australia, where she qualified for her first Grand Slam singles tournament, the Australian Open, and lost in the second round to sixth-seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.Shnaider has big weapons in her slashing forehand and serve. She has quick feet and an attacking mentality that has been there since she learned the game in Tolyatti, across the Volga River from Zhigulevsk, her hometown. She moved to Moscow at age 9 with her family to find better training opportunities.“I never wanted to be a pusher,” she said. “I was always like: ‘OK, here’s the shot. I’m killing it.’”At the Australian Open, her fist pumps and celebratory shouts rattled Sakkari, who thought they were directed at her. Shnaider said that was a misunderstanding and that she was shouting toward her team in the player’s box on Sakkari’s side of the court.Shnaider said her run in Australia — and the more than $140,000 in prize money that came with it — did not make her rethink her decision to play in college, even if it has been tough for her to read harsh criticism of it on social media.“I understand with my mind that I’m doing everything right, but of course when people say mean things it goes to my heart and soul,” she said. “But I’m trying to just go my own way.”Shnaider, shown at the Australian Open in January, is undefeated in women’s singles at North Carolina State.Joel Carrett/EPA, via ShutterstockShnaider is the first woman ranked in the top 100 in singles to play college tennis since 1993, when the American Lisa Raymond played at Florida. Shnaider has gone undefeated in singles matches this season for N.C. State, which is not a traditional college tennis power. But the Wolfpack are 7-1 and undefeated with Shnaider in the lineup.“She’s the best player to play college tennis in a while, for sure,” said Geoff Macdonald, the former women’s coach at Vanderbilt.The American college game has resumed being a pathway to professional success in recent years with college standouts like Cameron Norrie, Jennifer Brady and Danielle Collins making successful transitions. But what separates Shnaider from them is that she made inroads in the pro game before college. (N.C.A.A. rules allow players to use prize money to cover their documented tennis expenses at any time during that same calendar year, but they must donate any excess to remain eligible.)Shnaider’s decision was partly because of geopolitics: It allowed her to establish a base in the United States while her country is viewed as a pariah in much of the West.“I think 100 percent her being Russian made the difference,” David Secker, an N.C. State assistant coach, said.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 brought sanctions against Russians. For tennis players, the sanctions complicated travel and training, and raised the possibility of Russian players being excluded from tournaments (to date, Wimbledon has been the only major individual event to do so).Shnaider, who split with her coach in June, wanted to ensure she could keep playing competitively and improve on hardcourts. Her best results had come on clay.“I was really afraid and thinking what will I do sitting in Russia without coach and without matches?” she said.Before committing to N.C. State, she had to overcome her doubts. “I thought it would mean like I’m quitting the tennis, the professional career,” she said.Her father, Maksim, who helped shape her game, was against it. But her mother, Julia, a trained pianist more focused on education, pushed for it and helped make the initial contact with Secker last April through a Russian family in the United States.Secker, like Earnshaw, was skeptical that Shnaider was serious about attending college, but he organized a video call and then met with Shnaider and her mother at the French Open in June. The family remained divided on the issue, however, and Shnaider, when she was back on the road, kept having emotional phone calls with her parents.“I was in the middle of nowhere, and I was like, this is not helping me,” Shnaider said. “And my dad was like, this is your decision, so make your first whole decision by yourself.”It would be N.C. State. Bureaucratic issues made her wait five days in Warsaw for her student visa, and she sprinted down a hall at the U.S. Embassy to collect it before closing time on a Friday. But she made it to the United States a few days before the U.S. Open junior tournament and reached the semifinals of the girls’ event in singles and won in doubles with Lucie Havlickova.But Shnaider remained athletically ineligible. She had signed a contract with Wesport, a management agency in Sweden, and, Earnshaw said, the N.C.A.A. needed to examine the agreement to ensure that any payments she had received were in exchange for the use of her name, image and likeness, which is now permitted by the N.C.A.A.The process took nearly five months to resolve. “It was extremely protracted frustration,” Earnshaw said.Shnaider got clearance on Feb. 3, the day before a home match with Oklahoma. Though she has gone undefeated in singles with the team, she has been pleasantly surprised by the level of play. For example, she had to save a match point before defeating Sydni Ratliff of Ohio State.“I was worried I was going to lose time and lose my motivation,” Shnaider said of playing college tennis. But she noted that has not happened. “I’m getting out of my apartment at 8 a.m., coming back at 8 p.m., and I’m passed out.”She is about to start juggling college tennis and tour tennis, competing at the WTA event in Monterrey, Mexico, where the main draw starts Monday. Then comes the qualifying event at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. Going deep at either tournament will mean she is likely to miss some college matches.“I would say logistics is the biggest challenge for Diana,” Secker said. “And I also think doubt is a huge part because I think there’s always this doubt that if I’m playing a college match, am I missing out on an opportunity in the pro game? If I’m playing pro, am I letting down my team in some way?”For at least a few more months, Shnaider will try to do justice to both worlds, but the challenge pales in comparison to taking on the satellite circuit last year with no chaperone or modern means of payment. When she won a title in Istanbul, the organizers had to give her the nearly $9,000 in prize money in cash.“I was like, what am I supposed to do with that?” she said holding her right thumb and index finger far apart to show the size of the stack of bank notes. “I was so careful.”At other times, she said, she barely had enough cash to pay for a night’s hotel.“My parents were feeling really insecure for me,” she said. “My mom was like, ‘Don’t carry your passport, don’t go outside, don’t speak Russian, just stay in the hotel.’ Because she just didn’t know what people can do.” More