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      Serena Williams Will Play Danka Kovinic at U.S. Open on Monday

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      Williams, who has said the Open is most likely her final tournament, will play 80th-ranked Danka Kovinic in the first round on Monday.Unseeded and ranked No. 608, the great Serena Williams could have been drawn to face all manner of opposition in the opening round of her farewell U.S. Open.She could have played any of the 32 seeds, including the No. 1 seed, Iga Swiatek, or the No. 7 seed and her longtime rival, Simona Halep, now working with Williams’s former coach Patrick Mouratoglou.Williams could have had a U.S. Open rematch with Naomi Osaka or Bianca Andreescu, both of whom have beaten her in recent U.S. Open finals. She could have matched up, for the first and final time, with Coco Gauff, an 18-year-old American star who chose tennis in part because Williams was such an inspiring and dominant champion.Or, most poignantly, Serena could have faced the deeply symbolic and forever-conflicted prospect of playing her big sister Venus Williams one last time in the tournament in which both came of age — to put their enduring excellence in perspective — in a different century.But tennis draws are roulette wheels, and Thursday’s game of chance in New York delivered Danka Kovinic, a first-round opponent lacking resonance and the intimidation factor but hardly lacking the ability to snuff out Serena Williams’s last chance at a last hurrah.Kovinic, an unseeded 27-year-old Montenegrin who trains in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, is ranked just 80th in the world and has lost her last five singles matches on tour. But Williams, who turns 41 on Sept. 26, is ranked far below Kovinic at this late stage of her career and has only a 1-3 record in singles since returning to the tour in June.She was soundly beaten, 6-4, 6-0, by Emma Raducanu, last year’s surprise U.S. Open champion, in the opening round of the Western and Southern Open last week, with Williams wearing tape to protect her left knee and looking late to the ball and increasingly glum.Williams was beaten, 6-4, 6-0, by Emma Raducanu in the opening round of the Western and Southern Open last week.Jeff Dean/Associated PressIn light of her recent form, advanced tennis age and lack of matches this season, a deep run at her final U.S. Open would be one of Williams’s most remarkable achievements.But first she must find the means to defeat Kovinic. They have never played in singles on tour, but Kovinic has the weapons, including a powerful serve, to trouble Williams in a match that also will be, given the circumstances, an event. It will be played on Monday in Arthur Ashe Stadium, surely at night under the prime-time lights.The occasion could certainly get to Kovinic, much more accustomed to outside courts. But she has handled the big stage well before: upsetting Raducanu in the second round of this year’s Australian Open in Margaret Court Arena. The occasion and scenario could also get to Williams, a champion who runs on emotion and has made it clear she is no fan of goodbyes.But there is a huge gap in achievement here: Williams is clearly the greatest women’s player of this era with 23 Grand Slam singles titles and long runs at No. 1. Kovinic has yet to win a tour singles title.If Williams, a six-time U.S. Open singles champion, were to prevail, she is likely to face the No. 2 seed, Anett Kontaveit, in the second round. Though that sounds like a nasty draw, Kontaveit built her lofty ranking on the strength of increasingly distant success and has struggled since March, in part because of the aftereffects of contracting Covid-19.She is arguably the most vulnerable of the top eight seeds, which means that Williams, if she can pull her big game together and keep her aches and pains to a minimum, has actually landed in a decent place in her last U.S. Open.It is harder to say that about Venus Williams, 42, in what could also be her final U.S. Open. She has not won a singles match on tour in over a year and will be the underdog in her first-round match against Alison Van Uytvanck, a Belgian ranked No. 42. If she gets past that, Venus would most likely face Elena Rybakina, the reigning Wimbledon champion, whose big serve, lean build, easy power and athleticism bear a certain resemblance to Venus.What seems clear is that Venus and Serena, who are in different halves of the draw, will not play each other again, at least not on tour, after facing off 31 times in singles over more than 20 years. (Serena leads, 19-12.)Serena, left, and Venus Williams after their match at the 2018 U.S. Open.Jason Szenes/EPA, via ShutterstockSwiatek, who won the French Open in June, has lost in the quarterfinals or earlier in her last four tournaments but showed excellent form on American hardcourts earlier this season, winning the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and the Miami Open en route to a 37-match winning streak in singles. Her first-round opponent at the U.S. Open will be Jasmine Paolini, an unseeded Italian ranked 57th.Raducanu, who has yet to reach another tournament final since her shock triumph in New York last September, has shown flashes of better form recently, with back-to-back routs of Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka last week. But she has a daunting first-round matchup in New York in the French veteran Alizé Cornet, an Australian Open quarterfinalist this season and one of the best defenders and competitors on tour. Cornet also upset Swiatek in the third round of Wimbledon this year.But the best matchup of the opening round in the women’s tournament could be Osaka versus Danielle Collins.Osaka, a former No. 1 and two-time U.S. Open singles champ, is unseeded this year but still dangerous on hardcourts as she showed by reaching the Miami Open final earlier this season. Collins, a fiery American seeded 19th, reached the Australian Open singles final in January, losing to Ashleigh Barty, the now-retired Australian star.Unless Swiatek can recover her early-season form, it looks like a wide-open women’s tournament, and the men’s event also could be full of surprises in the absence of Novak Djokovic, the former No. 1 and reigning Wimbledon champion, who withdrew from the U.S. Open on Thursday shortly before the draw because he continues to be barred from entering the United States as he is not vaccinated for Covid.Whatever one’s view of Djokovic’s stance, he has stuck to his principles at considerable cost to himself and his sport, which has often been deprived of one of its biggest stars.Djokovic has refused to be vaccinated though nearly all of tennis’s top 200 players and all of Djokovic’s significant rivals have done so. The choice has caused him to miss four Masters 1000 events this year and two Grand Slam tournaments (the Australian Open and the U.S. Open) at a moment when he and Rafael Nadal are locked in a duel for the men’s record for major singles titles.Though Djokovic did win Wimbledon this year, he received no ranking boost for it because the men’s and women’s tours stripped Wimbledon of ranking points because the tournament had barred Russian and Belarusian players in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.To sum up, it has been a tennis season that beggars belief, full of abrupt twists and turns. Though the Russians and Belarusians will be in New York, Djokovic will not and must now wait and lobby to be allowed to play next year’s Australian Open, which would require the new Australian government to lift his three-year ban on applying for a visa, a ban that resulted from his deportation in January.In Djokovic’s absence in New York, Nadal, who has 22 Grand Slam singles titles to Djokovic’s 21, has a clearer pathway to padding his slim lead. He has a seemingly smooth early-round draw, facing Rinky Hijikata, an inexperienced wild-card entry from Australia, in his opening match.But Nadal has played (and lost) just one match since withdrawing from Wimbledon in July because of an abdominal injury. Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who is the No. 1 men’s seed and defending champion after defeating Djokovic in last year’s final, has hardly been an irresistible force this season, even on his preferred hardcourts.Djokovic lost to Medvedev in last year’s U.S. Open final.Kena Betancur/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere is elbow room, perhaps plenty of elbow room, for others to muscle their way into the title picture: men such as Carlos Alcaraz, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Taylor Fritz, Jannik Sinner, Nick Kyrgios or the surprise Cincinnati champion, Borna Coric. (This is not an exhaustive list.)But that is a matter for the second week of this intriguing U.S. Open. For now, all eyes are on Serena. More

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      Top Official Returns to the U.S. Open After Misconduct Suspension

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      Soeren Friemel served a one-year suspension and lost a top officiating job for inappropriate communication with an underling. The decision to bring him back has rankled some colleagues.The people who officiate tennis matches are supposed to exist in a quiet corner of the sports world, far from the spotlight. In most cases, if average fans know the name of a tournament referee, supervisor, chair umpire or line judge, something has gone terribly wrong, creating rare noise within an insular club whose members value rules and decorum over all else.And so it has been for Soeren Friemel, a longtime top official for the U.S. Open, who stepped away last year amid an investigation into accusations of harassment and inappropriate relationships with underlings but has returned as a tournament supervisor.Earlier this year, Friemel, who is from Germany, resigned as the head of officiating for the International Tennis Federation, the sport’s world governing body, after a disciplinary panel found that he had abused his power.The United States Tennis Association initially stood by Friemel and planned to allow him to serve last year as the U.S. Open tournament referee — the top official at the event — as an investigation unfolded, but Friemel stepped away just before the competition. The tournament said he had to leave for “personal reasons.” The I.T.F. later suspended Friemel for a year, starting from June 2021.The U.S.T.A.’s decision this year to bring him back to serve as one of the tournament supervisors has rankled the small community of current and former tennis officials, even though it is a lesser job than the prestigious and more public-facing post of tournament referee. Some wonder whether a supervisor who has violated codes of conduct can effectively enforce them on others, even if they believe, at least theoretically, in second chances and forgiveness for poor behavior.The I.T.F. has not released details of complaints filed about Friemel, when and where they occurred, and who made them. The accuser has remained anonymous. Details of Friemel’s suspension was first reported by The Telegraph in Britain in February; his suspension from the I.T.F., which other tournaments honored, ended in mid-June.Heather Bowers, senior director of communications for the I.T.F., said an investigative panel “found Mr. Friemel to have made inappropriate comments and invitation to an individual in a situation of power imbalance, causing unease and discomfort.” The panel ruled that Friemel had violated sections of its codes that require officials to conduct themselves professionally and ethically; prohibit them from abusing a position of authority or control; and forbid them from compromising the psychological, physical or emotional health of other officials.Norm Chryst, who umpired men’s tournaments and Grand Slam events for 19 years before retiring in 2010, said the ruling should have disqualified Friemel from serving as an official for America’s signature tennis tournament.“A guy that has been suspended by the I.T.F. for misconduct should not be hired by the U.S.T.A. to work at the U.S. Open,” said Chryst, who had previously worked with Friemel at a tournament in Germany.Another top umpire resigned this spring from a top U.S.T.A. officiating committee over the decision to bring Friemel back. The umpire, Greg Allensworth, a fixture of the tours and Grand Slams, left his role as vice-chair of the U.S.T.A. Officials Committee. Allensworth sent a blistering letter to the chair of the committee, which The New York Times has reviewed, stating that Friemel had verbally abused him in 2018. He also wrote that the ruling from the I.T.F. had caused Friemel to lose credibility with his colleagues.“The U.S.T.A.’s decision on this matter is wrong, both practically and ethically,” wrote Allensworth, who declined to comment for this story.The U.S.T.A. did not make Friemel available for comment for this article. Chris Widmaier, the chief spokesman for the organization, issued a statement on behalf of the U.S.T.A. saying that Friemel had served his suspension and noting his experience as a top official, implying that his experience merited his assignment at the tournament.“In this instance, we determined that it was appropriate to bring Friemel back at a lower position, with less responsibility and authority, than he previously occupied,” the statement said. “We believe this decision is consistent with our unwavering commitment to the integrity of tennis and our policy requiring a workplace that is free of abuse, harassment, or other misconduct.”Friemel’s tenure at the top of the U.S.T.A.’s hierarchy of officials was rocky from the start. The U.S.T.A. had planned to give the U.S. Open tournament referee position to Mark Darby, a longtime official with the ATP, when Brian Earley stepped down in 2018 after 26 years in the role. But Darby pulled out five months before the 2019 tournament after being diagnosed with a serious illness. Widmaier said the organization needed to make a quick decision and turned to Friemel, who had served as the chief umpire for the U.S. Open from 2016 to 2018.American tennis officials were not pleased. Roughly a dozen of them wrote a letter to the U.S.T.A. complaining that the organization had overlooked several qualified Americans for the job. While the U.S.T.A. has a long history of hiring foreign talent throughout the organization, the officials argued that without a proper search and interview process, the U.S.T.A. had simply given away a top job at its signature event. The letter, which The New York Times has reviewed, was signed “USTA Umpires.”Friemel walked off the court with Novak Djokovic at the 2020 U.S. Open after Djokovic was disqualified from the tournament.Jason Szenes/EPA, via ShutterstockFriemel impressed U.S.T.A. executives with his performance at the 2019 U.S. Open, and then again at the pandemic-restricted 2020 Open. There, he made the decision to default Novak Djokovic — then the world No. 1, the heavy favorite to win the tournament and the men’s draw’s biggest star — after Djokovic accidentally swatted a ball into the throat of a line judge during his fourth-round match.Afterward, Friemel calmly explained the ruling, saying that while Djokovic had not intended to hit the line judge, because he had and she had suffered an injury, regulations required an automatic default.Widmaier said the U.S.T.A. had begun pursuing a plan to prepare Jake Garner, an American, to succeed Friemel as the tournament referee. But that process slowed amid the canceled tournaments and travel restrictions caused by the pandemic. Garner, who is one of two assistant referees this year, is expected to take over the top job from Wayne McKewen of Australia during the next two years, Widmaier said.For the time being, though, the U.S.T.A. remains committed to employing Friemel, even if he no longer has the anonymous existence that officials prefer to maintain.“My job was to be invisible,” said Chryst, the former chair umpire. “Because if you don’t know my name then I have done a good job.” More

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      At the U.S. Open, 5 Artists Get a Place in the Sun

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      Five sculptures, created by artists from underrepresented communities, will find a place in the sun at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens until Sept. 11.Sculptures by five artists went on view at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens, Tuesday during Fan Week, six days of festivities and qualifying tournaments. The five works, which will remain on view until Sept. 11, are in collaboration with the Armory Show and the United States Tennis Association and serve as an extension of Armory Off-Site and the tennis association’s Be Open social justice campaign, which first presented paintings in 2020 from 18 Black and Indigenous artists at Arthur Ashe Stadium.This year, some of the sculptures have obvious associations with the sport. In “Now I Won,” by Myles Nurse, a larger-than-life, Wilson-yellow metal tennis player inspired by Billie Jean King is preparing to serve. On Tuesday, when a child began using the baseboard of the sculpture as a trampoline, Nurse said it did not bother him: He was relieved, he said, at the sculpture’s durability. (The sculpture had sold for $12,000 to a buyer in Miami a few days earlier.)Myles Nurse, “Now I Won,” 2022. His sprayed-steel sculpture is inspired by the tennis player Billie Jean King.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesNurse said he wanted viewers to visualize themselves within the stance. “You could see a champion within yourself by seeing somebody else reaching these amazing feats,” he said.Welding runs in his family. Nurse’s grandfather ran a metal fabrication business in Jamaica, which he continued after immigrating to the U.S.“It was in the blood,” Nurse said, “but I’m doing it from a different perspective.”Carolyn Salas’s work was also inspired by King. She said she remembered watching the fraught, but highly attended, match between King and Bobby Riggs in the 2017 film “Battle of The Sexes.” In her sculpture “Tippy Toes,” Salas compares the daily uncertainties and struggles a woman faces to walking on a tightrope.“There’s just a constant struggle between that idea of the masculine and the feminine as a woman right now,” Salas said.Carolyn Salas, “Tippy Toes,” 2021. Salas compared the daily uncertainties and struggles a woman faces to walking on a tightrope.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesOther artists left more open to interpretation.Jose Dávila’s artwork incorporates both industrial and naturally occurring elements. In his “Untitled Work,” a cerulean blue boulder is sandwiched between two slabs of concrete.“Many of the boulders I work with, I choose myself while walking in the countryside,” he wrote in a statement. “I’m interested in the primitiveness of rocks, of materials that have always been there, that will always be the same, that show the patina of time.”“To Rise and Begin Again,” by Luzene Hill, depicts a series of undulating aluminum columns. Hill placed a Cherokee syllabary character above each column to spread awareness of the lyrical language. The columns also resemble the New York skyline, built in part by the Mohawk ironworkers in the early 1900s. “The underlying part of all of my work” is survival, she said.Luzene Hill, “To Rise and Begin Again,” 2022.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesHill placed a Cherokee syllabary character above each column.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesHill’s father is Cherokee (her mother is white), and her grandparents were sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pa., leaving her and her father unaware of their native tongue. Hill said she had become fascinated by the language’s collectivist, matrilineal perspective.“Indigenous people have survived 500 years of colonial violence on many, many levels and I’m really happy that’s my DNA,” Hill said in a video call from her home in North Carolina, located on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians reservation.Like Hill, Gerald Chukwuma’s work has direct ties to his heritage. “Ogadiligmma” or the “Town Cryer” is a part of his Igbo Landing series, which pays tribute to the 75 West Africans in 1803 who took control of a slave ship off the Georgia coast and then walked into the water, committing mass suicide. Born in the eastern region of Nigeria, Chukwuma said the West Africans were his ancestors and that determination was an inherent trait.“When we decided not to be taken as slaves, it wasn’t something that happened by chance,” he said of his ancestors, “It was how we were created. That’s our culture. That’s who we are.”Gerald Chukwuma, “Ogadiligmma,” 2021. The sculpture pays tribute to the 75 West Africans in 1803 who took control of a slave ship off the Georgia coast.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesAs visitors holding tennis bags posed next to Chukwuma’s sculpture, buried in sea debris he collected from the Lagos shores, the artist said he hoped that his work would help raise awareness of the neglected Igbo people.“I’m sure if you listen closely when you get there you can hear him speak,” he said of the sculpture. “I’m sure he’s going to tell stories.” More

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      Novak Djokovic Says He Will Miss U.S. Open

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      Djokovic said he would not be able to travel to New York for the tournament that begins next week. The United States has travel restrictions that require foreign visitors to be vaccinated for the coronavirus.The stalemate between Novak Djokovic and the U.S. government reached its inevitable conclusion Thursday as the unvaccinated Wimbledon champion pulled out of the U.S. Open.The U.S. has lifted many of the restrictions related to the coronavirus and travel. However, unvaccinated foreigners are still not allowed to enter the country. Djokovic, who has had Covid-19 at least twice, has been steadfast in his refusal to get vaccinated, arguing that it should be a personal decision rather than a requirement.“Sadly, I will not be able to travel to NY this time for US Open,” Djokovic wrote on Twitter Thursday morning, hours before the draw for the tournament that is scheduled to start on Monday. “Thank you #NoleFam for your messages of love and support. Good luck to my fellow players! I’ll keep in good shape and positive spirit and wait for an opportunity to compete again. See you soon tennis world!”Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated set off a political firestorm in January when he announced he had received a special exemption to enter Australia to play in the Australian Open, the first tennis major of the year.Djokovic ultimately left the country without defending his singles title there.Djokovic was able to play in the French Open and Wimbledon after France and England relaxed their requirements that visitors be vaccinated. But as he sat next to his Wimbledon trophy in July after winning his 21st Grand Slam title, Djokovic said it appeared unlikely that he would play in the U.S. Open because he had no plans to get vaccinated and did not anticipate the U.S. government changing its rules.The U.S. government has retained the restriction because people who are not vaccinated are far more likely to contract and pass on the virus and to end up in the hospital than people who are not.The U.S. Tennis Association said earlier this summer it would not seek an exemption on Djokovic’s behalf.By not playing, Djokovic is giving up a chance to draw even with Rafael Nadal for the most men’s singles Grand Slam titles (Nadal has 22 and Djokovic has 21). More

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      Victoria Azarenka Dropped From Ukraine Aid Event Before U.S. Open

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      The move came after players from Ukraine complained about the participation of Azarenka, a Belarusian, in the Tennis Plays for Peace Exhibition set for Wednesday night.The U.S. Open’s attempt to show that sports could help build a bridge to peace in a time of war suffered a major blow Wednesday when the tournament was forced to drop Victoria Azarenka of Belarus from participating in an exhibition to raise money for relief efforts in Ukraine just hours before its start.The move came after players from Ukraine complained about Azarenka’s participation in the Tennis Plays for Peace Exhibition set for Wednesday night at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where the U.S. Open will begin next week.“In the last 24 hours, after careful consideration and dialogue with all parties involved, Victoria Azarenka will not be participating in our Tennis Plays for Peace Exhibition this evening,” the United States Tennis Association announced in a statement. “Vika is a strong player leader, and we appreciate her willingness to participate. Given the sensitivities to Ukrainian players, and the ongoing conflict, we believe this is the right course of action for us.”Azarenka could not immediately be reached for comment.The exhibition will include a roster of some of the game’s biggest stars, including Rafael Nadal, Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek and John McEnroe. It is taking place on Ukraine’s Independence Day and the six-month anniversary of a war that seemingly has no end in sight.When the exhibition was announced earlier this month, Azarenka’s planned participation was seen as a significant statement. An overwhelming majority of athletes from Russia and Belarus, which has served as a staging ground for the Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, has resisted speaking out against the war or expressing any sympathy for victims in Ukraine for a variety of reasons. Those can include support for the war or fear for their safety or that of their relatives who still live in their countries even if the players do not.Stacey Allaster, the U.S. Open tournament director, said she had called Azarenka, the former world No. 1, and asked her to participate in the event, which is kicking off a $2 million fund-raising campaign, when it was still in its planning stages. “It was a quick response,” Allaster said of her conversation with Azarenka, 33, whom she has known for more than 15 years. “She said, ‘This is a player choice, and I want to play.’”Azarenka, a leader in the WTA, had been highly critical of Wimbledon and Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association, which in April barred players from Russia and Belarus from playing in the annual tournaments in England earlier this year.Azarenka now largely lives in the United States but for years had a friendly relationship with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, the authoritarian leader who has ruled the country since 1994 and has appeared with Azarenka on multiple occasions.During the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, Azarenka told Tennis.com that Wimbledon was “a big opportunity to show how sports can unite.”“I think we missed that opportunity, but I hope we can still show it,” she said.But with their country under attack and their relatives’ lives in danger, players from Ukraine are not feeling any desire to show a sense of unity with players from Russia and Belarus.The International Tennis Federation, the men’s and women’s professional tours and the other three Grand Slam tournaments have barred Russian and Belarusian teams from competitions and prohibit players from those countries from playing under their flags.But the locker rooms and other common spaces at tournaments continue to be places of tension. Players from Ukraine, including Dayana Yastremska and Lesia Tsurenko, have spoken about their discomfort with being around Russian and Belarusian players, some of whom, they assume, support Putin. They have said Russian players have made little effort to reach out to them to express empathy for what they are experiencing.The lone exception has been Daria Kasatkina, Russia’s highest-ranked women’s singles player, who became the first Russian in tennis to openly criticize the war, a move that could land her in trouble with her home country.Speaking with a Russian blogger earlier this summer, Kasatkina described the war as “a full-blown nightmare.” Kasatkina, 25, who goes by Dasha, said she wanted to train with and play against players “who don’t have to worry about being bombed,” according to the subtitles of the video, which circulated on Twitter.She expressed empathy for Ukrainian players who had been forced to leave their homes and search for tennis academies in Western Europe in order to train. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to have no home,” she said. More

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      The N.C.A.A. Champion Ben Shelton Is Turning Pro. He Already Has a Big Win.

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      A valiant effort against John Isner and two wins at a Masters 1000 event helped persuade Ben Shelton to leave the University of Florida, where his father was his coach.Ben Shelton, the reigning N.C.A.A. Division I men’s singles champion and one of the most exciting young tennis talents in the United States, turned professional on Tuesday, and he’s ready for quite a few changes.He will make his first trip outside the United States.He will play his first tournament on red clay.He will play his first tennis on grass.But for starters, Shelton, 19, will play in his first Grand Slam tournament after receiving a wild card into the main draw of the U.S. Open, which begins Monday in Queens.“I think that I have some pretty good momentum right now,” Shelton said in a telephone interview on Monday, explaining his decision to turn pro. “I really enjoy being out there and playing on tour and getting to play some of these really cool tournaments, and that’s something I want to continue to do and not have to take a five- or six-month break for the college season. I love playing college tennis, but I’ve definitely had the most fun playing in these pro events.”After two seasons at the University of Florida, where his father, Bryan, is the men’s tennis coach, Shelton has certainly ticked two big boxes: clinching the national team title in 2021 for Florida as a freshman by winning the decisive match against Baylor and then winning the individual title this spring.But what sealed the deal for him on leaving college tennis were his results on the pro tour over the last few weeks: a tight three-set duel and defeat in Atlanta against John Isner, long the top-ranked American, and then eye-catching victories at a Masters 1000 tournament, the tier below the Grand Slams, outside Cincinnati last week. He began the event, the Western and Southern Open, with wins over Lorenzo Sonego of Italy and fifth-ranked Casper Ruud of Norway.Amateurs can play pro events and accumulate ranking points. Shelton is up to No. 171 in singles, making him the third-highest teenager in the ATP rankings behind No. 4 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain and No. 32 Holger Rune of Denmark, who are both 19 years old and already Grand Slam quarterfinalists. But turning professional will allow Shelton to keep his prize money of $84,510 from Cincinnati and the $80,000 he will earn for playing in the first round of the U.S. Open.By turning pro, Shelton will follow the path of his father, who peaked as a top-60 singles player in the 1990s during a golden era for American men’s tennis and who reached the fourth round of Wimbledon as a qualifier in 1994, upsetting the No. 2 seed Michael Stich of Germany in the opening round.But while Bryan Shelton was 6-foot-1 and played right-handed with attacking tools and speed, his son is a 6-4 lefty — still an advantage in tennis — with an intimidating serve and knockout power from the baseline, particularly with his whipping forehand. Ben Shelton often put that shot to devastating use against Ruud when he was not busy flicking a between-the-legs lob winner that left Ruud looking stunned at the net.“I think things have certainly accelerated a lot faster than I had planned or thought with Ben’s development on the court and with his maturity as well,” Bryan Shelton said in a telephone interview from Gainesville, Fla., the university’s city, on Monday.Ben Shelton entered elite tennis comparatively late, having not competed or even played regularly until age 11 when he decided to stop his nascent career at quarterback and focus on the family sport.“This was the same kid who said that ‘tennis will not be my sport’ when he was younger,” Bryan Shelton said. “So he definitely came to it on his own. There was no pressure from mom or dad or sister.”Ben’s older sister, Emma, is a senior on Florida’s women’s tennis team. Their mother, Lisa, was also an accomplished junior player and is the sister of the former world No. 4 doubles and No. 43 singles player Todd Witsken.“We kid around, like which genes is Ben playing with, the Shelton genes or the Witsken genes?” Bryan Shelton said. “He’s got some good blood running through him, that’s for sure.”Ben Shelton said his father’s tennis knowledge played a key role in his decision to choose the sport.“I saw that my dad was a college coach and knew a lot about the game,” he said. “My chances of going far in the sport and having that resource was definitely going to be helpful. The other thing was I grew kind of late. So going into the end of middle school, there was a lot of huge kids in football, and I hadn’t really hit my growth spurt yet. I was maybe a little tired of getting bashed up all the time.”At 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, Shelton combines power and athleticism.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHe now has a build well suited to playing in this age of taller players, which includes Daniil Medvedev of Russia (6-6), Alexander Zverev of Germany (6-6) and Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece (6-4), all of whom are top-five players.But the Sheltons are well aware that big power and promising early results are no guarantee of reaching the big time. Ben Shelton got a quick reminder of the rigors of the pro game in the round of 16 at the Western and Southern Open, when he was drubbed, 6-0, 6-2, in a night-session match on Center Court by Cameron Norrie, a British left-hander who was a former collegiate No. 1 at Texas Christian University.“There’s definitely a lot of different players out there; not just one type of tennis you are going to win with,” Ben Shelton said. “I definitely learned that from match to match you’re going to have to have a different game plan and be able to make adjustments. You’re not always going to have a perfect day. And when you’re not playing well out on the pro tour, pretty much everyone can take advantage of that, so I kind of learned that I need to think a little quicker on my feet.”Bryan Shelton, who has coached his son from the beginning, will continue to guide Ben’s development with help on the road from Dean Goldfine, a veteran American coach who long worked with the American star Todd Martin. Most recently, Goldfine helped coach Sebastian Korda, 22, one of the most promising young American men’s players, whose father, Petr, an Australian Open champion, was on tour at the same time as Bryan Shelton.Ben Shelton will be managed by TEAM8, the small management company that was founded by Roger Federer, one of Shelton’s tennis idols, and his agent, Tony Godsick, who has a long connection with the Shelton family. Ben Shelton will work day to day with Alessandro Barel Di Sant Albano, who represents an established American teenage star, 18-year-old Coco Gauff.Bryan Shelton knows firsthand all that can go awry on tour.“It’s a tough sport, and the sport is just part of it,” he said. “It’s dealing with the travel and dealing with losses and dealing with feeling lonely.”But Bryan Shelton also knows what it takes, and he sees reassuring signs as he prepares for the bittersweet experience of losing his Florida team’s No. 1 player and watching his son make a big step forward.“It took me a long time to get to where he’s at, and he started later than I did,” Bryan Shelton said. “So he’s just a different animal than I was, and I try not to compare too much what I did and just help him along the way, but I also realize he’s got a much higher ceiling.” More

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      A Surprising Year Could Culminate in a Surprising U.S. Open

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      Two unseeded players won in a big U.S. Open warm-up tournament, another unexpected result in an odd tennis season.Who is going to win the United States Open, which starts next week? Given the results over the weekend in an important warm-up tournament near Cincinnati, the answer seems like it could be “almost anyone.”Though the fields were strong, both the men’s and women’s singles tournaments in Ohio were won by unseeded players. The men’s winner was Borna Coric of Croatia, ranked 152nd in the world last week after being injured for a year and returning in March. The victory made him the lowest ranked player ever to win a Masters 1000, the elite events rated just below the Grand Slams.Along the way, he beat the 2, 4, 7, 9 and 15 seeds. Did he think there was a chance to win going in? “Absolutely not,” he said.The women’s winner was Caroline Garcia of France, the 35th-ranked player last week. She became the first qualifier ever to win a WTA 1000 title and beat the 4, 6 and 7 seeds to do so. “It’s hard to believe I am standing here today; it’s been such a week,” she said in her post-match speech.The results continue an unexpected year in tennis. The previous men’s Masters 1000 event, in Montreal, was also won by an unseeded player, Pablo Carreño Busta of Spain. The seven 1000 events this year have had six different winners. (Carlos Alcaraz won two but has never made the semifinal of a Grand Slam event.)The men’s Grand Slam events have been won by the familiar duo of Rafael Nadal (Australian and French Opens) and Novak Djokovic (Wimbledon), but at ages 36 and 35 their dominance seems to be wavering. They each had to survive at least one five-set match on their way to their Grand Slam titles this year. And Nadal, who lost to Coric last week, has been dealing with an injury to his abdomen that led to his withdrawal from Wimbledon.On the women’s side, Ashleigh Barty won the Australian Open as the top seed, then retired. Iga Swiatek of Poland seemed to take up her mantle, going on a run earlier in the year that culminated in a French Open win and the No. 1 ranking. Then she lost in the round of 32 at Wimbledon and the round of 16 in both Toronto and Cincinnati. The Wimbledon winner was Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the second-lowest-ranked woman ever to win there at No. 23.Caroline Garcia of France won the Western & Southern Open on Sunday. She became the first qualifier ever to win a WTA 1000 title.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAt the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 29, the bookmakers are keeping the faith with Djokovic as the men’s favorite at about 8-5. If he plays. His vaccine status means he may not even be allowed in the country. And the No. 2 player in the world, Alexander Zverev, is out after an ankle surgery.Daniil Medvedev is the next choice at about 5-2, probably in large part because he is the reigning champion. He hasn’t won a big event this year and is the No. 1 player almost by default. After that come Alcaraz, Nadal and Nick Kyrgios. Coric is 35-1. Particularly if Djokovic is out, the tournament result looks much more uncertain than usual.Despite her recent struggles, Swiatek is the 3-1 favorite on the women’s side, perhaps for lack of a better option. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. Most oddsmakers have Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep, Coco Gauff and the defending champion, Emma Raducanu, all in the 7-1 to 16-1 range, plus at least another eight or 10 players with a real shot at 22-1 or less, including Rybakina and Garcia.Generally, tennis fans put a fair amount of stock in the hardcourt warm-ups for the U.S. Open, if not to show the winner at least to point out players to watch. The upset-filled events this year could be a harbinger for a U.S. Open full of surprises. More

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      Serena Williams Brought New Fans to Tennis. Are You One of Them?

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      Part of Williams’s legacy can be seen in the stands of her matches, where the spectators are among tennis’s most diverse.Tell us about your experience watching Serena Williams play in the form at the end of this column.When you watch Serena Williams play from the comfortable remove of a living room, she pops from the screen. All that willpower, athleticism and skill, even as she ages and fades.When you watch Serena Williams play live and up close, in a packed stadium during a tight match on the biggest stage — now, that is something else altogether. That’s an event, a happening, a mix of Broadway and Cannes and the Met Gala, with a whole lot of forehand winners and sometimes a soap opera mixed in.Those performances will cease now that she is “evolving” from the game, as she announced this month, to pursue a life beyond tennis and perhaps have a second child. But her legacy goes far beyond what she did between the lines: It’s clear in the stands of every tournament that Williams’s glitz and drama beckoned to fans of all kinds, including large swaths who only pay attention to sports when she plays.To be at a Serena match — among masses of attendees, particularly brown and Black spectators making their first foray to a professional match — was to feel a sense of new possibility for a sport long steeped in whiteness.Take the U.S. Open, for instance. Since her ascension to tennis’s upper reaches when she won there in 1999 at age 17, Flushing Meadows has been a special stage for Williams and her fans.In 2016, bidding for an Open-era record 23rd major singles title, the overall U.S. Open attendance figures showed nearly a quarter of fans there were Black, according to the United States Tennis Association. In 2017, with Williams’s career on hold as she sat out to give birth to her daughter, the number of Black fans at Flushing Meadows dropped by 10 percent.That is the Serena effect.“The magnetism of Serena attracts all kinds of new fans,” said Chris Widmaier, a U.S.T.A. spokesman. “But you can certainly see the outsize and indelible impact that she has had on Black Americans in their relationship with tennis.”Widmaier has been working communications at the Open for 20 years. He has seen Williams play all over the world and figures he has watched her more than any other top player.“When Serena would walk on the court and you had the ability to be courtside, you would get chills,” he said. “You just knew you were in the presence of greatness. And it didn’t matter at which point in her career. That is what I always felt.”Williams’s matches always made viewers feel. And while her career — and that of her sister Venus — has drawn onlookers of all kinds, it has had special resonance for Black fans and others traditionally at the margins of the tennis scene.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe tennis star is retiring after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.On Her Own Terms: Serena Williams announced her decision to retire in an article in Vogue in a way that felt unapologetically her own. A Beacon of Black Excellence: The tennis player achieved greatness without ever masking the struggles it took to win — especially as a Black woman.A Career on Top: Williams won her first Grand Slam in 1999, when she was 17 years old.  Over the next two decades, she became the sport’s most dominant force.Her Legacy: While emerging as the face of tennis, Williams, along with her older sister Venus, changed the face of the sport, carrying the load for the nation’s aspirations.If that’s you, I want to hear your story. Especially if you made the pilgrimage to see Williams play in person. Even if “up close” was the nosebleed seats at the Olympic tennis stadium in Rio. Or if you made it to one of the smaller tournaments on the WTA Tour, without the Grand Slam crowds and prices.Were you there at Indian Wells in 2001, as many in the majority-white audience booed Williams during her championship win? Were you there 14 years later, when she ended her boycott of that desert event?What moments and images from Williams’s career, good and bad and utterly astonishing, stick with you? What compelled you to see her in person?For me, when I think of Serena, of course, I also think of Venus. Watching them together was sports as beautiful alchemy. Just the right mix, even if their matches were sometimes full of nervousness and imperfection.At the U.S. Open in 2008, Serena and Venus were about to clash in a quarterfinal match on a hot, humid New York evening. Two hours before, I watched as fans gathered outside the stadium. Yes, it was still a mostly white and well-heeled crowd, but it was also Black, Latino, Asian, every hue, every class.It felt supercharged. The air surged with electric excitement and anticipation. I heard many say they would not have ventured to Flushing Meadows that evening if not for Serena. Adding Venus to the mix sealed the deal.The sisters put on a show. There were early pockmarks of sloppy play, but in the end, the evening sizzled with excellence, and Serena affirmed her superiority, winning, 7-6, 7-6.Looking back on the arc of Serena’s career, the swings of that match are a hallmark. She has always been capable of producing clumps of errors in batches — and then turning up the winners when everything counts. That’s part of the wonder.On the grounds of the most significant events, it often felt like the competition had not really stepped into high gear until Williams put on a high-pressure spectacle.A fan held a sign in support of Serena Williams during the Western & Southern Open in Ohio last week.Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesSerena brought the buzz, whether she won or not. It began from the moment she’d leave the players’ tunnel and walk before the fans. If you were there at the 2018 French Open when she entered that red-clay center court dressed in her tight black, Wakanda-inspired bodysuit, the feel in the stands, the swooning and gasping and awe, will be in your mind for good.God, I loved that moment. It gave me goose bumps.In her boldness and bearing, Williams has always reminded me of my undaunted nieces and cousins and my late paternal grandmother, Peggy Mae Streeter, a powerful Black woman born one generation from slavery. Dressed in that bodysuit — reveling in her complete self, with that trademark “I’m gonna do my thing, no matter what” kind of attitude — Williams, it seemed to me, was channeling their unbreakable spirit.I’m certainly not the only one to observe and feel that way. She spoke for herself and in doing so, spoke to us.It’s strange, but I seemed to have a knack for being in the stands when Williams was surprisingly upended. The loss to Elina Svitolina at the Rio Olympics in 2016. The time she blew a 5-1 last-set lead and succumbed to Karolina Pliskova at the 2019 Australian Open. With each loss, on the grounds of those events, you could feel energy and passion drain from fans once they realized she would no longer be around.When, in 2019, Williams worked in vain to fend off Bianca Andreescu, the talented young Canadian, I was one of the 23,000 who jammed Ashe Stadium for what may have been her last Grand Slam final.Thinking about it now, I can still hear the proud and melancholy sound of Williams’s straining breath as she served to stay in the match, facing a third match point. I can feel her gasping exhale echoing across the stands. I can remember Andreescu dialing up a forehand reply, just as I can recall Williams’s lunge as that forehand spun by for a winner.Game, set, Slam, Andreescu, 6-3, 7-5.You had to be there to feel the poignancy. A collective, mournful groan underlay the standing ovation applause for a new and deserving champion.This was the ultimate tennis champion on her last legs, coming up short, fighting to the end. I’m thankful to have been there as a witness.Has Serena Williams Impacted You? Share Your Story.The Times wants to hear stories from people who have seen Williams play at tournaments, and those particularly impacted by her career. We won’t publish any part of your submission without contacting you first. More