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      Doubles Tennis Adds Variety to Wimbledon

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      Doubles takes a back seat to the singles game on both tours, but famous players like Coco Gauff revel in the variety, pace and joy of tennis’s hidden gem.WIMBLEDON, England — Coco Gauff toed the line to serve, eyes focused, shoulders back, ready to go. It was a moment of peril in her semifinal mixed doubles match here on Wednesday. Break point. One game all, third set.Gauff aimed a tight-spinning serve toward Matthew Ebden, her male opponent, and the point was on: a perfect display of what makes Gauff great at age 18, and what makes doubles an enduring favorite for Wimbledon fans.Her teammate, Jack Sock, soon entered the mix, handling a difficult volley. Then Gauff poleaxed a forehand at her female opponent, Samantha Stosur. From there, tennis beauty. Back-to-back moonshot lobs; spinners; touch; power; all of the geometry on Court No. 3 explored, and Gauff holding more than her own.The rally finally ended after 24 shots, as the crowd swayed and swooned and shouted to the cloud dappled sky and one of Sock’s spinning forehands finally coaxed a miss.As I watched from the stands, it felt like Gauff was underlining a message she told me the day before.“I love doubles,” she said. She smiled and paused for a moment. “It’s a different kind of game, all the reflexes, and unorthodox shots, the touchy-feely shots, the half volleys.”“It’s a joy to play,” she added.If your only exposure to tennis’s Grand Slam events is through television or even most media reports, you might think singles is all that matters. It breathes in nearly all of the oxygen. We know the big names, their strokes, their on-court proclivities, their off-court foibles. We celebrate the upstarts who always seem to march to new heights.But with the advent of more powerful rackets and strings, singles is now invariably a war of pounding groundstrokes, even here at Wimbledon, once the province of the serve and volley. Doubles remains tennis’s hidden gem, the last outpost of variety.Players like Gauff, famed for her singles play but already a doubles runner-up in two Grand Slams, find doubles a relief from tripwire pressure that comes with playing alone. And fans, once they get hooked, never seem to get enough of watching four professionals jam onto a court and produce set after set of novel angles and winners crafted with a pickpocket’s deft touch.There’s a paradox, though. Television shows doubles much less often and prominently. The prize money is lower for doubles than for singles (and even less for mixed doubles than for men’s and women’s doubles). I concede, reporters rarely write about it. So begins a feedback loop: Without more exposure, this unique part of professional tennis remains niche. So long as it is niche, it gets less attention.Unless it’s a final or a matchup featuring the biggest of names — Venus or Serena Williams —Grand Slam doubles remains relegated to the back courts.Rajeev Ram admitted that the doubles game tends to operate “in the shadows” of professional tennis. Ever heard of him? Unless you’re an ardent fan of tennis, probably not. The 38-year-old American is the world’s No. 2-ranked men’s doubles player, but can walk the grounds of Wimbledon without being noticed. Alongside his partner, Joe Salisbury, he made it to the men’s doubles semifinals here on Wednesday with a five-set win over Nicolas Mahut and Édouard Roger-Vasselin.Ram uses his pterodactyl wingspan and Sampras-ian serve to dominate matches and win over crowds. Once they watch doubles, Ram said, “the fans really take to it.”Rajeev Ram, right, said that the doubles game tends to operate “in the shadows” of professional tennis.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesOver the past few days, I spent a lot of time on the backcourts doing just that. I hung out with spectators and heard their observations. Many told stories of strolling the grounds, unsure what they’d find, only to happen upon a doubles star like Nikola Mektic, a Croatian doubles maestro whom I saw face down an 80 miles per hour tennis ball ripped at his gut only to send back a drop shot that fell to the grass like a marshmallow.“It’s sort of like a good dessert after the main dish,” one fan I spoke to said of the doubles draw. “The main dish is singles. I also like cake.”Other spectators raved to me that mixed doubles — an event typically only played at majors — offers what in elite sports remains a novelty: men and women competing side-by-side on the same field of play.Wimbledon spectators also seemed drawn to the joy that Gauff mentioned. During singles matches, players are usually tighter than tripwire. Doubles offers a relief that even a spectator can pick up on.“I’m not used to laughing much on the court,” Gauff said. She paused for a moment, smiled, then continued. “I do in doubles. I definitely think I loosen up and relax a bit more. So I’m going to try to use that all the time.”Gauff, who lost her third-round singles match to Amanda Anisimova, is one of the few famous players who gives doubles its due, reveling in a corner of tennis that allows her to hit new shots “in all sorts of different and unusual ways.”She hones her poise in singles and develops new shots and the flexibility to make them in doubles, taking the long view, believing the combination will round out her game to the point where she can finally lift a trophy at a Slam.After reaching her first Grand Slam singles finals at the French Open last month, Gauff was determined to keep playing both singles and doubles at majors (she also reached the women’s doubles finals at Roland Garros, playing alongside Jessica Pegula). There was a problem: She needed a new partner for Wimbledon. Gauff found one the new-fashioned way, starting her search on social media.“Who wants to play mixed at Wimby?” she posted to her Twitter account on June 15.The ask hardly went unnoticed by Gauff’s 250,000 followers. Dozens wanted in. Even Mikaela Shiffrin, the World Cup champion skier, sent an emoji saying she was up for it. Gauff noticed one reply in particular: “We’d be a decent team,” posted Sock, a four-time Grand Slam doubles winner.Gauff ended up taking a while to mull Sock’s offer. What if she played poorly and embarrassed herself with a male player of such prowess? “I almost said no to him,” she said. Finally, “I was like, ‘get out of your head, play with Jack!’”The early results proved it a wise decision. Gauff and Sock did not drop a set in their first three matches. Then came Wednesday’s semifinal against the veteran Australian pairing of Ebden and Stosur.She played with savvy, giving no quarter, serving and returning well, and hitting volleys with firm confidence as the third set marched on, pressure mounting. Two games apiece. Three games. Four.But with Gauff serving to go up, 6-5, it was Sock who dumped an easy volley into the net. Then another. Stosur and Ebden took advantage, breaking serve, edging ahead. They closed out the match quickly, 6-3, 5-7, 7-5.Gauff left the court with a determined look, comforted by a crowd that stood to loudly applaud, a thank you to both teams for a match of suspense and entertainment. More

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      Rafael Nadal Prevails at Wimbledon In Grueling Win Over Taylor Fritz

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      Nadal struggled with an abdominal injury in his grueling quarterfinal victory over Taylor Fritz, a rising American star who pushed Nadal to five sets.WIMBLEDON, England — It was Wednesday evening on Centre Court, and Rafael Nadal was back in the semifinals of Wimbledon after proving once again that his threshold for pain and ability to improvise under duress are far beyond the norm.Taylor Fritz was in his courtside chair pondering what might have been and sensing that no defeat had ever hurt quite like this one because he felt like breaking into tears.“I’ve never felt like I could cry after a loss,” said Fritz, the 24-year-old rising American star who will rise no higher at the All England Club this year after Nadal’s victory, 3-6, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (10-4).A thriller of a quarterfinal, it lasted 4 hours 21 minutes and might have gone quite a bit longer if not for the new rule at Wimbledon this year that requires a first-to-10-point tiebreaker to be played at 6-6 in the fifth set. The English soccer stalwart David Beckham, watching rapt from the royal box, might have preferred penalty kicks.Fritz, a thunderous server who also can pound his groundstrokes, upset Nadal to win the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., in March in a match Fritz played with an injured ankle and Nadal played with a stress fracture in his rib cage.Fritz was on the verge of a more significant breakthrough on Wednesday and won, in the end, just as many points as Nadal did (168 apiece). But for all Fritz’s power and hustle, he could not win the points that mattered most; he could not capitalize on Nadal’s abdominal injury or on a two-set-to-one lead. He quickly lost command of the decisive tiebreaker, falling behind, 0-5, as Nadal summoned the shotmaking and guile that have made him a 22-time Grand Slam singles champion.“Rafa did what Rafa does: He figures stuff out,” said Paul Annacone, one of Fritz’s coaches. “He figures out what he’s got on the day, and he never makes it easy for the opponent. That’s why he’s thus far the most accomplished guy in the history of tennis.”Nadal, still chasing the Grand Slam at age 36, will face the Australian Nick Kyrgios, another big server with a much more volatile personality, on Friday for a place in the men’s singles final.In Friday’s other semifinal, the No. 1 seed, Novak Djokovic, the three-time defending Wimbledon champion, will face the No. 9 seed, Cameron Norrie, the last British player left in singles.The question is whether the second-seeded Nadal will be healthy enough to play. Nadal said he came close to retiring from the match after aggravating the lower abdominal injury midway through the opening set. But even without a full-strength serve and even with his father and sister urging him from the stands to retire, Nadal, as so often, found the solutions he needed to prevail even if he did not look a great deal more upbeat than Fritz when he arrived for a sotto voce news conference.Taylor Fritz threw everything he had at Nadal, but it wasn’t enough.Hannah Mckay/Reuters“It’s obvious that today is nothing new,” he said of the injury. “I had these feelings for a couple of days. Without a doubt, today was the worst day. There has been an important increase of pain and limitation. And that’s it. I managed to win that match. Let’s see what’s going on tomorrow.”He said he would undergo more tests on Thursday before deciding whether he would return to Centre Court to face Kyrgios, who upset him on that same patch of grass in their first meeting in 2014 in the round of 16. Nadal has won six of their eight other matches, including a testy second-round duel at Wimbledon in 2019 in which Kyrgios deliberately hit full-cut passing shots at Nadal’s body and felt no need to apologize.“Nick is a great player in all the surfaces but especially here on grass,” Nadal said. “He’s having a great grass-court season. It’s going to be a big challenge. I need to be at my 100 percent to keep having chances, and that’s what I’m going to try to do.”Nadal is clearly tired of talking about his body, weary of dealing with the injuries that have just kept coming during his intermittently sensational season.“If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Nadal said.For the first time in his long career, Nadal won the first two Grand Slam tournaments of the season, the Australian and French Opens. No man has completed a Grand Slam, winning all four major tournaments in the same year, since Rod Laver in 1969, but Nadal kept his bid alive with Laver, 83, watching from the royal box.Nadal managed it by settling for a much slower serve that, according to Fritz, gave him more trouble than Nadal’s full-force delivery. Nadal walked gingerly off the court for a medical timeout with a 4-3 lead in the second set and said he received anti-inflammatory medication and treatment from a physiotherapist.“For all the first set and all the second and a big part of the third, the problem was not only the serve but that if I served I could feel the pain for the rest of the point and could not play it normally,” he explained. “It took a while to figure it out.” His average serve speeds on Wednesday were 107 miles per hour for first serves and 94 miles per hour for second serves compared with 115 and 100 in the previous round. But once he adjusted, he said he no longer had lingering discomfort during the exchanges and that he felt uninhibited on his groundstrokes.“For a lot of moments, I was thinking maybe I will not be able to finish the match,” he said, speaking to the Centre Court crowd. “But, I don’t know, the court, the energy, something else, so yes, thanks for that.”Nadal has not always been the crowd favorite at Wimbledon, where his longtime rival Roger Federer has long enjoyed that role. But Federer, 40, is not playing here this year, and Nadal, back for the first time since 2019, has been hearing plenty of positive feedback as he tries to win Wimbledon for the third time.He pushed on Wednesday, evened the match at two sets apiece and then went up a break in the fifth to take a 4-3 lead, only to lose his own serve in the next game. But as the match extended past four hours, he regained control and finished off the victory with a classic forehand winner from inside the baseline, complete with his bolo-whip finish behind his left ear.It has been a Wimbledon full of surprises. Before it began, the All England Club barred Russian and Belarusian players because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Three leading players — Matteo Berrettini, Marin Cilic and Roberto Bautista Agut — withdrew after contracting the coronavirus.But Nadal and Djokovic are still in contention heading down the stretch, and so is Simona Halep, a former No. 1 who won Wimbledon in 2019 and is in resurgent form with the help of her new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. Halep, a Romanian, will face Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the semifinals on Thursday. Ons Jabeur, the No. 3 seed from Tunisia, will play Tatjana Maria, a German ranked No. 103 who has been the biggest surprise of the women’s tournament.Last year, Fritz came close to surprising Djokovic before losing in five sets in the third round of the Australian Open in a match in which, strange but true, Djokovic suffered an abdominal injury. The scenario against Nadal must have felt agonizingly familiar, and he said his biggest regret was not pushing Nadal harder the three times Nadal served to stay in the match.“In the end, he was just really, really, really good,” Fritz said. “Certain parts of the match I felt like maybe I kind of just needed to come up with more, do more. I left a lot kind of up to him, and he delivered.” More

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      Nick Kyrgios to Appear in Court on Assault Allegation in Australia

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      The accusation landed on the eve of perhaps the most important match of Kyrgios’s controversy-filled career, a quarterfinal showdown with Cristian Garín.WIMBLEDON, England — The spotlight on the Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios, whose confrontations with opponents and Wimbledon officials have made his matches can’t-miss theater for the past week, grew hotter Tuesday when news emerged that the police have begun legal proceedings against him after a former girlfriend accused him of assaulting her in December.The accusations landed on the eve of one of his most important matches, a quarterfinal showdown with Cristian Garín of Chile that he is favored to win, and less than 24 hours after he survived a five-set challenge from the American Brandon Nakashima on Monday.That match was largely uneventful by Kyrgios standards, mostly lacking the battles with umpires, the racket smashing and even the spitting in the direction of fans that often occur when Kyrgios signs up for a tournament.After the 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-2 win Monday, Kyrgios spoke of how good he felt, how he had reached a kind of equilibrium in his life after years of turmoil and how he has been able to enjoy moments on the tennis court in a way he rarely has in the past.“That’s probably the first time in my career where I wasn’t playing well, regardless of playing Centre Court Wimbledon, fully packed crowd, I was able to just say, ‘Wow, look how far I’ve come,’ to myself,” he said. “I was bouncing the ball before I served. I really just smiled to myself. I was like, ‘We’re here, we’re competing at Wimbledon, putting in a good performance mentally.’”Hours later, news broke in Australia that Kyrgios had been charged with one count of common assault related to an incident with an ex-girlfriend, Chiara Passari, according to The Canberra Times and a statement from the police. Kyrgios is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 2.“While Mr. Kyrgios is committed to addressing any and all allegations once clear, taking the matter seriously does not warrant any misreading of the process Mr. Kyrgios is required to follow,” Pierre Johannessen, a lawyer for Kyrgios, said in a statement Tuesday evening.Kyrgios did not register for a practice court on Tuesday, unlike the other players who have qualified for quarterfinals, including his opponent, Garín.On Instagram, where Kyrgios is active and has posted statements during previous controversies, he posted a picture of himself speaking with a young girl at a tennis tournament and added the caption, “This is why I play ❤️ to all my youngsters out there, believe in yourself.”The charge against Kyrgios — he is accused of grabbing Passari during a dispute — carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.The charge creates an awkward situation for Wimbledon, but also the ATP, which organizes the men’s professional tour.A spokesperson for the All England Club said Tuesday: “We have been made aware of legal proceedings involving Nick Kyrgios in Australia, and as they are ongoing, we are not in a position to offer a comment. We are in touch with Nick’s team and he remains scheduled to play his quarterfinal match tomorrow.”The ATP in the past has waited for the legal process to unfold before penalizing a player for behavior off the court.But it came under pressure to take action after allegations surfaced that Alexander Zverev had attacked a former girlfriend twice in hotel rooms during tournaments, even though the woman had not filed charges with the police and said she would not do so. Zverev has denied the allegations.The ATP, which did not comment on the Kyrgios charge because, a spokesman said, the legal process is not resolved, announced last year that it was conducting an independent investigation of Zverev. The organization has not announced anything related to it other than to say it was continuing. Zverev continued to compete on the tour until he injured an ankle in a semifinal match at the French Open last month against Rafael Nadal.Tournament officials at Wimbledon have fined Kyrgios $14,000 for two infractions this year: $10,000 after spitting in the direction of a fan after his first-round win and $4,000 fine for using an obscenity in his third-round match against Stefanos Tsitsipas.He has also violated Wimbledon rules against having colored clothing by walking onto the court wearing — though not playing in — red sneakers and baseball caps that have been black or red.“More attention for me,” he said Monday when asked about a potential penalty for the dress code violation. “What’s that saying? Any publicity is good publicity, right?” More

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      What’s the Most Curious and Fraught Job in Tennis?

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      Coaches in tennis have one of the odder existences in sports. Some players go for long periods without even using one, and others change coaches like socks.It was, by the usually secretive standards of coach-player relationships in tennis, an unorthodox move.Simona Halep of Romania had just lost in the second round of the French Open, suffering a panic attack after leading by a set and up a service break on the Chinese teenager Zheng Qinwen. Shortly after the match ended, Halep’s coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, the Frenchman best known for his tutelage of Serena Williams, took to Instagram to accept full responsibility for the defeat as well as Halep’s other subpar performances in recent tournaments.“She is fully dedicated, motivated, gives it everything on every ball,” said Mouratoglou, who began working with Halep only earlier this year. “She is a champion — her track record speaks for itself. I expect much better from myself, and I want to extend my apologies to her fans who have always been so supportive.”The post caught nearly everyone in tennis by surprise, even Halep, the two-time Grand Slam champion, who did not agree with it at all.“I was, yeah, surprised, shocked that he did that post and he took everything on him, but it was not on him,” she said before the start of Wimbledon. “It was me, that I was not able to do better and to actually calm down myself when I panicked.”The other day, Mouratoglou stood firm. The post was not an attempt to take the weight of the loss off Halep’s shoulders, he said during a courtside chat at the All England Club.“Do you think the panic attack comes from the sky?” he said. “There were signs that this could happen, and I should have anticipated them. Too many coaches say this is not my responsibility, that I do this and that for the player, and once the match starts there is nothing I can do.” He used an obscenity to describe that kind of rationalization.“It is our job to see things, to understand what can happen and to plan for it and adjust,” he said.That is one part of a tennis coach’s job — but only one.Coaches in tennis lead one of the odder existences in sports. Some players go for long periods without even using a coach. Those who do can see their coaches sitting courtside mere feet away as they play, but coaches can’t speak other than providing encouragement during the matches at the most important tournaments.They are often expected to travel everywhere the player goes, spending months on the road and sometimes serving as a babysitter, therapist and tactical expert. It is a close relationship with a troubling history of sometimes becoming too intimate. Pam Shriver, the 21-time Grand Slam doubles champion, recently revealed that she had a sexual relationship with her longtime coach, Don Candy, that began when she was 17 and lasted for several years, a relationship she now views as an assault given the power imbalance.Sometimes, a new coach completely changes the way a player plays.Since he began working with Iga Swiatek in December, Tomasz Wiktorowski has transformed her into an aggressive, attacking player who serves hard and hunts for opportunities to crush her forehand rather than hanging back and showing off one of the most creative arsenals in the game. Power not used is power wasted, the saying goes.Other times, players change coaches and little changes. Andy Murray hits the forehand with a bit more authority when Ivan Lendl is on his team, but that is about the only noticeable difference.Some relationships are long term. Rafael Nadal for years was guided by his uncle Toni and has been with Carlos Moya the past five years. Felix Auger Aliassime has been with Frederic Fontang since 2017, though recently Toni Nadal has been helping him. Emma Raducanu has been through four in the past year and now doesn’t have one.Rafael Nadal, right, for years was guided by his uncle Toni and has been with Carlos Moya, left, for the past five years.Jaime Reina/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFor many coaches, the work is often temporary. Some do double time as television commentators. There is a coaching carousel in tennis that makes running baseball dugouts and college football sidelines look stable.Consider Halep’s quarterfinal win, 6-2, 6-4, over Amanda Anisimova of the United States on Wednesday. For more than six years, Darren Cahill, the longtime coach and ESPN commentator, who has worked with Andre Agassi, Andy Murray and Ana Ivanovic, among others, coached Halep.They split in September. Cahill, who is Australian, said the rigors of travel and the Covid-19 quarantines that Australia required each time he returned home had become too much. But after Australia lifted the requirements, Anisimova asked Cahill to join her team before the Australian Open in January and he obliged.Anisimova’s main coach had been her father, who died suddenly of a heart attack at 52 in 2019. She has struggled to find a stable coach since. But the relationship with Cahill did not quite click, and Cahill split with Anisimova in March, saying he had overestimated his ability to manage the commitment to her and his family. Cahill has since signed on with Jannik Sinner, the emerging 20-year-old Italian star, who in February fired his longtime coach Riccardo Piatti, a relationship that, until the split, most figured would last for years. Sinner lost Tuesday to Novak Djokovic.So many players seem to go through so many coaches. And yet Paul Annacone, who has coached Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Sloane Stephens and recently began working with Taylor Fritz, said the most important thing a coach can provide a player was “stability” and what he described as a “macro comprehension of the environment and best practices to get that player to buy into an agreed-upon philosophy.”Annacone said coach-player relationships often founder when communication breaks down. Really “knowing the other person is essential,” he said.Or maybe, sometimes, it isn’t.Mouratoglou and Williams were nearly inseparable for years. He was the constant presence on the practice courts with her and in her box. He even admitted to coaching her during the 2018 U.S. Open final against Osaka, a violation that led to her being penalized a point and then a game during the match, which she lost in straight sets.Serena Williams and her coach Patrick Mouratoglou were inseperable for years.Loren Elliott/ReutersHalep landed at Mouratoglou’s academy in the south of France earlier this year, after injuries and a loss of confidence had her thinking her career might be over. She barely knew Mouratoglou and was looking for a place to train. She said seeing children on the courts working hard at 8 a.m. every day was inspiring.Mouratoglou approached her one day and said he believed she could still be at the top of the sport. She figured since he had worked for so long with the best player ever, he probably knew a few things.Williams had not played a match in months, and it was not clear whether she would ever play again. Mouratoglou, seemingly a free agent, signed on.“He tries to understand me because I think this is the main thing that I want from a coach, to understand me, because I am pretty emotional most of the time,” Halep said. Slowly, she has begun to win more. “I feel we need time to know each other better, to be able to put in practice everything he tells me.”Of course, then Williams announced she was coming back, though she doesn’t know for how long. She played Wimbledon and though she lost in the first round said she might play more this summer.She’s using her sister’s coach, at least for now. More

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      Close Friends Ons Jabeur, Tatjana Maria to Meet in Wimbledon Semifinal

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      Neither Tatjana Maria nor Ons Jabeur had been to a Grand Slam singles semifinal until this week. The close friends will play each other at Wimbledon on Thursday for a place in the final.WIMBLEDON, England — A working mother of two, Tatjana Maria had the child care under control on Tuesday.As she and Charles-Edouard, her husband and coach, headed to No. 1 Court for the biggest match of her career, their daughters, 8-year-old Charlotte and 1-year-old Cecilia, were happily ensconced in the Wimbledon day care center, one of Charlotte’s favorite spots on tour.By the time the family reunited, Maria was a Wimbledon semifinalist.“I’m so glad that Charlotte is old enough to understand all of this,” Maria said after her gutsy, resourceful 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 victory over her 22-year-old German compatriot Jule Niemeier.There have been greater shocks in women’s tennis: see the British teenager Emma Raducanu winning the U.S. Open women’s singles title as a qualifier in her first visit last year.But Maria’s run has certainly been a major and moving surprise. She is 34 and gave birth to Cecilia little more than a year ago. She arrived at Wimbledon ranked 103rd in singles and having lost in the first round in her last eight Grand Slam singles tournaments.“I’ve got goose bumps all over,” she said after defeating Niemeier in one of the most diverting matches of the women’s tournament, dropping her racket and covering her face with both hands after converting match point.Maria, who lives with her family in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has a throwback game seemingly more in harmony with the 20th century than the 21st with her heavy reliance on slice, including forehand slice, and a yen for the net.But at this wild and often wide-open Wimbledon, she will now face her close friend Ons Jabeur on Thursday for a spot in the final. Jabeur, the No. 3 seed, defeated unseeded Marie Bouzkova, 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, on Centre Court on Tuesday.“I love Tatjana so much, and her family is really amazing,” Jabeur said. “She’s my barbecue buddy, so it’s going to be tough to play her obviously.”Ons Jabeur, right, with Maria’s daughters Cecilia and Charlotte. “She’s one of the examples I wish players would look up to,” Jabeur said of Maria. Ons JabeurThis is uncharted territory for both, and Jabeur, a 27-year-old Tunisian with an eye-catching all-court game, has quite a story of her own. She will be the first Arab woman to play in a Grand Slam singles semifinal and has become a symbol of hope and new possibilities in her region.But Jabeur, a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon last year, already has been in close range of such tennis success. Maria had not been past the third round in a Grand Slam singles tournament until now and had made it past the second round only once: at Wimbledon in 2015.“I always believed that I have something inside,” Maria said. “I always believed in this, but to be now here in this spot. …”Maria paused for a moment.“One year ago, I gave birth to my second daughter,” she said. “If somebody would tell me that one year later you are in a semifinal of Wimbledon, that’s crazy.”Consider her husband crazy.“Of course, it’s surprising to others, but I believe in my wife, and I tell her always that I know she’s capable of doing bigger things,” he said in an interview in French on Tuesday that was often interrupted by congratulatory back slaps and handshakes from other players and coaches.“Tatjana’s a warrior,” he continued. “From the first to the last point, from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, she never gives anyone a free point. That’s her strength, but she’s also able to put it all in its proper perspective because we have the family.”Maria is the first mother to advance this far at Wimbledon since Serena Williams, another Palm Beach Gardens resident, reached the final in 2019. But Maria was touring with a child in tow well before Williams, whose daughter, Olympia, is 4. Williams and Maria exchanged tips when Williams returned to play at Wimbledon this year at age 40 after nearly a year away from the tour.“When Serena arrived, I told her the crèche was already open, because she didn’t know, and her little one went over there,” Maria said. “It’s great that Serena’s still playing tennis with a child.”Maria said her main role model as a tennis-playing mother was Kim Clijsters, the Belgian who is now definitively retired but who won three Grand Slam singles titles after giving birth to her daughter Jada in 2008.“I was one of the first ones after Kim,” Maria said. “She was my inspiration, and I hope I can maybe be an inspiration to others.”Clijsters, 39 and now a mother of three, was watching at Wimbledon on Tuesday. “Amazing to see,” she said of Maria’s unexpected success.The Marias travel the world but do not need to leave the house to be international.At home, Tatjana Maria speaks German to their children and Charles-Edouard, a French former professional who played on the satellite tour, speaks French. His mother, a frequent visitor, speaks her native language of Spanish to her grandchildren while Charlotte is enrolled in an online academy whose primary language is English.“Charlotte speaks four languages,” Charles-Edouard Maria said.She is also a promising and enthusiastic tennis player, coached primarily by her father but also a frequent practice partner for her mother. She even warms her up before matches, although not at Wimbledon this year. Surprisingly, their frequent practice sessions have not helped only Charlotte’s game.Maria’s ability to hit heavily sliced strokes off both wings keeps the ball particularly low on grass, which makes it harder for opponents to attack.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have a court at the house, and every day during the lockdown and the pandemic Tatjana trained with her,” Charles-Edouard said. “And it’s really been a plus for Tatjana’s game, because by showing things to Charlotte, she had to go back to the basics and that has refreshed her game, and she has built on it. It’s one of the reasons she’s playing much better than before.”Maria won a WTA 250 event in Bogotá, Colombia, this season on clay: her second singles title on the main tour. The other one came in Majorca in 2018 on grass, which was foreshadowing for this Wimbledon.She has a strong, relatively flat first serve, and her ability to hit heavily sliced strokes off both wings keeps the ball particularly low on grass. That makes it harder for opponents to attack, and Maria has defused some powerful opposition here, upsetting three seeded players: No. 26 Sorana Cirstea of Romania, No. 5 Maria Sakkari of Greece and No. 12 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia.Niemeier, making her Wimbledon debut, had big and varied weapons, too, despite being ranked just 97th. Watching her all-court tussle with Maria often felt like entering a tennis time machine with both players chipping and charging the net and Niemeier frequently serving and volleying and hitting overhead after overhead as Maria threw up towering, often beautifully placed lobs.Niemeier appeared to have command, going up, 4-2, in the third set, but Maria kept scrapping and improvising on the run to close the gap. She saved a break point at 5-5 and then held to 6-5 after a scrambling point that earned a standing ovation from much of the crowd. She broke Niemeier’s serve to close out her most significant victory.A few hours later, Jabeur closed out her own at Wimbledon. Next up: a surprise semifinal against her barbecue buddy.“She’s one of the examples I wish players would look up to,” Jabeur said of Maria. “Because she really suffered to play and win rounds in the Grand Slams and now look at her. A Wimbledon semifinalist after having two babies. It’s a really amazing story.” More

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      Novak Djokovic Beats Jannik Sinner at Wimbledon

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      After dropping the first two sets to the young Italian player, Djokovic rallied to win three straight sets.WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic has pulled off some masterly escape acts on Centre Court.Roger Federer serving with two match points for the championship in the fifth set of their epic final in 2019? No problem. Djokovic rallied and won in a tiebreaker.Add Tuesday’s quarterfinal to the list for Djokovic, the defending champion and six-time winner of the singles title at the sport’s most prestigious tournament, including the last three. His triumph, 5-7, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, over Jannik Sinner, the rising 20-year-old Italian, was a simple lesson in regicide — when you come to slay a king, do it fast or not at all.“I always believe I can turn a match around,” he said when it was over.Djokovic, the winner of 20 Grand Slam singles titles, entered the match having won 25 consecutive matches at Wimbledon. The last time Djokovic lost at Wimbledon was in 2017 (the tournament was canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic) when he retired with an elbow injury in the middle of the second set of his quarterfinal against Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic. He is now 10-1 at Wimbledon when a match goes five sets.The last time he lost a match here that he played to its conclusion was in 2016, when he lost to the American Sam Querrey in the third round in four sets.Early on, it looked like Djokovic was going to have another easy afternoon on Centre Court, the site of so many of the signature wins of his career. He had been so clinical in his first three matches, his movement, his feel for the ball and his command of the setting looking as strong as ever. An unusual scuff mark was a dropped second set against the unknown but hot Tim van Rijthoven of the Netherlands on Sunday evening.Djokovic struggled early and dropped the first two sets to Sinner.Toby Melville/ReutersWith William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, sitting in the front row of the royal box, Djokovic won the first seven points of the match. A congratulatory roar rose from the crowd when Sinner managed to get on the scoreboard, but Djokovic still surged to a 3-0 lead.Sinner, making his second appearance on Centre Court in three days, quickly found his sea legs. Every year, early in the second week of Wimbledon, the grass near the Centre Court baseline turns brown and bumpy. Sinner started aiming his powerful topspin forehand and flat, hard backhand at that area, and more often than not he hit his target, beating Djokovic at his own game as he pushed him back off the court in point after point.Sinner drew even midway through the set and pushed ahead in the 11th game, breaking Djokovic’s serve once more with a massive twisting cross-court forehand, then finishing off the first set with a series of big serves and cut strokes that stayed low to the grass.The second set brought more of the same, with Sinner getting an early service break and a late one to take the set, 6-2. After 93 minutes, Sinner was a set away from the finish line.Sinner returning the ball to Djokovic.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut then Djokovic, who is the most dangerous player in the game when he is two sets down, woke up, and the size of the moment and the task seemed to grow in Sinner’s mind. Djokovic left the court for a break — a snack and a pep talk in the bathroom mirror.For the next 70 minutes, he sent a message to whoever ends up holding a racket on the other side of the net from him in the final days of this tournament — his refusal to get vaccinated for Covid-19 may well prevent him from playing another Grand Slam event for 11 months, and he isn’t going anywhere easily.“I saw a little bit of a doubt in his game and his movement,” Djokovic said.He pegged 123-mile-per-hour serves that sent chalk dust from the lines flying in the air. He sprinted to catch up with short balls and drop shots. He laced shots within inches of the top of the net that pushed Sinner back as though he had an 80-foot pole jammed against his chest.On his best shots, Djokovic put a finger to his ear or flapped his hands to the sky asking for more noise from the crowd. He even cracked a smile when a champagne cork popped just before his serve late in the fourth set, breaking the silence and forcing him to pause and reload. This was his idea of fun.Three hours after they began, Djokovic pounded one more serve down the centerline and Sinner lunged. The ball sailed long, and they headed to a deciding set, an earsplitting roar rising through Centre Court as Sinner settled in to serve.It was all but over within a few minutes.Djokovic grunts and grinds his way through the points he wants and needs. In the third game, with a chance to break Sinner’s serve and his spirit decisively, Djokovic spread shots back and forth across the baseline, making Sinner hit one more shot and then another until the young Italian cut a volley into the net. Five games later, the result was official. Time elapsed: 3 hours 35 minutes.“I’m just glad I’m through,” he said. More

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      In Wimbledon’s Queue, Waiting Is a Pleasure, and the Point

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      In a world of online ticketing, camping overnight for tennis seats is an anachronism, but it is also about community and a sense of belonging.WIMBLEDON, England — It was nearing 10 p.m., and Richard Hess, an 81-year-old American, was sitting inside his small tent and merrily preparing for his latest sleep-deprived night in the Wimbledon queue.“You caught me blowing up my mattress,” he said, poking his gray-haired head out of the tent and offering his visitor a seat in a folding chair.Hess is an Anglophile from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., who memorized the names of all the English monarchs beginning with William the Conqueror before his first visit to Britain. He has a doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and played the California junior-tennis circuit at the same time as Billie Jean King. He has been queuing at Wimbledon since 1978: first lining up on the sidewalks for tickets and then, beginning in the early 1990s, camping out overnight with hundreds of other tennis fans in the quest for prime seats on Centre Court and the other main show courts.“When I was a child, I asked my father, what’s the most important tournament in the world, and he said, ‘Well, that’s Wimbledon,’” Hess said.On his first day, he and his oldest daughter saw Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe play first-round matches, and Hess had spent his latest day at Wimbledon watching the new Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz before returning to his tent and his community.“It’s not just the tennis that keeps me coming back; it’s the culture and the people,” Hess said.The queue enters the wooded area of Wimbledon Park.Lucy Nixon and Richard Hess heading for the Wimbledon gates after purchasing their tickets.One of those people is Lucy Nixon, a 42-year-old from Norfolk, England, who met Hess on her first day in the queue in 2002 and is now a close enough friend that she invited Hess and Jackie, his wife of 60 years, to her wedding.This year’s Wimbledon has been a chance to reconnect after the tournament was canceled because of the pandemic in 2020 and was staged without a queue in 2021 for health-and-safety reasons.There was doubt it would return. In a world of online ticketing, the queue is clearly an anachronism, but then Wimbledon — with its grass courts, all-white-clothing rule for players and artificially low-priced strawberries and cream — is an anachronism writ large.“Some people are traditionalists,” Nixon said. “And it’s like, we’ve always done it this way, we’ve always had a queue, we’re always going to have a queue. And then there’s other people that are just like, you know, let’s do what every other Grand Slam does and just sell tickets online and be done with it.”For now, the queue lives on, although many other Wimbledon traditions do not.“The queue is not still here because it’s just a thing we’ve always done,” said Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club. “The queue is here because it’s about accessibility to the tournament. That’s really integral to our traditions.”A steward carries the Q flag past tents on the Wimbledon queue.Nixon, who has had ample time to ponder these issues in 20 years of waiting outside the club’s gates, has a “love-hate thing” with the queue.“I’ve been to other tennis tournaments in Europe and in Indian Wells, and as an ordinary person I could go online with my ordinary phone and book tickets with my ordinary bank account,” she said. “It was much easier to do that. You’ve got to work for your Wimbledon tickets, so in a way, it’s kind of like, actually are they really that progressive and inclusive? Or are they making the little people work hard for the crumbs they are going to get, which is a measly 1,500 tickets out of how many thousands available for the main courts?”The All England Club, which conducts an annual ticket lottery and also has season-ticket holders, has a daily capacity of around 42,000. It reserves about 500 seats each on Centre Court, No. 1 Court and No. 2 Court for those in the queue, who pay face value for tickets. The Centre Court and No. 1 Court seats are down low, near the action.“That’s the real appeal,” Hess said.If you are one of the often-thousands in the queue who do not get a main-court ticket, you can still buy a grounds pass for access to the outside courts, although it could be a long wait if you are deep in line or another night in a tent if you want to try again for a main-court spot.It is not precisely clear when queuing began at Wimbledon, but according to Richard Jones, a British tennis historian and author, there were news reports in 1927 of fans lining up at 5 a.m. for tickets. Overnight queuing was happening by the 1960s, became more popular as Borg and McEnroe did, and for about 40 years it happened on the sidewalk that the British call “the pavement.”“I was always waiting for someone to get run over,” Hess said.In 2008, the overnight and increasingly polyglot queue went bucolic: moving into Wimbledon Park, the vast green space that lies opposite the All England Club on the other side of Church Road. The tents are pitched in numbered rows on the grass near a lake. It is more peaceful yet heavily controlled, more trailer park than adventure. There are food trucks, unisex bathrooms, a first-aid center, security guards and lots of stewards milling about to keep order and position the flag that indicates the end of the queue to new arrivals.The queue enters the wooded area of Wimbledon Park through a series of branded portals.Volunteers begin rousting campers shortly after 5 a.m. to give them time to pack their gear and check it at the huge white storage tent before entering the queue well ahead of the All England Club’s 10 a.m. opening time.“Four or five hours of sleep is a good night,” Hess said.Would-be ticket holders are issued a card with a number when they arrive at Wimbledon Park. The lower the number, the higher your priority, and on June 26, the first night of queuing at Wimbledon in nearly three years, the person who was first in line and holding “Queue Card 00001” was Brent Pham, a 32-year-old property manager from Newport Beach, Calif.Pham arrived in London on the Thursday before Wimbledon, bought a tent and air mattress, and spent Friday night sleeping on the sidewalk and Saturday night sleeping in a nearby field in a group of about 50 before the queue officially opened at 2 p.m. on Sunday. It paid off with a guaranteed Centre Court seat.Twilight descends on the queue and rows of tents in Wimbledon Park.Christopher Clarey/The New York TimesBrent Pham entering the All England Club on Monday morning.Christopher Clarey/The New York Times“My dad, he loved to watch Wimbledon, and he passed away in 2017, and he never got to experience this, so I feel it’s extra important to make sure I get on Centre Court every year,” said Pham, who carries a printed photograph of his father, Huu, with him into the grounds each day. “So his spirit at least is able to be at Wimbledon,” he said.In a normal year, getting into Centre Court each day from the queue would have been nearly impossible, but the queue’s numbers were down significantly in the first four days this year: at around 6,000 per day instead of the usual 11,000. Potential factors included lower international visitor numbers, galloping inflation, shifting habits because of the coronavirus and rain. Then there is Roger Federer. The eight-time Wimbledon champion is not playing in men’s singles for the first time since 1998.“During the Federer years, there were a lot of people who would camp two nights to see Roger,” Hess said. “They’d see his match, come right on out, set up their tent — there might be 200 of them — and sleep two nights to get in for his next match.”Hess has spent more than 250 nights in the queue and will log 10 more this year. Long ago, he set a goal of queuing until he was 80. The pandemic delayed the milestone, but he made it.“Now I’m reassessing,” he said before returning to his underinflated air mattress. “But I fully expect to be back next year.” More

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      How Wimbledon Became the Nick Kyrgios Show

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      Kyrgios, the big, talented Australian, has taken over Wimbledon with his antics and psychological warfare. It’s working.WIMBLEDON, England — Going up against the tennis talents of Nick Kyrgios, the powerful Australian with hands as soft as a masseuse’s, is plenty difficult in its own right.That is just the start, though. Kyrgios, practitioner of psychological warfare, can be even more formidable.The sport’s outspoken, charismatic bad boy, whose antics have stolen the Wimbledon spotlight, casts a spell on the vast crowds that pack stadiums to watch his matches, even on Centre Court at Wimbledon, that supposed temple of decorum.The mid-rally, between-the-legs trick shots, the twisting and curling winners and the antisocial theatrics force opponents to take on Kyrgios and thousands of spectators looking for another episode of the most unpredictable and compelling show in tennis.“Come on, Nick!” they yell as though he were a pal playing a game of darts at the pub.His regular battles with officials erupt without warning and can reappear throughout the match. He knows how much he is loved and loathed, and when a Grand Slam tournament becomes a soap opera starring him, as this one has, his game is right where he wants it to be.“I sit here now in the quarterfinals Wimbledon again, and I just know there’s so many people that are so upset,” he said after outlasting Brandon Nakashima of the United States on Monday in five sets, 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(2), 3-6, 6-2. “It’s a good feeling.”Kyrgios has fought his own psychological battles through the extreme highs and lows of his erratic career. A few years ago, his agent had to drag him from a pub at 4 a.m. because he had a match against Rafael Nadal later that day. He knows as well as anyone that tennis is as much a mental fight as a physical one, maybe more so. He rattles his opponent’s concentration, doing whatever he can to force the guy across the net to start thinking about the drama rather than his game.Kyrgios appeared to injure his right arm or shoulder during a forehand return on Monday.Tolga Akmen/EPA, via ShutterstockHere are the facts of Kyrgios’s fourth-round match against Nakashima, a rising, levelheaded, 20-year-old American, which occurred two days after Kyrgios’s upset of Stefanos Tsitsipas that was a circus of screaming matches with officials that so unnerved Tsitsipas, the fourth-seeded Greek star, that he began trying to hit Kyrgios with his shots — and usually missed.Midway through the first set against Nakashima, Kyrgios appeared to injure his right upper arm and shoulder while trying to muscle a forehand return of Nakashima’s serve. By the latter stages of the set, Kyrgios, whose cannon-like serve is among his most potent weapons, was grabbing and massaging the area around his right triceps muscle on changeovers and between points.He winced after some serves and forehands and repeatedly rotated his arm, as though trying to stretch out the joint and the muscles around it.Unable to swing freely and unable to unleash that nearly 140 m.p.h. serve as he did in his first three matches, Kyrgios stopped chasing and reaching for balls. In the tenth game, Nakashima, playing with his trademark efficiency, jumped on the diminished Kyrgios’s serve repeatedly to take the first set, 6-4. The young American looked like he was on cruise control.The umpire and a tournament official asked Kyrgios if he was OK and if he needed medical attention. He waved them both off, but as the second set began, there was more shoulder rubbing, more wincing, more arm rotation. Kyrgios’s forehand became a wristy whip instead of the windmill that sends opponents running backward.Kyrgios took a medical timeout that may have been more of a mind game against his opponent.Paul Childs/ReutersSometimes there is nothing so difficult as playing against an injured opponent. Players tell themselves to change nothing, to play as if everything were normal. But the mind can instinctually relax, suggesting to not hit that next forehand so close to the line or so hard because maybe it’s not necessary against a weakened opponent.On Monday afternoon, Nakashima could not ignore Kyrgios’s winces and shoulder grabs or his so-much-slower-than-usual walks from one side of the court to the other for the next point.The more Kyrgios rubbed that shoulder, the more tentative Nakashima became. He missed seven of eight first serves in the third game of the second set, then missed a forehand on break point, and suddenly Kyrgios had the momentum.And then the numbers on the board tracking the speed of Kyrgios’s serve began to climb, from the 110s into the 120s in miles per hour and upward from there. And the blasted forehands started to reappear. Serving at a tight moment late in the set, Kyrgios hit 137 and 132 on the radar gun. Minutes later, he was all even.Nakashima settled back down early in the third set. On serve, midway through, Kyrgios called for the physiotherapist and a medical timeout. As Kyrgios received a massage, Nakashima got up from his chair and performed shadow drills facing the stands instead of Kyrgios.Back on the court, Kyrgios served once more well above 120 m.p.h. He stretched his advantage in a tiebreaker with a 129 m.p.h. ace, then won it rifling a forehand return.“He was still serving fine after the medical timeout, still ripping the ball, so I don’t think it was that big of an injury,” said Nakashima, who had no answers for Kyrgios’s serve or forehand in the third-set tiebreaker.That shoulder drama — Kyrgios later described it as one of his “niggles” that he had treated with some painkillers — ended there.Another set, another mind game. Kyrgios, serving at 3-5, could have won the game and made Nakashima serve out the set so Kyrgios could serve first in the deciding act.Kyrgios has been the most entertaining player on and off the court at Wimbledon.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNot so much. How about three serves in the 75-m.p.h. range, one underhanded, and a forehand on set point so obviously aimed off the court? (It hit its target.) Was Kyrgios now quitting?“Complete rope-a-dope tactic,” Kyrgios said. “I just threw away that service game. I knew he was in a rhythm. He was starting to get on top of me. I kind of just wanted to throw him off a little bit.” It worked, judging by the aces, and the running volley he perfectly shaved off the grass in his first service game.There were challenges on calls he thought were wrong, and a few on shots of his that were clearly out. Nakashima serving at deuce at 1-1 made for a convenient time for Kyrgios to start jawing with the chair umpire. Then he stabbed a backhand for break point and pulled off a back-spinning squash shot to induce the error for a service break.And it was largely curtains from there. A 134 m.p.h. serve got Kyrgios to match point at 5-2. A surprise serve-and-volley on second serve on match point sealed it.Cristian Garin of Chile, ranked 43rd in the world, is up next in the quarterfinals. The show goes on, and maybe on and on. More