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      Nadal Has a Chance at Winning All 4 Grand Slams, if His Foot Cooperates

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      Rafael Nadal said he planned to have his chronic left foot injury treated before Wimbledon begins in three weeks, then decide whether to play.PARIS — Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have won and done so much in nearly 20 years of hoarding the loot in men’s tennis.But there is one gap in each member of the Big Three’s story line. None has managed to complete the Grand Slam by winning all four major tournaments in the same calendar year.Djokovic got close, agonizingly close, falling just one match short last year by losing in the final of the U.S. Open to Daniil Medvedev. (He also fell short in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics, ruling out a Golden Slam.)Now at 36, an advanced age in tennis, Nadal has created his best opportunity by winning the first two legs of the Grand Slam: He delivered a big-surprise victory at the Australian Open in January and claimed his 14th career victory at the French Open on Sunday, a win that should only have come as a surprise because he was playing with a numb left foot.Nadal is still just halfway to the Grand Slam, but he has never been this close to a feat that was last achieved in the men’s game in 1969 by the Australian Rod Laver.In 2009, the only other time Nadal won the Australian Open, he was beaten for the first time at Roland Garros, losing in the fourth round to Robin Soderling of Sweden.But this year Nadal can head to Wimbledon, which begins June 27, with the Grand Slam still in play. The question is, will he head to Wimbledon at all?He revealed on Sunday, after his 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 thrashing of the 23-year-old Norwegian Casper Ruud in the French Open final, that he had received painkilling injections to numb his left foot before each of his matches on the red clay in Paris this year. He said he would not do the same again at any tournament, not even Wimbledon, because of the risks. Instead, he plans to undergo a procedure this week called radio frequency ablation to try to provide longer-term pain relief by deadening the problematic nerves in his foot.“I’m going to be in Wimbledon if my body is ready to be in Wimbledon,” Nadal said. “Wimbledon is not a tournament that I want to miss. I think nobody wants to miss Wimbledon. I love Wimbledon.” Despite that sentiment, there will be plenty of missing players at Wimbledon this year. The All England Club has barred players from Russia and Belarus from participating in this year’s tournament because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Those affected include Medvedev, a Russian who will reclaim the No. 1 ranking in men’s singles from Djokovic next week; and the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, a semifinalist in Wimbledon’s women’s singles draw last year.The men’s and women’s tours have responded to the ban by stripping Wimbledon of ranking points, which left the former No. 1 Naomi Osaka openly questioning in Paris whether she was still motivated enough to take part in Wimbledon.Nadal, as part of the ATP player council, was deeply involved in the internal debates on stripping points, but he has an elemental connection to Wimbledon beyond whatever rankings boost it can provide.“I had a lot of success there,” he said. “I lived amazing emotions there.”He won one of the most acclaimed matches in tennis history in 2008 when he beat Federer in a Wimbledon final that stretched to 9-7 in the fifth set in the twilight. Nadal won Wimbledon again in 2010, beating Tomas Berdych for the title. But since losing the 2011 final to Djokovic, Nadal has not advanced past the semifinals and has twice missed the tournament because of injury: in 2016 because of his left wrist and last year because of the chronic foot condition known as Müller-Weiss syndrome that is linked to a deformity in the navicular bone and first threatened his career in his late teens.Roger Federer, left, and Nadal played a thrilling Wimbledon final in 2008. Nadal has 22 Grand Slam singles titles, while Federer and Novak Djokovic are tied for second at 20.Anja Niedringhaus/Associated PressHe managed the problem for years with orthotic inserts and custom-designed shoes and anti-inflammatory medication, but the condition is clearly threatening his career again even if the short-term concern is Wimbledon.Larry Chou, an American physician in Havertown, Pa., specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation, said that radio frequency ablation was “relatively low risk” but has widely varying rates of success depending on the joint involved. He said it was rare to use on the foot.“If it works, it’s for symptomatic relief, but it’s not fixing the underlying issue,” Chou said. “The mechanical stress going through his foot is still going to be there.”Chou has performed radio frequency ablations on backs and knees but not on feet. He said if the procedure worked, which was no guarantee, the pain relief would typically not be immediate.“It usually takes a few weeks to kick in, mostly because the nerve gets irritated when you are killing it and you can develop a little neuroma,” Chou said, using another term for a pinched nerve, “but that’s usually not as bad as the original pain. The problem for Nadal is that Wimbledon begins in three weeks, and three weeks is a relatively short time frame. But it’s one of those things where he’s beaten the odds before in his career and you hope that he beats the odds again.”Chou said it was no doubt remarkable that Nadal could win the French Open without having feeling in one of his feet.“But then again,” Chou said, “he’s been playing tennis at this level for so long. And these guys like Nadal, their mechanics and how they move, they have such great muscle memory. They just do it.”Nadal certainly did it well: defeating four top-10 seeds at Roland Garros this year and running his record in French Open finals to 14-0 and his overall French Open record to an astounding 112-3.But Wimbledon has belonged more to his archrivals. Federer has won it eight times, a men’s record. Djokovic has won it six times, including the last three times it has been contested, in 2018, 2019 and 2021.Even if Nadal somehow recovers in time to compete, the Grand Slam will remain a daunting prospect with Djokovic in the field and back on the Centre Court grass.But doubting Nadal’s resilience, tenacity and talent has been a bad play for quite some time, as he proved again in Paris.“Let’s see what happens,” he said on Sunday night. “I’m a positive guy.” More

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      Rafael Nadal, Looking Unbeatable, Wins 14th French Open Title

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      Nadal extended his men’s singles record of 22 Grand Slam tournament titles with a win in straight sets over the eighth-seeded Casper Ruud.PARIS — He fooled us again, which is, in itself, quite a feat at this stage of the game.Perhaps Rafael Nadal really means it when he downplays his chances at Roland Garros, and there was certainly no fakery involved last month when he limped and grimaced through the final set of an early-round defeat at the Italian Open and sounded particularly weary of the grind and the chronic pain in his left foot.Nadal did indeed find himself in unfamiliar territory as he returned to his favorite stomping ground of Roland Garros. He was very short on clay-court matches and without any clay-court titles this season as the tournament began. Novak Djokovic appeared to be regathering momentum. Carlos Alcaraz, a young Spaniard, seemed to be rising like a rocket. Nadal said Sunday that just to be able to play the tournament, he needed painkilling injections before every round that left his foot numb, as if it had fallen asleep.But there is no wake-up call quite like Parisian red clay for Nadal. And on Sunday, after working his way through the loaded top half of the draw, he was much too much, even at less than his best, for the No. 8 seed Casper Ruud in the French Open men’s final, winning 6-3, 6-3, 6-0 in a match that lasted 2 hours and 18 minutes.Casper Ruud had trained at Nadal’s academy in Spain.James Hill for The New York TimesThe victory secured Nadal his 14th men’s singles title at the tournament, extending a French Open record that looks more unbeatable with every passing spring.He also extended his lead in the three-way major titles race with Djokovic and Roger Federer. Nadal now has a men’s record 22 Grand Slam singles titles, two more than Djokovic, whom Nadal beat in the quarterfinals here, and Federer, who at age 40 is still recovering from his latest knee surgery.Sunday’s triumph, with Billie Jean King and King Felipe VI of Spain in attendance, also made Nadal, at age 36, the oldest man to win the French Open, surpassing his Spanish compatriot Andrés Gimeno, who won the title in 1972 at age 34.“I for sure never believed I would be here at 36 being competitive again, playing in the most important court of my career one more time in the final,” Nadal said. “It means a lot to me, means everything. It just means a lot of energy to try to keep going.”Nadal’s tone of late has been valedictory: He has repeatedly referred to the possibility that he could be playing his final French Open. But after slamming the door on Ruud on Sunday and then hugging him at the net, Nadal made it clear that this was not going to be the tennis equivalent of a walk-off grand slam.“I don’t know what can happen in the future but I’m going to keep fighting to try to keep going,” he said as the sellout crowd of 15,000, clearly well aware of the speculation, roared its approval. But there are no guarantees, as Nadal later made clear at a news conference as he explained that he did not intend to continue playing tournaments with regular painkilling injections or with a numb foot.“Everybody knows how much this tournament means to me,” he said. “That was the only way to give myself a chance here, no? So I did it. And I can’t be happier and I can’t thank enough my doctor for all the things he did during all my tennis career, helping me in every tough moment. But it’s obvious that I can’t keep competing with the foot asleep.”In search of a longer-term solution, Nadal said he would undergo a procedure later this week known as radio frequency ablation, in which radio waves will be sent through a hollow needle inserted into the nerves in his left foot that are causing his constant pain. If the procedure works, which is far from certain, the heat from the radio waves could prevent the nerves from sending pain signals to Nadal’s brain.“If that works, I’m going to keep going; If that does not work, then it’s going to be another story,” said Nadal, who ruled out taking more painkilling injections to play Wimbledon, which begins in three weeks.Nadal said if the treatment was ineffective, he would have to ask himself hard questions about his future in the game and whether he wanted to risk foot surgery, which he has been told could impact his mobility “to be competitive again” and could “take a long time” to recover from.“So let’s do step by step, as I did all my tennis career,” he said of the decision-making process, declining to rule out playing at Wimbledon.He certainly looked ready for more tennis against Ruud, picking up speed and precision as the match progressed. Nadal was not at his best early and was at times far from his top form, losing his serve in the third game with two double faults and an off-rhythm forehand unforced error into the middle of the net. But Ruud was also struggling to find his way, looking edgy and restricted on the pivotal points in the opening set and then getting outplayed on the pivotal points in the later stages after he had worked through his nerves.Ruud’s one genuine surge came at the start of the second set. He broke Nadal’s serve again to take a 3-1 lead but at 30-30 in the next game, Ruud lined up an inside-out forehand and perhaps sensing that excellence was required, went for just too much and missed. Nadal broke him back on the next point and would not lose another game: reeling off 11 straight and finishing off the victory with a backhand down the line in the sunshine.Nadal did not lose a game in the final set.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesNadal is in the midst of one of his most remarkable seasons, despite the chronic pain that left him so downbeat in Rome and required intensive treatment in Paris.After missing nearly all of the second half of the 2021 season because of the foot problem — he has a condition known as Müller-Weiss syndrome — he roared back to win the Australian Open, rallying to defeat Daniil Medvedev in a five-set final in January.He went on to start the season with 20 straight victories before losing in the final of the BNP Paribas Open in March to the American Taylor Fritz, in part because of a new injury: a stress fracture in his ribs. That forced Nadal to take a six-week break and miss most of the clay-court season before returning in Madrid last month having practiced very little.He was beaten by Alcaraz in the quarterfinals and then beaten by Denis Shapovalov of Canada in the round of 16 in Rome. But Nadal arrived at Roland Garros with his fabulous memories and his longtime physician, Angel Ruiz-Cotorro, who was able to help Nadal manage the pain and a very rough draw.Nadal had to defeat four of the top nine seeds: No. 9 Felix Auger-Aliassime, No. 1 Djokovic, No. 3 Alexander Zverev and finally No. 8 Ruud in what turned out to the most lopsided of all those matches.Nadal has not only won 14 French Open singles titles, he has won all 14 of the singles finals he has played at Roland Garros.Nadal has won the French Open 14 times since 2005.Agence France-Presse, Getty ImagesSo many records. So much enduring excellence, and Ruud, an affable 23-year-old Norwegian, certainly needed no reminder of his opponent’s achievements as he walked into the Philippe Chatrier Court as the first Norwegian man to play in a Grand Slam singles final.Ruud, who broke into the top 10 last year, has had two main role models as he emerged from a nation whose athletes are better known for excelling on snow than on clay. There was his father, Christian, who coached him and was a tour-level player ranked as high as No. 39 in 1995. And there was Nadal, with his extreme topspin forehand and hard-wired combativeness. Ruud began training regularly with his team at Nadal’s tennis academy in Majorca, Spain, in 2018 and even played — and lost — practice sets against Nadal.He also has played golf with Nadal, thinking he was in for a relaxed experience only to discover that Nadal’s competitive streak was not restricted to the tennis court.But Sunday was Ruud’s first chance to face Nadal on tour.“To play Rafa in a Roland Garros final is probably the greatest challenge there is in this sport,” Ruud said.That was before the final, and on Sunday afternoon after it was over in a hurry and a flurry of Nadal winners down the stretch, Ruud said he now knew “for sure” that it was the greatest challenge.“It’s not easy, I’m not the first victim,” Ruud said to Nadal at the award ceremony. “I know that there have been many before.”And not to get fooled again, but it will be intriguing to see, in light of Nadal’s age, health and increasingly nostalgic mood, whether Ruud will turn out to be the last.Nadal had to beat four of the top nine seeds to win the title.James Hill for The New York Times More

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      Tennis Tops Women’s Sports, and Yet Still Fights for Footing

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      Can other sports achieve the prominence that women’s tennis has seen alongside the men’s tour?Why is there room at the top for only one women’s sport?Iga Swiatek won her second French Open title on Saturday, extending her winning streak to 35 matches by rolling past the Coco Gauff, 6-1, 6-3.In Sunday’s men’s final, Rafael Nadal is seeking his 14th French Open singles championship in a matchup against the No. 8 seed, Casper Ruud, the first Norwegian man to reach a Grand Slam singles final.When all is said and done, both matches will have drawn massive and nearly equal public attention, but women’s tennis still must engage in a fight for fair footing. We’ve seen that unfold again on the red clay at Roland Garros over the past two weeks (more on this later). Still, professional tennis sets the standard for popularity and viability in women’s sports — and it’s not even close.Coco Gauff made her first Grand Slam singles final by beating the unseeded Italian Martina Trevisan.James Hill for The New York TimesThanks to the struggle for fairness led by legends like Althea Gibson, the Williams sisters, and Billie Jean King, the women’s pro game plays consistently before packed, avid audiences. Their finals often draw more viewers than men’s at the most prominent events. Off the court, the top players are endorsement and social media gold. At the four Grand Slam tournaments, they’ve been earning equal prize money since 2007. Either Gauff or Swiatek will walk away with a tidy $2.4 million.Every major tennis championship offers a chance to wonder why other women’s sports do not share the same level of success.Professional golf comes closest, but doesn’t have it. Nor does big-time soccer.Despite recent inroads ensuring equal rates of pay for the United States’ men’s and women’s national teams, the women’s game sits mostly in the shadows other than during the World Cup.Interest grows in sports like gymnastics, figure skating, swimming and skiing when the Olympics come around, but when the Games finish, it always fades.The popularity of women’s basketball is on the upswing, particularly at the college level. In the professional ranks, though, the fight for respect looks like it will drag on for years. Last week, when I wrote a column about a former star from a top college team struggling to fulfill her dream of latching on with a W.N.B.A. team, the responses were typical.Women’s basketball, said one reader, “is just a big yawn.” An old acquaintance called to give a standard line: “Women can’t dunk, so I’m not watching.”Women’s basketball is increasing in popularity, especially at the college level. The 2022 Division I title game between South Carolina and Connecticut was the most-watched championship since 2004, according to ESPN.Eric Gay/Associated PressThe idea that female athletes must perform exactly like men to be taken seriously makes no sense. We should be able to enjoy and appreciate both on their own merits. Tennis is the best example. Overall, the top female tennis players do not hit with the power and spin of top professional men.And yet the women’s tour more than holds its own.Why can’t the other sports?There are no simple answers explaining tennis’s pre-eminence.That both men and women share glory at Wimbledon and the French, U.S. and Australian Opens certainly adds to the standing and luster of the women’s game.We still live in a world where strong, powerful women who break the mold struggle for acceptance. Consider the W.N.B.A., stocked with outspoken women, a majority of them Black, who have shown a communal willingness to take aggressive stands for L.G.B.T.Q. rights, reproductive freedom and politics. How do you think that goes down in many corners of America and the world?Yes, tennis often has a few outspoken players willing to publicly buck against power. In the game’s modern era, Venus and Serena Williams did it just by showing up and dominating. Naomi Osaka bent the rules with her face masks protesting for Black rights. But the vast majority of women in tennis wear their significant power quietly, behind the scenes, and in a way that does not overly upset the male-dominated status quo. To think that this is not a factor in the pro tour’s popularity would be foolish.Men, of course, formed their biggest leagues decades before the age of women’s empowerment. Major League Baseball traces its lineage to 1876. The N.F.L. to 1920. The N.W.S.L., for comparison, formed in 2012, and the W.N.B.A in 1997. For decades, men sucked up all the oxygen, and the stars of the biggest professional sports became worshiped icons. Television and radio gilded their games: Willie Mays’s miraculous center field catch in the 1954 World Series; Johnny Unitas leading the Baltimore Colts past the Giants in the N.F.L. Championship in 1958; the Boston Celtics’ announcer Johnny Most shouting, “Havlicek stole the ball!” in 1965.Through the enduring power of radio and television, these and countless other moments of greatness became etched forever in memory. They did not include women.Time changes everything, however slowly.The 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” — King against the chauvinist windbag Bobby Riggs — set a new and lasting tone. Their match drew 90 million viewers, making it one of the most watched sporting spectacles then or since, and helping launch women’s tennis toward once-unthinkable heights.But the sparring does not end. At the French Open over the past two weeks, the organizers staged night sessions that featured what they billed as the match of the day. Ten were played. Only one was a women’s match.Ten night matches included only one in women’s singles, a second-round meeting between the 13th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia and Alizé Cornet of France.James Hill for The New York TimesTalk about complicated. Controversy over the scheduling kicked up when, of all people, Amélie Mauresmo, the tournament director and a former top-ranked player, said she set the nighttime schedule because the men’s game had more “appeal” than the women’s game right now.So that means Swiatek, the top seed and a past Paris champion with a monumental winning streak, was not appealing enough. Gauff was not appealing enough. Same for the four-time major champion Osaka, or last year’s young and charismatic U.S. Open finalists, Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu. None took to the clay at night.The more things change, the more things stay the same.The players and power brokers in women’s tennis must always be vigilant, but they have a striking advantage: Their controversies, their fights to be taken seriously and their championship matches unfold on the biggest stages in front of the world’s gaze.But why must women’s tennis be alone? More

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      Iga Swiatek Dominates in French Open Final for Championship

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      After winning her first French Open out of season in October as an unseeded teenager, Iga Swiatek proved that was no fluke by winning the title again in the spring as an overwhelming favorite.Swiatek, the No. 1 seed from Poland, cemented her status as the game’s dominant player by defeating Coco Gauff of the United States, 6-1, 6-3, in Saturday’s women’s final in just over an hour.Swiatek, 21, has been an irresistible force on any surface for the last four months, but red clay is her favorite playground. She took command on Saturday from the start to win her 35th straight match and sixth straight tournament.“Two years ago, winning this title was something amazing,” Swiatek said. “Honestly I couldn’t expect better but this time I feel like I worked hard and did everything to get here even though it was pretty tough. The pressure was big.”Gauff, in her first Grand Slam singles final at age 18, sat in her chair courtside with tears streaming down her face after the defeat. She had not dropped a set in the tournament, but she also had not faced a player ranked in the top 30. The step up proved too big on Saturday as Gauff lost to Swiatek for the third time in three encounters.“I just told Coco, ‘Don’t cry’ and what am I doing now?” Swiatek said with a smile at Gauff as she gave a teary speech to the Roland Garros crowd.Just four years ago, they both played in the French Open girls tournament, with Gauff winning the title and Swiatek losing in the semifinals. But Swiatek, nearly three years Gauff’s elder, has stormed to the front of the women’s game since then with her aggressive style, powerful package of skills and detail-oriented approach to training.She is one of the first tennis players to travel with a full-time performance psychologist, Daria Abramowicz, and despite finishing in the top 10 last year, she switched coaches in the off-season, hiring Tomasz Wiktorowski, who was working as a television analyst in Poland after many years of coaching retired Polish star Agnieszka Radwanska.Her new team has clicked quickly, and she has not lost since February, compiling a 42-3 record in 2022 and winning the titles in Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome and now Paris, where she broke through in 2020, winning her first major title without losing a set.That French Open was played in the autumn after being postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. It was played without spectators, and Swiatek’s thunderous shots echoed through the all-but-empty Chatrier Court in the final rounds. But this has been a much more festive edition, with crowds making up for lost sporting events and packing the grounds and courts at Roland Garros from the start.There were shouts and murmurs aplenty on Saturday as the two young stars arrived on the red clay with plenty of chants of “Coco” but also plenty of support for “Iga” from the large bloc of Polish fans clad in red and white.But Gauff did not give her support group much to cheer for in the early going, losing her serve in a hurry in the opening game with a series of errors and one very edgy double fault. Swiatek was not at her sharpest early but as she has been throughout her streak, she was the more aggressive, proactive player.She took a quick 4-0 lead before Gauff managed to hold serve, and Swiatek then closed out the opening set. Though Gauff managed to break Swiatek’s serve to open the second set and take a 2-0 lead, Swiatek settled herself and played one of her best games of the match to get back in control. She won five straight games, creating openings with wide serves and angled groundstrokes and then filling them with winners.She served for the championship at 5-3 and finished off the victory with a first serve to Gauff’s less reliable forehand wing. The return sailed just long and Swiatek dropped to her knees, a French Open champion for the second time.In light of her age, her long-range plan and her talent, it would come as quite a surprise if Swiatek, whose role model is 13-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal, does not win at Roland Garros again.Gauff, despite Saturday’s disappointment, will still have a chance to leave Paris a champion. She and partner Jessica Pegula will play in the women’s doubles final on Sunday against Kristina Mladenovic and Caroline Garcia of France. More

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      French Open Women’s Final: How to Watch and Stream

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      For fans waking up early to watch the French Open in the United States, matches throughout the tournament have been spread across a few television channels and streaming outlets.The women’s singles final, between Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff, will be carried in the United States by NBC, as well as the NBC Sports website, app and Peacock Premium. The final begins at 9 a.m. Eastern, and has a best-of-three sets format.Here’s a list of broadcasters in several countries, including TSN in Canada and France TV Sport. More

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      Nadal Reaches French Open Final on Zverev’s Abrupt Injury

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      Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev had taken more than three hours to get toward the end of a second set. Then Zverev twisted his right ankle and had to stop.PARIS — Sweat dripping off their faces as the grueling rallies piled up, Rafael Nadal and Alexander Zverev played for more than three hours in the Paris humidity and appeared set, whether they liked it or not, to play for hours more.Égalité, the French word for deuce, began to sound more like a mantra than the score as the chair umpire kept repeating it, game after close game.But then suddenly, this French Open semifinal, which looked ready to run and run, came to an abrupt and painful halt as Zverev, the tall and lanky German star, rolled his right ankle chasing a Nadal forehand late in the second set.Zverev screamed, released his racket and tumbled to the red clay. Nadal who had just won the point, quickly stopped pumping his fist and crossed to Zverev’s side of the net and stood nearby. He was somber as Zverev was helped to his feet and carted off the Philippe Chatrier Court in a wheelchair in tears for treatment and examination.It was tough to observe and surely much tougher to experience for a 25-year-old man like Zverev who was within range of his first Grand Slam title and the No. 1 ranking.Several minutes later, he reappeared on crutches, his right foot bare and his eyes red from crying, with Nadal walking by his side, to inform the chair umpire that he was retiring with Nadal leading, 7-6 (8), 6-6.Nadal, already a 13-time French Open champion, is back in the final at Roland Garros, which has come to feel like a Parisian rite of spring. But this was certainly not the way he wanted to celebrate victory on his 36th birthday.“Of course, for me, as everybody knows, being in the final of Roland Garros one more time is a dream without a doubt,” Nadal said in his on-court interview. “But at the same time, to finish that way, I have been there in the small room with Sascha before we came back on court, and to see him crying there is a very tough moment. So just all the best to him and all the team.”Nadal, who first won the French Open at 19 in 2005, is now the oldest men’s singles finalist at Roland Garros since Bill Tilden in 1930. Nadal could become the oldest man ever to win the title if he defeats the No. 8 seed, Casper Ruud, on Sunday.Ruud, 23, became the first Norwegian man to reach a Grand Slam singles final with a victory, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2, over No. 20 Marin Cilic, the 2014 U.S. Open champion who has been resurgent in Paris at age 33.The match was interrupted for about 15 minutes when a young protester attached herself to the net during the sixth game of the third set. In a statement, the French Tennis Federation said that “the security team needed to formally identify the objects she used to get onto the court before they could remove her.”Both players left the court, but when they returned, Ruud, the more natural clay-court master, maintained control as Cilic’s unforced-error count kept climbing.It will be the first meeting on tour for Ruud and Nadal, but they know each other well. Ruud has trained regularly at Nadal’s academy in Mallorca for several years, and Nadal has been his inspiration for his skill, sportsmanship and combative spirit.“He’s been my idol for all my life,” said Ruud, who has played numerous practice sets with Nadal.Asked how many of Nadal’s 13 French Open finals he had watched, he replied, “probably all of them,” reeling off the names of most of his opponents.Ruud, whose father and coach, Christian, is a former professional player, had not been past the fourth round in a Grand Slam tournament until now. He rose into the top 10 last year for the first time on the strength of his victories in regular tour events.But he took full advantage of his spot in the more welcoming bottom half of the men’s draw in this French Open and now will try to do what no man has ever managed defeat Nadal in a French Open final.“It might sound like an impossible task. But of course I will give it a shot like the other 13 people before me,” Ruud said. “We all know what a great champion he is and how well he plays in the biggest moments and the biggest matches. I’m just going to try to enjoy it. I will be the underdog, and I will try to tonight and tomorrow night dream about great winners and unbelievable rallies, because that’s what it’s going to take if I want to have any chance, and I will need to play my best tennis ever.”Nadal managed to come through the gantlet in the top half, defeating Felix Auger-Aliassime in the fourth round in five sets and then ripping his forehand with vintage depth and precision in the quarterfinals to defeat his longtime rival Novak Djokovic.The third-seeded Zverev, who had played some of his finest and gutsiest tennis in a quarterfinal victory over the Spanish teenager Carlos Alcaraz, was another big hurdle, all the more so under a closed center-court roof that traps the humidity — call it the greenhouse effect — on a rainy day like Friday.The heavy conditions keep Nadal’s extreme topspin from kicking quite so high off the clay, but he adapted by using slices and drop shots to bring Zverev forward out of his comfort zone.“Lots of people think incorrectly that slow conditions are better for clay-court specialists,” Nadal said. “But it’s quite the contrary. Slower conditions and heavier balls favor the guy who hits it flatter with the more direct strokes..”The lack of wind under cover also helps a powerful server like Zverev. At 6-foot-6, he has one of the best first serves in the game (the second one is quite a bit shakier), and he had beaten Nadal in three of their four previous encounters, two of them indoors.But Zverev, for all his evident talent and his Olympic gold medal from Tokyo last year, has yet to beat Nadal or the other members of the Big Three — Djokovic and Roger Federer — in a Grand Slam tournament in which singles matches are best-of-five sets instead of best-of-three.“He started the match playing amazing,” Nadal said. “I know how much it means to him, to fight to win his first Grand Slam.”The first set was one of the closest and longest imaginable in the tiebreaker format, lasting 91 minutes with breaks of serve and extended rallies the rule. Nadal was dripping sweat after just a few games, and the set would have ended much more quickly if Zverev had been able to convert more of the big opportunities he created with his serving and phenomenal two-handed backhand that Nadal termed “probably the best in the game.” (Others would surely still vote for Djokovic’s two-hander.)But Zverev’s finishing skills, particularly in the forecourt and at the net, are still hit or miss. Serving at 4-3 and up a break, Zverev moved forward to put away a short forehand and clubbed it wide as his racket slipped out of his hand to face a break point, which he lost by missing another short ball.It was a big opportunity squandered and hardly the last. Up 6-2 in the tiebreaker, Zverev failed to convert four set points as Nadal rallied and closed out the set on his sixth set point with a fast-twitch forehand passing shot winner down the line that left even Nadal standing statue-still for a moment in surprise. The shot also left a few spectators, most of whom were Nadalites on Friday, with both hands on their heads in disbelief.It was a big finish to an up-and-down set, and to Zverev’s credit, he got right back to work and to pushing Nadal to his considerable limits from the baseline. One exchange in the third game of the second set lasted 44 strokes before Zverev cracked. After just over three hours of play, Zverev was on the cusp of another tiebreaker, but there would be no more tennis in this match after his injury.It remains unclear how badly injured Zverev is or how long he will be out of the game: Wimbledon begins in little more than three weeks. But there is no doubt what comes next for Nadal: a chance at No. 14 against a Norwegian of all things.Endure long enough and all sorts of surprises await. More

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      Coco Gauff Reaches French Open Final, Will Face Iga Swiatek

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      Gauff and Swiatek each advanced in their semifinals Thursday by winning in straight sets.PARIS — It is easy to be in a rush when you reach the fourth round of Wimbledon at age 15, beating one of your idols, Venus Williams, in your opening match. It is easy to be in a hurry when the sponsors and the platform are already in place, and you have been hearing from experts and the voice inside your own head that you have what it takes to be a champion.But tennis is a trickier game than most: a blend of the physical, the technical and the psychological with so much time to think between points and serves and so many tournaments, time changes and defeats to navigate.Coco Gauff, even if she is only 18, has had to be more patient than she planned. But the young American’s potential and performances under pressure are beginning to converge. On Saturday, she will play in her first Grand Slam singles final, facing the No. 1 seed, Iga Swiatek, at the French Open for the title and the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen.“There’s a fine line between believing in yourself and almost pushing yourself too much,” Gauff said on Thursday after her semifinal victory, 6-3, 6-1, over Martina Trevisan, sounding, as usual, rather older than her years.Gauff, the youngest Grand Slam singles finalist since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004 at age 17, was comparing her expectations with those she had a season ago, when she reached the quarterfinals of the French Open. She found herself unable to manage the pressure and the critical points and flung her racket across the clay in frustration while losing to Barbora Krejcikova, the unseeded eventual champion.“At that moment, I wanted it too much,” she said. “Whereas now, I definitely want it. Yes, who wouldn’t? But also, it’s not going to be the end of the world if it doesn’t happen for me.”The odds, make no mistake, are still significantly against her. Gauff faces the toughest task available in women’s tennis.Swiatek, 21, extended her winning streak to 34 matches in Thursday’s first semifinal by overwhelming the 20th-seeded Daria Kasatkina, 6-2, 6-1, in just over an hour.That score and breakneck pace have been typical for Swiatek, the powerful and increasingly imposing Polish star. She has not lost a match since February and has beaten Gauff in their two previous matches in straight sets: winning, 7-6 (3), 6-3, on red clay in the semifinals of last year’s Italian Open and winning, 6-3, 6-1, on a hardcourt in the round of 16 at this year’s Miami Open in March.“She’s definitely the favorite going into the match on paper,” Gauff said. “But I think that going in, I’m just going to play free and play my best tennis. I think in a Grand Slam final, anything can happen.”Gauff during her match against Martina Trevisan of Italy.James Hill for The New York TimesGauff’s ability to extend points with her speed and defensive skills could certainly force Swiatek into more errors than usual. Under the guidance of Diego Moyano, the veteran coach who joined her team in April, Gauff has improved her tactics, according to her father, Corey Gauff, who has been her main coach since childhood.“Playing to her strengths means not rushing all the time,” Corey Gauff said in an interview on Thursday night. He added: “He’s able to communicate to her how it makes him feel on the other side of the net when she does something. He’s trying to get her to understand why she’s making the decision and what the impact is. And he’s been pretty effective compared to dad. We dads tend to be command and control, and that doesn’t always work.”But clay remains Swiatek’s favorite canvas. She won the French Open in 2020 at age 19. Gauff lost in the second round of that tournament to Trevisan, looking increasingly distraught as her double fault count rose. She finished with 19. On Thursday, she finished with just two, her lowest total of this Roland Garros.“She’s learning to manage the emotions and understanding that double faults are a part of the game and that you don’t need to overreact,” Corey Gauff said.Though Coco Gauff was only 4-3 on clay this year before Roland Garros, she has not lost a set in six matches. “I’m going to be honest,” she said. “This year I hadn’t had the best results going into this. So it wasn’t expected at all, really.”Gauff graduated from year-round, online high school earlier this spring, celebrating her achievement with a photo taken in front of the Eiffel Tower before the French Open. Corey Gauff believes that has helped her fly higher in Paris.“That release when you finish high school or college is real,” he said. “She’s always had work to turn in, and it’s always in the back of your mind. I feel like this is the first tournament she’s played with no homework.”But she is still following current events, and on Thursday, after defeating Trevisan, she walked across the red clay for the now-customary signing of the television camera glass and decided, quite spontaneously she explained, to make a statement about last month’s elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed.“Peace. End Gun violence,” Gauff wrote, drawing a heart next to her first name.“That was just a message for the people back at home to watch and for people who are all around the world to watch,” she said, adding: “Hopefully it gets into the heads of people in office to hopefully change things.”Gauff said she was influenced by athletes such as the former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick and her fellow tennis star Naomi Osaka, who have been outspoken on social and cultural issues. But Gauff’s family also made it clear to her from an early age that she could have a reach far beyond the court.“My dad told me I could change the world with my racket,” she said. “He didn’t mean that by like just playing tennis. He meant speaking out on issues like this. The first thing my dad said to me after I got off court: ‘I’m proud of you, and I love what you wrote on the camera.’”Corey Gauff said he first told his daughter of the influence she could have when she was 6 or 7.“I am glad she’s being aware of what’s going on around her,” he said. “She has a brother who is 8 years old and is in elementary school. It’s not hard for it to hit home. I’m glad she is aware and bringing the attention and empathy to it. She’s not just hitting the tennis ball. She’s a global citizen.”Still, tennis is certainly a focus at Roland Garros. Gauff, seeded 18th, is guaranteed to rise to a career-high No. 13 and could rise as high as No. 8 if she defeats Swiatek. She is not just aiming for the singles title. She and her partner, Jessica Pegula, are into the semifinals of the women’s doubles and will face their American compatriots Taylor Townsend and Madison Keys on Friday.Gauff’s younger brothers — 8-year-old Cameron and 14-year-old Codey — are scheduled to arrive in Paris on Friday morning after traveling from the family’s home in Delray Beach, Fla.“They are coming over for the singles final and hopefully the doubles final as well,” Corey Gauff said.Cameron’s birthday is on Sunday.“He’s coming to Paris as an 8-year-old and leaving as a 9-year-old,” Corey Gauff said with a chuckle.Cameron’s big sister has a chance to leave as a Grand Slam champion. More

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      Nights Prove a Tricky Ticket at French Open

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      PARIS — Perhaps 10 years ago, over a late dinner at la Porte d’Auteuil after a long day of covering matches at Roland Garros, I remember agreeing with Philippe Bouin, the great French tennis writer for L’Équipe, that if the French Open ever chose to join other Grand Slam tournaments and stage night sessions, it would be the right time to move on to other pursuits instead of filing stories long after midnight and missing any chance at a last-call bistro meal.There are certainly bigger issues in tennis, but Bouin more or less kept his word, retiring long before the French Open adopted its “sessions de nuit” in 2021. But I’ve kept coming, and there I was bundled up in a nearly full stadium as Tuesday turned into Wednesday and May into June as Rafael Nadal finished off Novak Djokovic in their stirring quarterfinal at 1:15 a.m.Rafael Nadal beat Novak Djokovic on Tuesday night in four sets to reach the semifinals.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesThere I was, too, walking out of Roland Garros a couple of hours later and — with no public transport available — observing a few French fans still trying in vain to hail a taxi or book a ride.Night sessions have their upside in tennis, no doubt: electric atmosphere, prime-time coverage (depending on one’s time zone) and a chance for fans who work during the day to attend in person.Fans did the wave during a night match between Marin Cilic and Daniil Medvedev on Monday. Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesBut the new night sessions at Roland Garros, created above all to increase profits for an event that trails the other the Grand Slam events in domestic television revenue, also have had plenty of downsides. That is largely because the French decided to do them their own way by scheduling just one match in that slot instead of two, the usual offering at other Grand Slam events.Guy Forget, the former French Open tournament director who was part of that decision, said it was made “so matches would not end at 3 a.m.”Ball kids watching the end of a match between Alizé Cornet and Jelena Ostapenko from a camera pit.James Hill for The New York TimesWimbledon remains a holdout on night sessions (grass gets even more slippery after sunset). But the U.S. Open and the Australian Open, which have had night sessions for decades, usually schedule a men’s singles match and a women’s singles match, and there have been a few all-nighters along the way, including a Lleyton Hewitt victory over Marcos Baghdatis at the 2008 Australian Open that ended at 4:34 a.m. (It was quite a sunrise on the way back to the hotel.)The French Open approach has been problematic in terms of value for money — is one blowout in the chill, like Marin Cilic’s rout of Daniil Medvedev — worth well over 100 euros a ticket?It also has been problematic for gender equality. The 10 Roland Garros night sessions this year featured just one women’s match: the Frenchwoman Alizé Cornet’s victory over Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia. It was the same ratio last year, when the tournament debuted the night sessions, with no fans on nine of 10 nights because of the coronavirus pandemic.Djokovic serving during his match against Yoshihito Nishioka of Japan.James Hill for The New York TimesThe disparity has continued even though Amélie Mauresmo, a former WTA No. 1 from France, is the new French Open tournament director. Pressed on the issue on Wednesday, the morning after the Nadal-Djokovic duel, Mauresmo displayed clumsy footwork, saying that, as a woman and a “former women’s player,” she did “not feel bad or unfair saying that right now” the men’s game was generally more attractive and appealing than the women’s game.Mauresmo said her goal after the draw came out was to try to find women’s matches that she could put in that showcase nighttime slot. But she said she struggled to find the marquee matchups and star power she was seeking. Women’s matches are also typically shorter with a best-of-three-sets format, compared with best of five for the men.A group in the crowd with a drum and trumpets and a portrait of Cornet roused the crowd during a break.James Hill for The New York Times“I admit it was tough,” she said. “It was tough for more than one night to find, as you say, the match of the day,” she said, sounding somewhat apologetic.Iga Swiatek, the 21-year-old Polish star, did not get a nighttime assignment despite being the new No. 1 and a former French Open champion.“It is a little bit disappointing and surprising,” Swiatek said of Mauresmo’s comments after running her winning streak to 33 singles matches on Wednesday with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Jessica Pegula, an American. She added that it was more convenient for most players to compete during the day, “but for sure I want to entertain, and I also want to show my best tennis in every match.”Ostapenko discussing a line call with an umpire.James Hill for The New York TimesIn a text message, Steve Simon, the WTA chief, expressed disapproval with the nighttime scheduling and with the fact that women’s matches were usually picked to be the opening match on the two main show courts during the day sessions: a time slot in which crowds and viewership are often smaller.“The generation and depth of talent we are currently witnessing in the sport is incredible,” he said. “Our fans want to see the excitement and thrill of women’s tennis on the biggest stages and in the premium time slots. There is certainly room for improvement, and if we want to build the value of our combined product, then a balanced match schedule is critical in providing that pathway.”A D.J. performed to warm up the crowd at Philippe Chatrier Court in a nighttime showcase marketed as “D.J. Set and Match.” James Hill for The New York TimesThe WTA was short on superstar power at Roland Garros with the surprise retirement of top-ranked Ashleigh Barty in March, the first-round defeats of Naomi Osaka and the defending French Open champion, Barbora Krejcikova, and the continued absence of Serena and Venus Williams, who have yet to compete this year.But the one-match nighttime format also made it difficult to showcase Swiatek, who is winning most of her matches in a hurry at this stage. “The amount of playing time is certainly a factor,” Mauresmo said in a text message.Why not simply schedule two matches, or two women’s matches, at night to guarantee enough entertainment? Because, according to Mauresmo, the night-session broadcast contracts from 2021 through 2023 stipulate that there be just one match.Nishioka stretching for a shot during his match against Djokovic.James Hill for The New York Times“Impossible to change that,” Mauresmo said. “But we still will talk with our partners to think of other possibilities that could satisfy ticket holders.”That sounds like a fine idea, as does starting earlier than 8:45 p.m., even with a single match, if the idea is to spare players too many late nights and avoid irking the neighbors in the leafy and peaceful suburb of Boulogne, which was another reason for the one-match concept.The bigger issue in France is accessibility. Amazon Prime Video, the internet broadcaster that purchased the night-session rights here, has a small footprint compared with the traditional public broadcaster. And yet it is supposed to get the marquee match even if the contract, according to L’Équipe, allows the French Open organizers the final say.Fans watching a night match between Marin Cilic and Daniil Medvedev.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesBut there was no doubt about the marquee match on Tuesday, and though Amazon Prime agreed exceptionally to allow free access to its service to viewers in France, the decision to schedule Nadal and Djokovic’s quarterfinal at night sparked debate and anger.“The French Tennis Federation’s decisions shocks me profoundly,” Delphine Ernotte, president of France Televisions, told Le Figaro. “It’s a low blow to our partnership after we have broadcast and popularized the event for years.”To have the matchup of the tournament end at 1:15 a.m. on a weeknight surely was not great for viewership in France, either. And though the atmosphere was still transcendent inside the main stadium after midnight, there was a price to pay on the road home.French Open organizers have yet to reach an agreement with the Parisian authorities to keep public transport operating after very late finishes.The Métro was closed, and so — as Bouin and I feared long ago — were the bistros.Nadal celebrating after defeating Djokovic early Wednesday morning.Pete Kiehart for The New York Times More