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      Audio Technology Helps Blind People Follow Australian Open Tennis

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      At the Australian Open tennis tournament, new technology is translating the movement of the ball into sounds to help blind and low-vision fans follow the action.Listen to This ArticleThere’s a new way for sports fans to follow tennis. Hear it here.To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.Rapid, echoing pops go off in Michael Marshall’s ears when he listens to an Australian Open tennis match, followed closely by high- and low-pitched clinks. Three pops on the left signal that the ball landed close to the line; a low-pitched clink means that the player returned it with a backhand stroke.Without context, these noises might sound like arcade sound effects or some new version of Morse code — but each one is a message meant to help people who are blind or have limited vision follow the game. A new technology, called Action Audio, is being tested on a large scale for the first time at this year’s Australian Open, where every match in the Rod Laver Arena is available on a livestream with this accessibility feature.Marshall, 35, of Melbourne, is an avid tennis fan who listens to the tournament on the radio every year. He said Action Audio had added a layer to his experience, allowing him to more clearly track the ball during a point.“Everything is like, oh, yes, this is the final piece that I’m missing,” Marshall said. He later added, “It gives you those cues that you never really had before.”He and other blind sports fans often listen to radio descriptions of games instead of watching them on TV. But with serves flying at over 100 miles an hour and groundstrokes routinely exceeding 80, even the most descriptive radio announcer can’t talk fast enough to capture every nuance of the action on a tennis court. Details like how close the ball landed to a line, how fast it traveled and what direction it moved are not always described, according to Machar Reid, head of innovation at Tennis Australia.“They might do it on one shot, but it’s hard to do on every single shot on the rally,” he said of radio announcers.Tennis Australia partnered with Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and the digital design and communications agency AKQA to develop Action Audio in 2019. Reid said that tennis was the ideal sport to begin with because of its existing ball-tracking technology. In general, a fully equipped tennis court has 10 or 12 cameras collecting data around 50 times a second. That data is typically used to make quick calls about whether a shot landed in or out of play.Action Audio’s technology converts the data into 3-D sound — a process that takes less than a second — allowing it to be broadcast alongside live radio commentary.Chatai Goncu, a data scientist, operated a MIDI controller pad to make audio adjustments for Action Audio.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe sounds include one, two or three blips to indicate how close the ball is to the sideline or baseline. If the ball is close to the line, three blips will go off. If the ball lands farther inside the line, two blips sound. One blip means the ball was hit toward the middle of the court.The sounds come through the left speaker if the ball was played to that side of the court, and through the right speaker if it landed on the right.As the ball moves around, it jingles and rattles. The sound is loudest when the player strikes the ball, and it fades away gradually as the ball travels. High-pitched clinks indicate a forehand, while low-pitched clinks indicate a backhand.In the future, Reid would love to integrate Action Audio into TV broadcasts and develop it for other sports that use optical tracking systems, such as baseball, he said.One challenge in developing sport soundscapes is determining how many actions can be captured and translated to sound before the audio becomes overwhelming or distracting, according to Tim Devine, the executive innovation director at AKQA.“Do you want to know where the ball is, or do you want to follow a player?” he asked.To figure it out, AKQA and Tennis Australia reached out to fans to ask what they found most interesting about tennis and then surveyed blind people to see which sounds worked best. Developers tried to use sounds that were already familiar to users, such as the jingling rattle of the bell ball used in blind tennis, Reid said.The developers are also collecting feedback from people who tune into this year’s Action Audio livestream, which has drawn listeners from about 70 countries.Umpires observed a match at the Australian Open. Data from cameras around the court is translated into the sound that Action Audio broadcasts.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesKarl Belanger, an accessibility analyst for the National Federation of the Blind in the United States, is among those listeners. He was listening to the audio stream provided by Tennis Australia last week when he heard an advertisement for Action Audio. He was excited to tune in but became frustrated because the design of the site was not fully compatible with the screen-reader technology that blind people use to decipher web pages.“That one layer of it just kind of mars the whole experience when you have to fight with the player to even experience it,” Belanger said.Developers acknowledged Action Audio was a work in progress and said that AKQA and Tennis Australia would work to make the player more accessible.To get the full benefit of Action Audio, listeners need headphones or speakers that can separate sounds for the left and right ears. Without this, Belanger said, the audio is not as helpful.Belanger suggested other improvements — such as a sound for when the ball hits the net — but overall, he said, the audio soundscape was well designed. As a sports fan, he now wants the same concept used for every sport.For some blind and low-vision fans, Action Audio makes it easier to enjoy the game alongside friends and family. Kala Petronijevic, 11, who is from Melbourne, is blind in her right eye and has limited vision in her left eye.Kala has been playing blind tennis since she was 5. She is a big fan of the sport, but she didn’t always enjoy watching games. She used to have to constantly ask her father who had hit the ball and what was going on.“It was hard following the game,” Kala said. “I wouldn’t really be interested because I wouldn’t know what was going on. But with Action Audio, I can follow the game promptly.”Audio produced by More

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      Australian Open Final Four: It's Nadal vs. Berrettini and Medvedev vs. Tsitsipas

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      The men’s singles semifinals will feature No. 6 Rafael Nadal against No. 7 Matteo Berrettini, and No. 2 Daniil Medvedev against No. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas.MELBOURNE, Australia — None of the men’s singles semifinalists at the Australian Open has made it this far unscathed.All have been pushed to five sets in the heat at Melbourne Park this year.Rafael Nadal, making his latest comeback, dropped more than 10 pounds and had to battle through nausea and dizziness during his toasty, testy victory over Denis Shapovalov of Canada on Tuesday in Rod Laver Arena. Daniil Medvedev of Russia had to save a match point in the same stadium on Wednesday before prevailing against Shapovalov’s countryman, Felix Auger-Aliassime, in an after-midnight thriller.Matteo Berrettini has been stretched to the limit twice: by the Spanish teenager Carlos Alcaraz and the French veteran Gael Monfils. Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece had to rally to wriggle free of the American Taylor Fritz.But after Medvedev’s entertaining escape from a two-set deficit in the quarterfinal, the final four is set, and it is a lineup with genuine star power if, for now, only one true tennis great.That is Nadal, 35, who is in close range of surpassing his longtime measuring sticks, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, with a 21st Grand Slam tournament singles title but, as usual, is talking down the destination and favoring the journey.The sixth-seeded Rafael Nadal in his five-set victory over Denis Shapovalov in the men’s quarterfinals.Alana Holmberg for The New York Times“I am super satisfied and feel a very lucky person in general for all the things that happen to me in this life, no?” Nadal said, looking drawn but fulfilled after battling past Shapovalov. “You can’t always be frustrated if the neighbor has a bigger house than you or a better phone or a better thing, no? I’m not going to be frustrated if Novak or Roger finishes the career with more Grand Slams than me.”Nadal, it should be said, has a lot of nice things, including a million-dollar watch and an 80-foot yacht named “Great White,” but he clearly still craves more time on the court. Why else would he spend months rehabilitating again from the chronic foot condition that first threatened his career in his early 20s? Why else would he make the trip to Melbourne despite falling ill with the coronavirus in late December?The love of the game remains, and he could get plenty more court time (and challenges) in his semifinal duel with Berrettini, the strapping 6-foot-6 Italian whose topspin forehand is nearly as heavy as Nadal’s.They have played just once. Nadal won in straight sets in the semifinals of the 2019 U.S. Open, the last Grand Slam tournament Nadal won on a hardcourt. But Berrettini, 25, is now an established threat in majors after reaching last year’s Wimbledon final.“I watch him so many times in this tournament and other tournaments, cheering for him,” Berrettini said of Nadal. “Playing him in Rod Laver in the semifinals is something that I dreamed about when I was a kid.”Matteo Berrettini in his match against Carlos Alcaraz.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesBut the dream now is not to play him but to beat him.“I know I can do it,” Berrettini said at a late-night news conference this week. “It’s gonna be a really tough one, but I’m in the semis in a Slam for the third time, like you guys said, so it means that this is my level, and I want to get further.”Berrettini is the first Italian man to reach a singles semifinal at the Australian Open and will remain the only one until at least next year. Jannik Sinner, his redheaded, 20-year-old compatriot, was no match for Tsitsipas in the quarterfinals on Thursday.Tsitsipas, a 23-year-old right-hander coming back from minor elbow surgery in the off-season on his playing arm, seemed under par in the early rounds as he mistimed his groundstrokes. But he clicked into a higher gear against Sinner: dominating with his versatile and powerful forehand, one of the best shots in the game. He converted all four of his break points, did not face a break point on his own serve and adjusted beautifully to Sinner’s big-bang baseline pace to win, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.Afterward, he thanked his surgeon in Switzerland.“He’s been sending texts to me after every single match,” Tsitsipas said. “We didn’t think I’d be playing in the Australian Open.”Playing like that again in the closing rounds would likely win him the Australian Open, where he emerged in earnest in 2019 by upsetting Federer, whose smooth athleticism, all-court game and one-handed backhand have influenced Tsitsipas’s similar game.But to reach the final Tsitsipas must complete what looks like the toughest mission left in Melbourne. He must defeat Medvedev, the gangly, 25-year-old Russian with an unorthodox style, who is closing in on Djokovic’s No. 1 ranking after defeating him in the 2021 U.S. Open final.Stefanos Tsitsipas celebrated defeating Jannik Sinner in their quarterfinal match.Dean Lewins/EPA, via ShutterstockMedvedev and Tsitsipas — ranked No. 2 and No. 4 respectively — both leaders of the new wave, have had a chilly relationship on tour and acknowledged it. But they warmed to each other when they played the Laver Cup for Team Europe in Boston last year.“It kind of got better after Laver Cup,” Tsitsipas said. “We haven’t really spoken in the last couple of months, but our relationship is competitors on the court and kind of fighting for the same dream.”Medvedev leads their head-to-head series 6-2 and is 4-0 against Tsitsipas on outdoor hardcourts, the surface at the Australian Open. But Medvedev, who lost to Djokovic in the final at Melbourne Park last year, came within one point of elimination on Wednesday against the dynamic and inspired Auger-Aliassime.Medvedev had beaten him in all three of their previous matches while losing just one set. But he lost the first two sets in the quarterfinal as he proved less reliable than usual during their extended, often spectacular baseline rallies and struggled to read and return Auger-Aliassime’s big serves.They were quite a contrast. Medvedev played his service games at breakneck pace, often taking less than 10 seconds between points. Auger-Aliassime was measured on his service games, usually using the full 25 seconds. His technique is classic, with smooth strokes and follow-throughs. Medvedev’s is 100-percent artisanal, with his long limbs flying in all sorts of seemingly suboptimal directions but his ball-striking so clean and devastating.He is full of big-point confidence after winning his first major in New York, and he needed it on Wednesday when he faced match point on his serve at 4-5, 30-40 in the fourth set after a double fault.He saved it by ripping a first serve wide that Auger-Aliassime could not handle and then carried the momentum to victory.Russia’s Daniil Medvedev saved a match point in the fourth set before winning his quarterfinal match against Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime.Loren Elliott/ReutersHe was lucky, too, getting a boost earlier in the match when play was stopped to close the retractable roof in Laver Arena because of rain during the third-set tiebreaker. The conditions were considerably cooler with the roof closed, and, Medvedev acknowledged, more to his liking.But indoors or outdoors, it was a taut thriller of a match, one that the ninth-seeded Auger-Aliassime came so close to winning.“I think he was just a little bit more clutch than me, a little bit more solid at times,” said Auger-Aliassime, who was broken in the third game of the fifth set and failed to convert any of his six break points in that set.Medvedev seemed unleashed down the stretch: brimming with energy and feeding off the crowd. When his comeback was complete, he was asked on court by the commentator Jim Courier how he had turned the match around.“I didn’t really know what to do,” he answered. “So I don’t know if people will like it but I told myself, ‘What would Novak do?’”There was a chorus of boos from the largely Australian crowd at the mention of Djokovic, the unvaccinated Serbian star who was deported from the country on the eve of the tournament after his visa was revoked and his appeal denied.Medvedev is not usually affected by crowd disapproval — see the 2019 U.S. Open — but he took diplomatic cover this time: quickly mentioning “Rafa” and “Roger” as potential influences, too, and getting a cheer for his efforts.But Djokovic, popular or not, is the champion Medvedev has been channeling in Melbourne.“During all the matches, as soon as I was down a little bit, I was like, ‘Just be like Novak. Show him that you are better,’” he said referring to his opposition.So far, that has been just good enough for Medvedev, the highest men’s seed in the tournament. Djokovic, a nine-time Australian Open champion, would have been seeded No. 1. Though his absence has affected the competitive balance, it has not kept this tournament from providing plenty of entertainment and a worthy final four. More

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      Ashleigh Barty and Dylan Alcott's Secret Weapon Is a Former Nike Marketing Exec

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      Some of the most important moments of this year’s Australian Open took place far from a tennis court and had nothing to do with a certain vaccine-averse Serbian champion.Ben Crowe, a mind-set and life coach whose clients include the women’s world No. 1, Ashleigh Barty, who is carrying the hopes of her nation for a championship, and Dylan Alcott, another Australian who is among the greatest wheelchair players, does little work on the court itself.Crowe and Alcott often meet in a cafe for their regular check-ins during the tournament because Alcott loves to be around people. Last week, as Barty prepared for her third-round match, against Camila Giorgi, she and Crowe did their prematch check-in while walking Molly, Crowe’s spanador, a mix of a Labrador retriever and a cocker spaniel, in Melbourne Park.“Ash loves dogs so that makes for a good setting,” Crowe said in a recent interview. “It creates a happy place to converse. And we’ll talk about anything. Dogs or house renovations.”Crowe discussed a match this week with Dylan Alcott, who has advanced to the men’s singles quad wheelchair final at the Australian Open.Tennis players and athletes in nearly every sport have been using sports psychologists and mind-set coaches for years. Never before has mental health been such a primary focus, especially in tennis, which lost one of its biggest stars, Naomi Osaka, for nearly half of 2021 as she dealt with psychological problems connected to the sport and her performance.Crowe took a circuitous route to his role as a guru to some of the biggest names in sports. He worked as a marketing executive at Nike in the 1990s, trying to connect the stories of athletes to the industry behemoth and make piles of cash for both parties.He worked closely with Australian athletes, including Cathy Freeman, an Olympic sprinter, on her campaigns ahead of the Games in Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000, but also with Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi. He became close with Phil Knight, a founder of Nike, who loves both tennis and Australia.Eventually, Crowe realized it was far more important to athletes for them to truly understand who they were, their back stories and why they did what they did, rather than tying a drummed-up version of their narrative to a global corporation hoping to sell more sneakers and T-shirts.During major competitions like the Australian Open, Crowe usually watches his clients’ matches from the stands, paying close attention to their decisions and body language.“You need to separate the person from the persona, separate the self-worth from the business card,” he said. “I try to get them to answer the questions: Who am I fundamentally? And, What do I want from this crazy thing called life?”Crowe has also worked with the professional surfer Stephanie Gilmore and the Richmond club in Australian rules football.Away from tournaments and matches, he talks with clients weekly for about an hour during occasionally humorous sessions that focus on finding a balance between achievement and fulfillment. There is a simplicity in Crowe’s bedrock principles:Focusing on the future or the past is wasted energy because we can’t control either one.No point in a tennis match is worth more than any other, so why bother treating them any differently.If you have to do something or achieve something to be someone, you will never be content.We don’t know ourselves enough, and the bits we do know we don’t love enough.At a major competition like the Australian Open, Crowe usually watches his clients’ matches from the stands, paying close attention to their decision making and body language, trying to notice if the things they cannot control — the crowd, the weather, the opponent — might be distracting them. He attends their news conferences and chats with them before and after each match.Crowe is also a passionate surfer, and took a break from the tournament to hit the waves at Aireys Inlet, Australia.The deep work, though, occurs in the downtime between tournaments, when he delves with them into questions of identity and purpose.He said Alcott’s career took off and is now coming to a comfortable close because he came to understand he was playing tennis to help people like himself live better, healthier lives. This week, Alcott received a prestigious award, Australian of the year, given annually to leading citizens. He will play his last professional tennis match on Thursday, in the Australian Open wheelchair quad singles final, but his purpose will not change just because he is retiring.Barty, who left the sport for 18 months to pursue cricket, draws inspiration from playing for her country, Indigenous people and the team of coaches and trainers she is always crediting for her success. She will meet Madison Keys in a semifinal match on Thursday, and is trying to become the first Australian woman to win the tournament’s singles championship since 1978.His tennis clients, he said, have learned to accept their weaknesses and vulnerabilities and the endless uncertainty that professional sport and life ultimately bring.“If there is one thing the pandemic has shown it’s that we don’t do uncertainty very well, and uncertainty is vulnerability, and we don’t do vulnerability very well,” Crowe said. “So you either align yourself with the uncertainty or you suffer.” More

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      Where Is Peng Shuai? Tennis Players and Fans Still Want to Know

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      A central question, “Where is Peng Shuai?”, has represented concern for the star but also points to related questions about the future of tennis in China.MELBOURNE, Australia — Xiao, a Chinese-born and Melbourne-based artist, was disturbed that the plight of the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai had slipped off the radar ahead of the first Grand Slam tournament of the year. So she designed a T-shirt, and much to the dismay of Australian Open organizers, wore it to Melbourne Park.Xiao was concerned that the unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic’s fight with the Australian government had overshadowed the plight of Peng, one of China’s most popular tennis stars, who has mostly disappeared from public view since she accused a former top Chinese leader of sexual assault. Xiao’s shirt had on the front a picture of Peng’s face and on the back the slogan “Where is Peng Shuai?”, a message that has been used heavily online as a call to confront the Chinese Communist Party about the #MeToo accusation that prompted the women’s tennis tour to suspend its tournaments in China.Security guards later told Xiao, who also brought a sign with the slogan, that the items were not permitted, citing a tournament policy banning fans from making political statements.“It’s a reminder for people to not forget about Peng Shuai, especially since we had a huge Djokovic drama recently,” said Xiao, 26, who spoke on the condition that her full name not be used because of concerns for her safety after calling out the Chinese government.On Tuesday, after criticism from the 18-time major singles champion Martina Navratilova and others, the Australian Open softened its policy and is now allowing T-shirts and other personal messages supporting Peng, who has remained top of mind for many people involved in women’s tennis since her accusation first surfaced in November.Xiao’s shirt in support of Peng Shuai, which was banned by security guards at the tournament, though the ban was later reversed.Ben RothenbergPeng, a U.S. Open singles semifinalist and former world No. 1 in doubles, said then — in a post on her verified account on the social media site Weibo — that she had been sexually assaulted by Zhang Gaoli, a former vice premier of China. In the post, Peng wrote that they had once been involved in a consensual relationship.The post was taken down minutes later. Online discussion of the allegation was censored within China, and Peng disappeared from public view for weeks while tennis officials and fellow players tried unsuccessfully to reach her. Peng, a three-time Olympian, later had conversations via video with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and other Olympic officials.In a statement after the first of those meetings in November, the I.O.C. announced that Peng had said she was “safe and well,” and she has since been seen publicly in China in several social media posts. On Dec. 1, Steve Simon, chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association, suspended tournaments in the country and renewed his call for a “full and transparent” investigation from the Chinese authorities.Peng later told a reporter for a Singaporean newspaper in Beijing that her initial post had been misunderstood and that she had “never said or written that anyone has sexually assaulted me.”What to Know About Peng ShuaiThe Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai disappeared from public view for weeks after she accused a top Chinese leader of sexual assault.What Happened: The athlete’s vanishing and subsequent reappearance in several videos prompted global concern over her well-being.A Silencing Operation: China turned to a tested playbook to stamp out discussion and shift the narrative. The effort didn’t always succeed.Eluding the Censors: Supporters of the tennis star found creative ways to voice their frustration online.A Sudden Reversal: Ms. Peng retracted her accusation in an interview in December. But her words seemed unlikely to quell fears for her safety.But the WTA, whose leaders still have been unable to make direct contact with Peng, has not softened its stance or its demands, fearing that she has been coerced into the retraction.“We appreciate seeing the support continue for Peng Shuai,” Simon said Wednesday in an email. “The WTA is proud of Peng Shuai in speaking out for what is right, and we continue with our unwavering call for confirmation of Peng’s safety along with a full, fair and transparent investigation, without censorship, into her allegation of sexual assault. This is an issue that can never fade away.”Magda Linette, a leading Polish player and member of the WTA player council, said she hoped Peng could speak with players directly or with Simon. “If we could see her in an environment where we know she is not being really controlled and we can have at least a conversation, because she has been refusing that, I think that would be a really good step to trying to rebuild the trust, trying to rebuild the relationship again to see how things are going and how she is actually,” Linette said.In a photo made available by the International Olympic Committee, I.O.C. President Thomas Bach speaking with Peng Shuai during a videoconference.Greg Martin/OIS/IOC/EPA-EFE, via ShutterstockAlizé Cornet of France, a quarterfinalist at the Australian Open and one of the players to raise concerns about Peng’s safety in November, said some of her fears had been allayed.“It’s not the huge concern I had in November where I imagined she might have been buried in a ditch,” Cornet said last week.Cornet added that she believed that Peng was not in physical danger, but that “I’m concerned to know how things will go for her and what will become of her.”The renewed attention on Peng comes at a politically sensitive time with the Winter Olympics scheduled to begin in Beijing on Feb. 4. “It is kind of sad to see her story, especially when we are technically in an Asia-Pacific Slam, kind of not be a topic anymore,” said Jessica Pegula, an American player who reached the quarterfinals in Melbourne. “It’s disappointing, but it is kind of how the media is. Stuff blows up. Then it goes away, and it blows up again, and something else comes.”Pegula, who said she was not reassured by Peng’s recent video appearances, added: “Maybe it will catch up more when the Olympics come around.”The Australian Open, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, has long positioned itself as the “Grand Slam of Asia-Pacific” in part because of concerns that China or another nation in the region might attempt to usurp its status. A state-owned Chinese liquor company, Luzhou Laojiao, has been a major tournament sponsor since 2019 and holds the naming rights for one of the principal show courts. Tennis Australia, which runs the event, has an office and presence in China and has backed tournaments in China that awarded wild-card entries into the Australian Open.Branding for Luzhou Laojiao’s Guojiao 1573 beverage is displayed prominently at the Australian Open.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe Australian Open also has an agreement with CCTV, the national Chinese broadcaster, which has been broadcasting men’s and women’s matches from this Australian Open.But Chinese television did not broadcast the women’s tournaments in 2022 that were played ahead of the Open despite owning the rights. It is unclear whether this constitutes a boycott. In 2019, CCTV stopped airing N.B.A. games after Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets at the time, expressed support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.No events for the WTA or ATP, the professional men’s tennis tour, have been held in China since early 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, which had shut down international sports events in the country before the upcoming Olympics. The WTA had made China one of the pillars of its tour and agreed to a lucrative 10-year deal to stage its year-end championships, the WTA Finals, in Shenzhen. But the event, first held there in 2019, was moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, last year because of the pandemic with just eight weeks to prepare.The WTA would need to lift the suspension on Chinese tournaments if they were to take place this year. The China swing is scheduled for September, October and November. The WTA has not given a deadline but wants to finalize its fall schedule much earlier than it did in 2021. With China unlikely to launch a formal investigation into Peng’s allegations of sexual assault, cancellation of this year’s China swing appears likely, although Simon has said that this would not necessarily end the tour’s commitment to Chinese tournaments in 2023 and beyond.The ATP has made statements of support for Peng but has not suspended any events as a result of her situation. Pegula said she was disappointed the ATP had not done more. “I just think it was the right thing to do,” she said. “I wish they would have, and I guess they still could. We’ll see.”Reilly Opelka, one of the leading American male players, called the ATP’s hands-off approach “lame” and “weak.”“We rely so much less on China than the WTA does and look at that statement,” he said. “And that digs into a deeper problem: Why didn’t enough ATP players speak out? Is it conflicts of interest? It’s hard to say.”Interest in tennis in China boomed after Li Na became the country’s first Grand Slam singles champion, winning the 2011 French Open and 2014 Australian Open. Though no Chinese player has matched those results, promising talents are on the rise, including Wang Xinyu, a tall and powerful 20-year-old who pushed the No. 2-seeded Aryna Sabalenka to three sets in the second round of the Australian Open last week.Chinese players in Melbourne have refused one-on-one interviews with The New York Times, but Xu Yifan, a women’s doubles specialist, said during a news conference that it was important for tennis’ future in China to have tour events in the country. “Especially for Chinese players, we all enjoy,” said Xu, who declined to comment on Peng Shuai’s situation.“We didn’t really focus on it,” she said. “We just tried to focus on our tennis most of the time.”The WTA may be able to cover much of its lost Chinese revenue by adding events elsewhere. But there is still concern about the future.“We had a bunch of amazing tournaments in China, and I think in response, they’ve had so many players coming up and really have now so many juniors that are really good and tennis has been the strongest ever really in China,” Linette said. “So, I think for both of us, for the sake of the WTA and for China if it wants that their players keep developing and still have a chance to go out and do something more in tennis, it’s better for both that this situation be resolved in a peaceful manner.”For now, it remains a delicate dance. The artist Xiao said she hesitated before bringing her message of support for Peng to the Australian Open. “But I just feel like I had to do what I had to do,” she said.Spectators showed their support for Peng Shuai as Nick Kyrgios played doubles with Thanasi Kokkinakis.Dave Hunt/EPA, via ShutterstockXiao described the atmosphere on her first day at the tournament, Wednesday, as “quite chill.” “Two guards came and they just asked me, ‘Oh, what is Peng Shuai?’” Xiao recalled. “We explained to them the situation and they just said, ‘Oh, that’s an unfortunate story,’ and they just left. They were really nice about it, actually.”After posting pictures of her protest at the tournament on social media, Xiao was contacted by local activists who wanted to join her. On Friday, they went to a third-round women’s singles match featuring the Chinese player Wang Qiang, hoping they would be seen on broadcasts of the match back in China.While the group was moving between Wang’s match and a Naomi Osaka practice session, the situation turned more confrontational, leaving Xiao “on the verge of a panic attack” as an encounter between the activists and security guards was filmed for use on the activists’ social media accounts.Xiao said she was offered a chance to stay at the tournament if she stashed the offending items in a booth outside the entrance but chose to leave Melbourne Park instead. Hours later, on Friday evening, Xiao returned and wrote “Where is Peng Shuai?” in chalk on an exterior wall of the tournament grounds.Xiao said she “knew the rules from the beginning” against political banners at the tournament and was not surprised that Tennis Australia initially enforced them.“I kind of expect it,” Xiao said, “because they have Chinese sponsors, right?”Xiao’s graffiti on the exterior wall of the tournament grounds.Ben RothenbergCraig Tiley, chief executive of Tennis Australia, said in an interview on Monday that the tournament’s view was not influenced by its Chinese commercial interests. He said Tennis Australia backed the WTA’s stance on Peng Shuai and had attempted to use its connections in China to establish contact with her.“It doesn’t have to just be on a political or commercial issue,” Tiley said. “If we make the assessment that they come in to disrupt the comfort and safety of our fans, it’s not going to be welcome. But if they want to come in with a T-shirt and it says, ‘Where is Peng Shuai?’ they can do that. We don’t have a problem with that.”The shift by tournament officials does not change the question posed by Xiao and others. The activists who joined the artist have raised money to pay for a thousand more T-shirts that they plan to hand out to spectators before the women’s singles final. More

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      Danielle Collins Will Play Iga Swiatek in Australian Open Semifinal

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      Less than a year after an endometriosis diagnosis led to the removal of a tennis-ball sized cyst, the 27th seeded American will play No. 7 Iga Swiatek in a semifinal.MELBOURNE, Australia — Danielle Collins has played exceptional tennis to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open, but only after achieving the victory of being “able to feel like a normal person.”Less than a year after an endometriosis diagnosis led to the removal of a tennis-ball sized cyst from her uterus, as well as tissue from her bladder and bowels, the 27th-seeded Collins surged past Alizé Cornet, 7-5, 6-1, in a Wednesday afternoon quarterfinal match in Rod Laver Arena.“The advice that I had gotten over the years is that painful periods are normal, taking anti-inflammatories on a regular basis is normal,” Collins said. “I felt like it was something that I just had to deal with. It finally got to the point where I couldn’t deal any longer with it physically or mentally.”“Once I was able to kind of get the proper diagnosis and the surgery, I feel like it’s helped me so much — not just from a physical standpoint, but from a mental standpoint,” she added.Collins was able to return to competition seven weeks after surgery, at last year’s French Open.Cornet said Collins’s play had been even more powerful and stifling than she had expected.“Her ball is going really fast in the air, and she takes the ball super early,” Cornet said. “All the time you feel really oppressed. I felt out of breath all the time. I couldn’t, like, place my game. She just never let me do it, never gave me the time to do it. Yeah, she’s impressive.”Iga Swiatek of Poland celebrated after defeating Kaia Kanepi of Estonia.Tertius Pickard/Associated PressBefore the match, Cornet had compared Collins, known for roaring encouragement at herself on court, to a lion but said afterward: “Today I don’t think I gave her enough battle so she could express herself.”Collins returns to the semifinals three years after making her only other Grand Slam singles semifinal appearance here. Cornet was playing in her first quarterfinal in 63 Grand Slam main draw appearances. She said that her run had given her a newfound appreciation for the challenge of advancing deep into a tournament like the Australian Open.“I have eternal respect for the Grand Slam winner because it’s such a long way; my God, I have the feeling I’m playing this tournament for a year,” Cornet said. “I’m so exhausted mentally, physically. When you go all the way and win these freaking seven matches, it’s just huge.”In a Thursday evening semifinal, Collins will face the seventh-seeded Iga Swiatek of Poland, who needed more than three hours to beat the Estonian Kaia Kanepi, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-3, later Wednesday afternoon.Thursday’s first semifinal will pit the top-seeded Australian Ashleigh Barty against the unseeded American Madison Keys. If Collins and Keys both win, it will set up the first all-American final in Melbourne since Serena Williams beat her sister Venus in 2017.Collins, 28, first reached the semifinals here three years ago in a breakout run that confirmed her arrival from collegiate standout at the University of Virginia to elite professional.Apart from her physical improvements, Collins said that some of her biggest mental growth came in late 2020 on a very different surface: when the American doubles specialist Bethanie Mattek-Sands took her rock climbing in Arizona.Collins, who has a long-held fear of heights, said she was “terrified” by the “what ifs” of rock climbing, but that the stakes involved — even with ample safety equipment in use — made tennis seem relaxing by comparison.“Halfway through it I realized every time I step out on the court, it’s not life or death,” she said. “For people in rock climbing, it can be. That was a really big realization for me and something I think helped me grow to kind of step out of my comfort zone and try something I had never done before, something that I was really scared of doing. That was a huge moment of growth for me.”The comeback win marks a new area of growth for Swiatek, who burst into the top echelon of the game when she raced to the 2020 French Open title without dropping a set. Working on winning when not playing her best has been an area of focus for Swiatek and her traveling sports psychologist, Daria Abramowicz.Last season, Swiatek only came back to win after losing the first set three times in 13 matches.“I’m proud of myself that I’m still able to find solutions and actually think more on court on what to change, because before it wasn’t that clear for me,” Swiatek said. “It’s part of the work that we have been doing with Daria to control my emotions and just maybe actually focus on finding solutions.” More

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      Rafael Nadal Beats Denis Shapovalov Amid Charge of Favoritism

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      Nadal beat Denis Shapovalov to reach the semifinals, then rejected his opponent’s complaints about unfairness, saying, “I think he’s wrong.”MELBOURNE, Australia — After missing the game he has long played with such passion, Rafael Nadal has had ample opportunity to get reacquainted with tennis at this Australian Open.At age 35, his latest comeback from injury now finds him in the semifinals, just two victories from breaking his three-way tie with Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer and claiming his 21st Grand Slam singles title.But it also briefly found him on the defensive Tuesday after his opponent, Canada’s Denis Shapovalov, said Nadal had benefited from favoritism in their quarterfinal, which Nadal won by taking command of the fifth set to prevail, 6-3, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-3, in four hours and eight minutes.Nadal politely rejected the accusations by Shapovalov, a young Canadian. “I think he is wrong,” Nadal said.Shapovalov, who certainly did not help his cause by playing an edgy, error-filled game to drop his serve early in the fifth set, did not take the defeat well, smashing his racket to the blue hardcourt in Rod Laver Arena immediately after his final volley drifted wide. It was a stark contrast with Nadal, who has never broken a racket in anger during a match in his nearly 20-year professional career.Shapovalov argued with the umpire at multiple points, complaining that Nadal was being allowed too much time during breaks.Michael Errey/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut Shapovalov was both crestfallen and disappointed with Nadal, the Spanish champion whom Shapovalov first met as a nine-year-old ball boy during the Canadian Open in Montreal and then defeated, Hollywood-style, in the same city in their first match in 2017.However wide-eyed Shapovalov might once have been about the Spaniard, he did not hold back on Tuesday: complaining during and after the match that Nadal was being allowed more time between points than permitted.After winning the first set, Nadal changed his clothes and was slow to leave his chair after the umpire, Carlos Bernardes, called “Time.” Shapovalov took the balls and prepared to serve as he waited, and when Nadal finally made it on court about 45 seconds after Bernardes’s announcement, Shapovalov approached Bernardes and said Nadal should have been penalized for the delay.Bernardes did not agree, and Shapovalov returned to the baseline and then approached Bernardes again, saying Nadal still was not ready. Bernardes answered: “You’re not ready to play either because you come talk to me.”“Are you kidding me?” Shapovalov said as he retreated. “You guys are all corrupt.”Shapovalov, 22, received no code violation for the comment, although he could be fined or sanctioned by the Australian Open after further inquiry. Shapovalov later said, apologetically, “I think I misspoke.” He was involved in another exchange with Bernardes as Nadal prepared to serve the second game of the second set even though there were still several seconds on the serve clock. Nadal came toward the net. Shapovalov met him there and after a brief exchange play resumed.“It was nothing against Rafa,” Shapovalov said. “Rafa was serving, and I would expect the umpire to be looking at Rafa, and the umpire was staring me down. It didn’t make sense to me.”But Shapovalov was not done complaining about Nadal, arguing with Bernardes after the fourth set that Nadal, who had been examined briefly on court for stomach problems, was stretching the spirit of the rules by taking an extended break off court before the final set for a combined medical evaluation and toilet visit.Nadal explained later that he began feeling poorly late in the second set, most likely because of the hot, humid weather and his long break from the game. He returned to the tour this year after missing five months with a chronic foot problem and then contracted Covid-19 in late December at an exhibition in Abu Dhabi. He is seeded sixth in Melbourne, where he won the title in 2009.Shapovalov quizzed Bernardes at length as they awaited Nadal’s return, saying that he had not been allowed to combine the two breaks at a past tournament. Nadal served seven minutes after the fourth set had been completed.Asked at a post-match news conference if Nadal received preferential treatment, Shapovalov answered “100 percent he does” and said there needed to be boundaries.“Every other match that I have played, the pace has been so quick because the refs have been on the clock after every single point,” Shapovalov said. “This one, I mean, after the first two sets it was like an hour and a half just because he’s dragged out so much after every single point. He’s given so much time in between sets and all this.”Players are allowed 25 seconds between points when serving but chair umpires have discretion on when to start the shot clock. When returning serve, players are expected to play to the server’s “reasonable pace,” a phrase in the tennis rule book that leaves plenty of room for interpretation.“I respect everything that Rafa has done and I think he’s an unbelievable player,” Shapovalov said. “But there’s got to be some boundaries, some rules set. It’s just so frustrating as a player. You feel like you’re not just playing against the player; you’re playing against the umpires, you’re playing against so much more. It’s difficult. I mean, it was a big break after the fourth set and for this reason the momentum just goes away.”“They are legends of the game,” Shapovalov said of stars like Nadal, “but when you step on the court it should be equal.”Bernardes, a veteran chair umpire from Brazil, did give Nadal a time violation for taking too long before serving in the fourth set. Bernardes and Nadal have not always been in agreement, and Bernardes was kept from working Nadal’s matches during a cooling-off period in 2015. But that informal ban soon ended.Nadal rejected Shapovalov’s accusations of favoritism and said it was standard practice to take a bit more time to change clothes and equipment after a set played in such steamy conditions.“I think he really was wrong,” Nadal said in Spanish of Shapovalov. “When you lose a match like this, you are frustrated. I have a lot of affection for Denis. I think he’s a good guy with lots of talent, the talent to win multiple Grand Slams. In no way do I want to get in an argument with him. But I think he’s wrong. He’s young and when one is young, one makes mistakes.”Rafael Nadal beat Denis Shapovalov to advance to the semifinals. He is two wins from his record 21st Grand Slam title.Andy Brownbill/Associated PressNadal observed that the rules had been tightened in recent seasons to make it harder to show favoritism to the elite or any player because of the advent of electronic line-calling, shot clocks between points and, this season, stricter time limits on toilet breaks.“You have less room now to influence anything,” said Nadal, who added that he was not interested in getting an advantage on court.“I really believe that on the court you don’t deserve better treatment than the others,” Nadal said. “And I really don’t want it, and I don’t feel I have it.”Nadal was often far from his best in the second half of Tuesday’s match: missing some of his familiar forehand passing shots on the run by large margins. He also had 11 double faults, a large amount by his standards. But he was able to serve well when he needed it most, including coming up with an ace to save a break point in the opening game of the fifth set and saving two more break points in the third game.“I was destroyed honestly, physically, but my serve worked well,” Nadal said. “For me, every game that I was winning with my serve was a victory.”He got the overall victory, too, and will now have two full days to recover before facing No. 7 seed Matteo Berrettini or No. 17 seed Gaël Monfils in the semifinals on Friday afternoon. Nadal usually prefers to play in the daytime, where conditions are typically quicker and help his topspin forehand penetrate the court. But he looked as if he would have been delighted to play in the shade against Shapovalov.“I’m not 21 anymore,” Nadal said wearily in his post-match interview on court.But 21 could still be his magic number in Melbourne, where he is just two matches away from breaking a tie. More

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      Madison Keys Defeats Barbora Krejcikova at Australian Open

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      The unseeded American upset No. 4 Barbora Krejcikova to advance to the semifinals, where she will face No. 1 Asheligh Barty.MELBOURNE, Australia — Before Madison Keys plays a match, her new coach Georgi Rumenov likes to remind her that “there is no need to, there is no have to.”The message is that it is not about the implications or the expectations. It is all about the rally, the shot at hand.That is easier said than achieved for Keys, an American tennis star who despite all the thunder in her serve and groundstrokes, has long struggled to find peace in the matches that matter most.Last year, she found herself obsessing over results and comparing herself to her peers, tossing and turning at night and trying to calm her anxiety.“I wasn’t sleeping as well,” she said. “Felt like there was literally a weight on my chest just because I became so focused and obsessed with it that I wasn’t enjoying really anything, because it’s all that I was thinking about.”But even though tennis has one of the shortest off-seasons of any professional sport, it was long enough for Keys to change her thinking and form with Rumenov’s help.After winning just 11 singles matches in 2021, Keys has won 11 in less than a month in 2022: taking the title in Adelaide and sweeping back into the semifinals of the Australian Open on Tuesday with a dominant victory, 6-3, 6-2, over Barbora Krejcikova, the No. 4 seed and reigning French Open champion. She will meet the top seed, Ashleigh Barty, in the semifinals. Barty beat the American Jessica Pegula, 6-2, 6-0.“It means a lot,” said Keys, 26, who is unseeded this year after being ranked as high as No. 7 earlier in her career. “Last year was really hard, and I did everything I could with my team to really reset this off-season and focus on starting fresh and new and really just starting from zero and not worrying about last year. And wow, that’s going well so far.”Ashleigh Barty beat the American Jessica Pegula to reach her second Australian Open semifinal.Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesKeys has long played a high-risk game and she has, to her detriment under duress, often taken too much chance when in command of a point. There have been signs of progress in that department this year, as she has hit with more topspin and net clearance, and opted for placing the ball rather than pounding it.“I’ve been working on it,” Keys said when asked about her approach. “As you said, it’s not something that I used to necessarily do in the past. Really just trying to be a lot more measured and just playing within myself a little bit more, not necessarily trying to hit a winner on that ball, just constantly trying to set the point up to get to the net to try to finish off on even the next ball. If it happens to be a winner, then it happens to be a winner.”The winners keep coming in bunches. Her easy power remains. Keys hit 11 aces against Krejcikova, one of the world’s premier returners and a doubles champion before she became a singles champion. Keys dominated the short exchanges and as an Orlando resident seemed far more at ease in the humidity and heat with the temperature on-court surpassing 90 degrees.Krejcikova struggled, putting her ice-filled towel not only around her neck on changeovers but on top of her head. Down 2-5 in the opening set, she called for the trainer and was also attended to by a tournament doctor, who took her blood pressure and temperature. Though her coach Ales Kartus was telling her from the stands that she should retire from the match, she persevered as the errors piled up.Krejcikova declined to explain what was troubling her.“I have been struggling with something,” she said. “Yes, it was happening, and I didn’t feel good. I just don’t want to talk about it, because I think Madison, she really deserves the win, and she really deserves to get the credit.”Krejcikova also struggled with breathing and dizziness on a muggy night in New York last year in a tempestuous fourth-round victory over Garbiñe Muguruza at the U.S. Open.Barbora Krejcikova tried to cool down during a break in her quarterfinal match.Andy Brownbill/Associated PressKrejcikova said she was not experiencing the same issues on Tuesday. “Today it was the heat that started to bother me after five games,” she said. “From there on, I just couldn’t put it together. Still, I didn’t want to end it up. I wanted to finish up. I wanted to try to do my best. I wasn’t really able to do that.”Tuesday’s defeat guaranteed that Krejcikova, a tactically astute Czech player, cannot displace Barty at No. 1 in the next rankings. But she continues her rapid rise nonetheless. Outside the top 100 in 2020 in singles, Krejcikova has become a consistent threat in a women’s game filled with upsets and unexpected plot twists: Consider British qualifier Emma Raducanu’s run to the U.S. Open title last year.It is Keys’s turn to be the surprise so far in 2022. After dropping out of the top 50 by the end of last season, she is back in the final four in Australia, where she reached her first Grand Slam semifinal in 2015 at age 19.“It mostly feels different because I’m seven years older, and it’s not my first semifinal of a Slam,” she said. “I think I’m a little bit more prepared this time around than I was all those years ago.”Her opponent in that 2015 semifinal was No. 1 Serena Williams, the greatest women’s player of this era, who defeated her, 7-6 (5), 6-2, on her way to the title. Williams, now 40, is not playing in Melbourne this year, but Keys will face another No. 1 in Barty, who won two of their three previous meetings.Keys, who lost in the 2017 U.S. Open final to her close friend Sloane Stephens, has long been considered a potential Grand Slam champion. She is back in range again.Chris Evert, who has known Keys since she trained as a teenager at the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Fla., said it is apparent that Keys is enjoying herself on the court more than last year.“I’m seeing a very calm and focused Madison who is in control and managing her emotions like never before,” Evert wrote in a text message. “I’m seeing a fit and healthy Madison who is moving really well in and out of corners and not hitting risky shots because she can’t get back in the court. Her serve is almost unreturnable.”Evert added: “She had to find this place of calm herself, in her own time, no one could teach her this. I am thrilled for her. No one deserves a crack at a Grand Slam title more than her.”But Keys has been on tour long enough to know that thinking ahead is not the right approach for her. As Rumenov keeps telling her, “there is no need to, there is no have to.”Staying in the moment is the focus.“I think that’s really important,” she said. “I think it’s still something that I don’t think anyone is perfect at. You can kind of lose that even throughout a match, just getting a little bit ahead of yourself. I think I even did that today early in the second set. I think the biggest key is just being able to reel it back in and then refocus very quickly and catch yourself.” More

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      Is Tennis Moving Into a New Golden Age? We Can Only Hope.

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      It will be hard to let go of aging stars like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams, and troubled ones like Novak Djokovic. But the time is coming, if it is not already here.There was something for everyone. Roger Federer’s linen grace. Rafael Nadal’s punishing power. Novak Djokovic and his single-minded determination. The unwavering way Serena Williams dismantled tired tradition.For two decades, professional tennis bathed in the golden glow provided by an unalterable hierarchy of players with distinctive styles and personalities that combined to define the game in the 21st century.But time, and the coronavirus, changes everything.For the second major championship in a row, as the Australian Open plays out in searing Melbourne heat, Federer and Williams find themselves at home, healing from injuries at age 40. We may never see them play top-flight tennis again.Gone, too, of course, is Djokovic.It’s unclear when the world No. 1 will return to major championship play, and how the scorn of fans will affect a player who has spent his career yearning for adoration. Depending on how the pandemic unfolds, tennis’s most famed vaccine refusenik could end up barred from traveling to the countries hosting the year’s biggest tournaments, imperiling his quest to break well past the 20 Grand Slam logjam he is in with Federer and Nadal.Of the golden quartet, only Nadal made his way to Melbourne. A well-worn 35, he is coming off a foot injury that kept him out of the mix for most of last year.He looked sharp during the Australian’s early stanza, perhaps good enough to summon greatness again and raise the championship trophy for a second time. Even if he does, how much longer can the Nadal we have known be the Nadal we revere?What in tennis can be counted on anymore?Nothing.The days when the game could lean on the showstopping power of its rock star quartet to lure fans and add excitement — the days of penciling them in as locks to make at least the semifinals of every major title — those days are done.Remember when Naomi Osaka was supposed to be the next big thing? Right now, her last major title win, the Australian Open last winter, seems in this time-warped stretch as if it occurred a decade rather than a year ago.She left last year’s French Open midstream, using the occasion to open up about the anxiety and depression sitting heavy on her shoulders. She skipped Wimbledon, needing time away from the grind and glare. She lost early at the U.S. Open and the Tokyo Olympics. Last week, Osaka’s bid to repeat at Melbourne ended at the hands of the world’s 60th-ranked player.Remember Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, the upstart teenagers who electrified last summer’s U.S. Open by making the women’s finals? Neither has done much since. Fernandez lost in the first round last week. Raducanu got tossed off in the second.Maybe there’s a silver lining in the game’s newfound uncertainty. Free of the shadow cast by the biggest stars, it’s easier to gain enthusiasm for a wider cast.During the initial week at Melbourne Park, that meant marveling at Amanda Anisimova, 20, as she ripped backhand winners past Osaka in an upset win. Or watching Carlos Alcaraz, 18, sprint, slide and stretch to keep a point alive before suddenly hauling off and smacking a full-throttle winner.Uncertainty provided more shine to the young Italian Jannik Sinner, as stunningly gifted an upstart as there is, as he pressed his way through the draw.Ashleigh Barty in action during her fourth-round match against Amanda Anisimova.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/ReutersIt put more focus on Ashleigh Barty, last year’s Wimbledon champion, possessor of the smoothest game this side of Federer.Will Daniil Medvedev, who crushed Djokovic’s Grand Slam dreams by beating the Serb to win the 2021 U.S. Open, wrest away the world No. 1 ranking? What happens if he becomes one of the game’s consistent standard-bearers?In Melbourne last week, Medvedev flashed his quirky and almost unfathomable game. Several of his strokes look as if they were self-taught and honed at a craggy public park by playing with duffers — the reflex volley with one hand on the racket’s throat, the gawky forehand that sometimes ends with legs splayed and a strangulating follow-through.As Medvedev often has at Flushing Meadows, he showed he can be an engaging champion — witty, open and more than willing to play the villain with a wink.This year, the typically rowdy Australian Open crowd has been using Cristiano Ronaldo’s famed “Siuuu!” celebration shout during matches. That has angered several players, Medvedev included, who thought the chants were boos during his victory over Nick Kyrgios. As we might expect based on his past shenanigans at the U.S. Open, Medvedev raised hackles from the crowd when he scolded them for the chant in an on-court interview.He later explained with his customary willingness to draw ire: “It’s not everybody who is doing it. But those who are doing it probably have a low I.Q.”Imagine Federer saying such a thing about fans. Impossible. But maybe that’s a good and energizing change.It is difficult to let go of a generation.A new era has arrived. All we can do is embrace it, wait patiently, and hope for the best. More