Tennis

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      Peng Shuai Said to Be in Videos From China's State Media

      by

      The editor of a state-run newspaper on Saturday shared clips said to be of the Chinese tennis star on Twitter. But they are unverified, and the head of the WTA called them “insufficient.”Nearly two weeks after people across the world began asking “Where is Peng Shuai?,” two questionable videos surfaced Saturday on social media of a person who appears to be the Chinese tennis star at a restaurant.The videos were shared on Twitter by the editor of a state-run newspaper, but the seemingly unnatural conversation in one video and the unclear location and dates of both raised questions about Peng’s safety and whether she was appearing in the videos of her own free will. A third video, said to be of Peng at a tennis match in Beijing, was posted about 10 hours later, on Sunday.Peng, in a social media post this month, accused a former top government official of sexually assaulting her. After the allegation, the Chinese government removed almost all references of Peng on social media within the country, and Peng disappeared from public life. Her absence prompted outrage across the world, especially from top officials and stars in tennis.Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA, the women’s professional tennis tour, has particularly been strident, demanding verifiable proof that Peng is safe and can move about society as she pleases and that officials fully investigate her allegations. If that does not occur, Simon said the WTA would stop playing tennis tournaments in China.On Saturday, after the videos surfaced, Simon continued to express frustration with the inability to independently verify Peng’s well-being and said that the organization’s “relationship with China is at a crossroads.”“While it is positive to see her, it remains unclear if she is free and able to make decisions and take actions on her own, without coercion or external interference,” he said. “This video alone is insufficient.”Peng, 35, is the only Chinese tennis player to have attained a world No. 1 ranking, in women’s doubles, and she was once heralded by the Chinese government as a model athlete.The video clips were posted on the Twitter account of Hu Xijin, the chief editor of The Global Times, an influential Communist Party newspaper, who described them as showing Peng having dinner with her coach and friends on Saturday.He wrote that he had “acquired” the clips but offered no explanation of how, and the clips appeared staged to establish the date. In the first clip, the man said to be Peng’s coach is discussing plans with her and asks, “Isn’t tomorrow Nov. 20?” A woman sitting next to Peng corrects him and says it will be Nov. 21. He then repeats the date twice.In the second clip, a woman wearing a mask, presumably Peng, is shown walking into a restaurant. The camera pauses on a sign indicating the date of the last cleaning, a common sight in Chinese buildings since the SARS epidemic. But only the month, November, is visible; the date appears to be obscured.Hu posted a third video hours later, describing it as the opening ceremony of a teen tennis match final in Beijing on Sunday to which Peng “showed up.”On Friday, a journalist for another Chinese media entity released pictures said to be of Peng in what appeared to be a bedroom, surrounded by stuffed animals. In those photos, Peng appeared younger than she did in more recent images of her and there was nothing to verify when they had been taken.Also on Friday, Simon wrote to China’s ambassador to the United States to reiterate his complaints and his threat to remove the nine tournaments the WTA holds in China, including the prestigious WTA Finals in Shenzhen. All of the tournaments in China this year were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The WTA Finals were completed on Wednesday in Guadalajara, Mexico.If Peng is not able to speak freely, Simon wrote, “we have grave concerns that any of our players will be safe in China.”The men’s tennis tour has voiced its concern but has yet to threaten to pull its tournaments from China.The controversy surrounding Peng comes a little more than two months before the start of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, raising the specter of one of the world’s largest sporting events taking place in a country where a three-time Olympian tennis star is missing.The International Olympic Committee has said that it believes “quiet diplomacy” will provide the best chance for resolving the situation. On Friday, Dick Pound, an I.O.C. member, told Reuters that if the situation with Peng is “not resolved in a sensible way very soon, it may spin out of control.” He added: “Whether that escalates to a cessation of the Olympic Games, I doubt it. But you never know.”Simon has spent more than a week trying to establish personal contact with Peng through a series of phone numbers and other digital contacts but has not been able to speak with her.The videos on Saturday were the latest media released by a Chinese-controlled entity trying to establish Peng’s safety. Earlier this week, China’s state-owned broadcaster released a message supposedly from her.“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai,” it read. It called the accusation of sexual assault, which was made just weeks ago, untrue. “I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe,” the message said. “I’ve been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.”Simon quickly denounced the release of the message.“I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believes what is being attributed to her,” he said.Peng has accused Zhang Gaoli, 75, a former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her at his home three years ago. In a post on her verified account on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, Peng wrote that the assault occurred after Zhang invited her to play tennis at his home. “I was so scared that afternoon,” she said. “I never gave consent, crying the entire time.”She also described having had an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang.Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Friday that the Biden administration was paying close attention to the situation and was “deeply concerned.” She called on the Chinese government to provide “independent, verifiable proof” of Peng’s whereabouts.In recent days, several notable names in tennis have joined the chorus of demanding proof that Peng is safe.“We need to see her in a live video holding up a newspaper from today or better yet, hitting balls,” Patrick McEnroe, the former player and ESPN commentator, said in an interview on Friday. McEnroe coached Peng earlier in her career in World Team Tennis.“If none of that happens, and people I talk to say if the Chinese really don’t care about what we think, and we never hear from Peng or have a clue, the only real recourse left is for professional tennis to pull all its tournaments from China,” he said.Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep and Coco Gauff are among the current women’s players who have posted on social media about their concern for Peng. Novak Djokovic shared a statement from the Professional Tennis Players Association, of which he is a co-founder.Martina Navratilova, the former champion who defected from Czechoslovakia in 1975 to escape the communist government, is also speaking out about Peng.“I don’t believe a word they are saying,” Navratilova said of the Chinese government in an interview on Saturday. “There is a lot of subterfuge going on here.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      Australian Open to Require Players to Be Fully Vaccinated

      by

      The Australian Open in January will become the first Grand Slam tennis tournament to require that players be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, a decision that casts doubt on the participation of Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the No. 1-ranked men’s player who has declined to divulge his vaccination status.Craig Tiley, the Australian Open tournament director, confirmed the tournament’s policy on Saturday in Melbourne, Australia, in a television interview.The announcement ended months of speculation and mixed messages from Australian government officials. Federal authorities had indicated that unvaccinated players might be able to enter Australia and compete in the tournament in Melbourne after a 14-day quarantine period. But Daniel Andrews, the premier of the state of Victoria, has been adamant that players will need to be fully vaccinated, just as Australian Open spectators and on-site employees will be required to be vaccinated.Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, has experienced some of the strictest coronavirus measures in the world, with six separate stay-at-home orders over an 18-month period.“It is the one direction that you can take that you can ensure everyone’s safety, and all the playing group understands it,” Tiley said of requiring players to be vaccinated. “Our patrons will need to be vaccinated. All the staff working the Australian Open will need to be vaccinated, but when we’re in a state where there’s more than 90 percent of the population fully vaccinated — they’ve done a magnificent job with that — it’s the right thing to do.”Steve Simon, the chairman and chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association, said in an interview this week that “over 70 percent” of the WTA’s top 300 singles players and top 100 doubles players had been vaccinated and that all the singles and doubles players who competed in the recent WTA finals in Mexico had been vaccinated. Andrea Gaudenzi, chairman of the men’s tour, said on Friday in an interview that the vaccination rate for the top 100 men’s singles players was “above 80 percent.”“We are moving toward 90 percent, 95 percent of fully vaccinated,” Gaudenzi said. “A lot will do it in the off-season with one shot.”But it seems all but certain that some qualified players will not make the journey to Australia because of the policy.“It’s an unfortunate situation,” Gaudenzi said of mandatory vaccination, speaking shortly before the tournament’s announcement. “I really hope in the future, in America and after that, there’s going to be a change: at the minimum, providing exceptions even with a hard quarantine of seven or 14 days, but allowing entry.”All four Grand Slam tournaments, including the U.S. Open, allowed unvaccinated players to participate this year, as have regular tour events, including the ATP Finals currently underway in Turin, Italy.Djokovic, a nine-time Australian Open singles champion, has yet to confirm whether he will defend his title next year. He and his wife, Jelena, contracted the coronavirus in June 2020 during an exhibition tour he had helped to organize in Serbia and Croatia. He has expressed concern about vaccines.“How are we expecting that to solve our problem when this coronavirus is mutating regularly from what I understand?” he told The New York Times last year.He has said, repeatedly, that he would wait for the Australian Open’s policy to be made clear before making a decision on participating.That moment has come with Djokovic set to play the No. 3-ranked Alexander Zverev of Germany in the semifinals of the Turin tournament on Saturday.“He has always said the Australian Open is the event that puts the wind in his sails,” Tiley said of Djokovic. “So I hope we get to see Novak.” More

    • 163 Shares149 Views

      in Tennis

      Where Is Peng Shuai? The Question the I.O.C. Is Too Weak To Ask.

      by

      Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai went missing after publicly accusing a former government official of sexual assault. Tennis stars, led by Naomi Osaka, and the WTA have all asked #whereispengshuai?Where is Peng Shuai?That’s the question the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, should be shouting right now — loud, demanding, and aimed squarely at the leadership in China, set to host the Beijing Games in February. But instead of firm demands, we’re hearing not much more than faint, servile whispers from Olympic leadership.Peng, 35, a Chinese tennis star and three-time Olympian, has been missing since Nov. 2, when she used social media to accuse Zhang Gaoli, 75, a former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her at his home three years ago. She also described having had an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang.Peng wrote that the assault occurred after Zhang invited her to play tennis at his home. “I was so scared that afternoon,” she noted. “I never gave consent, crying the entire time.”“I feel like a walking corpse,” she added.The message was quickly deleted from China’s government-controlled social media site.There have been no verifiable signs of Peng since — no videos or photographs to prove she is safe. Instead, all the outside world has seen is a stilted message, said to have been written by Peng and sent to the WTA, in response to its demand for an inquiry into her allegations. Peng’s supposed response, released by China’s state-owned broadcaster on Wednesday, immediately raised concerns.“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai,” it read, before calling her accusation of sexual assault, made just weeks ago, untrue. “I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe. I’ve been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.”It reads like a message from a hostage, a natural concern given the Chinese government’s long history of using force and heavy-handed pressure to crush dissent and flatten those it deems guilty of going against the state.So, what has been the I.O.C.’s response to a potentially endangered Olympian? A neutered, obsequious statement.“We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe,” read an official I.O.C. declaration on Thursday.What world of fantasy is the I.O.C. living in? Given China’s history, we can reasonably assume the latest missive supposedly written by Peng is a fraud. Peng dared to speak up with force and candor, but not the I.O.C., a Swiss-based organization with a history of cowing to dictators that goes back to Adolf Hitler and the 1936 Summer Games.After some criticism, the committee followed up with another statement, hinting its representatives were talking to the Chinese.“Experience shows that quiet diplomacy offers the best opportunity to find a solution for questions of such nature,” it said, offering no evidence of prior success. “This explains why the IOC will not comment any further at this stage.”Responding to a message purportedly written by Peng, the I.O.C. said in a statement, “We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe.” Valery Gache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBach and the wide cast of leadership at the I.O.C. typically use every chance possible to claim the Olympic mission stands for humanity’s highest ideals. They say all Olympic athletes are part of a family. Peng was among those ranks in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Once an Olympian, they say, always an Olympian.That’s an admirable idea, but it gets tossed to the wayside when the stakes grow too high.Looming are Beijing’s Winter Games, fueled by huge fees for broadcasting rights and corporate sponsorships and the billions spent by the Chinese government in an effort to gain respect on the international stage.Do Bach and the I.O.C. have the guts to stand up for one of their own and call out the dictatorial host of its next showcase for a frightening human rights abuse?The answer, so far at least, is no.Contrary to the official I.O.C. statement, nothing is encouraging about this situation.Not if you know the long history of Chinese authoritarianism. Not if you know how it has been hammering at dissent and silencing anyone with enough clout to threaten national order — including prominent cultural and business figures like Jack Ma, founder of the internet firm Alibaba.Not if you know about how China has suppressed protest in Hong Kong and Tibet, or if you pay attention to the treatment of Muslim minorities — deemed genocide by the United Nations and dozens of nations, including the United States — despite Chinese denials.As predicted by critics, or anyone watching with even a bit of common sense, the I.O.C. finds itself compromised. That’s the cost of cozying up to authoritarian hosts like China, which held the Summer Games in 2008, and Russia, the site of the 2014 Winter Games.Compare the typical fecklessness of Bach and the I.O.C. with the uncompromising approach taken by the women’s pro tennis tour, which has been unafraid to stand up boldly for Peng, a former world No. 1 in doubles.“I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believe what is being attributed to her,” wrote Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA Tour, in a statement. “Peng Shuai displayed incredible courage in describing an allegation of sexual assault against a former top official in the Chinese government.”Simon continued: “Peng Shuai must be allowed to speak freely, without coercion or intimidation from any source. Her allegation of sexual assault must be respected, investigated with full transparency and without censorship.The voices of women need to be heard and respected, not censored nor dictated to.”That’s putting people over profit. That’s guts. Professional tennis in China is a lucrative, fast-growing market. The men’s and women’s tours hold high-profile tournaments there, and the WTA Finals are slated for Shenzhen in 2022.Given the way female tennis players have long led on matters of human rights, it is no surprise that Billie Jean King, Serena Williams, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova have stood strongly for Peng. And it is no surprise younger stars have followed suit, led by Naomi Osaka, the torch bearer in the Tokyo Games this past summer, who has added her significant stature to the chorus asking “Where is Peng Shuai?”But Bach and the I.O.C., peddlers of Olympic mythology, have yet to join that chorus. Peng Shuai is part of the Olympic family, but the I.O.C. overlords lack the spine to stand up for one of their own. More

    • 150 Shares139 Views

      in Tennis

      As Covid Rules Ease, Australian Open Can Play Before a Full House

      by

      Two of Australia’s biggest sports events — the Australian Open tennis tournament and the annual Boxing Day cricket test match in Melbourne — will be allowed to take place before full-capacity stadiums as part of an easing of coronavirus restrictions.With 90 percent of people over 16 expected to be fully vaccinated by this weekend in the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, the authorities are easing pandemic-related rules, including capacity limits for public events.Events with up to 30,000 spectators can be held without state government approval, and larger events can go ahead at full capacity if they have a government-approved coronavirus safety plan in place.Attendees at all sports events will be required to be fully vaccinated.The Australian Open, which is played early each year in Melbourne, attracted about 820,000 spectators over two weeks the last time it was held at full capacity, in 2020. The Grand Slam tournament is played in a variety of venues, with the largest, Rod Laver Arena, able to seat about 15,000 spectators. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Tennis

      Garbiñe Muguruza Wins WTA Tour Finals in Mexico

      by

      The sport’s final tournament, an elite event for the best in the game, produced a veteran champion, and a glimpse of where women’s tennis is headed in 2022.GUADALAJARA, Mexico — As her final shot forced one final error, and Garbiñe Muguruza beat Anett Kontaveit and slammed an exclamation point onto the tennis season by winning the WTA Finals, the veteran player claimed more than just an individual triumph.This was not simply a win for a single player, but for power and aggression in women’s tennis and the unique form of mental toughness it requires.Muguruza, who prevailed, 6-3, 7-5, in 99 minutes, had her opponent on her heels from the start, finding opportunities to break Kontaveit nearly every time she served in the first set, pushing forward and making Kontaveit backpedal far behind the baseline and scramble across the back of the court. Kontaveit, an Estonian, made a battle of it, forcing Muguruza to raise her level of play in the second set. But after an hour and a half, Kontaveit resembled a prize fighter whose arms were still swinging but whose wobbly legs could not sustain her any longer.“A dream come true to play here,” said Muguruza, a Spaniard the Mexican fans adopted as one of their own during the tournament.Trying to guess the next dominant player in women’s tennis long ago became an act of futility. The game produces surprise champions practically every week. But what unfolded a mile above sea level in the middle of Mexico in the past week provided plenty of hints about where the women’s game is going. Players hoping to make it at the elite level would do well to figure out how to hit the ball as hard as they can, and then try to hit it even a little bit harder, and not care much when inevitable misses occur.“It doesn’t always go your way,” said Kontaveit, who survived an onslaught from Maria Sakkari of Greece in the semifinals and figured out the modern power game of the moment as few others have during her white-hot final month of the season. “You miss some shots. Be kind to yourself, and look forward to the next point.”The WTA Finals is different from other tournaments, where top players can usually spend a few rounds getting a feel for the ball against inferior competition. The WTA Finals includes only the best eight available players of the season. Every match is a test the caliber of a Grand Slam quarterfinal, or something even tougher, making it clear what it takes to win at the highest level, night after night.The tennis of the past eight days was not for the faint of heart. This was a collection of women blasting ball after ball after ball, mostly trying to pummel opponents into submission rather than outthink them.Muguruza powered her way to the trophy over eight days in Mexico.Carlos Perez Gallardo/ReutersThe eight-player field in Mexico included two players — Iga Swiatek of Poland and Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic — who approach the court with an old-style mix of finesse and artistry. Swiatek and Krejcikova went a combined 1-5 in round robin play and failed to advance to the semifinals. The last four was made up of players whose specialty is hitting untouchable balls through the back of the court at withering speed. When the ball is landing inside the lines, the strategy wins points and games and crushes an opponent’s spirit.Muguruza, a two-time Grand Slam champion who is 28, has been doing this for a while, though this was her first time reaching the final in the year’s ultimate tournament.A dozen years ago, after she had sprouted to six feet tall, she realized that following in the stylistic footsteps of the Spanish greats of the previous generation was not going to work for her. They were classic defenders, so-called dirt-ballers who honed their games on clay and fought tennis wars of attrition.“I’m a tall woman, big arms, and my personality did not match the classic Spanish game,” Muguruza said Tuesday. “I wanted to dominate.”She did plenty of that in Guadalajara, and it was fitting that to get to the finals, Muguruza had to first beat the next iteration of herself in Paula Badosa, a 23-year-old Spaniard who modeled her game after Muguruza’s. Like Muguruza, Badosa is six feet tall, and she saw in Muguruza another way to play.“Other Spanish players play different,” Badosa said. “She was the only one who played super aggressive.”It’s true that had Ashleigh Barty of Australia, the world’s top-ranked player, opted to play this championship, finesse might have played a larger role in the past week. Barty’s greatest weapon is a slice backhand, though she, too, hits plenty of forehands through the back of the court and is among the game’s leaders in service aces. But Barty ended her season in September after spending six consecutive months on the road because of Australia’s restrictive rules for international travelers.And so, the 2021 WTA Finals unfolded mostly as a series of slugfests in which brute strength was as potent a weapon as a drop shot.There was a three-set brawl between Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and Sakkari, the tour’s reigning gym rat. After outlasting Sabalenka, Sakkari spoke of using her supreme strength and fitness as weapons.“It makes a lot of players be kind of like intimidated because they know that I can last long,” Sakkari said.Playing with relentless aggression, though, is a high-risk, high-reward game, a tightrope walk without a safety net that brings wild swings within a season, or even a match.Kontaveit returning a shot to Muguruza on Wednesday.Hector Vivas/Getty Images for WTAKontaveit lost four straight matches and nearly all of her confidence during the summer when she could not make enough consistent and true contact with the ball. Then she got on a roll in the fall and won the final two tournaments to grab the final spot in this championship.Sabalenka seized the momentum and a 3-1 lead in the final set Monday night against Sakkari. Then the nerves kicked in, and her balls couldn’t find the court. With a game that is all power all the time, Sabalenka was out of options and barking at herself like a dog in the night as Sakkari reeled off five straight games to win their nearly three-hour battle.But 21 hours later, in the semifinal, those same crushing, crosscourt backhands from Sakkari kept floating long and wide or getting hammered right back across the net by Kontaveit. Sakkari then found her groove and got within three games of the finish line. But her blasts started hitting the net and flying long once more, and she could not find a way out of a rut that was both physical and mental.“A missed opportunity,” she said through tears when it was over.Wednesday night’s championship match was one last heavyweight bout.Muguruza muscled a backhand to earn her chance to win the first set, and oddly won it with a magical topspin lob, one of the few that anyone tried all week in Mexico. Soon, though, it was back to big hitting, serves darting for the corners and deep drives at the lines at the earliest opportunities. She fell behind late in the second set and needed one last burst of power to thrash through the final three games, collapsing on her back when Kontaveit’s final ball hit the middle of the net.Great tennis players have remarkable long-term memories and terrible short-term ones.They remember details of points played a decade earlier and can recall an opponent’s catalog of tendencies in the heat of competition.But they also have a knack for forgetting a lost point, game or set as soon as it’s gone. They play each point, each shot, on its own merits. Blast a forehand into the net. Fine. Here comes the next one, hit just as hard and with the strongest belief that it will find the back corner of the court.That is what Muguruza was able to do in the crucial moment Wednesday night.With the power game ascendant, it’s the likely path anyone who wants to compete for championships and make it to this elite finale will have to take in 2022. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      Roger Federer to Miss Australian Open and Maybe Wimbledon

      by

      Recovering from his fourth knee operation, Federer, at 40, has no illusions about winning a 21st major title. He wants to return for different reasons.TURIN, Italy — With top-ranked Novak Djokovic and most of the world’s other top men’s tennis players gathered here for the ATP Finals, the absentee Roger Federer gave an update.It was far from reassuring for all those eager to see him return to the tour.In an interview that appeared in French in a Swiss newspaper, La Tribune de Genève, Federer, 40, ruled out playing in next year’s Australian Open, which is set to begin on Jan. 17 and is the first Grand Slam tournament of the season.More unexpectedly, he also all but ruled out Wimbledon, which begins in late June.“The truth is that I would be incredibly surprised to play Wimbledon,” he said.For now, Federer, one of the greatest players in tennis history, continues to recover from his fourth and most complicated knee operation, which he indicated required surgery on both the meniscus and articular cartilage in his right knee. He said his tentative plan was to return to competition at some stage in the Northern Hemisphere summer next year, which could mean a comeback on North American hardcourts. But that timetable is far from a sure thing. For now, he said, doctors have told him he can begin running in January but probably not return to full tennis training until “March or April.”“We can sum up my ambitions this way: I want to find out one more time what I’m capable of as a professional tennis player,” he said. “I am fighting for that, and I’m very motivated. I feel the support of my team and my family. We’d all like for me to be able to say farewell on my terms and on a tennis court.”Federer, still ranked 16th, has played only 19 tour matches in the last two seasons and not at all since losing, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-0, in July to Hubert Hurkacz in the quarterfinals of this year’s Wimbledon. Federer’s right knee was troubling him during that match, as it had been for much of the grass-court season, but the lopsided score of the final set was particularly deflating. Federer has developed a deep connection with the All England Club, where he has won eight Wimbledon singles titles, a men’s record.Federer left Wimbledon’s Centre Court after losing his quarterfinal match to Hubert Hurkacz in July.Pool via REUTERS/Edward WhitakerHe said in the Tribune de Genève interview that he hoped to give his fans a better memory.“The simplest thing would almost be to say: ‘That’s it. I gave a lot, received a lot, let’s stop it all,’” he said. “But to give everything to come back one more time is also my way of thanking the fans. They deserve better than the image I left during the grass-court season this year.”Federer speculated that he might not be able to return until 2023 from this operation, which he said was more serious than his previous knee operations.“If you push the reasoning further, it doesn’t make much difference whether I return in 2022 or not until 2023,” he said. “At 40 or 41, it’s the same. The question is whether I can keep pushing myself hard day after day. Today, my heart says yes. So I’m going step by step. It’s another challenge like I’ve faced many times in my career, sometimes without the public realizing it. And even if I know very well that the end is near, I want to try to play some more big matches. It won’t be easy but we’re going to try.”Despite his smooth game, Federer has played through plenty of discomfort through the years: dealing with lower back problems from his early 20s and with recurring knee pain in the second half of his career. There is, of course, the possibility that he continues with his rehabilitation and concludes that a comeback is impossible. Doctors who have not treated Federer have suggested that the long recovery period indicates that this latest operation was an attempt to regenerate articular cartilage in his right knee, perhaps with microfracture surgery.“Basically, there are two types of knee cartilage: the meniscus is one, and the articular cartilage is the other,” said Bill Mallon, an American orthopedic surgeon and former professional golfer. “Articular cartilage is the covering of the bone that allows almost friction-free movement of the knee joint. Articular cartilage has very little blood supply, so it regenerates very poorly, if at all. And its ability to regenerate is completely age dependent. The younger you are the more chance you have of that cartilage regenerating.”Federer remains tied for the men’s record of 20 Grand Slam singles titles with his longtime rivals Rafael Nadal and Djokovic. Nadal, who has been out of action since August because of a recurring foot problem, has announced that he intends to return to the tour in January. But Nadal, 35, and Djokovic, 34, are significantly younger than Federer, and the other men taking part in the elite ATP Finals are even younger, all in their early to mid-20s.“Obviously Roger is an icon of our sport, and people around the world love him,” Djokovic said on Wednesday after qualifying for the semifinals in Turin with a 6-3, 6-2 round-robin victory over Andrey Rublev. “They love watching him play, love seeing him around.” Djokovic added, “I’m sure he doesn’t want to end his career this way.”Federer withdrew from the French Open in June after a grueling third-round win.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesNicholas DiNubile, an American orthopedic surgeon who specializes in knee surgery, said it would be challenging to return to the tour after articular cartilage surgery.Federer said he had surgery this time not only so he could resume his tennis career, but so he could also live a more active life in the years ahead, playing sports with his children and friends. But Federer, an optimist by nature, is not yet prepared to aim for retirement. He wants more of what only elite competition can provide.“If I am committing myself fully to my rehabilitation, it means there’s a chance I can come back,” he said. “If I am doing strengthening, bike, pool and balance exercises, and if I was working my upper body when I was on crutches, it’s because I believe. Will I come back for a short run, or something bigger? Nobody knows. Not the doctors. Not me. But I am fighting for that.“Let’s be clear: My life is not going to fall apart if I don’t play another Grand Slam final. But it would be the ultimate dream. And in fact, I still believe. I still believe in these kinds of miracles. I’ve experienced them. Sports history writes them sometimes. I’m realistic. It would be an enormous miracle. But in sport, miracles exist.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      The WTA Finals Provide a Fitting Finale to a Zany Year

      by

      Favorites who were virtually unknown a year ago. Big names missing in action. And, as usual, a championship completely up for grabs.GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Karolina Pliskova let out a good long breath Sunday afternoon when she finally defeated Barbora Krejcikova to finish off her round-robin play at the WTA Finals Sunday afternoon.After three sets in intense sun, there was nothing left to do but wait for the evening session’s outcome, and then, perhaps, play the final two matches of this ridiculously long and taxing year filled with restrictive bubbles and unmatched drama — and more Covid-19 tests than anyone cares to think about.Finally, mercifully, the 11-month endurance test that has been women’s tennis this year is approaching a fitting end in this near-mile-high city in central Mexico.Everything about these WTA Finals is so 2021. The season essentially began with more than two dozen players locked in their hotel rooms in Melbourne, Australia, for two weeks because they flew on planes with other players or coaches who tested positive for the coronavirus upon their arrival. So it was only proper that this tournament, which was supposed to be in China, faced its own pandemic-related upheaval. Tour officials had to scramble, moving the tournament out of a country that had largely prohibited foreigners from entering the country.As the final matches of the year were unfolding, tour officials were also confronting a claim this month by the Chinese player Peng Shuai, 35, who in a social media post said she had been sexually assaulted by a top official in the Chinese government. Her post has since been taken down, and on Sunday, Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA Tour, which does extensive business in China, called on officials there to investigate the claim fully and transparently.The tour’s ties to China are deep though. After her match on Sunday, hours after the WTA released its statement condemning the Chinese, Pliskova was asked to film a promotional spot on behalf of the WTA in which she watched messages wishing her well from Chinese fans on an iPad, then recited a short script that culminated with, “I hope to see you soon in China.”A spokesman for the WTA said the message was targeted to Chinese fans, not government officials.Beyond logistical hurdles and the mounting China controversy, the most fitting tribute to this roller coaster of a season is that the eight players who earned the privilege of playing in the WTA Finals were about as random a collection as anyone could have imagined. In a sport in which seemingly any player can win a tournament, in which even a teenage qualifier this year surged to a Grand Slam event title, nothing was more appropriate than hearing player after player here confess to not being able to fathom at the start of the year that they would qualify for this exclusive championship.Paula Badosa of Spain said that in In January in Abu Dhabi, her coach told her that if she maintained her level she would make the top 30. Badosa, a fast-improving 23-year-old, told him that was impossible, that she would settle for the top 50.After winning the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., in October, she cracked the top 10. “I didn’t even expect it,” Badosa said ahead of her first match here, a 6-4, 6-0 demolition of the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the No. 1 seed. “Even less expected to be here in the WTA Finals.”Paula Badosa has moved into the top 10 and won her first two matches in Guadalajara.Francisco Guasco/EPA, via ShutterstockHas there been a tennis season when the beginning and the end looked so different, and not merely because empty stadiums have given way to filled arenas? In February, after the Australian Open, where Naomi Osaka of Japan won her second consecutive Grand Slam singles event and the fourth of her career, she appeared ready to take control of the sport. Ten months later, she is on indefinite leave as she deals with her mental health. No one knows when, or if, she will return.Serena Williams made the semifinals in Australia and appeared poised for a serious try for a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title. She has been sidelined with injuries since the early summer. Ashleigh Barty of Australia, the 2021 Wimbledon champion, passed on the last two months of the season after an exhausting half-year on the road.The American Sofia Kenin, who arrived in Australia as the defending champion, endured an emergency appendectomy, Covid-19 and a split with her father and coach, Alex Kenin. She tumbled out of the top 10. Simona Halep of Romania, the No. 2 seed in Australia, battled injuries and is now ranked 22nd.The only player to make it back to this championship from 2019, the last time it was played, was Pliskova of the Czech Republic. In place of the usual stars are players like Maria Sakkari, a 26-year-old from Greece with a physique more typical of a mixed martial arts fighter than a tennis player. She cracked the top 20 only last year.The biggest name in the game at the moment, Emma Raducanu of Britain, the qualifier who won the U.S. Open in September, is not here because she did not qualify. The qualification requirements were made when everyone just assumed that anyone good enough to win a Grand Slam event would certainly be among the top-ranked players still playing at the end of the year. In a perfect world, the tour finals would feature all the Grand Slam champions and finalists.Alas, this championship has just a single Grand Slam singles champion from this year, Krejcikova, known until recently as a doubles specialist, who came out of nowhere to win the 2021 French Open. There is just one other Grand Slam finalist — Pliskova, who lost to Barty at Wimbledon. There, Barty looked like she might not lose again for a while, but she did not even make the second week of the U.S. Open and called it a season.As the last preliminary-round matches opened Sunday, little known Anett Kontaveit of Estonia — no one’s current idea of a tennis star — had emerged as a worldbeater, the winner of her last two tournaments and her first two matches in Mexico. Kontaveit, 25, was the last player to qualify for Guadalajara, but the first player to make it through to the semifinals.“I feel like I can take on anyone,” Kontaveit said Friday, after she blasted Pliskova, 6-4, 6-0, hitting the ball harder and flatter than in the past. “It’s really just trusting my shots a little more, going for it, but going for it with margins.”Badosa, too, has continued her new tricks, fulfilling the promise that the tennis cognoscenti had predicted when she was a rising junior. She finished last year ranked 70th, and spent much of the first part of the year losing crucial points in her biggest matches. Not these days: On Saturday, she won nearly all of them, floating across the baseline as she knocked off Sakkari, 7-6 (4), 6-4.“It’s experience,” Badosa said. “I was quite new at the beginning of the year.”Anett Kontaveit was the first player to make it through to the semifinals.Ulises Ruiz/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWith three days to go, the WTA Finals are shaping up as a glimpse of what the next season holds for this topsy-turvy sport rather than as a crowning of a champion of champions. Given the tumult in recent years, expecting anything specific from any one player from month to month, much less season to season, has become something of a fool’s errand.It’s better to just digest the competition as a snapshot of who is hot and who is not at a moment that just happens to be the end of the season.Those snapshots include Kontaveit almost never missing; Badosa wearing out the paint in the corners of the court with her forehand; Sabalenka blasting 120-mile-per-hour second serves and willing the crowd into her corner in a come-from-behind, three-set win over Iga Swiatek of Poland on Saturday night.“I kept saying, ‘You have to get through this challenge, you have to get through this challenge,’ again and again,” Sabalenka said at the end.She was talking about the match. She could have been talking about the season. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Tennis

      Jane Brown Grimes, a Rare Female Force in Tennis, Dies at 80

      by

      She was a top executive at three organizations, including the International Tennis Hall of Fame, where she was later inducted.Jane Brown Grimes, who as one of the rare women executives in tennis in her time modernized the International Tennis Hall of Fame, ran the rule-making body of women’s tennis and was president of the United States Tennis Association, died on Nov. 2 at her home in Manhattan. She was 80.The cause was cancer, her daughter, Serena Larson, said.“Jane did everything behind the scenes,” Chris Evert, who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, said in an interview. “She didn’t crave attention and quietly went about her work. Not a lot of women tennis players know what she did, because she was under the radar.”In 1989, Mrs. Brown Grimes, as managing director of the Women’s International Professional Tennis Council, which governed women’s tennis, headed talks that led to a change in title sponsorship of the women’s tour — from Virginia Slims, a cigarette brand marketed to women, to Kraft General Foods. Both were owned by Philip Morris (now the Altria Group).Anti-tobacco activists, as well as some players, had for years demanded that women’s tennis move on from its tobacco sponsorship, the financial backbone of the tour since the early 1970s, to one that promoted a healthier lifestyle.“Jane was a very strategic, intelligent leader, and she was clear that the council had to move away from tobacco,” said Anne Worcester, who was director of worldwide operations for the Virginia Slims series and succeeded Mrs. Brown Grimes as the council leader in 1991.Pam Shriver, who won 132 titles in her career, acknowledged in an interview that “there were no apologies for Virginia Slims being a sponsor.” But, she added, “By the time Jane was in a key position to make a change, she made it happen.”Mrs. Brown Grimes speaking to Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, widow of the tennis star Arthur Ashe, during a match in 2008 at the U.S. Open in Flushing, Queens. The Ashes’ daughter, Camera, is on the left.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg NewsJane Trowbridge Gillespie was born on Jan. 20, 1941, in Freeport, N.Y., on Long Island. Her father, Samuel Hazard Gillespie, was a litigator who served as the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1959 to 1961. Her mother, Ruth (Reed) Gillespie, was the head librarian at the Collegiate School in Manhattan.In her youth, Jane played on her grandparents’ clay tennis court on Long Island and regularly attended the United States National Championships at Forest Hills, Queens — the precursor to the U.S. Open — with her family. She reveled in watching stars like Althea Gibson, Margaret Court, Tony Trabert and Maureen Connolly.“They were my movie stars,” she told The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., in 2009. “They were my idols.”She studied history at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and received a bachelor’s degree in 1962. After working as a fact checker for Life magazine and then for a documentary filmmaker, she joined the Manhattan office of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977.Starting as an event planner, she became a fund-raiser before rising to executive director of the Hall of Fame in 1981, a post she held until 1986. Working mainly from its Manhattan office, she helped raise money to rehabilitate buildings at the Hall, in Newport, R.I., and was the director of tournaments held on its grounds.After leaving to join the women’s tennis council, Mrs. Brown Grimes returned to the Hall as president in 1991 and stayed through 2000, overseeing the acquisition of tennis memorabilia critical to the Hall’s historical mission and continuing the renovations.She was elected to the board of the United States Tennis Association in 2001 and then rose through its ranks to become volunteer chairman and president in 2007. The second woman to hold that position, she served through 2008. During her two-year tenure she particularly championed youth programs and was involved in the U.S.T.A.’s acquisition of the Western & Southern Open.“Jane was one of the few who paved the way for other women to have leadership roles in tennis,” Ms. Worcester said.Mrs. Brown Grimes was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her sons, Jim Schwarz and Ames Brown; her brother, Sam Gillespie; and five grandchildren. Her marriage to Marshall Schwarz ended in divorce, and her marriages to Ames Brown and Charles Grimes ended with their deaths.Ever curious, Mrs. Brown Grimes continued her education well into her later years. She earned an M.B.A. degree from Baruch College in Manhattan in 2012, then used her knowledge of tennis to earn a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge in 2015.Her thesis was about the 1986 Federation Cup tournament in Prague, which marked Martina Navratilova’s return to her homeland for the first time since defecting to the United States in 1975 from what was then Czechoslovakia. Mrs. Brown Grimes had attended the tournament.“When it was over and the U.S. had won, Martina was given a big microphone and started her speech in English, but within about 10 seconds she switched into Czech and the place went nuts,” Mrs. Brown Grimes said in an interview with Steve Flink of Tennis.com this year. “Her mother was sitting in front of me, and down a ways, and she was in tears.”When she died, Mrs. Brown Grimes had nearly finished her dissertation in history at Cambridge — about women’s tennis during the Open era, after tournaments were open to professionals and not just amateurs in 1968. More