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      Reilly Opelka

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      There are currently 14 men in the top 100, the most since 1996, but none in the top 20. While the United States may not have any truly elite players right now, it does have youth.It took a while, but after the American Reilly Opelka and his big serve were eliminated in the fourth round of the U.S. Open on Monday by Lloyd Harris of South Africa, I decided to go searching.I had to weave through the big crowds that have happily again been part of the experience at this year’s tournament. I had to work my way up and down the concourse, examining the banners that commemorate, year by year, the past Open champions — most of whom seemed to be named Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer — before arriving at my destination.There, near a coffee stand, dangling from the same post, were banners featuring the last two American men to win the singles title at Flushing Meadows: Pete Sampras in 2002 and Andy Roddick in 2003.It has been nearly 20 years now, the longest gap in the history of this Grand Slam tournament between American men’s champions. I covered both Sampras’s and Roddick’s victories, and there was no suspecting the length of the drought to come.New American men’s stars had always emerged, sometimes with a slight delay but never this kind of delay. There was concern about the future when John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors got older in the 1980s, but then along came one of the greatest generations from any nation: Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang, with fine players like Todd Martin and MaliVai Washington playing secondary roles.There was big concern when those players aged out in the early 2000s, but Roddick still managed to reach No. 1 before being left knee-deep by the genius of Federer and the inexorable rise of Nadal and Djokovic.Roddick did his best, no doubt, which was often remarkable, reaching three Wimbledon finals and another U.S. Open final before retiring in 2012.But though Serena Williams, a winner of 23 major singles titles, has given American tennis fans plenty to celebrate since then, no American man has reached a Grand Slam singles final in over a decade as the Europeans have put a chokehold on men’s tennis.“We got a little bit spoiled,” said Brad Stine, the veteran American coach who mentored Courier and now works with the young American Tommy Paul.There has been no room in this upscale neighborhood. The prime real estate has been occupied by the Big Three, which for a time could have been considered the Big Five with Andy Murray and Federer’s Swiss compatriot Stan Wawrinka each winning three major titles.Now a much younger group has emerged that you could call the Next Four: Matteo Berrettini of Italy, Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, Daniil Medvedev of Russia and Alexander Zverev of Germany. If you like, toss in the still-reigning U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem of Austria and Andrey Rublev of Russia, a top-10 player.They, like the stars they are succeeding, are all Europeans.Tennis is more central to the sports culture in Europe, attracting more interest and presumably a greater percentage of top-quality athletes. There are more professional tournaments, both at the minor league and major league level, in Europe.But this season and this U.S. Open have offered up some evidence for better days ahead for the American men. There are 14 in the top 100 at the moment, the most since 1996. There were 13 in the second round at the Open, the most since 1994 when Sampras, Agassi, Courier and Chang were in full flow.But unlike those halcyon days, none of the new-age Americans are currently ranked in the top 20. There is depth but, for now, no truly elite players. What bodes well is that there is youth. All three of the American men to reach the fourth round here were under 25: Opelka, 24; Frances Tiafoe, 23; and Jenson Brooksby, 20.“In the top 100, we’ve got a huge group of guys there; we just don’t have the world beaters,” Opelka said after his 6-7 (6), 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 loss to Harris. “I don’t think we will have a Sampras-Agassi era of just dominance like that again. It’s rare for any country.”Brooksby, the last American singles player left in the tournament, certainly looked like a worldbeater for a set and a half on Monday night. In his first appearance in Arthur Ashe Stadium, he played with intelligence and resilience to take a 6-1 lead on world No. 1 Novak Djokovic. Brooksby then got back on serve in the second set after breaking Djokovic in an eight-deuce game that felt more like chess than tennis. But Djokovic, chasing the Grand Slam, has been playing best-of-five set tennis for nearly 20 years. Brooksby is just starting out and could not keep pace, losing 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.“I told him at the net he has a bright future ahead of him,” Djokovic said.Opelka, Tiafoe and Brooksby are not alone. Sebastian Korda is 21 and Brandon Nakashima is 20, and both also have had success this season with Korda reaching the quarterfinals of the Miami Open after beating three seeded players and then winning his first tour title in Parma, Italy. Nakashima made the singles finals in Atlanta and Los Cabos, Mexico, and upset John Isner, the most successful American man of the last decade, in the first round of this year’s U.S. Open.All this might not have been worth celebrating 25 years ago, but it counts as good news now.“I do think we’re moving in the right direction,” said Stine, who has coached privately and with the United States Tennis Association. “Ideally for U.S. tennis we want to have as many guys as we possibly can inside the top 250, which means we’re flooding the qualifying rounds of the Slams. And then from there, we need as many in the top 100 as we can get. It’s a numbers game, ultimately. You could ask, would you rather have 14 in the top 100 with none in the top 20? Or only six in the top 100 and all in the top 20? I think you’d obviously go with the six, but I do think we’re making progress.”They are a diverse group with varied game styles. Consider just the three American men to reach the round of 16. Opelka, who should break into the top 20 on Monday after the Open, is nearly seven feet tall with a big-bang game that can make him a nightmare to face. Tiafoe, who lost in four sets to Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada on Sunday night, is a compact power server from College Park, Md., with quickness and dynamic groundstrokes who has had a resurgent season under his new coach Wayne Ferreira.Brooksby, the newest arrival at this level, is a northern Californian who made good use of his wild card into the Open.“I think Brooksby is our best,” said Opelka, who picked Brooksby and Korda as the most likely Americans to win a Grand Slam title down the road.Brooksby has an unconventional game based on consistency, great defense and abrupt rhythm shifts rather than the power baseline style that predominates on the men’s tour.“Is his swing beautiful? No. But is it repeatable? Absolutely, and that’s the most important thing,” said Stine, who has known Brooksby since he was 11. “The contact point is clean, and he makes a million balls. He plays the game really at the simplest form there is. I’m going to miss fewer balls than you are. I’m going to run and get to all the balls you hit, and I’m going to make you hit one more ball. And it’s been extremely effective and extremely irritating to his opponents.”The next challenge for the young Americans is beating enough opponents to start going deep, truly deep, in the tournaments that matter most. More

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      Serena Williams Is Not at the U.S. Open, but Her Coach Is Everywhere

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      Patrick Mouratoglou has become a bigger star than most players, and is building an empire, too. That does not leave much time for coaching, and that may be just how he likes it.Maybe it’s the beard, the persistent, salt-and-pepper whiskers, always trimmed to a perfect length that makes Patrick Mouratoglou initially seem more like a French existentialist philosopher rather than tennis coach.Or maybe he is a tennis venture capitalist. Or a tennis resort executive. Or a tennis “guru,” as Stefanos Tsitsipas, the Greek star, has referred to him. Depending on the moment, Mouratoglou can be all of those things, which can make it difficult for him to also be a coach, at least in the way he thinks a professional tennis coach should coach. That may seem odd for a man best known as one, a man who wrote a book about himself called “The Coach,” but it is the way he always intended it to be.For years, Mouratoglou has been courtside at Serena Williams’s matches. He has coached her since 2012, and was presumed to be her boyfriend for a time. Coaching her from the stands during the 2018 U.S. Open final led to one of the most notorious meltdowns of Williams’s career. She is not at the U.S. Open this year, having withdrawn to recover from a hamstring injury.Mouratoglou, though, has been everywhere, just as he is at every major tennis tournament these days.There he is sitting a seat away from Tsitsipas’s father and coach, Apostolos, during early-round matches against Andy Murray and Carlos Alcaraz. After a match, he grabs a microphone for one of any number of television interviews he does about the state of the modern game. Sometimes he camps out in the plaza of the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and signs autographs for fans who know him better than they know most of the players. Last Tuesday night, he passed a sports drink onto the court of Arthur Ashe Stadium, trying to help relieve the cramps of Holger Rune, the 18-year-old Danish player who trains at his academy, as Rune fell in four sets to Novak Djokovic in the first round.Mouratoglou watching Stefanos Tsitsipas during a match.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAt age 51, Mouratoglou has become one of the most recognizable stars in tennis, even though he was never more than a middle-rung junior player as a teenager in France. Corey Gauff, the father and coach of the rising American star Coco Gauff, often wears a baseball hat with Mouratoglou’s “M” logo above the brim when he watches his daughter play.He is the rare coach who has turned himself into a brand, which may mean he is better at marketing than he is at coaching. Don’t ask Mouratoglou to boil down his approach to tennis into a simple strategy or formula.“My philosophy is I know nothing,” he said in an interview days before the start of the U.S. Open. “I learn the person and I learn my player. A lot of coaches start with their method. There is one method per player and I need to find it.”Tennis is in an odd spot at the moment. The careers of most of its biggest stars are in repose. Its greatest men’s player, Novak Djokovic, is worshiped in his own country but has never been universally embraced. Naomi Osaka is already a tennis megastar, but she has played little this year and announced Friday night that she was going to take another break from the game.That leaves enough space for a coaching figure like Mouratoglou to fill.Tennis does this every so often, producing a coach who is a savvy marketer and businessman to become far more than a teacher and trainer, usually with the help of television cameras that pivot to them as they watch their star players. Think of the Australian Harry Hopman in the 1970s and the New Yorker/Floridian Nick Bollettieri in the 1980s and 1990s.None though, has reached the level of Mouratoglou.His empire includes the Mouratoglou Academy, in the south of France, which houses 200 student tennis players, many of whom live and attend school and train there full time.He runs camps for another 4,000 players, including some adults, each year. Next year, he will offer an e-coaching product.Mouratoglou stopped for a photograph with fans.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesHe is also a chief organizer of the Ultimate Tennis Showdown, a made-for-television competition that has included several top players and has introduced a faster scoring system for matches.There are Mouratoglou tennis centers at resorts in Costa Navarino in Greece and at Jumeirah in Dubai. He is an investor in the tennis media website Tennismajors.com.With only 24 hours in a day, he recently gave up his gigs as a commentator for ESPN and Eurosport.He is the full-time coach of just one player, Williams, but helps oversee to varying degrees the training and development of several others, including Tsitsipas, Gauff, Rune, and Alexei Popyrin, the 22-year-old Australian who reached the third round of the U.S. Open.Having a portfolio as lengthy as Mouratoglou’s would seem to run counter to someone whose authority flows from his stature as a coach and whose philosophy relies on spending enough time with each player to tailor his methods and strategies to the individual. That approach, Mouratoglou said, requires a deep knowledge of each player’s strengths and weaknesses, both mental and physical, as well as their cultural and family background.The simplest explanation is that Mouratoglou is no longer really a coach, if he ever was one in the first place, with his work for Williams as an exception. But she may not be around for much longer. It’s not a role he ever intended to play. He took it on out of necessity. His vision for his tennis empire was not going to work otherwise.Serena Williams at a practice with members of her coaching team, including Mouratoglou, at the 2021 French Open.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesAs a child, Mouratoglou dreamed of becoming a top professional, but his parents told him it would be too risky and would not support the endeavor. He quit tennis at 16, pursued his education, and at 20 went to work for his father, a leading French industrialist and the owner of a major renewable energy company.When Mouratoglou was 26, his father told him he was ready to become a partner. Mouratoglou told his father he was quitting. He still had a passion for tennis and wanted to build a tennis empire, beginning with an academy for young players.He partnered with Bob Brett, an Australian coach and a protégé of Harry Hopman. Mouratoglou knew little about coaching and felt he needed a big name to attract players. Then in 2004 Brett quit. Mouratoglou realized if he found another well-known coach to be his partner, the same thing could happen, so he learned how to coach and found some young prospects whose early careers he could help support, like a venture capitalist seeding a start-up company.His early recruits included Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia. He began working with Williams in 2012, and has used the stature from her unmatched success to build his empire and a new model for the more expansive role a tennis coach might play.Mouratoglou now operates like the chief executive of a company with a player development division, with each player functioning as a separate unit or product. He has 50 coaches working for him at his academy. The top pro players associated with him — the ones whose televised matches he makes sure to attend — each has someone else who functions as their coach. Most have only limited contact with Mouratoglou on a practice court, though he supervises the team of fitness trainers the players work with. His academy can serve as base camp where they can train.Mouratoglou first saw Gauff, 17, when she was 10. He established a relationship with her father, who brought Coco to the academy. He first spotted Tsitsipas, now 23, on YouTube when he was just 16.“Patrick is kind of like the overseer,” Coco Gauff said the other day.She said Mouratoglou usually speaks to her through her father if he has any specific pointers, so she does not have too many voices in her head. “He also helps with getting the right people on my team, figuring out who and what I need to help me succeed,” she added.Mouratoglou with Coco Gauff and her father at the Australian Open last year.Michael Dodge/EPA, via ShutterstockBoth Popyrin and Rune, who has had Lars Christensen as his coach since he was 6, said the most important role Mouratoglou has played is providing them an ideal environment for training.It is a mutually beneficial relationship. The players, who get access to a first-class training center with nearly every possible amenity, are the best marketing devices to attract other aspiring players, who pay for the academy’s array of services, or for tennis enthusiasts, who attend camps at a Mouratoglou tennis center at a resort.There is probably no better way for Mouratoglou to make sure everyone knows about his connection with these players than taking his customary spot in their boxes during their matches. All Mouratoglou’s current players in the main draw lost during the early rounds, though there are several players with Mouratoglou ties in the junior tournaments this week.He has one sacrosanct rule when he attends a match: If he starts with one player, he stays to the end, even if another player his company works with is playing on another court. Leaving midway might send a bad message, he said.It’s also another way of letting the players know if they need anything, Mouratoglou or someone in his growing empire will be there. Popyrin, who has struggled this year and is 73rd in the ATP rankings, said Mouratoglou has lately been a voice of positivity trying to remind him that he can become a top player, perhaps like the third-ranked Tsitsipas, though he added that Mouratoglou usually functions like a tennis Buddha, a sounding board who listens far more than he speaks.“I vent to him,” Popyrin said. “He lets you speak your mind, and when you speak your mind to him, a lot of the time you get the answer yourself.” More

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      What to Watch at the U.S. Open

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      Novak Djokovic looks to fend off the surging Jenson Brooksby as a slew of crowd favorites clash in the round of 16.How to watch: From 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN2; and streaming on the ESPN app. In Canada on TSN from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and streaming on TSN.ca and the TSN app.Matches to keep an eye on.Because of the number of matches cycling through courts, the times for individual matchups are estimates and may fluctuate based on when earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern Standard.Louis Armstrong STADIUM | 11 a.m.Belinda Bencic vs. Iga SwiatekBelinda Bencic, who won gold in women’s singles at the Tokyo Olympics, reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open in 2019 and is two wins away from returning this year. Bencic, a hardcourt specialist seeded 11th, has lost only 18 games across three rounds of play as her flat baseline shots have caused difficulties for her opponents.Iga Swiatek, the seventh seed, is the only woman to reach the second week of each Grand Slam event in 2021, but she did not make it past the quarterfinals at any of the first three. Against Bencic, Swiatek will have to use crafty shots to try to unsettle Bencic’s rhythm on longer rallies.Arthur Ashe Stadium | 10 p.m.Maria Sakkari vs. Bianca AndreescuBianca Andreescu won the 2019 U.S. Open but sustained a knee injury at the end of that year, stymying her development as she took 15 months off, returning at the 2021 Australian Open. After losing in the first round on both the French Open’s clay and Wimbledon’s grass, Andreescu, the sixth seed, has looked more at home on the hard courts of Flushing Meadows.Maria Sakkari, the 17th seed, reached her first major semifinal at this year’s French Open and has moved into the round of 16 at the U.S. Open without dropping a set. After this run, she will move into the top 15 in the world rankings for the first time and with a few more wins, she could even reach the top 10, a first for a Greek woman.Novak Djokovic has looked vulnerable at times.John Minchillo/Associated PressArthur Ashe Stadium | 7 p.m.Novak Djokovic vs. Jenson BrooksbyNovak Djokovic, the first seed, has not looked as indefatigable as usual during the U.S. Open. Although he has won each of his three matches in four sets, there have been moments of lethargy that point to some issues with Djokovic’s form as he chases a calendar Grand Slam.Jenson Brooksby, a 20-year-old American who entered the main draw through a wild card, upset the 21st-seeded Aslan Karatsev in five sets on Saturday. Brooksby has a strangely stylized game, with a shortened service motion and a massive backswing on the forehand that beguiles opponents. He’ll test that style against the best returner in modern tennis.Louis Armstrong STADIUM | 4 p.m.Oscar Otte vs. Matteo BerrettiniOscar Otte, a qualifier, had never moved past the second round of a major tournament until this week, starting his run in the main draw by upsetting the 20th-seeded Lorenzo Sonego in the first round. He will come up against a much stronger opponent, the sixth-seeded Matteo Berrettini of Italy. Berrettini’s breakout performance came at the U.S. Open in 2019, and he seems most at home among the raucous crowds of New York City. His strong serve and brutalist style of play is well suited to faster surfaces, and Otte will be pushed to play more defensively.Shelby Rogers is coming off defeating the top-ranked Ashleigh Barty.Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesArthur Ashe Stadium | 3 p.m.Shelby Rogers vs. Emma RaducanuShelby Rogers had lost to Ashleigh Barty, the world No. 1, all four times they’d played in 2021. On Saturday night, she fought from two breaks down in the third set to win in the tiebreaker, motivated by a crowd that swelled in anticipation after any mistake that Barty made. She will face Emma Raducanu, an 18-year-old Briton, in an attempt to reach her second consecutive U.S. Open quarterfinal. Raducanu blitzed past Sara Sorribes Tormo in the third round, losing only one game in 70 minutes. Raducanu’s second appearance in a major tournament has resulted in yet another visit to the round of 16, and she is in good form to attempt to make a deeper push. More

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      Leylah Fernandez Advances to U.S. Open Quarterfinals

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      On the eve of her 19th birthday, the young Canadian continued her magical run, beating Angelique Kerber 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2. She is exactly where she planned to be.Less than a week ago, few casual tennis fans knew even a little, if anything, about Leylah Fernandez. When she stunned Naomi Osaka in the third round of the U.S. Open, many were more focused on the player who lost than on the player who won.Those same people wondered if the precocious teenager from Canada had benefited from Osaka’s poor form that night.But after storming back to beat the more dependable and in-form Angelique Kerber in the fourth round on Sunday, Fernandez — with her natural exuberance, ubiquitous smile and fist raised high in the air — has become the sensation of the this year’s Open.“I think she can go really far in the next few years,” Kerber said after the match.There is a chance she could go really far in just the next few days. Fernandez is playing the best tennis of her young career, blasting forehand winners and exuding the kind of joyous fighting spirit and confidence that has captivated New York fans during a wild three-day run.With a raucous crowd packed into Louis Armstrong Stadium chanting her name, Fernandez lost the first set on Sunday and was down a service break in the second before she outlasted Kerber, 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2, less than 12 hours before turning 19.She was delighted. She was proud. She raised her arms in the air and flashed her magnetic smile. But don’t think that she is shocked by her own success, even if the rest of the tennis world is.“I expected that one day my tennis game is going to come through and that I’m going to be on the big stage in front of a big crowd playing against big players, and also getting the wins,” she said. “I’m not surprised of anything that’s happening right now.”Fernandez, the latest Canadian to burst onto the scene, said she would celebrate her win with her family and her fitness coach, Duglas Cordero, at the same Italian restaurant they have dined at every night of the tournament. Her birthday celebration on Monday will include a third-round doubles match alongside Erin Routliffe of New Zealand.But while she looks ahead, Fernandez can also reflect on this: While she was still just 18, she took down Osaka, the No. 3 seed and defending champion, and Kerber, the No. 16 seed and 2016 U.S. Open champion, all in less than 48 hours. Together, those two champions own seven major titles (Osaka has four), but for the left-handed Fernandez, they were just two players who required unique tactical approaches.“The biggest difference is that one is a left-hander, and the other one is a right-handed player,” she said. “I just approached the matches the same.”Now she must toggle back to another right-hander. Fernandez’s opponent in the quarterfinal stage is No. 5 Elina Svitolina, who had no trouble dispatching No. 12 Simona Halep, 6-3, 6-3, in 76 minutes in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday.Fernandez, who was born and grew up in Montreal, became the first Canadian into the quarterfinal stage this year. No. 6 Bianca Andreescu, from Toronto and the 2019 champion, will play No. 17 Maria Sakkari of Greece in the fourth round Monday night.But even as the stakes steadily increase, Fernandez has shown no fear on court during her march into the second week of what is arguably the biggest tennis tournament of them all. Perhaps it is because she is too young to know any better.“I remember the feeling really well,” Kerber, 33, said. “I mean, yeah, it’s a few years ago. But of course, she has no pressure.”Though she lost, Angelique Kerber heaped praise on Fernandez after the match.Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via ReutersTrailing by a set and down a break in the second, Fernandez flipped the momentum of the match on its head when she broke back to make it 4-4, taking the ball out of the air and ripping a backhand cross-court winner. Up went her fist and the fans erupted.In the tiebreaker, Fernandez went ahead 5-1 and the fans, who were streaming into the stadium as word spread that she was putting up another good fight, began chanting, “Let’s Go Ley-lah,” as if she were De-rek Je-ter.Kerber fought back to make it 5-4, but then Fernandez reached for a Kerber serve out wide and ripped a forehand winner down the line from outside the court back into it — a shot so precise, so powerful and so bold that it elicited a racket clap of appreciation from Kerber.Two points later, Fernandez forced Kerber so far wide that she could not get the ball back safely into the court. Again, Fernandez’s arms went up in celebration and the fans roared their approval. Fernandez carried the momentum into the third set, where she finished the job.When she won the final point, the audience exploded and jumped to their feet as one with a deafening cheer for their newly-adopted favorite young star-in-the-making.“I was just enjoying every moment of it,” Fernandez said. “Honestly, the crowd has been amazing, so thanks to them I was able to win.”But she is not the only teenager making a mark at this year’s event. Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, 18, upset No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas and then beat Germany’s Peter Gojowczyk, 5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 6-0, on Sunday to reach a quarterfinal. Also, the British 18-year-old Emma Raducanu will play Shelby Rogers in the fourth round on Monday.Fernandez said she remembered the first time she saw Alcaraz in the junior circuit and thought she was watching the reincarnation of a right-handed Rafael Nadal.“Seeing all these teenagers, these youngsters doing so great at the U.S. Open and the other tournaments, too, is eye-opening,” she said.She called herself a “happy-go-lucky” kid who has always found joy in whatever she does. The fans have fed off that energy, and she has fed off theirs. Perhaps one day, after many years on the tour, when she is 33 like Kerber, she will lose some of her youthful glee.What Fernandez enjoys now is a special, singular feeling, one that Kerber remembers well, and said is almost impossible to recapture.“I think it’s just for young people,” Kerber said. More

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      Emma Raducanu Plays Shelby Rogers at the U.S. Open

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      The rising British star is into the round of 16 at her first Open, and tennis fans can’t get enough of the teenager who has yet to drop a set in New York.The most inexperienced players also looked the most comfortable in the first week of the U.S. Open.Starting in the qualifying draw, Emma Raducanu of Britain has won all six of her matches in straight sets, without needing a tiebreaker in any of them. Her most recent win was her most impressive: She beat 41st-ranked Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain, 6-0, 6-1, on Saturday to reach the round of 16, where she will face the American Shelby Rogers on Monday.“I’m extremely fresh; I haven’t really played on tour for the whole entire year,” Raducanu said Saturday. “This whole experience is just so new to me; I think that’s the enjoyment factor that I’m getting.”Raducanu was the third 18-year-old to reach the fourth round of this year’s U.S. Open, joining Leylah Fernandez and Carlos Alcaraz. Those two have advanced to the quarterfinals.“To have so many young players coming through is just really great for the game because it just shows how strong this next generation is,” Raducanu said. “Having so many young players and 18-year-olds, I think we all inspire each other to play better. Because like for me today, I wanted to join them in the second week as well, so that was an extra bit of motivation.”Though Raducanu has won her matches away from the biggest courts where Fernandez and Alcaraz broke through, she has proved no less popular here. After her news conference on Saturday, she spent over an hour doing interviews, signing autographs and taking selfies.Raducanu, who was born in Toronto to a Romanian father and Chinese mother, now represents Britain. She was ranked outside the top 300 when she made a surprise run to the fourth round of Wimbledon as a wild card in her Grand Slam debut, becoming a national celebrity in the process. That tournament ended on a down note, however, when she was forced to abandon her fourth-round match after she had trouble breathing.“Having played like four, five weeks on the tour now, I think that with each week I’m getting more and more accustomed to the physical demands of playing at this level,” Raducanu said. “Yeah, I think I’m improving.”While Raducanu remained the most buzzed about player after Wimbledon, lining up new endorsements in the process, she continued to improve away from the spotlight. After Wimbledon she played as much as she could, winding her way from San Jose to Landisville, Pa., to Chicago before coming to New York for her first qualifying match.Less than two months after Wimbledon, Raducanu is on the cusp of breaking into the top 100, and is getting better by the round. Her win over Sorribes Tormo, who plays a grueling brand of tennis and who knocked top-ranked Ashleigh Barty out of the Tokyo Olympics, was poised, precise and patient. Though Raducanu prefers playing first-strike tennis, she held her own in long exchanges with Sorribes Tormo, who pushed the average rally length to over six shots.Raducanu posed for photos with fans at the U.S. Open.Peter Foley/EPA, via Shutterstock“Honestly, I think with the amount of matches I have played and the experience that I have accumulated in the last four, five weeks, my game is just getting better with each match,” Raducanu said.During the coronavirus pandemic, Raducanu trained at the Lawn Tennis Association’s National Tennis Center in London, working with Coach Mark Petchey after Philippe Dehaes was unable to come to England because of travel restrictions. Petchey picked up where Dehaes left off in reconstructing Raducanu’s forehand, changing her grip and adding more topspin to the shot. He also tested racket models with her, ultimately choosing a longer Wilson racket to give her shots more pop. While her game needed work, Petchey was impressed by her attitude and commitment, which he equated with that of another player he has worked with: Andy Murray.“Her attitude toward training and practice was, without doubt, equally good as, say, Andy’s,” Petchey said. “I did not have one session with her in that period where it was anything less than everything she had.”Petchey, who provided remote television analysis for Amazon Prime during last year’s U.S. Open, said his enthusiasm for Raducanu made it easy to return to the practice court with her hours after pulling overnight shifts in the broadcast booth.“Honestly, I wouldn’t have done those mornings if I hadn’t been so inspired by her attitude,” he said. “It won me over from Day 1.”After working with Petchey, Raducanu worked with Nigel Sears during the grass-court season. She is now coached by a third English coach, Andrew Richardson.A rare top prospect who completed her studies at a conventional high school rather than attending a tennis academy, Raducanu was “very bright and very analytical with how she sees the game,” said Petchey, who called her a “helicopter player” for her ability to see it as if watching from above.“If you don’t have the tools, that doesn’t help you that much because you can’t put the ball in the right place,” Petchey said of her strategic acumen. “But Emma has got the tools, and she’s able to pick your weakness and get the ball through the court quick enough to make an impact.”He added: “At this developmental stage of a player’s career, it’s hard to be playing with that kind of clarity. That’s what I’ve seen over the summer: She’s been clinical with her strategy, and executed it perfectly. That’s really impressive for an 18-year-old.”Petchey said he believed Raducanu had reached “50, 60 percent of her physical capabilities,” which makes her potential even greater.“There are things she’ll be doing so much better a year from now,” he said. “That’s probably the most exciting part of it: She’s already an incredible player, and she’s got a lot of ceiling room to go. She’s going to be great for the WTA. She’s going to be awesome.” More

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      A Trip to the U.S. Open Forever Changed Me

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      A father-son tournament gave our columnist almost unfettered access to players at the 1983 U.S. Open, changing the course of his life.There slouched John McEnroe, the top-ranked tennis player in the world, dolefully reading a newspaper in a corner of the locker room.There stood Ivan Lendl, the second-best player in the world, only a few feet from me in the cramped quarters. In a few hours, he would be on center court, but now he talked to another player about golf.I took it all in, a fly on the wall amid tennis royalty. Mats Wilander ambled by. I could hear Jimmy Connors telling his ribald jokes.Was this really happening? Was 16-year-old me in the locker room at the United States Open of 1983? Even today, I pinch myself when I think of it.That year, my dad and I made up a doubles team representing the Pacific Northwest in the father and son division of the Equitable Family Tennis Challenge. We had flown to New York, all expenses paid, to compete against amateur tandems from across the county in the popular tournament. Its championship rounds were held at Flushing Meadows, smack in the middle of America’s tennis grand slam.Kurt Streeter and his father, Mel Streeter, after the Equitable event in 1983.Courtesy Kurt StreeterEver since, the U.S. Open has been special to me in a way I feel down to the marrow. Without it, I would be a different person. And I would not have a cherished memory with my late father.What a different time that was. In 1983, total prize money for the male and female pros stood at $1 million. Fans and players mingled on the grounds. Entering through the gates, nobody checked your bags.As part of the Equitable event, teams of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives and siblings played matches on the same courts where the pros played. We had passes that let us into the locker room, right there with the best players in the world.During the Open’s second week, after playing a match in our little tournament where the big prize was a silver plaque, I showered next to a small clutch of pros in the shower room. There I was — soaping up in the buff — when one of the pros walked in to take his shower. It was France’s Yannick Noah, my favorite player, who had slashed his way to victory at the French Open that summer, becoming the first Black player to win a Grand Slam tournament championship since Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon in 1975.Noah kindly asked about me in his accented English. I explained that I was a nationally ranked junior, one of the few Black players at that level in the United States, and told him about the Equitable tournament. I asked if he was ready for his next big match that night in the quarterfinals. He said he could not wait.“I hope you and your father are there,” he added before wishing us luck.When our columnist met Yannick Noah at the 1983 U.S. Open, Noah had just won that year’s French Open, becoming the first Black player to win a Grand Slam championship since Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon in 1975. Focus on Sport/Getty ImagesAs great and lucky as they were, those rare moments in the locker room were not what sticks with me most about that Open. What sticks out are encounters with two other tennis luminaries. Encounters that changed my life.One afternoon on the Flushing grounds, I spotted Nick Bollettieri, the former Army paratrooper turned supercoach whose Florida tennis academy produced many of the world’s best young players.I sidled up to Bollettieri. I asked about his academy, and told him I dreamed of attending one day but that my family, struggling after my parents divorced and dad’s small business faltered, could not afford the extremely steep price. Luckily, one of Bollettieri’s assistant coaches was nearby. The assistant said he had seen me put up a good fight against one of the top seeds at the boys’ 16-and-under nationals in Kalamazoo, Mich. I needed polish, the assistant said, but I had game.Bollettieri thought for a moment, then he motioned for me to come closer. “Find Arthur,” he instructed, “and ask if he will help.” Bollettieri meant Arthur Ashe, whose Wimbledon win had sparked my tennis ambition. The two had teamed up to help other minority players attend the academy.If Arthur would fund part of it, Bollettieri said he would also help.I ended up asking my father to find Ashe and broach Bollettieri’s idea. It seemed too daunting a task for me to pull off. But dad always pushed me, always looked for ways to help me stand on my own two feet. He had taught himself tennis after his college basketball career ended, and pretty much insisted I learn tennis too. Now he told me it was my job, and mine alone, to make the pitch.So began my search for Arthur Ashe. I was not usually this gutsy, but I waited for him to finish a news conference near center court at the old Louis Armstrong Stadium. When he finished, I tepidly approached.I can still feel Ashe’s welcoming handshake, still sense his patience as he listened carefully to what I had to say. I remember him promising to see what he could do to help.Arthur Ashe after winning the U.S. Open in 1968. He was the first Black male player to win a Grand Slam tournament.Authenticated News/Getty ImagesThe next day, as my father and I played one of our matches on the Flushing grounds, Ashe stopped by to watch a few points.At first, I was so nervous that I clunked a few easy returns. But when it was time to unleash my one true weapon, a left-handed serve I could blast like a fastball or bend in a spinning arc, I cranked it up.Ace. Ace. Winner.My dad and I did not win the tournament, but we won that match. And Ashe knew I was for real.A few months later, at home in Seattle, I received a phone call. “Hello, Kurt,” said the voice on the other end, “this is Arthur Ashe.”He had struck a deal with Bollettieri to help pay for my stay at the Florida academy. I went there for the last semester of my senior year in high school. The place swarmed with tennis talent. My first bunkmate? Andre Agassi.Fate holds a mysterious sway in our lives. If I had not been at the U.S. Open that year, I would not have ended up at Bollettieri’s academy.If I had not attended the academy, I would not have had the confidence to attend the University of California, Berkeley, a perennial collegiate tennis power and the university that shaped my adult life. At Cal, I played my way from lowly recruit to a full scholarship and became the first African American to captain the men’s tennis team.Fate has its way with us all.My brother Jon and I ended up treating dad to a trip to New York for the 2004 U.S. Open, our first time back since the Equitable tournament.It was there that I noticed he was sick. He struggled for breath and had lost not just a step but also a measure of his mental sharpness. On one sweltering afternoon, he wandered off and got lost.Not too long after that, my father lay in a hospice. He was dying of amyloidosis, a blood disorder that attacked his brain, lungs and heart.As he struggled for life, we often held hands. I searched for any trace of his familiar, comforting strength. When he summoned the energy to talk, sports was the cord that once again bound us together.We spoke of memories. We recalled our shared love for the Seattle Sonics and Roger Federer, and all the beautiful years we spent together playing tennis from the time I was a toddler.“We’ll always have the Open,” he told me, gripping my hand firmly.Yes, I assured, we always will. More

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      Mardy Fish Can Relate to What Naomi Osaka Is Going Through

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      Anxiety forced Fish to withdraw from the 2012 U.S. Open. Now he is open about his mental health and works with the U.S.T.A. to provide more resources for players.The fourth-round singles matches at the U.S. Open were underway on Sunday, and Mardy Fish, the Davis Cup captain and former tennis star, was remembering the moment nine years ago in New York when he sat in the car sobbing with his wife, Stacey, and decided, with her help, that he could not play in the fourth round against Roger Federer.“It was just crazy anxiety, crazy, crazy, just how am I going to walk out on this court?” he said by telephone from his home in Los Angeles. “But it never, never would have crossed my mind, if my wife wasn’t there with me, that I wouldn’t play. We’re so trained to never show weakness, never show fear, to the other side of the court. But my wife saying, ‘Well, you don’t have to play’ — that part right there was like, right away, just instantly, I felt better, like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.”Fish is now 39, a parent with Stacey of two young children. He works in finance and is still involved in professional tennis as the U.S. Davis Cup captain. But he is also a mentor, sharing his experience as a prominent athlete who had to deal with mental health problems when the subject was close to taboo in professional sports.“The reason why I’m so vocal or open about it now is that I didn’t have that success story to lean on when I was going through it,” he said.He is friendly with Naomi Osaka and her agent Stuart Duguid, and empathized when Osaka announced tearfully on Friday after her third-round defeat at the U.S. Open that she planned to take an indefinite break from the game that no longer brings her joy, even when she wins.“I would tell her, do whatever makes you happy,” Fish said. “She doesn’t have to hit another tennis ball the rest of her life, and if that makes her happy, that’s what she should do. I think she would regret that, but it’s whatever makes her want to get up in the morning and be happy. And whatever she’s been doing for the last couple months, or however long it’s been, is not doing that for her right now. So hopefully she finds peace and comfort.”Fish spent months housebound with repeated anxiety attacks after his withdrawal in New York. He received therapy and medication.After playing intermittently on tour, he returned to the U.S. Open in 2015 and won a round. It was the upbeat closure that he desired and is part of the journey he shares in a documentary that will be released on Tuesday as part of the Netflix “Untold” series.“To educate is really the most important thing,” Fish said. “To try to reach people that have never understood mental health or had issues with it or people around them who have had issues with it. To just educate them and just understand that Naomi Osaka is not going to pull out of the French Open just because she doesn’t want to talk to the press. And Simone Biles is not going to compete in the Olympics just because she doesn’t want to lose. The people that think that, and there are lots of them, it’s just unfortunate.”For Fish, one of the keys is to stop regarding mental health as separate from physical health.“It’s just health,” Fish said. “They call it mental health, but your brain is part of your body. It’s an injury. You just can’t see it.”Long considered one of the most talented players of his era, Fish improved his fitness and broke through in 2011 to reach the top 10 and qualify for the eight-man tour championships. But he said his rise also created new expectations and stresses.“My life changed, for the better initially, and then just my body and brain, the way I’m put together, couldn’t handle it,” he said.In 2012, he began experiencing a racing heartbeat that would wake him in the middle of the night and was diagnosed as a form of arrhythmia. Though he was treated for the condition, the underlying issue was an anxiety disorder, and while playing tennis was a refuge, he also began experiencing panic during his third-round win over Gilles Simon at the 2012 U.S. Open.“It was like my only comfort was taken away from me that night and it put me into basically rock bottom, zero serotonin left in my brain,” he said.“It’s not about being tough. I practice kickboxing and muay Thai right now, like, come on, I’ll take anyone on in the ring. You can punch me in the face all you want, and I’ll hit you back. I train that stuff. It’s not about being weak. I was strong mentally. I was a bulldog. To win, I would have sacrificed anything. I’ll put my competitiveness up against anyone’s. It’s not about that. It’s actually the opposite. Showing weakness and that vulnerability is actually showing strength, in my opinion.” Fish is working as a mentor during the U.S. Open as part of a new initiative from the United States Tennis Association to provide more mental health resources for players, including on-call psychologists. Claudia Reardon, the U.S.T.A.’s new mental health consultant, is overseeing the program.Mardy Fish walked off the court after losing to Feliciano López in five sets at the 2015 U.S. Open.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times“Athletes who talk about their own use of mental health resources or their own struggles with mental health symptoms or disorders really do a wonderful service to sport in general in terms of demystifying and normalizing that experience,” Reardon said in an interview. “To have mental health symptoms is not incompatible with high-level sports, and it’s actually a sign of strength to reach out for help.”Fish said no player had yet contacted him during the tournament, but he said “tons of people” had contacted him since he began speaking openly about his condition.“People you’ve heard of; people you’ve never heard of,” he said. “Coaches, players, from tennis and other sports. It’s been really nice to be helpful in that way. I’ve made some great relationships because of it, so it’s been comforting in that way, to know I wasn’t alone and that other people wanted to be vulnerable as well, just not to the world.”Osaka, like Fish, has taken a more open approach, revealing this year that she struggled with anxiety and depression since winning her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2018 U.S. Open. In a round-table discussion before this year’s Open, she, Fish, Nick Kyrgios and Billie Jean King talked about multiple topics, including mental health and media relations.Though Osaka spoke before and during the Open about her desire to focus on the positives of being a world-class player, she struggled with her emotions in her loss on Friday to the Canadian teenager Leylah Fernandez. She tossed her racket and knocked a ball into the stands in frustration and then teared up at a news conference. She said she did not know when she would play her next tennis match.“Recently, when I win, I don’t feel happy,” she said. “I feel more like relief. And then when I lose, I feel very sad, and I don’t think that’s normal.”Fish was watching and listening.“That last press conference was her being really open,” he said. “I think it’s really important to put yourself first and what you feel is important to you and what makes you happy, and hopefully tennis is in there for her. I think it is. I know she understands her place in history. But the stuff outside the court has now gotten to her more than just wins and losses, and it’s unfortunate, but it’s important for her to make sure she feels comfortable again and happy again.” More

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      Barbora Krejcikova, on a Roll, Is a Contender at the U.S. Open

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      When Open qualifying was canceled in 2020, the Czech player who was outside the top 100 doubled down on her game, fitness and work ethic. Now she’s a top 10 player and in the final 16.Barbora Krejcikova missed out on last year’s U.S. Open when the qualifying draw was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, she played small tournaments in her native Czech Republic in hopes that she might earn enough ranking points to move closer to her goal of breaking into the WTA top 100 singles rankings for the first time.Krejcikova cracked the top 100 last October, but that was only the beginning. This year, she is not only playing the U.S. Open, she’s ranked in the top 10, moving from afterthought to juggernaut.Beginning with a WTA title in Strasbourg in May, Krejcikova is on a 28-3 roll, which included a stunning run to the French Open title, and another WTA title in July in Prague. Her three losses in that time came at Wimbledon and Cincinnati to top-ranked Ashleigh Barty, who was the eventual champion at both events, and to eventual gold medalist Belinda Bencic at the Olympics.“It feels good, for sure,” Krejcikova said in an interview. “I’m still feeling like I’m dreaming, but I’m also improving with every single match. I’m just very happy that I can play all the big tournaments, and get to see all the big players, to learn from them a lot and have a chance to play against them. All of this is something very special, and I’m just extremely happy it’s happening.”The eighth-seeded Krejcikova will face the ninth-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza in the fourth round on Sunday, the first Grand Slam match between two women ranked in the WTA top 10 since the 2020 Australian Open (Muguruza is ranked 10th).Muguruza, who beat Krejcikova in March in Dubai and lost to her last month in Cincinnati, called her steep ascent “quite shocking,” and said she could already sense a difference in Krejcikova’s game and attitude. “She has way more confidence now after winning a slam,” Muguruza said. “I can feel it in her shots.”Krejcikova, 25, said that her work ethic changed and sharpened during the pandemic, when she pushed herself to do more fitness, physiotherapy, and recovery work than she had before.“I had more time, so I spent more time with my coach,” Krejcikova said. “I started to be a little more professional. I didn’t expect that it’s going to help, but as I see it right now, it’s helping and I’m moving forward. That’s where I get the craziness in my head saying ‘OK, you’ve got to go again, you’ve got to go again.’”Krejcikova said that “craziness” has led to a single-mindedness about her craft. “I just work really hard, and I dedicate everything to tennis,” she said. “All my focus is around tennis, around the things about tennis. Tennis, tennis, tennis, tennis. Even sometimes my family says I have to stop at some moments, but I’m at this stage where I’m playing this well, and I just want to keep improving. That’s my mentality.”Simona Halep, who first played against Krejcikova five years ago when she was ranked 200th, said she had always recognized a strong drive in Krejcikova, on top of her quick hands and stable demeanor. “She’s a great player, and I think she deserves to be there,” Halep said. “Every time I saw her in the gym and on the court, she was working super hard. Yeah, credit to her.”Krejcikova said she isn’t sure what kept her from reaching her goals sooner, but said that she wanted to enjoy every moment now.“I’m just really happy I’m here,” she said. “Playing the smaller tournaments, it’s not the same. Being here, playing Grand Slams, playing WTAs, being able to play on a big stage, on a big court, you cannot really describe it. You have that feeling in your stomach when you step on a court and you’re very nervous and you don’t know what to expect. You just want to play your best tennis, and you don’t know if you’re going to play your best tennis or not.“Then the first point starts, and for me time stops, and I’m just there. I’m just enjoying the moment, and I think during that moment it’s where I’m playing my best tennis. I just want to get to this mood, to this point. I just want to fight for every single point in every single match, because it took me so long to get here, and who knows how long I’m going to be here? You never really know, so I want to take every chance that I get.”Krejcikova, who is ranked second in the WTA year-to-date rankings behind Barty, said her next goal is to be considered worthy of the sport’s largest stages: the main courts and marquee sessions at Grand Slam tournaments.She said that despite her impressive results, she does not feel like a star attraction.“Right now I don’t feel that even after all that I did, and all that’s happening, I still don’t feel that T.V. wants to see me or the tournaments want to see me,” she said. “I don’t know why; it doesn’t really matter. I just want to get to that point where I’m going to play my first round on a huge court, and there will be people who want to see me.“I’ll want them to be entertained, and to do the best show for them. I’m not at this point yet. My motivation is not winning or losing; my motivation is to get to this stage.” More