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      Novak Djokovic Wins His First-Round Match at the U.S. Open

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      Novak Djokovic, the No. 1-ranked men’s tennis player, began his bid for the final leg of the Grand Slam with a 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-1 victory over Holger Rune in the first round of the U.S. Open on Tuesday night.Rune, an 18-year-old qualifier from Denmark, was making his debut in a Grand Slam tournament. He is a dynamic, flashy player with explosive power and contagious energy. He not only won the second set, but he also got the crowd on his side in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest venue in tour-level tennis with its five tiers and 23,771 seats.Loud cheers of “Ruuuuune,” which sounded paradoxically like boos, were a frequent part of the soundscape. Though Djokovic looked frustrated and off rhythm as Rune evened the match at one set apiece, Djokovic never looked genuinely rattled and was not threatened down the stretch.Rune, playing his first best-of-five-set match, began to cramp in his legs early in the third set and began wincing and hobbling between points and struggling to jump into his serve and cover the corners of the court: a necessity to pose any threat to Djokovic.The final two sets lasted just 51 minutes, less time than it took Rune to win the 58-minute second set.“I’ve got to say that it’s never nice to finish the way we finished today,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview. “Holger is a great guy, one of the up-and-coming stars. He was the best junior in the world.” Djokovic added “he is making his way through the professional ranks quite quickly. He deserves a big round of applause. It’s unfortunate he had to go through all of that.”Rune has been prone to cramping, and though it is easy to forget at this stage, Djokovic, too, once struggled with his endurance on court, only solving the problem in 2010 and 2011 after switching to a gluten-free diet.But at age 34, Djokovic has proved himself to be a long-running champion, one of the most successful in the game’s history. If he wins six more matches in New York, he will break his tie with his longtime rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal by claiming a men’s record 21st career Grand Slam singles title.If he wins six more matches, he also will become the first player since Steffi Graf in 1988 to complete the Grand Slam in singles and the first man to do so since Rod Laver in 1969. The Grand Slam requires a player to win the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in the same calendar year. Graf added an Olympic gold medal to her collection for a so-called Golden Slam.After failing to win a medal at the Tokyo Olympics this month, Djokovic chose to rest before the U.S. Open rather than play in any preliminary events in North America. He was not at his sharpest on Tuesday night, but his shoulder, which troubled him in Tokyo, did not appear to limit his ability to perform.In his last appearance at the U.S. Open in 2020, he was defaulted in the fourth round after striking a ball in frustration and inadvertently hitting a line judge in the throat. But there were no misadventures in this first match, and Djokovic will be a big favorite again in the second round when he plays 121st ranked Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands for the first time. More

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      Stefanos Tsitsipas Is Being Criticized for Mid-Match Bathroom Breaks

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      Andy Murray says his Monday opponent employs stall tactics too often for too long. Reilly Opelka says Tsitsipas is probably just changing his socks.It wasn’t his opponent’s dazzling foot speed or the velocity of his serve that Andy Murray was still dwelling on a day after his match. The statistic that stuck with Murray, the 2012 U.S. Open champion, was how long his opponent, Stefanos Tsitsipas, took during his off-court breaks.“Fact of the day. It takes Stefanos Tsitipas twice as long to go the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bazos to fly into space. Interesting,” Murray posted to Twitter on Tuesday morning, misspelling both the name of his opponent and the Amazon billionaire, but adding emojis of a toilet and a rocket ship for clarity.On Monday, the third-seeded Tsitsipas had defeated Murray 2-6, 7-6(7), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in a match that turned early in the fifth set following an off-court break by Tsitsipas. Though two off-court breaks are allowed by the rules during best-of-five-sets matches, Murray was incensed when he saw Tsitsipas leaving the court after the fourth set, which Tsitsipas had won.“Why are they allowed to do this?” Murray asked chair umpire Nico Helwerth with exasperation. “Why?”Murray, 34, sat on his bench in Arthur Ashe Stadium, changed his shirt, draped an ice towel over his neck and hydrated, repeatedly glancing toward the court entrance. After a few minutes of sitting and bouncing his legs, Murray rose and wandered behind the baseline, bouncing a ball and hitting it gently against the video wall behind the court.“What’s your opinion on this?” Murray asked Helwerth. “You’re umpiring the match. Give me an opinion: you think it’s good?” Murray then asked Grand Slam supervisor Gerry Armstrong, “You think this is OK, what’s happening?”When Tsitsipas finally returned more than seven minutes after the last point had been played, he went to his bench, then walked to a cooler to get a bottle of water. He then sat down on his bench, and Murray shouted “Get up! What’s going on, get up!”When the fans began to boo, Murray pumped his arms to encourage them.Murray, still steamed, dropped his serve in the following game, and Tsitsipas held onto that break advantage the rest of the set. Murray said he had been prepared for Tsitsipas to take long breaks if the match wasn’t going his way, for which he believed Tsitsipas had a reputation.“It’s just disappointing because I feel it influenced the outcome of the match,” Murray said. “I’m not saying I necessarily win that match, for sure, but it had influence on what was happening after those breaks. I rate him a lot. I think he’s a brilliant player. I think he’s great for the game. But I have zero time for that stuff at all, and I lost respect for him.”Told of Murray’s comments, Tsitsipas, 23, said he hoped to speak to him directly.“If there’s something that he has to tell me, we should speak, the two of us, to understand what went wrong,” Tsitsipas said. “I don’t think I broke any rules. I played by the guidelines, how everything is.“I don’t know how my opponent feels when I’m out there playing the match; it’s not really my priority,” Tsitsipas added. “As far as I’m playing by the rules and sticking to what the ATP says is fair, then the rest is fine.”Tsitsipas said his time off the court had simply been “the amount of time it takes for me to change my clothes and to walk back to the court.”Acknowledging that players are often accused of abusing bathroom break or medical timeout rules to change the momentum of the match, Murray said he and other members of the player council had discussed rule changes that might make gamesmanship more difficult.“If everyone else feels like that’s totally cool and there’s no issue with it, then maybe I’m the one being unreasonable,” Murray said. “But I think it’s nonsense. And he knows it, as well.”Murray waits for Tsitsipas to return to their match.Elsa/Getty ImagesIn a statement, the United States Tennis Association said it “regards pace of play as an important issue in our sport,” citing its past implementation of visible serve clocks and warm-up clocks in recent years. “We need to continue to review and explore potential adjustments to the rules, whether for bathroom breaks/change of attire or other areas, that can positively impact the pace of play for our fans and ensure the fairness and integrity of the game,” the statement said.Though tennis players are generally loath to weigh in on each other’s controversies, several couldn’t resist.“Andy is right!” Milos Raonic, a Canadian who is missing the U.S. Open with a right leg injury, posted to Twitter on Monday night.Asked after his first-round win on Tuesday if he felt Novak Djokovic was the favorite to win the U.S. Open, Alexander Zverev managed to fit in a dig at Tsitsipas in his answer.“I think Stefanos can play well if he doesn’t go to the moon and back for a toilet break, that will also help,” Zverev said with a grin.Zverev had previously leveled accusations of his own at Tsitsipas during their semifinal match at the Western & Southern Open in August, accusing him of using a mobile phone off court to illegally communicate about tactics with his coach and father, Apostolos.Zverev reiterated his suspicions on Tuesday. “He’s gone for 10-plus minutes; his dad is texting on the phone,” Zverev said. “He comes out, and all of a sudden his tactic completely changed. It’s not just me but everybody saw it. The whole game plan changes. I’m like, either it’s a very magical place he goes to, or there is communication there.“But I also don’t want to disrespect him,” Zverev added. “He is a great player.”Tsitsipas denied cheating on Monday.“I have never in my career done that; I don’t know what kind of imagination it takes to go to that point,” Tsitsipas said. “That’s not something I want to take seriously because it’s absolutely ridiculous to be thinking about that.”Tsitsipas received support from the American player Reilly Opelka, who also took a lengthy break during his first-round win.“We’re hydrating a lot; we have to use the bathroom,” Opelka said. “To change — my socks, shoes, my inserts in my shoes, shorts, shirt, everything, the whole nine yards, hat — it takes five, six minutes.“If people don’t understand that, then clearly they’ve never spent a day in the life of a professional athlete or come close to it,” Opelka said.Murray, who has spent most of his days in the life of a professional athlete, ended his news conference by saying that it was a shame that a five-hour match between two top players was eclipsed by stall tactics.“I’m sitting in here after a match like that against one of the best players in the world, and rather than talking about how fantastic he is, how good he is for the game, how great it was for me that I was able to put on a performance like that after everything that’s gone on the last four years, I’m sitting in here talking about bathroom breaks and medical timeouts and delays in matches,” Murray said. “That’s rubbish. I don’t think that that’s right.”Murray complains to an official between sets.Seth Wenig/Associated Press More

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      To Play Tennis, Naomi Osaka Finds a New Purpose. So Far, So Good.

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      The defending champion started the U.S. Open with a solid 6-4, 6-1 win over Marie Bouzkova, a hard-hitting Czech. Feeling good about herself is the next challenge.Naomi Osaka was back on the tennis court in New York on Monday night, not far from where she first started hitting a tennis ball in earnest as a child, and where her year of years began 12 months and what seems like a lifetime ago.The journey began with her refusal to play tennis after another police shooting of a Black man. Then came her provocative and powerful masks, each adorned with the name of a victim of police violence, as well as the third Grand Slam title of her career. Then there were magazine covers; a magical run in Australia; a standoff with the press in Paris; revelations that she struggles with mental health; her decision to skip Wimbledon, the biggest championship in tennis; followed by a triumphant-until-it-wasn’t return in Tokyo, where she lit the Olympic cauldron for her home country.Osaka has become the rare tennis player whose presence raises the temperature, even of something routine: a first-round match against an unheralded but improving 23-year-old Czech named Marie Bouzkova.If there is one thing Osaka has shown during her young career, it’s that nothing with her is routine.She walked into a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday night as the defending champion and the No. 3 seed in the U.S. Open, a little more than six months removed from being declared virtually unbeatable on hard courts, where she has won each of her four Grand Slam titles.She has the sort of résumé that generally makes a player a heavy favorite, not just to win her first match, but also to capture her third U.S. Open singles title in four years. In the back of the court, she bounces on her toes like a boxer and does her trademark thigh-whack as she awaits her opponent’s serve.Steve Nash, the Hall of Fame basketball player and coach of the Brooklyn Nets, and Mike Tyson, the former heavyweight champion, were part of a crowd of nearly 20,000 that was far larger and more electric than the usual opening night of this 14-day tournament.Osaka drew a crowd far larger than the usual opening night of the U.S. Open.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesWould it have surprised if Osaka had lost, after the tumultuous ride she put herself on during the past year, and the mediocre results she produced this summer? She had played just nine matches since April and had a 5-5 record, including a default at the French Open.She didn’t lose, but Osaka did grind through a tough first set against Bouzkova, battling to find her rhythm against the hard-hitting Czech. She had to save eight break points. But after splitting the first eight games, Osaka started pushing Bouzkova deep into the back of the court with her clean, powerful strokes and, not surprisingly, also started winning most of the important points. She reeled off eight of the next nine games for a 6-4, 6-1 win.It was a far closer match than the score line suggested though, filled with tight games, long points and smash-mouth rallies, but also a more promising opening to her first Grand Slam in three months than the last time she undertook one of the sport’s most prized events.In May, Osaka arrived in Paris for the French Open declaring that she would no longer participate in the mandatory news conferences that all players sit through after a match, win or lose, if their presence is requested. She said that they caused too much mental stress, and that she would pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines instead.Within days, French Open organizers, with the support of leaders of the other three Grand Slam events, threatened to kick her out of the tournament. A day later, Osaka dropped out, announcing that she would take a break from the sport and telling the world that she had been battling depression on and off for nearly three years.On Sunday, a little more than 24 hours before her opening match at the U.S. Open, another pretournament declaration arrived. This one was far less confrontational and more nuanced, but still packed a defiant jab at anyone who has criticized her recent subpar performances, at the French Open, or the Olympics, where she was beaten badly in the round of 16 by Marketa Vondrousova, another young and unproven Czech player, ranked 38th in the world.Osaka during her Olympics loss.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn an Instagram post that she also shared on Twitter, Osaka said she had realized, upon reflection, that she is far too critical of herself.“I think I’m never good enough,” she wrote. “I’ve never told myself that I’ve done a good job but I constantly tell myself that I suck or that I could do better.”She urged people to value the smallest accomplishments, even getting out of bed and fighting off procrastination, and she committed herself to celebrating her own accomplishments more.“Your life is your own and you shouldn’t value yourself on other people’s standards,” she wrote. “I know I give my heart to everything I can and if that is not good enough for some then my apologies, but I can’t burden myself with those expectations anymore. Seeing everything that’s going on in the world I feel like if I wake up in the morning that’s a win. That’s how I’m coming.”Exactly what Osaka meant can sometimes be anyone’s guess. She is something of a tennis sphinx, insisting that the message that people receive from her is more important than whatever message she might be trying to deliver.Also, she has admitted to a certain amount of impulsiveness. If she thinks or feels something, she may very well just say it, or write it, or do it, without thinking through all the consequences.On Friday though, Osaka allowed that she plays far better when she is playing with a purpose beyond competing for another trophy and $2.5 million, the prize for winning the U.S. Open.“I’m the type of player that plays better if I have a reason or if I have a goal or if I’m driven about something,” she said in a pretournament news conference. “In New York last year the biggest goal for me was just to push that message across. I feel like I did well there. Right now, I don’t really have that big of a message to push across at all. So it’s going to be really interesting to see what drives me.”Osaka seems to have dialed in on a purpose — to play without beating herself up for every error, every missed opportunity, and, if it happens, another loss, even if the chorus of critics grows louder.She has heard all the criticism, and she knows better than anyone that she has not made even a quarterfinal since March, much less a final of a Grand Slam. She knows how little she has played this year — remarkably little given her ranking and her stature as the winner of two of the last four Grand Slams, and four of the last 11.This, she hopes, will be the Grand Slam when she begins to get over her obsession with perfection that leads to disappointment when something she does is great but not flawless. Amid all the thousands of screaming fans on Monday night in the biggest stadium in tennis, Osaka’s ear remained tuned to the high-pitched yelps of a small girl seated low beside the court.“I just want to be happy with knowing that I did my best and knowing that even though I didn’t play perfect I was able to win a match in two sets,” she said after her win. “Or if I have to battle, play a match in three sets, knowing that I made a couple mistakes, but it’s OK at the end of the day because I’ll learn from the matches that I’ll keep playing.”“It’s not really a tournament thing,” she added as the night drew to a close. “It’s more like a life thing.” More

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      What to Watch at the 2021 US Open Today

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      Novak Djokovic and Ashleigh Barty feature on Arthur Ashe Stadium as a slew of young talent battles on the grounds of Flushing Meadows.How to watch: From noon to 6 p.m. Eastern on ESPN; 7 to 11 p.m. on ESPN2; and streaming on the ESPN 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.Court 10 | 11 a.m.Maria Sakkari vs. Marta KostyukMaria Sakkari, the 17th seed, reached the semifinals of the French Open in June but has struggled on grass and hardcourts since then. Sakkari reached the round of 16 at last year’s U.S. Open, but faces a tough draw from the start here.Marta Kostyuk, 19, boldly declared herself at the French Open by reaching the round of 16, propelling herself to a career-high ranking of 55th in the world this month. She is quite capable of upsetting well credentialed opponents, and will provide a serious test for Sakkari on the faster surface of Flushing Meadows.ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 3 p.m.Ashleigh Barty vs. Vera ZvonarevaAshleigh Barty, the world no. 1, retired from the French Open in the second round, and needed to skip the preparatory grass tournaments early in the summer. Since then, she has won 12 straight matches, capturing her second major title at Wimbledon along the way.Vera Zvonareva, a former world no. 2, has not been past the second round of a major tournament since 2014, after a shoulder surgery in 2013 necessitated multiple periods away from the tour. Against Barty, Zvonareva’s experience is likely to be overshadowed by Barty’s current dominance.Ashleigh Barty has won 12 straight matches.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 7 p.m.Novak Djokovic vs. Holger RuneNovak Djokovic comes into the U.S. Open looking to complete a Grand Slam. After two losses at the Olympics left Djokovic without a medal, he will be looking to bounce back and win a record-setting 21st career Grand Slam event. Djokovic begins his campaign against Holger Rune, a first-time major qualifier ranked no. 145. Although Rune won the Junior French Open title in 2019, it is highly unlikely that he will present staunch opposition to a 20-time major champion.Louis Armstrong STADIUM | 9 p.m.Taylor Fritz vs. Alex de MinuarAlex de Minuar, the 14th seed, will face off against Taylor Fritz, an American who is struggling with his form. Fritz has lost his last four matches on hardcourts, usually his favored surface. De Minuar lost in his first round at Wimbledon in June, and has won only one match since then. As the two look to restart their pushes up the world rankings, the match is likely to hinge more on mental strength than on the physical aspects that have powered their careers.Sleeper match of the day.Court 4 | 6 p.m.Jenson Brooksby vs. Mikael YmerJenson Brooksby and Mikael Ymer are two scintillating young talents on the ATP Tour. Ymer, a 22-year-old Swede, reached the third round of two major tournaments this year, upsetting players like Gael Monfils and Hubert Hurckaz along the way. Brooksby, a 20-year-old American, just broke into the world top 100 after a run to the semifinals at the Citi Open, beating Frances Tiafoe and Felix Auger-Aliassime. Both youngsters have aggressive baseline games that should create a whirlwind of exciting tennis on the outer court. More

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      Naomi Osaka Wins Her First-Round Match at the U.S. Open

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      Naomi Osaka had a solid start to the defense of her U.S. Open title, posting a 6-4, 6-1 win over Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic that was a little closer than the final score suggested.Osaka and Bouzkova were dead even through a hard-fought first set filled with tight games, long points and hard-hitting rallies. In the 10th game, Osaka finally forced Bouzkova into a backhand error on her third set point to take the lead with her first service break and claim the opening set.Osaka seemed to settle in from there, jetting to a 5-0 lead in the second set before Bouzkova was finally able to hold her serve. Osaka finished Bouzkova off in the next game with a forehand winner down the line that caught the edge of the paint.This was a far different atmosphere than anything Osaka experienced on her march to the championship last year, when no spectators were allowed at the tournament. She played Monday at Arthur Ashe Stadium in front of nearly 20,000 fans who were loud all night and have begun to embrace her as one of their own. Osaka was born in Japan and represents that nation but grew up largely in New York and Florida.“It feels kind of amazing to play in front of everyone again,” Osaka said after the match, “The energy here is unmatched.” More

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      Fans Packed the U.S. Open on the First Day

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      As the first tennis balls were struck in earnest at the U.S. Open on Monday, thousands of frustrated tennis fans waited patiently to get inside for the first time in two years, stuck in a human traffic jam that left many feeling angry and sick in the hot sun.When Madison Keys hit the first serve to her friend Sloane Stephens inside Arthur Ashe Stadium shortly after noon, there was hardly anyone there to see it. By the time Stephens held on to win, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (7), the world’s largest tennis arena was packed, but only after fans made their way through the backlog to catch the end of a captivating opening match.It was an agonizing way to welcome back fans to the U.S. Open after a year off. But from a tennis point of view, it was a riveting kickoff to the tournament, with a rematch of the 2017 women’s final, which Stephens also won.“It seems like it was a hundred years ago, not just four,” Keys said. “Yeah, the world is obviously a completely different place now as far as regular life goes. But then also with tennis, a lot has changed.”Sloane Stephens during her first-round win against her friend Madison Keys.The biggest change for the 2021 tournament is that the fans are in the stands. They had been excluded from the 2020 tournament because of the coronavirus pandemic. But it took many of them a lot longer to get back inside than they expected.“It’s ridiculous,” said Betty Gruber, a fan from Chelmsford, Mass. “And then they let hundreds of people go right past us. I’m 82, and there are kids here and people who need to use the bathroom. It is very poorly organized.”In the end it took more than two hours to clear out the backlog of people trying to enter. Some were lined up at the South Gate, joining the back of the queue hundreds of yards away, beyond the giant globe monument. Some lines of people intertwined with others and stewards did their best to control the flow amid the chaos as people complained and sweated in the midday sun.But once inside they did all the things tennis fans have been doing at the U.S. Open for years, up until last year. They wandered the grounds, spent lavishly on food and cheered for their favorite players on a warm day that ultimately felt rather normal.The announced attendance was 53,783 — 30,993 during the day session and 22,790 during the night session.Maria Onuorah, 58, a nurse practitioner and her two daughters, Jessica and Chelsea, waited over an hour in line. After they got off the No. 7 train they were met instantly by a wall of people, already lined up on the wooden boardwalk bridge over to Flushing Meadows Park.“At least we were able to see the last set,” Maria Onuorah said of the match between Stephens and Keys. “I’m glad we were able to finally get in because we came all the way from Atlanta to see it.”Gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin stopped by the Billie Jean King Center.Fans on the grounds during the U.S. Open.One fan, who asked to be identified only as Harry, a software engineer from California, said that there were so many people on the bridge from the subway that at one point it began to shake and sway. He said he saw a handful of people, including his girlfriend, throw up.“It was total mayhem,” he said. “I’ve been pretty Covid conscious this whole time and I didn’t appreciate being packed in with all these people in such close quarters.”The United States Tennis Association issued a statement that said the delay was largely caused by crowds arriving later than they have in the past, and that the slowdown was centered on the bag check area.“Patrons have brought an inordinate number of bags this year, all of which need to be searched. This becomes the main choke point for entry,” the U.S.T.A. statement said.The U.S.T.A. added that it was looking into ways to avoid the problem in the coming days. It also said that the process to check proof of vaccinations seemed to work “smoothly” and did not contribute to the delay. Some fans agreed, but said part of the reason for that is because the process was not rigorous.“They were looking at the cards, but they didn’t match them up with ID’s,” said Matt Stapleton, 61, a film industry transportation director from Long Island. He said he waited two hours to get inside the grounds but once he made it through the gates he said — surprisingly cheerfully — that it was well worth it.Crowds waiting for the evening matches to get started.“He’s always like that,” his wife, Linda, said with a laugh. “He’s just here to have fun.”Most of the fans moved about without face coverings, but most of the workers wore masks. Originally, the tournament was not planning to require proof of vaccinations against the coronavirus, but after Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York intervened, tournament organizers changed the rules.“I’m glad they did,” said Jessica Onuorah, a graduate student at Georgia State University. “I’m vaccinated, but I feel a lot safer knowing that everyone else is, too.”Things really began moving along in the afternoon, just as they would in a normal year with no pandemic. The food concessionaires did a brisk business, fans ambled about the main plaza, sitting near the fountains, watching matches on the giant video screens, and crowds of people packed into the stands as they did in 2019, and each year for decades before that.“We missed the people in the crowd,” said the 12th-seeded Simona Halep of Romania, who beat Camila Giorgi of Italy, 6-4, 7-6 (3), in their first-round match on the Grandstand court. “You cannot compare the atmosphere. It’s much better. You feel the energy. You feel alive on court.”And once the day session ended, it all started up again at night. More

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      Benoit Paire Loses, But Scores a Victory Just by Playing

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      Last year the French player missed the tournament after a positive Covid-19 test kept him confined to his hotel room. Even after a first-round loss, Paire felt free.A year ago, French tennis player Benoît Paire spent the U.S. Open isolated in his Long Island hotel room after testing positive for Covid-19, unable to take his place in the draw and unable to find his happy place in the aftermath.Paire, no pillar of consistency in normal times, struggled in new ways in extraordinary times, missing the fans and shot after shot, sometimes making very little effort as the opening-round losses piled up.“I was there without really being there,” he said.But the crowds are back, as the first day of the U.S. Open made loud and clear on Monday once the ticket holders managed to navigate the insufferably long security lines and actually get into the tournament.Paire left his Manhattan hotel room in the morning and made his way to Court 13, one of the outdoor courts that still feels like an outdoor court even after all the new stadium construction at Flushing Meadows.The fans are close to the action here, and the action on the adjacent court is close, too. The fans gathered at Court 13 soon made their loyalties clear, chanting “Benoît” a great deal more often than they chanted the name of his worthy Serbian opponent Dusan Lajovic.“I was happy to see the crowds again, to share a moment with the people,” Paire said. “It’s true that when people applaud for a great point or a break point well saved it makes you feel good. And it pushes you, or at least it pushes me. That’s why I play tennis. So I’m taking more and more pleasure in it, and that’s why I’m coming back to my good level.”Paire’s tennis clothes, freshly delivered from his new sponsor, have “be normal” written on them, but that does not seem like the message Paire actually wants to deliver.He does not resemble other tennis players with his long hipster beard worthy of a 19th century French painter: think Édouard Manet. He also has a creative side of his own: conjuring half-volley winners from places on the court where most tour players would not consider trying to hit a half-volley winner. His two-handed backhand is smooth, versatile and often deadly. His forehand, with its odd and cramped backswing, is unique and not always in a good way.But like Nick Kyrgios, another outrageously gifted tennis player who has rejected the tour without its fans, Paire, ranked 49th, is hard to take your eyes off with a racket in hand.He left the 40th-ranked Lajovic shaking his head and chuckling after some of his best shots, but though Paire clearly cared, which was progress to be sure, he could not back up his strokes of genius with enough solid play under duress.There were double faults at inopportune moments, unforced errors that looked lackadaisical but were also down to fatigue in the heat and humidity.Though Lajovic’s shirt was soaked through with sweat early on, Paire was the one who looked the weariest, hunching forward and resting a hand on each knee as he settled in slowly to return serves.But he still found the energy to blow off some steam late in the second set, losing his temper after stopping play because of a shout from the crowd and a lost point.Tennis rules are clear on this: the point stands. But Paire took umbrage and eventually took it out on the umbrella over Lajovic’s chair, smacking it hard enough with his racket to break the umbrella and startle the chair umpire and the fans sitting in the front few rows.Paire received his second code violation of the match — this one for unsportsmanlike conduct — and was docked a point. He went on to lose the set and the match 6-3, 7-5, 2-6, 6-4.It was a downbeat result after his joyful run to the quarterfinals at the Western & Southern Open in the Cincinnati suburbs earlier this month. But Paire sounded like an unusually happy man for a first-round loser.A different French player is missing the U.S. Open this year because of quarantine: Gilles Simon, who is not vaccinated and restricted to his New York hotel room after his coach tested positive for Covid. Simon was considered to be a “close contact.”But Paire is free to swing away, free to move around the grounds that were packed on Monday as he left not-so-lucky Court 13 and made his way back to the locker room with two security guards running interference.Not that Paire wanted to stay in his bubble. The fans kept running toward him, cellphones in hand, to pose for selfies, and though many a first-round loser would have kept his chin down and picked up the pace to refuge, Paire slowed down and accommodated each and every one. More

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      Novak Djokovic Knocks on the Door of a Very Exclusive Club

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      Only five players have achieved a Grand Slam, the last being Steffi Graf in 1988. Winning four major titles in a calendar year — the holy grail of tennis — is improbably hard.It has been more than half a century since a man completed tennis’s Grand Slam, and that man is ready for company.“I don’t own the club; I’ve just enjoyed belonging to it,” Rod Laver, 83, said in a telephone interview last week from his home in Carlsbad, Calif. “If someone comes along to win all the four, I’d be the first to congratulate them.”The moment could be near. Novak Djokovic won the first three Grand Slam tournaments of the year and needs only to win the United States Open, which began on Monday in New York, to join Laver in the club.It is undeniably exclusive. The four major tournaments — the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open — are all more than 100 years old. But only five players have achieved the Grand Slam in singles by winning all four majors in the same year: Don Budge in 1938, Maureen Connolly in 1953, Laver in 1962 and 1969, Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988.“Being able now to put myself in a position to win four out of four is honestly incredible, and I’m really stoked about New York,” Djokovic said in an interview before the draw was released. “I can’t wait.”Technically, Djokovic already has won “four out of four” over two seasons in 2015 and 2016. Though that was rare and remarkable, it was not a Grand Slam, which by tradition and the constitution of the International Tennis Federation requires that the four titles be won “in one calendar year.”“You’ve got to do it in the calendar year,” Laver emphasized. “Start at the Australian in January and finish up in New York in September. That, for me, is a Grand Slam.”For a period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Australian Open came last, taking place in December. But for peak Laver, it was the first leg, and the wiry and driven Australian left-hander nicknamed Rocket is the only player to have achieved the Grand Slam twice in singles. He did it once as an amateur in 1962 and once, more impressively, as a professional in 1969 against deeper fields that included major singles champions like Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, Arthur Ashe and Tony Roche.Rod Laver returning the ball during his victory over Andrés Gimeno of Spain during the men’s singles quarterfinals of the 1969 French Open.Bodini, via Associated Press“I just look at those opponents, that kind of opposition at the time, and I feel like it’s the standout Grand Slam of them all for men or women,” said Steve Flink, the American tennis historian and author of “The Greatest Tennis Matches of All Time.”Laver is also the only player to have saved a match point on the way to a Grand Slam in singles, escaping against his Australian compatriot Marty Mulligan in 1962 in the quarterfinals of the French Championships.“A Grand Slam takes some good fortune, and I was fortunate that day,” Laver said.The term Grand Slam entered sports in the 20th century via contract bridge, a card game in which a grand slam meant winning the maximum 13 tricks.In baseball, it came to mean a home run with the bases loaded, and in 1930, Grand Slam became a part of golf’s lexicon when Bobby Jones won the four major tournaments of that era.It was only a matter of time before other sports embraced the concept. In 1933, when the Australian tennis star Jack Crawford won the first three major tournaments, journalists used the term as he tried to win the U.S. Championships.John Kieran, a longtime sports columnist for The New York Times, wrote that “if Crawford wins, that would be something like scoring a grand slam on the courts.”Crawford almost did, reaching the final and taking a two-sets-to-one lead over Fred Perry, the British star, before Perry took complete command to win the title.Five years later, Budge, a redheaded Californian with a big serve and dreamy backhand, chased the Grand Slam in earnest, spurning big offers to turn professional at the end of 1937.“He was determined to try and go out and win the Slam in ’38,” Flink said. “Some people were telling him, don’t do it, you could get hurt, you could ruin your lucrative pro career.”Don Budge achieved the Grand Slam in 1938, spurning calls to turn professional, which would have made him ineligible for Grand Slam tournaments.Ray Illingworth/Associated PressAt that stage, turning professional would have made Budge ineligible for the Grand Slam tournaments and restricted him to the barnstorming circuit. But Budge, determined to chase his goal, remained an amateur and secured the Grand Slam with relative ease against often-overmatched opponents. His health and the logistics were more daunting. He had an abscessed tooth for much of the season that left him vulnerable to illness. The trip by boat to Australia to start the year took several weeks. And at the U.S. Championships, where Budge was set to face his unseeded friend and doubles partner, Gene Mako, in the final, a hurricane delayed the match for nearly a week.Despite all that time to ponder the stakes, Budge beat Mako in four sets and completed tennis’s first Grand Slam.It has remained a rare feat. Connolly, a teen prodigy from San Diego, had the most dominant run to a Grand Slam. She was nicknamed Little Mo because her deep and penetrating groundstrokes reminded the sportswriter Nelson Fisher of the firepower of the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, which was nicknamed Big Mo. Connolly lost just one set in the four majors in 1953. She might have won a second Grand Slam but was out of the game by age 19 after a horseback riding accident. She died of cancer at 34.Maureen Connolly with the women’s singles trophy after beating Doris Hart in the final at the Wimbledon Championships in 1953.Central Press/Getty ImagesCourt and Graf, the other women in the club, routinely outclassed their opponents in their Grand Slam seasons. But Court, a powerful Australian, had an enormous scare: tearing ligaments in her ankle during her quarterfinal victory at Wimbledon against Helga Niessen Masthoff. A doctor suggested she withdraw from the tournament. But Court, with the Grand Slam at stake, pushed on, receiving painkilling injections in the ankle before the semifinal against Rosie Casals and the final against Billie Jean King.“I had no doubt that this feisty little player who played sublime tennis while chattering away eccentrically was the biggest hurdle to clear if I was to win the Grand Slam, and so it proved,” Court wrote in her 2016 autobiography.Margaret Court received painkilling injections in her ankle to finish Wimbledon in 1970.Associated PressCourt beat King, 14-12, 11-9, in one of the best major women’s finals. Court went to New York, ignored medical advice to withdraw, and won the U.S. Open after another painkilling injection, defeating Casals in a three-set final.She thanked the officials, Casals and “the Lord” and returned to the locker room, where she had a beer with her husband, Barry.Court, like Laver, targeted the Grand Slam before the season. Graf did not. 1988 was her breakthrough year, and her overwhelming success surprised Graf, a self-contained champion who did not embrace the spotlight but whose foot speed, forehand power and crisply sliced backhand set her apart.Steffi Graf won all four major singles championships in 1988 and an Olympic gold medal, for the so-called Golden Slam.Peter Morgan/Associated PressSince then, only Serena Williams has come close to a Grand Slam, winning the first three majors in 2015 before losing to Roberta Vinci of Italy in the U.S. Open semifinals in one of tennis’s biggest upsets.Williams’s inability to seal the deal — she would have faced another Italian outsider, Flavia Pennetta, in the final — or play her best showed how expectation builds during a Grand Slam chase.Though Williams twice won four majors in a row — the so-called Serena Slams — the Grand Slam hunt generates higher levels of start-to-finish pressure. Players know that if they lose at the Australian Open to start the season that the Grand Slam is unattainable that year.“That’s the way it was devised and the way it was understood from the beginning,” Flink said. “I don’t see any reason to retrofit it. Budge, Court and Laver all knew when their starting point was and weren’t going to say, ‘Well, I lost the first one but maybe I can win the next one and still get four in a row early next year.’ No, the quest was done until the following year.”Martina Navratilova maintains that she did complete the Grand Slam, even if she didn’t win all four in the same year. Navratilova won six straight majors in 1983 and 1984, a year in which she won an astounding 74 straight singles matches. To drum up interest in the sport, the International Tennis Federation had declared in 1982 that four majors in a row amounted to a Grand Slam, and Navratilova received a million-dollar bonus from the I.T.F. when she achieved that feat at the 1984 French Open.But there was resistance to the concept. The I.T.F. soon retreated and has reverted to defining the Grand Slam as a calendar-year achievement. Navratilova is not on the short list.“Looking back now, yes, of course, I wish I had done it in the calendar year because then I’m on the same level in every way with Rod and Steffi and Margaret, but at the time it was not judged that way,” Navratilova said in an interview last week.What also has changed is that when Laver won his Grand Slams, three of the four majors were played on grass with only the French Open staged on clay. But the U.S. Open switched to hardcourts in 1978 and the Australian Open did the same in 1988, so Graf had to achieve her Grand Slam on three surfaces.“A lot of players couldn’t play that well on grass, so I had an advantage in that area, and maybe the fact I was a left-hander on grass was a little bit of an advantage, too,” said Laver, referring to his excellent sliced serve wide in the ad court.Djokovic is the first man since Laver to win even the first three legs of the Grand Slam: an indicator of the depth of the challenge. If Djokovic, 34, finishes the job in New York, he will be the oldest player to achieve the Grand Slam in singles. Laver was 31 when he won the U.S. Open in 1969.“It’s quite a milestone, and there’s a reason why no other male tennis player in the Open era has managed to win all four Slams in the same season,” Djokovic said. “The game has been improving every decade and obviously it’s not comparable to the tennis of 40 or 50 years ago, because of the technology of the rackets. They used to play with wooden rackets. We have so much more advantage and help coming from the rackets and just the pace and just generally the game itself has transformed a lot. But that probably makes it more challenging and difficult to win it.”And yet Laver found it challenging in 1969. He had to win a marathon five-set semifinal over Roche at the Australian Open. He had to rally from two sets down in both the second round of the French Open, where he beat Dick Crealy, and Wimbledon, where he beat Premjit Lall before holding off Stan Smith in five sets and Ashe and Newcombe in four-setters. At the U.S. Open, Dennis Ralston pushed Laver to five sets in the round of 16.“All it takes is one bad day and it’s gone,” Laver said.He was once convinced that Roger Federer would be the one to join the Grand Slam club, but Rafael Nadal’s clay-court prowess snuffed out most of Federer’s best chances and quite a few of Djokovic’s, too. Nadal has won the French Open a record 13 times.“So unless Nadal does it, those are 13 years nobody is doing the Grand Slam,” Laver said with a laugh.Astonishingly, given their stature, neither Nadal nor Federer has won even the first two legs of a Grand Slam.“Even getting it to the final leg is a great achievement,” Laver said. “I know Novak’s shoulder has been bothering him recently. That’s just one of the things that can go wrong, but, yes, I think he has every chance to pull off a Grand Slam and win the U.S. Open.”If he does it, Laver plans to be the man to hand him the trophy. He will be in New York for the men’s semifinals and final at the invitation of the United States Tennis Association.“I’d like to be there to see if he can win it,” Laver said. “It’s been quite a long wait.”Cindy Shmerler More