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      Future Tennis Stars Get an Early Start at the Junior Championships

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      The events often feature future stars, like Stefanos Tsitsipas and Denis Shapovalov. “I couldn’t believe the level of play,” one observer said.At Wimbledon in 2016, Chris Fowler dragged his ESPN broadcasting partner Brad Gilbert to the semifinals of the boys’ Junior Championships. They were treated to a preview of two future stars: Stefanos Tsitsipas and Denis Shapovalov, who won the tournament.“I couldn’t believe the level of play,” Gilbert recalled.That event looked like a snapshot of things to come. Shapovalov defeated Alex de Minaur in the finals; de Minaur beat Felix Auger-Aliassime in the quarters. All three have since broken into the ATP Top 20, while Tsitsipas reached the Top five.Denis Shapovalov defeated Alex de Minaur in the Boy’s Singles Final at Wimbledon in 2016.Adam Pretty/Getty ImagesYet Gilbert was initially unenthused about watching because it easily could have been a replay of the 2014 Junior Wimbledon finals when Noah Rubin beat Stefan Kozlov before both vanished into the lower rungs of the ATP Tour.The ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors is important to the development of many players 18 and under. In 2019, there were over 600 ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors tournaments, with about 8,000 boys and 7,000 girls playing at least one tournament. Its Grand Slam events are held alongside the professional tournaments.At Wimbledon this year, 64 boys and 64 girls will be competing in main draw singles. Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva, who won the girls’ singles title at the 2020 Australian Open, is still competing as a junior and will be at Wimbledon, as will the most recent Boys’ French Open champion, Luca van Assche.Winning a Junior Slam is obviously a meaningful triumph, but that does not mean it is a barometer of future success. Roger Federer and Andy Murray won Junior Slams, but Rafael Nadal showed that you can go from boy to man while barely playing in the ITF Juniors. Venus and Serena Williams, along with the recent champions Angelique Kerber and Naomi Osaka, also skipped playing in the Juniors circuit.Earlier this month, Luca van Assche won the Boys French Open. He, too, is competing in the Juniors at Wimbledon.Christophe Ena/Associated Press“A good junior career is a good start, but never a guarantee,” Stan Wawrinka, winner of the 2003 Junior French Open, wrote in an email interview. “I never even dreamed of winning a Grand Slam until I eventually did at the 2014 Australian Open,” his first of three.Jeff McFarland, creator of the Hidden Game of Tennis website, said that Wawrinka was smart to keep his dreams modest. Winning a Junior Slam is less predictive than being a top pick from college football or basketball.“Tennis has such an unstructured development system, so it’s hard to say what these wins might indicate,” McFarland said, adding that the physicality of the modern game makes it difficult to know how players will evolve when their bodies have yet to fully develop. “They may be the cream of the crop in the Juniors, but at the next level everybody is that good.”The Junior Slams have produced more top women than men in the last 15 years: the Grand Slam winners Victoria Azarenka, Simona Halep, Ashleigh Barty, Jelena Ostapenko and Iga Swiatek; the No. 1s Caroline Wozniacki and Karolina Pliskova; and a lengthy list of Top 10 players.The boys’ side peaked from 1998 to 2005, with Federer, Murray, Wawrinka, Andy Roddick, Marin Cilic and the Top 10 players Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gael Monfils. The next eight years produced Dominic Thiem, who won the United States Open last year, but otherwise it was a meager crop, But since 2014, a new generation has emerged: Alexander Zverev, Andrey Rublev, Taylor Fritz and those stars of that 2016 Wimbledon tournament.McFarland said a successful pro career needed not include a Grand Slam — especially on the men’s side, where Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Federer, Murray and Wawrinka have won all but four titles since 2004 — or even cracking the Top 10. The Junior Slam winners Leander Paes and Jack Sock foundered on the ATP Tour but won multiple Grand Slams in doubles, while Richard Gasquet, “who the average American fan never heard of, has nearly $20 million in prize money,” McFarland said. “No one would call those careers a failure.”Still, McFarland said that since 1990 only half the male Junior Grand Slam winners even hit the Top 50, while only one-third of Junior Slam finalists reached that high. Girls fare better, with two-thirds of the Junior Slam winners and half of the runners-up breaking into the Top 50. (McFarland said winning multiple Junior Slams, as Azarenka and Roddick have, actually did predict higher pro earnings.)“Honestly, winning a Junior Slam doesn’t give you as much help as you might think,” said Elina Svitolina, the 2010 Junior French Open champion, who had reached No. 3 on the WTA Tour. “That’s only the beginning — you have to work so many hours on and off the court to not have the Junior mentality anymore, because when you start to play the women’s circuit it’s completely different.”Stan Wawrinka beat Brian Baker in 2003 to win the Junior French Open. “A good junior career is a good start, but never a guarantee,” Wawrinka said recently.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWawrinka said he saw more positives.“The pro tour is a completely different level,” Wawrinka said, “but traveling on the Junior tour helps you get used to the travel routine at a young age — the jet lag, different food and being away from home is not always easy for juniors.”Sofia Kenin, a Junior U.S. Open finalist, said having soaked up “the vibe and atmosphere” at the Grand Slams as a junior helped prepare her mentally when she won last year’s Australian Open and reached the finals of the French Open.One issue that McFarland and Gilbert raise about the Juniors as a predictor is that many top young players opt instead for low-level pro tournaments, either because they want the challenge or for economic reasons.“It’s more of a commitment to build your junior ranking — the international travel can cost as much or more than the pro tour,” Gilbert said. Winning the Australian Junior Open, he said, is less predictive than the other three majors perhaps because it requires more travel for American and European players.The result, McFarland said, is that the winners “may not be facing the best talent.” Indeed, of Svitolina’s six opponents en route to her Junior Slam win, only two later broke into the WTA’s Top 150.Gilbert said that ideally the winners of the Junior Slams should be granted a wild card into the main draw of that Grand Slam the next year.“This would give young players the incentive to play in the Junior Slams and bring more talent back,” he said. More

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      Paul Skipp, the Master of Thwack at Wimbledon

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      He has been the head stringer at the tournament since 2014, and players turn to him to make their rackets sing.In the shadow of No. 1 Court at the All England Club, Wimbledon’s stringing team is readying for a crush of requests. The day before the tournament starts, the team usually strings about 500 rackets, carefully following players’ instructions about tension levels, knot placement, logo color and string type. Then, the team will come back the next day and do another 500 rackets.“If we do a good job, and the player wins the tournament, excellent, great, fantastic, we feel we’ve done our part,” said Paul Skipp, who has been Wimbledon’s head stringer since 2014.Players restring their rackets mainly because strings quickly lose tension, and they need to be confident that the ball will come off their strings in a certain way. Led by Skipp, Wimbledon’s stringing team works long days, sometimes past midnight. Depending on personal preferences, weather and time spent on the court, players may get their rackets strung every day. At Wimbledon, players will use freshly strung rackets for only one match.Skipp, 51, figures he has strung rackets for 10 players who have won Wimbledon titles, including Angelique Kerber of Germany in 2018. When the Scottish player Andy Murray made his 2005 Wimbledon debut, Skipp was there to string for him. He has worked on Rafael Nadal’s rackets at previous Wimbledons. He regularly strings for Alison Riske of the United States. In 2019 at Wimbledon, she upset the top seed Ashleigh Barty and reached the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam for the first time.Alison Riske has consistently used Paul Skipp to string her rackets at Wimbledon.Nic Bothma/EPA, via Shutterstock“Paul is absolutely my go-to stringer at Wimbledon, and I’m so grateful for all of the good juju he puts over my rackets there,” Riske said via email. “Paul is good at what he does for many reasons, but first and foremost, I believe it’s his consistency. Consistency with how he strings and then how my strings feel to me in return.”If players do not use Wimbledon’s stringing service and pay the $28 per racket fee, then they pay for an off-site service. But over the past decade, the number of rackets strung by the on-site service has more than doubled, and Wimbledon’s stringing team has nearly doubled. The 16 team members come from a mix of European countries: Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Britain. “We are a bit of a family,” Skipp said.In 2009, when Jeremy Holt’s company Apollo Leisure took over the stringing operation at Wimbledon, the team worked on 2,300 rackets. Holt expects that the team will string about 5,500 rackets during this year’s tournament.“The tournament services throughout the world have improved considerably, so I think the players have more faith in them,” he said, explaining the increase. “People who are at the top of their game as racket stringers are involved.”At Wimbledon, players, or more often, coaches, drop off rackets at the service’s front desk and explain how they want them strung. A racket then goes to a team member, who puts it on a stringing machine. The main strings and cross strings get measured out, threaded through the frame, tightened to the player’s desired tension and knotted. It is generally considered that lower tension gives players more power; higher tension gives players more control.Paul Skipp uses a stringing machine to work on a racket. Krisztina Kobanyai“If I request tighter than my average, then I expect it to feel so, or vice versa,” said Riske, who is ranked No. 31 in the world. “And that is where a stringer like Paul is truly priceless because he will nail it every time, and I trust his ability, so it is one less worry for me, which is very important.”Players can request a certain stringer. That typically happens when a player has a past working relationship or familiarity with a stringer, the way Riske has with Skipp, or when a player has done well at a tournament with a stringer. But generally, a player’s rackets are assigned to a team member based on scheduling considerations. Skipp tries to ensure that all of a player’s rackets can be strung by the same team member throughout the tournament.Skipp expects a tournament stringer to easily finish a racket in 20 minutes. If it is needed on court, then he said, “we turn on the afterburners, and you could be looking at 10 to 11 minutes.”“To get it right, to get it consistent, it could be considered a craft or an art, certainly a skill,” he said. “I’ve seen plenty of bad stringing. Could we make Rafa Nadal play badly with a bad string job? Yeah, for sure. Could we make you play like Rafa Nadal with a better string job? No. Could we turn even a lower professional into a Rafa Nadal with a very good string job? No.” More

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      The Special Magic of Wimbledon Returns, Changes Included

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      The pandemic forced the tournament’s cancellation in 2020 and led to some changes this year, but much of its tradition is back.Serena Williams leaned back in her chair and thought.The seven-time Wimbledon champion had just been asked about the one thing she is looking forward to upon returning to Wimbledon for the first time since the coronavirus shut it down last year. Suddenly, Williams burst forward, as if she had just had an epiphany.“I love the grass,” Williams said this month at the French Open, though she also admitted that she hadn’t even practiced on the surface since she lost to Simona Halep in the 2019 final. “What I love most about it is just the cleanness of it. I just think it’s so chic and so crisp. That’s a good word: crisp.”Crisp may be the perfect word to describe the aura of Wimbledon. Those iridescent green grass courts are immaculately manicured. It is the only professional tournament that still requires its participants to wear logo-less, all-white clothing. The facilities, including a Royal Box that features signature purple-and-green blankets, oozes decorum.And it’s not just Williams who understands the significance of the only major still played on grass.Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon champion, serving to Simona Halep at the 2019 tournament. Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images“Wimbledon is something magical,” said Elina Svitolina, a semifinalist in 2019. “We know the rules are quite strict, and it’s going to be even more strict this year. But you’re just in white, and you’re in such a nice, historical venue, so the whole atmosphere makes stepping on the court an experience.”Now Wimbledon, which begins on Monday, is back, though it looks and feels quite different this year. Attendance is capped at 50 percent for the Centre and No. 1 Courts, while smaller show courts can seat 75 percent of capacity. For the semifinals and finals, seating capacity is expected to rise to 100 percent on Centre Court.There are also strict regulations regarding vaccination and testing protocols. All ticket-holders are required to show proof of Covid status upon entry, either in the form of two vaccination doses or proof of a negative Covid test within the past 48 hours. While moving around the grounds, all attendees must wear face coverings, though they are free to remove them while at their seats. The players have their own set of rules in place that allow them to be exempt from public quarantine requirements while also keeping themselves and the public safe.“This will be a Wimbledon like we’ve never known it before,” said Dan Evans, the British No. 1 in singles. “It’s obviously an amazing place to play tennis, but my overriding feeling is that it will be very different to what we know.”Because tickets are being distributed through mobile devices this year, some traditions have disappeared. No one will be permitted to camp out for spare tickets, for example. Because the players are required to stay at a designated hotel in London, spotting celebrities outside their rental homes in Wimbledon Village is gone. And for environmental reasons, the plastic cups adorned with pictures of strawberries for the traditional Wimbledon dessert strawberries and cream have been replaced with sustainable cardboard containers.As with other major championships this year, prize money has been redistributed, with more going to early round losers. This year, the men’s and women’s singles champions will receive £1.7 million (about $2 million), down from £2.35 million in 2019, but those who fall in the first round will get £48,000, significantly more than than two years ago.Other changes include players on all of the courts, not just the premier ones, being allowed to challenge the calls of linespeople and have them verified by Hawk-Eye Live, a device that uses 10 cameras around the court (though no linespeople have been cut as a result, as other tournaments have done). And there also has been the introduction of a serve clock on all courts.Like Williams, Roger Federer, an eight-time Wimbledon champion, is currently ranked No. 8. Christian Hartmann/ReutersSeedings are according to the WTA and Association of Tennis Professionals rankings, which means that the champions, Roger Federer and Williams, both now ranked No. 8, could meet the top seeds Novak Djokovic and Ashleigh Barty in the quarterfinals. In the past, Wimbledon has often deferred to past champions when making seedings.Simply adjusting to playing on grass — with its hard-to-grip surface and uneven bounces — will be a challenge for players, many of whom have not competed on the surface in two years: When Wimbledon was canceled last year, the few grass-court warm-up events were as well. This year, because the French Open was postponed by a week to allow for the lifting of more Covid-19 restrictions in France, there has been even less time to for players to make the transition.“Nobody practiced on grass because there was no reason to,” said Daniil Medvedev, who is seeded second. “It’s not going to be easy this year.”For most players, nothing is certain this year. Barty enters the tournament still nursing a hip injury that caused her to retire during her second match at the French Open. Halep, the defending champion, didn’t play that tournament because of a calf injury. She withdrew from Wimbledon on Friday. Dominic Thiem, the reigning United States Open champion, also withdrew, because of a wrist injury sustained earlier in the week.Naomi Osaka, the world’s No. 2 player, also withdrew from the tournament, citing a need for more time away from the game. She also pulled out of the French Open citing mental health issues. And Williams, still one shy of tying Margaret Court’s record of 24 major singles championships, has played a sparse schedule this year. She reached the semifinals at the Australian Open in February, losing to Osaka, the eventual champion.Barbora Krejcikova, the winner at the French Open, has never played the main draw at Wimbledon, but she is seeded at No. 15.When Rafael Nadal announced that he was pulling out of Wimbledon and the Olympics following a semifinal loss to Djokovic at the French Open, the most intriguing story lines at Wimbledon suddenly became Federer and Djokovic.Federer, an eight-time Wimbledon champion, has played just eight matches in the last two years and two weeks ago lost unexpectedly to Felix Auger-Aliassime at a grass-court warm-up in Halle, Germany.Novak Djokovic, the 2018 and 2019 champion, eats a blade of grass (a personal Wimbledon tradition) after beating Federer in 2019.Daniel Leal-Olivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThen there is Djokovic who, with his wins at the Australian and French Opens this year, is halfway to a Grand Slam. If he also wins a gold medal at the Olympics in Tokyo, he will accomplish the Golden Slam, which has been done only by Steffi Graf, in 1988.“Everything is possible,” Djokovic said after he beat Alexander Zverev to win his second French Open. “I did put myself in a good position to go for the Golden Slam.”Wimbledon is already thinking ahead. In 2022, the All England Club, which holds the tournament, will add play on the middle Sunday of the event, which traditionally was reserved for rest and rejuvenation of the courts and the players. The All England Club also recently unveiled plans to expand into neighboring parkland and create an 8,000-seat show court that the club expects to be ready by 2030.But for this year, people who treasure the tournament are relieved it’s back.“Wimbledon is such an anchor for all of us,” said Jim Courier, a former world No. 1 and current Tennis Channel commentator. “I think it will be rejuvenating for the sport as a whole. It’s going to be a relief that Wimbledon is back and going to be visible again.“Wimbledon,” Courier added, “is that perfect blend of the old and the new. They’ve gotten it right in so many ways. We missed it.” More

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      Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams Have Promising Paths at Wimbledon

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      For the first time, seedings at the tournament, which begins on Monday, did not take into account a player’s past performance on grass.Wimbledon conducted its draw on Friday, and for the first time past grass-court success was not a special factor in the seedings.It has been a long road to this moment, but then Wimbledon, the oldest of all the major tennis tournaments, has no shortage of history.Started in 1877, it took 50 years to begin seeding players and nearly 100 more for the All England Club to decide that it would adhere exclusively to computer rankings for the men instead of using a seeding committee or a grass-court seeding formula.“I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Mark Petchey, a coach and former player from Britain who is now a television analyst. “At the end of the day, tennis is very much a meritocracy, and you should definitely get the reward for the matches and the tournaments you’ve played before.”Tennis being tennis, not everyone agrees.“I hate it,” said Brad Gilbert, an ESPN analyst and a former top-five player. “If I’m the commissioner, I like that you can change the seedings on grass based on your success or lack of success on that surface.”But uniformity is now the rule on tour and at the four Grand Slam tournaments, which now all seed the men solely according to the rankings. Wimbledon retains the right to adjust the women’s seedings but has rarely exercised that right. As usual, it followed the rankings precisely this year, even though that meant that the No. 2 seed would be Aryna Sabalenka, the powerful Belarusian who has won just one singles match at Wimbledon and has yet to get past the fourth round in any Grand Slam singles tournament.Sabalenka, ranked fourth, has such a lofty seeding because No. 2 Naomi Osaka and No. 3 Simona Halep have withdrawn from Wimbledon. Osaka did so last week, extending her break from the game to protect her mental health but saying that she would play in the Olympics. Halep, the reigning Wimbledon champion, withdrew shortly before the draw on Friday because of a left calf injury that had already prevented her from playing in the French Open.Halep won the singles title in 2019 with a brilliant performance in the final against Serena Williams. Wimbledon was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic. Though Halep was eager to try to defend her title and trained this week at the All England Club, her calf remained tightly wrapped. She ultimately decided that she was not fit enough to compete.“I gave it everything I had,” she wrote in a post on Instagram. “After having such special memories from two years ago, I was excited and honored to step back on these beautiful courts as defending champion. Unfortunately, my body didn’t cooperate.”She joins an increasingly long list of absentees. The men’s tournament will be without the two-time champion Rafael Nadal, the 2016 Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic and the Grand Slam singles champions Dominic Thiem and Stan Wawrinka. The women’s tournament will also be without the American Jennifer Brady, who lost to Osaka in the final of this year’s Australian Open; she has developed plantar fasciitis.Despite Brady’s withdrawal, 21 American women are in the singles draw, the most since 1995 and by far the most women from any nation this year. The field includes the 41-year-old Venus Williams and the 39-year-old Serena Williams. Venus first played at Wimbledon in 1997 and has won five of its singles titles, the most recent in 2008. Serena first played in 1998 and has won seven singles titles, the most recent in 2016.Venus, who is unseeded in what could be the final Wimbledon for both sisters, will open against Mihaela Buzarnescu, a 33-year-old Romanian with a Ph.D. in sports science. Serena, seeded sixth, will face the unseeded Aliaksandra Sasnovich, a former top-30 player from Belarus.Serena, still chasing a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title, has a promising draw. If she reaches the fourth round, she could face the 17-year-old American Coco Gauff, who is seeded 20th in her second Wimbledon, after a stirring run to the fourth round in her debut in 2019.Ashleigh Barty, the No. 1 women’s seed, will play Carla Suárez Navarro in the first round. Their match should be played on Centre Court and give Suarez, a former top-10 player returning from cancer treatment, a fittingly grand stage for her comeback.Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1 and the reigning men’s singles champion, will play on Centre Court on Monday against Jack Draper, a 19-year-old British wild card. Djokovic’s draw looks clement, even if he could face a second-round rematch with Kevin Anderson, the tall, big-serving South African who is now ranked 103rd. Djokovic defeated him in the 2018 Wimbledon final.Djokovic, on track for a Grand Slam after winning this year’s Australian Open and French Open, is heavily favored to defend his title and the men’s record of 20 major singles titles, now shared by Nadal and Roger Federer. The other leading contender in his half of the draw is No. 3 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, the young Greek whom Djokovic defeated on clay in the French Open final. Tsitsipas’s all-court game also looks well suited to grass, and his first-round opponent is the American Frances Tiafoe.“I don’t know if it’s this year or next year, but I’d be very surprised if Tsitsipas doesn’t win Wimbledon,” Gilbert said. “I’m very impressed with his movement, willingness to play defense and his transition game. He knows how to move forward.”So, of course, does Federer, an eight-time Wimbledon champion. He is in the other half of the draw with No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev and No. 7 Matteo Berrettini, the forceful Italian who won the grasscourt title at the Queen’s Club Championships last week.Federer, 39, lost to Djokovic in a classic five-set final in 2019, after holding two match points. He is back for at least one more Wimbledon after two knee surgeries, but he has struggled for consistent form in his few tour appearances this season. Federer, the sixth seed, faces a tricky first-round opponent in Adrian Mannarino, a flat-hitting French veteran who thrives on grass.The surface remains an unusual challenge even though playing conditions are now more similar to hardcourts than in the serve-and-volley days of Rod Laver and Pete Sampras. The All England Club switched to more durable grass in 2002. The bounces are higher, and baseline play is now the rule instead of the exception.“Grasscourt tennis is still different, even if it’s nothing like the ’80s or ’90s when you’d drop the ball on the grass and it didn’t bounce, and it was really imperative to come forward,” Gilbert said.The movement remains specific. It is easier to slip, particularly after a split step on fresh grass behind the baseline. Quick directional shifts can be challenging, and with the tour’s grass-court season lasting only a few weeks, young players often need several seasons to grasp the nuances.“It’s very tough to walk on grass and just pick it up if you practice predominantly on clay or hardcourts,” Petchey said.That was part of the thinking behind preserving a grass-court bias in the Wimbledon seeding. The All England Club sought to balance its draws by giving the best grasscourt players a boost. A seeding committee long made those decisions, but leading men like Gustavo Kuerten and Àlex Corretja grew increasingly disgruntled about being downgraded at Wimbledon. Corretja skipped it altogether in 2000, along with his fellow Spanish stars Juan Carlos Ferrero and Albert Costa.The All England Club responded by eliminating the subjective element, deploying a seeding formula in 2002 that factored in recent grass-court results. But that, too, is now gone for the men. The rankings, and only the rankings, will rule. More

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      Wimbledon Loses Another Star as Dominic Thiem Withdraws

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      The world No. 5 and defending U.S. Open champion is out with a wrist injury and joined Rafael Nadal, Stan Wawrinka, Milos Raonic and David Goffin in missing the men’s singles tournament.The Wimbledon men’s singles tournament took another hit on Thursday when the No. 5-ranked Dominic Thiem withdrew from the tournament because of a right wrist injury.Rafael Nadal, the Spanish star and two-time Wimbledon champion, withdrew last week. The top-30 players Milos Raonic, David Goffin and Stan Wawrinka also have dropped out of the tournament.The injury was the latest setback for Thiem in a trying season for him.Thiem, a 27-year-old Austrian who rips his groundstrokes with particular gusto, won his first Grand Slam tournament title at last year’s U.S. Open, prevailing in a nervy five-set match with Alexander Zverev. Thiem then reached the final of the season-ending ATP Finals in London, losing to Daniil Medvedev.He looked poised to challenge Novak Djokovic and Nadal for supremacy in 2021. Instead, he has a 9-9 singles record and has spoken about struggling mentally after last year’s breakthrough in New York.“During the preparation for this season, I fell into a hole,” he said in April in an interview with the Austrian publication Der Standard. “I spent 15 years chasing the big goal without looking to the left or the right.”Thiem, like many players, has said that ongoing pandemic restrictions, which often limit players’ movements and require frequent testing for the coronavirus, have also been difficult.Though clay has long been his best surface, he did not reach a final in his four clay-court events this year, losing in the first round of the French Open after failing to hold a two-set lead over Pablo Andujar.“I still hope I can bounce back stronger than before,” Thiem said after that defeat. “But right now I don’t know when that moment is coming.”It won’t be on grass, long his weakest surface. In his opening round in Majorca on Tuesday, Thiem retired after feeling acute pain in his right wrist when leading Adrian Mannarino 5-2.After a magnetic resonance imaging scan in Majorca was inconclusive, he flew to Barcelona for further tests and to consult with Angel Ruiz-Cotorro, the Spanish doctor who has long treated Nadal. Ruiz-Cotorro helped Nadal recover from a left wrist injury in 2016 that forced him to retire from the French Open and miss Wimbledon.Wrist problems have become increasingly common in professional tennis because of the power and extreme grips being employed on groundstrokes. Juan Martin del Potro and Kei Nishikori, leading men’s players, have both missed extensive periods of competition on tour after wrist surgery.In an announcement on Thursday, Thiem’s management team said Thiem had been diagnosed with “a detachment of the posterior sheath of the ulnar side of the right wrist” and would wear a wrist splint for five weeks before beginning rehabilitation. The ulnar side of the wrist is nearest the pinkie finger. The sheath is the soft tissue that surrounds a tendon.It is unclear when Thiem will return to the court and unclear whether he will be able to defend his title at this year’s U.S. Open, which begins on Aug. 30.“I’m going to do everything the doctors say in order to recover as quickly as possible,” Thiem said in a statement. “They’ve informed me that I might be out for several weeks, but I will do my best to be back on court soon.” More

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      It’s Novak Djokovic’s Wimbledon. Don’t Roll Your Eyes.

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      The fiery star’s march toward history could force his detractors into an uncomfortable position: giving him his due.At first glance, this year’s Wimbledon, returning after the coronavirus pandemic shut down the world’s most famed tennis tournament in 2020, looks to be a diminished affair.No Rafael Nadal. After a bruising defeat to Novak Djokovic in the semifinals of the French Open, Nadal withdrew from Wimbledon, citing a need to heal.No Naomi Osaka. She announced last week that she would continue her hiatus to care for her mental health.Roger Federer will stride again on Centre Court, but he is nearly 40 and still shaking the rust from an injured knee. As time passes, so do the chances that Serena Williams will make another winning run.But Djokovic will be there, fresh from victory at Roland Garros and taking dead aim at the record books. Winning Wimbledon, which begins next Monday, would give him his 20th major title, tying him at long last with Federer and Nadal. It would also keep alive his quest to win four majors in a single year, the Grand Slam, something not achieved on the men’s side in 52 years.He sits now on the precipice of history, which creates a bind for his many stubborn detractors: Ignore and deride his stirring march, or finally give the fiery and efficient Serb his just due.Here’s why the haters, and those simply unmoved by his ascent, should give Djokovic reconsideration.His minimalist approach redefines tennis mastery.In a sport that breathes aesthetics, that lives on the awe-inspiring flow of points and balletic movement of its most outstanding practitioners, Djokovic’s pared-down approach is as divisive as Rothko’s color blocks.More than perhaps anyone in tennis history, Djokovic has refined the foundational core of the game — preparation, balance, weight shifts, footwork.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesFederer has Rembrandt’s flair: all those baroque swings and gracefully artistic approaches. Nadal’s physical, looping groundstrokes recall a heavyweight boxer’s pounding left hooks.But Djokovic’s game has its beauty. No top player has ever been as flexible, as able, on every surface to twist and bend and turn an outright mad-dash defensive sprint into a sudden attack. More than perhaps anyone in tennis history, Djokovic has refined the foundational core of the game — preparation, balance, weight shifts, footwork.He is a minimalist, spare and unencumbered by the need for showy flair. Is there an eye-catching aesthetic to that? You bet.He’s not a robot. He’s Houdini.There are too many slashes at Djokovic on the internet to count. They say he’s a machine. A robot. Nothing more than the world’s most expansive squash wall.Hogwash.Yes, he wins … and wins, and wins. Over the last decade, nobody has done more of that in tennis. But there is nothing predictable about how Djokovic goes about it. There are all-out, percussive beat downs — blurs of brilliance that mix power and defense and deftness — as in his straight-sets demolition of Nadal in the final of the 2019 Australian Open.There are also vivid displays of guts, grit and staying power. His recent Roland Garros title was all about that. But remember, too, the six-hour, five-set marathon against Nadal to win the Australian Open in 2012. And, of course, the comeback from two match points down to nip Federer in the epic Wimbledon final of 2019.Don’t forget 2010 and 2011, when Djokovic twice rose from the ashes to knock off Federer in the semifinals at the U.S. Open, beating back two match points in both cases. In 2011, Djokovic not only came back from two sets down, he saved the first match point he faced with a from-the-heels forehand return that rocketed past his rival and stung the line for a clean winner.Federer promptly wilted, losing every remaining game, drooping off as if disgusted by the audaciousness of his opponent.If you think a profound penchant for Houdini-like escapes is boring, well, maybe you’re beyond convincing.Djokovic’s flaws redeem him.Yes, he can erupt, shattering rackets, barking like a petulant child at himself, his coaches, umpires and peers. At his temperamental nadir, the 2020 U.S. Open, he struck a ball in anger that hit a lineswoman, leading to his default from the tournament.At his most heedless, he tried to hold tournaments last year in Serbia and Croatia during one of the worst periods of the pandemic. The exhibitions were canceled after he and other top players came down with the coronavirus.Djokovic has proved himself all too human in the best, worst and most searching ways. He does not hide from it. Despite the myriad clips of him raging on the court or appearing tone deaf off it — as in April when he said he did not think coronavirus vaccinations should be mandatory on the ATP Tour — his journey has always been public facing.His flaws, and the openness with which he reveals his interior life, make him more interesting than his near-perfect, more restrained peers.Yes, Djokovic can erupt, shattering rackets, barking like a petulant child at himself, umpires and his coaches, as he did during the 2018 U.S. Open. Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressWithout him, tennis would be a monotonous duopoly.For years, men’s tennis seemed defined by a single rivalry: Federer versus Nadal. Two great champions, two contrasting styles.Their lasting connection came to define this era of the sport. Then Djokovic barged and bullied his way in. He is the third wheel, different from Federer and Nadal in almost every way, including the fact that he does not hail from well-to-do Switzerland or Spain, but from an Eastern European country many fans cannot find on a map.For his haters, all of this is a bitter pill to swallow, one they must choke down with frequency.Djokovic now holds the upper hand in head-to-head wins over both rivals. Since 2011, he has captured 18 major titles, seven more than Nadal and 14 more than Federer in that span.After winning this year’s Australian Open, a newspaper headline summed up tennis’s uncomfortable truth: Djokovic might be the greatest of them all.If a rested Federer can stir the old grass-court magic, maybe we get the title bout everyone wants: a rematch of the heart-pounding 2019 All England Club final.Novak Djokovic will find himself in a familiar spot, facing a boisterous crowd intent as much on Federer winning as on seeing the Serb crumpled in defeat.Should recent history hold, Djokovic will raise the champion’s trophy again, another rebuke to the holdouts who refuse to embrace one of the most exciting champions in all of sport.Wimbledon diminished? Not quite. More

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      Naomi Osaka Withdraws From Wimbledon but Will Play in Tokyo Olympics

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      She had withdrawn from the French Open in May, citing mental health issues, and had said her playing calendar was undetermined.Naomi Osaka will not play in Wimbledon this month but will compete at the Tokyo Olympics, her agent said on Thursday.Osaka’s agent, Stuart Duguid, confirmed that she would skip the grasscourt Grand Slam tournament that begins on June 28 but would play at the Olympics, scheduled to take place from July 23 to Aug. 8.Duguid said in a text message: “Naomi won’t be playing Wimbledon this year. She is taking some personal time with friends and family. She will be ready for the Olympics and is excited to play in front of her home fans.”Osaka, the world’s No. 2 player who competes for Japan but lives in the United States, withdrew from the French Open last month before the second round after being fined $15,000 for skipping mandatory post-match news conferences.When she withdrew in Paris, Osaka announced on Instagram and Twitter that she would “take some time away from the court.”She explained that she had experienced “long bouts of depression” since winning the 2018 U.S. Open and often had “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the news media.Before the French Open, she had announced on social media that she would not speak with the media during the tournament to protect her mental health and to avoid questions that might make her doubt herself. The Grand Slam rules require players to give a post-match news conference if requested and when Osaka skipped her news conference after her first-round victory, she was fined by tournament officials and warned of further fines and potential expulsion from the tournament if she continued to break the rules.She chose to withdraw instead. “I never wanted to be a distraction, and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer,” she wrote in her announcement.But she also called for consultation with the tour to “discuss ways we can make things better for the players, press and fans.”Sally Bolton, Wimbledon’s chief executive, told the BBC on Thursday that Wimbledon officials had communicated with Osaka’s team in “the last few weeks” and that the tournament was reviewing its media policies in consultation with “not just the players, but the media and all those engaged in that space.”As in Paris and most other tournaments in recent months, news conferences and one-on-one interviews will be virtual during Wimbledon because of pandemic restrictions.Osaka, 23, has won four Grand Slam singles titles, all on hardcourts. She has had limited success at Wimbledon, reaching the third round in 2017 and 2018 and losing in the first round in 2019. The tournament was canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus.Osaka’s career grass-court record in singles is 11-9, a significant contrast with her career hardcourt record of 119-51. More

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      Rafael Nadal Will Skip Wimbledon and Tokyo Olympics

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      The Spanish star said a short turnaround between the French Open and Wimbledon did not allow enough time for his body to recover.Rafael Nadal, a 20-time Grand Slam tournament winner, will not go for No. 21 at Wimbledon this year, he announced on Thursday. He also pulled out of the Olympics, and in doing so became the latest top athlete to suggest that compressed sports schedules after the pandemic were asking too much of their biggest stars.“Hi all, I have decided not to participate at this year’s Championships at Wimbledon and the Olympic Games in Tokyo,” he wrote in a series of posts on Twitter. “It’s never an easy decision to take but after listening to my body and discuss it with my team I understand that it is the right decision.”“The goal is to prolong my career and continue to do what makes me happy, that is to compete at the highest level and keep fighting for those professional and personal goals at the maximum level of competition.”The fact that there has only been 2 weeks between RG and Wimbledon, didn’t make it easier on my body to recuperate after the always demanding clay court season. They have been two months of great effort and the decision I take is focused looking at the mid and long term.— Rafa Nadal (@RafaelNadal) June 17, 2021
      His withdrawal came a day after the basketball star LeBron James blamed the N.B.A.’s compressed schedule for a string of injuries to some of its biggest names, and as coaches and medical experts in Europe were warning about the physical demands on players competing in the monthlong European Championship.Nadal has struggled with injuries during his career, and Wimbledon is played on grass, a surface that is not his favorite. (He has won there only twice, and now will have missed the event three times since 2009.) The Olympics in Tokyo will be played on hardcourts.Nadal most recently skipped last year’s U.S. Open in New York, citing concerns about the coronavirus.Nadal cited the short turnaround between the French Open and Wimbledon as the reason for his withdrawal, saying it would not give him enough time to recuperate.Nadal, 35, is coming off a memorable French Open semifinal against Novak Djokovic last week. In a bid to win the tournament for the 14th time, Nadal won the first set before eventually losing in four. Djokovic went on to win the tournament.Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer, 39, are locked in a battle to amass the most career Grand Slam singles titles. Nadal and Federer have 20 and Djokovic has 19. No other player has more than 14.Nadal has played in three previous Olympics, winning the singles gold medal in Beijing in 2008. In 2016, he carried the flag of Spain at the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro. More