Trevisan, Martina (1993- )

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    French Open: Ukraine’s Kostyuk Booed After No Handshake With Belarusian Sabalenka

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    Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine had the crowd on her side initially, but then was booed after she did not shake hands with Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus after losing to her in straight sets.The moment the women’s singles draw for the French Open pitted Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus against Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine in the opening round, there was no doubt the start of the tournament would produce some fireworks.It did that and more.The score line showed a decisive 6-3, 6-2 win for Sabalenka, the reigning Australian Open champion, who is the second seed in Paris and one of the hottest players in the world.But what did not show up in the score line was the behavior of the morning crowd at Roland Garros’ main court, Philippe Chatrier. Spectators urged on Kostyuk at the beginning of the match, then rained boos on her when she left the court without shaking hands with Sabalenka. Kostyuk has refused to shake the hand of any player from Russia or Belarus.And then there was Sabalenka, who on Sunday came as close as she ever has to condemning the Russian invasion, in a rare statement of defiance by an athlete from Belarus or Russia.“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody,” Sabalenka said at a news conference after her win. “How can we support the war? Nobody, normal people, will never support it.“This is like one plus one, it’s two,” she continued, saying if she could stop the war she would. “Unfortunately, it’s not in our hands.”But shortly afterward, Kostyuk dismissed Sabalenka’s sentiments as empty words.“I feel like you should ask these players who would they want to win the war, because if you ask this question, I’m not so sure these people will say that they want Ukraine,” Kostyuk said.She added that Sabalenka should speak for herself and not for other players from Russia and Belarus.“I personally know athletes from tennis that support the war,” she said without identifying any.After Sabalenka said nobody supports the war in Ukraine, Kostyuk, above, said the question should be, “who would they want to win the war?”Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesThe impact of the war in Ukraine on tennis has been constant and never-ending. Fifteen months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war shows no end in sight. (Belarus has provided a staging ground for Russian soldiers, and its leader has said the country would join the war if attacked.)Belarus and Russia have been banned from team tennis competitions, and their flags and country names have been banished from the sport. The moves have left players from Ukraine unsatisfied and players from Russia and Belarus feeling like pariahs.The tension on Sunday was in stark contrast to the otherwise celebratory feel of the first day of the French Open. It is often one of the most joyous days in tennis, especially with the sky sparkling with that special shade of bright Parisian blue. There is no red like the red of the clay courts of Roland Garros, no crowd that looks as effortlessly elegant as this one: the Panama hats, the silk spring dresses, the aperol spritzes in fancy glasses in seemingly every other hand.The absence of the injured star Rafael Nadal, whose record 14 men’s singles titles have made him synonymous with this event, is weirding everyone out. But as Nadal has said, tennis moves fast and waits for no one. The rousing roars whenever a French player was in action echoed across the grounds as loudly as they ever have. As Kostyuk and Sabalenka made clear, though, the war may very well make this tournament and tennis summer unlike any before it. On Monday, Elina Svitolina, among the most successful players Ukraine has produced, will make her Grand Slam return from maternity leave, against Martina Trevisan of Italy. Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine, whose grandparents had to leave their home and whose parents’ home was bombed, will play Diane Parry of France on Tuesday in her first match after her emotional run to the Italian Open final this month.“Everyone is in a very different situation,” Kostyuk said in an interview Sunday. “Whoever needs a comfort, I’m always there. We have a very good group.”Kostyuk, though, was the one who seemed to need some comforting Sunday in the moments after her match. On the final point, she walked to shake hands with the chair umpire and then directly to her courtside seat. Sabalenka shook hands with the chair umpire, too, then stood for a moment watching Kostyuk gather her belongings as the restless noise from the crowd began to rise.Sabalenka said she initially thought the boos were for her but then realized they were for Kostyuk.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesSabalenka said she initially thought the boos were for her, but then realized they were for Kostyuk, undeservedly so, she added, explaining that she understands why the Ukrainian players do not want to be seen shaking hands with a Belarusian or a Russian.Kostyuk said she was shaken by the reaction, which was so different from a supportive reception in the United States this year when she refused to shake the hand of a Russian opponent.“I want to see people react to it in 10 years when the war is over,” she said. “I think they will not feel really nice about what they did.”Kostyuk last visited Ukraine in March to see her father and grandfather. She traveled there after the Miami Open. The journey required four flights to get to Poland by way of her temporary home in Monte Carlo, a two-and-a-half-hour train ride to the border, and then a six-hour car ride. She spent five days there, struggling to sleep amid the distant sounds of bomb-carrying drones that her relatives have somehow learned to live with. She said she still has not recovered from the trip.She woke up at 5 a.m. Sunday and saw a series of alerts on her phone about the latest drone attack on Kyiv, the largest of the war. She said she tried not to look at her phone in the overnight hours, but when she saw all the alerts she could not stop the urge to see what had happened.A few hours later, she was at Roland Garros preparing for her match with Sabalenka. To her surprise, she said, for the first time since the start of the war ahead of a match against a Russian or Belarusian, she was not focused on the nationality of her opponent. It was refreshing, she said, and it made her think that a day would come when a war would no longer intrude on her chosen occupation, that every tennis match would be nothing more and nothing less than that.One day perhaps, but certainly not Sunday. More

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      Coco Gauff Reaches French Open Final, Will Face Iga Swiatek

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      Gauff and Swiatek each advanced in their semifinals Thursday by winning in straight sets.PARIS — It is easy to be in a rush when you reach the fourth round of Wimbledon at age 15, beating one of your idols, Venus Williams, in your opening match. It is easy to be in a hurry when the sponsors and the platform are already in place, and you have been hearing from experts and the voice inside your own head that you have what it takes to be a champion.But tennis is a trickier game than most: a blend of the physical, the technical and the psychological with so much time to think between points and serves and so many tournaments, time changes and defeats to navigate.Coco Gauff, even if she is only 18, has had to be more patient than she planned. But the young American’s potential and performances under pressure are beginning to converge. On Saturday, she will play in her first Grand Slam singles final, facing the No. 1 seed, Iga Swiatek, at the French Open for the title and the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen.“There’s a fine line between believing in yourself and almost pushing yourself too much,” Gauff said on Thursday after her semifinal victory, 6-3, 6-1, over Martina Trevisan, sounding, as usual, rather older than her years.Gauff, the youngest Grand Slam singles finalist since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004 at age 17, was comparing her expectations with those she had a season ago, when she reached the quarterfinals of the French Open. She found herself unable to manage the pressure and the critical points and flung her racket across the clay in frustration while losing to Barbora Krejcikova, the unseeded eventual champion.“At that moment, I wanted it too much,” she said. “Whereas now, I definitely want it. Yes, who wouldn’t? But also, it’s not going to be the end of the world if it doesn’t happen for me.”The odds, make no mistake, are still significantly against her. Gauff faces the toughest task available in women’s tennis.Swiatek, 21, extended her winning streak to 34 matches in Thursday’s first semifinal by overwhelming the 20th-seeded Daria Kasatkina, 6-2, 6-1, in just over an hour.That score and breakneck pace have been typical for Swiatek, the powerful and increasingly imposing Polish star. She has not lost a match since February and has beaten Gauff in their two previous matches in straight sets: winning, 7-6 (3), 6-3, on red clay in the semifinals of last year’s Italian Open and winning, 6-3, 6-1, on a hardcourt in the round of 16 at this year’s Miami Open in March.“She’s definitely the favorite going into the match on paper,” Gauff said. “But I think that going in, I’m just going to play free and play my best tennis. I think in a Grand Slam final, anything can happen.”Gauff during her match against Martina Trevisan of Italy.James Hill for The New York TimesGauff’s ability to extend points with her speed and defensive skills could certainly force Swiatek into more errors than usual. Under the guidance of Diego Moyano, the veteran coach who joined her team in April, Gauff has improved her tactics, according to her father, Corey Gauff, who has been her main coach since childhood.“Playing to her strengths means not rushing all the time,” Corey Gauff said in an interview on Thursday night. He added: “He’s able to communicate to her how it makes him feel on the other side of the net when she does something. He’s trying to get her to understand why she’s making the decision and what the impact is. And he’s been pretty effective compared to dad. We dads tend to be command and control, and that doesn’t always work.”But clay remains Swiatek’s favorite canvas. She won the French Open in 2020 at age 19. Gauff lost in the second round of that tournament to Trevisan, looking increasingly distraught as her double fault count rose. She finished with 19. On Thursday, she finished with just two, her lowest total of this Roland Garros.“She’s learning to manage the emotions and understanding that double faults are a part of the game and that you don’t need to overreact,” Corey Gauff said.Though Coco Gauff was only 4-3 on clay this year before Roland Garros, she has not lost a set in six matches. “I’m going to be honest,” she said. “This year I hadn’t had the best results going into this. So it wasn’t expected at all, really.”Gauff graduated from year-round, online high school earlier this spring, celebrating her achievement with a photo taken in front of the Eiffel Tower before the French Open. Corey Gauff believes that has helped her fly higher in Paris.“That release when you finish high school or college is real,” he said. “She’s always had work to turn in, and it’s always in the back of your mind. I feel like this is the first tournament she’s played with no homework.”But she is still following current events, and on Thursday, after defeating Trevisan, she walked across the red clay for the now-customary signing of the television camera glass and decided, quite spontaneously she explained, to make a statement about last month’s elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed.“Peace. End Gun violence,” Gauff wrote, drawing a heart next to her first name.“That was just a message for the people back at home to watch and for people who are all around the world to watch,” she said, adding: “Hopefully it gets into the heads of people in office to hopefully change things.”Gauff said she was influenced by athletes such as the former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick and her fellow tennis star Naomi Osaka, who have been outspoken on social and cultural issues. But Gauff’s family also made it clear to her from an early age that she could have a reach far beyond the court.“My dad told me I could change the world with my racket,” she said. “He didn’t mean that by like just playing tennis. He meant speaking out on issues like this. The first thing my dad said to me after I got off court: ‘I’m proud of you, and I love what you wrote on the camera.’”Corey Gauff said he first told his daughter of the influence she could have when she was 6 or 7.“I am glad she’s being aware of what’s going on around her,” he said. “She has a brother who is 8 years old and is in elementary school. It’s not hard for it to hit home. I’m glad she is aware and bringing the attention and empathy to it. She’s not just hitting the tennis ball. She’s a global citizen.”Still, tennis is certainly a focus at Roland Garros. Gauff, seeded 18th, is guaranteed to rise to a career-high No. 13 and could rise as high as No. 8 if she defeats Swiatek. She is not just aiming for the singles title. She and her partner, Jessica Pegula, are into the semifinals of the women’s doubles and will face their American compatriots Taylor Townsend and Madison Keys on Friday.Gauff’s younger brothers — 8-year-old Cameron and 14-year-old Codey — are scheduled to arrive in Paris on Friday morning after traveling from the family’s home in Delray Beach, Fla.“They are coming over for the singles final and hopefully the doubles final as well,” Corey Gauff said.Cameron’s birthday is on Sunday.“He’s coming to Paris as an 8-year-old and leaving as a 9-year-old,” Corey Gauff said with a chuckle.Cameron’s big sister has a chance to leave as a Grand Slam champion. More

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      Coco Gauff Advances to French Open Semifinals

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      After graduating from online high school, Coco Gauff is in a new phase of her tennis career, and she is marking the occasion at the French Open in her favorite city.She has long had precocious power and speed, which she underscored by reaching the fourth round of Wimbledon at age 15. Three years later, she is playing with less exuberance and more patience. And on Tuesday, on the same Philippe Chatrier Court where she lost her cool a year ago amid errors and clear frustration, she kept it together impressively, defeating Sloane Stephens, 7-5, 6-2, to reach her first Grand Slam singles semifinal.Gauff, 18 and seeded No. 18, will face Martina Trevisan, an unseeded Italian, who will also be playing in her first major semifinal. Trevisan defeated 17th-seeded Leylah Fernandez, 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-3, on Tuesday.“I feel so happy right now; words cannot explain,” Gauff said in her on-court interview. “Last year in the quarterfinals was a tough loss for me, and I think that match really made me stronger, to better prepare for moments like today and the moments I will face in the next round.”A year ago, Gauff faced Barbora Krejcikova, a then-unseeded doubles specialist, in the quarterfinals at Roland Garros and lost, 7-6 (6), 6-3. She failed to convert five set points in the opening set, made unforced errors by the bunch and uncharacteristically destroyed her racket with three angry blows to the red clay as she fell behind in the second set.Krejcikova went on to win the title, and Gauff had to work through her regrets: trying to separate the player from the person, an approach she shared with the crowd after her victory over Stephens.“I believe in myself, but I think when I was young, like even last year, I was kind of too focused on trying to fulfill other people’s expectations,” she said. “I think you should just enjoy life. I know no matter how good or bad my career is, I think I’m a great person.”Gauff, who is from Delray Beach, Fla., has long been identified as a potential superstar, and with good reason. At 13, she was the youngest U.S. Open girls’ singles finalist in history. She won the French Open girls’ title at age 14, a year before her breakthrough run in 2019 as a qualifier at Wimbledon, where she defeated one of her role models, Venus Williams, in her first main-draw match at the All England Club.Unlike some teen prodigies, Gauff did not soar to the top of women’s tennis in a hurry. Her progress has not been linear, but she is in new territory now in the final four of the French Open on a gritty surface that perhaps suits her best.She can extend points like few players in the game with her quickness and defensive skills, and can also finish them with her terrific two-handed backhand and increasingly with her forehand, long her weaker wing. She was far from perfect against Stephens, making 18 winners to 23 unforced errors, including six double faults. But she played the critical points better, rarely going for a winner from a compromised position. Instead, she patiently worked her way to the opening while the unseeded Stephens struggled to maintain her consistency, mixing forehand winners with untimely mistakes and several gaffes at the net.Stephens, a former U.S. Open champion, has had great success on clay, reaching the French Open final in 2018, where she lost to Simona Halep. But she had not won a clay-court match this season before arriving unseeded at Roland Garros.“I would have liked to play better today, but that doesn’t take anything away from the work she has put in obviously to reach this point,” Stephens said of Gauff.Stephens, 29, is now based in the Boston area, but she was long based in South Florida, like Gauff and her family, and knew them well enough to attend Gauff’s 10th birthday party. She has long been a role model for Gauff, and she defeated her in the second round of the U.S. Open last year in their only previous meeting on tour.“I’m glad today was different,” Gauff said. “Honestly, I just told myself to stay mentally there. I knew there were some shots I probably should have made and some shots she gets in the court that probably no other player gets in the court.” More

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      Leylah Fernandez and Coco Gauff Advance at the French Open

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      She outlasted Amanda Anisimova, a hard-hitting American, showing the kind of big-stage composure that got her to the final of last year’s U.S. Open.PARIS — It is a new season and a different surface, but Leylah Fernandez, still tenacious and still a teenager, is back in the deep end of another Grand Slam tournament.She needed all of her resourcefulness and upbeat energy on this unseasonably chilly Sunday afternoon at Roland Garros.Amanda Anisimova, a 20-year-old American seeded 27th, is one of the biggest pure hitters in women’s tennis, capable of generating phenomenal pace with a seemingly casual swipe of the racket.She has a new model this season, which has helped her control her easy power. The 17th-seeded Fernandez spent nearly two hours digging in the corners and lunging for returns, but in the end, the counterpuncher beat the puncher 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 as Fernandez’s quickness, consistency and yes-I-can positivity made the small difference as she advanced to her first French Open quarterfinal.“She’s very offensive,” Fernandez said. “I just tried to be as offensive as her and just take my chances, and the balls went in today.”That is no coincidence at this stage. Fernandez, a 19-year-old Canadian, looks like a big-stage player and was part of perhaps the biggest surprise in tennis history when she and another unseeded teenager, Emma Raducanu, advanced to the U.S. Open final last year with Raducanu, a qualifier, winning in straight sets.The rest of the women’s field has certainly taken notice.“I’m thinking, especially if the U.S. Open taught us anything, that anybody can win on any day,” said Coco Gauff, an 18-year-old American who is seeded 18th at Roland Garros.Gauff played one of the better matches on Sunday, defeating No. 31 seed Elise Mertens 6-4, 6-0 to return to the French Open quarterfinals, where she lost last year to the eventual champion Barbora Krejcikova in an error-strewn match that Gauff ranks as one of the biggest disappointments of her short career because of the way she managed the most significant points.“I think that was the biggest lesson I learned last year in my quarterfinal,” Gauff said. “I had a couple of set points, and I think I freaked out when some of those points didn’t go my way. Today I didn’t freak out.”Instead, she gathered strength and showed increased patience on the clay, often engaging in long rallies with Mertens before going for winners (or hitting a lunging backhand around the net post).Her work on herself and with her new coach, Diego Moyano, seems to be paying dividends, and Gauff will next face one of Moyano’s former pupils, Sloane Stephens, in an all-American, intergenerational duel.Stephens, 29, is unseeded this year but has long thrived on clay and was a French Open finalist in 2018. On Sunday, she overwhelmed Jil Teichmann 6-2, 6-0. Stephens defeated Gauff 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of last year’s U.S. Open when they played for the first time on tour. But that was hardly the first meeting. Both are based in South Florida, and Stephens attended Gauff’s 10th birthday party and practiced with Gauff for the first time when Gauff was 12 and already planning on facing Stephens on much bigger stages.“Today I didn’t freak out,” Coco Gauff said of her straight-sets win on Sunday.Yoan Valat/EPA, via Shutterstock“I had a very competitive mind-set since I was a little girl,” Gauff said. “Yes, I looked up to her and all that, but I knew that I was going to be playing against her.”For those who followed the dueling Cinderella stories, Fernandez and Raducanu will be forever linked, but though both were seeded here in Paris, they have not been on parallel paths since New York.Neither has come close to taking the regular tour by storm. That has been reserved for a player who is only slightly older: the new No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who at age 20 has won 31 straight matches and remains a prohibitive favorite at Roland Garros, where she was a surprise teenage champion herself in 2020.But while Raducanu has signed a series of major endorsement deals and shuffled coaches, she has yet to get past the quarterfinals of a regular tour event since the U.S. Open. Fernandez has often lost early as well but she did defend her singles title in Monterrey, Mexico, in March and is now making her best run in Paris with a fine chance to go further considering that she will face the unseeded Italian Martina Trevisan in a rare quarterfinal between left-handers at Roland Garros.Sloane Stephens will face Gauff, her fellow American, in the quarterfinals.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFernandez said she put too much pressure on herself to succeed after the U.S. Open final.“I just wanted to be more offensive, more aggressive and improve my game as fast as possible,” she said. “I think I just understood that there is a process, and it’s still a long year, a very long year, and I just need to calm myself down, calm my mind down. And just accept that things are going to be tough, things are going to go sideways in a match, in a practice. And just understand that I’ve got more tools in my toolbox that I can use and just find solutions.”That last sentence sounds like she has been studying the Rafael Nadal phrase book, and there is indeed a touch of Nadal in Fernandez on court. She, too, is a speedy lefty with unorthodox technique. Nadal has his bolo-whip finish on the forehand; Fernandez has extreme grips of her own and often hits her two-handed backhand with her hands far apart.There are the intangibles, too: the in-the-moment combativeness; the resolute walk between points and the ingrained rituals. Anisimova might want to jot down a few notes considering her lingering tendency to get negative. She often grimaced at her errors on Sunday, mocking her own shots and flinging her racket across the red clay in frustration late in the final set to the sound of a few scattered boos from stands that were never more than half full on the main Chatrier Court.Fernandez seemed like a more composed and focused presence. Even if her game was a flickering flame, her commitment was not.“Every time I step out on the court I still have something to prove,” she said. “I still have that mind-set I’m the underdog. I’m still young. I still have a lot to show to the people, to the public so that they can just enjoy the tennis match.” More