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    Elina Svitolina’s Love Affair With Wimbledon Ends, but U.S. Open Awaits

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    Svitolina, the Ukrainian star who captured hearts in London and beyond, lost to Marketa Vondrousova on Thursday but will play on through the summer.One fan in Centre Court held the Ukrainian flag. Another yelled, “We love you, Elina.” The Ukrainian ambassador was there, too, cheering along with fans from Britain, the United States, Uganda, Bulgaria and more, for Elina Svitolina, the uncrowned sentimental champion of Wimbledon 2023.But in the end, the pressure of carrying the hopes of both her own nation and Wimbledon Nation wore her down. Despite the attempts of the crowd to bolster her spirit, Svitolina was unable to overcome Marketa Vondrousova, the 42nd-ranked player in the world, who beat her in straight sets on Thursday, leaving a palpable void in the tournament.“It’s a lot of responsibility, a lot of tension,” Svitolina conceded after the match. “I try to balance it as much as I can. But, yeah, sometimes it gets maybe too much.”Svitolina, who has been a flag-bearer both for Ukraine and for new mothers around the world, planned to depart Britain on Friday to reunite with her daughter and family. But revitalized by her triumph at Wimbledon, she will carry on through the summer and onward, drawing even more attention to her twin causes.“What she is doing is beautiful in so many ways,” said Phuma Yeni, a social care worker from London. “Everyone is rooting for her because she is so courageous.”Despite the attempts of the crowd to bolster her spirit, Svitolina was unable to overcome Marketa Vondrousova.During her semifinal loss, fans atop Henman Hill, the mound next to Court 1 where fans gather to watch matches on a giant video screen, fell almost silent. They cheered and clapped when Svitolina did well, but it became clear early on that she was in a desperate fight, and a sullen cloud of gloom descended over the grand tennis campus.“It’s very sad,” said Valia Ivanova, a civil servant and tennis fan from London, by way of Bulgaria, who normally supports Novak Djokovic. “She has such a beautiful story, and everyone wanted her to win. Now, you can hear, it is just silent.”Svitolina has become a beacon for many people in her country and beyond for her outspoken support of Ukraine’s efforts to fight against the Russian invasion. She has used her celebrity, organizing tennis events and other activities to raise money for relief efforts, and has made public declarations decrying the invasion. She also drew attention to the cause by refusing to shake hands — as is customary after each match — with players from Russia and Belarus. The latter country provided support for the invasion.Svitolina said she had felt the support from the fans throughout her six matches here, and she thanked the tennis fans who had come to watch her in person and the millions more watching on television from her homeland and around the world. She specifically thanked the British people and government for their staunch support of Ukraine since the 2022 invasion, in providing both military assistance and sanctuary for refugees.“I’m really thankful for the crowd to support me, be there for me, and all Ukrainian people as well,” Svitolina said. “They support us quite a lot in different kind of ways, for a lot of Ukrainians who arrived here when the war started. Really thankful for all the people to support us in different levels.”Wimbledon, which barred Russian and Belarusian players from participating last year, relented this year and allowed them to play, but it does not recognize the countries they represent. Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador, watched Svitolina play from the Royal Box on Thursday, and she was not even aware of it until her postmatch news conference.“I’m really thankful for the crowd to support me, be there for me, and all Ukrainian people as well,” Svitolina said. Since the beginning of the tournament, the All England Club has provided tickets, transportation and food to over 1,000 Ukrainian refugees. The club would most likely have done so even if Svitolina had not been rampaging to a semifinal, but her success shone more light on the circumstances.“She is the story of the tournament,” said Sarah Sserwanga, a tennis fan from London who watched the match with her daughter, Zoe. “Everything she is doing has been so inspiring.”Many fans have also been inspired by Svitolina’s ability to play so well as a new mother. In October, she gave birth to a girl, Skai, and she returned to the tennis tour in April. Her husband, the professional tennis player Gaël Monfils, has been at home with the baby, along with both of the couple’s mothers. Svitolina has worked mostly alone here to charm and captivate the fans.Sserwanga, an executive, has two children, and was able to take six months off to care for them after each were born. Then it was back to work. She tried to imagine the challenges Svitolina had faced in coming back so soon and leaving her baby behind during her extended run here.“Your body can change, your emotions swirl, and you don’t know what is coming next sometimes,” Sserwanga said. “To have all that, plus playing for your country as she is, it is amazing. Simply amazing.”For the next several weeks, on hardcourts across North America, leading up to the U.S. Open, Svitolina will try to build on her success and perhaps convert it into her first final at a Grand Slam event.Before that, she was looking forward to the one thing she knew would cheer her up: seeing her daughter again. As tears welled in her eyes during her painful postmatch news conference, a smile broke through.“That will be the best part,” she said. More

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      Elina Svitolina Aims for a Wimbledon Singles Final Against Jabeur or Sabalenka

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      Svitolina, the Ukrainian player who has captivated Wimbledon fans, beat No. 1 Iga Swiatek and will play Marketa Vondrousova in a semifinal match Thursday.Ons Jabeur still cannot bring herself to watch last year’s Wimbledon final. Her loss to Elena Rybakina on Centre Court is still too raw, too depressing to offset any tactical value that Jabeur might squeeze out of relieving it all over again.But, she said with a smile, “I can watch today’s match.”Indeed, that will make great binge viewing for Jabeur, who was able to exact a measure of revenge from the third-seeded Rybakina, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1, in a quarterfinal on Centre Court Wednesday.She received no trophy for it, but it set up another Wimbledon rematch — this one against No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka, who beat Jabeur in the quarterfinal stage two years ago in straight sets. But much has changed since then, for both women.On the other side of the draw, Elina Svitolina, a wild-card entrant, will play the unseeded, but highly talented, Marketa Vondrousova for the other chance at the final.Svitolina and Jabeur are the clear audience favorites at Wimbledon. Jabeur, who is from Tunisia, is adored for her warm, engaging personality and for her trailblazing efforts as the first woman from Africa and the first from an Arabic-speaking country to reach a Grand Slam tournament final. She also reached the U.S. Open final later last summer.Svitolina, who beat No. 1 Iga Swiatek in their quarterfinal on Tuesday, has captivated fans around the world for her unflagging efforts to support and play on behalf of her native Ukraine. She also had a baby in October. Even Svitolina’s opponents cannot suppress their admiration for the outspoken Svitolina, who only returned to the tour in April, but has slashed her way through the draw to reach the final four.“She’s a superwoman,” Vondrousova said.Jabeur and Sabalenka together represent the power side of the draw, where, by chance, most of the better grass court players were assembled after the drawing. Rybakina, last year’s champion, said she thought the winner of Thursday’s duel between Sabalenka and Jabeur would eventually take home the trophy, and many would agree. Jabeur, in a moment of candid self-confidence, revealed she was one of them.Aryna Sabalenka defeated Madison Keys in a quarterfinal on Wednesday.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“I do believe our part is stronger than the other part,” Jabeur said. “But every Grand Slam final is a final, and you can change a lot of things.”It was hardly an affront to Svitolina and Vondrousova, but sometimes players seize upon the most innocuous slights to fuel an angry motivation. Jo Durie, the British former player and now a coach and broadcaster, said that in 1983, at the peak of Martina Navratilova’s power, she had once dared to declare publicly that she had a chance to beat the great champion.Durie made the comment when their Australian Open quarterfinal had been suspended by rain at one set apiece.“Martina was livid,” Durie recalled on Wednesday. “The next day she said to the press, ‘How dare Jo-Jo say that?’ We all have an ego in this sport, and we all have to use it at some point.”Durie said her words had been slightly distorted in news reports the following day. But sometimes the smallest things can be used to seek an advantage, and by Saturday’s final, Svitolina or Vondrousova may seek to uphold the honor of her side of the draw, should she play Jabeur.As popular as Svitolina has become, Durie warned that Vondrousova, the least known player still alive in the draw, could not be overlooked.After Vondrousova became a French Open finalist in 2019, her career was subsequently affected by injuries. But as a well-rounded left-handed player, she can befuddle opponents with her serve and a variety of shots, from soft and dicey to overpowering.“Wow, is she talented,” Durie said.Could this then be the stage where Svitolina’s captivating run comes to an end? Or, if she wins, will she end up facing Sabalenka, a powerful Belarusian player whose nationality makes her an enemy of sorts to Svitolina?Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 with Belarus’s logistical support, Svitolina has helped raise money for relief efforts in Ukraine and has declared that every match she plays is on behalf of her country. She has also said she will not shake hands with any players from Russia or Belarus, even if she likes them personally.Elina Svitolina reached a semifinal by upsetting No. 1 Iga Swiatek.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe matter surfaced in the fourth round when Svitolina defeated Victoria Azarenka, who is from Belarus. Azarenka and Svitolina are compatible personally, and Azarenka spoke out against the invasion when it began. Even though there was no handshake after that match, Azarenka gave Svitolina a thumbs-up salute. But fans booed Azarenka off the court — and it stunned her. Some seemingly booed because they misunderstood, blaming Azarenka for the snub. Others perhaps did so because of Azarenka’s nationality.“I think people also need to know what’s going on and why there is no handshake between Ukrainians, Russian and Belarusian players,” Sabalenka said after she had beaten Madison Keys, 6-2, 6-4, on Wednesday. “I really hope that nobody else will face this reaction from the crowd.”More pressing, of course, is her meeting with Jabeur in their power semifinal. Sabalenka understands that Jabeur, while known for her slices, her drop shots and her off-speed game, can also unload from the baseline when necessary. Sabalenka called Jabeur’s game “tricky” and noted that her opponent’s goal, to become the first Arab and African woman to win a Grand Slam event, was providing her with enhanced motivation.But Jabeur has other forces driving her, too, similar to what spurred her on Wednesday against Rybakina. Jabeur did not watch their encounter from last year, but walking onto the court felt eerily similar. So to shake things up, she took the chair on the other side from the one she had sat in last year.In a similar way, she is now out to erase her quarterfinal loss to Sabalenka here in 2021.“I’m going to prepare and take my revenge from two years ago,” Jabeur said, again with a smile. More

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      Elina Svitolina Of Ukraine One Match Away From Wimbledon Final

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      Svitolina, a new mother who has said she is playing to give strength to her people back home in Ukraine, is one match away from an improbable and inspiring spot in the Wimbledon final.It is time to consider whether having a child, and spending a year away from the sport to raise money to help her compatriots back home in Ukraine, have made Elina Svitolina an even better tennis player.She says they have, and there is no reason not to believe her.Svitolina’s improbable run at Wimbledon rolled on in grand fashion on Tuesday. Two days after Svitolina, a new mother who needed a wild card to get into the tournament, beat the former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in an emotional and dramatic triumph, Svitolina beat the current world No. 1, Iga Swiatek.Svitolina, playing with pluck, steeliness and a higher purpose, matched the hard-hitting Swiatek shot for shot, and then some, on the most hallowed court in the sport, sending joy through a crowd that had been with her since her first shot of a tournament that she had thought would be over for her by now.When the match was over, Svitolina put a hand over her face, hugged Swiatek from across the net and then raised two arms to the crowd in a shrug of disbelief.“I don’t know what is happening right now,” Svitolina told them moments later.Some things are hard to explain.Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine 18 months ago, Svitolina announced that she was taking a break from professional tennis because she was pregnant with her first child with her husband, Gaël Monfils, the veteran tour pro and tennis showman from France.Tennis was barely a priority then anyway. Her pregnancy was at the top of the list, and so was raising money for war relief efforts in her homeland. Her foundation has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since the start of the war.In October, she and Monfils announced the birth of their daughter, Skai. Not long afterward, Svitolina began training and practicing for her return to the WTA Tour, in March at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.Svitolina, right, beat the current world No. 1, Iga Swiatek, at Wimbledon on Tuesday.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesIt didn’t go well at first, as she lost six of her first seven matches, but Svitolina — a graceful and deceptively powerful player who had been ranked as high as third in the world as recently as 2019 — slowly started to regain her feel for the ball and for the competition.And she made it clear, especially during the French Open in Paris, that tennis was no longer about money or ranking points. It was about trying to bring some joy to the people of Ukraine.She did plenty of that as she surged into the quarterfinals at Wimbledon. Still, she had made it past the second round there just twice in eight tries and had not competed on grass since 2021 until last month. Her hopes were so low that she bought tickets to a Harry Styles concert last week, assuming she would be free.She wasn’t, and after her win over Swiatek on Tuesday, she said she did not think she was going to take the pop star up on his offer to invite her to a concert anytime soon.“It was very sweet from him,” she said of Styles’s offer. “Hopefully one day I can go.”It will have to wait at least until after her semifinal match on Thursday against Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic, who beat Jessica Pegula of the United States in three sets. A win over Vondrousova might very well set up a showdown in the finals with a player from Belarus (Aryna Sabalenka) or with Elena Rybakina, the defending champion, who grew up in Russia but represents Kazakhstan. Sabalenka and Rybakina play their quarterfinal matches Wednesday and are heavy favorites.That is down the road, though, and would surely bring tension similar to that in Svitolina’s fourth-round win over Azarenka. Players from Russia and Belarus were prohibited from playing in the tournament last year, and while they have been mostly warmly received, Svitolina and the other players from Ukraine have refused to shake hands with players from those countries.Azarenka was booed off the court — unfairly so, Svitolina said — after Svitolina had beaten her Sunday, even though Azarenka gave Svitolina a thumbs-up after the final point. Last year, Azarenka offered to play in a charity fund-raiser to benefit war relief efforts, though players from Ukraine told her not to. But the boos still rained down.Svitolina announced that she was taking a break from professional tennis in 2022 because she was pregnant with her first child with her husband, Gaël Monfils.Pool photo by Daniel ColeSwiatek, who is from Poland and is a staunch critic of the invasion, has done more than any player not from Ukraine to help war relief efforts.But there was no shortage of healthy tension in Tuesday’s match. Swiatek, a four-time Grand Slam tournament champion, appeared to be in control early and even served for the first set at 5-4. She then missed on a series of tentative and wild forehands and first serves. Svitolina kept making her shots on tight wires, clearing the net by mere inches, time and again for the rest of the afternoon.She won 16 of the final 18 points in the first set. As the roof closed with rain on the way, a panicked Swiatek headed to the corner of the court, begging her team for answers.“I felt like I’m making pretty much the same mistakes,” Swiatek said. “I wanted some tip, what they think I should actually focus on. Sometimes when something is not working, it’s hard to find a reason because there are maybe a few reasons.”The biggest reason of all was Svitolina, who said later that she had been playing with a different sort of inspiration. She had spent parts of the last two days watching videos of her child in Ukraine watching her matches on a phone. She knows what her victories mean and where they fit in the grand scheme of things.All of that has a power.“War made me stronger and also made me mentally stronger,” she said. “I don’t take difficult situations as like a disaster, you know? There are worse things in life. I’m just more calmer.”Have no doubt: She desperately wants to win, but her experience of the pressure has changed.“I look at the things a bit differently,” she said.After she walked off the court, she placed a call over FaceTime to Monfils, who — along with her mother and his — is taking care of their daughter at one of their homes. She said Skai hadn’t talked to her much. She was distracted by a serving of ice cream.Can she win this tournament and the biggest prize of all?She insisted, as she had after the Azarenka match, that she wasn’t meant to go this far. She isn’t letting her husband come, because he has not been here yet, and she is not messing with her routine now. Who needs him anyway, when she has another purpose and another power, especially against those opponents from Russia and Belarus?“Each time I play against them, it’s big motivation, big responsibility,” she said. “Right now it’s very, very far. It seems very close, but it’s very far from this.” More

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      Tension Overshadows the Tennis Between Sabalenka and Svitolina

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      Players from Ukraine do not shake hands with players from Russia and Belarus. Aryna Sabalenka waited at the net anyway.In hindsight, this French Open was probably destined to come down to a moment like the one that unfolded Tuesday.For 10 days in Paris, and for months on the women’s professional tennis tour, Ukrainian players have made it clear that they will not shake hands with players from Russia or Belarus after their matches. Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the second seed and one of the favorites to win the women’s singles championship, knows this as well as anyone. She beat Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk last week in the first round and then watched Kostyuk gather her belongs and leave the court quickly under a chorus of boos.Regardless of the hostility from the crowd, there was zero chance that Elina Svitolina, the unofficial leader of the female players from Ukraine, would behave any differently when it was her turn to face Sabalenka on Tuesday. Sabalenka dispatched Svitolina, 6-4, 6-4, with one last bullying rally and a final blasted forehand.And so, Svitolina said, as she saw Sabalenka at the net, waiting — and waiting, and waiting — and staring at her when the match was over, one thought passed through her mind: “What are you doing?”Svitolina thought Sabalenka’s move was intentional. Sabalenka said it was just instinctive.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesDid Svitolina think Sabalenka was taking advantage of the moment, knowing that the crowd at Roland Garros had previously howled at players who forsook the postmatch handshake?“Yes, I think so, unfortunately,” Svitolina said during a news conference after the match.Sabalenka later denied that she had done anything of the sort.“It just was an instinct,” she said, because that is what she always does at the end of a match.That Sabalenka was saying anything at all was news in itself. After her third-round win on Friday, Sabalenka skipped the mandatory postmatch news conference, opting instead to do an interview only with a WTA employee. She did the same thing after her fourth-round win.The tennis has often been overshadowed by geopolitics at this French Open. Novak Djokovic, the 22-time Grand Slam champion and Serbia’s biggest celebrity, proclaimed his solidarity with ethnic Serbian protesters who clashed with NATO forces in Kosovo late last month over control of the region and the status of the country, which more than 100 nations have recognized but Serbia and Russia have not. Djokovic even scrawled on a plastic plate in front of a television camera that Kosovo was the heart of Serbia, a statement that supporters of Kosovo called fascist and supportive of a philosophy that had led to ethnic cleansing.For Sabalenka, talk of politics became unavoidable after she drew Kostyuk, the rising Ukrainian, in the first round, and a journalist from Ukraine asked about her previous statements that she would end the war if she could. The journalist also raised Sabalenka’s close association in the past with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, who has allowed Russia to use his country as a staging area for its war in Ukraine. The internet has no shortage of photos and videos of Sabalenka with Lukashenko after he had arrested political opponents and used the military and the police to quash protests.After those news conferences, Sabalenka announced that she no longer felt “safe” facing the news media and opted to speak only with a WTA employee following her next two matches. The WTA and tournament organizers supported her decision, waiving the fines and threats of more serious penalties they had imposed on Naomi Osaka for doing the same thing at the French Open two years ago.“I felt really disrespected,” Sabalenka said Tuesday of those first two tense news conferences.While Sabalenka was struggling off the court, Svitolina was becoming the story of the tournament. She had spent most of the past year on maternity leave and raising money for relief efforts in Ukraine, and she thrilled crowds as she battled through her first four matches in her first Grand Slam following the birth of her daughter. The local fans have a special affinity for Svitolina, who is married to the French tennis player Gaël Monfils, who was courtside at all of her matches.Svitolina won her first four matches at the French Open, in her first Grand Slam since the birth of her daughter.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesHer victories set up the showdown with Sabalenka, which immediately felt like so much more than a match between two tennis players.This was Ukraine against Belarus, a well-loved player in the sport against a 25-year-old whom fans are still getting to know. One had become a leading figure in popular culture in war relief efforts; the other had not made it clear where her loyalties lied.Under pressure from the Ukrainian journalist, Sabalenka had said she did not support the war — “Nobody normal will ever support this war,” she said — but had not renounced her support of Lukashenko.Tennis-wise, it was a duel between a grinding retriever, Svitolina, and perhaps the women’s game’s biggest hitter, Sabalenka, and it quickly became clear that unless Sabalenka’s old erratic self emerged, this was not going to be Svitolina’s day. Sabalenka stayed steady, and Svitolina was out. Sabalenka will face Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic in the semifinals Thursday.Then came the awkward standoff at the end, and even some boos for Svitolina’s actions as she packed her bag, with Sabalenka waiting at the net, and as she left the court.“She didn’t deserve all this,” Sabalenka said of the howls.“I don’t want to be involved in any politics,” Sabalenka said at a news conference after the match. “I just want to be a tennis player.”Lisi Niesner/ReutersSvitolina said everyone might be better off if the WTA and tournament organizers made it clear to players from Russia and Belarus that as long as there was war, there would not be any handshaking. She also said one player should not get the advantage of taking a pass on the potential stress of facing the news media while everyone else had to sit in front of microphone and respond to whatever questions arise.“I faced difficulties,” Svitolina said. “I’m not escaping. I have my strong position, and I’m vocal about that.” She said she would not try to curry favor with the public “by betraying my strong belief and strongest position for my country.”When it was Sabalenka’s turn, she once more stated her opposition to the war, and when pressed — by a journalist from Poland — she attempted to add slight distance between her and Lukashenko. The Ukrainian journalist who had questioned her previously is not covering the second week of the tournament.“I don’t support war, meaning I don’t support Lukashenko right now,” Sabalenka said.She spoke of losing sleep over her decision to skip the previous news conferences and said that she had felt bad about it and that she planned not to skip any more but did not regret the decision.“I don’t want to be involved in any politics,” she said. “I just want to be a tennis player.”For the time being, and with a possible finals date coming with Iga Swiatek of Poland, who wears a pin of Ukraine’s flag when she plays, that may not be possible. More

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      Big Risks and Big Rewards for Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open

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      The Belarusian, who beat Elena Rybakina to win her first Grand Slam title on Saturday, held the trophy in triumph while the war in Ukraine remained a brutal reality.MELBOURNE, Australia — It was the sort of outcome that Wimbledon had been intent on avoiding at the All England Club: a Belarusian champion holding up the silverware in triumph with the war in Ukraine still a brutal reality.But Wimbledon, where Belarusian and Russian players were banned in 2022 and may be again this year, has remained an outlier in professional tennis and increasingly in international sports.Aryna Sabalenka, born and raised to pound tennis balls into submission in Minsk, Belarus, was free to play and win the Australian Open women’s singles title as a neutral competitor, even if there was scant chance her victory would be greeted neutrally at home or by her country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, whom she knows personally.“I think everyone still knows I’m a Belarusian player, and that’s it,” Sabalenka said on Saturday night at a news conference, a glass of champagne in hand and the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup glittering beside her.She put her name on the trophy and secured her first Grand Slam women’s singles title with a brilliant and bold performance. Anything less would not have sufficed against Elena Rybakina in their gripping, corner-to-corner final that might have been better suited to a ring as the two six-footers exchanged big blows for two hours and 28 minutes.Mash tennis. Crush tennis. Rip tennis. Smack tennis. Take your pick, but something onomatopoeic seemed appropriate with all that power on display, and what separated this match from many a tennis slugfest was the consistent depth and quality of the punching.High risk was rewarded repeatedly on Saturday as both finalists took big swings, aiming close to the lines and often hitting them.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Coaching That Feels Like ‘Cheating’: In-match coaching has always happened on the sly, but this year is the first time the Australian Open has allowed players to be coached from the stands.Rod Laver Likes What He Sees: At 84 years old, the man with his name on the stadium sits courtside at the Australian Open.India’s Superstar: Sania Mirza, who leaves tennis as a sleeping giant, has been a trailblazer nonetheless. “I would like to have a quieter life,” she said.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Rybakina finished with 31 winners to 25 unforced errors. Sabalenka, in what looked like the finest performance of her career, finished with 51 winners to 28 unforced errors: She cranked up the quality after an erratic opening set and won the lion’s share of the rallies, or maybe the tiger’s share, considering she had the animal tattooed on her left forearm at age 18 to remind her to fight for every point.“My parents didn’t know about this tattoo,” she told the Tennis Channel. “When they saw it the first time, my dad was laughing, I don’t know why, but my mom didn’t talk to me for one week.”Five years later, the tattoo remains but much has changed: Her father, Sergey, died in 2019 at age 43, leaving Sabalenka committed to achieving the dream he had for her to become No. 1.She has already fulfilled his wish in doubles, reaching the top spot in 2021. When the new singles rankings are released on Monday, she will be back at No. 2, behind Iga Swiatek, who still has a large lead based on her terrific 2022 season but who has lost to Sabalenka and Rybakina in the last two significant tournaments.Sabalenka, with the tattoo of a tiger on her left forearm that she got at 18 to remind her to fight for every point.Fazry Ismail/EPA, via ShutterstockSabalenka defeated her in November in the semifinals of the WTA Finals, the season-ending tour championships in Fort Worth. Rybakina overpowered Swiatek in the fourth round in Melbourne on her way to the final.Swiatek, the Polish star who looked set to become a dominant No. 1, is instead struggling to adjust to her new status and facing increased competition at the top, although she remains, until proven otherwise, the best women’s clay-court player.But on other surfaces, Sabalenka and Rybakina, last year’s surprise Wimbledon champion, clearly pose a formidable threat with their aggressive returns, relatively flat groundstrokes and penetrating serves.There were rare variations on Saturday: a drop-shot winner from Rybakina, a few defensive lobs and the occasional off-speed backhand. But for the most part, it was strength versus strength; straight-line power against straight-line power. The spectacle was frequently breathtaking, but you did not have to hold your breath for more than a few seconds: The longest rally was 13 strokes, and the average rally length was just 3.28 strokes.It was tennis reminiscent of the big-serving, high-velocity duels between Serena and Venus Williams. It was also a significant departure from last year’s Australian Open, where Ashleigh Barty ended a 44-year singles drought for the host country by winning the title, putting her court craft and crisply sliced one-handed backhand to work before shocking the tennis world (and Australia) by retiring in March at age 25.But Barty, now married to Garry Kissick and expecting their first child, has hardly avoided the Australian Open, making numerous public appearances this year and walking onto Rod Laver Arena before Saturday’s final with the Akhurst Memorial Cup in hand.“I can honestly look myself in the mirror and say I gave everything to tennis, but it gave me back so much more in return,” she said in a recent interview. “And all that really starts from the people I was surrounded with. So much of my success is our success. It genuinely is.”Sabalenka could relate to that on Saturday as she shared a post-victory moment with her team and then watched from afar as her normally stoic coach, Anton Dubrov, put a white towel to his face and sobbed in the player box.Sabalenka said she had never seen Dubrov cry and explained that last season, in February, as she struggled with the yips on her second serve and her confidence and reached a point where she could not even openly discuss the problem, Dubrov offered his resignation.“There were moments last year when he said, ‘I think I’m done, and I think I cannot give you something else, and you have to find someone else,’” Sabalenka said in an interview with Nine Network. “And I said: ‘No, you’re not right. It’s not about you. We just have to work through these tough moments, and we’ll come back stronger.’”Her performance on Saturday was incontrovertible proof that they had succeeded, with the help of a biomechanical expert but also Sabalenka’s own resilience. She is 11-0 this year and though she double-faulted seven times in the final, including on her first match point, she also repeatedly shrugged off any jitters (and the palpable concern of the big crowd) and came up with aces or service winners on subsequent serves.In the end, she hit 17 aces to Rybakina’s 9.“For sure, it’s not easy mentally,” Rybakina said of Sabalenka. “She didn’t have a great serve last year, but now she was super strong and she served well. For sure, I respect that. I know how much work it takes.”Rybakina has paid her dues, too. Born and raised in Russia, she switched allegiance to Kazakhstan in exchange for financial support in 2018. And though she was allowed to play at Wimbledon last year, her victory, with her strong Russian connections, was not the outcome the tournament was seeking either when it imposed its ban under pressure from the British government.Some Ukrainian players continue to oppose Russians and Belarusians being allowed to compete at all on tour, even as neutrals. The debate is about to intensify as the International Olympic Committee begins to push for Russians and Belarusians to be allowed to compete as independent athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris — a move the Ukrainian government strongly opposes and could respond to by withdrawing its own athletes.But Sabalenka, after sitting out Wimbledon, where she reached the semifinals in 2021, is now a Grand Slam singles champion in Australia and was feted with no apparent ambivalence by the Australian Open tournament director, Craig Tiley, and was awarded her trophy in Rod Laver Arena by Billie Jean King.Sabalenka’s news conference was full of questions intended not to confront her directly but rather to probe the issue. However you present her on the scoreboard, it was a Belarus victory.“Missing the Wimbledon was really tough for me,” she said. “It was a tough moment for me. But I played the U.S. Open after. It’s not about Wimbledon right now. It’s just about the hard work I’ve done.” More

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      War and Motherhood Sidelined Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina. She’s Ready to Return.

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      Rather than struggling to compete on the WTA Tour most of 2022, the tennis star focused on her new daughter and raising money to help her fellow Ukrainians.Elina Svitolina, the most successful Ukrainian women’s tennis player in history, has not played tennis in 10 months.She is a new mother — her daughter, Skaï, was born in October — and Svitolina is, like many prominent Ukrainians, a crusader, focused on raising money and awareness for her embattled country.Based in Switzerland with her husband, the French tennis star Gaël Monfils, Svitolina has sensed that the wider world is losing interest in the conflict with Russia.“Here in Europe, a couple of times people came up to me and asked if there is still war going on in Ukraine,” she said in a video interview. “This was very, very sad for me to hear. I have close friends and family back in Ukraine, and I know what they are going through.”When hope and energy run low, she thinks of her 85-year-old grandmother Tamara, still in Odesa, the vibrant, strategically vital port on the Black Sea where Svitolina was born and lived in her early years.“The winter is very tough right now for Ukrainians,” Svitolina said. “Obviously, it’s very cold, and they are often without electricity and running water. My grandmother lives on the 13th floor, and she needs to walk all the way up to her apartment because she cannot use the elevator. She could get stuck, or there are no lights at all. I have many friends in different cities, and they tell me the same stories. No lights. No water. They are just sitting at home. Most of the time, the phones die after one day so you cannot connect with them.”With her grandmother and her compatriots in mind, Svitolina is using her clout to help keep the power on. An ambassador for United24, a Ukrainian fund-raising platform, she organized a gala event in Monaco in December that raised 170,000 euros, or about $181,000. She said that 57,000 euros that were raised have been earmarked for the purchase of generators for Ukrainian hospitals.“Without electricity in the hospitals, they cannot perform some essential surgeries,” she said. “Our goal for the generators is 10 million euros.” They have raised 2.9 million so far, she added. “But we need more help.”Svitolina, ranked as high as No. 3 in 2017, was a semifinalist at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2019 and has long been one of the sport’s best movers and counterpunchers. But she has not played since losing in her opening round of the Miami Open in March. Newly pregnant and reeling emotionally after the Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, she said she realized she could not continue to compete. She spent days drained or in tears and has worked with a psychologist and leaned on Monfils and her family but also benefited, she said, from time on her own, time in her own head.“I didn’t touch a racket for seven months,” she said. “I wanted to switch off from tennis. I had maybe too much because of what happened in the end of February and all the nerves and all the pressure. The tournaments I played were probably too much for me mentally, so I was really happy to switch off completely. Right now, for me the goal is to come back, but I’m sure I won’t regret that I took this time off.”Svitolina and Monfils, a luminous, acrobatic talent and intermittent top 10 men’s player, were married in 2021 and are one of the game’s power couples. But Monfils missed much of the last season with foot and heel injuries.Both are targeting comebacks in 2023. Monfils, 36, has often talked about his desire to play until age 40, but, as a new father, he has shortened that timeline. He now plans to continue at least until the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, where the tennis event will be held on the red clay at Roland Garros, the site of the French Open. Svitolina would like nothing better than to win a medal for Ukraine in those Games.But Svitolina, who only recently resumed training, is not planning on a quick return even if the back problems that troubled her before her hiatus are resolved for now.“I will try to be ready for the summer, but I try not to rush things,” she said. “Because I know I need to be very strong to be back on tour, because right now tennis is very physical. All your muscle groups need to be ready and after not playing for over seven months and not doing so much after pregnancy, of course, your body is different now. And I have to really break everything down into small pieces to put together the full strength of my body, which I will need if I want to get back to the top.”At 28, she certainly has time in a sport where more players are competing deep into their thirties and where more women also have made successful returns from childbirth, including Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka, Serena Williams and Tatjana Maria, who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2022 after her second extended break from the game because of pregnancy.“I’m sure that they worked extremely hard to get back where they were and some of them are even better,” Svitolina said. “So that certainly gives me hope and motivation I can do the same.”Svitolina’s only contact with tennis during her break came in July, when she served as the chair umpire in an exhibition to raise funds for Ukrainian children that was organized by Iga Swiatek, the young and increasingly outspoken world No. 1 from Poland.Svitolina has appreciated Swiatek’s public support but remains disgruntled about the pro tours’ decision to allow Russian and Belarusian players to continue competing, albeit as neutrals without national identification. While Wimbledon barred the Russians and Belarusians because of the war it was an outlier and was stripped of ranking points in retaliation by both the men’s and women’s tours, who also fined the tournament and Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association.“I was shocked to see this,” she said. “The U.K., they always supported Ukrainians; they helped so many Ukrainian refugees to find new homes. I think the tours should have respected Wimbledon’s decision rather than punish them, but it’s really hard to see what will change the tours’ position, even if I don’t agree or understand it.”Through her personal foundation, she said she had been involved in helping more than 100 young Ukrainian players and their families find new training bases even if some have had to return to Ukraine. But she has no illusions about the challenge ahead and is all too aware of the destruction. She lived in her early teens in Kharkiv, recently reoccupied by Ukrainian forces but one of the cities that has suffered the most damage during the war. The arena in which she and her Ukrainian teammates once played Fed Cup matches has been destroyed by bombing.“Our athletes and our sports have been thrown back at least four or five years, because all the stadiums, all the facilities in Ukraine were destroyed,” she said. “After the war is finished, I really want to help to build a tennis center that kids can use to train. And it’s not just facilities that were destroyed. I think our kids have mentally been destroyed as well. Some of them lose their parents. Some of them are homeless. They see these explosions, these shootings. A whole generation I think mentally is really facing a big struggle.”It has been a year to rue but, for Svitolina, a year also to savor.“The most horrible year with the war and also the most happy I would say with welcoming our first baby in October,” she said. “So, it’s a mixture of everything, but we are here right now, and for me it’s just important to do everything possible every single day that I can. And for now, the goal is for the Ukrainian people to at least have a little light in their lives.” More

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      In the Deal to Free Griner, Putin Used a Familiar Lever: Pain

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      President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wants to prosecute his war in Ukraine in the same way he secured the freedom on Thursday of a major Russian arms dealer: inflict so much pain on Western governments that, eventually, they make a deal.The Kremlin pushed for more than a decade to get Viktor Bout, convicted in 2011 of conspiring to kill Americans, released from prison in the United States. But it was only this year, with the arrest at a Moscow airport of the American basketball star Brittney Griner, that Mr. Putin found the leverage to get his way.On Thursday, pro-Kremlin voices celebrated Mr. Bout’s release, in a prisoner exchange for Ms. Griner, as a victory, a sign that no matter the desire to punish Russia over the war in Ukraine, the United States will still come to the table when key American interests are at play. Russia negotiated from “a position of strength, comrades,” Maria Butina — a pro-Putin member of Parliament who herself served time in an American prison — posted on the Telegram messaging app.Mr. Putin’s emerging strategy in Ukraine, in the wake of his military’s repeated failures, now increasingly echoes the strategy that finally brought Mr. Bout back to Moscow. He is bombarding Ukrainian energy infrastructure, effectively taking its people hostage as he seeks to break the country’s spirit. The tactic is threatening the European Union with a new wave of refugees just as Mr. Putin uses a familiar economic lever: choking off gas exports. And Mr. Putin is betting that the West, even after showing far more unity in support of Ukraine than Mr. Putin appears to have expected, will eventually tire of the fight and its economic ill effects.The American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was arrested in March, was released from a penal colony on Thursday. Here, she is being escorted to a Moscow courtroom last August.Pool photo by Kirill KudryavtsevThere’s no guarantee that strategy will work. Though President Biden yielded on Mr. Bout, he has shown no inclination to relent on United States support for Ukraine. America’s European allies, while facing some domestic political and economic pressure to press for a compromise with Russia, have remained on board.In the face of this Western solidarity, Mr. Putin repeatedly signaled this week that he is willing to keep fighting, despite embarrassing territorial retreats, Russian casualties that the United States puts at more than 100,000 and the West’s ever-expanding sanctions. On Wednesday, he warned that the war “might be a long process.” And at a Kremlin medal ceremony for soldiers on Thursday, Mr. Putin insisted — falsely — that it was Ukraine’s government that was carrying out “genocide,” suggesting that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure would continue.“If we make the smallest move to respond, there’s noise, din and clamor across the whole universe,” he said, champagne flute in hand, in remarks broadcast on state television. “This will not prevent us from fulfilling our combat missions.”Mr. Putin did not comment on the prisoner exchange himself on Thursday. But in the context of the Ukraine war, there was a clear undertone to the crowing in Moscow: To supporters, Mr. Putin remains a deal maker, and he stands ready to negotiate over Ukraine as long as the West does not block his goal of pulling the country into his orbit and seizing some of its territory.“He’s signaling that he’s ready to bargain,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst who studies Mr. Putin, said. “But he’s letting the West know that ‘Ukraine is ours.’”Heavily damaged buildings in Bakhmut, Ukraine, last week.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesAsked when the war could end, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, hinted on Thursday that Russia is still waiting for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to accept some kind of deal: “Zelensky knows when this could all end. It could end tomorrow, if there’s a will.”But when one of Mr. Putin’s top spies, Sergei Naryshkin, met with the head of the C.I.A., William Burns, in Turkey last month, Mr. Burns did not discuss a settlement to the Ukraine war, American officials said. Instead, Mr. Burns warned of dire consequences for Moscow were it to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and discussed the fate of Americans imprisoned in Russia, including Ms. Griner.“The Russian negotiating style is, they punch you in the face and then they ask if you want to negotiate,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official who now works as research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. “The Americans respond to that by saying, ‘You know, you just punched us in the face, you clearly don’t want to negotiate.’”Nevertheless, negotiations on some issues have continued even as Russia’s onslaught of missile attacks has escalated, talks blessed by Mr. Putin despite occasional criticism from the most hawkish supporters of his war.Russia’s pro-war bloggers fumed in September when Mr. Putin agreed to an earlier high-profile exchange: commanders of the Azov Battalion, a nationalist fighting force within the Ukrainian military that gained celebrity status for its defense of a besieged steel plant, for a friend of Mr. Putin, the Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. Some critics have slammed Mr. Putin’s agreement to allow Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea as representing an undue concession.President Vladimir V. Putin, third from left, inspecting the Kerch Strait Bridge this week. The bridge, which connects the Russian mainland and the Crimean Peninsula, was badly damaged in a Ukrainian attack in October.Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik, via ReutersAnd then there were the talks surrounding Mr. Bout and Ms. Griner. On the surface, the exchange appeared to be a mismatch, given the wide disparity in the severity of their offenses: one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers and an American basketball star detained for traveling with vape cartridges containing hashish oil.But Mr. Biden showed he was prepared to invest significant political capital in securing Ms. Griner’s freedom, while the Kremlin has long sought Mr. Bout’s release.“We know that attempts to help Bout have been made for many years,” said Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research organization close to the Russian government. “He has also become a symbolic figure” for the Kremlin, he added.Mr. Bout became notorious among American intelligence officials, earning the nickname “Merchant of Death” as he evaded capture for years. He was finally arrested in an undercover operation in Bangkok in 2008, with American prosecutors saying he had agreed to sell antiaircraft weapons to informants posing as arms buyers for the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FARC.Some analysts believe that Mr. Bout has connections to Russia’s intelligence services. Such links have not been publicly confirmed, but they could explain why Mr. Putin — a former K.G.B. officer — has put such stock in working for Mr. Bout’s release.“If he were just some arms dealer and cargo magnate, then it is hard to see why it would have been quite such a priority for the Russian state,” Mark Galeotti, a lecturer on Russia and transnational crime at University College London, said last summer.President Biden at a news conference on Thursday with Brittney Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, left, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Washington.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat means that the U.S. decision to free Mr. Bout — likely the most prominent Russian in American custody — represented a significant compromise. It was magnified by the fact that the United States accepted the exchange even though Russia declined to also release Paul Whelan, a former Marine the Biden administration also considers a political hostage.Some analysts believe that the decision to free Mr. Bout carries risks because it could encourage Mr. Putin to take new hostages — and shows that his strategy of causing pain, and then winning concessions, is continuing to bear fruit.Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist who specializes in the security services, said that he was worried about the precedent set by Washington’s agreeing to trade an arms dealer for a basketball player who committed a minor offense.“Back in the days of the Cold War, it was always about professionals against professionals, one spy against another,” he said. While the United States must contend with public demand at home to return a hostage, the Russians can “ignore it completely,” he said.Now, Moscow “can just grab someone with a high public profile in the U.S. — an athlete, a sportsman,” he said. Public outcry in the U.S. “would make that position much more advantageous in terms of these kind of talks.” More

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      Daria Kasatkina’s Tumultuous and Triumphant Season

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      The tennis star has spoken out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and come out as gay with her partner, the figure skater and fellow Russian Natalia Zabiiako. And she’s winning.FORT WORTH — As Daria Kasatkina’s match with the American teenager Coco Gauff took many a twist and turn on Thursday night, Kasatkina’s thoughts were hard to read: Her neutral, deeply focused expression gave little hint of the score until she had closed out her round-robin victory, 7-6 (6), 6-3, at the WTA Finals with a roar and a clenched fist.Kasatkina, a 25-year-old Russian who will face Caroline Garcia on Saturday for a place in the semifinals, is in the moment and back in the groove in her first appearance in this elite year-end event, reserved for the top eight women’s singles players and top eight doubles teams.But it has been a tumultuous, ultimately triumphant season for Kasatkina. In July, in an interview with the Russian blogger Vitya Kravchenko, she came out as gay, making her relationship public with the former Olympic pairs figure skater Natalia Zabiiako. In that same interview, Kasatkina also became the first Russian tennis star to speak out in depth against the war with Ukraine.Both are risky moves in Russia, where the government led by President Vladimir V. Putin has enacted laws restricting dissent against the war and banned the portrayal of gay relationships in books, films and the media.Kasatkina, who called the war a “full-blown nightmare” and expressed empathy for Ukrainian players, has long trained in Spain with her coach, Carlos Martinez, and is now based in Dubai. She has not returned to Russia, where she still has family, since a visit to St. Petersburg in February, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Has this been her year of being brave?“Maybe yes,” she said in an interview in Fort Worth. “I was saying those things not to look brave but to give to the people my point of view and my feelings. So, if they see that this was brave, good, but it was not to look brave, completely not.”Some Ukrainian players, including Ukraine’s former Billie Jean King Cup captain Olga Savchuk, thanked Kasatkina personally.“At least she tried and did something and can live with a clean soul,” Savchuk said in a text message on Friday. “I can easily look in her face now when I meet her, because I know what she thinks.”Asked what the feedback had been like in Russia, Kasatkina demurred. “Let’s not talk about it,” she said.But she said that she had been touched by the level of support internationally for her decision to come out about her sexuality and to live openly with Zabiiako, a 2018 Olympian for Russia, who is with her and Martinez in Fort Worth.More on Women and Girls in SportsHawaii Sex Discrimination: A lawsuit alleging Title IX violations at a Hawaii high school could be a landmark stress test for the law.Abuse in Women’s Soccer: The publication of the Yates Report, detailing “systemic abuse” throughout the sport, is only the beginning.Pretty in Any Color: Women’s basketball players are styling themselves how they want, because they can. Their choices also can be lucrative.Title IX’s Racial Gaps: Because race has never been part of the law, Title IX has heavily benefited white women over women of color.“I didn’t know what to expect, and everything went perfectly, I think,” Kasatkina said. “And I’m just really thankful to everyone who messaged me, who supported me. Of course, there was also some negative parts, but I just didn’t feel it at all. Just the people on the internet, so it wasn’t important to me at all.”Kasatkina said her life day-to-day had not changed nearly as much as her mood.“I just started to feel much better,” Kasatkina said. “Just being myself and feeling more free to do the things I want to do, the things I feel I need to do. It’s amazing. To live with the feeling of freedom, it’s a great feeling.”Kasatkina, left, came out as gay earlier this year, making public her relationship with the Russian figure skater Natalia Zabiiako.John G Mabanglo/EPA, via ShutterstockShe has climbed back into the top 10 in 2022, snagging the eighth and last singles qualifying spot for the WTA Finals after serving as an alternate in 2018 in Singapore without getting to play a match.“I guess we could say I caught the last train to be here,” Kasatkina said. “I was pretty stressed in the race, because it was pretty tight. But being here feels great.”Banned from Wimbledon along with all players from Russia and its ally Belarus, Kasatkina might not have qualified for Fort Worth if the tours had not stripped Wimbledon of ranking points in retaliation for the Russian ban.Elena Rybakina, a Russian-born player who now represents Kazakhstan, won the Wimbledon women’s singles title, but, without the 2,000 points that normally go with a Grand Slam title, did not qualify for the WTA Finals.Kasatkina and the Belarusian star Aryna Sabalenka both finished in the top eight and have been able to play a nearly full season because of the tours’ decision to allow individuals from Russia and Belarus to compete, albeit without flags or national identification.“Of course, we appreciate that we can keep our jobs and play,” Kasatkina said. “We are lucky, and we are super thankful for this.”Her resurgent season has been a long time coming. Though Kasatkina can summon baseline power, her game is, above all, based on craft and spin, on rhythm and tactical shifts.Her former coach Philippe Dehaes called her “a tennis genius,” and with his help she rose to No. 10 in 2018, reaching the final of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., before losing to Naomi Osaka in what was a breakthrough tournament for both young talents.But Kasatkina was unable to sustain that momentum, splitting with Dehaes in 2019 and spiraling, by her own account, into depression and a crisis of confidence that had her seriously contemplating quitting the sport.Carlos Martinez began coaching Kasatkina in June 2019.Carmen Mandato/Getty ImagesBut she worked through it with help from a psychologist, as well as her brother Alexandr and Martinez, a former Spanish satellite-level player who long coached Kasatkina’s Russian compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova.“Carlos took me from the bottom when I was completely broken, let’s say,” Kasatkina said. “We did a very good job together coming back to the top 10. I’m glad and grateful that he had this patience.”Martinez, who began coaching her in June 2019, believed in Kasatkina’s talent but needed to help her recover confidence.“She came from tough moments when the expectation around her was very high, finishing top 10 in 2018,” Martinez said Thursday. “In the beginning, it was just about building a base, building a player who could play on every surface and can adapt to different games.”Although she can summon baseline power, Kasatkina’s game is based on craft and spin.Martin Divisek/EPA, via ShutterstockThe pandemic gave them additional time to work at Martinez’s club, and they focused more on improving tactics and attitude than on technical adjustments“Two or three years ago, this match with Coco, she would have lost, 6-2, 6-2,” Martinez said. “No chance. You would have seen frustration, but now, no. She knows she can change the course of the match every single point.”Consistency remains an issue. Kasatkina has lost in one of her first two rounds in 11 events this year, but she also reached her first Grand Slam semifinal at the French Open and won two singles titles, compiling a 40-20 record through all the travels and the tumult.Against Garcia on Saturday, she can extend her finest season for at least one more match and then head to the Maldives with Zabiiako for sun, calm and vacation.Returning to Russia will have to wait.“Maybe when the war will be finished,” she said. More