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      At the U.S. Open, 5 Artists Get a Place in the Sun

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      Five sculptures, created by artists from underrepresented communities, will find a place in the sun at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens until Sept. 11.Sculptures by five artists went on view at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens, Tuesday during Fan Week, six days of festivities and qualifying tournaments. The five works, which will remain on view until Sept. 11, are in collaboration with the Armory Show and the United States Tennis Association and serve as an extension of Armory Off-Site and the tennis association’s Be Open social justice campaign, which first presented paintings in 2020 from 18 Black and Indigenous artists at Arthur Ashe Stadium.This year, some of the sculptures have obvious associations with the sport. In “Now I Won,” by Myles Nurse, a larger-than-life, Wilson-yellow metal tennis player inspired by Billie Jean King is preparing to serve. On Tuesday, when a child began using the baseboard of the sculpture as a trampoline, Nurse said it did not bother him: He was relieved, he said, at the sculpture’s durability. (The sculpture had sold for $12,000 to a buyer in Miami a few days earlier.)Myles Nurse, “Now I Won,” 2022. His sprayed-steel sculpture is inspired by the tennis player Billie Jean King.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesNurse said he wanted viewers to visualize themselves within the stance. “You could see a champion within yourself by seeing somebody else reaching these amazing feats,” he said.Welding runs in his family. Nurse’s grandfather ran a metal fabrication business in Jamaica, which he continued after immigrating to the U.S.“It was in the blood,” Nurse said, “but I’m doing it from a different perspective.”Carolyn Salas’s work was also inspired by King. She said she remembered watching the fraught, but highly attended, match between King and Bobby Riggs in the 2017 film “Battle of The Sexes.” In her sculpture “Tippy Toes,” Salas compares the daily uncertainties and struggles a woman faces to walking on a tightrope.“There’s just a constant struggle between that idea of the masculine and the feminine as a woman right now,” Salas said.Carolyn Salas, “Tippy Toes,” 2021. Salas compared the daily uncertainties and struggles a woman faces to walking on a tightrope.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesOther artists left more open to interpretation.Jose Dávila’s artwork incorporates both industrial and naturally occurring elements. In his “Untitled Work,” a cerulean blue boulder is sandwiched between two slabs of concrete.“Many of the boulders I work with, I choose myself while walking in the countryside,” he wrote in a statement. “I’m interested in the primitiveness of rocks, of materials that have always been there, that will always be the same, that show the patina of time.”“To Rise and Begin Again,” by Luzene Hill, depicts a series of undulating aluminum columns. Hill placed a Cherokee syllabary character above each column to spread awareness of the lyrical language. The columns also resemble the New York skyline, built in part by the Mohawk ironworkers in the early 1900s. “The underlying part of all of my work” is survival, she said.Luzene Hill, “To Rise and Begin Again,” 2022.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesHill placed a Cherokee syllabary character above each column.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesHill’s father is Cherokee (her mother is white), and her grandparents were sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pa., leaving her and her father unaware of their native tongue. Hill said she had become fascinated by the language’s collectivist, matrilineal perspective.“Indigenous people have survived 500 years of colonial violence on many, many levels and I’m really happy that’s my DNA,” Hill said in a video call from her home in North Carolina, located on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians reservation.Like Hill, Gerald Chukwuma’s work has direct ties to his heritage. “Ogadiligmma” or the “Town Cryer” is a part of his Igbo Landing series, which pays tribute to the 75 West Africans in 1803 who took control of a slave ship off the Georgia coast and then walked into the water, committing mass suicide. Born in the eastern region of Nigeria, Chukwuma said the West Africans were his ancestors and that determination was an inherent trait.“When we decided not to be taken as slaves, it wasn’t something that happened by chance,” he said of his ancestors, “It was how we were created. That’s our culture. That’s who we are.”Gerald Chukwuma, “Ogadiligmma,” 2021. The sculpture pays tribute to the 75 West Africans in 1803 who took control of a slave ship off the Georgia coast.Simbarashe Cha for The New York TimesAs visitors holding tennis bags posed next to Chukwuma’s sculpture, buried in sea debris he collected from the Lagos shores, the artist said he hoped that his work would help raise awareness of the neglected Igbo people.“I’m sure if you listen closely when you get there you can hear him speak,” he said of the sculpture. “I’m sure he’s going to tell stories.” More

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      Novak Djokovic Says He Will Miss U.S. Open

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      Djokovic said he would not be able to travel to New York for the tournament that begins next week. The United States has travel restrictions that require foreign visitors to be vaccinated for the coronavirus.The stalemate between Novak Djokovic and the U.S. government reached its inevitable conclusion Thursday as the unvaccinated Wimbledon champion pulled out of the U.S. Open.The U.S. has lifted many of the restrictions related to the coronavirus and travel. However, unvaccinated foreigners are still not allowed to enter the country. Djokovic, who has had Covid-19 at least twice, has been steadfast in his refusal to get vaccinated, arguing that it should be a personal decision rather than a requirement.“Sadly, I will not be able to travel to NY this time for US Open,” Djokovic wrote on Twitter Thursday morning, hours before the draw for the tournament that is scheduled to start on Monday. “Thank you #NoleFam for your messages of love and support. Good luck to my fellow players! I’ll keep in good shape and positive spirit and wait for an opportunity to compete again. See you soon tennis world!”Djokovic’s refusal to be vaccinated set off a political firestorm in January when he announced he had received a special exemption to enter Australia to play in the Australian Open, the first tennis major of the year.Djokovic ultimately left the country without defending his singles title there.Djokovic was able to play in the French Open and Wimbledon after France and England relaxed their requirements that visitors be vaccinated. But as he sat next to his Wimbledon trophy in July after winning his 21st Grand Slam title, Djokovic said it appeared unlikely that he would play in the U.S. Open because he had no plans to get vaccinated and did not anticipate the U.S. government changing its rules.The U.S. government has retained the restriction because people who are not vaccinated are far more likely to contract and pass on the virus and to end up in the hospital than people who are not.The U.S. Tennis Association said earlier this summer it would not seek an exemption on Djokovic’s behalf.By not playing, Djokovic is giving up a chance to draw even with Rafael Nadal for the most men’s singles Grand Slam titles (Nadal has 22 and Djokovic has 21). More

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      Victoria Azarenka Dropped From Ukraine Aid Event Before U.S. Open

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      The move came after players from Ukraine complained about the participation of Azarenka, a Belarusian, in the Tennis Plays for Peace Exhibition set for Wednesday night.The U.S. Open’s attempt to show that sports could help build a bridge to peace in a time of war suffered a major blow Wednesday when the tournament was forced to drop Victoria Azarenka of Belarus from participating in an exhibition to raise money for relief efforts in Ukraine just hours before its start.The move came after players from Ukraine complained about Azarenka’s participation in the Tennis Plays for Peace Exhibition set for Wednesday night at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where the U.S. Open will begin next week.“In the last 24 hours, after careful consideration and dialogue with all parties involved, Victoria Azarenka will not be participating in our Tennis Plays for Peace Exhibition this evening,” the United States Tennis Association announced in a statement. “Vika is a strong player leader, and we appreciate her willingness to participate. Given the sensitivities to Ukrainian players, and the ongoing conflict, we believe this is the right course of action for us.”Azarenka could not immediately be reached for comment.The exhibition will include a roster of some of the game’s biggest stars, including Rafael Nadal, Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek and John McEnroe. It is taking place on Ukraine’s Independence Day and the six-month anniversary of a war that seemingly has no end in sight.When the exhibition was announced earlier this month, Azarenka’s planned participation was seen as a significant statement. An overwhelming majority of athletes from Russia and Belarus, which has served as a staging ground for the Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, has resisted speaking out against the war or expressing any sympathy for victims in Ukraine for a variety of reasons. Those can include support for the war or fear for their safety or that of their relatives who still live in their countries even if the players do not.Stacey Allaster, the U.S. Open tournament director, said she had called Azarenka, the former world No. 1, and asked her to participate in the event, which is kicking off a $2 million fund-raising campaign, when it was still in its planning stages. “It was a quick response,” Allaster said of her conversation with Azarenka, 33, whom she has known for more than 15 years. “She said, ‘This is a player choice, and I want to play.’”Azarenka, a leader in the WTA, had been highly critical of Wimbledon and Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association, which in April barred players from Russia and Belarus from playing in the annual tournaments in England earlier this year.Azarenka now largely lives in the United States but for years had a friendly relationship with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, the authoritarian leader who has ruled the country since 1994 and has appeared with Azarenka on multiple occasions.During the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, Azarenka told Tennis.com that Wimbledon was “a big opportunity to show how sports can unite.”“I think we missed that opportunity, but I hope we can still show it,” she said.But with their country under attack and their relatives’ lives in danger, players from Ukraine are not feeling any desire to show a sense of unity with players from Russia and Belarus.The International Tennis Federation, the men’s and women’s professional tours and the other three Grand Slam tournaments have barred Russian and Belarusian teams from competitions and prohibit players from those countries from playing under their flags.But the locker rooms and other common spaces at tournaments continue to be places of tension. Players from Ukraine, including Dayana Yastremska and Lesia Tsurenko, have spoken about their discomfort with being around Russian and Belarusian players, some of whom, they assume, support Putin. They have said Russian players have made little effort to reach out to them to express empathy for what they are experiencing.The lone exception has been Daria Kasatkina, Russia’s highest-ranked women’s singles player, who became the first Russian in tennis to openly criticize the war, a move that could land her in trouble with her home country.Speaking with a Russian blogger earlier this summer, Kasatkina described the war as “a full-blown nightmare.” Kasatkina, 25, who goes by Dasha, said she wanted to train with and play against players “who don’t have to worry about being bombed,” according to the subtitles of the video, which circulated on Twitter.She expressed empathy for Ukrainian players who had been forced to leave their homes and search for tennis academies in Western Europe in order to train. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to have no home,” she said. More

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      The N.C.A.A. Champion Ben Shelton Is Turning Pro. He Already Has a Big Win.

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      A valiant effort against John Isner and two wins at a Masters 1000 event helped persuade Ben Shelton to leave the University of Florida, where his father was his coach.Ben Shelton, the reigning N.C.A.A. Division I men’s singles champion and one of the most exciting young tennis talents in the United States, turned professional on Tuesday, and he’s ready for quite a few changes.He will make his first trip outside the United States.He will play his first tournament on red clay.He will play his first tennis on grass.But for starters, Shelton, 19, will play in his first Grand Slam tournament after receiving a wild card into the main draw of the U.S. Open, which begins Monday in Queens.“I think that I have some pretty good momentum right now,” Shelton said in a telephone interview on Monday, explaining his decision to turn pro. “I really enjoy being out there and playing on tour and getting to play some of these really cool tournaments, and that’s something I want to continue to do and not have to take a five- or six-month break for the college season. I love playing college tennis, but I’ve definitely had the most fun playing in these pro events.”After two seasons at the University of Florida, where his father, Bryan, is the men’s tennis coach, Shelton has certainly ticked two big boxes: clinching the national team title in 2021 for Florida as a freshman by winning the decisive match against Baylor and then winning the individual title this spring.But what sealed the deal for him on leaving college tennis were his results on the pro tour over the last few weeks: a tight three-set duel and defeat in Atlanta against John Isner, long the top-ranked American, and then eye-catching victories at a Masters 1000 tournament, the tier below the Grand Slams, outside Cincinnati last week. He began the event, the Western and Southern Open, with wins over Lorenzo Sonego of Italy and fifth-ranked Casper Ruud of Norway.Amateurs can play pro events and accumulate ranking points. Shelton is up to No. 171 in singles, making him the third-highest teenager in the ATP rankings behind No. 4 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain and No. 32 Holger Rune of Denmark, who are both 19 years old and already Grand Slam quarterfinalists. But turning professional will allow Shelton to keep his prize money of $84,510 from Cincinnati and the $80,000 he will earn for playing in the first round of the U.S. Open.By turning pro, Shelton will follow the path of his father, who peaked as a top-60 singles player in the 1990s during a golden era for American men’s tennis and who reached the fourth round of Wimbledon as a qualifier in 1994, upsetting the No. 2 seed Michael Stich of Germany in the opening round.But while Bryan Shelton was 6-foot-1 and played right-handed with attacking tools and speed, his son is a 6-4 lefty — still an advantage in tennis — with an intimidating serve and knockout power from the baseline, particularly with his whipping forehand. Ben Shelton often put that shot to devastating use against Ruud when he was not busy flicking a between-the-legs lob winner that left Ruud looking stunned at the net.“I think things have certainly accelerated a lot faster than I had planned or thought with Ben’s development on the court and with his maturity as well,” Bryan Shelton said in a telephone interview from Gainesville, Fla., the university’s city, on Monday.Ben Shelton entered elite tennis comparatively late, having not competed or even played regularly until age 11 when he decided to stop his nascent career at quarterback and focus on the family sport.“This was the same kid who said that ‘tennis will not be my sport’ when he was younger,” Bryan Shelton said. “So he definitely came to it on his own. There was no pressure from mom or dad or sister.”Ben’s older sister, Emma, is a senior on Florida’s women’s tennis team. Their mother, Lisa, was also an accomplished junior player and is the sister of the former world No. 4 doubles and No. 43 singles player Todd Witsken.“We kid around, like which genes is Ben playing with, the Shelton genes or the Witsken genes?” Bryan Shelton said. “He’s got some good blood running through him, that’s for sure.”Ben Shelton said his father’s tennis knowledge played a key role in his decision to choose the sport.“I saw that my dad was a college coach and knew a lot about the game,” he said. “My chances of going far in the sport and having that resource was definitely going to be helpful. The other thing was I grew kind of late. So going into the end of middle school, there was a lot of huge kids in football, and I hadn’t really hit my growth spurt yet. I was maybe a little tired of getting bashed up all the time.”At 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, Shelton combines power and athleticism.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersHe now has a build well suited to playing in this age of taller players, which includes Daniil Medvedev of Russia (6-6), Alexander Zverev of Germany (6-6) and Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece (6-4), all of whom are top-five players.But the Sheltons are well aware that big power and promising early results are no guarantee of reaching the big time. Ben Shelton got a quick reminder of the rigors of the pro game in the round of 16 at the Western and Southern Open, when he was drubbed, 6-0, 6-2, in a night-session match on Center Court by Cameron Norrie, a British left-hander who was a former collegiate No. 1 at Texas Christian University.“There’s definitely a lot of different players out there; not just one type of tennis you are going to win with,” Ben Shelton said. “I definitely learned that from match to match you’re going to have to have a different game plan and be able to make adjustments. You’re not always going to have a perfect day. And when you’re not playing well out on the pro tour, pretty much everyone can take advantage of that, so I kind of learned that I need to think a little quicker on my feet.”Bryan Shelton, who has coached his son from the beginning, will continue to guide Ben’s development with help on the road from Dean Goldfine, a veteran American coach who long worked with the American star Todd Martin. Most recently, Goldfine helped coach Sebastian Korda, 22, one of the most promising young American men’s players, whose father, Petr, an Australian Open champion, was on tour at the same time as Bryan Shelton.Ben Shelton will be managed by TEAM8, the small management company that was founded by Roger Federer, one of Shelton’s tennis idols, and his agent, Tony Godsick, who has a long connection with the Shelton family. Ben Shelton will work day to day with Alessandro Barel Di Sant Albano, who represents an established American teenage star, 18-year-old Coco Gauff.Bryan Shelton knows firsthand all that can go awry on tour.“It’s a tough sport, and the sport is just part of it,” he said. “It’s dealing with the travel and dealing with losses and dealing with feeling lonely.”But Bryan Shelton also knows what it takes, and he sees reassuring signs as he prepares for the bittersweet experience of losing his Florida team’s No. 1 player and watching his son make a big step forward.“It took me a long time to get to where he’s at, and he started later than I did,” Bryan Shelton said. “So he’s just a different animal than I was, and I try not to compare too much what I did and just help him along the way, but I also realize he’s got a much higher ceiling.” More

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      A Surprising Year Could Culminate in a Surprising U.S. Open

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      Two unseeded players won in a big U.S. Open warm-up tournament, another unexpected result in an odd tennis season.Who is going to win the United States Open, which starts next week? Given the results over the weekend in an important warm-up tournament near Cincinnati, the answer seems like it could be “almost anyone.”Though the fields were strong, both the men’s and women’s singles tournaments in Ohio were won by unseeded players. The men’s winner was Borna Coric of Croatia, ranked 152nd in the world last week after being injured for a year and returning in March. The victory made him the lowest ranked player ever to win a Masters 1000, the elite events rated just below the Grand Slams.Along the way, he beat the 2, 4, 7, 9 and 15 seeds. Did he think there was a chance to win going in? “Absolutely not,” he said.The women’s winner was Caroline Garcia of France, the 35th-ranked player last week. She became the first qualifier ever to win a WTA 1000 title and beat the 4, 6 and 7 seeds to do so. “It’s hard to believe I am standing here today; it’s been such a week,” she said in her post-match speech.The results continue an unexpected year in tennis. The previous men’s Masters 1000 event, in Montreal, was also won by an unseeded player, Pablo Carreño Busta of Spain. The seven 1000 events this year have had six different winners. (Carlos Alcaraz won two but has never made the semifinal of a Grand Slam event.)The men’s Grand Slam events have been won by the familiar duo of Rafael Nadal (Australian and French Opens) and Novak Djokovic (Wimbledon), but at ages 36 and 35 their dominance seems to be wavering. They each had to survive at least one five-set match on their way to their Grand Slam titles this year. And Nadal, who lost to Coric last week, has been dealing with an injury to his abdomen that led to his withdrawal from Wimbledon.On the women’s side, Ashleigh Barty won the Australian Open as the top seed, then retired. Iga Swiatek of Poland seemed to take up her mantle, going on a run earlier in the year that culminated in a French Open win and the No. 1 ranking. Then she lost in the round of 32 at Wimbledon and the round of 16 in both Toronto and Cincinnati. The Wimbledon winner was Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the second-lowest-ranked woman ever to win there at No. 23.Caroline Garcia of France won the Western & Southern Open on Sunday. She became the first qualifier ever to win a WTA 1000 title.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAt the U.S. Open, which starts Aug. 29, the bookmakers are keeping the faith with Djokovic as the men’s favorite at about 8-5. If he plays. His vaccine status means he may not even be allowed in the country. And the No. 2 player in the world, Alexander Zverev, is out after an ankle surgery.Daniil Medvedev is the next choice at about 5-2, probably in large part because he is the reigning champion. He hasn’t won a big event this year and is the No. 1 player almost by default. After that come Alcaraz, Nadal and Nick Kyrgios. Coric is 35-1. Particularly if Djokovic is out, the tournament result looks much more uncertain than usual.Despite her recent struggles, Swiatek is the 3-1 favorite on the women’s side, perhaps for lack of a better option. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. Most oddsmakers have Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep, Coco Gauff and the defending champion, Emma Raducanu, all in the 7-1 to 16-1 range, plus at least another eight or 10 players with a real shot at 22-1 or less, including Rybakina and Garcia.Generally, tennis fans put a fair amount of stock in the hardcourt warm-ups for the U.S. Open, if not to show the winner at least to point out players to watch. The upset-filled events this year could be a harbinger for a U.S. Open full of surprises. More

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      Serena Williams Brought New Fans to Tennis. Are You One of Them?

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      Part of Williams’s legacy can be seen in the stands of her matches, where the spectators are among tennis’s most diverse.Tell us about your experience watching Serena Williams play in the form at the end of this column.When you watch Serena Williams play from the comfortable remove of a living room, she pops from the screen. All that willpower, athleticism and skill, even as she ages and fades.When you watch Serena Williams play live and up close, in a packed stadium during a tight match on the biggest stage — now, that is something else altogether. That’s an event, a happening, a mix of Broadway and Cannes and the Met Gala, with a whole lot of forehand winners and sometimes a soap opera mixed in.Those performances will cease now that she is “evolving” from the game, as she announced this month, to pursue a life beyond tennis and perhaps have a second child. But her legacy goes far beyond what she did between the lines: It’s clear in the stands of every tournament that Williams’s glitz and drama beckoned to fans of all kinds, including large swaths who only pay attention to sports when she plays.To be at a Serena match — among masses of attendees, particularly brown and Black spectators making their first foray to a professional match — was to feel a sense of new possibility for a sport long steeped in whiteness.Take the U.S. Open, for instance. Since her ascension to tennis’s upper reaches when she won there in 1999 at age 17, Flushing Meadows has been a special stage for Williams and her fans.In 2016, bidding for an Open-era record 23rd major singles title, the overall U.S. Open attendance figures showed nearly a quarter of fans there were Black, according to the United States Tennis Association. In 2017, with Williams’s career on hold as she sat out to give birth to her daughter, the number of Black fans at Flushing Meadows dropped by 10 percent.That is the Serena effect.“The magnetism of Serena attracts all kinds of new fans,” said Chris Widmaier, a U.S.T.A. spokesman. “But you can certainly see the outsize and indelible impact that she has had on Black Americans in their relationship with tennis.”Widmaier has been working communications at the Open for 20 years. He has seen Williams play all over the world and figures he has watched her more than any other top player.“When Serena would walk on the court and you had the ability to be courtside, you would get chills,” he said. “You just knew you were in the presence of greatness. And it didn’t matter at which point in her career. That is what I always felt.”Williams’s matches always made viewers feel. And while her career — and that of her sister Venus — has drawn onlookers of all kinds, it has had special resonance for Black fans and others traditionally at the margins of the tennis scene.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe tennis star is retiring after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.On Her Own Terms: Serena Williams announced her decision to retire in an article in Vogue in a way that felt unapologetically her own. A Beacon of Black Excellence: The tennis player achieved greatness without ever masking the struggles it took to win — especially as a Black woman.A Career on Top: Williams won her first Grand Slam in 1999, when she was 17 years old.  Over the next two decades, she became the sport’s most dominant force.Her Legacy: While emerging as the face of tennis, Williams, along with her older sister Venus, changed the face of the sport, carrying the load for the nation’s aspirations.If that’s you, I want to hear your story. Especially if you made the pilgrimage to see Williams play in person. Even if “up close” was the nosebleed seats at the Olympic tennis stadium in Rio. Or if you made it to one of the smaller tournaments on the WTA Tour, without the Grand Slam crowds and prices.Were you there at Indian Wells in 2001, as many in the majority-white audience booed Williams during her championship win? Were you there 14 years later, when she ended her boycott of that desert event?What moments and images from Williams’s career, good and bad and utterly astonishing, stick with you? What compelled you to see her in person?For me, when I think of Serena, of course, I also think of Venus. Watching them together was sports as beautiful alchemy. Just the right mix, even if their matches were sometimes full of nervousness and imperfection.At the U.S. Open in 2008, Serena and Venus were about to clash in a quarterfinal match on a hot, humid New York evening. Two hours before, I watched as fans gathered outside the stadium. Yes, it was still a mostly white and well-heeled crowd, but it was also Black, Latino, Asian, every hue, every class.It felt supercharged. The air surged with electric excitement and anticipation. I heard many say they would not have ventured to Flushing Meadows that evening if not for Serena. Adding Venus to the mix sealed the deal.The sisters put on a show. There were early pockmarks of sloppy play, but in the end, the evening sizzled with excellence, and Serena affirmed her superiority, winning, 7-6, 7-6.Looking back on the arc of Serena’s career, the swings of that match are a hallmark. She has always been capable of producing clumps of errors in batches — and then turning up the winners when everything counts. That’s part of the wonder.On the grounds of the most significant events, it often felt like the competition had not really stepped into high gear until Williams put on a high-pressure spectacle.A fan held a sign in support of Serena Williams during the Western & Southern Open in Ohio last week.Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesSerena brought the buzz, whether she won or not. It began from the moment she’d leave the players’ tunnel and walk before the fans. If you were there at the 2018 French Open when she entered that red-clay center court dressed in her tight black, Wakanda-inspired bodysuit, the feel in the stands, the swooning and gasping and awe, will be in your mind for good.God, I loved that moment. It gave me goose bumps.In her boldness and bearing, Williams has always reminded me of my undaunted nieces and cousins and my late paternal grandmother, Peggy Mae Streeter, a powerful Black woman born one generation from slavery. Dressed in that bodysuit — reveling in her complete self, with that trademark “I’m gonna do my thing, no matter what” kind of attitude — Williams, it seemed to me, was channeling their unbreakable spirit.I’m certainly not the only one to observe and feel that way. She spoke for herself and in doing so, spoke to us.It’s strange, but I seemed to have a knack for being in the stands when Williams was surprisingly upended. The loss to Elina Svitolina at the Rio Olympics in 2016. The time she blew a 5-1 last-set lead and succumbed to Karolina Pliskova at the 2019 Australian Open. With each loss, on the grounds of those events, you could feel energy and passion drain from fans once they realized she would no longer be around.When, in 2019, Williams worked in vain to fend off Bianca Andreescu, the talented young Canadian, I was one of the 23,000 who jammed Ashe Stadium for what may have been her last Grand Slam final.Thinking about it now, I can still hear the proud and melancholy sound of Williams’s straining breath as she served to stay in the match, facing a third match point. I can feel her gasping exhale echoing across the stands. I can remember Andreescu dialing up a forehand reply, just as I can recall Williams’s lunge as that forehand spun by for a winner.Game, set, Slam, Andreescu, 6-3, 7-5.You had to be there to feel the poignancy. A collective, mournful groan underlay the standing ovation applause for a new and deserving champion.This was the ultimate tennis champion on her last legs, coming up short, fighting to the end. I’m thankful to have been there as a witness.Has Serena Williams Impacted You? Share Your Story.The Times wants to hear stories from people who have seen Williams play at tournaments, and those particularly impacted by her career. We won’t publish any part of your submission without contacting you first. More

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      Serena Williams Loses to Emma Raducanu in Cincinnati

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      Emma Raducanu beat Williams in straight sets in the first round at the Western and Southern Open. Williams’s next tournament, and quite possibly her last, will be the U.S. Open.MASON, Ohio — The Serena Williams farewell tour continues to seem like a fine idea that has come too late in the game.Since Williams’s announcement in Vogue last week that she would soon retire from the sport that she once ruled, she has played two matches and lost both in straight sets.Her last hurrahs have so far been sotto voce: grand occasions without matching content. And as Emma Raducanu, last year’s surprise U.S. Open champion, made frightfully quick work of Williams with a victory, 6-4, 6-0, on Tuesday night, the sold-out center court at the Western and Southern Open was often as quiet as a practice court as the nearly 12,000 fans on hand rarely had the chance to cheer the icon they had come to honor.For those who remember Williams at her peak, it was painful to watch this first-round defeat as she piled up unforced errors and missed returns early and then, after a brief surge, faded badly down the stretch with more of the same.Irresistible on serve in her prime, she lost her opening service game at love and also lost her last three service games, unable to control her shots or her destiny, particularly when the quick and agile Raducanu got her on the run, exposing Williams’s now-limited movement.Williams’s second serve has been a problem in recent years, and it was an even bigger problem on Tuesday. She won just two of 16 points on her second delivery: a paltry 12.5 percent. And though Williams had long feasted on second serves like Raducanu’s, the 19-year-old British star won 75 percent of the points on her second serve as Williams struggled to find her timing and sometimes her footing.It was a measure of Williams’s disarray and disappointment that, after this 65-minute rout was complete, she politely shook hands with Raducanu and quickly exited the court with a wave to the crowd, declining an on-court interview with Kondo Simfukwe that would have allowed her to address the public directly in her final match at the tournament.Last week in Toronto, when Williams lost to Belinda Bencic in the second round of the National Bank Open, there was considerably more fanfare: Williams said a formal farewell to Canada, shed a few tears and accepted an armful of parting gifts, including Maple Leafs and Raptors jerseys with her name and the No. 22 on them.Williams won just two of 16 points on her second serve.Jeff Dean/Associated PressBut there would be no Bengals gear on Tuesday outside Cincinnati, even though the Western and Southern Open tournament staff were prepared to mark the moment with much more pomp and circumstance if Williams had been open to the idea.Instead, it was left to Raducanu, who had just faced Williams for the first and likely only time, to speak to the moment and perform one of the pirouettes that Williams long deployed in victory.“Well, I think we all need to just honor Serena and her amazing career,” Raducanu said. “I’m so grateful for the experience to be able to play her and for our careers to cross over. Everything she has achieved is so inspirational, and yeah, it was a true honor to share this court with her.”Raducanu was not yet born when Williams won her first Grand Slam singles title at age 17 at the 1999 U.S. Open but like so many of her generation, Raducanu grew up with Williams dominating the landscape.“When you guys were cheering for her, I was like — you know what? — all for it,” Raducanu said to the crowd.Raducanu’s breakthrough victory in New York last year was much more of a shock than Williams’s 1999 triumph. Raducanu was an unseeded qualifier and is the only qualifier to win a Grand Slam singles title. She has struggled to follow up on that bravura performance, failing to reach a final in any other tour event. But her poise, precision, flowing footwork and superbly sliced serves on Tuesday were a flashback to last September at Flushing Meadows, even if she felt much more shaky than she looked.“To be honest, I was nervous from the first point to the last point,” Raducanu said. “I know what a champion she is. She can come back from any situation. I just had to stay focused. I’m just so pleased I managed to keep my composure.”Williams congratulating Emma Raducanu, who wasn’t yet born when Williams won her first U.S. Open singles title in 1999.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesWilliams’s struggles in the twilight are certainly understandable. She will turn 41 next month and has been a professional since age 14. The years, even with a limited schedule and phenomenal talent, take their toll. Williams, who missed a year of action after a hamstring tear at Wimbledon in 2021, has played only four singles matches in the last 14 months, and she took to the court to face Raducanu with a long strip of tape running down the outside of her left thigh, likely to provide support for her left knee.This much-anticipated match between the greatest women’s player of this era and one of the game’s brightest young talents was originally scheduled for Monday night but was delayed a day at Williams’s request in order to give her, according to people informed of the situation but not authorized to speak about it, more time to recover from knee pain.It was a newsy day in women’s tennis on Tuesday: Naomi Osaka, once the world No. 1, continued to struggle in 2022, losing in the first round by 6-4, 7-5 to Zhang Shuai of China. Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old American who reached the French Open final earlier this year, rolled an ankle late in the first set of her opening-round match with Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic and retired trailing, 5-7, 0-1.But the main event was clearly Williams vs. Raducanu, and Williams took the court after warming up in front of a large and supportive crowd earlier in the day on Court 16, with fans peering down from nearby show courts for a chance to catch a glimpse of Williams in person, perhaps for the last time. Some of them already had watched Williams’s older sister Venus lose, 7-5, 6-1, on center court to No. 14 seed Karolina Pliskova in their first-round match.It was another poignant day for the Williams sisters and another short stay at a tournament where they used to settle in for longer. On Wednesday, the 10th-seeded Raducanu, not the unseeded Serena Williams, will face the former world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka in the second round.Serena Williams will presumably return to the practice court and physical therapy to try to get sharper and healthier before playing in New York, even if it now seems a long shot that she will be able to find enough form to make a run at the U.S. Open, which begins on Aug. 29 and is likely to be the last of her hurrahs. More

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      Serena Williams Takes On Emma Raducanu On the Road to the U.S. Open

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      After a postponement because of physical problems, Williams is scheduled to play Emma Raducanu on Tuesday. Her prime target is the U.S. Open, and she will not want to take undue risks.MASON, Ohio — The Serena Williams farewell tour is set to continue Tuesday at the Western and Southern Open.But for how long?The matchup — Williams vs. Emma Raducanu of Britain in the opening round — seems particularly well suited to the grand occasion that is Williams’s extended goodbye from professional tennis.With 23 Grand Slam singles titles, she is unquestionably the greatest women’s tennis player of this era and one of the greatest athletes of any era. Raducanu, a cosmopolitan 19-year-old, shocked the world (and herself) by winning last year’s U.S. Open as a qualifier, and has the smarts and strokes to be one of the leaders of the game if she can adjust to her new status and resume smacking forehand winners and winning matches by the bunch.The two champions at opposite ends of their careers have never played each other, and Raducanu is one of several young stars on the WTA Tour who have been hoping for a chance to face Williams before she walks away from the sport she long dominated. She wrote in Vogue, published last week, that the U.S. Open, which begins on Aug. 29 in New York, would be her last.But the question is whether Williams’s body (she turns 41 on Sept. 26) can make it to her self-imposed finish line. Her match with Raducanu was originally scheduled, with great fanfare, for Monday night, with the tournament releasing a statement and informing fans on site for the qualifying rounds that Williams would be playing in that opening-night slot outside Cincinnati.But after tickets, presumably quite a number of them, were purchased with Williams in mind, the match was bumped late on Monday to Tuesday with a vague explanation from the tournament. “On account of a number of factors related to scheduling, the Serena Williams-Emma Raducanu match will now be held on Tuesday,” the tournament said in announcing the Monday schedule.People who had been informed about the situation but who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, said the postponement was because of physical problems with Williams, who has had chronic knee tendinitis during her career and missed a year of competition after tearing her right hamstring at Wimbledon in 2021.There was no confirmation of injury concerns from Williams or from tournament officials. Williams practiced on Sunday and Monday, and the match remains on the Tuesday night schedule. But Williams, if she wins, would have to play on consecutive days for as long as she remains in the tournament. With the U.S. Open in her sights, she will clearly not want to take undue risks that could jeopardize her moment in Queens.Serena Williams and her coach, Eric Hechtman, during a practice.Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesThe U.S. Open is her prime target as Eric Hechtman, her new coach, made clear in an interview last week in Toronto, where Williams lost in the second round of the National Bank Open in straight sets to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.It was the third singles match of Williams’s latest and surely last comeback, following an opening-round defeat to Harmony Tan, an unseeded Frenchwoman, at Wimbledon in June and a first-round victory in Toronto over Nuria Parrizas-Diaz of Spain.“We had Wimbledon, and now we have Toronto and Cincinnati to build up for New York,” Hechtman said after the loss to Bencic. “I’d say Serena’s played better in each match, and obviously there are things she could do better out there, but I thought her opponent played really well tonight. What we’re going to do is take the positives and improve tomorrow. She’s a champion, and we’re going to keep getting better every day, not just every match, but every day and hopefully we can make some improvements by Cincinnati.”Hechtman, a 38-year-old club professional who played at the University of Miami, has coached Venus Williams, Serena’ s older sister, since 2019 and began coaching Serena Williams earlier this year after she split with her longtime coach, Patrick Mouratoglou.For years, Venus and Serena shared the same coaches, their father Richard and mother Oracene Price, and in the sisters’ developmental years, the Florida-based coach Rick Macci.Working with Hechtman brings them, in a sense, full circle even if he generally trains with them separately to give them individualized instruction.“I feel blessed and thankful that I’m in this situation,” he said. “It just fell into place, and I just hope I do them justice and help them as much as I can to go forward.”Venus Williams, 42, who has yet to announce any timetable for her own retirement, received a wild card into the Western and Southern Open and has a daunting first-round match on the main stadium court against Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, a former world No. 1, on Tuesday.“Venus will do it how she wants to it when she wants to do it,” Hechtman said of her leaving the game. “She could play for five more years. Who knows?”But her younger sister has made her intentions much clearer.“Emotions are high,” Hechtman said. “Every athlete faces this time at some point, and I think it’s good Serena did it the way she did it. I thought her first-person essay was unbelievable, and it shows a lot about how she is but also how intelligent she is. We’ve got a couple of tournaments left and hopefully we can use that as one of her major weapons: not just her tennis but her brain power and how she uses it on court.”Tennis fans watched Williams, far left, during a practice session on Monday.Aaron Doster/Associated PressThe power gap that long separated Serena Williams from the chase pack has been closed. Her successors on tour thrive on torrid pace, from this year’s Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina to the rising Americans Coco Gauff and Amanda Anisimova. It is harder to overwhelm this generation, in part because Williams set a new standard.But Williams still has aura, particularly with those who grew up watching her from afar.“When I look at her, I suddenly kind of forget that I’m here as world No. 1,” said Iga Swiatek, the Polish 21-year-old who was not even born when Williams won her first major title at the 1999 U.S. Open. “I see Serena and it’s, ‘Wow, Serena!’ You know? And I feel like I’m a kid from kindergarten just looking at her. So it’s tough. I haven’t talked to her, but I’m just trying to say hi.”And though Williams is no longer as mobile at age 40, she can win points in a variety of manners, deploying drop shots successfully in Toronto and using her still-impressive first serve to secure quick points or set up next-shot winners.“I think she’s serving well,” Hechtman said. “The pace is there on the serve, as it always has been through her career. She’s been improving since Wimbledon, and I think she’s definitely striking the ball cleaner, and I’d say the movement has improved. So, on all those fronts, it’s good.”The intent is to have a better, fuller preparation heading into New York than she had heading into Wimbledon, where she had played only two doubles matches at a tournament in Eastbourne, England, with Ons Jabeur before facing Tan.“We’re playing more events coming in,” Hechtman said. “So I think that’s useful and what we need to be doing. It’s like warming up for a match, right? You don’t just start the match cold. You’ve got to get the rhythm, and she’s getting her rhythm with the more matches she plays.”Body willing, she will play at least one in Mason, Ohio. More