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      Novak Djokovic Is Ready For Another Fight

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      As he closes in on a rare calendar-year Grand Slam, Novak Djokovic has mastered readying himself for tennis as hand-to-hand combat.“A good fight.” “A battle.”This, invariably, is Novak Djokovic, late in the evening, often well past midnight, when another day of work is finally done, when the arena has emptied and he sits in front of a microphone, his piercing eyes an odd combination of glazed and steely, and he tries to put into words what he has just endured.To so many tennis players, their game exists as a kind of art. Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the world’s third-ranked player, talks about tennis as a form of self-expression.To Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who is No. 2 in the world rankings, tennis is a chess match, requiring the ability to think several shots ahead, to control the center of the court as though it is the center of a chess board, to make the quick moves needed to shift from defense to offense in an instant.Then there is Djokovic, the player who stands two matches away from pulling off the most hallowed achievement in the game — winning all four Grand Slams in the same calendar year. For Djokovic, tennis is not art, or ballet, and it is certainly not a game. It is combat, a street brawl in which there is only one survivor.“A battle.”“A good fight.”“I can go the distance,” he said as the clock ticked close to 1:30 a.m. Thursday, fittingly using a boxing expression after his 3 hour, 27 minute duel with Matteo Berrettini of Italy in the quarterfinals. “Actually I like to go the distance.”For nearly two weeks, Djokovic, the 34-year-old Serbian, has faced opponents who are younger, some by more than a decade. Several of them are bigger than he is, and seemingly far stronger. “I don’t want to wrestle with him,” Djokovic joked after beating Berrettini, his 25-year-old opponent, who is 6-foot-5 and more than 200 pounds.And yet, Djokovic has left all of them not just defeated but also beaten.Holger Rune, a cocky 18-year-old from Denmark who took a set off him in their first round match, could barely walk by the middle of the third set, crippled by cramping that set in after 90 minutes of chasing Djokovic’s blistering forehands to every corner of the court.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesJenson Brooksby, a 20-year-old American, gave Djokovic all he could handle for a set-and-a-half in the fourth round. But within a few more games, a medical trainer was hovering at his chair, treating him for a hip injury he aggravated during the unmatched physical test that playing Djokovic has become.The signature moments that night came when Djokovic followed up his on-the-run passing shots by staring down his 6-foot-4 foe.He said he wanted Brooksby “to feel” his presence on the court, to understand that he was facing someone with no intention of showing any mercy, no matter how hobbled he might be.“I wanted to wear him down,” he said of Brooksby, “and it worked.”Battlegrounds are familiar territory for Djokovic, a lover of wolves, the product of a region that was war-torn during his childhood. One of his coaches, Goran Ivanisevic, a Croatian, said that the Balkans bred people who are desperate to prove their resourcefulness to a world that, as he put it, expected nothing from you.For Djokovic, in so many ways, this U.S. Open has become a microcosm of a career marked not just by on-court battles with opponents, but by career-long fights against so many other forces in the game: fights against history, to do what no player has done before by taking the lead for most Grand Slam titles; against a tennisphere that so loved its binary duel between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and preferred not to have Djokovic crashing their Rafa-Roger lovefest. And there is the never-ending fight against the tens of thousands of tennis fans who come to his matches and roar for him to lose, caring little who the opponent is. (If Novak loses, Roger and Rafa win, their logic goes.)Frank Franklin II/Associated PressThe jeering jarred Djokovic on his first night here, as the crowd roared “ROOOOOON!” over and over and showed little appreciation for the start of Djokovic’s quest to achieve something that was considered too difficult in this era, with the three greatest-ever players competing all at once. He was terse in his on-court interview after Rune was finished. He abandoned his trademark gesture of pushing his heart out to the crowd. He was blunt in a post-match news conference.“Obviously you always wish to have the crowd behind you, but it’s not always possible,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”Two matches later, with the jeering reaching full throttle as Kei Nishikori tried to survive, Djokovic pulled off a series of impossible shots at the key moment of the third set. He put his finger to his ear after the first two, demanding the noise that finally surged behind him. After a third, he squinted and glared at the crowd as he sauntered to his chair for the changeover, sending a very clear message — I am going to beat him and I am going to beat you.Always, though, the primary fight is on the court, and it is a battle he begins with a head start, because the players on the receiving end of his blows have convinced themselves that nothing less than the best match of their lives will suffice.Sarah Stier/Getty Images“You have to be perfect,” Alexander Zverev, his semifinal opponent, who beat him at the Olympic Games in Tokyo six weeks ago, said earlier this week. “Most of the time you can’t be perfect. That’s why most of the time people lose to him. You have to win the match yourself. You have to be the one that is dominating the points.”Berrettini looked as though he might have a shot Wednesday night in the quarterfinal.Everything about Berrettini is big — his shoulders, his chest, the way he stalks the court and unleashes his booming serve and massive forehand, plus a Usain Bolt-like stride that sends him from the baseline to the net seemingly in three quick steps. For 80 minutes he took every blow Djokovic tried to land and gave it back, prevailing 7-5 in the first set, sending the teeming stadium packed with 23,000 fans into a frenzy.Djokovic, though, was just getting started, raising his level to win the next three games and making sure Berrettini knew how much more he was going to need to come up with to prevail.Within 40 minutes it was all even. Just before the three-hour mark, a few minutes past midnight, Djokovic was cruising toward the finish. Berrettini was still blasting 130 mile per hour serves, but Djokovic was somehow blasting them right back at his feet and onto the lines. When he ripped a crosscourt forehand that Berrettini could only watch whiz by, the big Italian slumped his shoulders and shook his head.Elsa/Getty ImagesOnce more, Berrettini said, Djokovic had made him sweat in a way other players never do, had taken his early shot square in the mouth when he lost the first set, just as he had to Berrettini in the Wimbledon final, and somehow come back to the court stronger.“He takes energy from that set that he lost,” Berrettini said.Berrettini had plenty of company in defeat. By midnight, when Djokovic had made it clear that his night would end just as all the others had, perhaps half the crowd had gone home. The only ones left chanted “Nole, Nole, Nole, Nole…,” inserting Djokovic’s nickname into the Ole chant.Once more he had fought them all, and won.“Five sets, five hours, whatever it takes,” he said in the bowels of the stadium, just before he left. “That’s why I’m here.” More

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      Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu To Meet Saturday in U.S. Open Final

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      The teenagers, who meet in Saturday’s final, have illuminated this U.S. Open and transformed it into perhaps the most surprising women’s Grand Slam tournament of the Open era.It was no mean feat to come up with a tennis story that could compete with the first serious bid for a men’s singles Grand Slam in 52 years.But the women have somehow managed it in this mad and marvelous edition of the U.S. Open, or to be more precise, the teenagers have managed it.After knocking off their elders one by one by one, Emma Raducanu, 18, of Britain and Leylah Fernandez, 19, of Canada will now play in Saturday’s singles final.“I find it fascinating that literally the only way for the women’s draw to capture some focus away from Novak Djokovic chasing the most historic feat in tennis, the calendar-year Grand Slam, was to come up with something like a fairy tale,” said Pam Shriver, once a surprise U.S. Open finalist herself at age 16. “With all due respect, it couldn’t have been the No. 2 player and No. 10 player facing off, but this story is almost like the perfect complement to Djokovic going for history.”This will be the first all-teenage Grand Slam final since Serena Williams defeated Martina Hingis in 1999 at Flushing Meadows to win the first of her 23 major singles titles.It seems fitting, with Williams missing this tournament with a leg injury and soon to turn 40, that two young players have come along to generate a similar buzz of discovery.But this is not quite the same teenage scene. Williams and Hingis were already stars in 1999. Hingis was ranked No. 1 and seeded No. 1. Williams was seeded No. 7 and had been making headlines and waves with her older sister Venus for years.Fernandez and Raducanu were familiar only to tennis cognoscenti before arriving in New York. Fernandez is unseeded and ranked 73rd. Raducanu is ranked 150th, which meant that she had to make it through qualifying just to reach the main draw. Though she turned heads, particularly in Britain, by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon in her Grand Slam singles debut this year, she seemed overwhelmed by the moment and the physical challenge and was unable to finish that fourth-round match against Ajla Tomljanovic because she had trouble breathing. But instead of that frightening experience holding her back, she has rebounded beautifully and has yet to drop a set in New York: not in three qualifying matches or her six main-draw matches against vastly more experienced players, including the new Olympic champion Belinda Bencic.Raducanu is now the first qualifier to reach a Grand Slam singles final, going one round further than the likes of John McEnroe.Before Wimbledon, Raducanu was only the 10th ranked player in her own country, but she will be British No. 1 on Monday and potentially the first British woman to win a major singles title since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.Wade was watching inside Arthur Ashe Stadium late Thursday night as Raducanu fought off seven break points in her opening two service games and then stepped on the accelerator to defeat the No. 17 seed, Maria Sakkari, 6-1, 6-4.When Raducanu finished off her latest upset with an expertly timed forehand swing volley, she dropped her racket and put both hands on top of her head, a faraway look in her eyes.She was asked later how she would describe what she had accomplished so far.“A surprise,” she said. “Yeah, honestly I just can’t believe it. A shock. Crazy. All of the above. But it means a lot to be here in this situation. I wanted obviously to, like, be playing Grand Slams, but I didn’t know how soon that would be. To be in a Grand Slam final at this stage of my career, I have no words.”Not long before, Fernandez was asked to describe what she had accomplished so far after her much more suspenseful semifinal victory over the No. 2 seed, Aryna Sabalenka.“I’m just having fun,” she said. “I’m trying to produce something for the crowd to enjoy. I’m glad that whatever I’m doing on court, the fans are loving it, and I’m loving it too. We’ll say it’s magical.”The word applies to both players’ runs to the final, but their paths to this rarefied moment have been both remarkably similar and remarkably different. Both were born in Canada, but though Raducanu still holds a Canadian passport, she left with her parents to live in London when she was 2. Both also grew up in multicultural households. Raducanu’s father is Romanian; her mother is Chinese. Fernandez’s father, Jorge, also her coach, was born in Ecuador before immigrating to Canada at age 4 with his parents, and Fernandez’s mother was born in Canada to parents who immigrated from the Philippines.But Fernandez’s family has had significant financial challenges and hardships, with her mother leaving Canada to work in California for several years during Fernandez’s youth to better support the family.“Those few years have been definitely hard for me, because I needed a mom,” Fernandez said. “I needed someone to be there for me through the age of 10 to 13. I’ve barely seen her at that time. Every time I saw her, it was like seeing a stranger but at the same time someone so familiar.”Though Tennis Canada has provided some support for Fernandez’s tennis, money has often been tight, her father said.Fernandez said she also had faced many doubts in her early career about her potential. She remembered a teacher in Canada telling her to stop playing tennis and just focus on her studies because she would “never make it.”“Now I’m laughing,” she said. “I’m just glad that she told me that because every day I have that phrase in my head saying that I’m going to keep going. I’m going to push through, and I’m going to prove to her everything that I’ve dreamed of, I’m going to achieve.”She is off to a fine start in New York after a summer of underwhelming results and after never advancing past the third round in her first six Grand Slam tournaments.Raducanu, whose parents work in finance, does not appear to be fueled by a desire to quiet the skeptics and, unlike Fernandez, she was not firmly set on being a professional tennis player until recently.“Maybe two years ago,” she said. “I always had my education as a backup. I was doing it alongside my tennis. I had options. I still do, but obviously I’m a hundred percent in my tennis now.”Raducanu and Fernandez met as juniors, and Raducanu said they connected over their Canadian roots. But until now their most significant previous match was in the second round of the Wimbledon junior tournament in 2018.They will meet again on Saturday with rather more at stake in the first U.S. Open women’s final between unseeded players.Picking a winner looks like a fool’s errand in light of both players’ inexperience at this level. Raducanu has been the more dominant force, dispatching opponents with powerful precision, and is tied for second in the tournament in the percentage of return games won and percentage of service games won. Fernandez has had to scrap, hustle and believe through four straight three setters. But Fernandez also has had a tougher draw: defeating two former No. 1 players in Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the former WTA Finals champ Elina Svitolina and the imposing Sabalenka.Fernandez’s ability to beat that many quality players in taut, tight matches is a tribute to her resolve, adaptability and talent. She is a left-hander, and her serve, particularly her first serve, has been very effective. She has been selectively and effectively bold, hitting more return winners (22) than any player in this Open. Sabalenka overwhelmed her early on Thursday but Fernandez then adjusted to the pace and reeled her in, exchanging low baseline bolts at times and abruptly changing pace with drop shots at others.As tempting as it is to consider this the arrival of two new top-tier players, the recent history of women’s tennis argues for more restraint. The game has been producing new contenders at a rapid clip. Since the start of 2015, there will have been 13 first-time Grand Slam singles champions, with Raducanu or Fernandez set to be the 14th. Some of those champions have established themselves as No. 1 players, like Osaka and Ashleigh Barty. But others have fallen back like Sloane Stephens and Jelena Ostapenko.“On the women’s side in recent times we just don’t know what will happen after they have this success,” Shriver said. “For this particular tournament, it’s incredible, but for it to pay dividends in the long run, we need to see them in the quarters, semis and finals. It would be great, but we have got to be patient because of the way things could be derailed for one or both after this because of the way it changes a teenager’s life. I certainly understand that, but for now, let’s just enjoy it.”That sounds like the right approach. The teenagers’ joy has been a delight to behold as they have taken turns illuminating this U.S. Open and transforming it into perhaps the most surprising women’s Grand Slam tournament of the Open era.Riding back from Queens to Manhattan well after midnight on Friday, the bus passed by a huge U.S. Open billboard of Serena Williams featuring the words “The Return of Amazing.”Even without Williams at Flushing Meadows this year, the words have still rung true. More

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      Leylah Fernandez Advances to the U.S. Open Final

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      The 19-year-old Canadian, who won 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4, becomes the youngest singles finalist at the U.S. Open since Serena Williams advanced at age 17 in 1999.Leylah Fernandez, the Canadian teen sensation, cruised into the finals of the U.S. Open Thursday night, knocking off Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus with an upset that might have been surprising had she not been doing this for the better part of a week.With Steve Nash, the N.B.A. Hall of Famer and Nets coach watching from her box, and all of Canada and seemingly all of New York in her corner, Fernandez, ranked 73rd, notched her fourth consecutive win over one of the world’s top-20 players. Her stunning run has included victories over the second, third, fifth and 16th seeded players in the tournament. She beat Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the winners of a combined seven Grand Slam singles titles, then knocked off Elina Svitolina, who is considered one of the best players never to have won a Grand Slam tournament.Then came Sabalenka, one of the world’s biggest hitters and its second-ranked player. At 23, she appeared poised this year to take the next step in her development. She has never made a Grand Slam final but lost in the semifinals at Wimbledon and backed that up with another trip to the final four at the U.S. Open.Aryna Sabalenka serving during the match.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesIn Fernandez, though, Sabalenka ran into a player who seems to have convinced herself that she cannot be beaten, that if she can just keep getting the ball back over the net with her brand of power and spin and guile, somehow the match will break her way.It took two hours and 21 minutes for that moment to come, when she finished off a 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4 win, thanks to two ill-timed double faults from Sabalenka and one last error sailing off the court.“I don’t know how I did that,” Fernandez said, when asked how she had pulled it all off during her on-court interview moments after the final point made the crowd explode one last time.Fernandez became the second Canadian teenager in three years to make the final of the U.S. Open, following in the footsteps of Bianca Andreescu, who beat Serena Williams to win the championship in 2019.Like Andreescu, Fernandez has shot to the top seemingly out of nowhere. Though she had been inching her way up the rankings for the past three years, she had given little indication that she was on the verge of a breakthrough of this magnitude.Fernandez came out jittery, lost her serve and was down 3-0 in the first set. Before long though, she had settled down and proved to be the perfect foil for Sabalenka’s high-octane game that leaves little margin for error. When Sabalenka doesn’t connect, she beats balls into the bottom half of the net or watches them sail five and six feet beyond the baseline, then flails her arms in frustration.There was plenty of that on Thursday evening at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Sabalenka seemed to be making steady progress with a 4-2 lead in the first set, but then made a series of errors to let Fernandez back into the set, including a double fault on game point.At the crucial moment of the first-set tiebreaker, with Fernandez holding a 4-3 lead, Sabalenka missed badly on an easy overhead, double-faulted, then bounced a Fernandez serve on set point into the net.The second set looked like it was going to be a near carbon copy of the first. An early break for Sabalenka, then sloppiness to let Fernandez back into the frame. But then Fernandez cracked in the ninth game, giving Sabalenka a chance to serve out the set. She whirled her arms, begging for some support from the pro-Fernandez crowd.Fans getting into the match as it began to get close.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesOn to the third set they went, trading service games into midway point, when Fernandez, holding a 3-2 lead, let Sabalenka hit herself into trouble, then blocked one of Sabalenka’s hardest serves of the night and watched Sabalenka’s shot float long. But Fernandez struggled with the prosperity, letting Sabalenka break her right back, and a game later knot the score at 4-4.But Fernandez stayed cool, and a game later let Sabalenka take care of business for her. Eventually, things work out for this teenager, at least at this U.S. Open.She will play the winner of the match between Emma Raducanu of Britain and Maria Sakkari of Greece in the final Saturday afternoon. More

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      At US Open, Teen Women Rule and It's Contagious

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      Doubles partners Coco Gauff and Caty McNally credit fellow teenagers Leylah Fernandez and Emma Radacanu for motivating them they advance to the semifinals.As Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez have put themselves one match away from an improbable all-teenage U.S. Open women’s singles final, an even younger duo is just as close to taking the trophy in tandem.Coco Gauff, 17, and Caty McNally, 19, beat the top-seeded doubles pairing of Elise Mertens and Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday afternoon in the women’s doubles quarterfinals, 6-3, 7-6 (1).In Gauff and McNally’s on-court interview in front of a joyful crowd at Louis Armstrong Stadium, McNally said she had drawn inspiration from her peers’ success in singles.“It’s truly incredible,” McNally said. “I’ve walked past Leylah and Emma in the locker rooms and have just congratulated them, and rooted them on. I think it’s unbelievable. Age is just a number; it doesn’t mean anything. We’re showing that we’re fierce and we’re ready to be out here competing with everyone. I just think it’s awesome.”In their news conference, Gauff said she believed there was “definitely a shift” happening toward a younger generation.“For me, I always knew it was going to come,” Gauff said. “I’m glad. I’m so happy for Leylah and Emma. I’ve known both of them for a long time; they’re both super nice girls, and I’m always cheering for them.” Gauff said she had been due to leave the tournament site during Fernandez’s quarterfinal win Tuesday, but stayed to watch the conclusion. “I had to wait ’til that third set finished,” Gauff said. “It ended up being long, but it was worth the wait.”“I am rooting for both of them,” Gauff added. “Hope we get a teenager final. It’s definitely inspiring. It inspires me to do better and work harder.”Gauff, ranked 23rd in singles, has been a leader for her generation in recent years, resetting expectations of what teenagers can achieve in this era of professional tennis after reaching the second week of Wimbledon in 2019 when she was just 15 years old. McNally has yet to break the top 100 in singles, but said she drew encouragement from Raducanu and Fernandez’s successes.“I think it should just give everyone the inspiration to just go out there and say, ‘Why not me?’” McNally said. “That’s what they’re doing, going out there every match, playing so fearless. ‘Why not me going to the semis, quarters, or winning it?’ They’re playing very boldly, fiercely. Obviously we’re not still in the singles, but I think we can do the same thing in doubles.”McNally and Gauff celebrate match point.Elsa/Getty ImagesDespite their youth, the team dubbed “McCoco” is one of the more established partnerships in women’s tennis. McNally and Gauff first played together three years ago here, winning the U.S. Open girls’ doubles title. They have played together frequently since, winning three WTA titles beginning in 2019, and twice reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.“The main thing that makes us hard to beat is our chemistry with each other,” Gauff said. “If one of us is off, the other one is always there to cover.” (When McNally missed this year’s French Open, Gauff played doubles with a decidedly older partner: then-40-year-old Venus Williams.)Mertens and Hsieh, whose second serves were both relentlessly attacked by the teenagers across the net, were full of praise for the emerging generation.“They have nothing to lose: they can play and be free,” said Mertens, a relative veteran at age 25 who is also ranked in the top 20 in singles. “Body-wise, they’re very mature, and also mentally. They have a lot of power already, for 17 and 18 years old.”Hsieh, 35, was enthusiastic about the youth infusion in the singles and doubles draws at this year’s Open.“It’s always nice to see the young girls coming,” Hsieh said. “They’re pretty, they have energy, and they have different games. It’s an exciting refresh for the tour.”Hsieh, however, said she was happy to watch the youth takeover from a distance, for now. “I hope I don’t need to face them again too fast,” she said. As their on-court interview was wrapping up, Gauff grabbed the microphone to address the “Gen Z” people she saw in attendance.“Armstrong is always a young crowd — I saw a lot of kids out there,” Gauff said in her news conference. “I wanted them to know it definitely can happen to them. I just think if you dream it, you can do it. All those kids out there just reminded me of me when I was here in the U.S. Open watching people play, thinking that I can make it. It’s always such a big dream.“People always say, ‘Yeah, every kid thinks they’re going to be No. 1 and stuff,’” Gauff added. “I think every kid should believe that and should work for it; don’t let adults tell you that you can’t do it.” More

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      At U.S. Open, Novak Djokovic Moves One Step Closer to Grand Slam

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      After dropping the first set, the world No. 1 smoothly beat sixth-seeded Matteo Berrettini, 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3, to advance to the semifinals against Alexander Zverev.The U.S. Open has waited 52 years for a man to have a chance at winning the Grand Slam, so what’s a few extra hours?Top-ranked Novak Djokovic, undefeated in best-of-five matches this year as he pursues the Grand Slam, again lingered in long form play on Wednesday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium before rerouting to a romp of the sixth-seeded Matteo Berrettini, 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3.Djokovic’s first set against Berrettini was the third straight time he had lost the opening frame, and also his most taxing set of the tournament. The first game lasted for 14 points; the sixth game needed 20 points. Though Djokovic was broken in the 11th game on a forehand passing shot winner by Berrettini and lost the set soon after, it was Berrettini who needed to leave the court to change out of his sweat-soaked attire just an hour and 17 minutes into the match.Djokovic’s detours at this tournament have not led to despondency, but discovery.The first set against Berrettini was the fourth set Djokovic has lost this tournament. As he did each time before, Djokovic took the information he gleaned and reprogrammed his game with increased precision. After hitting 17 unforced errors in the first set, he hit only three in the second and three in the third. Djokovic had five unforced errors in the fourth set.Through force of will and persistence, he turned the match in his favor, and even won over some of the begrudging crowd. When he held for 5-2 in the third, after saving a Berrettini break point and extinguishing any hope for a comeback, Djokovic held his hand to his ear, imploring the crowd to recognize his indomitability as he moves closer to the Grand Slam, and a record 21st career major singles title.After he got up a break early in the fourth set, Djokovic seemed to shift to a lower gear to coast to the finish, winning only two more points on return to conserve energy. When he wrapped up the victory after three hours and 27 minutes, Djokovic walked briskly to the net, wasting little energy on an elaborate celebration. He took several seconds to find the wristwatch he dons for the on-court interview to fulfill sponsor obligations.“I was locked in, really, from the beginning of the second set,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview. “I took my tennis to a different level. This has been the best three sets I’ve played so far in the tournament, for sure.”Djokovic has won the first 26 of the 28 matches he needs to complete the Grand Slam, but his 27th test may prove to be one of his toughest. On Friday night, Djokovic will face fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev, whose 16-match win streak includes a win over Djokovic in the semifinals of last month’s Tokyo Olympics.Zverev needed only two hours and six minutes to complete his own quarterfinal victory hours earlier, avoiding delay by saving a set point in the tiebreak of his 7-6(6), 6-3, 6-4 win over Lloyd Harris.Where Djokovic has been effective, Zverev has been efficient. Zverev has needed only nine hours and 23 minutes to complete his five wins here; Djokovic has needed 13 hours and 52 minutes.In his news conference on Wednesday, Zverev showed confidence but recognized the task ahead of him.“Against him you prepare that you have to play the best match that you can,” Zverev said of facing Djokovic. “You have to be perfect, otherwise you will not win.“Most of the time you can’t be perfect,” Zverev added. “That’s why most of the time people lose to him.” More

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      Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime and Leylah Fernandez Arrive at U.S. Open

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      The semifinalists are part of a new wave of Canadian tennis stars who are changing the image of the game in their country and reflecting its increased diversity.Canada’s tennis success story continues to add chapters at breakneck pace with Felix Auger-Aliassime and Leylah Fernandez having advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Open for the first time in their short careers.Auger-Aliassime, 21, and Fernandez, 19, are part of a new wave of Canadian tennis stars who are changing the image of the game in their country, reflecting its increased diversity.Their breakthrough in New York marks the first time Canada has had two singles semifinalists at the U.S. Open. It comes after other Canadian success at Grand Slams: Bianca Andreescu won the 2019 U.S. Open women’s singles title and Denis Shapovalov reached the men’s semifinals at Wimbledon this year.It remains a surprising tale. Canada, with its famously rugged winters, has a shortage of indoor courts and a dearth of junior players compared with more established tennis nations like the United States, France and Germany. Canada’s best athletes still tend to gravitate to ice hockey, soccer and other activities.The four young Canadian tennis stars all have at least one immigrant parent. Auger-Aliassime and Fernandez were born and raised in Montreal.“It’s great for Canada, great for Quebec,” Auger-Aliassime said on Tuesday. “I never thought a day like this would come: a little girl and a little boy from Montreal both at the same time in the semifinals of the U.S. Open. It’s special for us. I hope the people back home appreciate the moment also. We do a lot.”Auger-Aliassime is biracial. His mother, Marie Auger, is French Canadian, and his father, Sam Aliassime, immigrated to Canada from Togo. Fernandez’s mother, Irene, was born in Toronto to parents originally from the Philippines. Fernandez’s father and coach, Jorge, immigrated to Canada from Ecuador at age 4 with his family.Andreescu, born near Toronto, is the only child of Romanian immigrants. Shapovalov, born in Tel Aviv, is the son of a Russian father and Ukrainian mother.Auger-Aliassume talking with Carlos Alcaraz after Alcaraz retired in the second set of their quarterfinal match.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“I think we all share that immigrant story,” Andreescu said in a recent interview. “I can definitely relate to a lot of people in Canada, because I think it’s very multicultural, and I think we can all be an inspiration that way.”Sports remain an on-ramp to success in many cultures for immigrant families, and professional tennis is full of examples. The retired American star Andre Agassi is the son of an Iranian Olympic boxer; Michael Chang, another retired American star, is the son of immigrants from Taiwan. Alexander Zverev, a semifinalist at this year’s U.S. Open, was born in Germany to Russian parents.“I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all,” Jorge Fernandez said in an interview on Wednesday. “Immigrant families bring a lot of hard work with them to the court. They bring a lot of toughness and willingness to sacrifice. They may not know anything about the sport, but they know what it means to work hard.”Jorge Fernandez was a professional soccer player, not a competitive tennis player, and has taught himself about the game, much like Richard Williams, the father of Serena and Venus Williams. Auger-Aliassime’s father is a tennis coach who has an academy in Quebec City.Jorge Fernandez said he and Sam Aliassime would compare notes and exchange ideas as they watched their children practice and compete in Montreal.“We would share our experiences, our hopes and frustrations,” Fernandez said. “I think both being immigrants, we have a lot in common.”But while Jorge Fernandez has remained his daughter’s primary coach, moving the family to Florida for training purposes, Sam Aliassime ceded the coaching role to others. Auger-Aliassime has trained since his early teens with Tennis Canada, the sport’s national governing body. His coaches were former professionals like Frédéric Niemeyer and the Frenchmen Guillaume Marx and Frédéric Fontang.Fontang remains his primary coach, and in December, Auger-Aliassime also began working with Toni Nadal, Rafael Nadal’s uncle and former coach. Toni Nadal has been in Auger-Aliassime’s corner and player box in New York as a coaching consultant.“I think he’s helped me improve maybe the consistency of my game, the quality of my movement, my focus,” said Auger-Aliassime, who will face No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev on Friday. “On one part you have Frédéric, my main coach, who has been with me since I’m very young and that knows every aspect of myself and my game. He has the long-term vision for me. You have Toni that has been in the places that we want to go one day, winning these big tournaments, being No. 1 in the world. I think he brings that belief that this is something doable.”Canadian players also have been showing each other what is possible. Eugenie Bouchard was ranked as high as No. 5 in 2014, reaching the semifinals of the Australian Open and French Open and the final of Wimbledon. Big-serving Milos Raonic, born in Montenegro to immigrant parents, was ranked as high as No. 3 in 2016, defeating Roger Federer at Wimbledon before losing in the final to Andy Murray.“I think they’re all pushing each other, and I think that’s part of it,” said Sylvain Bruneau, the former coach of Bouchard and Andreescu, who is the director of women’s professional tennis at Tennis Canada. “I think Genie helped Bianca to do well by doing what she did and showing that you can be Canadian and be at a national tennis center and develop your game there and have some success. And I think Bianca has done that for Leylah. And I know there is this feeling that everything can be achieved. Fifteen years ago, we wanted to become a tennis nation and to get really serious about development. Big resources were put in place, and I think we are now seeing the benefits.”Fernandez during her quarterfinal victory.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesTennis Canada has not helped all the players to the same degree. Shapovalov and Fernandez have often worked independently, but Michael Downey, the president of Tennis Canada, said the federation has provided some level of support — be it financial or in the form of wild cards and training opportunities — to all four of its young stars.“I think all this just reinforces that there is no one way for a great player to be developed,” Downey said in an interview on Wednesday. “As a federation we are there as a facilitator whether that’s developing hands-on with Felix or helping in other ways.”The pandemic has been a challenge. The National Bank Open tennis tournament remains Tennis Canada’s major source of funding, and the men’s and women’s events were both canceled last year, leading to a deficit of 8 million Canadian dollars, according to Downey.“That is a lot of money to a small federation,” Downey said. “We didn’t have the kind of reserves to manage us through that kind of loss.”There were layoffs and major cutbacks in the player development program, and the federation took out a loan of 20 million Canadian dollars. But the National Bank Open was staged this year with limited attendance, and Downey said Tennis Canada will make a profit this year.“That will make it an easier road for us to 2022 and 2023,” he said. “But at the end of the day, part of the reason we’re doing better financially is we haven’t been investing in tennis development. We’re only spending at 40 percent of what we normally spend, and we really want to ratchet it back up.”Downey, like the Canadian players, is well aware that this is a breakthrough moment for tennis in Canada, one that it is important not to squander.A sign of the times is that while this is the first year that Canada has had two U.S. Open singles semifinalists, this is the first time that the United States, the traditional tennis powerhouse, did not even have a quarterfinalist in singles.“Who could ever have imagined that?” Bruneau said.David Waldstein More

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      For Raducanu and Fernandez, the Magical Run Goes On and On

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      The teenagers from Britain and Canada have advanced to the semifinals at the U.S. Open. (The run certainly surprised Emma Raducanu, who had a flight home booked after the qualifying tournament.)There they go again.For the second consecutive day at the U.S. Open — or maybe it was the fifth, or the 10th, depending on when the counting started — a teenage woman did the thing she was not supposed to do.Just as Leylah Fernandez of Canada did on Tuesday, Emma Raducanu of Britain bulldozed her way through a player who had every right to believe the day would belong to her, disposing of 11th-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, 6-3, 6-4, in 82 minutes, and giving the U.S. Open two semifinalists who are unable to celebrate their success legally with an alcoholic beverage.How absurd is all of this? Consider that Raducanu is ranked 150th in the world and played three qualifying matches just to secure a spot in the main draw. She clearly did not expect to make it: She had booked a flight home for immediately after the qualifying tournament.She continues to be as shocked by her success as anyone.“I didn’t expect to be here at all,” Raducanu said after she became the first qualifier to make it to the U.S. Open semifinals in the Open era. “Out there on the court today, I was saying to myself, ‘This could be the last time you play on Ashe, so might as well just go for it and enjoy everything.’”As impressive and surprising as Raducanu has been in her first U.S. Open, until Wednesday she had yet to beat a seeded player. Fernandez had. She entered her quarterfinal on Tuesday after beating the defending women’s champion, Naomi Osaka, and the German veteran Angelique Kerber, a former world No. 1 and three-time Grand Slam tournament champion. Fernandez, ranked 73rd, backed up those wins with a stirring three-set upset of fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.Across the net from Raducanu on Wednesday stood Bencic, the recently crowned Olympic gold medalist, a smooth and powerful 24-year-old from Switzerland who has been a mainstay of the top 20 the past three years, rising as high as fourth in the world rankings in February 2020.Not a problem. Just as she did in her fourth-round match, Raducanu started with a minor hiccup, losing the first game she served and going down, 0-2, in the first set. But she had her way with Bencic from there. By the end of the sixth game she was even. By the end of the ninth, she had won the first set.She broke Bencic in the fifth game of the second set and largely cruised from there, making a game that she has had little experience with at the top level of the sport look easy. Belinda Bencic returned a shot against Raducanu during their match.Elsa/Getty ImagesUnlike Fernandez, who has specialized in a form of tennis that resembles opera — long afternoons and evenings filled with wild swings and rousing moments of drama — Raducanu’s New York experience has been a series of routine days at the office, of making players with far more experience than she has look bad at tennis.“I just wish I could have made it a little bit harder and played better or played more my game,” a disappointed Bencic said after the match.Raducanu does not do tennis attrition. She plays as though she knows the hours after her matches will be filled with signing autographs, taking selfies with a legion of fans and charming an unrelenting beast known as the British sports media. She finishes matters on the court quickly.Including the qualifying tournament, she has played eight matches on this trip to New York and has yet to drop a set. It is a bizarrely charmed run. On match point against Bencic, she smacked a one shot off the rim of her racket, then watched it loop into the back corner of the court.“She’s problem solving, adjusting her game, playing on her terms, and she has a big enough game to just beat people,” Tim Henman, the former British star who does tennis commentary for Amazon Video, said of Raducanu.On the surface, Fernandez and Raducanu might appear similar. Teenage women — they were both 18 until Fernandez turned 19 on Monday — they have spent the past 10 days capturing the hearts and imaginations of New York’s boisterous and emotional crowds with an ease that Novak Djokovic can only dream of. They have been competing in the same junior level tournaments for years.Also, both are the product of mixed-race parents — Raducanu’s father is Romanian and her mother is Chinese, while Fernandez’s father is from Ecuador and her mother is Filipino. Their families have since moved from the countries where their prodigies were born. Raducanu was born in Canada but lives in England. Fernandez spent much of her childhood in Montreal but lives and trains in Florida.The similarities largely end there.Raducanu is listed at 5 feet 7 inches, but presents as far more imposing than that. She is long and lean and glides across the court, staying low to the ground, sometimes scraping her knees on the court as she squats to rescue a backhand in the flashy style of the retired Polish player Agnieszka Radwanska.She often rifles the ball within inches of the net to near the baseline on the other side, then pushes forward, hunting for the first chance to end the point as quickly as she can. She does not hit four shots to set up the winner on the fifth one. If there is a hint of an opening she grabs it, winding up and using the fluid leverage of those long limbs to whip a shot at the corner of the court.Fernandez is listed at 5-6, but the power she generates seems like a mystery of tennis physics. She can crank her serve into triple digits, and taking her spot on the baseline, which she rarely abandons, she can fire lasers, especially off her forehand, even though she barely takes a backswing.Raducanu cannot stop saying how shocked she is by her success. Fernandez said she expected to beat Osaka as soon as she walked onto the court. After her win over Kerber she said she had long been confident that her game would bring her to this level.Raducanu serving during her quarterfinal win.Justin Lane/EPA, via ShutterstockRaducanu has spent the past years balancing school and tennis, attending the Newstead Wood School in London, and took her university admission exams earlier this year, around the same time she was making her debut in top-level tournaments on the women’s tour. She got into Wimbledon on a wild card that she earned with a couple of wins at a lower-tier tournament in Nottingham in June.Fernandez has been all about tennis for years. This is her seventh Grand Slam tournament.Raducanu’s parents work in finance. They are taking in her success from home in England, unable to travel to the United States without a special exemption that takes several weeks to process and did not seem as if it would have been worthwhile. She said she had spoken to them only sparingly lately. Raducanu joked that they “ghosted” her when she was trying to text them after her match on Monday.During the last two years she has worked with a series of coaches in the British tennis aristocracy, including Nigel Sears, the father-in-law of Andy Murray.Fernandez’s mother has been courtside at all her matches. Her father, Jorge, is also her coach, and he speaks with her every day, sending her game plans for her next match. She has developed largely without the involvement of Canada’s national tennis program.Now, it’s on to the rarefied ground of the semifinals of a Grand Slam. Fernandez will face Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the No. 2 seed. Raducanu will face the winner of Wednesday night’s match between Maria Sakkari of Greece and Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic.After that, win or lose, the klieg lights that always follow the kind of breakout performances Raducanu and Fernandez have achieved will undoubtedly arrive, an experience that has swallowed plenty of teen phenoms whole as their lives begin to fill with obligations to sponsors and to live up to the expectations that their stirring performances have wrought.“I just really hope that everyone will protect them,” Bencic said of Fernandez and Raducanu, noting how good for tennis their success could be. “Not try to kind of, not destroy but, put so much pressure and so much hype around them so it just gets too much.”That is not how it usually goes, but for now, it’s nice to think it might. More

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      Lloyd Harris Plays Alexander Zverev in U.S. Open Quarterfinals

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      Harris, a South African player, is followed with great excitement in his home city of Cape Town, and specifically at the unique academy that helped launch his career.The WhatsApp text chain has grown to about 100 people, many in Cape Town with others spread around the globe, playing tennis and sending their congratulations and enthusiastic messages of support to Lloyd Harris.“They are all on there congratulating me,” Harris said. “It’s such a special feeling. They are like my family.”The thread includes the coaches, administrators, parents and kids that train at the Anthony Harris (no relation) academy, where Lloyd Harris developed as a professional tennis player. Lloyd Harris is their inspiration, their affirmation of success, an example that it can work. But most important to all of them, he is their academy brother.“He means so much to these kids and they all look up to him,” Anthony Harris, who has served as Lloyd Harris’s main coach since he joined the academy in 2012, said in an interview from Cape Town. “They are staying up late and talking about how he great is doing. It’s a fantastic inspiration for everyone.”What Lloyd Harris, 24, has done is barge into the quarterfinal round of the U.S. Open men’s singles draw to cap a summer that included a win over Rafael Nadal in Washington last month. When he arrived in New York, he beat three seeded players — Karen Khachanov, Denis Shapovalov and Reilly Opelka — to reach his first major quarterfinal, where he will play the No. 4 seed, Alexander Zverev of Germany, on Wednesday.“I always knew I had the ability,” Harris said. “I never had a problem beating some of the top guys. But it was consistently playing at that level, which was a little bit more challenging for me.”Harris’s rapid climb is followed with great excitement in Cape Town, his home city, and specifically at the unique academy that helped launch his career. His parents heard about the program and asked Anthony Harris if he would take their son. Lloyd Harris joined in 2012 when he was 14 years old, and quickly became the program’s most accomplished student.“I told his mum,” Anthony Harris said, “‘Your son is special. He has a chance to do something big in this sport.’ She said, ‘Let’s go for it.’”Lloyd Harris, center with Anthony Harris, right, and coach Eitan Adams, left, after winning ITF Pro Futures tournament in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 2016.Courtesy Anthony Harris Tennis AcademyThe Anthony Harris Tennis Academy, a modest enclave tucked into the tony Bantry Bay area of Cape Town, has grown since Lloyd Harris first joined. It now boasts five coaches, three blue hard courts and one clay court. There is a small residence hall for the most financially disadvantaged students, some of whom lived in shanties before they moved in and attended for free.It is not a glamorous, corporate academy, but it helped shape Harris into the player and person he is, and both Harrises think of it as family.“I’ve never once been to the academy where it’s been a bad atmosphere or a bad vibe,” Lloyd Harris said. “It’s always positive energy, the coaches are having fun with the kids, but working hard. It’s just this really special thing.”Lloyd Harris, who is currently ranked 46th, grew up in a middle class household, but many of the students at the academy are from underprivileged backgrounds.While academics and human development are a core part of the program, tennis is at the forefront of the academy’s mission. Those who meet certain criteria, regarding their progress through the junior tennis ranks, are given funding to travel the world as they attempt to become professionals. The rest focus on getting a university scholarship.At first, there were only a handful of kids. Now there are a dozen, and the hope is to be able to accommodate about eight more. The academy has taken one child who was found rummaging for food, and another who showed promise at tennis but was kicked out of a different program for behavioral issues.“Maybe we can change their life,” Anthony Harris said. “It’s like the old fable about giving someone a fishing rod. We can’t help a thousand kids. But maybe we can help 15 or 20.”Leo Matthysen, 15, lives in Mitchells Plain, outside of Cape Town, and is the top-ranked junior boy age 15 and under in all of Africa after spending the last several years at the academy.Kelly Arends and Mikaeel Woodman, also longtime members of the academy, recently earned scholarships to play for Tyler Junior College, a Texas school with one of the premier junior college tennis programs in the United States, and they arrived there two weeks ago to begin their freshman seasons.Leo Mattysen, Robbie Arends, Mikaeel Woodman, Jordy Gerste, and Kelly Arends.Courtesy Anthony Harris Tennis AcademyWoodman, 18, also grew up in Mitchells Plain, in what he called “a really rough area.” He said had it not been for the academy, he might have ended up in a gang.“It got me off the street and changed my life,” Woodman said after his practice at Tyler Junior College on Tuesday. “I went when I was 10 and I got to watch Lloyd for seven or eight years. I really want to play professionally, one day, like him.”With Anthony Harris as the head coach on a staff of eight, tennis is seen as vehicle for success, and Lloyd Harris is their Model T.Soon after he joined up in 2012, he and the coach began traversing the continent with Lloyd playing tournaments in Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Morocco and Egypt, to name a few, and then moved on to tournaments in Europe and Asia before he turned pro in 2015.“One of the things I’m most proud of, and I told Lloyd this,” Anthony Harris said, “is that he never got one wild-card entry into a top-tier tournament. He had to work for everything he got.”Funding is always an issue for the academy. The family of Nathan Kirsh, an Eswatini billionaire businessman, is a principal contributor and Lloyd Harris is hosting a golf tournament in Cape Town in November to help raise funds for a program that is so dear to his heart.“We’ve come such a long way and from where it started, this small little program, to what it’s become now,” Lloyd Harris said. “It’s a home for so many kids from underprivileged backgrounds, who now have these amazing opportunities.”With the demands of his profession, and the difficulty of traveling to and from one of the most remote parts of the earth (at least for tennis travel), Lloyd Harris relocated to Dubai, where he now trains. He has not been back to South Africa all year because of pandemic travel restrictions. He has been working with Xavier Malisse, the former top professional player, in conjunction with Anthony Harris.But before his pandemic-induced temporary hiatus, Lloyd Harris regularly returned to the academy to practice and hit with the kids on court.Lloyd Harris, bottom left, at the Academy last year in February.Courtesy Anthony Harris Tennis Academy“You should see how they gravitate to him and how he responds,” said Dionne Harris, Anthony’s wife and the main administrator who makes the academy operate smoothly. “He brings them equipment and things and lets them return his serves. He is like the hero.”Lloyd Harris does not go that far. But he recognizes his role in the lives of all the children on that WhatsApp thread, cheering him on.“They see how I’m behaving, how I’m working but also enjoying myself on the court,” Lloyd Harris said. “I know they are watching. Hopefully, I can teach them well.” More