Subterms
From the seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the tennis court below appears smooth and uniform. Even the players who sprint and slide across the blue hardcourt can barely see or sense a characteristic that significantly sets the tone for their matches. Now take a look at this high-resolution scan of the surface in Ashe, where […] More
At the packed grandstand court here on Friday, you could hear the fans’ murmured conversation, a low, languid hush, as Ben Shelton toed the line to serve for the first time.Then the hush came to a jarring halt. Shelton’s knees bent, his shoulder cranked, and his Yonex tennis racket thrust violently toward the tossed ball.Crack!He unleashed a 130-mile-per-hour heater, an ace that stunned his third-round opponent, Russian tour vet Aslan Karatsev, and sounded like a leather whip lacing a fence post.“Whoa!” came a unified response from an astonished and suddenly very loud and awake crowd, a large majority of which had likely never seen Shelton, still in his first year as a professional.“So, this is what everyone’s talking about,” I heard a fan mutter.“He’s got some serious game,” said another.Serious game, indeed.For me, as for most tennis fans, among the great joys of every U.S. Open is the discovery of young, emerging, surprising talent. This year is no exception. A quick walk through the sprawling grounds on any day during this first week revealed a strong crop of sterling up-and-comers. Look, there’s France’s Arthur Fils, cranking forehands. And there’s Czechoslovakia’s 18-year-old qualifier Jakub Mensik. The Russian Mirra Andreeva might be just 16, but she already hits the yellow felt off the ball.Shelton was the fifth best player on his Florida team in 2021, but won the N.C.A.A. singles title in 2022.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesShelton, 20, is the best of the bunch. Dripping with raw talent, he is the ultimate late bloomer, a player who puts the lie to the notion that top-tier tennis pros must first be 12- and 13-year-old forehand-smacking prodigies.Seemingly out of nowhere, in less than a year on the ATP Tour, the young Floridian has risen from tennis’ minor leagues to a career-high ranking in May of No. 35. (He entered the Open ranked No. 47.)But this week, doubt swirled. For all of Shelton’s ability, he has of late been on a steep learning curve. The movie version of his rookie season could be titled The Education of a Young Tennis Pro.Over the last seven months, he has sustained 19 losses and struggled to string together wins. When he beat former U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem this week — a match called early when Thiem defaulted with illness after losing the first set — it was the first time Shelton had won back-to-back singles matches since he’d made his surprising quarterfinal run at January’s Australian Open.During his matches in Melbourne, he flashed an eye-widening talent that gave a tennis-head like me goose bumps, reminding me of the first time I saw Roger Federer.Seeing Shelton up close at Flushing Meadows did not disappoint.In the first set against Karatsev, everything came easy. Shelton broke Karatsev with a smooth forehand winner. Then he cruised, serving with the canniness of an All-Star pitcher, firing off 140-mile-per-hour lasers then befuddling his opponent with left-handed spin.Shelton won the opening refrain, 6-4, in 33 minutes.Shelton’s serve was clocked at 147 m.p.h in the third set, the fastest in the tournament so far.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesHis best qualities were shining through, and the crowd was more than willing to go along for the ride. Many pros play with a foreboding look, grimly serious, sometimes hangdog, or remarkably neutral, like poker players. There is no neutral with Shelton. He pumps his fists and shouts in celebration and shows what he feels at virtually every moment of every match — often with a broad, inviting smile.Then there is his skill. Shelton can bend balls with heavy spin, flatten them for winners, or cut at them for precision volleys. Few on tour have his strength — he’s built like a football safety: 6-foot-4, 195 pounds, sculpted muscles — or his combination of foot speed and live-arm explosiveness.His talent is so immense that his coach, who happens to be his father, former professional Bryan Shelton, says a primary goal is to contain his son’s prodigious abilities. For example, instead of firing off a high-powered ace and then excitedly trying to serve the next ball with even more umph, he tries to get his son to dial it back a bit, learn to control the zeal.Dialing back after Friday’s smooth first set proved difficult. Karatsev began drawing a bead on Shelton’s serve. The Russian returned enough of them, tightening his offense to gain the upper hand.Second set, Karatsev, 6-3.Shelton’s level had dipped just a bit, a sign of his inexperience.In the third set, Shelton struggled to reach Karatsev’s returns.Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesHe only became serious about tennis after quitting football in 7th grade. He was not an upper-tier American junior until late in high school, nor did he do what upper tier juniors do. He did not leave the country to face high-test competition. He did not he play any of the significant junior grand slam events that have operated as springboards for many pros.Shelton went to the University of Florida, where the men’s tennis coach happened to be Bryan Shelton, who is well respected in tennis circles for emphasizing a mastery of the game over chasing victories.There was no grand plan to move Ben quickly up the tennis ranks. The foundation began coming together seemingly out of nowhere.“You work on something, you work on something, you keep working on it, and then, six months later, you see that you can do it,” the younger Shelton told me this week. “That’s what happened to me. And at the same time, I think I finally grew into my body, which helped me move a lot better. When that changed, my whole game changed.”By his account, Shelton was the fifth best player on his Florida team in 2021, but won the N.C.A.A. singles title in 2022 — a tennis anomaly if ever there was one. Then he began running roughshod in ATP Challenger tournaments, the tennis equivalent of Triple-A baseball.For the first time in his life, he traveled outside the United States, off to the Australian Open. Who could have imagined his success there? Not even him. He reeled off four upsets, making it to the quarterfinals of his second Grand Slam tournament before losing to veteran Tommy Paul.Now comes the hard part. Pro tennis is full of quicksand that has swallowed players who succumbed to the pressure of great promise. Shelton appears ready to leapfrog all the typical obstacles and thrive if the last two sets of his battle against Karatsev are any guide.The third set went quickly. Shelton’s serve cranked to a new level: He hit 147 m.p.h on the radar gun, the fastest in the tournament. He held two break points, won them both, and took the stanza, 6-2.“Go Ben!” came shouts from the crowd.“Ben, we love you!”“Finish it!”Karatsev’s shoulders slumped. He knew what was coming.In the fourth set, Shelton did not lose a game, putting a crowning cap on what amounted to a U.S. Open launch party.Final score: 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 6-0. Onto the round of 16, where his opponent will be Paul, the compatriot who bested him at the Australian Open.The Education of a Young Tennis Pro continues. More
Thirty minutes before the gates to Arthur Ashe Stadium opened at 4 p.m. on June 22, a cluster of people began gently rolling tennis balls across a parking lot.One after the other, they lowered one knee close to the ground, extended their opposite arm, and released a tennis ball to someone 10 feet away.Closer to a locked chain-link fence, a gaggle of people started doing calisthenics as others nervously shifted their weight back and forth, tightly clutching their paper applications.The group of 500 people — already whittled down from some 1,200 online applicants — would be vying for 120 spots as ball people for the U.S. Open, during tryouts over a full week that were forced indoors because of rain. Those selected joined the 200 or so ball people who are returning to service the courts in Queens.Groups were led through a series of drills during 30-minute auditions, in which they were asked to quickly and quietly roll, retrieve and toss balls. “I don’t think people understand, it’s a highly sought-after job,” said Tiahnne Noble, the director of the U.S. Open Ball Crew.Ranging in age from 14 to their mid-60s, the hopefuls came from all corners of the country. Applicants flew in from California, drove from Indiana, took the subway from the Bronx and rode the train from Connecticut. Some were tennis fans, some played themselves and others had their curiosity piqued from seeing ball people on TV. Could they do that? (Spoiler: Mostly not.)The adults were generally far more anxious than their younger counterparts. The experience was described as a “dream” by many over the age of 30.Masami Morimoto, 59, said she had been determined to try out before she turned 60. “I love tennis,” the Manhattanite said, a bounce in her step. “I couldn’t sleep, I was so excited.”Groups were led through a series of drills during 30-minute auditions, in which they were asked to quickly and quietly roll, retrieve and toss balls. Participants were locked in, acting as though, at any moment, Novak Djokovic would look one of them dead in the eye and motion for a ball.Tiahnne Noble, the director of ball people at the U.S. Open, looked for applicants with speed, agility, quick reflexes and the ability to blend into the background of the tournament.Supervising staff members were highly attuned to the jitters. When an applicant forgot instructions, throwing a ball instead of rolling it, they were quick to comfort the anguished applicant. “Don’t worry about it!” they would say gently, sending a tennis ball back in their direction.Body language suggested the message went unheeded.Noble and her staff of veteran ball people said they could spot a potential ball person almost immediately. Ball people, she said, must have speed, agility, quick reflexes and the ability to blend into the background of the tournament.Six ball people work each match, communicating clearly and silently so as not to distract the pros or spectators. They need to respond to the preferences of different players — some only want a ball tossed to them with their left hand, for example — and act as invisible guardians of the game.As evaluators looked on at the tryouts in June, there was plenty of subtle nodding and note taking on clipboards.The auditions were not for the faint of heart. “It’s the U.S. Open,” Aaron Mendelson, 57, said with a deadpan acknowledgment of the stakes. He rolled a suitcase alongside him, having flown in from San Francisco for the occasion. He said he planned to head straight to the airport afterward.Mendelson knew what to expect. He had been a ball person at the 1992 U.S. Open, working the match between Jim Courier and Andre Agassi. He pulled up a YouTube clip as proof. “Look for the redheaded kid,” he said.Miles Hairston of Brooklyn warmed up by catching and throwing balls.Anupam Singh of Jersey City lacing up as he readied for a tryout.Nyla Joseph, a high school student from Queens, chased down a ball thrown against the net.Applicants would not know if they had been selected for another week, but some were already cautiously sketching out plans for where they would stay. While the U.S. Open is the only Grand Slam to pay its ball people — $16 an hour for most recruits — it does not provide housing. “Which borough would you recommend?” Avani Kondragunta asked this reporter.Her 21-year-old daughter, Alekhya, had previously been a ball person at the Western & Southern Open near their home in Cincinnati. So the two decided to make the 10-hour drive for tryouts.As the high-stakes auditions drew to a close, prospective ball people shuffled off the court sweaty and shrugging their shoulders. They would receive an email with their acceptance — or a rejection — soon enough.“It wasn’t too hard,” said Debra Gil, 14, of the Bronx as she walked off the court. She was one of the youngest applicants with experience under her belt. Her brother had been a ball person the previous year, and she had worked the Bronx Open.After Mendelson finished his tryout, he stumbled upon another group of Californians who had traveled in for the opportunity. The father-daughter duo Kuangkai and Emily Tai of San Diego had both tried out.When asked whether, if selected, they would return for the duration of the U.S. Open, Emily Tai, 19, responded with a cautious, “We’ll see!”Her father’s eyes bugged. “Oh, we’re coming.”“If you pay,” Emily responded.Victoria Flishenbaumat, center, was greeted by her father, Yan, and brother, Ari, after her tryout.Of those interviewed, only Emily Tai got the golden ticket — erm, email. She was surprised to have made the cut over her father. “He’s in way better shape than me,” she said.Kuangkai Tai planned to stick to his word. Though he will not be servicing courts, he plans to come watch his daughter. More
Gauff, the 19-year-old American star, made error after error in the first set but rallied for a 3-6, 6-3, 6-0 win to advance to the round of 16.In the opening set of her third-round match against Elise Mertens on Friday, Coco Gauff looked fallible, frustrated and like she would be finished early, nothing like she had earlier this week at the U.S. Open.Mertens, a 27-year-old Belgian, was playing loosely and aggressively, while Gauff, the 19-year-old American superstar, made error after error on just about every stroke. Gauff, usually possessing preternatural emotional maturity and composure, showed frustration throughout the early part of the match, uncharacteristically yelling out angrily after a double fault in the first set, which Mertens won 6-3.It was suddenly easy to imagine Gauff’s run at the U.S. Open coming to an end on this cool New York evening.Instead, Gauff turned it on and turned the emotional tables on Mertens. She won the second set less shakily, 6-3, and by the third, it was clear how badly Gauff wanted to win, as she used her immense foot speed to track down every ball, forcing Mertens into errors. Gauff won the third set cleanly, 6-0.“The energy today definitely helped me, I felt you guys, I was playing every point my hardest,” Gauff said in her on-court interview. “When you lose the first set, you know that you have to show that you left all that energy in the first set and you’re ready to play.”Gauff said that the “three setters show everybody else that I’m not going down without a fight.”The early night match at Arthur Ashe Stadium drew a packed house that included the pop star Justin Bieber and his wife, the model and influencer Hailey Bieber, along with the Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour and the actress Katie Holmes.The crowd was lopsided for Gauff from the night’s opening serve. Cheers of “Let’s go, Coco” and “Finish her, Coco” boomed throughout the stadium. The crowd jumped to its feet and fans high-fived each other at every positive turn for Gauff, though it was slow going until the second set.Friday marked the third time the two had faced each other, with Gauff winning their last encounter in straight sets at the 2022 French Open. Gauff acknowledged in an interview before the match that she had won their last encounter handily, and wasn’t expecting to win so easily this time around.Not long into the first set it seemed almost certain that Mertens would advance to the round of 16. Then everything flipped.Gauff, who showed uncharacteristic vulnerability in the first set, turned the tables on Mertens in the second set.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesGauff lost the first game of the second set, then fought hard to hold serve after six deuce points. On the sixth, she hit an ace down the middle and screamed “Come on!” It was her fourth ace of the match at that point. As the match wore on she crushed a risky overhead and when Mertens hit a loopy cross-court backhand, Gauff pounced, sprinting to the ball and then jumping in the air to crush it down the line with her forehand.When she clinched the second set with a backhand winner down the line, she pumped a fist, and extended her arms, beckoning the crowd to cheer for her. Mertens looked hopeless.Gauff started the third set energetically as Mertens’s game completely fell apart. She netted forehands, hit backhands long and double-faulted.Gauff will next play Caroline Wozniacki, who recently returned to tennis after retiring three years ago to focus on building a family. Wozniacki has had a stellar start to the tournament, defeating Petra Kvitova in straight sets in her first-round match and Jennifer Brady in three sets, after being down a set, in her second-round match.Gauff said she told Wozniacki when she retired that she wished she’d had a chance to play her. “That wish came true,” she said. “Playing a legend like her is really exciting and I’m not going to take the moment for granted.”Gauff, who had looked like a veteran as she steamrollered Mertens in the third set, quickly reminded us she is still a teenager.In an interview on the ESPN desk inside Ashe after the match, Gauff said she noticed Bieber in the crowd during the second set.“Oh yeah, I definitely saw who was there,” she said with a giggle. “I thought I cannot lose in front of Justin Bieber. I didn’t lose a game after I saw that. I got a little tight when I first saw him, then I remembered President Obama and Michelle Obama were at my first round match.” More
Wozniacki keeps finding magic at the U.S. Open, but she’s not the only player enjoying a revival. Stan Wawrinka and Elina Svitolina also can’t find the exits.America likes to fancy itself the land of second chances. Show some humility. Work hard. A new you, or perhaps a better version of the old you, is just around the corner.So perhaps it’s fitting that comebacks have featured so prominently in the first days of the U.S. Open. Some have gone well — Caroline Wozniacki, Elina Svitolina, Stan Wawrinka, Jennifer Brady. Others — Venus Williams, who suffered an opening night drubbing — not so much.What binds them together though, is the seemingly irresistible pull of a sport and a life that so many players complain about but ultimately struggle to say goodbye to, knowing that once the door locks completely, as it does for everyone eventually, there is no way to unlock the pathway to the international glamour, fame and money of their former life.“It’s the competition,” said Brady, 28, who is rediscovering her form following two injury-plagued and mentally grueling years. “You just can’t replicate it.”That’s not all. On Thursday, there was the 38-year-old Wawrinka in the fading light of Court 17, which is a kind of tennis bullring, rolling back the years to a time before foot surgeries seemed to spell the end. He had just dispatched Tomas Etcheverry, who is 14 years his junior, in four gritty sets, rallying the capacity crowd of 2,800 which had been screaming for him all afternoon. He stirred them like an orchestra conductor, urging each bank of stands to get louder to earn their post-match, souvenir ball.“I like the emotion I get from tennis,” Wawrinka said later. “I also know the day I stop I will never find those emotions anywhere.”Friday afternoon’s third round delivered a tense, three-set battle between dueling comeback stories, as Wozniacki, 33, a former world No. 1 playing her first Grand Slam following a three-year, two-pregnancy retirement, outlasted Brady.It was the second time in three days that Wozniacki had found the old magic in Arthur Ashe Stadium, where she had her breakout run to the her first Grand Slam final 14 years ago. On Wednesday, she topped an old rival and two-time Wimbledon champion, Petra Kvitova, in two tight sets under the lights. On Friday, she came back from a set down against Brady, an Australian Open finalist in 2021, winning 12 of the final 14 games. She said three years ago she never thought she would be competing on this court again, much less winning.“What an honor this is,” she said Friday.Stan Wawrinka stole the show on Court 17 on Thursday, beating the much-younger Tomas Etcheverry in four sets.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesIt is fitting that Wawrinka and Wozniacki are clicking once more here. This is the tournament where Jimmy Connors went on his storied run to the semifinals in 1991 when he was 39. It’s where, in 2009, Kim Clijsters, took a wild-card entry and in just her second tournament back after a two-year break won the singles title.The enduring image of that night was Clijsters’s toddler daughter running across the court during the trophy ceremony. Her opponent in that final — Wozniacki.If ever there was a player that seemed done for good, Wozniacki was it.She had been playing almost her entire life. She had fulfilled her childhood dreams of reaching the top of the rankings and in 2018 winning a Grand Slam tournament title at the Australian Open. She had won $35 million in prize money and earned tens of millions more in endorsements.When Wozniacki left the sport in 2020, she had spent the previous two years battling rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic inflammatory disease that sometimes left her joints so swollen she struggled to get out of bed. She and her husband, David Lee, a retired N.B.A. player, were raising their two children in Florida, and Wozniacki had become a mainstay of tennis television commentary.The Wozniackis have always been an intense sports family. Her father played soccer for Denmark and Poland and her mother played volleyball for Poland. For Wozniacki, a fitness freak, tennis was a profession but also a cardio workout. But she did not play for so long during her temporary retirement that when the day arrived that she wanted to hit some balls she had no idea where her rackets were.The ball started coming off her strings as soundly as she felt it ever had.“I realized that, yes, I love playing tennis,” she said. “I love to play the game, I’m very passionate about it, and I want to be the best I possibly can be.”Pretty soon she was floating the idea of a comeback to her father, who has always been her coach, and her husband, who essentially said, ‘why not, you only live once.’ Now here she is in New York, with the kids in tow, taking her 3-year-old daughter, Olivia, to a park near her hotel in the morning, and competing for one of the biggest titles in the sport in the afternoon and evening. On off days she has been going to museums.“Pretty cool that I get to live my passion and be a mom and kind of wear many hats,” she said Friday after yet another win in a Grand Slam after so many years of them.There are, of course, different ways to go about a comeback. Svitolina, who is from Ukraine and like Wozniacki had a child last year, tried to remain fit through her pregnancy. Then she spent three months after childbirth reworking her game with a new coach, Raemon Sluiter.She played a series of smaller tournaments in the spring as she prepared for top-level tennis and set few expectations for immediate success, especially given how much energy she was spending raising money for relief efforts in Ukraine. In June, Svitolina made the quarterfinals of the French Open and in July she made the semifinals of Wimbledon. She and her husband, Gael Monfils, have left their daughter at home in Europe.“Pretty cool that I get to live my passion and be a mom and kind of wear many hats,” Wozniacki said Friday after advancing to the round of 16.Robert Deutsch/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConWozniacki, on the other hand, took the go-big-or-go-home approach, beginning her comeback at the two big U.S. Open tuneup tournaments in Montreal and outside Cincinnati, then playing the year’s final Grand Slam with just three post-comeback matches. She wrote in Vogue that she believed she could win the U.S. Open.Ultimately, most of the best tennis players come to understand that they are not simply athletes but also performers and entertainers. Once they make that leap, they begin to draw energy not just from the act of competing but also the feedback loop experienced by doing the thing they have done from the time they were very small, to the exclusion of nearly any other pursuit, in front of thousands of people.It becomes a kind of drug, and the fix isn’t available from simply playing a few friendly sets in a quiet park. Anyone can do that.“I love playing in front of a big crowd,” Wozniacki said Friday. “I love playing on the big stadiums. That’s exciting to me. That’s why I’m still playing. It’s a great feeling.” More
Ons Jabeur has won two rounds despite having flu symptoms, but Dominic Thiem was forced to retire from his second-round match with an illness.Early in the second set of her second-round match on Thursday night, a ball bounced just past Ons Jabeur’s reach, and she lost the point, throwing her arms up in exasperation.On any normal day, Jabeur, the No. 5 seed, would probably have reached the ball in time to return it down the line, but she has been playing while sick.Jabeur, who reached the U.S. Open final last year, is among several players who have had to contend with an illness of some sort at this year’s tournament.Dominic Thiem of Austria retired in the second set of his second-round match, doubled over at the net with what appeared to be a stomach-related issue. Emil Ruusuvuori withdrew from the tournament before his first-round match, citing an unspecified illness. Tennys Sandgren, who failed to advance out of the qualifiers, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he became ill after returning home from the tournament.“I got the us open bug,” he said in a separate post, adding, “in a way still feels like I’m in the tournament but at home.”It’s not just players. The ESPN commentator John McEnroe said on Tuesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus after feeling unwell.It is unclear whether all of the players have the same illness, or whether their cases are connected, but something has been going around the U.S. Open.Hubert Hurkacz with U.S. Open medical staff during a timeout in his second-round match on Thursday.Peter Foley/EPA, via ShutterstockHubert Hurkacz seemed to struggle during his second-round match on Thursday, when he was upset by Jack Draper of Britain. During the match, medical staff came out to treat Hurkacz for what did not appear to be a physical injury. Around the tennis grounds, sniffles and coughs can be heard, and some players have been toting tissues in their bags.The string of illnesses comes as a late-summer wave of coronavirus infections has been reported across the United States, with indications of a rise in cases in the Northeast and in the West.Illnesses are possible at any tournament, where players are often in close quarters and share facilities. But with players no longer required to test for Covid-19, it is difficult to determine the cause of the illnesses among them.Health protocols at the U.S. Open have become less stringent since 2020, when spectators were not allowed to attend the tournament and when players took to the empty courts in face masks.When fans were allowed to return in 2021, they were required to show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus. That requirement has since been dropped, and those attending the U.S. Open this year do not need to show proof of vaccination, provide a negative coronavirus test or wear masks.“I’m taking a lot of medicine,” Ons Jabeur said on Thursday after winning her second-round match despite being sick.Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressAfter willing her way — just barely — to a first-round win, Jabeur said she had the flu. In her second-round match, she appeared to struggle again, coughing on court several times, including during her interview after beating the unseeded Czech player Linda Noskova in three sets.Jabeur said later in a news conference on Thursday that she had been sick for about a week.“I’m taking a lot of medicine,” she said, adding that she “basically took every medication” the U.S. Open doctors have.Jabeur said her stomach had been “fine,” but she noted that she knew other players had been struggling with stomach issues. She seemed to waver on whether she had the flu or something else.“I think I got a flu or something,” she said on Thursday night.It was unclear whether Jabeur, who plays her third-round match on Saturday against the No. 31 seed Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic, had taken a coronavirus test to rule out the possibility of an infection.“I’m a zombie because I have a flu,” she said. More
How can something so beautiful to watch, a stroke so etched into tennis history, be so exploitable — and why have a dwindling handful of players remained loyal to it?Behold the beautiful and beloved one-handed backhand, but do it quickly, because time is running short for tennis’s lustiest shot.Yes, the shot that made Roger Federer famous, the signature stroke of Rod Laver, a favorite of John McEnroe, and Pete Sampras and Martina Navratilova is fast going the way of the wooden rackets of the early 1980s, a relic that generates joy and nostalgia when a tennis aesthete lays eyes upon it, but one whose days may be numbered.Even those who play with a one-hander have their regrets. Just ask Chris Eubanks, the late-blooming breakout star of American tennis this year, whose one-handed backhand is as smooth as they come. Eubanks said he was about 13 years old when he fell hard for the Federer backhand and decided to switch from the two-hander he had played with since he first picked up a tennis racket.“If I knew what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have,” Eubanks said as he sat in the lounge of his Midtown Manhattan hotel in the days leading up to the U.S. Open.Stefanos Tsitsipas is the lone man ranked in the top 10 using a one-handed backhand. He lost in the second round to Dominic Stricker, a Swiss qualifier.Earl Wilson/The New York TimesNot so long ago, the top ranks of the sport, especially the men’s game, had no shortage of one-handed backhands. In addition to Federer, Stan Wawrinka and Dominic Thiem won Grand Slam titles with the shot. Among the top 10 men now, only Stefanos Tsitsipas plays with a one-handed backhand. Tatiana Maria, No. 47 in the world, is the highest-ranked woman to rely mostly on her one-hander.In more immediate terms, it has been a mostly terrible first week for one-handed backhands in the singles competitions at the U.S. Open. As the second round wound down on Thursday afternoon, Wawrinka, who at 38 years old still rips his one-hander as hard and as clean as anyone ever has, Grigor Dimitrov and Daniel Evans were the top one-handed backhand standard-bearers remaining.“I’m not hitting as well as when I was winning Grand Slams, that’s for sure,” Wawrinka said after beating Tomas Etcheverry of Argentina on Thursday in four sets despite uncharacteristically hitting a handful of wayward backhands. But Tsitsipas, Thiem, Eubanks and Maria all lost in the first days of the tournament.So did Lorenzo Musetti, the rising Italian whose silky one-handed backhand can make tennis cognoscenti drool. His stroke starts low, sweeps up and forward practically from knee level, then flies up with a high-stretching finish. Somewhere along the way, it makes easy, pure contact, and that fuzzy yellow ball flies off his racket. Musetti, 21, is supposed to be a rival for Carlos Alcaraz, the 20-year-old world No. 1, during the next decade. Musetti is ranked 18th, but he has yet to make a Grand Slam quarterfinal.In January, Tsitsipas faced Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open final. Tsitsipas’s backhand is another of the prettiest, smoothest strokes in the sport.“My signature shot,” Tsitsipas said earlier this week. “It kind of defines me.”Yet it took about three games to figure out Djokovic’s strategy that evening — pound ball after ball deep onto the Tsitsipas backhand. Djokovic won in straight sets.And therein lies the great contradiction of the one-handed backhand. How can something so beautiful to watch, a stroke that is so etched into tennis history, be so exploitable, and why have a dwindling handful of players remained so loyal to it?The answer to the first question, experts say, is mostly a function of the increasing role of power and velocity in the sport. Even clay courts, historically the slowest surface, play hard and fast these days. Players, who spend more and more time in the gym, keep getting bigger and stronger, and now hit forehands at more than 100 miles per hour. Rackets and strings allow for so much topspin that rally balls from even average players are bouncing up to eye level, making it hard for even the 6-foot-7 Eubanks to get on top of the ball on some backhands.David Nainkin, who leads player development for men for the United States Tennis Association, has advice for any young talent he sees wielding a one-handed backhand — get rid of it. The two-handed backhand is far more stable, he said, and the motion is shorter and simpler.“It’s almost impossible to make it with a one-handed backhand now,” he said. “I think you’ll see less of it maybe in the next 10 years.”Martina Navratilova during the 1986 French Open final. She credited her mastery of the one-handed topspin backhand for her rise.Trevor Jones/Allsport, via Getty ImagesNavratilova, who credits her mastery of a one-handed topspin backhand for her rise to near invincibility in the early 1980s (thank you, Renee Richards, her coach at the time) is a little less draconian, but not that much. Navratilova said she would encourage young players to keep two hands on the racket — most of the time.“Work on the one-handed slice and volley,” she said, though she added that trying to use it to keep up with modern pace and spin likely wouldn’t work.Given all that, how to explain the ongoing devotion to the one-hander among a dwindling few?In a word, Federer.As much as the Swiss master has done for the sport, he may be more responsible for the current generation of one-handed backhand devotees — and their shortcomings — than anyone.Why does Denis Shapovalov, the talented 24-year-old Canadian who missed the U.S. Open with a knee injury, love to hit the one-hander with both feet off the ground?Federer.Eubanks?Federer.Tsitsipas?Federer. And Sampras.Watching Roger Federer inspired many of the current generation of one-handed backhand users.Mike Hewitt/Getty ImagesTsitsipas said he remembers the day when he made the commitment to the one-handed backhand. He was 8 years old. The previous day, he had played a two-hander, and his coach had made fun of him for going back and forth, asking Tsitsipas if he was going to commit. That day, Tsitsipas did.Tsitsipas knows the advantages of the two-handed backhand. Safer shot, easier to control. But he isn’t about to quit the one-hander. He wants to be like Federer, in every way, and Sampras, too.“I’m here to kind of not have it die,” Tsitsipas said of the shot. “It kind of sits in my heart deeply because I really want to be like them.”Eubanks, too found it irresistible, and still does. “I just love it,” he said. “It just looked so good.”He took one hand off the racket one day at practice and tried not to pay attention to the coaches who might have been looking at him side-eyed, or making comments to his father, who was his primary coach. He told himself this shot was going to work for him, and he was stubborn about making sure it did.With the wisdom of age and a half-dozen years climbing his way into the top 100, plus time spent working as an analyst for the Tennis Channel, Eubanks is familiar with the shot’s drawbacks, especially the timing it requires, but he isn’t about to switch. “It’s a little too far gone,” he said. “Can’t quite do that now, not and win.” More
A 6-foot-10 American, Isner had announced he would retire following the tournament. Losses in singles and doubles on Thursday ended a career known for powerful serves and a marathon match.Josh Zipin of Manhattan rushed over from Arthur Ashe Stadium to the Grandstand court of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Thursday hoping to catch the final set of John Isner’s singles match. Zipin, 34, said he had never seen Isner play live, and wanted to see what his “insane” serve looked like in person.“Somebody behind me was asking if Isner served to you 100 times, how many times could you return it in the court and the person sitting behind me said one,” Zipin said. “I think that’s probably being generous.”For 16 years, Isner, the 38-year-old American star, has wowed fans around the world with his signature game, which combined a booming serve, powerful groundstrokes, and quick hands at the net with volleys and overheads.A North Carolina native who stands at 6-foot-10, Isner is the career ace leader in the history of the men’s tour. But he is perhaps best known for winning the longest match in tennis history when he played for 11 hours 5 minutes over three days against Nicolas Mahut of France at Wimbledon in 2010. That match, along with another Isner marathon at the tournament in 2018, led Wimbledon to institute a final-set tiebreaker. (If you have 11 hours to kill, you can watch the match in full here.)Isner won the longest match in tennis history, beating Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon after a battle that played out over three days.Pool photo by Suzanne PlunkettIsner was in the top 20 of the singles rankings for 10 straight years, from 2010 to 2019. He was a U.S. Open quarterfinalist in 2011 and 2018, a Wimbledon semifinalist in 2018 and has earned nearly $23 million in career prize money, but was unable to win a Grand Slam tournament title.Andy Murray, one of Isner’s contemporaries, said during an interview this week that Isner “was always a disaster to play against or see in your draw,” adding that “his serve’s the best of all time.”Thursday would turn out to be the last time he would fire that serve at a pro event. Isner had announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, before the U.S. Open that the tournament would be his final act so that he could spend more time with his wife, Madison, and their four children.“This transition won’t be easy but I’m looking forward to every second of it with my amazing family,” Isner wrote. “Time to lace ‘em up one last time.”Isner won his first-round match on Tuesday in straight sets against Facundo Diaz Acosta, an unseeded player from Argentina. A number of his cohort, who have since retired, including Bob and Mike Bryan and Sam Querrey, were in attendance.On Thursday, he was defeated in five sets by a younger American named Michael Mmoh, who stayed composed despite playing before a crowd that was solidly in his opponent’s corner.When the match was over, Isner buried his head in a white towel and fought back tears. He could barely speak during the on-court interview.Mmoh said the match was “no doubt the biggest win of my career,” and he congratulated Isner on a remarkable, trailblazing career.Lisa Katter, 54 of Long Island, said she was impressed by Isner’s performance. “I can’t believe even at this point in his career he’s still acing an entire game,” she said.Then, not quite ready to call it a career, Isner slung his bag over his shoulder and trudged off to play doubles. A few hours later, that too was in the books, as he and fellow American Jack Sock, who is also retiring after the U.S. Open, lost in three sets.Isner ended his doubles career with Jack Sock, an American who is also retiring after the tournament.Al Bello/Getty ImagesLater, Isner said that he was feeling many emotions — disappointment over how he played, gratitude to have one last time to compete in the atmosphere at the U.S. Open, and pride in what he achieved throughout his career.“It just didn’t go my way today,” he said. “It’s a tough way to go out but at the same time I went out in front of a packed stadium and a standing ovation and it was pretty cool.”He said it was hard to explain how badly his body has felt recently, and he was looking forward to not having to practice anymore. He said he looked forward to finding what he was passionate about, and devoting more energy to being a good husband and father.“Tennis is a,” he started before trailing off and lowering his head to gather himself. “It’s been a huge part of my life so it’s tough to say goodbye, it’s not easy.” More
