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      U.S. Rallies to Beat Costa Rica in World Cup Qualifier

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      Sergiño Dest scored one goal and set up another as the United States regained its stride with a dominant performance in World Cup qualifying.COLUMBUS, Ohio — A spectator at a United States men’s soccer game could have a reasonably enjoyable time simply watching Sergiño Dest as he goes about the business of playing right back.The 20-year-old Dest’s execution of simple acts on a soccer field — running around, trapping a ball, fiddling with it at his feet, directing it to teammates — oozes style. He has a bottomless tool kit of tricks. He has a marionettist’s control of the ball — and sometimes he has crazy ideas of what to do with it.For all his skills, the question about Dest — raised by coaches for both the national team and his club, Barcelona — has been if he could assemble all of these gifts and tools and express them consistently as effective performances, if he could avoid mental lapses and maintain his concentration on the field, if he could change games by himself.For one supremely entertaining night, Dest did just that, scoring a brilliant game-tying goal, coolly creating the winner and generally delighting the crowd to help lead the United States to a 2-1 comeback win over Costa Rica in a World Cup qualifying match on Wednesday night in Columbus, Ohio.Upon being substituted in the second half, Dest made one last enchanting gesture: Exiting the field on the far sideline, he took his time strolling around the perimeter of the playing area, waving his arms to rile up the crowd as the game continued behind him. When he got to the sideline near the benches, he high-fived every fan he could, and a few security guards, with a huge smile on his face.The fans indulged him the whole way with boisterous cheers.“I love the fans,” said Dest, who grew up in Holland. “I was trying to get them hyped up for the other players. We can feel that the fans have our backs, so hopefully they will continue like that.”The welcoming environs and a sellout crowd of 20,165 seemed to invigorate the entire United States team, which was looking to bounce back from a spiritless 1-0 loss in Panama on Sunday.The team has come to view Columbus as a sort of unofficial national home because of the reliably big and supportive crowds it tends to draw here, and because it has been the site of a pattern of positive results: Out of 10 previous World Cup qualifiers in Columbus since 2000, the U.S. had won seven entering Wednesday.The fans — their voices amplified in the stadium by a cozy seating arrangement and partial roof — were still working through a theatrical, slow-build “U-S-A!” chant, timed each game for the opening whistle, when Costa Rica jumped to a stunning lead.Flitting toward the U.S. goal in the first minute, Costa Rica defender Keysher Fuller leapt in the air to meet a cross with his right foot. Though the contact was not clean, the ball skipped erratically off the grass, through a small crowd, and into the net past U.S. goalkeeper Zack Steffen, who had stood frozen on the line because of the creeping threat of Costa Rica forward Jonathan Moya in the box. Steffen immediately ran to the sideline to argue that Moya had been offside, but it appeared that Dest, who had been drawn across the end line, away from the play, had kept the Costa Rican attackers onside.“I think my initial thought was, here we go,” Gregg Berhalter, the U.S. coach, said. “We got to respond. It was early enough in the game that if we stayed calm and stuck to the game plan, I thought we’d be OK.”Dest would redeem himself in spectacular fashion in the 25th minute. Receiving the ball on the right wing, he dribbled menacingly toward the box, caressing the ball with his right foot, before cutting it quickly to his left and lashing a shot with his weaker foot into the upper left corner of the goal.“It’s a really important goal, and it was a really nice goal, so it’s an amazing feeling,” said Dest, who added that he thought his shoes were untied when he scored. “I was so happy.”The flight of the ball into the net triggered an eruption of noise from the home crowd and sent Dest sprinting to the sideline, where he was mobbed by his teammates and coaches.“It’s almost like the sky’s the limit for him,” Berhalter said of Dest. “He can be as good as he wants to be. You saw today with his attacking play. It’s unreal.”As much as the goal itself, Berhalter might have been delighted by the buildup to it, a sweeping 13-pass move involving nine American players that started in the midfield, swung back to Steffen in goal, charged down the left side of the field and ended on the right. Before Dest’s shot went in, the U.S. had gone 428 minutes without a first-half goal.Sergiño Dest scored the first goal for the United States after an early mistake put his team in a hole.Emilee Chinn/Getty ImagesA few days ago, Berhalter had joked with reporters that they were likely tired of hearing him use the word “verticality,” a reference to a direct-approach tactical concept that he had invoked repeatedly in a string of news conferences.Imagine how often the players had heard it. The U.S. has looked lackluster in attack at times over the past two months, but the concept seemed to resonate on Wednesday night. Dest’s goal highlighted one of the best halves of attacking play from the Americans in recent memory, one that exhibited all the offensive tenets Berhalter had been preaching, publicly and behind closed doors, for weeks: persistent and purposeful movement without the ball, quick interchanges, a general sense of urgency pushing toward, and behind, an opponent’s back line.The go-ahead goal came in the 66th minute. A misplay by a Costa Rican defender left the ball bobbling to the feet of Dest, who collected it, looked up at his surroundings, and skimmed a perfectly weighted pass into the path of Timothy Weah, who belted it toward the goal.The play was later ruled an own goal by the Costa Rica goalkeeper, Leonel Moreira, but Weah celebrated it as his own, sprinting to embrace a pocket of fans in the corner.Dest joined him there, getting pats on the head from the fans, reveling in a performance where he put all his tantalizing skills to devastating use. More

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      USMNT 2, Jamaica 0: Ricardo Pepi Scores Twice

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      The teenage forward Ricardo Pepi scored two goals to power the United States to its second straight win in World Cup qualifying.AUSTIN, Texas — Ricardo Pepi jogged off the field as the volume in the stadium began to swell. With two masterful touches of the ball, he had done his job for the night, and he was being substituted out of the game with more than 20 minutes remaining.Before reaching the bench, Pepi, an 18-year-old Mexican-American striker from Texas, put his head down, touched the grass and crossed himself. All the while, a chant built up in the stands:“Pepi! Pepi! Pepi!”Youth is a complicated thing.When things are going wrong, as they did for much of last month for the United States men’s soccer team, youth can feel like a glaring liability. When things are going right, as they did Thursday night in Austin, it can give you all the hope in the world.Pepi, for a night, presented a vision of a glimmering future for the Americans and the 20,500 fans in attendance, scoring two second-half goals to lead the United States to a 2-0 victory over Jamaica in its fourth World Cup qualifying match.The victory moved the United States, for the moment at least, into first place in its regional qualifying group. The Americans, with eight points through four games, lead on goal difference over Mexico, which was held to a 1-1 tie by visiting Canada on Thursday night.In relying on such a young group, with so many key players in their teens and early 20s, U.S. Coach Gregg Berhalter has set up a race against time of sorts: corralling a stable of young, relatively unaccomplished talents, and hoping they will blossom in time to punch the country’s ticket to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.“I don’t even think we think of ourselves as young guys anymore,” Brenden Aaronson, a 20-year-old wing from New Jersey, said. “We’re put in a situation where the whole country is looking at us, and we need to perform.”So was this a display of dramatic maturation in one month’s time, or a walkover victory against a team suffering its own period of disarray? A little of both, perhaps, but the United States team and its fans will not care either way. What matters these days is stockpiling points, as many as possible, before next March.That mission had gotten off to a stuttering start last month, when the Americans’ first three games had functioned as a hazing ritual of sorts for the young group of players. Sixteen of them made their World Cup qualifying debuts, a number frequently invoked in the matches’ aftermath by the team’s public relations staff to highlight its youth, its profuse room to grow.“Coming into the last camp, maybe we were just a little bit naïve and didn’t know what to expect and that’s why we had to use the first three games as a learning process,” the team’s 22-year-old captain, Tyler Adams, said this week.Weston McKennie returned to the United States lineup after he was sent home from the last set of qualifiers for violating team rules.Chuck Burton/USA Today Sports, via ReutersTheir problems over those three games, which yielded two disappointing ties and one come-from-behind win, were most vividly clear on offense. The Americans passed ponderously, stifling any forward momentum they could hope to build. Opposing teams sat comfortably in their own end, and the U.S. failed to find ways through.Amid those growing pains, one of the fastest learners was Pepi, who scored and set up two goals in the team’s third game last month in Honduras, helping the team return home with a needed win and a surge of good feeling.On Thursday night, he was one of several American players storming into the box in the 49th minute as Yunus Musah — like Pepi, only 18 years old — made a dangerous dribbling run through the heart of the Jamaican defense. Musah slipped the ball to Sergiño Dest, who curled the ball toward the mouth of goal, where Pepi curled into a crouch and let it glance off his forehead and inside the left post.The same, direct approach 13 minutes later produced the team’s second goal: Another surging run — this time down the left side, by Aaronson — coaxed Pepi into a full sprint into the box. When the ball arrived at his feet, he splayed his legs for a clean tap-in that sent drinks flying in celebration in the stands behind the goal.“It’s amazing,” Berhalter said. “An 18-year-old gets an opportunity, and he takes advantage of it.”Thursday’s game brought the return of Weston McKennie, who was banished from the team last month after a gratuitous violation of its coronavirus protocols. At 23, he is seen as an indispensable player, even as his immaturity often peeks through.The team was captained again by Adams, a sage veteran at 22. Dest, 20, was dangerous and Musah, 18, indispensable.All these young players, for a night, took their blank slate and produced a hopeful picture.Youth can be a beautifully complicated thing. More

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      U.S. Soccer's Top Women's League Faces Down Abusers, Uncertainty

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      The players in the National Women’s Soccer League, tired of abuse and harassment, are speaking up and seizing power. But the way forward for the troubled league isn’t clear.In the top professional soccer league for women in North America, everyone understood that the power primarily rested with men: the team owners, executives and coaches who controlled the athletes and their careers.While the National Women’s Soccer League is home to celebrities like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan from the World Cup-winning U.S. national team, the backbone of the labor comes from unheralded players who earn meager wages and, until now, were reluctant to speak out and disrupt a league that is likely their only shot at playing professional sports in the United States.Yet a wave of allegations in recent months — that coaches sexually abused or harassed players as executives looked the other way — has highlighted a power dynamic that threatened the safety of women, allowing misconduct to go unchecked and abusers to find new jobs around the league.And while there has been a burst of outrage, and top leaders — again, mostly male — have promised reform, many players fear that the basic power imbalance will remain even as they continue to speak out in a way that evokes the #MeToo movement in Hollywood and other industries.“If this isn’t a shut-up-and-listen-to-these-players moment, I don’t really know what is,” Kaylyn Kyle, a former player for the Orlando Pride, said while providing commentary on the broadcast of a game Thursday. “Devastated, disgusted, but I’m not shocked, and that’s the problem. I mean, I played in this league where this was normalized. That’s not OK.”When several games were played on Wednesday night, players stopped their matches at the six-minute mark to stand together in silent protest. The sixth minute represented the six years it took for a coach accused of sexual harassment and sexual coercion to be ousted from the league.The fallout is widespread. At least four coaches have been fired, including one for allegedly coercing a player to have sex with him and sexually harassing other players, and another after allegations of verbal abuse, which included ridiculing players. The league’s commissioner, Lisa Baird, has resigned under pressure after the league mishandled the abuse case of a coach who left one team amid serious accusations of sexual misconduct, only to land with another team and be celebrated for leading that franchise to championships.Front office executives have been forced out. Games were postponed at the players’ insistence. At least five investigations have been promised and no one can be sure what they will reveal.“Right now, as we look across the soccer landscape, packed with painful stories of sexual abuse, emotional abuse and team mismanagement, we, along with our peers, are suffering,” players from the Washington Spirit said in a statement earlier this week. Their former coach, Richie Burke, was fired last month after players accused him of verbal harassment.A Lack of ConsensusFans at a match between the Portland Thorns and the Houston Dash in Portland on Wednesday.Soobum Im/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe path forward for the league remains muddled at best.While the N.W.S.L. will resume a full schedule this weekend, it has been nearly paralyzed by the abuse scandal, with a glaring lack of trust among the players, owners and the league, according to interviews with more than a dozen people directly involved. Everyone wants someone to blame, and there is little apparent consensus about how to fix the N.W.S.L. and its problems.“People think of athletes as superhuman beings, particularly professional athletes, when actually they are incredibly vulnerable,” said Mary V. Harvey, an Olympic gold medalist, World Cup winner and former goalkeeper on the U.S. women’s national team who is now the chief executive of the Centre for Sport and Human Rights. “You don’t want to complain and be the reason the league folds. There’s a massive power imbalance, and when you have power imbalance, that’s where these human rights violations happen.”Teams and the players’ union have publicly detailed their demands. The union this week tweeted that it wanted a mandatory suspension of anyone in a position of power who was being investigated for abuse. It also asked for more transparency in the investigations and a say in who is hired as the next commissioner.It’s a moment of reckoning for a sport that bounded into America’s consciousness when Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain and their teammates on the U.S. women’s national team won the 1999 World Cup in front of a Rose Bowl packed with about 90,000 fans.Val Ackerman, commissioner of the Big East Conference and the former president of the W.N.B.A., said sports organizations should pay close attention to what is unfolding in women’s soccer.She called the N.W.S.L. situation “a wake-up call for our business,” and said it should prompt every sports entity to re-evaluate its policies and infrastructure. Sports leaders need to be especially mindful of safeguarding their employees, she said, in light of the continued gender imbalance in sports, with men often coaching and running women’s teams.At the start of this season, only one of the N.W.S.L.’s 10 teams was coached by a woman, and a majority of the owners and investors were men.“What’s sobering is that we are looking at the 50th anniversary of Title IX next year and 50 years later, we are still fighting for the equitable treatment of female athletes and a safe, respectful competition environment for female athletes,” Ackerman said, referring to the federal law that mandates gender equity in federally funded educational institutions. “It makes you wonder how far we’ve really come on the basics.”The current professional league is hardly a picture of strength or equity. Few N.W.S.L. teams are profitable. The minimum player salary is about $20,000, while it is at least three times that in Major League Soccer, the men’s professional league in the United States.Investigations have been promised by U.S. Soccer, the governing body of soccer in the United States; FIFA, the global governing body of the sport; the N.W.S.L. and the players’ union.Those inquiries will seek to answer how coaches accused of abuse were hired and were allowed to remain in the league and change teams without repercussions.Nadia Nadim, an Afghan-Danish player on Racing Louisville FC, said in a tweet last month that players should be ready to spark an uprising and follow through with it to force change because the sport’s officials have failed miserably at their jobs.“This league can be great, as we have the best players in the world,” she wrote. “We just need to get the idiots out, gain power and make this league as great as it CAN be.”A ‘Very Well Respected’ CoachPaul Riley won two league championships as coach of the North Carolina Courage after he left the Portland Thorns amid allegations of misconduct.Anne M. Peterson/Associated PressPaul Riley, the coach at the center of the minute-long protests at matches this week, rose from a youth soccer coach to become one of the highest-profile coaches in the women’s game, winning two championships in the N.W.S.L., with the North Carolina Courage.In 2015, three years before winning his first championship, Riley left the Portland Thorns N.W.S.L. team. The Thorns now say he was fired for cause, though the club made no such announcement at the time. Riley showed up months later coaching another N.W.S.L. team, the Western New York Flash. When the Flash, which eventually moved to North Carolina, announced the hiring, an executive of the team praised Riley for being “very well respected around the globe.”Last week, in a report in The Athletic, two former players said Riley abused players at will and that they had reported it to team management and the league. Riley denied most of the allegations to The Athletic, and did not respond to messages seeking comment.Sinead Farrelly, who played for Riley with the Philadelphia Independence in 2011 and then again with the Portland Thorns in 2014 and 2015, said Riley used his power as her coach to coerce her to have sex with him. Meleana Shim, who also played for the Thorns, said that after a night of drinking Riley pressured her and Farrelly to kiss each other. If they did so, the team would not have to run sprints the next day. Other players have accused Riley of making inappropriate comments.In September 2015, Shim emailed the owner of the Thorns, Merritt Paulson, as well as other team executives, about the kissing incident. She also emailed Jeff Plush, then the commissioner of the N.W.S.L.The next week, the Thorns announced that Riley would not coach the team the next season, thanking him for his service and making no mention of any misbehavior. In a statement this week, Steve Malik, the owner of the Courage, wrote that upon hiring Riley, he “assured that he was in good standing.”Riley, who was fired from the Courage last week, is now under investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, which oversees abuse in Olympic sports.After that firing, Baird, the commissioner of the N.W.S.L. and the former chief marketing officer of the United States Olympic Committee, resigned less than two years at the post. Under her leadership, the league implemented its first anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policy. But her efforts to protect players were seen by many of them as insufficient and, at times, negligent.“The league must accept responsibility for a process that failed to protect its own players from this abuse,” Morgan said in a Twitter post.The ongoing investigations are likely to scrutinize several coaches who recently have been removed from their posts.Burke, the former Washington Spirit coach, stepped down in August for “health reasons” just before a Washington Post report detailed accusations that he verbally abused players and was racially insensitive. He remained in the team’s front office until a league inquiry prompted his firing. Burke did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Two other coaches — Christy Holly of Racing Louisville FC and Craig Harrington of the Utah Royals — also were ousted from their jobs in the last year amid whispers of toxic workplace cultures. Holly was fired in August “for cause,” as his team said, but it did not provide details. Holly did not return requests for comment.Harrington, who was fired by the Royals last year after being put on leave during an unspecified investigation, was soon hired to coach women’s soccer in Mexico. Harrington did not respond to an emailed request for comment.Yael Averbuch, a former N.W.S.L. player and the current interim general manager of Gotham FC, said abuse cases in the league existed and are ongoing partly because players don’t have a safe, confidential way to report abuse or harassment. So cases go unreported, or are reported but aren’t properly handled, she said, and players are afraid to make the accusations public because they want to keep their jobs.“As a player I don’t know if I ever had an H.R. department to go to,” Averbuch said. “These are small businesses, and this league was for a while very new.”Harvey, the former national team player, said firing abusive coaches just one step toward making the league a safer place. Abuse, to her dismay, is ingrained in the culture of women’s sports — and has been for as long as she can remember. A sea change is necessary, and that might take some time.“It starts with the culture,” she said. “If you have a culture that engenders respect toward women and women athletes, then things look entirely different.” More

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      The League of Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan Deserves Respect

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      Players in the National Women’s Soccer League are demanding the respect all female athletes deserve but rarely get. When will we stop treating women in sports as second-class citizens?That question needs pondering, once again, in light of the horrifying stories of male coaches accused of abusing and harassing players in the National Women’s Soccer League.It turns out that the premier league for women’s soccer in the United States — where stars from the World Cup-winning national team like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan play — treats the legions of less-renowned players like pawns in a male-controlled game of exploitation and moneymaking.Rather than a celebration of female empowerment, revelations in recent days show the league as yet another example of the low regard society holds for female athletes. And in this case, it appears the athletes tolerated and suffered abuse because they feared complaining would doom the only U.S. league they have.“Burn it all down,” Rapinoe said in a tweet.She’s right.This league needs an overhaul in leadership. The change has already begun with the resignation of its commissioner, Lisa Baird. And there is hope that a new generation of female athletes — coming up in this age of reckoning and bold energy among the marginalized, connected to one another and to the world by social media — will not remain quiet.They are no longer afraid of the consequences, no longer shy about speaking truth to power.They have as a North Star the many female gymnasts — including one of the most powerful stars in sports, Simone Biles — who have shown that coming forward and speaking up can bring about change. Doing so can even send perpetrators who once would have continued lurking in the shadows off to prison.This was a turbulent, searingly painful week for women’s sports, but it also pointed the way to the future.Women’s pro soccer players will not continue to accept the status quo.No more tolerating coaches like Richie Burke, the former manager of the Washington Spirit, who unleashed a “torrent of threats, criticism and personal insults” on his players, according to The Washington Post.No more condoning men like Christy Holly, the Racing Louisville coach, fired in August amid a swirl of accusations about the toxic environment he had fostered.No more space for the likes of Farid Benstiti, former coach of the Seattle area’s OL Reign, who we now know was forced to leave after abusive comments.In an investigation published this week by The Athletic, current and former players accused North Carolina Courage manager Paul Riley of emotionally abusing players and coercing them into sex. Though he denied the allegations, Riley was fired by the Courage.The league’s players aren’t buying his denials. They are also disgusted with how the league was less than forthright about the behavior of these coaches. This weekend’s games were canceled when the players rose in unison, demanding reform.“Men, protecting men, who are abusing women,” wrote Rapinoe, the biggest American star in women’s soccer and one of the league’s few household names. “I’ll say it again, men, protecting men, who are ABUSING WOMEN. Burn it all down.”This statement needs some context. Baird, the N.W.S.L. commissioner, resigned on Friday after it became clear that she had done more to protect the men who run the league than the women who put it all on the line in competition.Sometimes it’s not just men protecting men. Sometimes it’s power protecting power.We all know who has the real clout — who stands at the top of the hierarchy. In the N.W.S.L., a vast majority of the team owners who own controlling stakes are men, as are a vast majority of the team executives and coaches.As is true in the rest of society, the sports world rests firmly on a simple, troubling dynamic: Outside of a few exceptions, professional tennis being one, women in sports take a back seat to their male counterparts.They receive far less media coverage, far less corporate backing, and far less love and respect from fans.The W.N.B.A. playoffs are on, full of great story lines and stunning play. As my recent column showed, good luck finding a jersey from your favorite breakout star.And good luck, as well, to the women’s teams who are crisscrossing the country on commercial airlines, scrambling to find flights where they do not have to cram their tired bodies into middle seats.The players in major American men’s sports almost always fly on chartered jets. Female professionals almost never do.The N.W.S.L. is far from a well-established league. Outside of a few cities, particularly Portland, Oregon, where Riley coached for years, its teams struggle for acceptance. The league’s nationally televised 2021 championship game is slated to take place in Portland on Nov. 20, and set to start at 9 a.m. local time. Before one of the biggest games of their lives, the players vying for the title will be waking up in the morning darkness and warming up on a cold field as the sun begins to rise.It isn’t easy to make inroads in the public consciousness in a culture set up so completely to favor men.Still, the N.W.S.L. has lasted longer and forged deeper roots than any American women’s professional soccer league ever has. The league is powerful because of what it represents: a future in which women are taken seriously and treated with full respect.Female athletes are boldly standing up for that kind of transformative change. But this week proves that their battle to be treated equally is far from over. In many ways, it is just beginning. 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      Shelby Rogers Beats Ashleigh Barty at the U.S. Open

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      The American beat Barty, who had won five tournaments this year including Wimbledon, 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (5). Rogers made the crowd work for her.Shelby Rogers held an unusual distinction when she walked onto the court in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Saturday. She was the last remaining American woman in the U.S. Open women’s singles draw, and it was only the third round.Sofia Kenin, Serena Williams and Venus Williams all skipped the tournament with ailments, and stars like Coco Gauff, Sloane Stephens, Danielle Collins and Jessica Pegula had already been eliminated.It was looking nearly as bad for Rogers, too. Trailing 2-5 in the third set to top-seeded Ashleigh Barty, Rogers completed a stirring comeback to the delight of the pro-American audience to score the biggest upset of the tournament, ousting the Australian 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (5).Barty, the defending Wimbledon champion and winner of the 2019 French Open, has held the No. 1 spot in the WTA women’s rankings since Jan. 24, 2019 and had won five tournaments this year, including the Cincinnati event leading up to the U.S. Open. She went into Saturday’s match without losing a set in her first two encounters, and held a 5-0 advantage over Rogers.Barty was gracious after the loss, paying tribute to Rogers and saying she is prepared to move on knowing the year has been a success, over all.“You can’t win every single tennis match that you play,” she said. “I’m proud of myself and my team for all the efforts we’ve put in in the last six months. It’s been pretty incredible. I don’t think we could have asked for much more honestly. I wouldn’t change a thing.”Rogers was equally as effusive about Barty, noting that her opponent had not been home to Australia since February, in part to avoid complications and quarantines due to coronavirus travel restrictions.“She’s resetting on the road, she’s worked through some injuries on the road,” Rogers said. “She’s won five titles. She’s remained No. 1. I mean, this girl is everything every player wants to be.”With the home crowd behind her, Rogers, 28, won the first set easily. Perhaps Barty just needed waking up. It looked as if that might be the case when Barty cruised to an easy win in the second set and then went ahead, 5-2 in the third. Victory was only a few points away.“I think that game put some oxygen into her lungs,” Barty said.There were moments in that seventh game where Rogers’ body language suggested that defeat was imminent. She slumped when shots went astray, walked from one end of the court to the other after losing a point without much conviction and appeared under siege at one point. But it was Barty who would not hold her nerve. She made three unforced errors in that game to allow Rogers to break her serve, and grasp onto hope.Shelby Rogers of the United States after defeating Australia’s Ashleigh Barty on Saturday night.Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWith renewed energy derived in part from the supportive fans, Rogers held her serve and then broke Barty again. Generally, she prefers to strike balls firmly and close to the net, but Rogers recognized that Barty was having more trouble with high-bouncing balls, and began to rely on that tactic to push her advantage.“It’s not the way I like to play,” she said in an interview on court after the match, “But it was what I needed to do against her.”Barty was now the one under siege and served tenuously, trailing, 5-6. But at 40-30, Rogers mistimed an overhead slam and hit the ball into the net. They would go to a tiebreaker, and Rogers had the momentum.Even though it would remain close, Barty was playing more desperately and struggling to keep pace, while Rogers surged on a wave of adrenaline, now running back to her spot and pumping her fist to the fans.Most of the points Rogers won in the tiebreaker came off Barty’s mistakes as Rogers was content to keep pushing the ball back, often with a looping arc to it, and then waited for Barty to crack.The final point, though, came on a strong serve by Rogers that overwhelmed Barty, and her backhand block went wide. Rogers dropped her racket and put both hands to her face. She picked up the racket, went to the net to shake hands with Barty and the chair umpire, and then flung it to the side again and raised her arms to the crowd, half in triumph, half in disbelief.Her next opponent is the exciting British teenager, Emma Raducanu, in the fourth round.A year ago, when Rogers was still working her way back from knee surgery, she reached the quarterfinal stage here. She lost to Naomi Osaka, the eventual champion, in a stadium that was empty because of coronavirus restrictions. But fans are back in attendance at full capacity this year, and Rogers took advantage.“The crowd has taken it to another level this year,” she told them on court.“I’m thankful that I couldn’t hear myself breathing as heavily as I did last year in the empty stadium,” she said. “But, gosh, that was really something special. I got chills out there on the court. I don’t know if that’s normal when you’re playing a tennis match, but it happened. I will never forget that moment.” More

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      Novak Djokovic Is Sensitive, Even When the Crowd’s Not Against Him

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      Fans at the U.S. Open lustily cheered Djokovic’s teenage opponent Holger Rune, but once you have played the villain in New York, it’s easy to jump to conclusions.The confusion was understandable on Tuesday night. Novak Djokovic has been through enough me-against-the-world moments at the U.S. Open and beyond to expect the boos even when he is shooting for tennis’s equivalent of the moon.But the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium for this first-round match was actually chanting “Rune” — accentuating the u in the surname of his flashy 18-year-old opponent Holger Rune.“Obviously you always wish to have the crowd behind you, but it’s not always possible, that’s all I can say,” Djokovic said after his 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-1 victory.Djokovic is a great champion, and in position in this golden age of men’s tennis to win the statistical race by a hefty margin, ahead of his career-long measuring sticks Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.But the road to the summit has often been bumpy, and he has made a number of his own potholes, including the one he dug in his most recent appearance in Arthur Ashe Stadium. That was last year when he was defaulted in the fourth round after unintentionally hitting a line judge in the throat with a ball he struck in frustration after losing his serve against Pablo Carreño Busta.Djokovic was the No. 1 seed and heavy favorite to win the title then, just as he is the No. 1 seed and heavy favorite to win the title now. But there is more at stake and a very different vibe.Djokovic’s gaffe in 2020 came in an all-but-empty Ashe Stadium, devoid of fans because of coronavirus pandemic restrictions. This year, the stadiums and grounds are packed. More than 53,000 came on Tuesday, and it would have been easy to imagine that life had returned to normal if it had not been for the many fans wearing masks in the stands and in the walkways.Djokovic dropped the second set and the crowd began to chant Holger Rune’s name.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesRune began to cramp in the third set and never really recovered.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAnother sign of the times: the line judges are gone. Already absent in 2020 on the outside courts, they have been replaced on all courts this year by the automated line-judging system that eerily uses a prerecorded human voice.Call it a clean slate as Djokovic tries to make his mark on the game even more indelibly. A Grand Slam is a big deal and deserves to be: Only five players have accomplished it in singles in tennis’s long history.Men’s stars like Jack Kramer, Roy Emerson, Ken Rosewall, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi never managed it. Federer and Nadal surely won’t either.But Djokovic is close enough to taste the Grand Slam now, having won the first three of the four legs in 2021. After Tuesday night’s victory, he is just six matches away from joining Don Budge, Maureen Connolly, Rod Laver, Margaret Court and Steffi Graf on the short list of those who have achieved it.Though the shoulder that bothered him at the Tokyo Olympics did not seem to be a problem, it was not an entirely reassuring start. Rune, a teenage qualifier from Denmark whose boyhood hero was Federer, was making his Grand Slam debut. A former world No. 1 as a junior, Rune is a dynamic player with explosive power and contagious energy. He not only won the second set. He also got the crowd on his side in Ashe Stadium, the biggest venue in tour-level tennis with its five tiers and 23,771 seats.Though Djokovic looked frustrated and off rhythm as Rune evened the match at one-set-apiece, Djokovic never looked genuinely rattled and was under no threat down the stretch.Rune, playing his first best-of-five-set match, began to cramp in his legs early in the third set and winced and hobbled between points. He was unable to jump into his serve, unable to run down Djokovic’s drop shots and groundstrokes into the corners.Fans watching matches on the big screen in front of Arthur Ashe Stadium.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesOne suspects that Rune has a bright future (and not because he resembles a young Leonardo DiCaprio). But the final two sets on Tuesday lasted just 51 minutes, less time than it took Rune to win the 58-minute second set.“Unfortunately, my fitness let me down,” Rune said. “I knew if I had to win, I really had to fight for every point. With my body at this point, it was impossible.”Djokovic, despite Rune’s long affinity for Federer, has played a mentor’s role. They practiced together earlier this season, and when they met for a handshake at then net it turned into something closer to a conversation. It continued later in the locker room after the disappointed Rune left the court in tears, his towel in his teeth.Though it is easy to forget at this stage, Djokovic, too, once struggled with his endurance on court, only solving the problem in 2010 and 2011 after changing to a gluten-free diet. But he has proved to be a long-running champion.“I did struggle with injuries and retirements early in my career,” Djokovic said. “That’s why I can relate to Holger, what he’s going through. We just had a little chat in the locker room. It’s an emotional moment for him. It’s not easy to see that. He’s really sad. I understand that. I’ve been through that. I just told him that he handled himself extremely well. He didn’t want to stop. I thought he was going to stop at the end of the third. He just kept going with dignity, finished off the match. He deserved definitely my respect, the respect of a lot of people. He’s still very, very young.”Respect is a word that resonates with Djokovic. He has not always had the respect he deserves in New York, where he has won three titles. The crowd turned particularly ugly in 2015, when he defeated Federer in a four-set final, cheering on Djokovic’s errors and double faults, and interrupting his rhythm.In an interview the next day, Djokovic told me that when they had been chanting “Roger” he willed himself to pretend they were chanting for him instead.He did not seem to rely on such mind games on Tuesday night, and it must be said that “Ruuuuuune” in cavernous Ashe Stadium does sound a great deal like “Booooooo.”Even Rune was confused, and only learned for certain after the match what was being chanted. “When I heard that I was happy, because I didn’t understand it in the match,” he said. “It was a crazy crowd, the best I’ve ever felt in my life.”Who wouldn’t gravitate to a charismatic underdog, a young player wind-milling his arms in delight after hitting a winner against the best in the world? At some stage this tournament, you hope the New York crowd takes the full measure of the tennis achievement Djokovic is pursuing and what he has sacrificed to become this extraordinary a player. Trainers tried to help Rune with his cramps in between sets.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesHe seemed to be conserving his energy and emotions on Tuesday, and he may need to dip into his reserves over the next 12 days.Self-control is not his trademark. Witness his racket-smashing tirade in Tokyo just last month when he lost the bronze medal match to Carreño.But he took a break from the tour after that to refresh his mind and attitude. He is not ignoring the elephant in the room in news conferences.“As always you have tons of expectations and pressure from just the whole tennis community, including myself,” he said late on Tuesday night. “Obviously I would like myself to win, to go far, to win the title and make the history. Without a doubt that’s something that inspires me. But I am focused on trying to be the best version of myself every day. I know it sounds like a cliché, but there is a great power in being present and working on mentally and emotionally being in the moment and trying to handle it in such a way that would benefit you.”He remains a seeker and a tinkerer, hard-wired to optimize at the peril of trying to fix what may not be broken. But until proven otherwise, he is the game’s best big-match player and whatever the public is shouting from on high, down in the arena Djokovic is just six matches away from one of sport’s ultimate prizes.Next up on Thursday: a second-round match with the 121st-ranked Tallon Griekspoor. More

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      Novak Djokovic Wins His First-Round Match at the U.S. Open

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      Novak Djokovic, the No. 1-ranked men’s tennis player, began his bid for the final leg of the Grand Slam with a 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-1 victory over Holger Rune in the first round of the U.S. Open on Tuesday night.Rune, an 18-year-old qualifier from Denmark, was making his debut in a Grand Slam tournament. He is a dynamic, flashy player with explosive power and contagious energy. He not only won the second set, but he also got the crowd on his side in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest venue in tour-level tennis with its five tiers and 23,771 seats.Loud cheers of “Ruuuuune,” which sounded paradoxically like boos, were a frequent part of the soundscape. Though Djokovic looked frustrated and off rhythm as Rune evened the match at one set apiece, Djokovic never looked genuinely rattled and was not threatened down the stretch.Rune, playing his first best-of-five-set match, began to cramp in his legs early in the third set and began wincing and hobbling between points and struggling to jump into his serve and cover the corners of the court: a necessity to pose any threat to Djokovic.The final two sets lasted just 51 minutes, less time than it took Rune to win the 58-minute second set.“I’ve got to say that it’s never nice to finish the way we finished today,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview. “Holger is a great guy, one of the up-and-coming stars. He was the best junior in the world.” Djokovic added “he is making his way through the professional ranks quite quickly. He deserves a big round of applause. It’s unfortunate he had to go through all of that.”Rune has been prone to cramping, and though it is easy to forget at this stage, Djokovic, too, once struggled with his endurance on court, only solving the problem in 2010 and 2011 after switching to a gluten-free diet.But at age 34, Djokovic has proved himself to be a long-running champion, one of the most successful in the game’s history. If he wins six more matches in New York, he will break his tie with his longtime rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal by claiming a men’s record 21st career Grand Slam singles title.If he wins six more matches, he also will become the first player since Steffi Graf in 1988 to complete the Grand Slam in singles and the first man to do so since Rod Laver in 1969. The Grand Slam requires a player to win the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in the same calendar year. Graf added an Olympic gold medal to her collection for a so-called Golden Slam.After failing to win a medal at the Tokyo Olympics this month, Djokovic chose to rest before the U.S. Open rather than play in any preliminary events in North America. He was not at his sharpest on Tuesday night, but his shoulder, which troubled him in Tokyo, did not appear to limit his ability to perform.In his last appearance at the U.S. Open in 2020, he was defaulted in the fourth round after striking a ball in frustration and inadvertently hitting a line judge in the throat. But there were no misadventures in this first match, and Djokovic will be a big favorite again in the second round when he plays 121st ranked Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands for the first time. More

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      A Relaxed Ash Barty Is Still No. 1

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      She stepped away from the game and came back stronger, winning four tournaments this year, including Wimbledon.In a year when mental health has often been a headline in sports, it is fitting that Ash Barty of Australia is the No. 1 women’s player in the world. Barty had the self-awareness to walk away from tennis for more than a year in 2014 to seek a more normal existence (though she also took up professional cricket).In 2019, when she stumbled at Wimbledon, losing in the fourth round, she took a few weeks to return home and rejuvenate. And after staying off the tour for nearly a year during the pandemic, she has won four titles this year, including Wimbledon.Barty discussed her approach to tennis and life as she prepared for the United States Open. The following interview has been edited and condensed.Are you someone who has always gone your own way?I grew up with values from my mom and dad that you make the right decisions for the right reasons, and they are not dependent on tennis. When I do that, regardless of what that means for my tennis, I’m a happy person. Certainly, you can’t please everyone, but that’s all I need to do.Do you get frustrated when people attack Naomi Osaka or Simone Biles for making decisions based on their mental health?I haven’t followed those stories too closely, but based on the headlines, I hope that they are making the right decisions for the right reasons. It shouldn’t matter to Simone and Naomi what the rest of the world thinks.Barty serving to Angelique Kerber during the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open on Aug. 21 in Mason, Ohio. She went on to win the tournament.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesIn 2019, after reaching No. 1, you fell at Wimbledon, took three weeks off and then fell in the second round of your next tournament. Did you feel pressure as the new No. 1?It was really exciting — this was something I’d worked towards. It certainly didn’t add any pressure, if anything it took it off because I had absolutely nothing to prove to anyone.After Wimbledon, it was really important for me to go home and take stock. I arrived in the U.S. knowing I was probably not going to be playing my best tennis in some of those tournaments. But I had a solid end of the year. [Barty reached the finals of the China Open and won the year-end WTA Finals.]This year, was it easy to find your footing right away?I just take each week as it comes. Each match is an opportunity to do the best that I can on that given day. Whether that’s a win or loss is quite irrelevant. It’s more about going out there with the right attitude regardless of the result.As an athlete you need to be able to separate and not place your self-worth on those wins and losses — that’s certainly a false way to determine whether you’ve had a successful career. It’s more about the way you go about it and how much you enjoy that journey.Were you confident before Wimbledon or worried about lingering injuries?I always trust in my tennis. If I play well, I’ll be very hard to beat. But at Wimbledon, my team and I had no idea how my body was going to respond, so we were on edge. I would wake up each morning to see if I felt all right. Getting through the tournament physically was massive, so I was able to relax and play some of my best tennis when it mattered most.The U.S. Open has proved your biggest challenge. You’ve never gotten past the fourth round. Is there a specific challenge to playing there for you?I love playing in New York, and I love the conditions. Making the fourth round a couple of years in a row is not terrible — being in the second week of a Slam is where you want to be — and I’ve lost to some quality opponents. We just keep chipping away. I just go there and try to put my best foot forward. More