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      A Big Tennis Tournament Is About to Happen in Miami. Really.

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      The Miami Open is the lone significant North American tennis event before late summer, and a glimpse of what the sport might look like for the foreseeable future.There is a significant tennis tournament beginning its main draw in Miami this week. It is one of the most important annual events in the sport, attracting hundreds of players from all over the world, including multiple Grand Slam winners, competing for one of the largest prize purses of the year.So why doesn’t it feel that way?Maybe it’s because several of the biggest names in the sport — including the grand troika of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in the men’s game, plus Serena Williams — are skipping the event. Or because attendance will be limited to a maximum of 1,000 spectators a day, compared with nearly 400,000 over two weeks in 2019, despite state rules in Florida that would allow far more.Maybe it’s because the Miami Open is taking place without the opening act of the March winter hard court swing, the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., which officials in the state wanted no part of in the winter when infection rates were surging in Southern California.Or maybe it’s because the Miami Open is a microcosm of tennis in 2021 — an unpredictable puzzle of player scheduling, travel advisories and health precautions in a season that has forced players to set priorities in a way they never have before. Many, especially the biggest stars, now view tournaments not simply as a means to compete or a chance for a paycheck but for whether an event fits into their broader life.“It’s so many different reasons,” James Blake, the former player who is the tournament director in Miami, said when asked what has influenced players’ decisions to play or skip the event. “As a former tour player, I can tell you are programmed to want to compete against the best players in the world. That is always your main motivation.”Except when it isn’t. Williams withdrew Sunday, announcing she had not fully recovered from recent oral surgery. Djokovic, who is the top-ranked men’s player and recovering from a torn abdominal muscle, pulled out Friday afternoon. Djokovic’s management agency, the sports and entertainment conglomerate, W.M.E.-I.M.G., owns the Miami Open, but that was not enough for him to make the trip. He announced on Twitter that he had “decided to use this precious time at home to stay with my family. With all restrictions, I need to find balance in my time on tour and at home.”Daniil Medvedev, the world No. 2 and a 2021 Australian Open finalist, is playing, as are the rising stars Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev. But the women’s draw, which includes Naomi Osaka, Ashleigh Barty and Simona Halep, may provide much of the heat.Nadal announced earlier this month that he was skipping Miami to continue healing his sore back and to prepare for the spring clay-court season, during which he usually excels.Roger Federer, the defending champion in Miami who returned to professional tennis earlier this month after two knee surgeries and a 14-month hiatus, said his goal is to be 100 percent healthy for Wimbledon in late June. A two-week jaunt to the United States for a single hard court event didn’t make sense. He also has not committed to playing much on clay this season.Roger Federer won’t be at this year’s Miami Open to defend his 2019 title.Rhona Wise/EPA, via ShutterstockAustria’s Dominic Thiem, the 2020 United States Open champion, is slumping and taking a pass. Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland, a three-time Grand Slam winner, said he was too tired. Nick Kyrgios lives in Australia, which has strict quarantine rules for travelers, and has yet to figure out how much tennis he wants to play this year.It is the new normal of tennis. To play or not to play is a complicated question, and an unexpected result of that is Miami foreshadows what tennis will look like eventually. No Big Three. No Serena Williams.“It’s always nice to have two of the biggest names in sports on your air, but there is so much talent out there and that gives the chance for different stories to be told,” said Ken Solomon, chief executive of The Tennis Channel, which will air 125 hours of live coverage of the event in the United States. “We get 128 phenomenal athletes competing in this thing, you don’t start thinking about who is not there.”For months in the United States, many sports have more or less proceeded, even as most people faced significant limitations on travel and contact with those outside their households. The N.F.L. held a Super Bowl with 22,000 fans, the N.C.A.A. started two Division I basketball tournaments with 132 teams from across the country descending on the Indianapolis and San Antonio regions, and hockey players scrap cheek-to-jowl on the ice every night.However, with Florida essentially ridding itself of most pandemic-related restrictions, the roles of have flipped. Players arrived in Florida during the past few days along with spring break revelers who are filling Florida’s beaches, bars and nightclubs. The players, who are used to indulging in Miami’s culture, restaurants and nightlife when they are not playing tennis, are living under strict guidelines that the men’s and women’s tennis tours created to keep them as safe as possible.During the tournament, they must live in one of two hotels for players and officials. Had she played, Williams could not have commuted from her home, roughly 75 minutes away. The players’ movement is limited to the tournament and the hotel. No ventures to Joe’s Stone Crab, South Beach or Coconut Grove until they’ve lost.“It does make it harder when you are part of the bubble,” Lauren Davis, the veteran U.S. player, said. “The experience is more draining. There is no outlet for the stress.”Miami Open organizers did not construct the temporary 14,000-seat court inside the Miami Dolphins’ stadium this year. The most important matches will take place on three smaller courts.Prize money has been slashed to $6.7 million from $16.7 million in 2019, though it is among the largest prize purses outside of the Grand Slams and the tour finals. Nearly everyone at the tournament site will have to wear a mask at all times, except for players while they are on the court.Crowds enter and exit South Beach in Miami during the spring break season.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesTennis will likely look this way for some time. The All England Club, the host of Wimbledon, announced last week that players will have to stay in specified hotels for the tournament, set to begin in late June, despite Britain’s success with its vaccine program. Crowd sizes will be reduced and spectators will not be able to line up during the day to search for a ticket.Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, ranked No. 5 on the men’s tour, said during last week’s tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, that the tour sorely missed Indian Wells this year because it gathers so many top players in front of rabid and casual tennis fans in the United States during the first half of the year. The opportunity to play in front of a crowd of any size — Acapulco allowed roughly 3,000 spectators for each session — had vastly enhanced the experience.“I feel really connected,” he said of the experience of playing in front of fans. “I feel like I can enjoy the game.”But the challenges of the pandemic have forced Tsitsipas and other players to focus almost entirely on larger tournaments for the time being, and the biggest stars to focus almost exclusively on the Grand Slams. Events like Miami may offer plenty of money and rankings points, but everything is just a little different this year. More

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      When the Coronavirus Shut Down Sports

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      This article is by Alan Blinder and Joe Drape. Additional reporting by Gillian R. Brassil, Karen Crouse, Kevin Draper, Andrew Keh, Jeré Longman, Juliet Macur, Carol Schram, Ben Shpigel, Marc Stein and David Waldstein. Illustrations by Madison Ketcham. Produced by Michael Beswetherick and Jonathan Ellis.

      This article is by

      Alan Blinder

      Joe Drape

      Gillian R. Brassil

      Karen Crouse

      Kevin Draper

      Andrew Keh

      Jeré Longman

      Juliet Macur

      Carol Schram

      Ben Shpigel

      Marc Stein

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      Farewell, Serena? Not So Fast

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenOsaka vs. BradyWomen’s Final PreviewDjokovic’s RideWilliams’s Future?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySports of the TimesFarewell, Serena? Not So FastWilliams’s wan wave after losing to Naomi Osaka in the Australian Open semifinal stirred retirement speculation. GOATs don’t go out that way.At the Australian Open, Serena Williams was in the best shape she had been in since returning from maternity leave, and she pummeled the No. 2-ranked Simona Halep ahead of her defeat in the semifinals.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesFeb. 19, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETSerena Williams will be back.Count on it.After her humbling semifinal loss to Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open, the questions came hard and fast. Had Osaka’s slashing forehands shouldered Williams to the edge of retirement?Was this the last time Williams would grace the sea-blue courts of the Australian Open, a tournament she has won seven times?At one level, those questions made sense.What more, after all, does she have to prove?There has never been, nor is there likely to be, another champion like Serena, who rose from Compton, Calif., to transcend her sport and become recognizable by the mention of merely her first name. How many more times can an athlete with Williams’s pride endure the sting of coming oh-so-very-close to winning the 24th Grand Slam singles title that would tie Margaret Court for the record?The loss to Osaka — a much-hyped rematch of the pair’s infamous 2018 United States Open final — had a familiar feel. In her prime, Williams possessed an unrivaled ability to summon genius whenever it was needed most. But since her return to tennis after maternity leave that year, she has not won a major. Twice she has lost in a Grand Slam semifinal, and four times in a final.Given the combination of her sterling past and murky present, there is a tendency among the commentariat to parse her every gesture and utterance for signs that she might soon quit. When she walked off the court after losing to Osaka on Thursday, she paused briefly, put a hand on her chest, smiled and waved at fans as they showered her with an ovation. It wasn’t all that different from the thankful gesture she has made after matches for decades. But in the rubble of another disappointment — and considering she is now 39 and a veteran of nearly a quarter-century on the tennis tour — it was a display many onlookers took to have a deeper meaning.“I think with that little move we saw from Serena just now, that might be the last time we see her here on Rod Laver Arena,” said a television announcer, watching it all unfold.But was that wave a final goodbye?“I don’t know,” Williams said in her post-match news conference. “If I ever say farewell, I wouldn’t tell anyone.” A few moments later, struggling to stay composed, she abruptly left the dais.Serena fans, I don’t think you should worry. She is not about to give up the chase just yet. I wouldn’t read too much into a post-match wave or despondent answers to the news media. She has never been one to hide her emotions. She wears victory with high-wattage smiles and prancing giddiness. She wears defeat with slope-shouldered, bone-weary disdain.Had she suffered through a loss like this and then dispassionately discussed two sets of misery, then I’d wonder about her playing much longer. But that’s not what happened here.If the past is a reliable guide — as it has been since her first professional match, a dismal loss in a low-level event when she was only 14 — she will come up with a way to bounce back. She will rationalize defeat, and tell herself she could have beaten Osaka if only she had avoided easy mistakes. She will summon energy from anyone now questioning her ability to win on the biggest stage.She will focus, too, on how well she played in Melbourne up until that loss. The coronavirus pandemic allowed extra time for Williams to heal, clear her mind and renew her spirit. She came into the tournament in her best shape since returning from maternity leave. In the quarterfinals, she pummeled Simona Halep, who had defeated Williams handily in the 2019 Wimbledon final.Williams played Halep on Tuesday with a vengeful clarity not seen in years. Watching the match unfold, I couldn’t help but think of the Australian Open final in 2009, when she destroyed Dinara Safina, 6-0, 6-3, in just under an hour. Williams was 27 then. She won her 10th Grand Slam singles title.A few days after the tournament, I went to her Los Angeles condominium for an interview. I won’t forget the moment when I remarked that the win over Safina was one of the quickest in Grand Slam finals history — and she cut me off immediately. “Fastest in two years,” she said, a glint in her eyes, before reminding me she had beaten Maria Sharapova in a similar fashion at the Australian Open in 2007.The greatest champions remember everything. They are keenly aware of what they have done and what’s still out there to prove. They grow so used to overcoming opponents that motivation comes mostly from chasing history. That’s why a 43-year-old Tom Brady won’t stop after winning yet another Super Bowl title. It’s why LeBron James won’t stop at age 36 — while he is two N.B.A. championship rings behind Michael Jordan. And why Roger Federer will soon return to tennis after recovering from a knee injury at 39.Williams is made of the same stuff. The long-ago past is her only real opponent. Court’s record, 24 singles Slams won in the 1960s and ’70s, is still out there, waiting to be tied and perhaps surpassed. And Williams, to her credit, keeps putting herself in contention, keeps putting herself on the line, even if it means sucking up searing defeats.The road will only get rockier, what with all those miles on the legs and years on tour. Hungry young opponents now sit in every corner of every Grand Slam draw. They seem more confident all the time and less in awe of the woman most of them grew up idolizing. Osaka, for one, has forged herself into a carbon copy of a young Serena: same power, same moxie.When Osaka found herself struggling toward the end of the second set of the semifinal, she responded with a burst of domination that recalled Williams at her peak: Eight straight points, and it was over.Game, set, match.If you think Williams wants to go out like that, think again.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Serena vs. Naomi Osaka: Time, Channel, Streaming and More

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TonightWilliams-Osaka ShowdownThe Fast CourtsFans in Virus LockdownAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story2021 Australian Open: What to Watch For in Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka’s SemifinalWilliams and Osaka will play for the second time at a Grand Slam. Plus, Novak Djokovic faces an unlikely semifinal opponent: a 27-year-old in his first Grand Slam main draw.Serena Williams last faced Naomi Osaka in 2019 at a tournament in Toronto. Their lone Grand Slam meeting was the 2018 United States Open final.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesFeb. 17, 2021, 1:34 a.m. ETThe Australian Open semifinals begin on Wednesday night, headlined by the match between the 10th-seeded Serena Williams of the United States and the third-seeded Naomi Osaka of Japan. It will be their first Grand Slam meeting since the 2018 United States Open final, an Osaka victory in which Williams received three penalties from the chair umpire.The victor will face the winner of the other semifinal match: between No. 25 Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic and No. 22 Jennifer Brady of the United States.Here’s what to look for in the match, which will start around 10 p.m. Eastern in Rod Laver Arena.Can Williams close?Williams, 39, started her career as one of the greatest closers at the end of Grand Slam events. In her first 28 trips to a Grand Slam semifinal, she won the title 21 times. But dating to her shocking loss to Roberta Vinci in the 2015 U.S. Open semifinals, Williams has struggled to wrap up Slam victories, winning the title only twice in 11 trips to a semifinal.Since her victory in the 2017 Australian Open, Williams has remained stuck at 23 Grand Slam titles, one of the loftiest plateaus in sports history. Though she already holds the career record for Grand Slam titles in the Open era, which began in 1968, Williams has long had her eye on Margaret Court’s record of 24 major titles.Can Osaka lose?Naomi Osaka is on a career-long winning streak.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesOsaka, 23, who grew up idolizing Williams, has been flawless at closing out Grand Slam victories early in her career. Osaka has made three previous Grand Slam quarterfinal runs; each time, she won the tournament. By reaching the semifinals this week, Osaka improved her record in the past three rounds of Grand Slam events to 10-0.Osaka enters the semifinal against Williams, whom she has beaten in two of three meetings, having won 19 consecutive matches, the longest streak of her career. Her last loss came more than a year ago, in a Fed Cup match last February.Williams gets defensive.All three previous Osaka matches against Williams came after Williams’s return from maternity leave in 2018. Osaka will have never seen Williams moving as well as she has this week.Williams joked after her quarterfinal win over the second-seeded Simona Halep that she was motivated to get in shape by the form-fitting catsuit that she knew she would have to wear on the court in Melbourne. Her improved conditioning has been reflected in her foot speed, allowing her to play breathtaking defense and extend rallies in ways she could not attempt in recent years.Osaka, who can match Williams for power, won’t be able to rely on an advantage in foot speed as she had in their previous meetings.Osaka and Williams have moved past the 2018 U.S. Open final.The 2018 U.S. Open final descended into chaos as Williams incurred escalating penalties from the chair umpire Carlos Ramos for repeated code violations, whipping the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium into anger. Osaka was in tears after the match, and some criticized Williams for ruining her moment.But despite opportunities to do so if she had wished, Osaka has never publicly blamed Williams for any aspect of that day’s mayhem. Williams and young up-and-comers have not always had warm relationships (see: Sloane Stephens), but she has always shown appreciation for Osaka.The two have remained on good terms since the 2018 U.S. Open, and played an exhibition match in Adelaide last month.“I think she’s a great competitor and she’s a cool cat,” Williams said of Osaka on Tuesday.All coverage will air from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. on ESPN2 in the United States; streaming is available on the ESPN+ and ESPN3 apps. Here are the other semifinal matchups.Novak Djokovic vs. Aslan KaratsevAslan Karatsev, 27, is in his first Grand Slam main draw. He has never played Novak Djokovic.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe top-seeded Novak Djokovic had a health scare in his third-round win over the 27th-seeded Taylor Fritz, injuring his abdomen as he slipped on the court midway through the third set. Visibly struggling, Djokovic needed five sets to prevail over Fritz.Despite lingering concerns, and Djokovic saying that the injury would have forced him to pull out from the tournament were it not an all-important Grand Slam event, Djokovic has played well in his subsequent two matches, beating No. 14 Milos Raonic and No. 6 Alexander Zverev both in four sets.His next opponent is a considerably less familiar one: Aslan Karatsev, a Russian who is playing in his first Grand Slam main draw at age 27, and has turned into the Cinderella story of the event.Karatsev, who qualified for the Australian Open by winning three matches at a qualifying event in Qatar last month, has used clean, powerful groundstrokes off both wings to dismantle other players, including No. 8 Diego Schwartzman and No. 20 Felix Auger-Aliassime. Karatsev advanced to the semifinals after his quarterfinal opponent, No. 18 Grigor Dimitrov, was limited by back spasms.Djokovic should be expected to advance comfortably if he’s healthy, but if he’s not, no player has proved quite as opportunistic as Karatsev.Karolina Muchova vs. Jennifer BradyThough decidedly an undercard to the preceding Osaka-Williams clash, the semifinal between Karolina Muchova and Jennifer Brady could also prove compelling.Muchova, an all-court player, has been able to outlast many opponents playing near their top form, including the top-seeded Ashleigh Barty in the quarterfinals. After struggling with the heat and taking a medical timeout midway through the match, Muchova dominated the later stages, staying steady and purposeful on her powerful forehand as Barty’s game went wayward.For Brady, whose game is more built around power from the baseline, the run in Australia is a consolidation of her strong effort last summer, when she won a WTA tournament in Lexington, Ky., and reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open, where she lost to Osaka. Brady spent 14 days in hard quarantine before the tournament began, and she was the only player in those circumstances to reach the fourth round of the women’s singles draw.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Serena Williams Wins and Will Face Naomi Osaka in Australian Open Semifinals

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowFans in Virus LockdownAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySerena Williams Wins, Setting Up Showdown With Naomi OsakaWilliams dispatched Simona Halep to avenge an embarrassing defeat in their previous meeting. Next up? Osaka in a star-studded semifinal.Serena Williams is now two wins from her 24th Grand Slam singles title.Credit…David Gray/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 16, 2021, 8:45 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams was not about to let Simona Halep derail her run to a 24th Grand Slam singles championship. Not again.The summer of 2019 may seem like a lifetime ago in a world reeling from a pandemic that is taking a second lap of the calendar. But for Williams, the scab from her humbling loss to Halep in the Wimbledon final that July remains as fresh as the day Halep held her to four games on the All-England Club’s hallowed grass.Williams’s 6-3, 6-3 victory against Halep on Tuesday in the Australian Open quarterfinals was not as surgical as the dismemberment that Halep administered in their previous meeting, a performance that Billie Jean King described as “one of the most perfectly executed matches I’ve ever seen.”On Tuesday night, Williams put only 55 percent of her first serves in play, a much lower rate than she expects of herself. She finished with more unforced errors (33) than winners (24). But on the key points, Williams’s moxie and her motor won the day.Williams finished with more unforced errors (33) than winners (24) against Halep.Credit…Paul Crock/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWith Halep serving at 3-3 in the second set, Williams won a 20-stroke rally to earn a break point, then secured the break on a 12-stroke point. Two days after she was extended to three intense sets and more than two hours by Aryna Sabalenka, Williams, 39, was spry enough to outrun and outlast the second-ranked Halep, who is 10 years younger.“I feel pretty good with that performance,” Williams said. “I feel like I needed to have a good performance obviously today, especially after my last match against her.”The 2019 Wimbledon final was the third of four that Williams has played since she won the 2017 Australian Open to pull within one Grand Slam title of equaling the career record held by Margaret Court. She is one victory from earning another shot at it, but to get there she will have to defeat another player who derailed an earlier run.That would be the third-ranked Naomi Osaka, who handed Williams a 6-2, 6-4 defeat in the 2018 United States Open final — the first of Osaka’s three Grand Slam titles. Osaka, 23, who won the U.S. Open again last year, extended her winning streak to 19 matches earlier Tuesday with a straight-set victory against Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei.Williams was brimming with confidence after returning to the semifinals. She will face Naomi Osaka next.Credit…Loren Elliott/ReutersAfter her victory, Osaka said she planned to stay up to watch the battle between Halep and Williams, though not necessarily to find out who she would face next.“I always watch Serena play,” Osaka said.She was not alone. No fans were allowed inside Rod Laver Arena because of a five-day lockdown imposed after the Australian authorities detected a cluster of coronavirus infections in the area. But Williams and Halep had a crowd of roughly five dozen spectators anyway, as people associated with the tournament slipped into seats to watch.“I feel like everyone in the tournament watches her,” Osaka said, referring to Williams. “Like, whenever I go to the locker room or whatever, there’s always just people lounging around and stuff, watching her match.”Since Williams last won a Grand Slam title, a lot of the attention in women’s tennis has shifted to Osaka. In 2020, she supplanted Williams as the highest-earning woman in sports on the strength of more than $30 million in off-court endorsements. Her rise led a reporter on the eve of this tournament to ask how she was dealing with being seen as the face of women’s tennis.“As long as Serena’s here,” Osaka replied, “I think she’s the face of women’s tennis.”Naomi Osaka stormed into the semifinals with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Hsieh Su-wei.Credit…David Gray/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWho is Williams to argue? She has worn a diamond-encrusted “QUEEN” necklace during all her matches.Thursday’s meeting with Osaka will be Williams’s 40th Grand Slam semifinal. It will also be her first time squaring off against Osaka in a Grand Slam since their 2018 final in New York, a match that turned turbulent when Williams argued with the chair umpire, who called three code-of-conduct violations against her. The incident turned the crowd against him, and indirectly, Osaka, souring her moment of victory.In the afterglow of her quarterfinal victory, Williams’s smile didn’t waver when she was asked about her relationship with Osaka.“I think we both have had closure,” Williams said of the 2018 final. She added, “I think she’s a great competitor and a cool cat.”Williams and Osaka might have squared off in another U.S. Open final last year if not for the heel injury that hampered Williams in her semifinal loss to Victoria Azarenka. Unlike Osaka, who skipped last fall’s rescheduled French Open because of a strained hamstring, Williams played at Roland Garros less than three weeks after the Open. She won her first match before pulling out of the tournament, a decision that proved providential.When the start of the Australian Open was pushed back three weeks because of the pandemic, Williams was gifted with three open months on her calendar, a welcome block of time that she used to heal her injury and improve her conditioning.According to Patrick Mouratoglou, who has been Williams’s coach since 2012, she rededicated herself to the unglamorous work of improving her fitness, with an emphasis on footwork and speed.“It’s a lot of little details that make a big difference,” he said.“I feel like I needed to have a good performance obviously today,” Williams said of facing Halep, “especially after my last match against her.”Credit…Brandon Malone/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe daily conditioning grind she endured through November and December has allowed Williams to run down balls and extend rallies in February. Known for her attacking style, Williams’s best offense in her past two matches has been her defense.“She’s moving better,” conceded Halep, adding: “It’s much easier for her to hit the balls. It’s tougher for the opponents to finish the point.”Williams “has a really good game,” Halep said. Then she caught herself. Laughing, she said, “She always did.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Serena Williams Turns Back Time at Australian Open

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowFans in Virus LockdownAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySerena Williams Turns Back Time at Australian OpenAgainst Aryna Sabalenka, Williams called back to a much earlier phase of her career, well before she was the undisputed queen of her sport.Serena Williams beat Aryna Sabalenka at the Australian Open after several times looking close to defeat.Credit…William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 14, 2021Updated 9:47 a.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams became a time traveler on Sunday, pulled back to the past to essentially face down her much younger self.Across the net from her in the fourth round of the Australian Open stood the 22-year-old Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, who turned pro at 14, like Williams, and whose strategy called to mind Williams’s game plan at the same age: If at first you don’t succeed, hit harder.Williams, 39, stared down Sabalenka, and after two gripping hours, Sabalenka blinked. In the 10th game of the deciding set, Sabalenka mustered one point on her serve as Williams, a seven-time champion, seized the break and a 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 victory to set up a quarterfinal meeting with Simona Halep, who dispatched the 19-year-old Iga Swiatek in three sets.Williams’s longevity makes it easy to forget that before she was the game’s grande dame, she was its whiz kid, collecting nine WTA singles titles, including one Grand Slam, before she was out of her teens.Sabalenka, a nine-time winner on the WTA Tour, and Swiatek, the reigning French Open champion, are the latest in a long string of polished phenoms threaded through Williams’s career. One of the biggest stars to emerge, Naomi Osaka, saved two match points to beat Garbiñe Muguruza on Sunday. Still, from Jennifer Capriati and Monica Seles to Maria Sharapova and Sloane Stephens, Williams has watched many young talents come and go and, on occasion, stray far from tennis.A sport with a history of suffocating its young has not stifled Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam champion in singles whose love for the game seems to have deepened over time. Against Sabalenka, she studied a page of written notes during changeovers as if she were back in high school. She fiddled with her “Queen” necklace. She dug balls out of the corners and ran from side to side as if she were on a school blacktop at recess.Darren Cahill, one of Halep’s coaches, described Williams’s movement as the best he had seen from her “in a long, long time” and said, “If you can stay in more points and get more balls back, stay alive, then she’s got the power to turn those points around.”What Williams is doing is also inconceivable to the younger Americans, three of whom have followed her into the second week. Marveled, one of the three, the 28-year-old Shelby Rogers: “What she’s been able to accomplish is absolutely incredible because some days I wake up now and I’m like, ‘OK, I’m not 21 anymore.’”Williams’s serve usually allows her to win her share of easy points. But against Sabalenka, her main weapon continually misfired. Williams put 52 percent of her first serves in play and recorded eight double faults, including one in the fifth game of the third set, which gave Sabalenka two break points.With the state of Victoria in Day 2 of a hard lockdown, no fans were in the stands, but the restrictions placed on the local populace did not extend to Williams’s inner circle, which includes her husband, coach, agent, hitting partner and older sister Venus, 40, who lost in the second round.Williams didn’t need to be told by the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, that her entourage qualified as “essential workers,” a classification that made it possible for them to attend the match. Her team is elemental to her success, and she looked over often to where everyone was seated. When she was down 15-40 in that fifth game, Venus raised both hands as if signaling a touchdown and they locked eyes.Williams’s sister Venus Williams was in the stands for support at crucial moments during the match.Credit…Loren Elliott/ReutersWilliams’s most recent Grand Slam championship came at Venus’s expense at Melbourne Park in 2017, when she was two months pregnant with her first daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian. Since becoming a parent, Williams has found her voice as an advocate for working mothers everywhere, speaking openly of the hardships, both physical and emotional, that she and others on the WTA Tour — and in the wider world — confront daily while balancing their jobs and child-rearing.But in that telepathic moment between the sisters, Serena was not tennis’s earth mother. She was transported back in time to her early years as a pro when she looked to Venus for direction.“When I hear her voice, it just makes me calm and confident,” Williams said. “Yeah, I think there’s something about it that just makes me feel really good.”She got her first serve in on the next three points and won them all, earning an advantage with a 126 mile-an-hour ace. Williams closed out the game on a frazzled Sabalenka’s forced error.Sabalenka fought back, winning the next three games to draw even at 4-4. At that point, she said: “I felt like I should win it. I felt like I was fighting really well.”But so was Williams. She held, and with Sabalenka serving to stay in the match, Williams got enough balls back to fluster her younger opponent, whose service game ended with a double fault and two forehand unforced errors.“I just needed to play better on the big points,” Williams said. “I knew that I could. I still hadn’t reached my peak. I was like, ‘OK, Serena, you got this. Just keep going.’”Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus threw her racket in frustration as she missed opportunities against Williams.Credit…Hamish Blair/Associated PressAfter 23 major singles titles and hundreds of millions of dollars in prize money and endorsements and motherhood, how does Williams find the motivation to keep chasing a tennis ball?The answer could be found in how Williams spent her off day. After her Saturday practice, she put her daughter down for a nap and then made work calls to the United States, finalizing orders and obsessing about fabrics for her fashion line, S by Serena, which she described as her “second career.”There’s a method to Williams’s multitasking. She has been doing it her whole life, she said. She never played a full tennis schedule as a junior and has never played a full schedule as a pro.“I still went to college, I still did a lot of other things,” Williams said. “I had other careers. It was impossible to burn out.”Convention holds that Williams continues to play because she has Margaret Court’s career record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles in her sights. But the truth might be simpler.“I like my job,” she said. “I like what I do. It’s pretty special I get to come out and still get to do it.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trust Me, Sports Without Fans Is Not Sports

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Australian OpenWhat to Watch TodayHow to WatchThe Players to KnowFans in Virus LockdownFifth seed Stefanos Tsipsipas celebrated facing a cheering crowd after winning his second round match.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesTrust Me, Sports Without Fans Is Not SportsFor five days the Australian Open had cozy stadiums half-filled with fervent fans, and sports once again felt normal. Then a snap lockdown quieted the stands.Fifth seed Stefanos Tsipsipas celebrated facing a cheering crowd after winning his second round match.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyFeb. 14, 2021Updated 6:05 a.m. ETRemember what sports was like with crowds? Listen.Recorded as Nick Kyrgios took on Dominic Thiem in Melbourne on Friday night.MELBOURNE, Australia — For roughly the past two decades, the analytics crowd has peddled the idea that sports is essentially math, that what unfolds on the field of play is predictable and intelligible if viewed through a proper algorithm. Occasionally that crowd has even been right. And in many ways the pandemic sports environment was an analytics aficionado’s dream, a chance for games to unfold in a laboratory, free of the noise, both literal and figurative, that can turn an expected outcome into a beautiful mess.Now, nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, we really do know the roar of the crowd is as vital to sports as a ball or a net. The artificial crowd noise that Major League Baseball, the N.F.L., the N.B.A. and the N.H.L. have piped in, both for those in the stadiums and arenas and for people watching at home, is a terrible facsimile that makes the spectator-free games feel nothing like sports at all. What stage actors refer to as the “fourth wall” — the metaphorical barrier between performers and spectators — doesn’t exist in sports. A crowd’s passion can seemingly help power comebacks. Its scorn can smother one, too. For five glorious days at the 2021 Australian Open, I got to experience that noise again, because government officials allowed up to 30,000 fans, about 50 percent capacity, to attend the tournament each day. It was both a joy and a revelation to rediscover the power of what quantum physicists call the “observer effect” — the fact that any observation, however passive, alters an outcome — even in a half-capacity crowd of tennis fans. Sports felt like Sports once more.Nick Kyrgios and Dominic Thiem in one of the last matches with a crowd before the tournament closed to the public.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesFans left the Australian Open on Friday after it was announced that the tournament would proceed without spectators for the next five days.Credit…Jaimi Joy/ReutersThen on Friday, the coronavirus did what it has done so relentlessly for the past 11 months: It shut down the party. A recent outbreak was what much of the world would consider a nuisance. But in Australia, which has managed the pandemic more effectively than any other major economy, it qualified as a critical mass.The cluster of coronavirus cases grew to more than a dozen, and the state government of Victoria, where Melbourne is, declared a “snap lockdown” of five days, beginning at midnight Friday.Everyone, except those deemed essential workers, must stay home, though two hours of outdoor exercise and one hour to go to the grocery store or pharmacy are permitted. Players and people considered essential in running the Australian Open will be allowed at Melbourne Park. Spectators, sadly, must stay away until perhaps the singles semifinals, scheduled to start Thursday.“The players will compete in a bubble not dissimilar to what they have done throughout the year,” said Craig Tiley, the chief executive of Tennis Australia, which organizes the tournament.No one is happy about it.Fans watched Serena Williams during a practice session at Melbourne Park ahead of her second-round win.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York Times“It’s been really fun to have the crowd back, especially here,” Serena Williams said after she beat Anastasia Potapova in straight sets in the third round Friday. “But, you know what, at the end of the day we have to do what’s best. Hopefully it will be all right.”I am here to tell you it won’t be. After what I witnessed during the first five days, it’s going to be terrible, without the essential dynamics that make sports the ultimate in improvisational theater.Nick Kyrgios, the tennis antihero everywhere except Australia, where he is beloved, rode the fans to a miracle Wednesday night. He saved two match points in the fourth set against Ugo Humbert, the rising 22-year-old Frenchman. Then he edged Humbert in the fifth set in front of an explosive crowd that never gave up on its hometown hero.Kyrgios is the rare tennis player who brings in rugby fans. They screamed their heads off to keep Kyrgios alive and Humbert, the No. 29 seed, on edge until the very last point.“Half-packed and it felt like it was a full stadium,” Kyrgios said. “I got goose bumps toward the end.”Humbert lost those two match points, even though he was serving. He heard the fireworks from the seats a few feet away. As he watched Kyrgios both encourage it and soak it all in, his eyes appeared to fill with fear. There was another set to play, but the crowd was not going to let Humbert get out alive.Fans cheer on Nick Kyrgios of Australia.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesKyrgios has attracted a raucous fan group at the Australian Open.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesIt is not a stretch to say that Humbert wins that match easily on a quiet court.Kyrgios and his crew were back at it Friday night, when he took on Dominic Thiem of Austria, the reigning United States Open champion. The roars started as Kyrgios broke Thiem in the first game. As the crowd bellowed, Kyrgios waved his arms and cupped his ear, signaling to his fans that if he had any chance against the machine-like No. 3 seed, they were it.And so began three-plus hours of interactive drama, with all the seat-banging, taunting and fist-pumping needed for someone who has barely played in a year to stay competitive with one of the best players on the planet. As the match stretched into the fifth set and past 10:30 p.m., a strange clock watching began, because fans were supposed to be home and observing lockdown by midnight.In the end it wasn’t enough, as Thiem prevailed in five sets, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, but it’s hard to believe it would have been close without it. “It’s not the same sport without the crowd,” Kyrgios said.So, here is one big reveal of the past week: All those star athletes who have always insisted they are so locked in that they do not hear the crowd? Well, it seems pretty clear they have been lying.Spectators watched the evening matches outdoors on the big screen at Melbourne Park on the fifth day of the Australian Open.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesHere was Novak Djokovic, who has won this championship eight times. He has described Rod Laver Arena as his backyard. He was getting ready to play a game the other day, when a clump of women with a Serbian flag stood up and serenaded him with the “Ole-Ole” tune, culminating with, “Novak Djokovic is hot, hot, hot!”Djokovic gave up on trying to play cool. He stepped back from the court, started giggling, then shook his head to regain his focus.Here was Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia, trying to serve out the third set for what would have likely been the biggest win of her career, an upset of Simona Halep, the No. 2 seed. She was in front of a hometown crowd that carried her all night but couldn’t will her to victory.“I felt that rush of people just cheering for you,” Tomljanovich said, her voice breaking following the loss. “I’m afraid to say it, but it could be the highlight of the year with the atmosphere and the crowd.”She is not the only one. I do not know what I am dreading more about the end of this assignment — the last freezing month of a winter in the Northeast, or the largely empty version of sports that the pandemic has wrought.It’s something, yes, but it is not sports.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More