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      2021 Australian Open: What to Watch on Thursday Night

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story2021 Australian Open: What to Watch on Thursday NightThe third round of the Australian Open gets underway, featuring Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, Dominic Thiem and Novak Djokovic.Naomi Osaka has lost a total of just eight games through her first two matches at the Australian Open.Credit…Paul Crock/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 11, 2021, 7:07 a.m. ETHow to watch: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern on the Tennis Channel and 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. on ESPN2 in the United States; streaming on the ESPN+ and ESPN3 apps.As each singles draw dwindled to 32 players, some former major champions lost their hopes of snagging one more Grand Slam title. The 17th-seeded Stan Wawrinka lost his second-round match to Marton Fucsovics, and the eighth-seeded Bianca Andreescu fell to Hsieh Su-Wei.Although the field has shrunk, plenty of promising youngsters and past major champions remain.Here are some matches to keep an eye on.Because of the number of matches cycling through courts, the times for individual matchups are best estimates and certain to fluctuate based on when earlier play is completed. All times are Eastern.Rod Laver Arena | 7 p.m. ThursdayAryna Sabalenka vs. Ann LiAryna Sabalenka, the seventh seed, has equaled her best result at the Australian Open by reaching the third round. She has yet to make it to a Grand Slam quarterfinal, despite how consistently well she plays on tour. Sabalenka won three hardcourt singles titles in 2020, and started 2021 by winning the Abu Dhabi Open. Her aggressive style can help her on faster-paced courts, although on her poorer days it can create plenty of unforced errors.Aryna Sabalenka is the seventh seed.Credit…Cameron Spencer/Getty ImagesAnn Li, the world No. 69, has had a fantastic run of results in the past few weeks. Last week, she won the Grampians Trophy in Melbourne with a walkover in the final. Then, in the first round of the Australian Open, she upset the 31st seed, Zhang Shuai, while dropping only two games. Although her second-round match against Alizé Cornet required a bit more from her, Li played well, pushing through a tough second set tiebreaker in which she faced two set points. One more upset would put her in her first round of 16 at a Grand Slam event.John Cain Arena | 10 p.m. ThursdayNaomi Osaka vs. Ons JabeurNaomi Osaka, the third seed, has won a Grand Slam event in each of the past three years, all on hardcourts. The fast pace of play suits her, as she pins opponents into the back corners of the court with her flat shots. Osaka did not play in the French Open in October, citing concerns related to the pandemic. She is back into a groove at the Australian Open, dropping just eight games across her first two matches.Ons Jabeur, the 27th seed, became the first Arab woman to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal at last year’s Australian Open, losing to the eventual champion, Sofia Kenin. Jabeur’s adaptability can be very difficult for opponents to handle; she can unravel an array of opponents’ weaknesses. To beat Osaka, Jabeur will need to have a strong start and not allow her opponent to get into a rhythm.John Cain Arena | 3 a.m. FridayDominic Thiem vs. Nick KyrgiosDominic Thiem, the third seed, won the United States Open in September, supplanting Marin Cilic (2014) as the most recent first-time male Grand Slam champion.A four-time Grand Slam finalist, Thiem has slowly been chipping away at the hegemony of the so-called Big Three of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Though Thiem’s U.S. Open victory came on a hard court, that is not considered his best surface. And with the unusually quick conditions in Australia, he may struggle to return to the final, where he lost to Djokovic last year.Dominic Thiem is the third seed in men’s singles.Credit…Brandon Malone/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNick Kyrgios, an Australian ranked 47th in the world, was often stereotyped as an uncouth punk for his perceived lack of interest in the sport of tennis. As the coronavirus pandemic shut down the ATP Tour, Kyrgios became a loud advocate for health and safety precautions, openly criticizing both his peers and legends like Boris Becker for choosing to socialize or complaining about safety measures. Now Kyrgios is playing in front of home crowds, and the fast-paced courts in Melbourne will aid his aggressive baseline style. However, after barely squeezing past the 29th seed, Ugo Humbert, in five sets, Kyrgios will be challenged to break down Thiem’s exceptional defensive play.Margaret Court Arena | 3 a.m. FridayDenis Shapovalov vs. Felix Auger-AliassimeDenis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime, the two youngest members of the Canadian delegation at the Australian Open, are both aggressive, full-court players who rely on their athleticism to get through tough matches.Shapovalov, the 11th seed, reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the U.S. Open before losing in five sets to Pablo Carreño Busta. Although Shapovalov, 21, lost both of his ATP Cup matches — a singles match against the seventh-ranked Alexander Zverev and a doubles match — they were tightly contested. After an impressive five-set win over the fellow up-and-comer Jannik Sinner, Shapovalov looks prepared to reach the second week of play.Felix Auger-Aliassime is the 20th seed.Credit…Quinn Rooney/Getty ImagesAuger-Aliassime, 20, has skated through his first two rounds, convincingly dismantling his opponents without dropping a set. The last time he faced Shapovalov on tour, he lost in straight sets in the first round of the 2019 U.S. Open. A year and a half later, this match will be a good test of whether he can usurp his close friend as the top Canadian men’s player.Here are a few more matches to keep an eye on:Serena Williams vs. Anastasia Potapova — 9 p.m.Milos Raonic vs. Marton Fucsovics — 1 a.m.Simona Halep vs. Veronika Kudermetova — 3 a.m.Novak Djokovic vs. Taylor Fritz — 5 a.m.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Serena Williams and Tom Brady: Ageless Wonders With a Difference

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Super Bowl 2021N.F.L.’s Most Challenging YearGame HighlightsThe CommercialsHalftime ShowWhat We LearnedAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFrom a World Away, One Ageless Wonder Marvels at Another“Amazing!” Serena Williams said of Tom Brady’s seventh Super Bowl win. Of course, he’s never won a title while pregnant.Serena Williams dropped only two games in her first-round win at the Australian Open.Credit…William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 8, 2021Updated 3:57 p.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — As fans fished for autographs by tying cords around oversize tennis balls and dangling them over the rail for Serena Williams, her mind drifted to the other side of the world.“How amazing!” Williams muttered, as much to herself as anyone else, while she scribbled her signature after her 6-1, 6-1 first-round victory against Laura Siegemund at the Australian Open on Monday. “Can you imagine winning the Super Bowl at 43?”In the lead-up to this year’s Open, Williams, 39, had repeatedly expressed her admiration for Tom Brady, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback who delivered his seventh Super Bowl title on Sunday night. His determination and excellence have inspired her “since when he beat Kurt Warner,” she said, referring to the New England Patriots’ victory over the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl in February 2002.Brady’s only misstep, Williams joked last week, was his choice of teams last year as a free agent. “I mean, he just should have come to the Dolphins, really,” said Williams, who owns a minority stake in Miami’s N.F.L. franchise along with her sister Venus.Williams sees in Brady a kindred spirit, someone whose appetite for competition and desire to succeed have not receded over time. “I look at Tom Brady, it’s so inspiring,” she said.With his latest title, his first outside New England, Brady brought to a boil the long-simmering debate about sports’ greatest athlete. That discussion must include Williams, a 23-time major winner whose next Grand Slam singles title will tie Margaret Court’s career record. And Williams may be the only member of the greatest-ever debate to have won one of her titles while pregnant. She delivered her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, via an emergency C-section on Sept. 1, 2017, nearly seven months after she won the Australian Open. She said they haven’t spent a day apart since.“Is that healthy?” Williams said Monday. She laughed. “Not at all. Not even close. But every single day I just want to be around her.”Williams’s choice to be a doting parent, come hell or hard quarantine, may be where her path most clearly diverges from Brady’s. Two weeks before the Super Bowl, Brady was reportedly alone in his Tampa mansion, having sent away his wife and three children so he could give his undivided attention to football for the 12 days leading to the big game.Two weeks before the Australian Open, Williams was finishing a mandatory 14-day self-isolation, which required her to hole up in a hotel for 19 hours a day with her husband, the tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian, and their high-spirited daughter.Williams’s daughter, Olympia, with her father, Alexis Ohanian, at an exhibition match last week in Adelaide.Credit…Mark Brake/Getty ImagesWilliams acknowledged that Brady’s preparation made more sense, but said, “I wasn’t strong enough to do the banishment.”She added: “I would not have been able to function without my 3-year-old around. Not even close. I think I would be in a depression.”Elite athletes typically don’t do much in their downtime on the days or weeks in which they are competing, preserving their energy for the bursts of effort their sports demand. For Williams, the accelerating and downshifting processes are compressed. She’s a drag racer, going in a flash from mama to megastar.One of her matches at a tuneup event last week at Melbourne Park ended just after 8 p.m., leaving Williams caught in parenting territory similar to the terra incognita between the service line and baseline. Olympia’s bedtime was 8:30. Should she rush back to tuck in her baby or go through her usual postmatch paces and make peace with not seeing her daughter until the morning?Her instinct was to rush home. “But I’m a little torn,” Williams said in her postmatch news conference that day. “I’m like, maybe I should just let her go to bed so she doesn’t get too moody.”Williams added: “She’s too hyper. She needs her rest. She’s a busy kid. She has a fully booked schedule.”Like mother, like daughter. “She really is,” Williams said with a reflective sigh.Before another of Williams’s matches last week, Ohanian walked to his seat. In his arms he carried a squirming Olympia, who pointed to Williams on the court and said, “Hey, that’s my mama!”Williams said her daughter knows that the court is her office. But does she assume every working woman plays tennis? Williams isn’t sure. Sometimes when Olympia attends matches or practice sessions, she’ll freak out Williams by mimicking everyone else and calling her Serena.Williams said: “I’m like: ‘You can’t say Serena. You have to call me Mama.’”Williams’s second-round opponent will be a 24-year-old Serb, Nina Stojanovic, who was younger than Olympia when Serena won the first of her 73 WTA Tour titles. Stojanovic would do well to tune out the player introductions Wednesday since it requires a sizable chunk of the six-minute warm-up period to recite Williams’s achievements.“When the announcer said on the court, ‘23 Grand Slam titles, seven Australian Opens,’ he was like, ‘14 doubles titles,’ then he starts talking about mixed doubles, I’m like jeez,” Williams said last week.But none of what Williams has done matters as much to her as what is left to accomplish. When Brady said before the Super Bowl that his favorite championship is his next one, it resonated with Williams. “That would absolutely be my answer, for sure,” she said.Why?“Because otherwise you’re living off of what you already did,” she said.That mind-set is why Williams can conduct a tour of the trophy room in her house in Miami, as she recently did for Architectural Digest, and struggle to identify which trophies are from which tournament.It was why she is unbothered that one of her seven Wimbledon trophies disappeared after a party she threw with Venus several years ago. Or maybe it was one of Venus’s five that vanished. “Was that my Wimbledon trophy or was that her Wimbledon trophy?” Williams said. “The argument is still going on.”She added wryly, “Conversations in the Williams home.”Since her daughter’s birth, Williams has appeared in four Grand Slam finals but has yet to win one. With her next Grand Slam title, she can show everybody, as Brady did Sunday in Tampa, that she still has the power to amaze.“You can’t say it was the system he was at formerly,” Williams said, referring to Brady’s six Super Bowl titles under Coach Bill Belichick in New England. But she knows better. “It’s definitely Tom Brady.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Australian Open Preview: Battle of the Women’s Champions

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAustralian Open Preview: Battle of the Women’s ChampionsSerena Williams will once again go for her 24th Grand Slam title. Among her competition: three women who won titles in their most recent Grand Slam appearances.Serena Williams is still on the hunt for her 24th Grand Slam singles title. She won her 23rd at the Australian Open in 2017.Credit…Loren Elliott/ReutersFeb. 7, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETTennis has returned to Melbourne, the site of the last Grand Slam event before the coronavirus pandemic, finding itself both profoundly changed since the last Australian Open and yet eminently recognizable. The top men are still dominating, Serena Williams is still seeking a 24th Grand Slam title, and a growing cast of talented young champions is vying for a sturdy foothold atop the ever-undulating women’s tennis ladder.Here are the biggest stories of the Australian Open, which begins Monday.Serena Williams Is Still in the ChaseAfter winning her Open era-record 23rd Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open four years ago, Williams has returned to Melbourne for an 11th attempt at adding one more to her lofty haul.Since returning from maternity leave in 2018, Williams has repeatedly put herself in position to contend for an elusive 24th singles title, having reached four Grand Slam finals and a semifinal but come up just short each time. Williams looked sharp in her three matches at a warm-up event in Melbourne last week, reaching the semifinals on the strength of strong all-court play with particular acuity in her serve, which was reaching speeds upward of 120 miles per hour. That semifinal would have been a blockbuster against top-ranked Ashleigh Barty, but Williams withdrew well before it would have begun, citing a shoulder problem (and most likely not relishing such a high-caliber throwdown just two days before a Grand Slam).A video from Architectural Digest of Williams nonchalantly giving a tour of her trophy room went viral last week but did not do justice to the hunger Williams has maintained, in a career that has already had so much, to keep working for more. Courtney Nguyen, a senior writer for WTA Insider, drew laughter when she told Williams that “the way we look for a fork in a drawer is the way you look at your trophies.”Margaret Court, whose overall record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles includes many won during the amateur era, is again proving polarizing in Australia after an honor from the government once again shined a spotlight on her history of bigoted remarks. As Williams reaches as close to underdog status as she might ever allow herself to get, public sentiment toward Williams in her quest to equal and surpass Court’s record might never be higher.Young Champions Lead the Women’s SideIn a testament to the depth of women’s tennis — and the lack of any player who has emerged as a consistently dominant presence — there are four women in the Australian Open draw who won their most recent matches at Grand Slams. One is Williams, who withdrew from the French Open in September after winning her first-round match. The other three women all won titles in their most recent Grand Slam appearances, solidifying themselves as emerging stars: Iga Swiatek, 19, last year’s French Open champion; Naomi Osaka, 23, last year’s United States Open champion; and the 2019 U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu, 20.Add to that mix the top-ranked Barty, 24, and the defending Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, 22, and it becomes clearer still that women’s tennis is spoiled for possibilities for a potential standard-bearer for women’s tennis at Grand Slams.Andreescu, who has not played since the fall of 2019 after a knee injury, is the most enigmatic of the bunch. She overwhelmed all comers while healthy that season, winning the U.S. Open, Indian Wells and the Rogers Cup in Toronto, but she was not healthy enough to vie for almost any other title. Her return to the tour has been full of stops and starts, but she has said she feels “ready to go” in the Australian Open.Andreescu said that watching her matches from 2019 had helped her get “into the mood, into the mind-set.”“I felt the same things like I did in 2019, which I think really helps me just get in character,” Andreescu said on Friday. “It really inspired me, too, just watching myself play again. I don’t normally like to do that, but I think it was good for me since I haven’t played for so long. Hopefully that can help me bounce back on the court quicker.”The Men Can Run Up the ScoreRafael Nadal has a chance to beat Roger Federer’s record of 20 Grand Slam singles titles — without having to beat Federer, who is not competing at the Australian Open.Credit…Loren Elliott/ReutersWhile the women have vanloads of trophy-bearing contenders in Melbourne, just who will leave with the men’s title in two weeks doesn’t seem as open a question.Top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who has won the tournament a men’s record eight times, is consistently at his best in Melbourne. Second-ranked Rafael Nadal, who thrashed Djokovic in October’s French Open final, equaling Roger Federer’s total of 20 Grand Slam titles, has consistently been one of the most opportunistic competitors in the sport. He might pounce on his long-awaited first chance to surpass Federer’s mark. (Federer, who has not competed since an injury at last year’s Australian Open, is entered in a March ATP event in Doha, Qatar.)The sole interruption to the Big 3’s hegemony in the last four seasons came last year when Djokovic, the lone member of the trio to compete at the U.S. Open, got himself defaulted from his fourth-round match by unintentionally hitting a ball into a lineswoman’s throat. His absence cleared a path for Dominic Thiem to win his first Grand Slam final on his fourth attempt. The third-ranked Thiem, and fourth-ranked Daniil Medvedev, are finding success at smaller events, but they haven’t yet shown an ability to beat Nadal or Djokovic — or, more likely, both — to steal a Grand Slam title.Pandemic Uncertainty LingersLast year’s Australian Open was largely overshadowed by the wildfires burning across the country, occasionally in a literal sense as smoke hung in the air over Melbourne.This time, the haze over the tournament and the sport is far more existential. Australia has been among the most successful countries in combating the coronavirus pandemic, with fewer than 1,000 people having died of the illness in a population of over 25 million, because of strict lockdowns and collaborative measures.The decision to stage an international tennis event — and to afford arriving players some exemptions from the strict 14-day hotel quarantine that others international travelers entering the country have endured — has proved divisive. Despite affordable tickets, attendance at the warm-up events at Melbourne Park last week was meager, and a positive test from a worker in the hotel quarantine program announced midweek did little to draw locals. And with the difficulties around both domestic and international travel, the crowds are going to be almost entirely local this year.Even if the Australian Open goes smoothly and is completed without any further coronavirus scares, the sport will leave Melbourne with an unclear outlook. Indian Wells, the major tournament in the California desert each March, has already postponed this year’s edition.To get back to anything resembling normal, the professional tennis tours will require both reliably easy international travel and crowds who are able and eager to attend large public events. As long as the trip to Australia has always been, those destinations feel even farther away right now.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      As the Tennis Party in Australia Begins, an Uncertain Year Awaits

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAs the Tennis Party in Australia Begins, an Uncertain Year AwaitsOfficials in Australia moved mountains to make the country’s annual professional tennis swing happen. That will be far more difficult after the tour leaves this isolated, island nation.Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece was in action on Wednesday during his ground stage match against Alex de Minaur of Australia in the ATP Cup in Melbourne, Australia.Credit…Loren Elliott/ReutersFeb. 3, 2021Updated 3:17 p.m. ETMELBOURNE, Australia — By sheer force of will, professional tennis inched toward normalcy this week, with a flurry of events in a country that has managed to nearly smother the coronavirus.The three tournaments and a men’s team competition called the ATP Cup, in which players compete for their countries, have turned Melbourne Park into a sea of matches with the gates open to spectators. Hundreds of matches were scheduled this week at the tennis complex, which is on the banks of the Yarra River, just a few hundred yards down a hill from this city’s downtown. The smaller events lead into the Australian Open, the centerpiece of the summer tennis season here, which is scheduled to begin on Monday.A stern reminder of the challenge to public health represented by the events came Wednesday when Australian Open organizers said a hotel quarantine worker had tested positive for the virus. That prompted a suspension of play on Thursday and orders for all of those associated with the tennis events at the hotel to isolate in their rooms until they return a negative test.The positive test ended a 28-day run of zero community transmission in the state of Victoria, The Age, a newspaper in Melbourne, reported. The Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, was not immediately affected, but the positive test made clear that the event — with all its planning and precaution — could be upended if more people are infected.Before the latest setback, the word “lucky” kept flying out of the mouths of the players — lucky that their sport happens to begin its year in an isolated, island nation that decided months ago that it would do nearly anything it could to limit the spread of the coronavirus. The federal and state governments specially allowed more than a thousand people to travel from overseas for the tournament, requiring them to serve 14 days in varying degrees of lockdown to reduce the risk of bringing Covid-19 back into the community. For the players, that was the ante to compete for more than $80 million in prize money for all the events.And yet the massive effort of holding these competitions has illuminated an unpleasant truth for a sport that normally hopscotches the globe for 11 months each year. No one knows exactly what will happen to professional tennis for the rest of 2021 when the competitions in Australia conclude at the end of the month.The problem is that two of the main ingredients for tennis to be successful are open international borders and large crowds in big cities, neither of which are in abundance at the moment.There are tournaments on the calendar everywhere from the Middle East to South America and Florida, but it’s anyone’s guess how they might take place, what officials in those countries will require of anyone who wants to enter their borders, or whether players will be able to travel freely in and out of their own countries.“Everything is continuously ever-evolving,” Johanna Konta of Britain, a member of the WTA player council, said when asked recently what the rest of the year looked like both for her and her sport. “I don’t know how it will be. I don’t know how the quarantines will be. I don’t know how things will shape up.”With this week’s tuneup events shoehorned into the schedule and moved to Melbourne from their usual locations elsewhere in Australia and New Zealand, attendance has been sparse, but a trickle of spirited fans does stream through the gates each day — especially the native Serbs screaming for Novak Djokovic. A player hits a terrific shot, and a roar echoes through the courts, just as it is supposed to. Players are going through their usual routines of practice sessions, matches and massages, plus meals and coffee dates among locals in the city’s downtown restaurants.Getting to this point took months of negotiations with government officials, tens of millions of dollars, 17 chartered jets to fly the players and other essential tennis workers to the country and the hiring of hundreds of people to manage the two-week quarantine. The payoff comes next week when the tournament will allow up to 30,000 fans a day who will be sectioned off into three zones to limit each person’s exposure to someone who might potentially test positive.Healthcare workers stood at a personal protective equipment station inside one hotel where players were staying.Credit…James Ross/EPA, via Shutterstock“In Europe, it’s going to be I think far more challenging to experience something that we are experiencing here,” said Djokovic, the world No. 1 and the leader of a nascent players’ association. “We might as well enjoy it as much as we can.”As Andrea Gaudenzi, chairman of the Association of Tennis Professionals, put it Tuesday night, “We live in the now.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More