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      What’s Next for Serena Williams?

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      A second consecutive first-round exit at Wimbledon leaves the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion looking human, but suggesting she has more tennis left to play.WIMBLEDON, England — Most likely, it was not truly the end. Chances are there will be some more tennis, maybe even another major tournament at the end of the summer.It is long past the beginning of the end.What happened at Wimbledon though, where Harmony Tan of France beat Serena Williams in a third-set tiebreaker at the tournament she had won seven times, signaled the end of the Serena Williams that the world, both within tennis and outside it, has known.For the better part of two decades, Williams dominated her sport unlike anyone else. She won 23 Grand Slam singles titles — the most recent, the Australian Open in 2017, when she was pregnant — and she has won nearly $100 million in prize money.She transcended tennis as a dominant cultural figure, informing debates on gender, race and celebrity. She became a successful businesswoman and a mother. On Tuesday, she was a player trying to gut out a victory against a relatively unknown competitor a little more than half her age.When people would describe Williams as perhaps the greatest female tennis player ever, she would say, “tennis player,” to suggest that she should be compared to Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Few argued with her.The memory of that Serena Williams, now 40 years old and ranked 1,204th in singles, has remained alive for a year and half, ever since she lost definitively, decisively, but still fighting with her signature mix of power, grit and mystique against Naomi Osaka in the semifinals of the 2021 Australian Open. Conventional wisdom held that in the right tournament — say, Wimbledon — with the right draw, she could be that Serena Williams once again.She had struggled with an Achilles’ tendon injury ahead of that tournament anyway. Her fourth-round loss at the French Open to Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan came on the slow, red clay at the French Open, a surface she never cared for much. She had not won a title in Paris since 2015.Then came the hamstring tear five minutes into her opening match at Wimbledon a year ago, a freak injury.Williams had won a Grand Slam tournament during her first trimester of pregnancy. Some of the most dominant tennis anyone has ever played came after she nearly died from a hematoma and pulmonary embolism.Four times she had been a match away from winning a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title, though she long ago ended any debate about whether she was the greatest ever. That elite serve and forehand, her fist-pumps, her glare, the visceral screams that come out in a way that both inspire and terrify, all of it was still there, wasn’t it, there for her to summon when her health and the planets aligned, even after 11 months away from the game?Williams after winning a point against Harmony Tan.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressPerhaps that Serena Williams will appear once more. But Tuesday did not provide many hints that it would. The Williams that her fellow players, so many of them so much younger, speak of with awe and inspiration, is now more of an idea than an actual opponent.“If I can win one or two games that would be really good,” Tan said of her mind-set before the match, her first at Wimbledon.For certain stretches on Tuesday evening, the Williams of old appeared on Centre Court. She used her forehand to dictate parts of the match, and chased balls with the footwork of yesteryear. A feathery drop shot late in the third set showed the touch that appears infrequently now.But too often Williams looked every bit her 40 years. She had to lean on her racket to catch her breath after so many points. She hunted for the inner assassin she once summoned without notice. Williams was once so clinical against an overmatched, inexperienced opponent like Tan. That Williams is no more.That, of course, is just the tennis side of it.The Serena Williams of the past two decades has been so much more than a gifted athlete who knew what to do with 11 ounces of carbon fiber in her right hand. Even during the long periods when the rankings did not have a the No. 1 next to her name, she defined and set the bar for her sport, and for women’s sports more broadly.She was Muhammad Ali in the 1960s and 1970s, Tiger Woods of the past quarter century, a one-name brand who graced the covers of sports, fashion and newsmagazines with an overall income somewhere in the mid-eight figures.“Changing the game was not something I set out to do, but somehow I did it,” Williams said late Tuesday night.That part of the Williams persona, the trailblazer, trendsetter, the voice that can say so much with few words, will go on, with new wrinkles. In addition to her usual slew of sponsors, Williams announced earlier this year that her early-stage venture capital firm, Serena Ventures, has raised an inaugural fund of $111 million to invest in founders with diverse points of view and backgrounds.Her fund has already financed 60 companies that include Sendwave, a money transfer app; MasterClass, which offers online lessons in several topics; and Daily Harvest, a food delivery service. The fund’s limited partners include some of the biggest names in tech finance. “King Richard,” the movie based on her father that she helped produce, won Will Smith an Oscar for best actor this year.The other side though, the tennis side that started it all, a force as reliable as the heat in Australia and the cool, late summer nights of the U.S. Open, has fallen victim to what eventually overtakes all of the greatest. Ted Williams and Michael Jordan ultimately fell to the relentlessness of time, and the power of rising youth. Williams must, too, just as she did against Tan, a part of a deeper-than-ever WTA Tour where anyone can beat, or lose, to anyone else.Williams once summoned power without notice, but must now settle for flashes of it.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFew want to see Williams decline, even those who have lost to her more than they have won.“I think it’s great that we have her back,” said Maria Sakkari of Greece, who called Williams a great role model. “For me she’s the best female athlete — not tennis player — athlete in the Open era.”“Great that she’s trying to come back,” said Nadal, who has 22 Grand Slam singles titles, one fewer than Williams.Like Williams, he has battled back from potentially career-ending injuries of late. He is nearly five years younger than Williams, but is one of the few people who can understand what is going through Williams’s heart and mind.“The only thing that shows is passion and love for the game,” Nadal said of her comeback attempt. “Just being here shows that she has a lot of love for her work and for this game. And I think that’s a great example.”There were flashbacks on Tuesday. Williams surged to an early lead in the deciding set, then minutes later, she was fighting, down a game, though on serve, against the 115th-ranked player in the world, a 24-year-old who grew up watching her on television. Williams even served for the match after more than two and a half hours on the court, at 5-4. Serving comes from the legs, and Williams’s legs had lost their power. She sprayed errors wide and into the net, suddenly unable to handle Tan’s slicing strokes.She would save a match point on her serve two games later with a classic swinging forehand volley as she charged the net. But in the tiebreaker, she frittered away prosperity once more, allowing a 4-0 lead to become a 9-7 deficit. Then came one last forehand into the net at the 3-hour, 11-minute mark.Williams packed up her bags, waved to the crowd, and then, in an interview room a little while later, said the idea of playing in New York at the U.S. Open later in the summer, after some time on the practice courts, carried plenty of appeal. She, at least, still believes. Retirement, for now, did not come up.“It’s actually kind of like, ‘OK, Serena, you can do this if you want,’” she said. “Lots of motivation to get better and to play at home.” More

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      Who Is Harmony Tan, Who Beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon?

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      Tan, 24, had merely hoped to take a game or two off Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon singles champion. Instead, she won and has a chance to reach the third round of a major for the first time.The matchup seemed lopsided on paper. Serena Williams, possibly the greatest tennis player ever and the winner of the most Grand Slam singles titles in the Open Era, matched up with Harmony Tan, No. 115 in the world, in the first round of Wimbledon. Tan, playing in her first Wimbledon, had not advanced further than the second round in any of her six previous appearances at a major. Even Tan admitted in her on-court interview that she was “really scared” upon seeing that she was scheduled to face Williams and had hoped she could win one or two games Tuesday.Williams was asked in a news conference ahead of the match if she was disappointed that she didn’t draw a more challenging opponent.“Every match is hard; every match,” said Williams, who was competing in her first singles match on tour since tearing a hamstring in last year’s opening round of Wimbledon and retiring from the match. “You can’t underestimate anyone or any match.”Tan, 24, proved Williams’s words true, spoiling her return to tennis and quest for a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title. Tan defeated Williams, 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7). For Williams, 40, the loss was the second of her career in the first round of Wimbledon.Tan, a Paris native with Cambodian and Vietnamese parents, said she watched Williams often while growing up. Tan turned professional when she was just 14, but this was her first matchup against Williams, and she had never faced a player with career accomplishments even approaching those of Williams.The highest-ranked player she has faced is Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, who was No. 17 in the world at the time of their matchup at this year’s Australian Open. Tan retired in the third set of the match after suffering an injury.For this matchup with Williams, Tan had a slight advantage in the form of her coach, Nathalie Tauziat.Tauziat, the 1998 Wimbledon women’s singles runner-up, who was ranked as high as No. 3 in the world, faced Williams three times, beating her once at the Paris Open final in 2000. Tan didn’t mention in her post-match interview whether or not Tauziat gave her specific pointers based on her experience against Williams. Still, she thanked Tauziat for supporting her after the win.“I’m really surprised today,” Tan said of her win in the on-court interview.She will have the opportunity to advance past the second round in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her career when she faces Sara Sorribes Tormo, a Spaniard seeded 32nd. The two faced each other earlier this year in Monterrey, Mexico, with Tan losing, 6-2, 6-2. More

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      Serena Williams Exits Wimbledon in the First Round, Again

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      Williams, who had not competed in singles on tour since withdrawing from Wimbledon last year with an injury, lost in three sets to Harmony Tan of France.WIMBLEDON, England — It was the 21st time that Serena Williams has played Wimbledon. It was Harmony Tan’s first time, but Tan will be the player heading to the second round at the All England Club.Tan, a Frenchwoman ranked 115th who is little-known even in her country, defeated Williams, the greatest women’s tennis champion of her era, 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7). Williams had not played a singles match on tour since retiring in the first round of last year’s Wimbledon in tears with a hamstring injury, but she got to play plenty of tennis on Tuesday evening on the Centre Court where she had won seven Wimbledon singles titles. Her grueling duel with Tan was a stylistic contrast that lasted 3 hours and 11 minutes. What was missing for Williams was the upbeat, reaffirming finish, and she did not hesitate when asked if she was OK with this being her final Wimbledon memory if that was the way it turned out.“Obviously not. You know me. Definitely not,” Williams, 40, said. “But today I gave all I could do, you know, today. Maybe tomorrow I could have gave more. Maybe a week ago I could have gave more. But today was what I could do. At some point you have to be able to be OK with that. And that’s all I can do. I can’t change time or anything.” She did succeed in changing the momentum on Tuesday in a match that was played under open skies for the first set and then under cover the rest of the way after the roof was closed to provide the stadium lighting necessary to continue. Williams dominated the second set but Tan fought back in the third while Williams’s level and energy dipped even if her fighting spirit did not. Though she saved a match point on her serve late in the final set and jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the super tiebreaker, which is new at Wimbledon this year, she could not hold on, missing too many crucial shots, including a forehand into the net on Tan’s second match point.“I think physically I did pretty good,” Williams said. “I think the last couple points, I was really suffering there, but I feel like in just those key points, winning some of those points, is always something mentally that you have to have, that you kind of need. I did pretty good on maybe one or two of them, but obviously not enough.”Tan’s clear-thinking poise under big-match pressure was remarkable for a player with so little experience and who was making her first appearance on Centre Court. But she said she had to struggle within herself to believe that she really could defeat Williams.“When I saw the draw I was really scared, because it’s Serena,” said Tan, 24. “She’s a legend, and yeah, I was like, ‘Oh my God, how can I play?’ If I can win one or two games, it was really good for me.”She won two sets instead, turning what could have been a feel-good story for Williams into a narrow defeat that will repose the question of how much more professional tennis Williams intends to play. She will turn 41 in September, and her quest for a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title seems increasingly far-fetched. A longtime No. 1, she is now ranked 1,204th and will soon have no ranking at all. But she provided no definitive answer to whether this was her final Wimbledon appearance. “That’s a question I can’t answer,” she said. “I don’t know. Who knows where I’ll pop up?”But at least she can leave the All England Club with a less painful memory than what she took from last year’s Wimbledon, when she tore a hamstring after slipping in the first set of her first-round match with Aliaksandra Sasnovich, hobbling off Centre Court in great distress. She did not play competitively again until last week when she returned to play doubles in Eastbourne, England, with Ons Jabeur. Tuesday’s match against Tan was Williams’s first singles match in a year, and to her credit, she scrapped and hustled through the peaks and valleys.“It was definitely long, a very long battle and fight and definitely better than last year,” Williams said.It was a ragged but ultimately admirable performance as she tried to shake off the rust and solve the myriad riddles posed by Tan, who had watched Williams only from afar until their duel. “Seeing her next to me before we walked out on court was really intimidating, because she’s so imposing,” Tan said in French. “It was difficult and even at the end, when we shook hands, she was still imposing.”“When I was young I was watching her so many times on the TV,” she said in her on-court interview. “My first Wimbledon is wow!”Harmony Tan, a Frenchwoman ranked 115th, lacks pure power but understands tennis geometry.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressThat Williams came close to victory was more a tribute to her willpower than her power as she failed to dominate with her first serve or full-cut returns and instead battled her way through extended rallies and compromised situations in the third set, digging low for Tan’s crisply sliced shots and hustling into the corners. Williams served for the match at 5-4 and was two points from victory at 30-15 only to lose the next three points and her serve when she hit an unconvincing forehand approach shot that Tan slapped past her for a backhand winner. Williams and her player box full of family, friends and team members, including her new coach Eric Hechtman, were not able to celebrate. She fought off a match point when serving at 5-6, 30-40 with a forehand volley winner. She then had to navigate the tiebreaker despite the weariness in her legs and the tension in her gaze. She jumped out to a 4-0 lead before Tan reeled off the next five points by keeping Williams off balance. Tan, coached by the 1998 Wimbledon finalist Nathalie Tauziat, lacks pure power and has a puffball second serve, but she understands tennis geometry and has an unconventional tool set that is well suited to grass. She also had a good scouting report: Tauziat is 54 and long retired but she faced Williams three times in singles, defeating her in the final of an indoor tournament in Paris in 2000 on a fast, low-bouncing surface. Tauziat understood the importance of keeping Williams out of her prime hitting zones and of keeping her on the move.“Thank you, Nathalie,” Tan said in her on-court interview, looking toward Tauziat in the player box.From the start, Tan had Williams guessing and stretching, mixing often-exquisite drop shots with forays to the net; towering lobs with counterpunched backhand passing shots; sideswiping forehand slices with looped topspin.“Any other opponent probably would have suited my game better,” said Williams, who was rarely able to settle into power-baseline duels or any particular pattern of play for long.No one but Tan knew what was coming. Williams, who has lost to such variety-loving players even in her prime, often looked befuddled in the early going. She also looked as tight as piano wire, struggling to let her natural power flow and missing swing volleys and approach shots by the bunch while laboring to move laterally.That was certainly understandable in light of her long layoff, and the crowd reacted with awkward silence at first. The grand tennis theater where Williams has experienced so many highs and a few lows through the decades was nearly half empty at the start but as the match turned into a marathon, it was filled with support and emotion as Williams tried to avoid only the third first-round exit of her career in a Grand Slam tournament.She could not quite manage it, despite all her evident desire, and there may not be many more major tournaments to come, although Williams did not rule out a return to the U.S. Open, where she won her first Grand Slam singles title in 1999 at age 17.“Your first time is always special,” she said, speaking slowly and softly. “There’s definitely, you know, lots of motivation to get better and to play at home.” More

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      Matteo Berrettini Withdraws From Wimbledon With Coronavirus

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      WIMBLEDON, England — Matteo Berrettini, a finalist at Wimbledon last year, withdrew from the tournament on Tuesday after testing positive for the coronavirus.Berrettini’s announcement of his withdrawal came only about two hours before he was to take the court for his first-round match against Cristian Garín and was the latest blow to a Grand Slam tournament that was already shorter than usual on stars and that had been stripped of ranking points for this edition by the men’s and women’s tennis tours.Berrettini, who is undefeated on grass courts this season and was seeded No. 8 at Wimbledon, was one of the leading contenders for the men’s singles title. His withdrawal came one day after another player, Marin Cilic, the No. 14 seed from Croatia and a 2017 Wimbledon finalist, also withdrew after testing positive.“I am heartbroken,” Berrettini wrote on his Instagram account, echoing Cilic’s announcement on Instagram on Monday.The dual withdrawal raised the prospect of an outbreak among the player group at Wimbledon, which is missing several stars because of injury and the tournament’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players.Berrettini and Cilic have been in contact in recent weeks with many players. Both played at the grass-court tournament in Queen’s Club in London that ended on June 19, with Berrettini winning the singles title and Cilic reaching the semifinals.Both practiced at Wimbledon last week and used the locker room reserved for seeded players. Berrettini trained on Centre Court on Thursday with Rafael Nadal, the No. 2 seed. Cilic trained on Centre Court with Novak Djokovic, the No. 1 seed.Djokovic, who has said that he remains unvaccinated for the coronavirus, won his first-round match on Monday, defeating Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea in four sets. Djokovic served particularly well but was far from his sharpest in other areas, looking wan and low on energy at one stage and dousing himself with water on a changeover. On Tuesday, Nadal played at Wimbledon for the first time since 2019, beating Francisco Cerundolo in four sets in the first round on Centre Court.Wimbledon was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic and imposed strict restrictions last year, following British government guidelines. Coronavirus testing was required for players, support team members and tournament officials and employees. But with the loosening of government mandates this year, no testing is currently required at Wimbledon.In a statement, the All England Club said that its policy is “in keeping with agreed practice across all of the U.K.”The club said some health and safety measures were still in place. “We have maintained enhanced cleaning and hand sanitizing operations and offer full medical support for anyone feeling unwell,” the statement said.No masks are required at the tournament, and they are a rare sight on the grounds. But the player medical team is continuing to wear them for any consultations. The team of racket stringers on site is also wearing them. The club emphasized that Wimbledon’s health and safety policies were regularly under review and could be updated.Emma Raducanu signing autographs for fans. Masks are not required at the tournament this year.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut the tournament clearly has a problem, which could get bigger.In all, five of the top 20 men were unable to play at Wimbledon because of bans, injuries or illness. No. 1 Daniil Medvedev of Russia was blocked from competing after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Wimbledon’s decision to bar Russians and their allies from Belarus led to the tours retaliating by removing ranking points from the tournament.No. 2-ranked Alexander Zverev is out for an extended period after tearing ligaments in his right ankle at the French Open.There have also been early upsets. Hubert Hurkacz, the No. 7 seed and a strong contender, was beaten Monday in five sets in the first round by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. Felix Auger-Aliassime, the No. 6 seed, was beaten Tuesday in four sets by Maxime Cressy.Berrettini, a strapping 6-foot-6 Italian, missed several months of action this season because of surgery on his right, primary playing hand. But he returned for the grass-court season this month and won consecutive titles in Stuttgart and at Queen’s Club.“I have had flu symptoms and been isolating the last few days,” Berrettini wrote on social media. “Despite symptoms not being severe, I decided it was important to take another test this morning to protect the health and safety of my fellow competitors and everyone else involved in the tournament.”Berrettini and Cilic, like many of the leading players, were staying in private accommodations in Wimbledon rather than in one of the player hotels in central London. That could reduce the risk of contamination, but there is also a new sense of resignation among the player community about the virus. Many have had the coronavirus, including Djokovic, Nadal and Coco Gauff.“I’m pretty sure I had Covid, so I’m less afraid than I used to be,” Maria Sakkari, who is seeded fifth in women’s singles, said after her first-round victory on Tuesday. “We have to get back to a normal life again.”Sakkari equated getting the coronavirus to getting food poisoning, which could also force withdrawal from a tournament. Alizé Cornet, a French player, said the virus had become a “part of the landscape.”“There always have been injuries and illnesses,” she told French reporters on Tuesday, claiming that there had been numerous undeclared coronavirus cases among players at the recent French Open. “In the locker room, everyone had it, and we didn’t say anything,” she said, suggesting that some players had symptoms but did not test themselves.“We’re not going to test ourselves and put ourselves in trouble,” she said. “I saw some women wearing masks because they did not want to spread it.”Gauff said she was comfortable with testing not being mandatory for players and said she was happy that the testing was no longer “every day or every other day.”“I don’t want to go back to that,” she said. “Not being scared to be tested, but it’s also, like, a hassle. I think with the vaccines and everything, we kind of know that the viral load is low and it’s very hard to transfer if you’re a vaccinated individual.”But she said she would test if she had symptoms and encouraged her peers to do the same.Berrettini had not been on site at the All England Club since Saturday and now, despite his thunderous serve and forehand, will have to wait until next year.“I have no words to describe the extreme disappointment I feel,” he said. “The dream is over for this year, but I will be back stronger.”Cilic, 33, has also been in resurgent form, overwhelming Medvedev in the fourth round of the French Open on his way to the semifinals. With his long reach, huge serve and flat baseline power, he is dangerous on grass and was, like Berrettini, one of the players to watch closely in the bottom half of the men’s draw.Cilic could have faced Nadal in the fourth round; Berrettini could have faced him in the semifinals. But now Nadal’s path looks quite a bit less daunting, if he remains healthy. More

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      Tennis’ Most Popular Podcast Is The Tennis Podcast

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      It started around David Law’s parents’ dining room table. A decade later, “The Tennis Podcast” is the conscience of the game and how the sport communicates with itself.WIMBLEDON, England — The moment Amélie Mauresmo, the French Open tournament director, said women’s tennis did not have as much appeal as men’s tennis right now, there was little doubt she was going to get an earful.Those objecting included a British woman named Catherine Whitaker, who delivered a scathing, 10-minute-35-second dressing down of Mauresmo on an increasingly influential show, “The Tennis Podcast.” Whitaker was somewhere between exasperated and aghast that a former No. 1-ranked player in women’s singles would say such a thing to explain why she had scheduled men for nine of the tournament’s 10 featured night sessions. She called out Mauresmo for possessing an “unconscious bias” against some of the world’s greatest and most famous female athletes.The next morning, a member of the French Open’s communications staff approached Whitaker with a proposition: Would she like to join a select group of journalists to speak with Mauresmo?That Whitaker’s words had gotten the attention of Mauresmo — who would later attempt to walk back her comments — might have been hard to foresee in 2012, when Whitaker and her boss, David Law, sat at the dining room table at his parents’ home to record the first episode of their podcast.“Maybe five people listened to it,” Law, a longtime tennis communications executive and BBC radio commentator, said during a recent interview. For years, the show stopped and restarted, with episodes dropping irregularly and attracting tiny audiences.A decade on, “The Tennis Podcast” regularly tops the Apple charts for the sport in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and Spain. It is a favorite of the game’s luminaries and commentators, such as Billie Jean King, who has listened to the entire archive, Chris Evert, Pam Shriver and Mary Carillo. In the United States, it recently ranked 40th among all sports podcasts. In certain moments, such as during Mauresmo’s crisis, it is how the sport talks to itself.From left, David Law, Catherine Whitaker and Matt Roberts host the show. “He’s the one they all like the most,” Law said of Roberts. “I know, because I read all the emails.”James Hill for The New York Times“I’m a nerd,” Carillo said in late May, just before taping a special 10th anniversary show high above the main court, Philippe Chatrier, at Roland Garros. “These guys know their stuff. And they’re funny. You can’t fake funny.”Every sport has its handful of must-listens. Most feature hosts who came to their podcasts with established platforms or have major media companies behind them.Whitaker, Law and Matthew Roberts, who began as the show’s Twitter intern in 2015 when he was still in college, are the genre’s charming garage band that broke through, though they are not sure why. Maybe tennis debate just sounds more proper with British accents? “The Tennis Podcast” has become an interesting test case for a crowded podcast market where it’s hard to develop an audience and even harder to make a living, as the three are trying to do.Roberts, 26, still is not sure if this is a legitimate career choice.“Maybe I’ll write some more?” he wondered one evening in Paris.At big events like the little competition taking place here at the All England Club this week, the group will occasionally set up with the microphones and a pint at a picnic table, though with a growing legion of fans, especially at Wimbledon, that arrangement is becoming more problematic.On the show (and in their lives), Law, 48, plays the goofy but thoughtful father. He is clueless about most pop culture references. He often jousts with Whitaker, 36, as though she were a much younger stepsister. Roberts serves as the wise-beyond-his-years son, often settling their disputes.“And he can do that annoying, jumping backhand thing,” Whitaker said of Roberts, who played junior tennis tournaments and has a degree in modern languages.At this year’s French Open, a fan of the podcast nervously approached to praise Roberts.“He’s the one they all like the most,” Law said of Roberts. “I know, because I read all the emails.”They now earn enough to travel to all the Grand Slam tournaments, though Wimbledon is a home game of sorts. Law, who is married with two children, recently quit his day job as the communications director for the annual grass-court tournament at Queen’s Club in London, about 120 miles south of his home near Birmingham.Through newsletter subscriptions and an annual Kickstarter campaign, the hosts can sustain themselves and earn enough to travel to all four Grand Slam tournaments.James Hill for The New York TimesWhitaker, who lives in London, sent Law an email after she graduated from university telling him she was desperate to work in tennis. He hired her to assist with his work with retired players on the Champions Tour.He also liked her voice, and eventually raised the concept of a podcast. Whitaker was skeptical, but went along.Law got introduced to podcasts the same way a lot of Britons did — listening to “The Ricky Gervais Show” in the mid-aughts. As the medium grew, Law realized that each sport seemed to have a podcast that became The One, and quickly grabbed the title “The Tennis Podcast.”It was a good name, he thought. “And there were no other tennis podcasts, so it was actually true,” he said.In 2013, with the podcast muddling along with just a few hundred weekly listeners, Whitaker went to work writing news releases about crime and punishment in the press office of the Crown Prosecution Service. She knew within a month that despite her yearning for stability, she had made a terrible mistake. It took her a year to walk away and commit to the podcast, as well as a few side gigs in tennis.The venture cost Law money the first four years. In 2015 he sold a small sponsorship to BNP Paribas, the French bank.The next year, Law, Whitaker and Roberts did the first of their annual Kickstarter campaigns, which, along with subscriptions to additional content for 5 pounds per month or £50 for the year, or about $6 and $61, sustain them.They have 3,000 subscribers and roughly 35,000 weekly listeners. Their success helped Whitaker get hired to host Amazon Prime’s tennis coverage.They owe a great debt to Carillo. Five years ago, she approached Whitaker at a tournament and asked her if she was from “The Tennis Podcast.” Whitaker said she was, then found Law and told him the strangest thing had just happened.Carillo spread the word. She told King, who told Evert, who told Shriver, or something like that. No one is certain of the order. All are now dedicated listeners. King joined the show’s hosts at Whitaker’s apartment last summer for curry and to watch the European Championship soccer matches.Shriver, right, Mary Carillo and Billie Jean King are among the game’s luminaries who regularly listen to the podcast.James Hill for The New York TimesAfter Shriver went public with the revelation that her longtime coach, Don Candy, had sexually abused her as a teenager, her first interview was on “The Tennis Podcast.” Steve Simon, the head of the WTA Tour, also came on to discuss sexual abuse.Most shows have no guests. The troika chat about the latest results from Estoril, in Portugal, or Istanbul. They mock one another’s food choices or underhand serving abilities.Law said years of mistakes and research have provided valuable lessons, such as the importance of releasing a new podcast weekly, dropping it on a specific day (usually Monday), limiting the weekly shows to about an hour, and doing 45-minute daily episodes during the Grand Slams.Things went a little longer after Mauresmo stepped in it earlier this month at the French Open, allowing Whitaker the proper time for her takedown. She described Mauresmo as a product of a system “designed and upheld almost exclusively by men,” telling everyone who might believe that men’s tennis was inherently more attractive than women’s tennis to “get in the bin.”A lot more than five people were listening. More

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      Wimbledon, a Longstanding Tradition, Opens with a Flurry of Changes

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      One hundred years after the opening of Centre Court, it’s a season of change at the All England Club, what with the barring of Russian players and a new set of green doors.WIMBLEDON, England — It is about tradition this year at Wimbledon on the 100th anniversary of Centre Court, but as the defending men’s singles champion Novak Djokovic walked back onto the grass on Monday to launch this year’s tournament, it was also about change.There is plenty of it at the All England Club in 2022: large and small; obvious and subtle.The big stuff: Russian and Belarusian players (and journalists) have been barred because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The tournament has been expanded from 13 days of play, with no matches scheduled on the first Sunday, to a full 14 days that will leave no respite for the grass and the leafy neighborhood.The little stuff: The benches and desks in the Centre Court press seats have been replaced with padded chairs. All England Club members with their circular purple badges no longer serve as moderators at news conferences. Now, the stars sit alone at the rostrum, as they do nearly everywhere else in the tennis world.Djokovic passed through a set of green doors to meet Kwon Soon-woo of South Korea in their first-round match.Paul Childs/ReutersAs if to underscore the theme, Djokovic and his first-round opponent, Kwon Soon-woo, arrived on the most celebrated court in tennis in novel fashion.Players have long exited the clubhouse and made a hard left, passing behind a screen with a club member leading the way, before taking a hard right and stepping onto the grass.Beginning this year, they walk straight ahead and unaccompanied out of the clubhouse and onto the court through a new set of green doors that are quickly closed behind them.It seemed unceremoniously abrupt to those used to the old ways and fond of the murmurs from the crowd that used to build into cheers as the players navigated the passageway before coming fully into public view.But the pixie dust was still there, as Djokovic confirmed after his 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory, which seemed even closer than the score.“Childhood dreams were realized here in 2011,” Djokovic said of the first of his six Wimbledon singles titles. “I will never forget that. It will always have a special place in my heart. Of course, every time I step out there on the court, there is this goose bumps type of feeling, butterflies in the stomach.”It happens the first time, too, as Emma Raducanu later confirmed. All in a rush last year, she became a global star and a superstar in Britain by winning the U.S. Open at age 18, becoming the first player to win a Grand Slam singles title as qualifier. Victories have been much harder to come by since then, but she already had fine memories of Wimbledon after reaching the fourth round in her first appearance in the main draw last year.Emma Raducanu of Britain in her match against Alison Van Uytvanck of Belgium.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressMonday, however, was her first match on Centre Court, and though she has barely played on grass this season because of injuries, she managed the moment, and a tricky opponent in Alison Van Uytvanck, to win 6-4, 6-4.Raducanu may not be ready to take over women’s tennis. No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who just turned 21, has taken up that air and space. But Raducanu clearly knows how to rise to an occasion.“From the moment I walked out through those gates, I could really just feel the energy and the support and everyone was behind me from the word ‘go,’” she said. “I just really tried to cherish every single point on there, played every point like it could have been one of my last on that court.”That was imaginative thinking indeed, considering that Raducanu, Britain’s first women’s Grand Slam singles champion since Virginia Wade in the 1970s, is poised to be a Centre Court fixture for a decade or more if she can remain healthy.Andy Murray knows the drill. He, too, became a Centre Court regular in his teens and eventually lived up to the billing by ending a 77-year drought for British men in singles by winning Wimbledon in 2013 and again in 2016.Playing with an artificial hip at age 35, Murray has proved his love of his craft beyond a reasonable doubt. Though he will never bridge the achievement gap that separates him from the Big Three of Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer — each with 20 or more major singles titles — Murray remains a threat on grass on any given afternoon.He demonstrated it with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory over James Duckworth that closed play on Centre Court on opening day, almost exactly eight hours after it had begun and almost exactly 100 years after the first opening day on Centre Court.Britain’s Andy Murray celebrated his first-round victory over James Duckworth of Australia.Hannah Mckay/ReutersThat was on June 26, 1922, after the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club moved from its cozier, original home on Worple Road after purchasing land on Church Road to accommodate a new, larger stadium. The main court at Worple Road had been called Centre Court because it was actually at the center of the grounds. The club kept the name even though the new primary court was no longer so central.The new Wimbledon got off to a soggy start with rain and more rain, forcing the 1922 edition to finish on a Wednesday, but it was still a popular success with worthy singles champions: the stylish and long unbeatable Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen and the Australian men’s star Gerald Patterson, a two-time Wimbledon champion nicknamed “The Human Catapult” because of his big serve (he could volley, too).Both Lenglen and Patterson would have been in for a few surprises if they had been watching on Monday. Centre Court is now rainproof with its retractable, accordion-style roof that was put to good use for Djokovic’s and Kwon’s duel.The electronic scoreboards and the touch screen operated by the chair umpire would also have caught their eyes, as would the once-unthinkable fact that the chair umpire for Monday’s opening men’s match was a woman: Marija Cicak. More

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      How a Tennis Nerd Gave Serena and Venus Williams a New Lease on the Game

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      Eric Hechtman, a club professional from Miami, has signed on to help two champions chase success far beyond the usual finish line of a tennis career.WIMBLEDON, England — Already coaching one American tennis icon, Eric Hechtman added another: logging the extra miles and the extra hours to try to help both Venus and Serena Williams get the most out of however many matches or seasons they have left.“If they are both good with it, I’m absolutely good with it,” Hechtman said in an interview at Wimbledon last week. “They are family. They are super close with each other. It’s been great so far.”Hechtman, a 38-year-old club professional and father of three from Miami, jokes that he is “old” but he is younger than both his star pupils.Venus is 42. Serena is 40. But neither is ready to retire even if Venus has not played on tour in nearly a year and Serena has not played singles on tour since last year’s Wimbledon.Both sisters are back in London, however, with Serena set to face Harmony Tan, an unseeded Frenchwoman, on Centre Court on Tuesday in the first round. Venus, who practiced on the grass at the All England Club over the weekend, is not playing in the singles or women’s doubles tournaments but could still take a wild-card entry into the mixed doubles.The sisters like to keep their plans private for as long as possible, but it seems doubtful that Venus would have made the long trip across the Atlantic just to attend a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert on Sunday with her sister, Isha Price, and Hechtman.“Lots of fun,” said Hechtman, who did not confirm Venus Williams’s Wimbledon plans but did confirm that she is not ready to call it a career.“I don’t want to necessarily speak for their plans, but they are definitely not ready to retire,” Hechtman said. “Look, they both love the game. They are both champions. They both love working hard and putting in the work. So, as long as you’ve got that, who’s to say you can set parameters on things, right?”Venus Williams arriving at the All England Club on Sunday.Julian Finney/Getty ImagesThe Williamses were raised to ignore the usual tennis boundaries: playing very little junior tennis before turning professional and being encouraged by their parents, Richard and Oracene, to actively pursue outside interests. There were skeptics early, just as there are skeptics now as both sisters have become part-time players at best in their 40s, but there is no arguing with their achievements or their staying power. And while Serena clearly has the superior body of work, with 23 Grand Slam singles titles to Venus’s seven, Wimbledon is where their resumes are most closely aligned.Venus has won five singles titles; Serena seven; and they have joined forces to win six doubles titles, going 6-0 in finals (they are 17-0 in all their Grand Slam and Olympic doubles finals together).“They’ve broken barriers for everything, for women, for the way the game is played,” Hechtman said. “They transcended tennis from a power perspective, and they are continuing to do it at their age. And I don’t think they even think about that. They are just homing in on themselves, and what they want to do, and there you go. To me, the more I can learn from those types of people, the better it is.”Hechtman, a self-described “tennis nerd,” was a successful junior who went on to play at the University of Miami.Evan Zeder, a longtime friend and former junior rival, has known Hechtman since they were 8.“He has always been brutally honest, for better or worse, and I think that has to be refreshing for people like Venus and Serena who are two legends to have someone who can be brutally honest without an agenda,” said Zeder, now head of global tennis sports marketing for New Balance.Zeder remembers Hechtman wearing basketball shorts and a Legionnaire cap on court. “The kind Ivan Lendl used to wear,” Zeder said. “And he just kind of beat to his own drum.”He also had grit. Zeder remembers Hechtman getting severe cramps late in the decisive set of one of their matches as 18-year-olds and refusing to quit, taking massive cuts at the ball going for winners because he could no longer run. Zeder said Hechtman kept looking across the net and smiling.“He was trying to get in my head, and it worked,” Zeder said.“After Eric served it out, he ended up in a full body cramp and was taken to the hospital, where he spent the whole night with an I.V.,” Zeder said. “He came out and could barely walk in the finals and got smoked, and I was fresh as a daisy and had to play for third place.”Hechtman said he had offers from other Division I programs but chose to stay at home to support his mother Brenda, who had cancer and died during his sophomore year.He tried to play on the pro tour for about six months after college. “To be honest, I didn’t give myself a fair shot,” Hechtman said.He went to law school but began working as a teaching professional as well and eventually received an offer to become the tennis director at the Royal Palm Tennis Club, a private club in Miami with a strong junior program.“I didn’t have a passion for law,” he said. “My passion is definitely tennis, and when that opportunity came up, it wasn’t that tough a choice.”He has spent much of the last 15 years developing junior players and said more than 50 of his pupils had gone on to play in college. But he also has worked as an occasional hitting partner for professional players. He said he was introduced to Venus Williams around 2008 and met and eventually hit with Serena as well, but both sisters had their own long-term coaches: Venus was working with the American David Witt and Serena with the Frenchman Patrick Mouratoglou.Serena Williams during a training session on Saturday.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesBut after Venus split with Witt, she hired Hechtman in 2019 and after Serena split with Mouratoglou earlier this year, she hired Hechtman with Venus’s approval.Still the director of tennis at Royal Palm, Hechtman said he has been getting up before dawn, making the two-hour drive north to Venus’s home in Jupiter Island to train with each sister in separate sessions and then making the two-hour drive home to work at the club.He and his wife, Alexandra, have three children, sons Noah, 7, and Chase, 5, and daughter Madison, 3.“I make sure I’m at home by 6,” he said.This is the kind of multitasking to which the Williams sisters can relate with their outside businesses and in Serena’s case, her daughter Olympia, 4, with her husband Alexis Ohanian.Serena has yet to speak publicly in detail about her new coach, but she was asked on Saturday what it was like to be back at Wimbledon without Mouratoglou, who helped her win 10 Grand Slam singles titles in their nearly 10 years together.“Oh my,” she said. “I didn’t even think about it. I don’t know. It feels good. I’m having a wonderful time here.”Hechtman said he respected Witt’s and Mouratoglou’s previous work. “I’m not the type of guy who’s going to steal someone’s job,” he said. “I have my business ethics, but when an opportunity like this comes along I’m not going to say no for sure.”Hechtman said he occasionally shares the court with Richard Williams, who though diminished by a stroke, still attends some of his daughters’ practices.“Sometimes he’ll throw in some coaching and obviously he’s got a unique eye for the game,” Hechtman said. “He made his mark in the history of the sport. He belongs in the Hall of Fame. He coached them from scratch to becoming two of the greatest ever.”Hechtman, too, would one day like to take a player from beginner to the top of the pro game, but for now his task is much shorter term: helping two champions chase success far beyond the usual finish line of a tennis career.“You can just see it in their eyes, the passion for it,” Hechtman said. “I’ve been on the court with any type of person you can imagine from kids that don’t want to be out there to kids that are motivated to adult recreational tennis players. This is the best experience so far, and you can take what they’ve accomplished out of the equation. It’s about their attitude and how a practice goes. If you’re a tennis nerd, it’s as good as it gets.” More

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      As Wimbledon Begins, an Era of Sports Free of Bans and Boycotts Ends

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      For decades, sports has avoided punishing athletes for the actions of their countries. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put an end to that.LONDON — For roughly three decades, making sure athletes participated in the biggest events regardless of the world’s never-ending military and political battles has been a nearly sacrosanct tenet of international sports.Wars broke out. Authoritarian nations with egregious records on human rights hosted major events. There were massive doping scandals. And through it all, boycotts and bans on participation all but disappeared from the sports landscape.That principle — staging truly global competitions and not holding athletes responsible for the world’s ills — began to crumble after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It will be on hiatus starting Monday, when Wimbledon opens without the world No. 1, Daniil Medvedev, and the rest of the tennis players from Russia and Belarus, who have been barred from participating.World Athletics, track and field’s world governing body, has also barred Russian and Belarusian athletes from its championships next month in Eugene, Ore., the biggest track and field event outside of the Olympic Games.The bans represent a drastic shift after years of resisting letting politics interfere with individual athletes’ participation in sports. They are also a departure from the decisions that various sports organizations made earlier this year to limit punishments to banning Russian and Belarusian teams or any flags or other symbols of the countries from competitions.What changed? China’s authoritarian government has stifled free speech and other human rights, and its treatment of the Uyghurs has been deemed genocide by multiple governments, yet it was permitted to host the Olympics in February. Why were Russian and Belarusian athletes pariahs by March?Experts in international sports say that the so-called right-to-play principle ran headlong into the most significant package of economic sanctions placed on a country since the end of the Cold War. That shifted the calculus for sports leaders, said Michael Payne, the International Olympic Committee’s former director of marketing and broadcast rights.“For years, people would point at sports and athletes and demand boycotts, and sports could say, ‘Hang on, why are you singling us out but going on with the rest of your trade?’” Payne said. “But if you have full economic and political sanctions against a country, then I’m not sure that sports should still sit it out.”Daniil Medvedev of Russia, the world’s No. 1 men’s tennis player, will not be permitted to play Wimbledon this year.Cati Cladera/EPA, via ShutterstockThe leaders of tennis in Britain ultimately decided they could not. In April, acting at the behest of the British government, the All England Lawn Tennis Club, which runs Wimbledon, and the Lawn Tennis Association, which oversees the other annual spring and summer tournaments in England, announced the ban, explaining they had no other choice.“The U.K. government has set out directional guidance for sporting bodies and events in the U.K., with the specific aim of limiting Russia’s influence,” said Ian Hewitt, the chairman of the All England Club. “We have taken that directional guidance into account, as we must as a high-profile event and leading British institution.”He said the combination of the scale and severity of Russia’s invasion of a sovereign state, the condemnation by over 140 nations through the United Nations and the “specific and directive guidance to address matters” made this a “very, very exceptional situation.”The move is broadly popular in Britain, according to opinion polls, but it has received significant pushback from the men’s and women’s tennis tours. They condemned it as discriminatory and decided to withhold rankings points for any victories at the tournament.On Saturday, Novak Djokovic, the defending champion at Wimbledon, called the barring of players unfair. “I just don’t see how they have contributed to anything that is really happening,” he said.One Russian-born player, Natela Dzalamidze, changed her nationality to Georgian so she could play doubles at Wimbledon. Last week, the United States Tennis Association announced that it would allow players from Russia and Belarus to compete at its events, including the U.S. Open, this summer, but with no national identification.“This is not an easy situation,” Lew Sherr, the chief executive of the U.S.T.A. told The New York Times this month. “It’s a horrific situation for those in Ukraine, an unprovoked and unjust invasion and absolutely horrific, so anything we talk about pales in relation to what is going on there.”But, Sherr added, the organization did not receive any direct pressure or guidance from government officials.Tennis has been juggling politics and sport a lot lately. Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA, last fall suspended the tour’s business in China, including several high-profile tournaments, because of the country’s treatment of Peng Shuai.Peng, a doubles champion at Wimbledon in 2013 and the French Open in 2014, accused a former top government official of sexually assaulting her. She then disappeared from public view for weeks. She later disavowed her statements. Simon said the WTA would not return to China until it could speak independently with Peng and a full investigation took place.Sebastian Coe, center, president of World Athletics, said sports must take a stand on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Peter Cziborra/Action Images Via ReutersIn explaining the decision to bar Russian and Belarusian athletes from its world championships, Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, acknowledged in March that the move went against much of what he has stood for. He has railed against the practice of politicians targeting athletes to make political points when other sectors continue to go about their business. “This is different,” he said, because the other parts of the economy are at the tip of the spear. “Sport has to step up and join these efforts to end this war and restore peace. We cannot and should not sit this one out.”Michael Lynch, the former director of sports marketing for Visa, a leading sponsor of the Olympics and the World Cup, said the response to Russia’s aggression is natural as sports evolve away from the fiction that they are somehow separate from global events.Just as the N.B.A. and other sports leagues were forced to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake, international sports will have to recognize that they are not walled off from the problems of the world, he said.“This genie is not going back in that bottle,” Lynch said. “We will continue to see increased use of sports for cultural change, for value change, for policy change. It’s only going to happen more and more.”Sports’ sanctions against Russia could be the beginning of the end of largely unfettered global competition. Who gets to play and who doesn’t could depend on whether the political zeitgeist deems an athlete’s country to be compliant with the standards of a civilized world order.Should Israeli athletes worry because of their country’s much-criticized occupation of the West Bank? What about American athletes the next time their country kills civilians with a drone strike?“This a slippery slope,” David Wallechinsky, a leading sports historian, said of the decision to hold Russian and Belarusian athletes accountable for the actions of their governments. “The question is, Will other people from other countries end up paying the price?”This month, some of the world’s top golfers were criticized for joining a new golf tour bankrolled by the government of Saudi Arabia, a repressive government responsible for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident and columnist for The Washington Post. Looming a little more than two years from now are the next Summer Olympics, in Paris. Who will be there is anyone’s guess.“I do think Ukraine has rightly galvanized the West and its allies, but I also believe that sport will emerge as a connector instead of a tool of division,” said Terrence Burns, a sports consultant who in the 2000s advised Russia on its bids to secure hosting rights for the Olympics and the World Cup during a different era. “But it will take time. And during that time, athletes, for better or worse, will pay a price.”Christopher Clarey More