Subterms
Slippery grass caused tournament-ending injuries in back-to-back matches, and many stars lost their footing during the first two days of the tournament.WIMBLEDON, England — Matches continued on Centre Court at Wimbledon as rain fell outside on the first two days of the tournament that showcases top stars in an arena considered a cathedral of the sport before thousands of fans. More
Williams started her first-round match against Aliaksandra Sasnovich aggressively, but she slipped on the grass court and later fell after injuring her right hamstring.WIMBLEDON, England — Serena Williams’s 20th Wimbledon ended shortly after it began. She retired 34 minutes into the first set of her first-round match against Aliaksandra Sasnovich on Tuesday night because of a right hamstring injury. More
Petr Korda has long envisioned greatness for his children, the pro golfers Nelly and Jessica and the tennis pro Sebastian, who won his first-round match at Wimbledon.WIMBLEDON, England — Sebastian Korda watched from his father’s hotel room in London on Sunday night as his sister Nelly achieved a major dream, winning the Women’s P.G.A. Championship in Atlanta. Two days later, on a different sort of green, Sebastian kept the family business booming. More
The unseeded American beat the French Open finalist in straight sets, and talked with a fellow first-round winner, Sloane Stephens, about the power of positive thinking.WIMBLEDON, England — Frances Tiafoe was the underdog going into his first round match at Wimbledon on Monday afternoon against Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the third seed and a recent French Open finalist. But on a rainy day at Wimbledon, the unseeded 23-year-old American shone.“The minimum I want to do is at least give myself a chance to win — I did,” Tiafoe said. “I woke up this morning like, ‘Yeah, I’m beating Stefanos.’ It happened. I think believing it when nobody else does is so big.”The 57th-ranked Tiafoe led the match from wire to wire, breaking Tsitsipas, 22, in the opening game and staying in front for a 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 victory on No. 1 Court.Tiafoe, who saved all seven break points he faced, sealed the match by breaking Tsitsipas for a fourth time. After the two shook hands, Tiafoe rolled up his sleeves and flexed his biceps, slapped his chest, and punched the air.Tiafoe, who entered his news conference wearing a T-shirt bearing a photograph of Arthur Ashe in a fur coat, said that putting on a show against a top player was something he was delighted to “get to” do. “These are honors; these aren’t chores,” Tiafoe said.“At the end of the day, when I’m done with the game, I want people to say: ‘It was great entertainment to watch Frances Tiafoe. He’s a great guy first and a tennis player second.’”Tiafoe, the son of a maintenance worker who grew up living in a small room at a Maryland tennis academy, said he didn’t feel pressure despite previously being 0-10 against top-five opponents.“Pressure? I feel like I already overcame pressure, man,” he said. “I played on No. 1 Court today. If you told me when I was 10 years old I’d be playing on No. 1 court, beat No. 4 in the world? And I’ve been able to play Roger, Rafa, Novak in big stadiums. I mean, those are the moments you appreciate. I’ve come such a long way.”“Pressure was turning pro, being able to provide for my family; I’m able to do that,” he added. “I think perspective is everything. But there’s a long way I want to go. I’ve handled my real pressures. Everything else is kind of between the lines.”Tiafoe’s coach, the former South African player Wayne Ferreira, said they had worked on keeping Tiafoe’s mind from wandering at key moments.“When he’s seeing that he’s getting closer to winning the match, it’s always difficult keeping the concentration, like you could see in the third set,” Ferreira said. “It’s about trying to not rush things, trying to have a routine of doing the same thing every single time, taking the same time, keeping the focus. It’s little things that make a big difference, and he did a good job of holding it. It could have gotten tougher.”Tsitsipas, who did not play any grass-court tournaments to prepare for Wimbledon after his grueling run to the French Open final, said that Tiafoe had played “really well” but that he regretted not entering a warm-up event. “Any of these tournaments would have helped, for sure, get me in a better shape, get my tennis ready for the grass-court season,” Tsitsipas said.Sloane Stephens has dropped in the rankings but has focused on her attitude.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockTiafoe said that he had been talking to another prominent Monday winner, Sloane Stephens, about how quickly fortunes can change in the sport. Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion, defeated the 10th-seeded Petra Kvitova, 6-3, 6-4, on Centre Court.“It’s not easy to always be playing at your top level,” Tiafoe said. “It’s just managing the highs and lows, but always understanding that you’re a baller, you’re capable. She’s so capable.”For Stephens, who is unseeded at Wimbledon and at her lowest ranking in four years, No. 73, positive thinking remains paramount. “There’s definitely panic when you’re on a losing streak, I will say that,” she said. “It’s definitely, like, ‘I have to change this, my racket is not right, I need different shoes, I need a new coach.’ All of those things that creep into your mind.“But I think for tennis, one week you could be pretty average and basic, and the next week you could be like quarter-ing, semi-ing a Grand Slam and your whole world changes.” More
The Professional Tennis Players Association, off to a slow start it was first announced in 2020, has at times been a distraction for the world’s best men’s player.WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic has the opportunity to make history many times over at the All-England Club in the coming two weeks.Djokovic, a five-time Wimbledon champion, is vying for a third straight title. He won the tournament in both 2018 and 2019 before last year’s edition was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.“I’m trying to peak at the majors; I’ve been managing to do that throughout my career,” Djokovic said in his pretournament news conference on Saturday. “I’ve had the fortune to really play my best tennis when it mattered the most.”This tournament might matter more for Djokovic than any before. It could be his 20th career Grand Slam singles title, which would tie Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal for the career lead. Having already won the first two major tournaments of the season, Djokovic could also become the first man to head to New York with the chance to win the U.S. Open and a Grand Slam since Rod Laver did so in 1969. This being an Olympic year, Djokovic would also have a chance to win a “Golden Slam,” only achieved by Steffi Graf in 1988, if he wins gold in Tokyo.“Once I’m on the court, I try to lock in and I try to exclude all the distractions,” Djokovic said. “I feel like over the years I managed to develop the mechanism that allows me to do that.”The top-seeded Djokovic, who will play his first-round match on Monday afternoon on Centre Court against Jack Draper, a Briton who earned a wild card, has perhaps more gears turning than anyone else in the draw, having built his own off-court machinery: the Professional Tennis Players Association.On Friday evening, Djokovic held his own virtual news conference, along with the Canadian player Vasek Pospisil, the PTPA co-founder, and Adam Larry, the organization’s newly appointed executive director, to announce a more formal launch of a group that had a more nebulous, nascent beginning at last year’s U.S. Open.Djokovic, a former president of the ATP player council, became convinced that trying to represent player interests from within the ATP Tour’s governing framework was futile, and has devoted significant time and energy to founding his breakaway, “outside the box” player representation organization, for which there is not an obvious seat at the table in the current tennis power structure.“We have tried the so-to-say conventional way and we are now trying the unconventional way to make a significant long-term difference for the players,” Djokovic said Friday.“Obviously nothing is guaranteed,” he said. “We are a new, young, learning organization. We would love to have as many players and people who are a part of this sport support us. We need your help. We need everyone to recognize the core value, the very reason PTPA was founded and why it exists.”The ATP Tour, which in 1990 was founded as a joint partnership between players and tournaments, has staunchly opposed the idea of an independent organization for players since the PTPA first announced its intentions last August.“ATP management, together with the Board and the ATP Player Council, whose representatives are democratically elected by all players, work week-in and week-out to advance the interests of players,” the ATP said in a statement issued after the PTPA announced its advisory board last week.“The players’ interests, and those of the Tour as a whole, must and will continue to be protected under ATP governance,” the statement continued. “By contrast, the creation of a separate player entity provides a clear overlap, divides the players, and further fragments the sport.”Djokovic, at a news conference ahead of Wimbledon, said he believed that work on the PTPA could be challenging.Aeltc/Florian Eisele/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLarry, who previously worked for the N.H.L. players’ union with a focus on licensing agreements, said that the PTPA had a list of members, but would not provide a specific number.“We have hundreds of players right now representing all the tours, including over 70 percent of the players on the ATP Tour,” Larry said.Pospisil, who said the PTPA “currently has a supermajority of the targeted players we’re going for,” said that he wanted to keep members’ identities confidential, because certain players “fear retribution, which is something that we have to take very seriously.”The tone of the PTPA news conference was largely conciliatory in its language toward the ATP, with the group’s leadership using forms of the word “collaborate” 16 times, but without providing many details of what their strategy or concrete objectives will be.“We’re reaching out here with an olive branch to say let’s work together, let’s be collaborative so that we can provide a greater livelihood for many more players,” Larry said.On Friday, Pospisil admitted that he had taken nearly three months off the tour because he was “burned out a little bit” from carrying out his PTPA activity with his playing career.“I’d be sugarcoating it if I said it hasn’t impacted my focus on tennis and on performance,” Pospisil, who is ranked 65th, said. “I’ve been doing everything possible to find the balance, but it has taken a toll, for sure.”Djokovic, who is wading deeper into bureaucracy as his career reaches new heights, admitted that his off-court fights had taken a toll on the court. “Many times in the last couple of years it has backfired on me,” he said, “in terms of the energy levels, for my tennis and my performances and my recovery.”Djokovic, who has earned nearly $150 million in prize money in his career, emphasized that his lobbying for greater earnings and power for players was not motivated by personal financial gain.“With this blessing comes a huge responsibility to help the young guys help the next generations, help the lower-ranked players,” he said.On court at Wimbledon, Djokovic will look to hold off those younger generations, keeping the iron-fisted grip he, Nadal, and Federer have held atop the men’s game well into their 30s.But as he chases history, and admits that his French Open title run two weeks ago “took a lot out of me mentally, physically, and emotionally,” Djokovic said he realized why “former generations did not manage to get to where we are at the moment” in terms of player organization.“It’s really difficult for a player whose priority is to hit the tennis ball, recover, have all his needs met in order for him to perform at his best, then, if he has time and energy, to deal with the politics and business side of things in tennis,” he said. “It’s very difficult for us to take this step forward and be responsible and really fully active and involved in the business side of things. But I’m glad I’m able, from the ranking position that I have in the tennis world, that my voice is being heard.” More
Lao still lives at home in California with her parents to save money, but will be on Court 17 on Monday after qualifying for the Grand Slam tournament for the first time at age 30.When Danielle Lao made her first visit to Wimbledon in 2019, she tried to describe it to her parents Bessie and Danny.“I told them it’s like Narnia, but for tennis,” Lao said. “It almost seems not real. All the Slams are special and have their own style, but Wimbledon just has this mystique about it that just sets it apart.”In that 2019 visit, Lao was a spectator as she walked the grounds, taking photos with some of her former University of Southern California teammates. She had come within one match of qualifying for the singles draw, losing in the final round in three sets after winning 6-0 against Arina Rodionova of Australia.“Arina made an adjustment to me that I could not adjust back to,” Lao said. “It was like a slow death, and I couldn’t do much about it, so that was tough for me.”For weeks it was difficult to accept, but Lao, an American small in stature and slight in build, is undeniably stout in spirit. Her nickname is “The Little Giant,” which is also the name of her Twitter and Instagram accounts and her blog. And as Lao walked the well-tended grounds of the All England Club again on Saturday taking photos with her phone, she did so as a competitor.This year, after continuing to push and aspire through the pandemic on a tight budget, she qualified for her first Wimbledon main draw at age 30. She is ranked just 238th in the world, still lives at home in Arcadia, Calif., with her parents to save money and still strings her own rackets when she is at home, on a machine she has had since she was 12.But on Monday, she will face Katie Boulter of Britain on Court 17 in the first round of the oldest tennis tournament of them all.“I’ve been dreaming about Wimbledon ever since I started playing,” Lao said in a video interview on Saturday. “The first time I ever had any aspiration to be a professional tennis player, I was watching Pete Sampras win at Wimbledon. I think I was on vacation in Mexico, and it was the first time I’d ever seen a grown man cry. I had to have my parents kind of explain to me why he’s crying.”Lao said she was 9 years old at the time. She would go on to play high school tennis and earn a scholarship to U.S.C. She never played No. 1 singles or No. 1 doubles for the Trojans in her four years, but was a two-time all-American and team captain.“She’s earned it the hard way,” said West Nott, the former U.S.C. assistant coach who recruited her in high school. “I know a lot of people say they love the game, but I think she takes it to a whole other level. She is just trying to turn over every little rock to keep improving.”After briefly exploring work in finance after graduation, Lao decided to pursue a professional tennis career.“I was looking for jobs, and it just didn’t feel right,” she said. “I still had a really deep love and connection to the game, so I thought I’d get on tour and get it out of my system a little bit.”She talked to her childhood coach, Kal Moranon, who agreed to forgo his usual fees and have her buy him lunch instead.About eight years later, she is in Wimbledon at last, just like her childhood idol: Roger Federer.“That is incredible,” she said. “Seeing him on the grounds here, it’s like, yeah, things are just right.”Lao said that growing up she never heard she was destined for Grand Slam tennis tournaments.“I am 5-3, 115, 120 pounds,” she said. “I never had anyone tell me you’re the model and the perfect stature to be a professional tennis player. In fact, maybe the opposite. No one’s ever told me, ‘You will never make it on tour’. But they always said, ‘You’d be a pretty good college player.’”She has yet to become a mainstay on the main tour. She reached her career-high singles ranking of 152 in April 2019, the same year she just missed qualifying for Wimbledon.“I would say getting into the top 100 is probably where you can find a sweet spot,” Lao said, “where you are making money, living kind of comfortably and not really stressing too much about finances and still being able to get what you need to perform.”She has spent the bulk of her career on the ITF Tour, the sport’s equivalent of the minor leagues where the total prize money at an event is often less than what a player makes for losing in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament (48,000 pounds at Wimbledon).She has stayed with friends and host families on the road to save money, budgeting her funds for the essentials: airplane tickets, training and the occasional traveling coach.“It is challenging,” Lao said. “I think by time you get to play some WTA events, you have certain expenses comped, and it helps a little bit. But if you are wanting to bring a coach on the road, you are paying for two people, so it’s always a balance. Am I going to operate on a budget or am I going to do this to max out my abilities? But my parents have been very supportive.”Both of Lao’s parents are immigrants from the Philippines. “My dad came over to the States when he was 16, my mom came over when she was in her mid-20s,” Lao said. “Neither have an athletic background. Tennis was a complete accident. We were on vacation in Mexico. Instead of leaving me at day care, they left me at a tennis lesson.”She did not get to play on real grass until 2017, but she has an excellent one-handed slice backhand and a relatively flat forehand that are both effective on grass.In 2016, she won a wild-card playoff with partner Jacqueline Cako for a spot in the U.S. Open women’s doubles tournament. They lost in the first round, but it was a taste of what professional tennis could be.Inspired, Lao pushed on and qualified in singles for the 2017 U.S. Open and, just as importantly, the 2018 U.S. Open.The pandemic, which shut down the tour for several months, could have knocked Lao out of it. Instead, she bought a stationary bike, assembled it with her sister, and focused on fitness before returning to the court and the tour.After struggling in her recent tournaments, she arrived at Roehampton for Wimbledon qualifying with her new traveling coach, the tour player Irina Falconi. Lao settled into a deep groove and found herself up 6-3, 4-1 on Ursula Radwanska in the final round of qualifying.“I started to think, oh my goodness, I’m so close to Wimbledon, it’s right there,” she said.This time, she calmed her mind and closed out the final set, 6-2. After watching Sampras tear up at Wimbledon, Lao can now relate.“When I sat down, I covered my face with a towel a little bit,” Lao said. “But when Irina and my boyfriend came around, I was, like, they can’t see me cry. The tournament’s not over yet, and this was a straight setter. This is embarrassing. But that evening, I was thinking about it and joking with them, and I told them, ‘It took 23 years to get here guys, but we made it!’”Win or lose on Monday, one journey is complete. More
The four-time gold medalist previously said that travel restrictions that might prevent her from taking her daughter to the Games would factor into her decision.Serena Williams, a four-time gold medalist, indicated on Sunday at Wimbledon that she would not play in the Olympics in Tokyo next month.“I’m actually not on the Olympic list,” she said. “If so, then I should not be on it.”The decision was not unexpected. Williams had expressed hesitancy about playing in Tokyo in part because of the travel restrictions that might have prevented her from taking her daughter, Olympia, with her to the Games.“I would not be able to go function without my 3-year-old around,” Williams said earlier this season. “I think I would be in a depression. We’ve been together every day of her life.”Olympic officials have not made clear publicly what exceptions might be made for athletes who wish to come to Tokyo with their children. It was unclear on Sunday whether that was the decisive factor for Williams, who is 39 and set to play at Wimbledon for the 20th time.“There’s a lot of reasons that I made my Olympic decision,” she said at a news conference. “I don’t feel like going into them today. Maybe another day. Sorry.”Williams has been one of the most successful Olympians in tennis, winning gold medals in doubles with her sister Venus in 2000, 2008 and 2012. She also won the singles at the 2012 Olympics in London, where the tennis event was held on the same grass courts as Wimbledon.Her singles victory in London was perhaps the most dominant performance of her career. She did not come close to dropping a set in six matches and overwhelmed four players who had been ranked No. 1: Jelena Jankovic, Caroline Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka and, in the final, Maria Sharapova.Williams, who missed the 2004 Olympics because of an injury, was asked on Sunday whether it would be difficult for her to miss the Games.“In the past, it’s been a wonderful place for me,” she said. “I really haven’t thought about it, so I’m going to keep not thinking about it.”The top four American women in the singles rankings are eligible to compete in Tokyo. Sofia Kenin, Jennifer Brady and the 17-year-old Coco Gauff have all confirmed that they intend to take part. Williams’s decision opens a slot for Jessica Pegula. More
The All England Club is a special place for Federer, who has won eight titles on its grass courts, and for Murray, who lives nearby and won Olympic gold in 2012.Roger Federer went first in the Wimbledon interview room on Saturday. Andy Murray soon followed.“Ah, this is different,” Murray said in his baritone, as he settled into a familiar seat in unusual circumstances.Normally both Federer and Murray pack the place, but not this year as Wimbledon returns after a forced hiatus. Interviews are remote because of the pandemic, and the room was all but empty as they answered questions from the news media via Zoom.Federer holds the men’s record, with eight Wimbledon singles titles. Murray in 2013 became the first British man in 77 years to win the singles title, and he won it again in 2016.This Grand Slam tournament, venerable and beautiful, is their special place, the grassy and iconic spot that our minds will probably travel to first when we consider Federer and Murray after they are long retired and hitting tennis balls, or kicking soccer balls, to their grandchildren. They are both much closer to the end than the beginning of their remarkable careers, and this particular Wimbledon has a valedictory feel, even as both men are resistant to anyone else’s timetable. They will draw their own finish lines.Federer will be 40 in August and is playing on after three knee operations. Murray turned 34 last month and is playing Wimbledon for the first time since 2017, and the first time with an artificial hip joint.Both have proved their passion for the game beyond any reasonable doubt by enduring beyond even their own expectations.“Truthfully, I don’t think my goal was to play till 39 or 40 or more,” Federer said. “It was maybe more like 35, which was already a high number at the time.”His boyhood tennis role models, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and Pete Sampras, were all retired by their early thirties. Andre Agassi, the tour’s elder statesman when Federer began dominating the tour with panache in the early 2000s, was finished at 36.“I remember a conversation with Pistol 10 years ago,” Federer said, using Sampras’s nickname. “He was wondering how much longer I had in the tank.”The surprising answer was at least 10 more years, but the question now is whether Federer still has enough in the tank to win one more Wimbledon or even make one more deep run.He hinted on Saturday that the answer would help determine how much longer he plays, as would the opinion of his wife, Mirka.“I think I made the most of it on the tour,” he said. “I enjoyed my travels, made it fun with Mirka and the family and the team, persevered somehow. No, the goal was not to play until 40. This all mainly came in the last years. I never thought. also, with the last surgeries I’ve had I would still be going. Look, I feel I still really love it, enjoy myself. I will see about the results — if they’re going to come back. This is why Wimbledon is clearly very important to me right now.”Federer has not won a major singles title since the 2018 Australian Open but he came within one point (and a few inches) of winning Wimbledon in 2019, failing to convert two match points against Novak Djokovic in the final and missing a first serve into the tape that would probably have been an ace on the first of those match points.But it’s a different Wimbledon now after a two-year break that saw the 2020 edition canceled because of the pandemic. The players, accustomed to renting homes near the All England Club, are not allowed to stay in private accommodation this year. All are required to stay in a large hotel near the Thames River, a 45-minute drive from the tournament.“It does feel totally different than the last 20 years here,” said Federer, who is in London with his support team but not his family. “We would arrive with the family — kids would be running everywhere. We organized the grocery shopping, got the house set up and all that stuff.”He sounded wistful but not resentful. “I still feel it’s a big privilege that I’m actually able to play Wimbledon,” he said. “I’m happy I’m here. I’m not going to be complaining,”But it is, in his own words, “strange to arrive at the hotel.”It must be even stranger for Murray, whose home is in Surrey, not far from the All England Club. But even the British players must enter the bubble.“I know it’s not normal, but it feels somewhat normal now that we’re a couple days out from Wimbledon, with all the players around and stuff, practicing, everybody doing media stuff today,” Murray said. “Knowing that in a couple of days’ time we’ll be playing not in front of a full crowd but in front of a lot of people. Just to me anyway, it feels like we’re getting closer to more normality. I’m happy about that.”Murray and Federer have shared plenty of tense and emotional moments at the All England Club. In 2012, Murray broke down in tears at the ceremony after losing the singles final to Federer. A few weeks later, Murray was in a very different mood after winning the gold medal over Federer at the London Olympics, where the tennis event was played on the same iconic patch of grass.Though Federer trails his two biggest rivals — Djokovic and Rafael Nadal — in their head-to-head matchups, he still leads Murray 14-11. They played five times in 2012 but, in a sign of how much has changed, they have not played on tour since August 2015: Their only match since then was at a charity exhibition in Glasgow in November 2017, when Murray, who was born in Glasgow, donned a Tartan hat and Federer wore a kilt.Such lighthearted moments on court have been rare of late. They have played and won little in 2021. It has been a rough road, but the journey has been rougher for much longer on Murray, whose body broke down not long after his finest season in 2016, when he finished No. 1.Murray, now ranked 119, is not necessarily playing for more major titles. He is playing to practice his craft, use his talent and sink his teeth into competition — and is convinced he can still compete with the best if he can just stay healthy. Federer, still ranked 8th, is more focused on the trophies, which is partly why he withdrew after winning three rounds at the French Open earlier this month. He knew his chances of reaching the finish line were better at Wimbledon than at Roland Garros.But he lost early on grass in Halle, Germany, at his traditional Wimbledon warm-up tournament, looking disgruntled and off-target with the match on the line against the young Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime. Murray warmed up at Queen’s Club and was beaten in the second round by Matteo Berrettini, an Italian with a thunderous serve and forehand.Long ago, Murray and Federer had a rocky start to their relationship, with Murray, the younger player on the rise, taking exception to some of Federer’s post-match comments on his game. But there is genuine warmth between them at this late stage. They are both fathers of four with a taste for country life and a desire to serve the game. Murray has become the more outspoken, often carrying the banner for the women’s game as well as the men’s, but both are members of the ATP Player Council.On Friday, they trained together, occupying Court 14 with Centre Court looming nearby. It was, if their memories served, their first practice session together in more than 15 years.“I’m probably appreciating those things more,” Murray said. “When I take a step back from that, as a tennis fan, getting to play with Roger Federer two days before Wimbledon, it’s really great. I haven’t had the opportunity to do that sort of stuff much over the last few years. I enjoyed it.”So did Federer.“You can see how comfortable he is on the grass,” Federer said. “Clearly, it’s just practice. We’re trying things, but I hope he can go deep here, have a nice run. Same for me.” More
