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      Rafael Nadal Will Skip Wimbledon and Tokyo Olympics

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      The Spanish star said a short turnaround between the French Open and Wimbledon did not allow enough time for his body to recover.Rafael Nadal, a 20-time Grand Slam tournament winner, will not go for No. 21 at Wimbledon this year, he announced on Thursday. He also pulled out of the Olympics, and in doing so became the latest top athlete to suggest that compressed sports schedules after the pandemic were asking too much of their biggest stars.“Hi all, I have decided not to participate at this year’s Championships at Wimbledon and the Olympic Games in Tokyo,” he wrote in a series of posts on Twitter. “It’s never an easy decision to take but after listening to my body and discuss it with my team I understand that it is the right decision.”“The goal is to prolong my career and continue to do what makes me happy, that is to compete at the highest level and keep fighting for those professional and personal goals at the maximum level of competition.”The fact that there has only been 2 weeks between RG and Wimbledon, didn’t make it easier on my body to recuperate after the always demanding clay court season. They have been two months of great effort and the decision I take is focused looking at the mid and long term.— Rafa Nadal (@RafaelNadal) June 17, 2021
      His withdrawal came a day after the basketball star LeBron James blamed the N.B.A.’s compressed schedule for a string of injuries to some of its biggest names, and as coaches and medical experts in Europe were warning about the physical demands on players competing in the monthlong European Championship.Nadal has struggled with injuries during his career, and Wimbledon is played on grass, a surface that is not his favorite. (He has won there only twice, and now will have missed the event three times since 2009.) The Olympics in Tokyo will be played on hardcourts.Nadal most recently skipped last year’s U.S. Open in New York, citing concerns about the coronavirus.Nadal cited the short turnaround between the French Open and Wimbledon as the reason for his withdrawal, saying it would not give him enough time to recuperate.Nadal, 35, is coming off a memorable French Open semifinal against Novak Djokovic last week. In a bid to win the tournament for the 14th time, Nadal won the first set before eventually losing in four. Djokovic went on to win the tournament.Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer, 39, are locked in a battle to amass the most career Grand Slam singles titles. Nadal and Federer have 20 and Djokovic has 19. No other player has more than 14.Nadal has played in three previous Olympics, winning the singles gold medal in Beijing in 2008. In 2016, he carried the flag of Spain at the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro. More

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      For Novak Djokovic, Two Down and Two, Maybe Three, to Go

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      He has won the Australian and French Opens, but achieving a Grand Slam won’t be easy. He must successfully defend Wimbledon. Then there’s the U.S. Open. And don’t forget about the Olympics.PARIS — With his 19th career Grand Slam singles title in hand, Novak Djokovic is chasing more tennis milestones unreservedly.No complexes. No playing it cool.“I’ve achieved some things that a lot of people thought it would not be possible for me to achieve,” he said Sunday after winning his second French Open.The odds were stacked against him from the start of his journey. His family were ski racers, not tennis players, and lacked the means to finance his career without considerable sacrifice. He grew up in Serbia in a time of conflict, when Serbia was an international pariah and traveling outside the country was a challenge.He still left home — for the first time at age 12 — and found a path to the top of a brutally competitive global sport. Perhaps more remarkably, he has endured at the top.He first reached No. 1 on July 4, 2011. Nearly 10 years later, he is amid another extended reign at No. 1 and to watch him think on his feet (or fly through the air with his elastic limbs) is to observe a form of tennis genius. His game is not as smooth and artful as Roger Federer’s. His point-by-point tenacity is not as obvious as Rafael Nadal’s. But he is the complete package, with no weaknesses other than an intermittently shaky overhead. He has become the sport’s most steely-eyed competitor, and while watching him ward off danger and big deficits, it is easy to forget that he was once considered a player without staying power, prone to midmatch retirements.Now, he is the one in everybody else’s head, and that could be helpful as he pursues, at the same time, the men’s record for Grand Slam singles titles and a so-called Golden Slam.Djokovic with the French Open’s Coupe des Mousquetaires, his second Grand Slam trophy this year.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesAfter winning in Paris, he is just one major singles title behind Federer and Nadal’s 20. But the chase that will generate bigger buzz is Djokovic’s attempt at age 34 to win all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic singles gold medal in the same calendar year.“He is so amazingly great that it would not surprise me, but it’s a perfect game in progress, so it’s difficult to talk about,” said Brad Gilbert, the coach and ESPN analyst, using a baseball analogy.Steffi Graf is the only player to have completed a Golden Slam. But Djokovic now has a chance to make his own run after winning the Australian Open and the French Open this year.Wimbledon, which starts on June 28 in London, is the next target. The Olympics in Tokyo and the U.S. Open in New York will follow.“Everything is possible,” Djokovic said. “And I did put myself in a good position to go for the Golden Slam, but I was in this position in 2016, as well. It ended up in a third-round loss in Wimbledon.”That defeat was a shock. When Wimbledon began in 2016, Djokovic had won four straight majors, although not in the same calendar year, and had just won the French Open for the first time. But he ran into Sam Querrey in the third round at the All England Club. Querrey, a tall and big-serving American who thrives on grass, upset him in a match that lasted two days because of rain delays.“If Novak is not the best returner of all time, he’s on the very, very short list,” said Craig Boynton, Querrey’s coach at the time, in an interview on Monday. “But from the start of that match, he just couldn’t read Sam’s serve, and Sam was hitting line after line.”Querrey won the first set in a tiebreaker and then rolled through the second set before play was suspended because of darkness. As this year’s French Open proved once more, Djokovic is adept at using off-court breaks to change the flow of a match. Against Querrey, he did the same, returning after a night’s sleep to win the third set but then failed to serve out the fourth. Querrey rallied to finish him off. Djokovic then went into a tailspin from which he did not emerge until the spring of 2018.Djokovic after he defeated Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2019.Nic Bothma/EPA, via ShutterstockTennis remains a game of momentum. If Djokovic defended his 2019 title at Wimbledon — last year’s tournament was canceled — and lost at the Olympics, he would still have a chance at the Grand Slam heading into the U.S. Open. Only two men have achieved a Grand Slam in singles: Don Budge of the United States in 1938 and Rod Laver of Australia in 1962 and 1969.No man has come close since then, although Serena Williams came within two matches of achieving it in 2015 before being upset in the semifinals of the U.S. Open by Roberta Vinci.“It gets more and more interesting as it builds,” Boynton said of a Grand Slam. “You saw what happened with Serena. She’s human. We’re all human, and so is Novak. I would think he would be able to handle it, but you just never know. You never know what stumbling block is right around the corner. Novak is making it look easy right now, but I’m telling you, it’s just not that easy.”Djokovic actually has not made it look easy over the last two months. He lost early in Monte Carlo and at the first of two tournaments in Belgrade, then fought his way through two tough matches before losing to Nadal in the final of the Italian Open. After winning the second tournament in Belgrade against a low-grade field, he came to Paris feeling better about his game but still had to overcome two-set deficits twice at Roland Garros and also had to play one of the matches of his life to defeat Nadal in a four-set semifinal.Djokovic played a match of his life against Rafael Nadal in the French Open semifinal.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesThere was also the extended scream he let rip after his quarterfinal victory over Matteo Berrettini that spoke volumes about the state of his inner peace. But Djokovic can change his mood as quickly as he changes directions on a tennis court. He has learned how to turn a negative into a positive, imagining that when fans chant Federer’s or some other opponents’ name they are actually cheering “Novak.”On Sunday, in the final against Stefanos Tsitsipas, Djokovic had pockets of support but the majority of the 5,000 fans were pulling for the newcomer. Djokovic still prevailed, draining some of the suspense from his comeback from two sets down by going up a break early in all three of the final sets.Djokovic gave a child who had cheered and coached him a hug and his racket after the final at Roland Garros.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesWhen it was over, he went to the side of the court and spoke with a boy in the front row, embracing him and giving him the racket he had used to close out the victory. “He was in my ear the entire match basically, especially when I was two sets to love down,” Djokovic explained when I asked him about it. “He was actually giving me tactics, as well. He was like, ‘Hold your serve, get an easy first ball, then dictate, go to his backhand.’ He was coaching me literally. I found that very cute, very nice.”Leave it to Djokovic, an expert at blocking out the static and focusing on the essential, to hear one of the few voices in a big crowd wishing him well.That skill could come in handy as he chases history. More

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      Naomi Osaka Skips News Conference, Drawing Tennis Officials’ Ire

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      The heads of the Grand Slam events warned Osaka of escalating penalties, including default, if she continued to not “do press,” as she vowed she would not last week.PARIS — Naomi Osaka’s return to the French Open was triumphant as she won her first-round match over Patricia Maria Tig on Sunday in straight sets. But Osaka did not emerge unscathed from the tournament’s opening day.She was fined $15,000 by Rémy Azémar, the French Open tournament referee, for declining to appear at a mandatory postmatch news conference and warned that she risked stronger penalties, including default from the tournament, if she continued not to fulfill her media obligations.That surprisingly stern warning was delivered in a statement signed by the leaders of the four Grand Slam tournaments: Gilles Moretton, the new president of the French Tennis Federation; Mike McNulty, the new head of the United States Tennis Association; Jayne Hrdlicka, the head of Tennis Australia; and Ian Hewitt, chairman of the All England Club, which runs Wimbledon.The Grand Slam events’ leaders also emphasized that repeat violations by Osaka could lead to “more substantial fines and future Grand Slam suspensions.”Osaka, a four-time major singles champion who is one of the sport’s biggest stars, is now faced with a choice. Before the French Open began, she announced that she would not do “any press” during the tournament, citing the need to preserve her “mental health” by avoiding repetitive and potentially negative questions from journalists.But if the intent was to limit distractions and find inner calm, she now faces a potentially bigger concern in Paris if she continues to abstain from news conferences.“It’s developed into a power struggle,” said Chris Evert, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion who is covering the French Open as an analyst for Eurosport. “Press conferences are crucial to Grand Slams to get the players’ perspective of their match, and it’s a collective responsibility for players to continue to grow the sport. I think we’ve lost sight of the early days, the ’70s, when there was no women’s tour, and that generation talked endlessly to the press to promote the sport and themselves. The players today are making a tremendous amount of money, and there are trade-offs.”The Grand Slam leaders expressed frustration with Osaka’s lack of engagement with tennis officials, explaining in their statement that the French Open management team had “tried unsuccessfully to speak with her to check on her well-being, understand the specifics of her issue and what might be done to address it on site.”The Grand Slam leaders said they had written jointly to Osaka to remind her of her obligations and of the consequences she faced for not complying with the rules. The leaders also emphasized the importance of equal treatment.“We want to underline that rules are in place to ensure all players are treated exactly the same, no matter their stature, beliefs or achievement,” the statement said. “As a sport there is nothing more important than ensuring no player has an unfair advantage over another, which unfortunately is the case in this situation if one player refuses to dedicate time to participate in media commitments while the others all honour their commitments.”Leading players such as Andre Agassi, Novak Djokovic and Venus and Serena Williams have skipped news conferences after defeats and been fined. But this is the first instance of a top player making it clear in advance that she did not intend to speak with the news media during a Grand Slam tournament.Osaka, who is based in the United States and represents Japan, is the world’s highest-paid female athlete, with the bulk of her earnings coming from sponsorships. She has raised her profile not simply by winning major titles but by advocating social justice; she wore masks that honored Black victims of violence, including police violence, after matches at last year’s United States Open.Fabrice Santoro, an on-court interviewer at the French Open, asked to talk to Osaka after she won her first-round match on Sunday.Julian Finney/Getty Images“Naomi certainly makes us think and examine the status quo,” Evert said on Sunday. “I respect Naomi and what she’s done for social issues and for the game but everyone needs to communicate and come up with a solution.”Tennis leaders followed Osaka’s lead last August when she withdrew from the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open to protest racial injustice, tournament organizers called off all play that day in a show of solidarity. She played her semifinal, but there is clearly less consensus this time, suggesting that Osaka may have misread the room. The Grand Slam tournaments even brandished the possibility of a “major offense” investigation if she continued to break the rules, which could lead to further fines or suspension from future Grand Slam tournaments. The grounds for such sanctions would be the rule that defines a major offense as “a series of two or more” violations of the code of conduct within a 12-month period, which “when viewed together establish a pattern of conduct that is collectively egregious and is detrimental or injurious to the Grand Slam tournaments.”Repeatedly skipping news conferences could be considered a pattern of conduct. Evert said tennis leaders and Osaka should meet and work through the issues before “this blows up anymore.”Osaka has had, in general, a positive relationship with the news media. But in her announcement on social media ahead of the French Open, she said, “I have often felt that people have no regard for athletes mental health, and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one.” She focused in particular on players being required to speak after defeats.Osaka, whose decision caught some members of her own support team by surprise, did not say whether she was experiencing a specific mental-health issue, but she made it clear in her social media posts that she felt strongly about taking a stand. “If the organizations think that they can just keep saying, ‘do press or you’re gonna be fined’ and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh.”The Grand Slam leadership said on Sunday that players’ mental health was “of the utmost importance to the Grand Slams.”“We individually and collectively have significant resources dedicated to player well-being,” the statement said. “In order to continue to improve, however, we need engagement from the players to understand their perspective and find ways to improve their experiences.No leading player has yet expressed publicly a desire to follow Osaka’s lead by skipping news conferences. The main draws of the previous generation — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Djokovic and Serena Williams — have regularly answered questions after each match despite becoming global stars.There is concern among tennis leaders that Osaka could set a precedent at a time when social media has given stars a broad platform to reach the public directly. But the Grand Slam leaders emphasized that the news media still played an important role.“A core element of the Grand Slam regulations is the responsibility of the players to engage with the media, whatever the result of their match, a responsibility which players take for the benefit of the sport, the fans and for themselves,” their statement said. “These interactions allow both the players and the media to share their perspective and for the players to tell their story. The facilitation of media to a broad array of channels, both traditional and digital, is a major contributor to the development and growth of our sport and the fan base of individual players.”Osaka’s next match is on Wednesday against Ana Bogdan of Romania.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesOsaka was not silent after her 6-4, 7-6 (4) victory over Tig on the main Philippe Chatrier Court on Sunday. She answered three questions from the on-court interviewer, Fabrice Santoro, after the match and a few more queries on her way off the court from Wowow, the Japanese broadcaster with whom she is under contract.But she declined all other television requests and skipped the news conference. After earning more than $55 million in the last year, she can afford the $15,000 fine and other fines that might come her way. The bigger question is whether she wants to risk jeopardizing her participation in the French Open. She has struggled on clay and never advanced past the third round in Paris, but the tournament remains one of the pillars of the sport.The next chance to escalate or defuse the tension comes in the second round on Wednesday against Ana Bogdan of Romania. More

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      At the French Open, Djokovic, Federer and Nadal All Aim to Win

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      Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer are all playing for history, and are almost guaranteed to meet on the way to the men’s final at Roland Garros.PARIS — One of them focuses on numbers, hoping they will produce the validation he has always craved.Another one has come to play on the court that turns him into an apotheosis of his sport, and to protect this place as his personal kingdom.The third yearns for whatever there is left, and prepares for what comes next.The Big Three on the men’s side of tennis — Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer — are playing in a Grand Slam for the first time in 18 months. Through a quirk in the sport’s seeding system, they are all in the same half of the draw. Djokovic could face Federer in a quarterfinal and Nadal in a semifinal. They are not getting any younger. Djokovic and Nadal are 34 and Federer, at 39, is sputtering through his comeback from knee surgery. There may only be a few more slams like this one.For years, they have been blessed with ethereal tennis gifts, so formidable for so long that opponents can feel that they are down a set even before the first point is played. It has been hard for slighter players to imagine beating them, let alone actually doing so.They still love to compete, really love to win (though Federer has won just once all year), and embrace the global celebrity that comes with being a tennis superstar. Any debate about who will end his career with the most Grand Slam singles titles and have a rightful claim to being the greatest quickly becomes reductive.They diverge dramatically, however, when the conversation shifts to what drives each of them to continue playing long after they have made hundreds of millions of dollars and solidified their reputations for history. And these thirtysomethings are well past the sell-by date of the great players of every era that preceded them.Nadal at practice on Friday.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesBut at this singular moment in their careers, with Federer and Nadal tied at 20 Grand Slam wins and Djokovic close behind with 18, only Djokovic is so intently focused on the numbers. Djokovic, who just celebrated his 34th birthday and in the eyes of most experts is the most likely to finish on top, leaves no doubt that the chase for scoreboard supremacy motivates him.“Whether I think about winning more slams and breaking records, of course, of course, I do,” Djokovic said in February, after beating Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open final. “And most of my attention and my energy from this day forward, until I retire from tennis, is going to be directed in majors, trying to win more major trophies.”That sounded a lot different from Nadal when he spoke about his own motivations earlier that week. Nadal allowed that, yes, he wanted to win Grand Slams. The 13-time French Open champion is always the favorite here on the red clay, but not anywhere else, which may be part of the reason he said that winning more slams than his rivals is not so important. Too much ambition, he said, can leave you frustrated when things don’t go your way.“For me the main thing is to come back home with personal satisfaction that you gave it everything,” he said. “That’s what gives me happiness and makes me stay calm.”The Grand Slam season of tennis takes a long break between the end of the Australian Open and the start of the French Open, which begins Sunday. The break felt even longer this year, as the Big Three skipped a series of major tournaments to nurse injuries or avoid international travel during the pandemic.That left time for the verbal dance that Nadal, Djokovic and Federer engaged in about chasing records and legacies and what it means to outdo the others.In March, Djokovic broke Federer’s record for the most weeks at the top of the world rankings — a ridiculous 311. He then announced that having that mark in the bag gave him the freedom to reduce his schedule and focus on peaking for the Grand Slams, even if it meant losing opportunities to earn rankings points and maintain his perch as the world No. 1.Days later, Federer returned to competitive tennis after more than a year of recovering from knee surgeries. Ahead of his return, he essentially took himself out of any competitive conversation with Nadal and Djokovic, explaining that his obsession had been breaking Pete Sampras’s old record of 14 Grand Slam titles, which he did in 2009.A few spectators watched Federer practice against Aslan Karatsev.Pete Kiehart for The New York Times“The guys are unreal,” he said of Djokovic and Nadal. “I hope they can do everything they possibly want and that they look back with no regret. We want to leave the game with no regrets and I think, from that standpoint, we all sleep very well at night.”He said his goal was to be at his best for Wimbledon in June, and to get that rush of playing for something important, in front of fans, against the best players in the world.Then things began to get interesting.In April, during a promotional interview for a beer sponsor, Nadal said Djokovic was “obsessed” with winning more Grand Slam titles than his rivals.“It means a lot to him, all of this stuff, like he’s always saying and talking about these records,” Nadal said. “It’s not my approach to my tennis career.”He insisted that he did not mean it in a negative way, and yet.Days later, as Djokovic prepared to play the Belgrade Open, he rejected the characterization.“I never found it hard to say: ‘I want to break that record or reach a certain goal,’” he said.Whether playing it cool or caring too much, all will be focused on the same thing over the next 14 weeks, competing on red clay at Roland Garros, the grass at Wimbledon, and the hard courts at the United States Open.For years, Djokovic has been a hero to his homeland and the Serbian diaspora, but, rightly or wrongly, something of a party-crasher to what was once an elite two-way rivalry between Federer and Nadal, and even an occasional tennis villain. Fans are more often against him rather than with him, especially when he plays Nadal or Federer. In the last year alone he defied health safety protocols and put on a tennis exhibition that became a coronavirus superspreader event, and accidentally swatted a ball into the throat of a line judge, earning a disqualification from the U.S. Open.Nearly two decades into his professional career, no one expects him to capture the almost universal adoration Nadal and Federer enjoy, but if he wins more than they do, it will be hard to argue that he is lesser of the three.He is the only one who has a winning record against the other two, though Nadal inched to within one match, 29-28, when he beat Djokovic two weeks ago in a tight match, 7-5, 1-6, 6-3, in the final of the Italian Open.Nadal shakes hands with Djokovic after winning the Italian Open.Guglielmo Mangiapane/ReutersOnce again, the arena in the park just west of the Eiffel Tower will become their battleground. As they prepared for Paris, each kept true to form.On May 18, Federer suffered a tough loss to Pablo Andujar of Spain, ranked No. 75 in the world, in his first match at the Geneva Open. He tried to lower expectations, pointing toward Wimbledon, where he has won eight times, and will remain a deity, even if he does not win again.“Roland Garros is not the goal,” he said. “The goal is the grass.”Nadal continued to focus on his process and his effort because winning is less predictable. After dispatching Djokovic in Rome, Nadal spoke of bringing passion and effort to the court for each match. In Paris, on Friday, he was focused on his opening round opponent, the young Australian Alexei Popyrin, rather than his statue that tournament organizers had unveiled. “Every round is tough,” he said.Then there was Djokovic, talking big, hunting for another trophy, then quickly hedging, trying not to sound too obsessed.“I think I have a good chance to go all the way in Paris,” he said. Then, realizing just what that meant, he added, “Of course, it’s a long shot.” More

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      Roger Federer Takes an Uncertain Step in His Comeback

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      Losing in his first match since March 11 to the 75th-ranked Pablo Andújar, Federer appeared fit but rusty. Most troubling was the fact that he admitted to lacking confidence.The last time Roger Federer played in Geneva, 80,000 fans cheered him on at work over three days, filling the Palexpo Arena to the brim as he led Team Europe to victory in the Laver Cup.That was in September 2019.On Tuesday, only 100 fans were in attendance at the cozy Tennis Club de Genève as Federer faced off against Pablo Andújar.So much is different now as the world and the tennis tour continue to grapple with the pandemic, and as Federer, 39, is coming off his latest long layoff.This was his first match since March 11 and only his second tournament since February 2020. The rust showed at times, with mis-hits and missed first serves under duress, but Federer also flicked a fabulous forehand passing shot to break serve and zipped through his service games for much of the second and third sets.Until Tuesday Andújar, a 35-year-old Spanish veteran, had never faced Federer, but with the match on the line, he was the more precise and reliable player. Andújar swept the last four games on the red clay to win, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, in the round of 16 at the Geneva Open.“He deserved it because he was more stable than me,” Federer said.At the start and down the stretch, Federer was too often on the defensive, too often reactive instead of proactive.“Roger looked healthy, fit, and moved fine for his first match on clay,” said Darren Cahill, the veteran coach and ESPN analyst. “He just looked very rusty against a guy who knows his way around a clay court really well.”Andújar also knows as much about comebacks as Federer does at this stage. Andújar has worked his way back from multiple elbow surgeries, just as Federer, once remarkably injury-free, has had to work his way back from three knee surgeries — the first in 2016 and two more in 2020.He came back in 2017 to win three more majors and regain the No. 1 ranking, but another renaissance is far from guaranteed.“I think this is way different from four years ago, and 35 is way different than closing in on 40,” said Paul Annacone, Federer’s former coach.Federer has endured long enough to see his most prestigious records matched or broken. During his layoff from February 2020 to March 2021, Rafael Nadal equaled him by winning a 20th Grand Slam singles title, and Novak Djokovic surpassed him by holding the No. 1 spot for a 311th week.Federer has also endured long enough to see new talent emerge in his homeland. Dominic Stricker, a Swiss 18-year-old who won the French Open junior title last year, made his ATP Tour debut on Tuesday in Geneva and upset Marin Cilic, the 2014 United States Open champion.Federer, who has trained with and mentored Stricker in Dubai, could not follow Stricker’s lead, even though Andújar is ranked 75th in the world, had not beaten a top-10 player in six years and had lost in the first round in four of his last five tournaments.Federer, ranked eighth, had Andújar on the ropes and let him escape, playing a shaky service game at 4-3 in the third and then dropping his serve again at 4-5 after saving two match points.Federer said after the match that he had lacked confidence in his ability to close out a win.Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe fourth point of the final game was telling. He hit a strong, high-kicking serve that earned a short return. The court was wide open, but Federer slapped a tight, midcourt forehand into the net, and later he missed two more whipping forehands off deep shots on the final two points.“I started really hitting through my shots for a while, but at the same time I told myself that it was going to be difficult to keep that up for two sets,” Federer said. “And that’s down to a lack of confidence. I couldn’t say to myself, ‘Yes, you’re going to close out this match.’”Even for all-time greats, confidence is essential and ephemeral. Federer looked slightly apologetic as he shook hands and exchanged post-match pleasantries with Andújar. He had not expected to be in top form this week, but he had hoped to play more than one match on home clay. Only 100 spectators were allowed on site, but a few more than that were watching in person. Some Swiss fans had managed to sneak into the woods next to the club.But this was not vintage Federer they were watching through the trees, and for all his tennis genius, it is no sure thing that a vintage Federer will reappear.What is clear is that the French Open, which begins on the red clay in Paris on May 30, is not his main goal. The big target is Wimbledon, which begins on June 28 at the All England Club, the grassy tennis temple where he has won eight titles and where he held two match points in the 2019 final before losing to Novak Djokovic.“I think Paris is going to be really challenging for him,” Annacone said. “But if the body sustains itself and maintains good health and he gets enough reps, Roger’s not going to go into the grass season not thinking he can win Wimbledon. He’ll say all the right stuff, but in his heart of hearts, he knows he can win that tournament. But the less dominant you are, the more that aura of invincibility starts to dissipate just a tad, and it only needs to dissipate a tad to make a difference. The locker room antenna is up.”It is not up just for Federer. Tuesday was a tough day on clay all around for 39-year-old tennis legends. Serena Williams, returning to action this month after not playing since February, struggled in Parma, Italy, at the same time Federer was struggling in Geneva.Williams lost, 7-6 (4), 6-2, in the second round to the 68th-ranked Katerina Siniakova, double-faulting at key moments and dropping 16 of the last 18 points.It was striking to see two of the planet’s main attractions performing in such small venues: Think Bruce Springsteen or Lady Gaga playing your local bar. But Federer and Williams, so often in sync, are serious about working their way back one more time against the odds and the ticking clock.“The expectations for both of them are so rough,” Annacone said. “As soon as there’s a loss, there are all these sweeping conclusions. They are at the peril of their own brand, so to speak. They can definitely still be great, but I’ll be interested to see if they can stay great for a whole match, a whole tournament.” More

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      French Open Is Delayed a Week

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      The tournament will begin May 30, about two weeks after France is expected to ease its current national lockdown.The French Open has been postponed by one week and will be played from May 30 to June 13, the second year in a row it has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.France, which has faced a third wave of coronavirus infections, on Saturday entered a new nationwide lockdown that could last for more than a month. Nonessential shops and schools have been shut, and the authorities have maintained a nighttime curfew that has been in place for months.Organizers said on Thursday that they hoped the new dates would allow spectators to attend in a safe way and give the public health situation more time to improve. The lockdown is expected to lift in mid-May, giving tournament officials about two weeks to prepare for the Grand Slam event.“Every week is important and can make a difference,” the French Open organizers said in a statement.The two-week tournament in Paris, one of the sport’s four Grand Slam events, was supposed to begin on May 23 and run through June 6. It will now start on May 30 and finish on June 13, only two weeks before the start on June 28 of Wimbledon, which will not be delayed.The president of the French tennis federation, Gilles Moretton, also suggested fans would be able to attend the event. The delay, Moretton said, “will give the health situation more time to improve and should optimize our chances of welcoming spectators at Roland Garros.”“For the fans, the players and the atmosphere,” he added, “the presence of spectators is vital for our tournament.”The plan — an agreement with both government officials and international tennis leaders — means that for a second consecutive year the competition will not take place as scheduled. And while Wimbledon will keep to its schedule, the change in France probably will cause some shuffling of the series of grass-court tournaments that precede it.Last spring, organizers shifted the start of the French Open to late September, believing that the pandemic that ravaged western Europe in the first months of 2020 would recede over the summer. The move, made with little consultation with organizers of other tennis events, caught the sport off guard.It also ultimately helped cause several top European players, including the former world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, to skip the United States Open, which took place in early September. Players had little time to recover from a Grand Slam event played on a hardcourt and prepare for one on clay. The move paid off for Nadal, who won a record 13th French Open men’s singles title in October. Organizers limited crowds to just 1,000 spectators each day.For months, as infection rates in France have remained stubbornly high and as the European Union has struggled to distribute coronavirus vaccines, organizers of the French Open have been studying situations for once again holding the signature event in front of smaller crowds. Last week, however, President Emmanuel Macron of France enacted a third national lockdown as the rate of coronavirus infections continued to escalate, imperiling the tournament.Afterward, Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Tennis Federation, said if France’s citizens were still under restrictions next month the organization might have to consider canceling the event.“If we are told a general confinement for two months, we will necessarily have to take measures — at worst, complete cancellation, but I dare not imagine that,” Moretton told Agence France-Presse.Before the new lockdown, Macron had tried to keep France open, hoping that increasing vaccinations would help slow the spread of the virus. Instead, with the country’s death toll from Covid-19 approaching 100,000, he closed all but the most essential businesses, limited citizens to a six-mile radius from their homes, prohibited travel between regions and set a curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Professional sports are still allowed to take place, but without spectators.Rafael Nadal won his record 13th French Open men’s singles title in 2020. The tournament was played in the fall instead of its traditional spring dates.Julien De Rosa/EPA, via ShutterstockMacron has said he hopes to reopen the country by mid-May, which would leave mere days for organizers to prepare for the arrival of hundreds of players from dozens of countries, though many of them would presumably be coming from Italy after having played the Italian Open.Touring tennis players have been living for months in a series of bubblelike settings that each tournament has created with the goal of keeping players and the local populace from transmitting the virus.At the year’s first Grand Slam event, in Australia, which has all but eliminated community spread of the virus, organizers forced players arriving from overseas into a limited quarantine for two weeks before they could mix with the rest of the population, and dozens of them ended up in a hard two-week quarantine, after multiple people tested positive upon arrival.The restrictions have begun to wear on players, who are unable to travel with their usual support teams and family members and must limit their movements to their hotels and the tennis venues.“I understand the reasons for it, but from a physical and mental health perspective I don’t know if it is sustainable,” Danielle Collins, a top American player, said last week after her exit from the Miami Open. “It can be very challenging.” More