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      Novak Djokovic Defeats Cameron Norrie to Get to Wimbledon Final

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      Kyrgios is playing in his first Grand Slam singles final, and Djokovic may be playing in his last until next year’s French Open.WIMBLEDON, England — In the last year, Novak Djokovic has experienced the highest of tennis highs, coming within one match of winning a rare calendar-year Grand Slam and the lowest of lows, including detainment and deportation after he arrived in Melbourne in January to try to defend his Australian Open title.On Sunday, he will get a chance to win a seventh Wimbledon singles title against an opponent, Nick Kyrgios of Australia, that few, including Kyrgios himself, thought would ever find the mental strength required to arrive at the biggest stage in the sport.Djokovic earned his spot in the final with a four-set win over Cameron Norrie of Britain on Friday afternoon, overcoming some early-match inconsistency that is becoming a bit of a habit. He withstood both a strong start from Norrie and a raucous hometown crowd on Centre Court to win the semifinal, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.It was the only men’s semifinal played Friday.On Thursday, Rafael Nadal withdrew from the tournament with a tear in his abdominal muscle. Nadal’s decision not to play after he aggravated the tear in his five-set, quarterfinal victory over Taylor Fritz, allowed Kyrgios to advance without effort into his first Grand Slam singles final. It also ended the hope for a coveted showdown between Djokovic and Nadal, who have won a combined 42 Grand Slam titles but have played each other for the trophy at Wimbledon only once, in 2011. Djokovic won.What the matchup with Kyrgios in the final might lack in terms of historical value — no one, not even Kyrgios, expects him to evolve, at 27, into an all-time great — it may well make up for with drama. It is a duel between two players that many in and around the sport view as villains.Djokovic’s impetuous and contrarian behavior, especially compared with his chief rivals, the gentlemanly Nadal and Roger Federer, has long made him more feared than loved, a crasher of the binary tennis rivalry that Federer and Nadal first created more than 15 years ago.Kyrgios, a temperamental and explosive talent who has spent his career battling the tennis establishment and his own demons, is an uncontrollable and disruptive force who has put himself in the heat of the Wimbledon spotlight since the first days of this tournament.He can explode at any moment, and he has repeatedly in the past two weeks, at chair umpires, opponents, fans or anyone he views as treating him unjustly. Sometimes it is genuine, other times it is merely to shake up and distract his opponent. He has earned $14,000 in fines this tournament but has played to packed stadiums, with fans lusting for his booming serve, or the occasional underhanded one, and his through-the-legs trick shots.On Tuesday, news broke that Kyrgios was due in court on Aug. 2 to face allegations of assaulting a former girlfriend. Chiara Passari told police Kyrgios grabbed her during a domestic dispute in December. On the advice of his lawyers, Kyrgios has declined to comment on the allegations.“There’s going to be a lot of fireworks emotionally,” said Djokovic, a favorite in the match even though he has never beaten or even won a set against Kyrgios.Djokovic and Kyrgios have not played since 2017, and they have never played in a Grand Slam event. But the two sparred verbally at the Australian Open in 2021, a tournament that took place during the height of the pandemic.Djokovic criticized tournament organizers for the restrictions they placed on players arriving in Australia for the tournament. Most players were under a limited two-week quarantine, but many ended up confined to their rooms for 14 days after a handful of people on their special flights into the country tested positive for Covid-19.Kyrgios had remained in Australia for most of the first year of the pandemic, dedicating time to delivering food and other supplies to people who struggled to get them during the country’s strict lockdowns. Djokovic, who has refused to get vaccinated, has been skeptical of the public health community’s management of the pandemic.Long before officials began to give the green light to public gatherings, he staged a tennis exhibition that turned into a superspreader event. Then, shortly after arriving in Australia, he criticized the rules.“Djokovic is a tool,” Kyrgios wrote on Twitter.Djokovic then said in a news conference that he respected Kyrgios’s tennis talents but had no respect for him off the court.Kyrgios hit back, saying he could not take Djokovic’s criticism seriously, given Djokovic’s behavior.“He’s a very strange cat, Novak is,” he said. “A heck of a tennis player but unfortunately someone who’s partying with his shirt off during a global pandemic, I don’t know if I can take any slack from that man.”They have since reached a détente of sorts. It began earlier this year, when Kyrgios spoke up on Djokovic’s behalf after Djokovic was detained in Australia during the controversy over his vaccination status, which ultimately led to his deportation.Kyrgios even described it Friday as a kind of “bromance.” Djokovic would not go that far.“I think everyone knows there was no love lost for a while there,” Kyrgios said. “I think it was healthy for the sport. I think every time we played each other, there was hype around it.”Djokovic said relations were far better than they had been.“When it was really tough for me in Australia, he was one of the very few players that came out publicly and supported me and stood by me,” he said. “That’s something I truly appreciate.”Djokovic remains unvaccinated, and unless the United States and Australia change their rules, Sunday’s final may be his last Grand Slam match for nearly 11 months, and he does not expect it to be easy.“He plays lights-out every time he steps out onto the court,” Djokovic said of Kyrgios. “Just a lot of power in his serve and his game. So I’m sure he’s going to go for it.”Djokovic struggled to go for it initially Friday on a sun-splashed, 80-degree day that meteorologists in London were calling a heat wave. Norrie, a steady, never-say-die lefty, was the better player early and into the first games of the second set, going toe-to-toe and trying to out-rally the best rallier in the world.Djokovic struggled with his serve and to find his trademark precision on his groundstrokes. He also doesn’t much care for playing in the heat. Midway through the first set, with Norrie pushing ahead, Djokovic settled into his chair and draped a towel over his head as the packed Centre Court crowd roared for a countryman with a home just up the road.Norrie, who lives so close to the All England Club that he cycled to the grounds earlier in the tournament, smacked an ace to win the set, pumped his fist and basked in the sound. In addition to the crowd inside the stadium, there were thousands more picnicking and downing beers and Pimm’s on Henman Hill as they watched the match on a big screen.But Djokovic is so good at taking an opponent’s best — and the chiding of a crowd — and biding his time for an opening to appear. He did so when he dropped a set in the fourth round to the hot, Dutch unknown, Tim van Rijthoven, and in the quarterfinals when he dropped the first two sets to Jannik Sinner of Italy, one of the world’s great young players.Djokovic put a baseball cap on to protect himself from the heat of the sun, and midway through the set he stopped giving free points to Norrie. Suddenly, Norrie found himself fighting off break points every time he served. In the eighth game of the set, Norrie sent a forehand long to give Djokovic a 5-3 lead. Djokovic turned to his box and clinched his fist, as if to say, “Don’t worry, I got this.”There was never any doubt. Djokovic sprinted through the third set as Norrie’s game slipped, and he grabbed an early service break in the fourth. Norrie battled to keep it close, but ultimately that was all he could do. A small victory but not the one he wanted.On the final point, Djokovic, who has played 68 Grand Slam tournaments and made the finals 32 times, crushed a serve down the middle, then turned to bait a fan who had yelled to try to disrupt his last stroke. He later claimed with a smile that he was blowing kisses to one that had supported him.Now he faces Kyrgios, a player he said he and others had long seen as among the most dangerous in the world if he could ever get control of his emotions and be committed to the sport, which he has, at least for now.“For the quality player that he is,” Djokovic said of Kyrgios, “this is where he needs to be, and he deserves to be.” More

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      For Sunday’s Wimbledon Final, ‘Fireworks’ and a Contrast in Style

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      Despite their previously contentious relationship, Nick Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic have developed “a bit of a bromance,” Kyrgios said. They meet for the Wimbledon men’s singles title on Sunday.WIMBLEDON, England — With the Wimbledon title at stake, it will be the maximizer versus the man who seemingly makes it up as he goes along.Both Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios were identified early as players of surpassing talent and great potential. But while Djokovic, long the No. 1 player in the world, has turned over stones and sifted through the gravel in his restless quest for enduring excellence, Kyrgios has struggled to find the motivation, equanimity and clarity of purpose to challenge for the game’s biggest prizes.But on Sunday, they will share, however briefly, the same objective as they clash — the verb seems just right — on the grass of the All England Club.“Well, one thing is for sure, there are going to be a lot of fireworks emotionally from both guys,” Djokovic said on Friday.This final, the capstone to one of the weirdest of Wimbledons, will be a contrast in styles.Kyrgios, with his huge and hard-to-read serve, can undoubtedly bring the heat. Djokovic, the premier returner in the game, is an expert at extinguishing such flames.Kyrgios can make any shot look spectacular, turning routine strokes into between-the-legs performance art. Djokovic has long been underappreciated because he can make an excruciatingly difficult shot look routine and smooth.But the starker contrast is in their résumés. This will be Djokovic’s 32nd appearance in a Grand Slam singles final, breaking his tie for the men’s record with his longtime rival Roger Federer.It will be Kyrgios’s first, which he said was a big reason he had a nearly sleepless night on Thursday after Rafael Nadal, his would-be opponent, withdrew from the tournament with an abdominal tear. That allowed Kyrgios to skip the semifinal phase altogether on a journey to uncharted territory for him.Kyrgios beat Djokovic in their two previous matches.Ryan Pierse/Getty Images“I was just restless, so many thoughts in my head about a Wimbledon final; that’s all I was thinking about,” Kyrgios said, estimating that he got just one hour of sleep. “That’s where Djokovic has the advantage from the get-go. He can draw from experience. He’s done it so many more times. He knows the emotions he’s going to be feeling. I don’t know that. I don’t know anything like that.”Kyrgios does know what it is like to defeat Djokovic, however. They faced off twice in 2017 in back-to-back tournaments on hard courts, and Kyrgios, serve and big game clicking, won both matches without dropping a set: He prevailed, 7-6 (9), 7-5, in the quarterfinals in Acapulco, Mexico, and won, 6-4, 7-6 (3), in the round of 16 in Indian Wells, Calif.Djokovic was in a slump at that time, falling back because of an elbow injury and personal problems after a long period of dominance. Kyrgios was just 21 and seemingly on an upward trajectory.But the past five years have been full of surprises, and while Djokovic, 35, recovered his mojo and resumed piling up major titles before his vaccination standoff in Melbourne, Kyrgios continued to bedevil his elders on court, including chair umpires. Yet he has failed to get past even the quarterfinals in a Grand Slam singles draw until now.He has faced, by his own account, mental health challenges, including self-harm, suicidal thoughts and abuse of alcohol and drugs. But his upside was never in doubt for the champions who had faced him.“I think, between us players, we always know how dangerous he is, on grass particularly, because of his game, because of his attitude on the court being so confident, just going for it, being a very complete player,” Djokovic said.Djokovic joked that he would start by trying to win a set, and said that he was well aware that this final, despite the yawning gap in achievement, had the potential to be something spectacular.“Honestly, as a tennis fan, I’m glad that he’s in the finals, because he’s got so much talent,” Djokovic said. “Everyone was praising him when he came on the tour, expecting great things from him. Of course, then we know what was happening throughout many years with him mentally, emotionally. On and off the court, a lot of different things were distracting him, and he was not being able to get this consistency.”Djokovic then finished the thought on a welcoming note.“For the quality player that he is, this is where he needs to be and he deserves to be,” he said.The Djokovic-Kyrgios relationship was once publicly tense, but it sounded more like a mutual-admiration society on Friday, and Djokovic made it clear that he appreciated that Kyrgios, an Australian, offered him support in January when he was deported from Australia before the Australian Open. He had arrived in Melbourne convinced that he would be given a waiver to enter because he had recently recovered from the coronavirus — even though he hadn’t been vaccinated.“We definitely have a bit of a bromance now, which is weird,” Kyrgios said. “I think everyone knows there was no love lost for a while there.”Though Djokovic was not quite prepared to second the bromance, Kyrgios said they had begun exchanging Instagram direct messages. “Earlier in the week, he was like, ‘Hopefully, I’ll see you Sunday,’” Kyrgios said.So it has turned out, but win or lose, Kyrgios’s ranking will not reflect the breakthrough. Kyrgios arrived at Wimbledon ranked 40th in the world, and his ranking will actually drop next week because of the ATP Tour’s decision to strip Wimbledon of ranking points this year in response to the tournament’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.On Monday, the points from last year’s Wimbledon will also fall off players’ rankings, dropping Kyrgios to about 45. Djokovic, who has won 27 straight matches at Wimbledon and is on the verge of a fourth straight title here, will also drop back: from No. 3 to No. 7.It is unprecedented and, frankly, unjust. Though the men’s and women’s tours made their move to mark their territory and try to discourage future bans over political issues, the point stripping has clearly been more of a short-term hit to the players than to Wimbledon, which has been bustling with full crowds after a lighter-than-usual first few days and has continued to generate global buzz. (Kyrgios vs. Djokovic won’t hurt there.)But it also has been a Wimbledon full of odd twists and big letdowns, with three leading men’s players, including Matteo Berrettini, withdrawing after testing positive for the coronavirus, and with Nadal unable to play his semifinal against Kyrgios and continue his quest for the calendar-year Grand Slam. One of the twists: Elena Rybakina, born and raised in Russia and often still training there, is in the women’s final and now representing Kazakhstan. Even the British government was unable to finish the tournament, with British ministers resigning en masse before Prime Minister Boris Johnson took the hint.Djokovic did have to play his semifinal, however, and the suspense did not last much more than a set and a half on Friday before he found his flow against Cameron Norrie of Britain and accelerated to the finish with a victory, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.It was, as it so often is with Djokovic involved, two against one: Norrie and a partisan Centre Court crowd versus Djokovic.It was loud, often thunderously loud, in the early stages as Norrie took the lead, but it is much less clear which way the crowd will blow on Sunday. Kyrgios’s often-confrontational approach and foul-mouthed dialogues (and monologues) run counter to the codes that are typically embraced at the All England Club, whose crowd trends older, particularly on Centre Court.Kyrgios, who leads the tournament in fines, is also facing legal trouble, having been summoned to appear in court in Australia on Aug. 2 in relation to an assault allegation from his former girlfriend. He has declined to address the allegations at Wimbledon, and on Friday, when his name was mentioned in Djokovic’s on-court interview, there was a brief flurry of cheers followed by a much louder round of boos.“I believe that the crowd are going to support Novak in the final,” said Mark Petchey, a British coach, television analyst and former player. “It will be interesting to see how that affects Novak, who is so used to being the underdog.”Sunday’s duel will be interesting indeed and just maybe transcendent. Kyrgios, after three full days of waiting, could either rise to the most significant opportunity of his career or fall flat after too many restless nights of anticipation.“It’s definitely a shock to the system because I’ve been playing so many matches,” he said of his unexpected break.But it certainly appears that Kyrgios has a game and a temperament made for the sport’s biggest occasions. We already know that Djokovic does. More

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      Despite a Wimbledon Ban on Russian Players, a Russian Woman Might Win

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      Elena Rybakina was born and raised in Russia but started representing Kazakhstan after the Russian Tennis Federation gave up on her. Does she see herself as Russian? “It’s a tough question.”WIMBLEDON, England — After all the debate over whether to bar Russian and Belarusian players from Wimbledon, and under pressure from the British government, the women’s singles title may be won on Saturday by a player born in Russia after all.Elena Rybakina is the 23rd-ranked player in the world, and before this week she had never advanced past the quarterfinal of a Grand Slam tournament. She is tall (6 feet) and powerful, an imposing presence on the tennis court. She has long appeared to lack the consistency required to win the six consecutive matches needed to contend for one of the most important titles, and in her late teens, her national tennis federation told her she was going to have to make it on her own.That tennis federation was Russia’s. Rybakina was born in Russia and spent her first 18 years there. Her parents still live in Russia.But four years ago, with Russia not willing to invest in her career, Rybakina did what several other Russian players before her had done. She cut a deal with Kazakhstan.“It’s already a long journey for me,” Rybakina, 23, said during one of her increasingly tense news conferences this week, when she was asked if she viewed herself as Russian or Kazakhstani. “I got so much help and support.”Rybakina’s journey to Saturday’s women’s final against Ons Jabeur of Tunisia has brought politics and questions of what it means to represent a country to a tournament that would prefer to avoid them. It has also highlighted what many in sports have long viewed as the fruitlessness of punishing athletes for the behavior of their governments.“Exclusion is fraught with issues, not least as far as from a certain legal base, never mind the precedent it sets,” said Michael Payne, the former director of marketing and broadcasting for the International Olympic Committee, which has long favored participation over politics.Kazakhstan’s citizens have typically preferred sports that involve hand-to-hand combat — wrestling, kickboxing, taekwondo, judo and karate. But 15 years ago, Bulat Utemuratov, a Kazakhstani billionaire, partnered with his government to finance an effort to make tennis a mass sport, in part to improve the remote former Soviet republic’s standing in the western world.Elena Rybakina will face Ons Jabeur of Tunisia in the Wimbledon final on Saturday.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressThat has included offering talented young Russian players citizenship and funding if they agreed to represent Kazakhstan when they play. Qatar has done the same thing for athletes in track and field and soccer. Russia has done it, too, collecting gold medals at the Olympics won by the South Korean-born speedskater Viktor Ahn.Russians’ playing for Kazakhstan has long been one of those accepted details of the sport, like the worn-out, brown grass around the baseline in the second week of Wimbledon. And no one thought much of it when the tournament’s organizer’s barred Russian players in April.Britain, which has provided weapons and money to Ukraine and condemned the invasion, did not want to give Russia the opportunity to claim one of its most treasured trophies right now, which might give President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a propaganda opportunity, or to have a member of the royal family celebrating Russians during an awards ceremony.“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,” Ian Hewitt, the chairman of the All England Club, said in explaining the move. “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 more than 140 nations through the United Nations and the “specific and directive guidance to address matters” made this a “very, very exceptional situation.”Players from Ukraine applauded the move. Lesia Tsurenko said last week she has been far more comfortable playing a tournament without worrying about bumping into Russian players who she said have not reached out to express empathy for her or her country.No one asked about the Russian-born players who represent Kazakhstan, until this week, when everyone began asking Rybakina about it.Does she still feel Russian?“It’s a tough question,” she said.Has she communicated with any of the barred Russian players? She has not checked her phone much, she said.Where does she live?“I think I’m based on tour because I’m traveling every week,” she said. “I think most of the time, I spend on tour. I practice in Slovakia between the tournaments. I had camps in Dubai. So I don’t live anywhere.”Perhaps, but everyone is from somewhere. Rybakina is from Russia — and also, for now, in some way from Kazakhstan. More

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      Ons Jabeur, an Entertainer Who May Soon Be a Wimbledon Champion

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      Jabeur, the first Arab or African woman to reach a Grand Slam singles final in the Open era, will face Elena Rybakina in Saturday’s women’s final.WIMBLEDON, England — In Tunisia, her home nation and inspiration, Ons Jabeur has acquired the nickname “The Minister of Happiness.”Though there have been plenty of dark and down times along her rare and winding path to Saturday’s Wimbledon singles final, she was spreading the joy around the All England Club on Thursday.Up on Henman Hill, the Guizanis, a Tunisian family living in London, cheered from their picnic blanket on the sloping lawn as Jabeur defeated Tatjana Maria of Germany, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, to become the first Arab or African woman to reach a Grand Slam singles final in the Open era, which began in 1968.“It’s very important for women to be successful, to play sports,” said Ibtissem Guizani, who was attending Wimbledon for the first time with her husband Zouhaeir and their 4-year-old son, and was dressed in red in honor of Jabeur and Tunisia.“We see ourselves in Ons,” she continued. “And she makes us proud of her and proud of us.”The Guizani family after watching the match. “We see ourselves in Ons,” Ibtissem Guizani said. “And she makes us proud of her and proud of us.”Christopher Clarey/The New York TimesThe second-ranked Jabeur and the 103rd-ranked Maria had used the whole grand canvas in their semifinal match on Centre Court: They ventured frequently into the lush, underutilized grass in the forecourt as they chopped approach shots and rushed the net; pounded overheads; or caressed deft drop volleys.It was old school but hardly passé, and the crowd responded with roars and murmurs, not only because of their element of surprise and novelty, but because of their panache.Jabeur, in particular, relishes exploring the range of shotmaking possibilities in a manner reminiscent of Roger Federer, to whom she has been compared since she was 12 years old. Like Federer, Jabeur does not simply play the ball. She plays with it and not only with her strings. Let a tennis ball land near her feet, and her soccer juggling skills quickly become apparent, too.She is an entertainer who may soon be a Grand Slam tournament champion if she can get past Elena Rybakina in Saturday’s final, but she was not so wrapped up in her win on Thursday to forget about Maria, her good friend.Moments after Jabeur’s victory, she insisted on sharing the spotlight instead of taking the normal tack and saluting the crowd on her own. She clasped Maria by the wrist and pulled her back onto the court despite her protestations and pointed appreciatively in her direction to acknowledge Maria’s own unexpected journey to this semifinal as an unseeded 34-year-old mother of two young children.“She’s such an inspiration for so many people, including me, coming back after having two babies,” Jabeur said. “I still can’t believe how she did it.”Jabeur, right, with Tatjana Maria, her opponent and good friend.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesJabeur, 27, has worked hard on believing in herself. She came from a country and region that had produced some professional women’s players — including Selima Sfar, a Tunisian who reached a top ranking of 75 in 2001 — but had never produced a talent capable of challenging for the biggest prizes.Jabeur has worked with sports psychologists since her teens and has developed a particularly fruitful connection in recent years with Melanie Maillard, a Frenchwoman introduced to her by Sfar, who has worked with French tennis players and other athletes for more than 20 years.“I’m very lucky that I found the right person that could push me through and know me much better,” Jabeur said. “It’s all about the connection. We did a great job, and we’ve come a long way.”Maillard was not at this year’s French Open, where Jabeur, one of the favorites, was upset in the first round. But Jabeur has long planned on having Maillard back with her at Wimbledon. She was with Jabeur last year when she reached the quarterfinals, finally fell in love with grass-court tennis and told Maillard, “I’m coming back for the title.”Now, she is just one match away.“It’s rare that someone dares to say it and dares to accept it,” Maillard said on Thursday at Wimbledon. “Ons was once a shy young woman. She matured through effort and by questioning herself and searching constantly for better approaches and solutions. She is very open in spirit and has a family who support her a lot. She has a husband who accepted to leave everything behind for her, to follow her everywhere, and that’s powerful, too.”Jabeur, born in the coastal town of Ksar Hellal in Tunisia, grew up in a family of four children playing on courts at local hotels and a local club. Though her all-around athletic talent had coaches in other sports like soccer and team handball trying to lure her away, she stuck with tennis and left to train and study at a sports school in Tunis, the capital, at age 13.Jabeur, with her quick wit, was a fan in her youth of Andy Roddick and used to pretend as she trained that she was Kim Clijsters or Serena or Venus Williams.She won the French Open junior title at 16 and has spent time training in Belgium and France but has long been back in Tunisia, where she lives with her husband, Karim Kamoun, who is also her fitness trainer. She remains deeply connected to the country.“Now tennis is like soccer in Tunisia, people are following my matches,” Jabeur said in a recent interview. “And that I appreciate so much, and I appreciate that tennis is becoming more popular. What has always been missing is the thing that we have to believe more we can do it, no matter where you come from.”Her lifelong attachment to Tunisia is quite a contrast with Rybakina, her surprise opponent in Saturday’s final. Rybakina, born in Moscow and long considered a promising Russian junior, began representing Kazakhstan four years ago while continuing to train regularly in Moscow.A vast former Soviet republic, Kazakhstan has recruited several top-flight Russian players since gaining independence and provided talents like Rybakina with the major funding and support they were often lacking.Though Wimbledon has barred Russian and Belarusian players from this year’s tournament because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the ban does not apply to Rybakina, a 23-year-old who became Kazakhstan’s first Grand Slam singles finalist on Thursday by overwhelming the 2019 Wimbledon champion Simona Halep, 6-3, 6-3.“I’m playing already for Kazakhstan for a long time,” Rybakina said, pointing out that she has represented the country at the Olympics and in the Billie Jean King Cup team competition.“I’m really happy representing Kazakhstan,” she said. “They believed in me. There is no more question about how I feel.”Asked if she still felt Russian in her heart, Rybakina responded, “What does it mean for you to feel? I mean, I’m playing tennis, so for me, I’m enjoying my time here. I feel for the players who couldn’t come here, but I’m just enjoying playing here on the biggest stage, enjoying my time and doing my best.”With her huge serve, long reach and penetrating baseline power, the 17th-seeded Rybakina could be a formidable obstacle for Jabeur. This will be the first Wimbledon women’s final in the Open era between two players without a Grand Slam singles title, and neither Rybakina nor Jabeur had been past the quarterfinals at a major in singles until now.Saturday’s final comes on the same day as much of the Muslim world, including Tunisia, begins celebrating the holiday of Eid al-Adha.“If I make it on that special holiday, one of my favorite actually, it’s going to be great,” Jabeur said.The Guizanis, part of her growing Tunisian fan club, plan to be back on Henman Hill on Saturday.“We’re going to celebrate with Ons, inshallah,” Ibtessem Guizani said. More

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      Rafael Nadal Withdraws From Wimbledon Ahead of Semifinal Match

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      The 22-time Grand Slam champion tore a muscle in his abdomen earlier in the tournament. “I am very sad.”WIMBLEDON, England — In the end, after a day of contemplation and consideration for what mattered most, health prevailed over the temptations of yet another title.On Thursday evening, 24 hours after one of the gutsiest and most grueling efforts of his career, Rafael Nadal, the 22-time Grand Slam champion, pulled out of his semifinal match against Nick Kyrgios set for Friday.“I believe I can’t win two matches under these circumstances,” he said. “I can’t serve.”Nadal made the announcement at a news conference just after 2 p.m. Eastern in the main media conference room at the All England Club, explaining that he was withdrawing because of a tear in his abdominal muscle.“I was thinking the whole day about the decision,” he said. “I think it doesn’t make sense to go.”“I am very sad,” he said.Nadal, who entered the tournament halfway to a Grand Slam and with concerns about his chronically injured foot, said he began to feel soreness in his abdomen roughly one week ago. The pain grew worse, and it became clear that he had most likely torn the muscle early in his five-set win over Taylor Fritz in the quarterfinals Wednesday.In that match, Nadal took a medical timeout in the second set. From the stands, his father and other members of his family motioned for him to stop playing rather than risk further injury, but Nadal ignored their pleas and pulled off one of the more remarkable comeback wins of a career that has seen many of them.After the match, Nadal warned that he might not be able to play in the semifinal and that he planned to have a scan to determine the extent of the injury.“The decision at the end — all the decisions — are the player’s decision, but at the same time I need to know different opinions and I need to check everything the proper way, no? That is even something more important than win Wimbledon, that is the health,” he said. Still, few thought that Nadal, who has played through pain for so much of his career, would not at least try to play the semifinal.The withdrawal — the first from a Wimbledon semifinal in the modern era of tennis — was especially disappointing because Nadal’s game had been improving with each match, something he noted Thursday and after his win over Fritz, despite this being his first tournament on grass in three years.“I’m in the semifinals, so I am playing very well the last couple of days, especially yesterday, at the beginning of the match, playing at a very, very high level,” he said.With Nadal’s withdrawal, Kyrgios receives a pass to his first Grand Slam singles final. Kyrgios, 27, had never made a Grand Slam singles semifinal previously during a career filled with controversy.“Different players, different personalities,” Kyrgios wrote of Nadal in a post on Instagram after the announcement. “@rafaelnadal I hope your recovery goes well and we all hope to see you healthy soon 🗣🙏🏽 till next time.”Nadal had won the first two Grand Slams events of the year, the Australian Open and the French Open. The win against Fritz put him just nine wins away from a calendar-year Grand Slam, something no male player has pulled off since Rod Laver in 1969.The withdrawal is the latest blow for a tournament that has followed a rocky road since April, when organizers announced that they would bar Russian and Belarusian players from competing because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Organizers made the move amid intense pressure from Britain’s government and royal family, which is closely associated with the tournament and did not want Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, photographed carrying out her traditional duty of presenting a trophy to a Russian or Belarusian champion.No tournaments outside of Britain, including the U.S. Open, followed Wimbledon’s lead. The decision also sparked a battle with the men’s and women’s professional tours, which decided not to award any rankings points for victories at Wimbledon, turning the sport’s most prestigious tournament into something of an exhibition.The situation grew even more awkward Thursday when Elena Rybakina, who was born and raised in Russia but began representing Kazakhstan four years ago after its tennis federation offered to fund her development, qualified for the women’s final.Thursday evening, though, all else seemed to pale in comparison with the disappointment that Nadal wouldn’t be able to take the court for his showdown with Kyrgios, and if he had prevailed, a possible 60th match against Novak Djokovic.Nadal said the injury had caused discomfort for several days but the pain became severe in the fifth game of the match while he was leading 3-1. It got even worse a few games later as Fritz broke Nadal’s serve to pull ahead.Nadal said he then changed the way he served, slowing and shifting what is normally a violent twisting motion — the torque of his torso and the power of his legs — to serve at roughly 120 miles per hour. During lengthy segments of the match, Nadal struggled to serve at triple digits.Still, he resisted his family’s pleas for him to quit, wanting to finish what he started. He defended that decision Thursday even though it ultimately deprived the tournament of one of its semifinals.He called it the right decision “because I won the match. I finished the match. I won the match. I did the things I felt in every single moment.”Nadal with tape on his stomach after a medical timeout during his match against Taylor Fritz.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressHowever, his willingness to risk his health shifted Thursday, he said, when he saw and felt the extent of the tear. He reasoned that winning two more matches would be impossible and that trying would only make the injury worse and cause him to miss more matches this summer.“Very tough circumstances,” he said tightening his lips with that slight tilt of his head he so often does when conveying unfortunate news.He said he would not be able to compete for at least three or four weeks but he would be able to begin hitting from the baseline in as little as a week, then begin serving once he can do so without discomfort. That is important to Nadal, since his chronically injured foot often becomes a problem when he does not play for long periods. He can begin serving sometime after that, assuming he can play without pain.That timetable, he said, will not interfere with his normal summer schedule, which generally includes hardcourt tournaments in Canada and Cincinnati before the start of the U.S. Open in late August.As of now, Djokovic will not be able to play the U.S. Open because of his refusal to get vaccinated for Covid-19. U.S. policy currently prohibits unvaccinated foreigners from entering the country.In recent years, Djokovic has become obsessed with finishing his career with the most Grand Slam singles titles. He began the year tied with Nadal and Roger Federer at 20.Nadal then won the first two Grand Slams of the year to pull ahead in a race that he said he cared little about, something that was slightly hard to fathom given how competitive he is on the court.“As always, the most important thing is happiness more than any title, even if everybody knows how much effort I put to be here,” he said.He also said Thursday evening that he never gave consideration to the withdrawal ending his chance for the calendar year Grand Slam, a quest that Djokovic also has obsessed about and came within one match of pulling off last year when Nadal missed the second half of the year because of his ailing foot.“Never thought about the calendar slam,” he said. “I thought about my daily happiness.” More

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      Doubles Tennis Adds Variety to Wimbledon

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      Doubles takes a back seat to the singles game on both tours, but famous players like Coco Gauff revel in the variety, pace and joy of tennis’s hidden gem.WIMBLEDON, England — Coco Gauff toed the line to serve, eyes focused, shoulders back, ready to go. It was a moment of peril in her semifinal mixed doubles match here on Wednesday. Break point. One game all, third set.Gauff aimed a tight-spinning serve toward Matthew Ebden, her male opponent, and the point was on: a perfect display of what makes Gauff great at age 18, and what makes doubles an enduring favorite for Wimbledon fans.Her teammate, Jack Sock, soon entered the mix, handling a difficult volley. Then Gauff poleaxed a forehand at her female opponent, Samantha Stosur. From there, tennis beauty. Back-to-back moonshot lobs; spinners; touch; power; all of the geometry on Court No. 3 explored, and Gauff holding more than her own.The rally finally ended after 24 shots, as the crowd swayed and swooned and shouted to the cloud dappled sky and one of Sock’s spinning forehands finally coaxed a miss.As I watched from the stands, it felt like Gauff was underlining a message she told me the day before.“I love doubles,” she said. She smiled and paused for a moment. “It’s a different kind of game, all the reflexes, and unorthodox shots, the touchy-feely shots, the half volleys.”“It’s a joy to play,” she added.If your only exposure to tennis’s Grand Slam events is through television or even most media reports, you might think singles is all that matters. It breathes in nearly all of the oxygen. We know the big names, their strokes, their on-court proclivities, their off-court foibles. We celebrate the upstarts who always seem to march to new heights.But with the advent of more powerful rackets and strings, singles is now invariably a war of pounding groundstrokes, even here at Wimbledon, once the province of the serve and volley. Doubles remains tennis’s hidden gem, the last outpost of variety.Players like Gauff, famed for her singles play but already a doubles runner-up in two Grand Slams, find doubles a relief from tripwire pressure that comes with playing alone. And fans, once they get hooked, never seem to get enough of watching four professionals jam onto a court and produce set after set of novel angles and winners crafted with a pickpocket’s deft touch.There’s a paradox, though. Television shows doubles much less often and prominently. The prize money is lower for doubles than for singles (and even less for mixed doubles than for men’s and women’s doubles). I concede, reporters rarely write about it. So begins a feedback loop: Without more exposure, this unique part of professional tennis remains niche. So long as it is niche, it gets less attention.Unless it’s a final or a matchup featuring the biggest of names — Venus or Serena Williams —Grand Slam doubles remains relegated to the back courts.Rajeev Ram admitted that the doubles game tends to operate “in the shadows” of professional tennis. Ever heard of him? Unless you’re an ardent fan of tennis, probably not. The 38-year-old American is the world’s No. 2-ranked men’s doubles player, but can walk the grounds of Wimbledon without being noticed. Alongside his partner, Joe Salisbury, he made it to the men’s doubles semifinals here on Wednesday with a five-set win over Nicolas Mahut and Édouard Roger-Vasselin.Ram uses his pterodactyl wingspan and Sampras-ian serve to dominate matches and win over crowds. Once they watch doubles, Ram said, “the fans really take to it.”Rajeev Ram, right, said that the doubles game tends to operate “in the shadows” of professional tennis.Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesOver the past few days, I spent a lot of time on the backcourts doing just that. I hung out with spectators and heard their observations. Many told stories of strolling the grounds, unsure what they’d find, only to happen upon a doubles star like Nikola Mektic, a Croatian doubles maestro whom I saw face down an 80 miles per hour tennis ball ripped at his gut only to send back a drop shot that fell to the grass like a marshmallow.“It’s sort of like a good dessert after the main dish,” one fan I spoke to said of the doubles draw. “The main dish is singles. I also like cake.”Other spectators raved to me that mixed doubles — an event typically only played at majors — offers what in elite sports remains a novelty: men and women competing side-by-side on the same field of play.Wimbledon spectators also seemed drawn to the joy that Gauff mentioned. During singles matches, players are usually tighter than tripwire. Doubles offers a relief that even a spectator can pick up on.“I’m not used to laughing much on the court,” Gauff said. She paused for a moment, smiled, then continued. “I do in doubles. I definitely think I loosen up and relax a bit more. So I’m going to try to use that all the time.”Gauff, who lost her third-round singles match to Amanda Anisimova, is one of the few famous players who gives doubles its due, reveling in a corner of tennis that allows her to hit new shots “in all sorts of different and unusual ways.”She hones her poise in singles and develops new shots and the flexibility to make them in doubles, taking the long view, believing the combination will round out her game to the point where she can finally lift a trophy at a Slam.After reaching her first Grand Slam singles finals at the French Open last month, Gauff was determined to keep playing both singles and doubles at majors (she also reached the women’s doubles finals at Roland Garros, playing alongside Jessica Pegula). There was a problem: She needed a new partner for Wimbledon. Gauff found one the new-fashioned way, starting her search on social media.“Who wants to play mixed at Wimby?” she posted to her Twitter account on June 15.The ask hardly went unnoticed by Gauff’s 250,000 followers. Dozens wanted in. Even Mikaela Shiffrin, the World Cup champion skier, sent an emoji saying she was up for it. Gauff noticed one reply in particular: “We’d be a decent team,” posted Sock, a four-time Grand Slam doubles winner.Gauff ended up taking a while to mull Sock’s offer. What if she played poorly and embarrassed herself with a male player of such prowess? “I almost said no to him,” she said. Finally, “I was like, ‘get out of your head, play with Jack!’”The early results proved it a wise decision. Gauff and Sock did not drop a set in their first three matches. Then came Wednesday’s semifinal against the veteran Australian pairing of Ebden and Stosur.She played with savvy, giving no quarter, serving and returning well, and hitting volleys with firm confidence as the third set marched on, pressure mounting. Two games apiece. Three games. Four.But with Gauff serving to go up, 6-5, it was Sock who dumped an easy volley into the net. Then another. Stosur and Ebden took advantage, breaking serve, edging ahead. They closed out the match quickly, 6-3, 5-7, 7-5.Gauff left the court with a determined look, comforted by a crowd that stood to loudly applaud, a thank you to both teams for a match of suspense and entertainment. More

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      Kyrgios, Under a Hotter Spotlight, Stays Quiet and Wins Again

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      A day after the emergence of allegations that he assaulted a former girlfriend, Kyrgios found a way to advance to a Wimbledon semifinal but declined to address the accusations afterward.WIMBLEDON, England — The tennis career of Nick Kyrgios has long been an exercise in torture and turmoil, featuring battles with tennis officials, rivals, the news media, alcohol and a psyche that never seems at peace, even when he swears it is. Kyrgios said he contemplated suicide in 2019.Given all that, Wednesday afternoon at the All England Club looked to be filled with land mines in every direction. On the surface, Kyrgios’s only task was to beat Cristian Garin, a steady but middling Chilean player known more for his efforts on clay courts. Simple enough, seemingly, for someone whose innate tennis talents appear to be nearly limitless.Kyrgios, though, has often combusted on the biggest stages. He was playing in a Grand Slam quarterfinal match for the first time since 2015 — he has never made a major semifinal — just 24 hours after a former girlfriend had accused him of assaulting her in Australia last December.For all the troubles Kyrgios, a 27-year-old Australian, has faced on and off the court since he first broke into the top ranks of pro tennis as a teenager, this was something else.“I feel like I’m in ‘The Last Dance,’” Kyrgios, a huge N.B.A. fan who often wears Jordan Brand clothing, said to his physiotherapist Tuesday as he left a practice court, referencing the documentary about the melodrama surrounding the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls.That had been all anyone outside of his tight circle had heard Kyrgios say. He left the rest to his legal team, which said he was taking the allegations seriously but declined to address them in any detail until prosecutors decide to formally pursue a charge.Kyrgios is due in court to face the allegations on Aug. 2, a time when under normal circumstances he might be playing the summer hard court season in North America and preparing for the U.S. Open. After the hearing, law enforcement officials will decide whether to pursue a formal charge of common assault.Kyrgios’s former girlfriend, Chiara Passari, told police Kyrgios grabbed her during a domestic dispute in December.On the advice of his lawyers, Kyrgios declined to comment on the allegations in the news conference after his match Wednesday.“I have a lot of thoughts, a lot of things I want to say, kind of my side about it,” he said. “Obviously I’ve been advised by my lawyers that I’m unable to say anything at this time. I understand everyone wants to kind of ask about it and all that, but I can’t give you too much on that right now.”Pierre Johannessen, a lawyer for Kyrgios, said in a statement Tuesday evening that Kyrgios “is committed to addressing any and all allegations once clear, taking the matter seriously does not warrant any misreading of the process Mr. Kyrgios is required to follow.”Kyrgios declined to say when he had learned about the allegations and the summons, which became public when The Canberra Times in Australia broke the news.Also, he notably did not deliver the sort of strenuous denial that Alexander Zverev, another tennis player who has also faced allegations of assaulting a former girlfriend, has at major tournaments.“I understand you want me to give you the answers,” Kyrgios said when asked if he planned to appear in court or if he knew of the accusations before Wimbledon. “I can’t. I can’t speak anymore on the issue.”Kyrgios spat at a fan in the first round and bickered with his opponent in the third.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKyrgios said the 24 hours following the accusations becoming public had been difficult but he did not feel it had affected his play.“Obviously seeing it — I’m only human,” he said. “Obviously I read about it and obviously everyone else was asking questions. It was hard. It was hard to kind of just focus on kind of the mission at hand.”During the past 10 days, Kyrgios had become a fan favorite at Wimbledon, mixing the best of a sublime game packed with power and showboating trick shots with behavior that ran the gamut from boorish and profane to gross.He spat in the direction of a fan during his tense five-set, first-round win. He baited the No. 4 seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas, into losing his cool and the tennis match in their third-round duel, carrying on with the chair umpire until Tsitsipas got so angry hitting Kyrgios with the ball became as important to him as hitting winners.When the matches ended, he took on journalists who questioned his behavior or his violations of Wimbledon’s all-white dress code, and even went after vanquished opponents. After Tsitsipas called him a “bully,” he said the Greek star was “soft” and no one on the tour liked him. Then came the assault allegations.The crowds never left him though, and they were there from before the start of the match until after the end of his win, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (5), over Garin, a businesslike, almost anticlimactic affair, considering all that was swirling. It earned Kyrgios a semifinal showdown with the 22-time Grand Slam singles champion Rafael Nadal on Friday.“I didn’t see something weird during the match,” Garin said of Kyrgios.This time around, so far at least, the turmoil hasn’t gotten the better of either his brain or his game. If anything, it has quieted the confrontations, and may be bringing out the best of his tennis. Part of what drives him, Kyrgios has said, is to prevail over all the naysayers and critics who view him as the antithesis of the sport’s mythic gentility.Kyrgios’s three-set win Wednesday was as routine as any on the tournament, a stark contrast to the controversy off the court. In the Kyrgios box, his father, girlfriend, agent, and physiotherapist rose after every point. Ever the iconoclast, Kyrgios plays without a coach.Fans welcomed Kyrgios onto the No. 1 Court with a throaty roar. Throughout the match, wails of “Come on, Nick” echoed through the stands. In the few tense moments, the “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oy, Oy, Oy,” cheer sounded, too.Kyrgios will face Rafael Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam singles tournament champion, in the semifinals. They’ve played nine times, including at Wimbledon in 2014.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressGarin broke Kyrgios’s serve at love in the opening game and won the first nine points of the match, prompting Kyrgios to shrug his shoulders and start the running dialogue with his box that lasted all afternoon. He quickly settled in though, drawing even by the middle of the set, as he stepped up the velocity on his serve and his powerful forehand, running Garin around the court.With Garin serving to stay in the first set, Kyrgios pressured him into a series of errors, to get to triple set point, and then one more to take the early advantage. The second set brought more of the same. An early break of serve, a bump or two to give Garin a chance to get back even, some back and forth with his posse for support, and then ultimately, an ace to take a commanding lead.He and Garin traded service games for the better part of an hour in the third set, but even though Garin had three chances to break Kyrgios’s serve and force him and his tiring legs to play longer, there was never much of a sense that Garin could win a set, much less three. Every time Kyrgios needed a point, he found a big enough serve, or his hard, flat backhand, or a whippy, nasty forehand to get him over the hump.Late in the tiebreaker, Kyrgios came to the middle of the net, and gave Garin three short chances to put the ball past him. He stabbed the first two back then watched Garin hit the third into the middle of the net. A point later, Garin miss-hit a backhand wide and Kyrgios collapsed to his back, a Grand Slam semifinalist for the first time, amid the eeriest and tensest of environments.Next up is Nadal, and with Kyrgios, who knows what else. More

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      Rafael Nadal Prevails at Wimbledon In Grueling Win Over Taylor Fritz

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      Nadal struggled with an abdominal injury in his grueling quarterfinal victory over Taylor Fritz, a rising American star who pushed Nadal to five sets.WIMBLEDON, England — It was Wednesday evening on Centre Court, and Rafael Nadal was back in the semifinals of Wimbledon after proving once again that his threshold for pain and ability to improvise under duress are far beyond the norm.Taylor Fritz was in his courtside chair pondering what might have been and sensing that no defeat had ever hurt quite like this one because he felt like breaking into tears.“I’ve never felt like I could cry after a loss,” said Fritz, the 24-year-old rising American star who will rise no higher at the All England Club this year after Nadal’s victory, 3-6, 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (10-4).A thriller of a quarterfinal, it lasted 4 hours 21 minutes and might have gone quite a bit longer if not for the new rule at Wimbledon this year that requires a first-to-10-point tiebreaker to be played at 6-6 in the fifth set. The English soccer stalwart David Beckham, watching rapt from the royal box, might have preferred penalty kicks.Fritz, a thunderous server who also can pound his groundstrokes, upset Nadal to win the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., in March in a match Fritz played with an injured ankle and Nadal played with a stress fracture in his rib cage.Fritz was on the verge of a more significant breakthrough on Wednesday and won, in the end, just as many points as Nadal did (168 apiece). But for all Fritz’s power and hustle, he could not win the points that mattered most; he could not capitalize on Nadal’s abdominal injury or on a two-set-to-one lead. He quickly lost command of the decisive tiebreaker, falling behind, 0-5, as Nadal summoned the shotmaking and guile that have made him a 22-time Grand Slam singles champion.“Rafa did what Rafa does: He figures stuff out,” said Paul Annacone, one of Fritz’s coaches. “He figures out what he’s got on the day, and he never makes it easy for the opponent. That’s why he’s thus far the most accomplished guy in the history of tennis.”Nadal, still chasing the Grand Slam at age 36, will face the Australian Nick Kyrgios, another big server with a much more volatile personality, on Friday for a place in the men’s singles final.In Friday’s other semifinal, the No. 1 seed, Novak Djokovic, the three-time defending Wimbledon champion, will face the No. 9 seed, Cameron Norrie, the last British player left in singles.The question is whether the second-seeded Nadal will be healthy enough to play. Nadal said he came close to retiring from the match after aggravating the lower abdominal injury midway through the opening set. But even without a full-strength serve and even with his father and sister urging him from the stands to retire, Nadal, as so often, found the solutions he needed to prevail even if he did not look a great deal more upbeat than Fritz when he arrived for a sotto voce news conference.Taylor Fritz threw everything he had at Nadal, but it wasn’t enough.Hannah Mckay/Reuters“It’s obvious that today is nothing new,” he said of the injury. “I had these feelings for a couple of days. Without a doubt, today was the worst day. There has been an important increase of pain and limitation. And that’s it. I managed to win that match. Let’s see what’s going on tomorrow.”He said he would undergo more tests on Thursday before deciding whether he would return to Centre Court to face Kyrgios, who upset him on that same patch of grass in their first meeting in 2014 in the round of 16. Nadal has won six of their eight other matches, including a testy second-round duel at Wimbledon in 2019 in which Kyrgios deliberately hit full-cut passing shots at Nadal’s body and felt no need to apologize.“Nick is a great player in all the surfaces but especially here on grass,” Nadal said. “He’s having a great grass-court season. It’s going to be a big challenge. I need to be at my 100 percent to keep having chances, and that’s what I’m going to try to do.”Nadal is clearly tired of talking about his body, weary of dealing with the injuries that have just kept coming during his intermittently sensational season.“If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Nadal said.For the first time in his long career, Nadal won the first two Grand Slam tournaments of the season, the Australian and French Opens. No man has completed a Grand Slam, winning all four major tournaments in the same year, since Rod Laver in 1969, but Nadal kept his bid alive with Laver, 83, watching from the royal box.Nadal managed it by settling for a much slower serve that, according to Fritz, gave him more trouble than Nadal’s full-force delivery. Nadal walked gingerly off the court for a medical timeout with a 4-3 lead in the second set and said he received anti-inflammatory medication and treatment from a physiotherapist.“For all the first set and all the second and a big part of the third, the problem was not only the serve but that if I served I could feel the pain for the rest of the point and could not play it normally,” he explained. “It took a while to figure it out.” His average serve speeds on Wednesday were 107 miles per hour for first serves and 94 miles per hour for second serves compared with 115 and 100 in the previous round. But once he adjusted, he said he no longer had lingering discomfort during the exchanges and that he felt uninhibited on his groundstrokes.“For a lot of moments, I was thinking maybe I will not be able to finish the match,” he said, speaking to the Centre Court crowd. “But, I don’t know, the court, the energy, something else, so yes, thanks for that.”Nadal has not always been the crowd favorite at Wimbledon, where his longtime rival Roger Federer has long enjoyed that role. But Federer, 40, is not playing here this year, and Nadal, back for the first time since 2019, has been hearing plenty of positive feedback as he tries to win Wimbledon for the third time.He pushed on Wednesday, evened the match at two sets apiece and then went up a break in the fifth to take a 4-3 lead, only to lose his own serve in the next game. But as the match extended past four hours, he regained control and finished off the victory with a classic forehand winner from inside the baseline, complete with his bolo-whip finish behind his left ear.It has been a Wimbledon full of surprises. Before it began, the All England Club barred Russian and Belarusian players because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Three leading players — Matteo Berrettini, Marin Cilic and Roberto Bautista Agut — withdrew after contracting the coronavirus.But Nadal and Djokovic are still in contention heading down the stretch, and so is Simona Halep, a former No. 1 who won Wimbledon in 2019 and is in resurgent form with the help of her new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. Halep, a Romanian, will face Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan in the semifinals on Thursday. Ons Jabeur, the No. 3 seed from Tunisia, will play Tatjana Maria, a German ranked No. 103 who has been the biggest surprise of the women’s tournament.Last year, Fritz came close to surprising Djokovic before losing in five sets in the third round of the Australian Open in a match in which, strange but true, Djokovic suffered an abdominal injury. The scenario against Nadal must have felt agonizingly familiar, and he said his biggest regret was not pushing Nadal harder the three times Nadal served to stay in the match.“In the end, he was just really, really, really good,” Fritz said. “Certain parts of the match I felt like maybe I kind of just needed to come up with more, do more. I left a lot kind of up to him, and he delivered.” More