Zverev, Alexander

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      In Tennis, Racket Smashing Gets Out of Hand

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      Long accepted as an entertaining idiosyncrasy of the sport, the act of hurling one’s racket has led to some close calls, as ball people and chair umpires dodge injury.After blowing a golden opportunity to break his opponent’s serve late in the second set of his match on Monday at the Miami Open, Jenson Brooksby, the rising American star, whacked his foot with his racket several times in frustration.It was progress for Brooksby, who earlier in the tournament had escaped an automatic disqualification that many tennis veterans — and his opponent — thought was justified after he angrily hurled his racket to the court and it skittered into the feet of a ball person standing behind the baseline.Gets away with it. #Brooksby pic.twitter.com/QGRFA5Uy5w— Tennis GIFs 🎾🎥 (@tennis_gifs) March 24, 2022
      A week earlier, Nick Kyrgios, the temperamental Australian, narrowly missed hitting a ball boy in the face when he flung his racket to the ground following a three-set loss in the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. The ATP punished Kyrgios with a $20,000 fine and another $5,000 for uttering an obscenity on the court, but he was allowed to play a few days later in Miami.Kyrgios was at it again on Tuesday during his fourth-round match against Italy’s Jannik Sinner. He threw his racket to the court on his way to losing a first-set tiebreaker, prompting a warning and a point penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct as he shouted at the umpire, Carlos Bernardes. Then, during the changeover, he battered his racket four times against the ground, earning a game penalty.“Do we have to wait until someone starts bleeding?” an exasperated Patrick McEnroe, the former pro and tennis commentator, said recently when asked about the flying rackets.Racket-smashing tantrums have long been accepted as part of the game. Like hockey fights, they are a way for players to blow off steam. But as the broader culture becomes less tolerant of public displays of anger, and with an increasing number of close calls on the court, racket smashing suddenly no longer seems like an entertaining idiosyncrasy.Mary Carillo, the former player and longtime commentator, said the tantrums have never been worse, especially on the ATP Tour, calling them “the most consistently uncomfortable thing to watch.” But chair umpires still resist meting out the most serious punishment.“The reason for conspicuous leniency is that they have to somehow keep a match alive; there are no substitutions,” Carillo said of the chair umpires. “Tennis players, especially tennis stars, know they have incontestable leverage over the chair.”Alexander Zverev smashed his racket on the umpire’s chair after losing a doubles match at the Mexican Open in February.MexTenis, via Associated PressLike most people in tennis, McEnroe was stunned when the ATP recently handed down a suspended eight-week ban to Alexander Zverev, who repeatedly beat on the umpire’s chair at the end of a doubles match at the Mexican Open in February, coming with inches of cracking his racket into the official’s feet.Psychologists have found that expressing anger physically tends to hurt performance and can encourage subsequent outbursts. In an oft-cited 1959 study by the psychologist R.H. Hornberger, participants listened to insults before being divided into two groups. One group pounded nails. The other sat quietly. The group that pounded nails was far more hostile to those who criticized them.And yet these days, racket smashing feels contagious. There was Naomi Osaka’s display during her third-round loss to Leylah Fernandez at the U.S. Open last year. Novak Djokovic’s during the bronze medal match at the Tokyo Olympics. Even Roger Federer has had his moments. Rafael Nadal, by contrast, is famously gentle with his equipment and has said he never will smash his racket.Even Andy Roddick, the former world No. 1, got cheeky on the subject, taking to Twitter last week with a tongue-in-cheek tutorial on how to safely smash a racket and whack a ball without endangering anyone.Smashing and throwing a racket, not to mention swats of the ball — that hit, or nearly hit, and possibly injure people on the court or in the stadium — fall under equipment abuse in the sport’s rule books. To the frustration of some of the biggest names in tennis, those codes are more gray than black and white.Martina Navratilova, the 18-time Grand Slam singles champion who is covering the Miami Open for Tennis Channel, expressed the sentiments of many after Brooksby’s racket made contact with the ball person.“If it hit the ball boy, they need to disqualify him,” she said.Brooksby and Kyrgios lost in Miami on Tuesday, but Zverev advanced to the quarterfinals and has a good chance of winning one of the top titles on the ATP Tour, even though some in tennis believe he should be on the sidelines serving a suspension.A spokesman for the ATP, which does not publicly discuss individual penalties, said Brooksby received a $15,000 fine, $5,000 less than the maximum $20,000 a player can receive for an incident from tournament officials. That amounted to less than half of the $30,130 he guaranteed himself by winning the match, and the $94,575 he ultimately collected for making it to the fourth round.Kyrgios was fined $20,000 for nearly hitting the ball boy following his loss to Nadal at Indian Wells, where he collected nearly $180,000 for making the quarterfinals. He, too, will earn, $94,575 in Miami, less whatever fines he receives for his behavior on Tuesday.Zverev, who has earned more than $30 million in career prize money, had to forfeit his earnings from the Mexican Open, and the ATP fined him $65,000, but the suspended ban has allowed him — in less than two tournaments — to more than triple in prize money what his outburst cost him.The ATP is considering whether, given recent increases in prize money, an increase in fines could deter players. Fines for racket abuse on the ATP Tour begin at $500, compared with $2,500 on the WTA Tour.Other than that, the codes for men and women are similar: No violently hitting or kicking or throwing a racket — or any piece of equipment for that matter, and no physical abuse or attempted abuse against ball people, umpires, judges or spectators.Still, tennis officials have a somewhat ambiguous understanding of when disqualification is warranted. It goes sort of like this: If you throw a racket, or whack a ball at someone intentionally in an attempt to hit or intimidate them, then you are automatically disqualified, whether you succeed or fail. However, if you throw or smash a racket or whack a ball without consideration of its direction, and it ends up hitting someone, then tournament officials have to assess whether an injury has occurred.If someone is indeed injured, as when Djokovic inadvertently hit a line judge in the throat at the 2020 U.S. Open, the player is automatically disqualified. But if no one is injured, as when Brooksby’s racket skittered into the ball person’s foot, the umpires will assess a penalty and tournament officials will fine the player — no disqualification necessary.Both Brooksby and Zverev quickly posted apologies for their actions on social media and personally apologized to the people involved. “I was grateful to have a second chance,” Brooksby told Tennis Channel on Monday.Kyrgios is a repeat offender. In a news conference following the Indian Wells match, he berated journalists who questioned him about the racket toss that nearly clipped a ball boy’s head, and was unapologetic.“It most definitely wasn’t like Zverev,” he said. “It was complete accident. I didn’t hit him.”Only after an avalanche of criticism on social media did Kyrgios issue an apology. The next day, he posted a video of himself giving the boy a racket.Following his match on Tuesday, Kyrgios played the victim, criticizing Bernardes for speaking to the crowd while Kyrgios was trying to serve. He seemed not to understand why the ATP had come down so hard on him for the incident at Indian Wells, given, he said, that Dennis Shapovalov had inadvertently hit a fan with a ball and received just a $5,000 fine. In fact, Shapovalov hit a chair umpire and was fined $7,000.“I can throw a racket at Indian Wells,” Kyrgios said, “didn’t even hit anyone, and I’m getting 25 grand.” More

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      Zverev’s Swings Merited More Than a Slap on the Wrist

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      After striking the umpire’s chair during an outburst at a tournament in Mexico, Alexander Zverev can avoid a fine and suspension if he does not commit further violations for one year.SAN DIEGO — Somehow, the men’s tennis tour is allowing the German star Alexander Zverev to play on. He will be in the field for the BNP Paribas Open, which begins this week in Indian Wells, Calif., despite his frightening, unacceptable abuse of an official just two weeks ago after a defeat in doubles in Acapulco, Mexico.“The conduct of Zverev was the most egregious example of physical abuse of an official that I have seen in my decades working in and observing men’s professional tennis,” said Richard Ings, a former executive vice president for rules and competition at the ATP Tour.After cursing at the chair umpire Alessandro Germani following a questionable line call, Zverev took four big swings at the umpire’s chair with his racket after the match. The first three blows landed close to Germani, causing him to flinch and shift his feet at one point to avoid being struck. After Zverev took a short break to curse at Germani some more, he returned for one more swing at the chair.He was appropriately defaulted from the tournament after winning his subsequent singles match, fined $40,000 and docked the prize money he would have earned from the event. But though the follow-up investigation by the ATP rightly determined that Zverev, 24, had committed a “major offense,” he received the equivalent of a suspended sentence on Monday.Zverev has been fined an additional $25,000 and given an eight-week suspension, but both the fine, a pittance to a top-10 player like Zverev, and the suspension will not be levied if he avoids further code violations for unsportsmanlike conduct or physical or verbal abuse for one year after the date of his outburst in Mexico.This is, at best, a firm slap on the wrist, and it is hard to think of another major professional sport that would opt for such half-measures if an official were physically threatened to this degree by a player. Tennis does not shrink from suspending players for gambling on matches or for doping. But the sport has been sending inconsistent signals on protecting umpires for too long now, and the recent uptick in players confronting officials may be one of the consequences — see Daniil Medvedev’s and Denis Shapovalov’s outbursts at this year’s Australian Open. With the wider use of electronic line calling, tension between players and umpires should be dropping, not increasing. But Zverev raised the temperature far too high in Acapulco.“Suspended sentences are a good tool when the player has a good conduct history, and I’ve used them, but in this case the misconduct was egregious and physically directed at the official in their place of work,” said Ings, who was in his ATP role from 2001-5. “A line has been crossed, and previous history is irrelevant. I would have imposed a four-week suspension, and I’ve held the exact job that made such decisions for the ATP.”Miro Bratoev, the ATP’s current senior vice president of rules and competition, did not provide an explanation for Monday’s ruling. He is relatively new to the role, which he assumed in 2020, but several factors could have nudged him toward leniency.Although Zverev has broken plenty of rackets, he has committed no major offense violations until now. The ATP investigation into accusations that Zverev abused his former girlfriend, Olga Sharypova, is ongoing, and thus could not play a role in Monday’s penalty.Zverev’s apology after the Acapulco incident also was profuse. “It is difficult to put into words how much I regret my behavior during and after the doubles match yesterday,” he wrote on social media. “I have privately apologized to the chair umpire because my outburst towards him was wrong and unacceptable.”There is also the matter of tennis precedent. Bratoev’s predecessor, Gayle David Bradshaw, favored probation and also chose the suspended-sentence route in 2019 with Nick Kyrgios, the combustible Australian player, after a series of tantrums that included Kyrgios verbally abusing the chair umpire Fergus Murphy and spitting in his direction. Kyrgios was given probation even though he already had been suspended once for a “major offense” after showing a serious lack of effort in a match in Shanghai in 2016 (that suspension was reduced from eight weeks to three after Kyrgios agreed to see a sports psychologist).Other leading players also have struck the umpire’s chair with their rackets in anger without being suspended. Karolina Pliskova, a former world No. 1, smacked the side of the chair after a loss to Maria Sakkari in Rome in 2018 and received only an unspecified four-figure fine from the women’s tour. Medvedev, now the ATP No. 1, struck the chair twice during the 2020 ATP Cup and was given a point penalty and a fine.But though both of those incidents also deserved stiffer penalties, neither Pliskova nor Medvedev came nearly as close to striking the chair umpire or to displaying the same level of fury as Zverev.“If a player breaks his racket on the umpire’s chair, and he is literally a few centimeters away from hitting the umpire’s leg, he should not be allowed to get on a tennis court until he’s gone through some kind of rehab, some kind of time,” said Mats Wilander, a former No. 1-ranked player and a Eurosport analyst, before the ATP ruling was announced. “We need to punish him accordingly and allowing him to come out and play professional tennis the week after — or two weeks after — that is too soon.”Zverev played in the Davis Cup in Brazil last week.Sergio Moraes/ReutersSerena Williams spoke about Zverev’s outburst in an interview with CNN last week, saying there was “absolutely a double standard” and that she “would probably be in jail if I did that — like, literally, no joke.”Monday’s soft punishment of Zverev likely did little to change her view, but its relevant to remember that Williams also avoided suspension in 2009 after a profanity-filled tirade against a lineswoman during her U.S. Open semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters. Williams, despite threatening to shove the ball down the official’s throat, was fined $82,500 and placed on probation for two years.Zverev, ranked No. 3, already has competed since the incident in Acapulco, representing Germany in a Davis Cup match in Brazil last week. The Germans won, but Zverev complained afterward that the crowd had crossed a line by directing personal abuse at his family and support team.Sharypova, a Russian player, has not brought formal charges against Zverev since her accusations of domestic abuse were first reported by Racquet Magazine in November 2020. He has denied abusing her, and the ATP did not announce its investigation until nearly a year later. The inquiry is, according to ATP officials, being conducted by an outside party.It has been a tense time for quite some time for Zverev, but he has managed to produce some brilliant tennis: He won the gold medal in singles at last year’s Summer Olympics, pushed Novak Djokovic to five sets in the semifinals of the 2021 U.S. Open and then defeated Djokovic and Medvedev to win the prestigious season-ending ATP Finals in Turin, Italy, in November.But this season has not begun auspiciously for a player who has yet to win a Grand Slam tournament singles title. One of the big favorites at the Australian Open, he was upset in the fourth round by Shapovalov in three error-strewn sets, demolishing a racket in frustration in the second.Then came Acapulco and a much more serious failure to control his temper. It should have cost him more than a default, a middling fine and probation, but the ATP has missed the opportunity to send the right message to its public, to its players and — above all — to its officials.“Umpires need to be protected in their workplace,” Ings said. “Player abuse of officials is growing based on recent incidents, and this soft sanction will do nothing to deter future misconduct.” More

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      With a Second ATP Finals Win, Alexander Zverev Proves He Is Rising

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      This year gave the 24-year-old German star six singles titles, Olympic gold, an ATP Finals trophy, but also an ongoing tour investigation into allegations of physical abuse against a former girlfriend. TURIN, Italy — It was about the match at hand on Sunday as Alexander Zverev confidently rumbled to his second career title at the ATP Finals with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Daniil Medvedev.Zverev, ripping unreturnable serves and spectacular swing volleys, did not face a break point against an exceedingly talented opponent who had beaten him five times in a row and stolen quite a bit of his thunder in recent seasons as the most successful man in their age group.But Sunday was also about the matches and the season to come, which was why Zverev, who won the trophy in 2018, did not wait long in his post-victory interview to reference 2022 with a slight smile on his stubbled face.No man has won the ATP Finals twice who has not risen to No. 1 in the rankings and won multiple Grand Slam singles titles.For the moment, Zverev, 24, has yet to reach the top spot and yet to win one of the four major titles that remain tennis’ litmus tests of greatness.Will he be an unfortunate exception? It is hard to believe so with his up-to-date skill set.“I kind of have succeeded on every single level, and there’s one thing missing,” he said, referring to a Grand Slam title. “I hope I can do that next year.”He has exceptional power and reach and, like Medvedev, remarkable mobility at 6-foot-6. He has one of the best first serves and backhands in the world and improved court positioning and a shored-up forehand that was often a decisive punch down the stretch in Turin as he knocked out the world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in a three-set semifinal and then the second-ranked Medvedev in a match much shorter in length and thrills.“I feel like it’s inevitable Zverev is going to win a major,” said Patrick McEnroe, the ESPN analyst and former U.S. Davis Cup captain. “I’ve been saying for a couple years that he’s been knocking on the door. Now he’s banging on it.”He was already pounding loudly in 2020 at the U.S. Open, where he lost in a nervy, five-set final to Dominic Thiem in which Zverev lost a two-set lead and both players seemed to shrink from the prospect of breaking through.But though Zverev did not reach a Grand Slam final in 2021, this has been a reaffirming year with six singles titles, including the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo after stopping Djokovic along the way. Zverev, long considered soft when it mattered most, seems more clearheaded under duress and better at making tactical shifts and smart decisions on the fly.“He’s been a great player for a long time,” said Mischa Zverev, his brother, who has been coaching him in their father Alexander’s absence from the tour. “Sascha has all the shots, that big serve and big backhand and is moving well. But I think this week he really played intelligent tennis and was truly an all-rounder. I even saw him hit a backhand slice down the line and come to net to finish off the volley. He stepped it up when he needed to and was very patient when necessary. He mixed up his serve very well and mixed up the pace of his shots very well.”After complaining of weariness and losing quickly to Medvedev in the semifinals of the Paris Masters indoors earlier this month, Zverev came back at him with conviction in Turin, losing in the round-robin in a third-set tiebreaker after holding a match point and then raising the bar on Sunday, reading the flow of play, including Medvedev’s increasingly desperate drop shots.Daniil Medvedev was overpowered by Zverev.Julian Finney/Getty Images“It was almost like he used all his senses to play today,” Mischa Zverev said of his brother. “As much as seeing the ball and feeling it when it touches the racket, he was literally trying to think a few steps ahead, trying to listen to the crowd and the way the opponent hits the ball, soaking up all the information he could get and using it to his advantage.”It was an impressive performance but Zverev, despite his big-bang game and capacity to charm in three languages, remains a divisive figure who is difficult for many spectators to fully embrace because of the ongoing tour investigation into his alleged physical violence against a former girlfriend, Olya Sharypova. Other sports might have suspended him until the resolution of such an investigation, but men’s tennis, lacking a clear policy until this year, has allowed him to keep playing (and keep winning).He has denied the allegations of abuse, made by Sharypova in media interviews, and said that he welcomes the inquiry so he can clear his name. He has said he has been able to play so well in 2021 because he knows the truth and is confident that he will eventually be vindicated. But his performance has been a display of compartmentalization, surely not as straightforward as Zverev has made it look.“I’m his brother, so I’ve always had faith and belief in him from the day he was born,” said Mischa Zverev, who is 10 years older and preceded him on tour. “But yes, to win six tournaments, two Masters finals and Olympic gold, that’s a great year for anybody and especially with the things that were going on off the court, it’s more so impressive.”But there is a cost, both in lost sponsorship and lost support.“I think it’s affected him personally a lot more than he’s let on,” McEnroe said. “These allegations hanging over him are very uncomfortable, and we can only hope it works out for everybody, including the young woman in this situation. But the larger issue for tennis if I put on my ESPN hat and former U.S.T.A. hat is that, let’s be honest, these young guys at the moment are not moving the needle for tennis the same way the older guys have. They are not selling tickets the first week of the U.S. Open the same way that Nadal, Federer and Djokovic have been doing.”Medvedev shook hands with Zverev after their final match.Guglielmo Mangiapane/ReutersThere is an achievement gap, of course. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Djokovic have been dueling for 15 years and have won 20 Grand Slam singles titles apiece. But there is also an appeal gap with Zverev’s off-court issues and with Stefanos Tsitsipas, fairly or unfairly, having to fend off accusations of gamesmanship this summer because of his extended off-court breaks during matches and taking criticism after saying he didn’t see a need for someone his age to get a Covid-19 vaccine, though he later said he planned to get the shot.For now, Medvedev seems the most broadly appealing of the lead pack: an unorthodox, occasionally contortionist player and creative conversationalist who engages with and sometimes confronts a crowd (as he did again in Turin) but generally with a twinkle in his eye.He senses the concern about the future of men’s tennis but knows his history. There were doomsayers when Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe retired, doomsayers when Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi retired, but along came new champions and rivalries that gathered gravitas.“Tennis is a great sport, so I don’t see why our generation would miss on something,” Medvedev said. “Of course, maybe we don’t do 20 Grand Slams, yet nobody did before Roger, Rafa and Novak, so they were also worse than them if we can say like this. It’s definitely not going to be a shame.”For now, Medvedev, 25, has one major title, which came at this year’s U.S. Open where he stopped Djokovic’s Grand Slam attempt in the final. For now, Zverev has none and has yet to defeat a top-10 player in a Grand Slam tournament, but as he and his brother head to the Maldives for a break after a confidence-building season, Zverev is already flashing ahead to 2022.“My gut tells me and not even my gut, my brain, my eyes, my senses tell me he has the talent and has everything needed to win a Grand Slam,” Mischa Zverev said. “I believe it will happen soon, but that it will never happen is also a possibility. I can’t predict the future, but I always believed he could be No. 1 and will win Grand Slams, and I still believe that.” More

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      Zverev Defeats Djokovic and Will Play Medvedev in ATP Finals

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      The world No. 1 is increasingly under threat on hardcourts from younger, taller players — like the two men who will play in the finals on Sunday.TURIN, Italy — There will be no record-tying sixth victory in the ATP Finals for Novak Djokovic.Alexander Zverev made sure of that. So did the top-ranked Djokovic’s uncharacteristically shaky play early in the third set, which gave the long-limbed, big-serving Zverev all the elbow room he required to close out his 7-6 (4), 4-6, 6-3 victory in the semifinals on Saturday night.There was also no clarity on whether Djokovic will try to win a record-extending 10th singles title at the 2022 Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament where players will be required to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Djokovic, who has declined to divulge his vaccination status, had said that he would make his decision about traveling to Australia once the tournament announced its policy. It became official on Saturday, but he chose to remain noncommittal about the event, which begins on Jan. 17.“Now that I know, we’ll just have to wait and see,” he said.Djokovic has had a remarkably successful season, winning three major singles titles and coming within one match of completing the Grand Slam at the U.S. Open. At age 34, once considered an advanced tennis age, he will finish the year at No. 1 for a record seventh time.But he is also increasingly under threat on hardcourts, be they outdoors or indoors, from the younger and taller set. Zverev and Daniil Medvedev have taken turns thwarting Djokovic’s big plans and tennis dreams in the past four months. It is hardly a great surprise that the second-ranked Medvedev and the third-ranked Zverev will meet in the final on Sunday.“We’re not that young anymore, 25 and 24, so not that young,” said Zverev, who turned 24 in April. “And we’re starting to break through. He’s a Grand Slam champion, and I’m an Olympic gold medalist, and maybe we both put that on the line tomorrow.”Alexander Zverev last won the ATP Tour Finals in 2018.Alessandro Di Marco/EPA, via ShutterstockBoth achievements came at Djokovic’s expense. Djokovic has never won an Olympic gold medal, and he was on the brink when he faced Zverev in the semifinals of the Tokyo Games in July. He won the first set 6-1 and went up an early service break in the third. But Djokovic’s level dropped significantly from there.“It was almost as if he wanted it too much,” Roger Federer, one of Djokovic’s career-long rivals, said in an interview with Sky Italia on Saturday.Zverev rallied to win the gold medal, the most significant victory of his career.Djokovic, deflated, did not play again until the U.S. Open, where he won his first six matches, including a five-set thriller against Zverev in the semifinals, to give himself the chance to play for the Grand Slam against Medvedev.But instead of Djokovic breaking his tie with Federer and Rafael Nadal by winning a 21st Grand Slam singles title, Medvedev became a first-time Grand Slam champion.Djokovic thinks Zverev, who has yet to beat Djokovic in a best-of-five-set match, is close to joining the club. It was hard to dismiss the notion after watching Zverev rip serves in the clutch and often get the better of Djokovic in grueling, high-velocity baseline rallies.“He’s a great guy, fantastic tennis player, I’m sure soon to be a Grand Slam champion,” Djokovic said late Saturday night after embracing Zverev at the net.It was easy to forget amid the bonhomie that Zverev remains under investigation by the men’s tour because of allegations of physical abuse from a former girlfriend Olya Sharypova. She has filed no formal charges but has given a detailed account of the accusations in media interviews. Zverev, who has denied abusing Sharypova, has welcomed the investigation as a chance to clear his name. He has managed to thrive on court despite the controversy.But the Olympic gold medal has boosted Zverev’s confidence. It is a happy memory he taps into by frequently wearing his German Olympic team warm-up suit before matches.Both he and Medvedev won the ATP Finals when this elite, itinerant eight-man event was held at the O2 Arena in London: Zverev in 2018 and Medvedev in 2020. Now, they will face each other in Turin, where the tournament has moved for a five-year run with a similar deep-blue color scheme and a rather quicker court.Both are 6-foot-6 with big wingspans and excellent mobility, which can make them exceedingly difficult to break down. But Medvedev has had the clear edge, winning their last five matches over the past two seasons, including their round-robin match this week by the narrowest of margins, 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (6).Daniil Medvedev defeated Casper Ruud to earn a berth in the ATP Tour Finals.Marco Bertorello/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe speed of the court does not make Medvedev’s huge and elastic serve any easier to handle. But the conditions may help Zverev’s bigger serve even more. Djokovic, the game’s supreme returner, could break him just once on Saturday and even when Djokovic guessed correctly on the location of Zverev’s serves, he was often unable to reach them.Djokovic also served brilliantly through much of the match, using his precision to hit 15 aces to Zverev’s 14. But at 1-2 in the third set, he played his worst service game, opening with a smooth forehand winner, then making three consecutive forehand unforced errors and eventually losing the edgy game by dumping a backhand into the net.“Just wasted really the match in that game,” Djokovic said. “Four unforced errors. In the conditions like this where you have one of the biggest servers in the game, it’s just difficult to come back from that.”The result deepened Djokovic’s drought at the ATP Finals, which he last won in 2015. Though Djokovic has broken or matched some of Federer’s most significant records, including total weeks at No. 1, Federer still holds the record for most victories at the ATP Finals with six.While Federer, now 40, is sidelined indefinitely because of major knee surgery, Djokovic plays on, although perhaps not in Australia in 2022. He has made it clear that he does not believe vaccination for Covid should be required, and yet the state government of Victoria in Australia has made it mandatory for the Australian Open.Zverev went out of his way on Saturday to compliment and support Djokovic: “He’s the greatest player of all time, and people forget that sometimes,” Zverev said in his post-match interview. “I think everybody should appreciate that.”He said he hoped Djokovic would be able to play in Melbourne but acknowledged the obstacles.“Look, this is a very tough one, because it’s very political,” Zverev said. “This is about the virus that is going on, right? This is not about a tournament or tennis. We are visiting a different country. At the end of the day, the country is allowing us to enter. We need to follow the rules and follow the guidelines.”Tournament officials have given no indication that any exceptions will be made to the policy, and the Australian Open could be the first of numerous tour events to require vaccination next season.“At the end of the day, I’m No. 3 in the world, so if he doesn’t play, it’s easier to win the tournament,” Zverev said.But even though Djokovic did play in Turin, he is no longer in the running. The trophy will go to one of the two other, younger men who have shined most brightly on court in 2021. More

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      Australian Open to Require Players to Be Fully Vaccinated

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      The Australian Open in January will become the first Grand Slam tennis tournament to require that players be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, a decision that casts doubt on the participation of Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the No. 1-ranked men’s player who has declined to divulge his vaccination status.Craig Tiley, the Australian Open tournament director, confirmed the tournament’s policy on Saturday in Melbourne, Australia, in a television interview.The announcement ended months of speculation and mixed messages from Australian government officials. Federal authorities had indicated that unvaccinated players might be able to enter Australia and compete in the tournament in Melbourne after a 14-day quarantine period. But Daniel Andrews, the premier of the state of Victoria, has been adamant that players will need to be fully vaccinated, just as Australian Open spectators and on-site employees will be required to be vaccinated.Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, has experienced some of the strictest coronavirus measures in the world, with six separate stay-at-home orders over an 18-month period.“It is the one direction that you can take that you can ensure everyone’s safety, and all the playing group understands it,” Tiley said of requiring players to be vaccinated. “Our patrons will need to be vaccinated. All the staff working the Australian Open will need to be vaccinated, but when we’re in a state where there’s more than 90 percent of the population fully vaccinated — they’ve done a magnificent job with that — it’s the right thing to do.”Steve Simon, the chairman and chief executive of the Women’s Tennis Association, said in an interview this week that “over 70 percent” of the WTA’s top 300 singles players and top 100 doubles players had been vaccinated and that all the singles and doubles players who competed in the recent WTA finals in Mexico had been vaccinated. Andrea Gaudenzi, chairman of the men’s tour, said on Friday in an interview that the vaccination rate for the top 100 men’s singles players was “above 80 percent.”“We are moving toward 90 percent, 95 percent of fully vaccinated,” Gaudenzi said. “A lot will do it in the off-season with one shot.”But it seems all but certain that some qualified players will not make the journey to Australia because of the policy.“It’s an unfortunate situation,” Gaudenzi said of mandatory vaccination, speaking shortly before the tournament’s announcement. “I really hope in the future, in America and after that, there’s going to be a change: at the minimum, providing exceptions even with a hard quarantine of seven or 14 days, but allowing entry.”All four Grand Slam tournaments, including the U.S. Open, allowed unvaccinated players to participate this year, as have regular tour events, including the ATP Finals currently underway in Turin, Italy.Djokovic, a nine-time Australian Open singles champion, has yet to confirm whether he will defend his title next year. He and his wife, Jelena, contracted the coronavirus in June 2020 during an exhibition tour he had helped to organize in Serbia and Croatia. He has expressed concern about vaccines.“How are we expecting that to solve our problem when this coronavirus is mutating regularly from what I understand?” he told The New York Times last year.He has said, repeatedly, that he would wait for the Australian Open’s policy to be made clear before making a decision on participating.That moment has come with Djokovic set to play the No. 3-ranked Alexander Zverev of Germany in the semifinals of the Turin tournament on Saturday.“He has always said the Australian Open is the event that puts the wind in his sails,” Tiley said of Djokovic. “So I hope we get to see Novak.” More

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      It’s Been a Long Season on the ATP Tour

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      With injuries and fatigue, it has taken its toll on the players, who say they will work through the challenges during these finals.Winning on the ATP Tour means surviving perpetual battles of endurance inside a war of attrition. Relentless baseline rallies lead to longer, more draining matches in a season that runs nearly year-round.There was additional concern that after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, this year’s schedule might take an even greater toll as players get back into shape.“Our season is too long given the physicality of today’s tennis,” the third-ranked Alexander Zverev said in late October. “We don’t really have time to let our injuries heal.”Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem were sidelined by injuries this year, and at the Paris Masters last week, the fourth-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas retired with a nagging arm injury. Tsitsipas said he dropped out to preserve his shot at an even bigger prize, the year-end Nitto ATP Finals.The finals, which moves this year to Turin, Italy, from London, is what the game’s elite have been grinding to reach. The tournament has the game’s top eight players split into two groups of four that confront each other in a round-robin format before two from each half advance to the semifinals.Stefanos Tsitsipas retired from his Paris Masters match with an arm injury.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBrad Gilbert, an ESPN analyst, said the move to Turin should not impact the style of play because, like London’s O2 Arena where the event was played last year, it is indoors with a hard court made by GreenSet, which has produced relatively slow, low-bouncing surfaces.“So we could have more long rallies,” he said. He said that the week off between the Paris Masters and the ATP Finals should benefit the players if there were long points. (This final does not even end the season, with the Davis Cup Finals coming a few days later.)Paul Annacone, who coached Pete Sampras and Federer and is a Tennis Channel analyst, said the players who made it to the ATP Finals feel a sense of accomplishment. “They understand the magnitude of this event, featuring the best of best, so they’ll do whatever they can to win.”The players said that they would indeed play through their fatigue after a grueling season. Zverev, Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev also said they would not change tactics with bigger serves or ground strokes, more drop shots or a race to get to the net — just for the sake of ending points quickly.“I’ll play the way I play,” Zverev said, who at the United States Open semifinal against Novak Djokovic won a 53-shot rally in a game where the other five points averaged nearly 20 shots each.Novak Djokovic is ranked No. 1 and will be favored to win the ATP Finals.Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesTsitsipas said his game had not changed just because of the time of year, so the players strategies would not budge much either. “If there’s some sort of difference it will be very small.”Rublev said that Tsitsipas, who had the ability to charge the net and the finesse to win on drop shots, was perhaps best suited to change his game if the match demanded it, whereas he was set in his ways. “I’m an aggressive player, and I like to be the one to lead the rally, to dictate the point,” Rublev said. “This is the goal for all the matches.”The home crowd should give an advantage to Matteo Berrettini, ranked No. 7 in the world, the only Italian in the final.“Berrettini has a huge serve and a huge forehand, so he can keep points short,” Annacone said. “And this is a new event for Italy, featuring one of their top young superstars, so I expect the crowd to sound like a concert of Italian fanatics. Berrettini could be right there with the top players.”Annacone said Daniil Medvedev and Zverev had a strong shot at winning because they had proved their stamina, playing excellent tennis since the summer, adding that they had big serves and first strikes so they could shorten points without changing tactics.And Zverev proved his staying power in those long U.S. Open rallies, while Medvedev thrived on counterpunching and could wear tired opponents down, Annacone said. By contrast, Tsitsipas and Rublev have faltered in the second half of the season, making them less likely to survive this gantlet.Still, Djokovic, the world No. 1, remains the favorite. While second-ranked Medvedev beat him in the finals of the U.S. Open on a hard court, and indoors in last year’s ATP Finals, Djokovic has not lost an ATP match in the last two years to any of the other competitors. (Zverev beat him in the Olympics.)Djokovic also took time off after the U.S. Open, meaning he may be fresher than his rivals, which Annacone said could prove crucial.“It will come down to who is freshest and healthiest,” he said, “and can find their form that week.” More

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      Alexander Zverev Under ATP Investigation Into Domestic Abuse Allegations

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      The German tennis star has denied he abused Olya Sharypova during a series of physical altercations she says took place in 2019.After months of delay and complaints from players and tennis officials, the men’s professional tennis tour announced Monday that it would investigate Alexander Zverev after accusations of domestic abuse made by a former girlfriend.Zverev, 24, a rising star from Germany ranked fourth in the world in men’s singles, has strongly denied accusations that he was violent with Olya Sharypova during a series of physical altercations, and did so again in a statement on Monday. Sharypova, a Russian national, has not filed any criminal charges over the incidents, which, she said, took place in 2019. The two began dating when they were teenagers, but the relationship ended more than a year ago.Ahead of the U.S. Open, Zverev sought an injunction in court in Germany to prevent further reporting on the allegations by Slate, which had published a lengthy article on them by Ben Rothenberg, a freelance tennis writer who sometimes writes for The New York Times. The court granted the injunction, and Zverev pointed to it as a confirmation of his innocence.While the court stopped short of that, it agreed with his argument that the evidence presented in the article was not sufficient under German law to justify the impact on him. The decision stated that such an article needed to have enough balance so that it did not leave the impression that Zverev was guilty of the acts Sharypova accused him of committing. Slate has continued to stand by the reporting in the story and has not removed it from its site.Multiple players have said the ATP needs to address the Zverev situation directly and change its policies about domestic violence allegations.In his statement on Monday, Zverev said: “I have always been in full support of the creation of an ATP domestic violence policy. Moreover, I welcome the ATP investigation in the matter and have been asking the ATP to initiate an independent investigation for months.”Andy Murray, a former world No. 1, has complained several times this year about how he felt the ATP was dragging its feet on the issue, long after several North American sports leagues changed their policies to allow players who are the subject of domestic violence allegations to be suspended.“Obviously it was something that needed to change in terms of how some of the situations have been handled, I think, this year,” Murray said after the ATP said it would consider changing its policy. “I just didn’t really feel like the sport had much of a sort of stance on it, really.”On Monday, the ATP said it fully condemned any form of violence or abuse and would investigate such allegations related to conduct at an ATP member tournament.Massimo Calvelli, chief executive of the ATP, called the allegations against Zverev “serious.”“We have a responsibility to address them,” Calvelli said in a statement. “We hope our investigation will allow us to establish the facts and determine appropriate follow-up action.”The ATP announced in August that an independent panel would review and make recommendations for changes to its policies regarding player conduct, including those players who are the subject of abuse allegations.Zverev has suggested he will cooperate with an investigation, but it is not clear what form that cooperation will take. The ATP has until now not had any clear rules for investigating and taking action against players who are the subject of domestic abuse allegations before the matters are adjudicated in a court of law.Sharypova has said she has no intentions of filing charges or a suit against Zverev for the altercations, which allegedly took place in the United States, China and Switzerland while Zverev was competing.Zverev is scheduled to play at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., this week and is planning to play at the ATP Tour Finals in Italy next month.Since the allegations, Zverev has parted ways with his agents at Team8, the agency founded by Roger Federer and his agent Tony Godsick, though he did participate last month in Federer’s tournament, the Laver Cup. Zverev’s main sponsors include Adidas and Rolex, which so far have stuck by him despite the allegations. More

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      Laver Cup: Team Europe Wins Fourth Straight Title

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      After Europe’s fourth straight win, an organizer promised Team World would win “at some point.” He didn’t say when.BOSTON — After three down-to-the-wire editions, the Laver Cup finally came up short of drama.It happens, and considering European players’ long-running dominance of men’s tennis, it is frankly more surprising that the first three Laver Cups were suspense magnets than that this year’s edition was a disappointing blowout.Even without the stars who make up the Big Three in men’s tennis — Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — Team Europe had nothing but top 10 players in its six-man squad in Boston. Its opponent, Team World, did not have any, and it showed in the final score, 14-1, which was by far the most lopsided in the event’s brief history.Despite all the careful planning and big investment in this team competition, the bottom line is that Team Europe and Bjorn Borg, its captain, have won every Laver Cup. They have an excellent chance of remaining undefeated in London next year and beyond considering the youth and talent of rising stars like the 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev, his Russian countryman Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece and Alexander Zverev of Germany.That competitive imbalance is potentially a big problem for the Laver Cup, the international team event created by Federer and his management company Team8 in 2017.“I think a Team World win would be good for everyone,” said John McEnroe, Team World’s captain. “I think the event needs it. I was wondering why Russia was part of Europe. I don’t think it is, but that’s just me.”One cannot blame McEnroe for thinking creatively, even desperately, at this stage. Unfortunately for McEnroe, much of Russia is indeed in continental Europe, and the country traditionally takes part in European sporting competitions. Even if eastern Russia is in Asia, Medvedev and the Russians will remain part of Team Europe, according to Tony Godsick, the Laver Cup’s chief executive.“We won’t make the change,” Godsick said Sunday night. “We’re not going to adjust this thing. It will be cyclical. I promise you, the world team will win at some point.”The Laver Cup, with its three-day format and blue and red color scheme for team uniforms, was modeled after golf’s venerable and successful Ryder Cup, and certainly took the modeling too far this time by being played in the same country on the same weekend.That was not to the upstart tennis competition’s benefit, even though the crowds and the atmosphere were terrific in Boston. A search of “Cup” on Google news on Sunday night produced a top-10 that was all Ryder Cup results from Whistling Straits.Godsick said the scheduling overlap was not intentional. Both events were postponed in 2020, and he said that the Laver Cup has a designated week on the tennis schedule that could not be changed.The Ryder Cup, which was first contested in 1927 in Worcester, Mass., had to evolve to become a major event and commercial juggernaut. Originally a competition between the United States and Britain, it only became a runaway success after players from other European nations joined the British team in 1979.But if the Russians are remaining part of Team Europe in the Laver Cup, not much other tinkering can be done in the geography department. Team World already is open to every non-European nation and had players this year from Argentina (Diego Schwartzman), Australia (Nick Kyrgios), Canada (Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime) and the United States (Reilly Opelka and John Isner).For now, McEnroe is 0-4 as its captain, and his Laver Cup rivalry with his old friend Borg has not been nearly as balanced as their rivalry when they were playing classic Grand Slam finals in the 1980s.“I normally do like you,” the gray-haired McEnroe said to the gray-haired Borg on Sunday at the awards ceremony in the TD Garden. “I hate your guts right now.”McEnroe was only half kidding. Arms folded in his courtside chair, he looked like a man experiencing indigestion for much of this long weekend.Technically, the Laver Cup is an exhibition. It offers no ranking points even though it is a sanctioned ATP Tour event.But the captains and the players have never treated it as an exhibition, and Team World’s failure to compete in Boston was certainly not linked to a failure to care. Their expressions were often anguished and their body language often tense as they lost critical point after critical point, usually in the match tiebreakers that substitute for third sets.“It’s not an exhibition,” Opelka said. “If this was an exhibition, it would not have been 14-1. I can guarantee you that.”Opelka, a towering and bearded player at 6-foot-11 who lost both his matches in his Laver Cup debut, confessed that he had been skeptical until he experienced the event himself this year.“It looked too good to be true,” he said of the close finishes in 2017, 2018 and 2019. “And then I got here, and the way Johnny Mac started speaking about it changed everything. He’s a true legend. That was priceless being able to spend time with him.”The Laver Cup’s capacity to bring together tennis’s past and present stars for meaningful exchanges is one of its strengths. So is its format, in which victories are worth one point on the first day, two points on the second and three points on the third. That was intended to prevent a meaningless final day. But while four matches were scheduled on Sunday, Europe clinched victory after only one, with Zverev and Rublev defeating Opelka and Shapovalov, 6-2, 6-7 (4), 10-3. It was yet another close match that went Europe’s way. It was also a potentially edgy one.After Zverev lost in doubles on Friday night with Matteo Berrettini, McEnroe said that Zverev told him that would be the last match Team World was going to win. McEnroe later acknowledged that Zverev was teasing, but McEnroe said he was eager for “bulletin-board material.”After McEnroe informed his team of the comment on Friday, the response was predictably bellicose and Opelka responded with: “He also said he’s innocent.” That was an apparent reference to published allegations of domestic violence from Zverev’s former girlfriend, Olya Sharypova.Alexander Zverev was on court for the decisive point in the Laver Cup for the third straight iteration of the competition. Adam Glanzman/Getty Images For Laver CupSharypova has not filed criminal charges against Zverev over the incidents, which she told the publication Slate occurred in 2019. Zverev has repeatedly denied abusing Sharypova and has continued to play on the ATP Tour, winning the Olympic gold medal in singles in Tokyo and reaching the semifinals of the U.S. Open earlier this month before competing in the Laver Cup.On Sunday night, Laver Cup organizers announced before Team World’s final news conference that the team would field only “tennis-related questions.” In a separate interview, Opelka later declined to speak about Zverev.The ATP Tour announced earlier this year that it would review its approach to handling players who are accused of domestic abuse or sexual misconduct. It currently has no formal policy.Zverev turned out to be correct, though, that the Friday’s doubles win would be Team World’s last victory in Boston. His victory on Sunday with the hard-hitting Rublev marked the third straight time that Zverev has won the decisive point in the Laver Cup.He looked very much like Team Europe’s new leader in Boston on the court and in the post-match interviews. Though Federer made the trip to Boston, he did so only as a spectator and cheerleader, navigating the TD Garden on crutches after knee surgery in August.At age 40, it is unclear when or if he will return to the tour, but what is clear is that this European team was still unstoppable without him or the other members of the Big Three: Nadal and Djokovic.Carrying the Laver Cup forward without that superstar power will be a much bigger challenge.“I’m definitely not worried about the event’s future,” Godsick said. “Tennis always produces new superstars. It always has, and it always will. There are new people holding up Grand Slam trophies. You see it coming now. If anything, I think we were lucky to be able to launch it in the era of such incredible tennis players.” More