Zverev, Alexander

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      Lloyd Harris Plays Alexander Zverev in U.S. Open Quarterfinals

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      Harris, a South African player, is followed with great excitement in his home city of Cape Town, and specifically at the unique academy that helped launch his career.The WhatsApp text chain has grown to about 100 people, many in Cape Town with others spread around the globe, playing tennis and sending their congratulations and enthusiastic messages of support to Lloyd Harris.“They are all on there congratulating me,” Harris said. “It’s such a special feeling. They are like my family.”The thread includes the coaches, administrators, parents and kids that train at the Anthony Harris (no relation) academy, where Lloyd Harris developed as a professional tennis player. Lloyd Harris is their inspiration, their affirmation of success, an example that it can work. But most important to all of them, he is their academy brother.“He means so much to these kids and they all look up to him,” Anthony Harris, who has served as Lloyd Harris’s main coach since he joined the academy in 2012, said in an interview from Cape Town. “They are staying up late and talking about how he great is doing. It’s a fantastic inspiration for everyone.”What Lloyd Harris, 24, has done is barge into the quarterfinal round of the U.S. Open men’s singles draw to cap a summer that included a win over Rafael Nadal in Washington last month. When he arrived in New York, he beat three seeded players — Karen Khachanov, Denis Shapovalov and Reilly Opelka — to reach his first major quarterfinal, where he will play the No. 4 seed, Alexander Zverev of Germany, on Wednesday.“I always knew I had the ability,” Harris said. “I never had a problem beating some of the top guys. But it was consistently playing at that level, which was a little bit more challenging for me.”Harris’s rapid climb is followed with great excitement in Cape Town, his home city, and specifically at the unique academy that helped launch his career. His parents heard about the program and asked Anthony Harris if he would take their son. Lloyd Harris joined in 2012 when he was 14 years old, and quickly became the program’s most accomplished student.“I told his mum,” Anthony Harris said, “‘Your son is special. He has a chance to do something big in this sport.’ She said, ‘Let’s go for it.’”Lloyd Harris, center with Anthony Harris, right, and coach Eitan Adams, left, after winning ITF Pro Futures tournament in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 2016.Courtesy Anthony Harris Tennis AcademyThe Anthony Harris Tennis Academy, a modest enclave tucked into the tony Bantry Bay area of Cape Town, has grown since Lloyd Harris first joined. It now boasts five coaches, three blue hard courts and one clay court. There is a small residence hall for the most financially disadvantaged students, some of whom lived in shanties before they moved in and attended for free.It is not a glamorous, corporate academy, but it helped shape Harris into the player and person he is, and both Harrises think of it as family.“I’ve never once been to the academy where it’s been a bad atmosphere or a bad vibe,” Lloyd Harris said. “It’s always positive energy, the coaches are having fun with the kids, but working hard. It’s just this really special thing.”Lloyd Harris, who is currently ranked 46th, grew up in a middle class household, but many of the students at the academy are from underprivileged backgrounds.While academics and human development are a core part of the program, tennis is at the forefront of the academy’s mission. Those who meet certain criteria, regarding their progress through the junior tennis ranks, are given funding to travel the world as they attempt to become professionals. The rest focus on getting a university scholarship.At first, there were only a handful of kids. Now there are a dozen, and the hope is to be able to accommodate about eight more. The academy has taken one child who was found rummaging for food, and another who showed promise at tennis but was kicked out of a different program for behavioral issues.“Maybe we can change their life,” Anthony Harris said. “It’s like the old fable about giving someone a fishing rod. We can’t help a thousand kids. But maybe we can help 15 or 20.”Leo Matthysen, 15, lives in Mitchells Plain, outside of Cape Town, and is the top-ranked junior boy age 15 and under in all of Africa after spending the last several years at the academy.Kelly Arends and Mikaeel Woodman, also longtime members of the academy, recently earned scholarships to play for Tyler Junior College, a Texas school with one of the premier junior college tennis programs in the United States, and they arrived there two weeks ago to begin their freshman seasons.Leo Mattysen, Robbie Arends, Mikaeel Woodman, Jordy Gerste, and Kelly Arends.Courtesy Anthony Harris Tennis AcademyWoodman, 18, also grew up in Mitchells Plain, in what he called “a really rough area.” He said had it not been for the academy, he might have ended up in a gang.“It got me off the street and changed my life,” Woodman said after his practice at Tyler Junior College on Tuesday. “I went when I was 10 and I got to watch Lloyd for seven or eight years. I really want to play professionally, one day, like him.”With Anthony Harris as the head coach on a staff of eight, tennis is seen as vehicle for success, and Lloyd Harris is their Model T.Soon after he joined up in 2012, he and the coach began traversing the continent with Lloyd playing tournaments in Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Morocco and Egypt, to name a few, and then moved on to tournaments in Europe and Asia before he turned pro in 2015.“One of the things I’m most proud of, and I told Lloyd this,” Anthony Harris said, “is that he never got one wild-card entry into a top-tier tournament. He had to work for everything he got.”Funding is always an issue for the academy. The family of Nathan Kirsh, an Eswatini billionaire businessman, is a principal contributor and Lloyd Harris is hosting a golf tournament in Cape Town in November to help raise funds for a program that is so dear to his heart.“We’ve come such a long way and from where it started, this small little program, to what it’s become now,” Lloyd Harris said. “It’s a home for so many kids from underprivileged backgrounds, who now have these amazing opportunities.”With the demands of his profession, and the difficulty of traveling to and from one of the most remote parts of the earth (at least for tennis travel), Lloyd Harris relocated to Dubai, where he now trains. He has not been back to South Africa all year because of pandemic travel restrictions. He has been working with Xavier Malisse, the former top professional player, in conjunction with Anthony Harris.But before his pandemic-induced temporary hiatus, Lloyd Harris regularly returned to the academy to practice and hit with the kids on court.Lloyd Harris, bottom left, at the Academy last year in February.Courtesy Anthony Harris Tennis Academy“You should see how they gravitate to him and how he responds,” said Dionne Harris, Anthony’s wife and the main administrator who makes the academy operate smoothly. “He brings them equipment and things and lets them return his serves. He is like the hero.”Lloyd Harris does not go that far. But he recognizes his role in the lives of all the children on that WhatsApp thread, cheering him on.“They see how I’m behaving, how I’m working but also enjoying myself on the court,” Lloyd Harris said. “I know they are watching. Hopefully, I can teach them well.” More

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      Alexander Zverev Soars on the Court as Abuse Allegations Linger

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      The German star has a good chance of getting in the way of Novak Djokovic’s pursuit of a Grand Slam, even as he confronts allegations of domestic violence.Alexander Zverev is playing the best tennis of his career.He stretched his winning streak to 12 matches on Tuesday with a clinical, 100-minute demolition of Sam Querrey, the hard-serving American who is always dangerous on hardcourts. Zverev is one month removed from knocking off the world No. 1, Novak Djokovic, in the Olympic semifinal and winning the gold medal in men’s singles, which he followed by winning the Western & Southern Open near Cincinnati, a top-level event on the men’s tour and the main tuneup for the U.S. Open.But as he prepares to face Albert Ramos-Viñolas of Spain in the second round of the U.S. Open on Thursday, he continues to fend off allegations of domestic violence from a former girlfriend that have become the elephant in the room, one that neither the ATP Tour nor Zverev can ignore any longer.As Zverev’s stature on the court has grown this summer, so has attention to the accusations. Last month, leaders of the ATP announced a review of how the tour handles players accused of domestic abuse. Zverev went to court in Germany last week to contest publication of a lengthy article in Slate that details accusations from a former girlfriend, Olya Sharypova, a former Russian tennis player, that Zverev repeatedly abused her.Sharypova has not filed any criminal charges over the incidents, which she says took place in 2019.Zverev, 24, a German, has repeatedly and categorically denied ever abusing Sharypova. In recent days, he has pointed to the German court’s decision late last week to issue an injunction against Slate and the author of the article, Ben Rothenberg, from publishing the allegations without more substantial evidence as a confirmation of his innocence.Rothenberg is a freelance tennis journalist who sometimes writes for The New York Times. He and Slate have stated they stand by the reporting in the article, which Slate has not removed from its website or blocked from readers in Germany, despite the injunction from the German court.“We stand by our fair and accurate reporting based on multiple sources and interviews,” Katie Rayford, Slate’s director of media relations, said in a statement.The initial decision from the court in Germany, where the libel and defamation standards are more stringent than in the United States, was far from a final word on the matter.The hearing in the court in Berlin took place without the participation of Slate or anyone except Zverev’s lawyers. The decision stated Zverev’s lawyers made a credible argument that the accusations were not true, but the court did not hear testimony from the other parties involved, and it’s not clear how the ruling will be enforced.The court, however, 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.Olya Sharypova attended Zverev’s match at the U.S. Open in 2019.Anthony Behar/Sipa USA, via Associated PressSharypova, who was not a named defendant in Zverev’s complaint, continued to make claims against him on Instagram after the ruling, writing that she was not afraid of Zverev, his family or his legal team, though she has since taken down the post.“I said the truth and you’re going to court to try to win it with a lie?” she wrote. “Nice try to scary me, but I have nothing to be afraid of.”After his first-round win on Tuesday, Zverev said he planned to push ahead with the legal battle to clear his name.“I think my statement was very, very clear, and I think the German court system is also very clear,” he said.“I will not let that sit on me, and that’s it,” Zverev said of the accusations. “I’m not going to comment on it any further because, to be honest, I have been dealing with it for a long time now.”Days before the Slate article was published, the ATP Tour announced it would review its strategy for handling players who are accused of domestic abuse or sexual misconduct. The major North American sports leagues took similar actions years ago.Critics of the ATP, including active players, have long asked for similar action from their own association. Until now, the ATP has waited for legal proceedings to conclude, a process that can take years, before issuing its own penalties or punishments for players.Last month, the leaders of the tour said they had commissioned a report from a panel of independent experts to recommend a new policy for more proactive involvement.“Abuse has a profound and lasting impact on millions of victims each year,” Massimo Calvelli, chief executive of the ATP Tour, said in a statement announcing the creation of the panel. “When abusive conduct or allegations are related to any member of the tennis family it can also impact the public’s trust in our sport. We recognize that we have a responsibility to be doing more.”Coming up with a uniform policy for tennis might be easier said than done. Seven major organizations run the sport. Scores of players have signed on to a new players association that Djokovic and others are attempting to create. The sport operates and the players live all over the world, and legal standards differ from one country to the next, though that may be the strongest reason for the need for a single abuse policy.Andy Murray, a former No. 1 who is a member of the ATP Player Council and has lobbied for a change in the policy, applauded the move on Monday.“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. “I just didn’t really feel like the sport had much of a sort of stance on it really.”He added: “Let’s see what their suggestions and recommendations are at the end of that. Hopefully there is a policy in place at the end of it.”Zverev said he, too, supported a new policy for abusive behavior, though he has not committed to participating in an independent investigation by the ATP Tour that could be included in such a policy.Amid the allegations and legal proceedings, he has somehow managed to play the best tennis of his career. Midway through his semifinal against Djokovic at the Tokyo Games, Zverev abandoned caution and began blasting away with his serves and returns. Zverev rendered one of the best players ever to play the game helpless.He has not let up since, putting on another show on Tuesday against Querrey. He blasted 18 aces, won 60 of 74 points on his serve and never faced a break point. He credited his success on the court with his happiness off it.“The past year has been very, very good for me,” he said during his on-court television interview after the match. “I have had a lot of success on the court. I also enjoy life outside the court.” More

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      Stefanos Tsitsipas Beats Zverev to Reach French Open Final

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      Stefanos Tsitsipas, the 22-year-old rising star from Greece, will play in his first Grand Slam final Sunday.Tsitsipas survived five-sets of testosterone-fueled tennis Friday, staving off a stirring comeback from Alexander Zverev of Germany Friday, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3 in the first men’s semifinal. He will play the winner of the heavyweight matchup between Rafael Nadal, the 13-time French Open champion, and Novak Djokovic, the world No. 1.Tsitsipas, a passionate player and person who makes films in his spare time, fought back tears in an interview on the court after the match. “All I can think of is my roots where I came from a small place outside Athens, my dream was to play here,” he said. He is the first Greek player to make a Grand Slam final.Tsitsipas has now beaten two players ranked in the top six to reach the final and has dropped just a single set in six matches.Tsitsipas was in control from the beginning of match, breaking Zverev in his first service game and cruising for an early lead. Zverev, 24, a lanky and powerful player who has made the semifinal round in four of the past five Grand Slams, stepped up in the second set, surging to a 3-1 lead, only for Tsitsipas to raise his game even higher.With Zverev searching for tight angles, Tsitsipas chased down every shot. And when he reached the balls, he showed off every ounce of creativity.He has the power to exert intense pressure on an opponent, a sneaky backhand drop shot, and at 6-foot-4, an intimidating net game. Exerting all three at once, he reeled off five straight games to take the second set as Zverev got sloppy, spraying his strokes wide and long. More