Articles by Steve Tignor

Federer shakes off close loss to Djokovic to deliver convincing win

Thu, 14 Nov 2019 23:01:00 +0000

“We’ve had so many cool matches in the past, it was nice to finally get one,” Roger Federer told ESPN’s Brad Gilbert after his razor sharp, 6-4, 6-3, win over Novak Djokovic at the ATP Finals on Thursday.

For a second, I thought Federer had said “cruel,” not “cool,” and from his perspective, that may have made more sense. Djokovic, as every Federer fan knows all too well, saved match points and beat him in a Wimbledon final this year, and in two US Open semifinals earlier in the decade. The Serb also edged the Swiss in a third-set tiebreaker in Bercy last fall.

Today, Federer was asked what the difference was between those excruciatingly close losses, and this exhilaratingly convincing victory.

“I won the match point, I guess,” he joked.

In reality, it was everything that Federer did leading up to match point that made the difference. By the time Djokovic stood at 3-5, 0-40 in the second set, after just 70 rapid-fire minutes of play, he had been soundly beaten, and the match was a foregone conclusion.

Getty Images

Federer’s immaculate stat line tells the tale well: He hit 23 winners (11 were aces), made just five unforced errors, won 81 percent of his first-serve points, and, perhaps most impressively, won 69 percent of his second-serve points against the game’s best returner. Federer faced one break point, and he erased it in style, by rifling a forehand to each corner and knocking off a putaway volley. Otherwise, as the sets went on and the pressure built, Federer’s serve only got better. He recorded loved holds at 4-3 and 5-4 in the first set, and starting at 4-3 in the second, he won the last eight points of the match.

“When you can dominate on your serve, you can definitely be more loose on the returns,” Federer said. “Tonight the rhythm was there. I was hitting the spots, too, and I was able to be extremely clear in the game plan.”

It didn’t take long for Federer to get loose, and let loose, on Djokovic’s serve. At 1-1, he broke by stepping into two big crosscourt backhands, and he threatened Djokovic’s serve twice more in the first set. In the second set, he earned two more break points in the opening game, and then broke through at 2-2 with a series of ground strokes that Djokovic couldn’t handle. Even as Djokovic settled in and began to hit with more weight, Federer maintained his aggressive stance, refused to let himself be pushed off the baseline, and barreled forward whenever he could.

Getty Images

After Federer’s opening-set salvo, the world awaited a Djokovic response. For a couple of games early in the second, it looked like it might come, as he began to match Federer aggression, saved two break points, and finally earned one of his own. But Djokovic also said he felt a sharp pain in his right elbow at one stage, and he could be seen rubbing it on changeovers. In the final game, rather than make a last stand, Djokovic made four straight errors instead. His quest for his sixth ATP Finals title, and sixth year-end No. 1 ranking, were over. Federer’s win ensured that Rafael Nadal would claim that prize for 2019.

“I came so incredibly close against Novak the last couple of years,” said Federer, who had lost his last five to the Serb dating back to 2015. “There was a lot riding on this match, I’m sure Rafa was watching as well.”

“From that standpoint, it was a magical night for me at the 02.”

When this tournament began on Sunday, Federer put in a losing performance against Dominic Thiem, one that the Swiss himself said left him “shaken up.” By Thursday, he was back in peak form, playing perhaps his best match of 2019, and beating his biggest nemesis of recent years. In that sense, it was a fitting way for Federer to end a season in which he’s proven, time after time, that any reports of his decline have been greatly exaggerated.

Tsitsipas has had a long year, but he looks to end it with a flourish

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 22:53:00 +0000

Stefanos Tsitsipas has had a career year in 2019. Usually, when we use that term, we mean that a player has had his or her best season. And that has certainly been true for the 21-year-old Tsitsipas, who has moved from No. 15 to No. 5 in the rankings over the last 10 months. But in his case, “career” might also refer to the length of his season; he probably feels as if he’s packed a lifetime’s worth of peaks and valleys into this year. The ATP Finals are Tsitsipas’s 27th event of 2019; that’s more than anyone else in the Top 10, and 10 more than any of the Big 3 have played. Was it really just this season when he announced himself to the world by beating Roger Federer at the Australian Open? Wasn’t that, like, four years ago?

Coming into this week, I thought Tsitsipas would be burned out from the grind, and would take his share of lumps in his Finals debut. Instead, the 21-year-old appears poised to finish his year the same way he started it, with a flourish. In his first match, on Monday, he recorded his first win in six tries against Daniil Medvedev. He celebrated that breakthrough as if he had just won a major title, and the good feelings obviously continued on Wednesday, when he cruised past Alexander Zverev, 6-3, 6-2, in just 73 minutes. Every tennis fan knows that the number of points won doesn’t technically mean anything, but Tsitsipas’s 62 to 41 edge over Zverev was notably one-sided. This was a blow-out.

Getty Images

The first evidence that Tsitsipas was on his game came at 1-1 in the first set, when he wound up and drilled his one-handed backhand down the line for a winner. Zverev wasn’t far away from the ball, but he still couldn’t catch up to it. Had Tsitsipas been watching Dominic Thiem do the same thing, over and over and over, with his own one-hander, against Novak Djokovic the previous night? Either way, Tsitsipas continued hitting his backhand well, and using it effectively. He dipped passes at Zverev’s feet with it. He dropped it short to bring Zverev forward. He kept rallies alive with it, often just long enough to coax an error from Zverev’s increasingly shaky racquet.

By the second set, Tsitsipas was controlling the rallies with his forehand. He would backpedal to hit one inside out, sprint to the other side of the court to hit the next one crosscourt, and then finish at the net. Tsitsipas’s average hit point was right at the baseline, while Zverev’s was four feet behind it.

From Zverev’s perspective, this was another example of his one-step-up, one-step-back 2019. On Monday, he served and played brilliantly to beat Rafael Nadal for the first time; today, he looked uncertain again, first on his serve and then on his ground strokes. He won just 28 percent of his second serve points, and looked almost stationary compared to the whirling Tsitsipas.

With the win, Tsitsipas advances to the semifinals in London. He’s done a little bit of everything this year: Could he end it with his biggest title?

How Thiem brought out the big guns against Djokovic, and stuck to them

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 01:43:00 +0000

For two hours and 47 minutes on Tuesday, Dominic Thiem looked like a man walking a tightrope as he tried to negotiate his way past Novak Djokovic.

Should he step in and go for broke with his inside-out forehand? Should he rifle his backhand down the line with no margin for error? Should he stand his ground on the baseline, rush the net, or even serve and volley? These were all risky tactics, and not ones that come naturally to a man who has had his greatest success grinding out wars of attrition on clay. But Thiem knew there was no other way that he was going to beat Djokovic—an ultra-focused and motivated Djokovic—on a quick indoor hard court.

To Thiem’s credit, he never backed off, never played it safe, and never seemed to second-guess himself. He has made a commitment to playing more aggressively and decisively on hard courts this season, and he stuck to that plan on Tuesday. He stuck to it even after losing a tight and well-played first set in a tiebreaker. He stuck to it even after giving back two service breaks in the third set. He stuck to it even after going down 1-4 in the final-set tiebreaker. Thiem would hit 51 winners over the course of three sets, and force Djokovic to track down countless more that would have been winners against anyone else. Finally, in the end, it was enough, and Thiem had perhaps his most satisfying win since…well, since the last time he played Djokovic, at Roland Garros five months ago.

“This was really one of those special matches that I practiced all my life for,” Thiem said after his 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-6 (5) win.

“It was probably the best match I’ve ever played.”

Djokovic won just two fewer points than Thiem (108 to 110) and seemed to have the match locked up—or, in his case, locked down—when he showed off some of his most scintillating defense of the night to take a 4-1 lead in the deciding tiebreaker. But did Djokovic get a little too defensive from that point on, believing that Thiem would continue to miss?

It would have been a logical tactic. Djokovic has won a series of tiebreakers this year—including three in the Wimbledon final against Roger Federer—by eliminating all of his unforced errors, and he didn’t make any in this one, either. Serving for the match at 6-5 in the third set, a nervous Thiem had missed four routine balls, and by the middle of the tiebreaker he seemed to be reeling.

Unfortunately for Djokovic, Thiem gathered himself just in time and finished with a flurry of winners. Thiem won a tiebreaker against Djokovic the only way he could, the only way anyone could: By hitting the ball past him.

“Probably Novak is the best player in the world right now, so I had to do something outstanding, something unusual, and that’s what I did,” Thiem said. “I mean, I was hitting really, really hard.”

“I thought he deserved to win,” Djokovic said. “He just played very courageous tennis and just smacking the ball. He went for broke…I just have to put my hat down and congratulate him, because he just played a great match.”

In a season littered with great matches, Thiem-Djokovic takes its place near the top. The points were long, but never less than full-throttle; each of the tiebreakers began with a 22-shot rally. There was a contrast in styles, between Thiem’s high-octane offense, and Djokovic’s scrambling, lunging, dextrous defense. One man was reaching for the year-end No. 1 ranking, while the other was trying to advance to the semifinals at this event for the first time. Djokovic did all he could to hold off his opponent’s onslaught, but Thiem took the risks, and he was rewarded for them: He was four for four on break points, while Djokovic was just three for nine. Most important, Thiem won six of the last seven points, virtually all of them with aggressive shots.

Thiem called this match a “real classic” afterward. He has lost a few of those to the Big 3 over the years, but this week he has wins over both Federer and Djokovic. Getting past them is still a tightrope walk, but Thiem has learned how not to fall off: He has to bring out the big guns, and stick to them.

Thiem's risks get rewarded with win over Federer in London

Sun, 10 Nov 2019 18:59:00 +0000

“Dominic Thiem is getting better on hard courts,” has been one of the under-the-radar themes of 2019. He beat Roger Federer in the Indian Wells final in March, and this fall he won two more titles on the surface, in Beijing and Vienna. At 26, after a lifetime as a diehard dirt-baller, the Austrian seemed to have decided it was time to make some adjustments and branch out.

“After the US Open, I made a big step in the right direction, especially with my game on the hard courts, on the faster surfaces,” Thiem said in London this weekend. “I improved my volleys, my serve and returns.”

Getty Images

How could we confirm that this was a legitimate step forward for Thiem, one that could change the way we think of his game and his potential in the future? How could he put his hard-court game on our radar, rather than under it? A second win over Federer, on an indoor court, at the Nitto ATP Finals, would go a long way to stamping Thiem as a man for all surfaces (or at least more surfaces). That’s exactly what he delivered, 7-5, 7-5, in 100 minutes, on Sunday night in the 02 Arena.

Getty Images

It wasn’t the fact that Thiem beat Federer that was so memorable or impressive; he had a 4-2 record against him coming into the match, and he had beaten him in both of their previous meetings in 2019. It was the way Thiem played, from first point to last, that mattered.

Thiem has always been comfortable camping out far behind the baseline and trading heavy, high-arcing topspin bombs with his opponents. Against Federer on Sunday, he stood closer in, and never backed off. That’s a tricky, risky play for someone with long strokes and a one-handed backhand like his, and he paid the price with a few shanks.

But Thiem stuck with the plan. Instead of looping his forehand and rallying, he hit it early, into the corners, and with a sense of purpose on each ball—his average ground-stroke speed was 80 m.p.h. to Federer’s 75. On several key points, Thiem’s bravery was rewarded when he stood toe-to-toe in a baseline rally, until Federer finally blinked and committed an error.

Thiem has always been comfortable kicking his second serve into his opponent’s backhand side, especially against Federer. In the Indian Wells final, he hit 100 percent of his second serves to Federer’s backhand in the deuce court. On Sunday, though, Thiem showed right away that he wasn’t going to stick to that pattern; on a critical point in the early going, he went up the T with a second serve and forced an error from Federer.

Getty Images

Thiem never stopped taking risks with his serve, either. Serving for the match at 6-5 in the second set, he reached 30-15 with a hooking, 110-m.p.h second serve that Federer couldn’t handle. For the night, Thiem hit his first serve 12 m.p.h. faster than he normally does (128 to 116).

Of course, a win this important couldn’t happen without a hiccup or two. Thiem’s came when he was trying to serve it out at 6-5 in the second. With the match on his racquet, he got tight and netted a routine backhand, and then a short forehand. Would his nerves fail him at the finish line, and all of his daring and shot-making go for nought?

He had come too far to stop firing now. He saved one break point with a service winner, and another with a forehand winner. With that, Thiem had his third win over Federer this season, and a 1-0 record at the 2019 ATP Finals. And his hard-court game is officially on our radar.

ATP Finals Preview: Nadal ready to battle for end-of-year crown

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 16:44:00 +0000

All eyes are on Rafael Nadal as we begin the Nitto ATP Finals. More specifically, all eyes are on his serve. Last week in Paris, he suffered an abdominal injury while practicing that shot before his semifinal and was forced to withdraw. As of Saturday, Nadal’s serve was at “80 percent,” his coach, Carlos Moya, said. Will that be enough for him to compete? We’ll find out Monday night, when Rafa is scheduled to face Alexander Zverev. In the 15 years that he has qualified for this event, Nadal has pulled out of it seven times. But with the season-ending No. 1 ranking on the line, you have to think he’ll do what he can to play. If he does, and he’s healthy, Nadal and Novak Djokovic should have a fun weeklong duel for the top spot.

Here’s a look ahead at what Nadal and Djokovic, as well as the rest of the field, will face in the ATP’s last season finale in London.

Group Bjorn Borg

Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Dominic Thiem, Matteo Berrettini

Novak Djokovic

Record vs. Group: 32-25

Djokovic comes to London trailing Rafael Nadal by 640 points in the race for the year-end No. 1 ranking. It won’t be easy to make that up. Djokovic is defending runner-up points from last year, while Nadal, who withdrew from this event in 2018, isn’t defending anything. The upside for Djokovic is that he gets to be the hunter rather than the hunted. His goal will be simple: To win every match he can, and get as far as he can. That won’t be easy, either, considering the competition: Federer nearly beat Djokovic at Wimbledon, and Thiem did beat him at Roland Garros. But Djokovic, who is coming off a title run at the Paris Masters last week and has won the ATP Finals five times, will be the favorite in every match he plays.

Roger Federer

Record vs. Group: 25-30

Federer doesn’t have a losing record against many opponents, but he does against two that he’ll face this week. He’s 22-26 against Djokovic, and, surprisingly, just 2-4 against Thiem. Like Djokovic, Federer is coming off a winning week in Basel, and he has six titles at the ATP Finals (though the last one came in 2011). Federer says he’s looking forward to getting another crack at Djokovic after their Wimbledon classic, and he handled Thiem easily at this event last year. He may not be in the race for No. 1 himself, but that doesn’t mean he won’t have a say in it this week.

Dominic Thiem

Record vs group: 12-6

Would you have guessed that Thiem would be the player with the best head-to-head winning percentage in a group that included Djokovic and Federer? Granted, many of his wins have come on clay, but Thiem has also made new inroads on hard courts this year. He beat Federer for the Indian Wells title, and he has won two more hard-court events, in Beijing and Vienna, this fall. For a guy who has a legitimate shot at winning his first major next year—on clay at Roland Garros—this could be a step-up event. The only problem is that Thiem, who always plays a full schedule, never seems to have enough energy left to make that step by this point in the season. In his three trips to London, he’s 3-6, and has yet to advance to the semifinals. This week should be a good test for him.

Matteo Berrettini

Record vs. group: 1-3

And then there’s young Matteo, the grinning rookie who stated the obvious this weekend when he said, “I never expected to be here.” Berrettini lost badly to Federer in their only meeting, at Wimbledon; he’s 1-2 against Thiem; and he has never played Djokovic—he’ll find out what that’s like when they face off on Sunday. But the 23-year-old Italian has earned his way to London, with strong results on all surfaces and a semifinal run at the US Open. He’ll bring a fresh face, and a nothing to lose attitude, to London.

Semifinalists: Djokovic, Federer

Group Andre Agassi

Rafael Nadal, Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev

Rafael Nadal

Record vs. Group: 11-1

Nadal will want to do everything possible to get healthy, because his draw gives him a great opportunity. If he can win three round-robin matches, he’ll clinch his fifth year-end No. 1. That’s hardly given, especially at a tournament he’s never won; but judging by his 11-1 record against his three younger opponents in this group, it’s within the realm of possibility, even with his serve at 80 percent. (If Nadal withdraws at any point during the week, his countryman Roberto Bautista Agut will replace him.)

Daniil Medvedev

Record vs. Group: 6-6

Medvedev really likes to play one player in this group, and really doesn’t like to play the other two: He’s 5-0 against Tsitsipas, but 0-2 against Nadal and a surprising 1-5 against Zverev. The Russian may have been the best player in the world over the second half of 2019; the question now is whether, after an early loss in Bercy last week, he can regain that momentum. If so, the fast-rising 23-year-old may present Rafa’s toughest challenge.

Stefanos Tsitsipas

Record vs. Group: 4-10

This is a difficult group for the Greek. Not only is he 1-4 against Nadal—hardly a surprise—he has yet to solve the mystery of Medvedev in five tries. Tsitsipas is made for stages like these, and for bigger things in the future, but he has played a lot of tennis in 2019, and it might show at the 02.

Alexander Zverev

Record vs. Group: 6-8

It’s hard to believe that Zverev is the defending champion at this event, isn’t it? Hard to believe that at this time last year, he was working with Ivan Lendl and beating Federer and Djokovic for the biggest title of his career, and one that looked sure to be a stepping stone for even bigger ones to come. That’s not how it is has worked out for Zverev, who split with Lendl and dropped in the rankings, over the last 12 months. But the German has shown signs of life of late—including a win over Federer in Shanghai—and he’ll surely feel comfortable coming back to this court. Could the future be his again by the end of the week?

Semifinalists: Nadal, Zverev

Semifinals: Djokovic d. Zverev; Federer d. Nadal

Final: Djokovic d. Federer

Next Gen ATP Finals Preview: Could this year's winner make a '20 leap?

Mon, 04 Nov 2019 15:00:00 +0000

The Next Gen ATP Finals is known for its bells and whistles—the shortened scoring format, the headsets, the towel boxes, the electronic line calling, and whatever newfangled experiment the ATP can come up with next. But in its two-year existence, this semi-exhibition in Milan, which is open to players 21-and-younger, has also been something of a bellwether event. In 2017, Hyeon Chung won it, and then went on to reach the semifinals at the Australian Open three months later. In 2018, Stefanos Tsitsipas repeated that pattern. Now, a year later, Tsitsipas is playing with the big boys at the ATP Finals in London.

With Tsitsipas graduating and Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime absent, there are fewer marquee names in the field this year. But there’s at least one (very) young player who is being touted as a future No. 1, and whose success this week would make the home fans happy. Here’s a look ahead.

Group A:

Alex de Minaur (Age: 20; Ranking: 18)

Casper Ruud (Age: 20; Ranking: 63)

Miomir Kecmanovic (Age: 20; Ranking: 55)

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina (Age: 20; Ranking: 82)

Getty Images

Of these four 20-year-olds, de Minaur, who has already won three titles, cracked the Top 20, and made the final in Milan last year, is clearly the best-known quantity and the favorite to advance. But Kecmanovic, a Serb with wins over Alexander Zverev and Auger-Aliasssime, seems poised to start making more noise next year. Davidovich Fokina is ranked just 82nd, but this David Nalbandian döppleganger from Spain has a memorable look and a heckuva name.

Semifinalists: De Minaur, Kecmanovic

Group B

Frances Tiafoe (Age: 21; Ranking: 46)

Ugo Humbert (Age: 21: Ranking: 56)

Mikael Ymer (Age: 21; Ranking: 74)

Jannik Sinner (Age: 18; Ranking: 93)

Getty Images

This is the old-timer’s section of the event, apparently; Tiafoe, Humbert, and Ymer are all 21, and all seem like they should have aged out of this tournament by now. Tiafoe, with a quarterfinal appearance at the Australian Open under his belt, is the most accomplished of them, but Humbert is a smooth French lefty.

The headliner of Group B, though, is Sinner. He’s just 18, he’s Italian, he beat Tiafoe and Gael Monfils on his way to the semifinals in Antwerp, and he was recently pegged as a future world No. 1 by a former world No. 1, Yevgeny Kafelnikov. Sinner also has the game and hair of a young Andy Murray, and a name that should make headline writers happy for years to come. Is is time to get on the Sinner bandwagon? We’ll know more by the end the week.

Semifinalists: Sinner, Tiafoe

Semifinals: Sinner d. Kecmanovic; De Minaur d. Tiafoe

Final: Sinner d. De Minaur

Djokovic back on the hunt again after vintage dissection of Bercy draw

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 20:25:00 +0000

Here comes Novak Djokovic. Again.

Whatever peaks and valleys Djokovic may have traveled through over the course of a season—the peaks are always much more common than the valleys—you can count on him to make the race for No. 1 interesting at the end. Since 2011, he has finished either No. 1 or No. 2 in the world in every season other than 2017, when he was injured. In 2012, he passed Roger Federer for the top spot at the ATP Finals; in 2013, he nearly did the same to Rafael Nadal; and in 2016, he was edged out by Andy Murray in the last match of the year. Now, after his vintage-clinical dissection of the field in Bercy, he’s on the hunt again.

“It was a great tournament for me,” Djokovic said after beating Denis Shapovalov 6-3 6-4 in 65 minutes in the final. “I haven’t dropped a set; I played really well in the last three matches.”

“In terms of points, that puts me in a better position,” he said, after improving on his runner-up performance from 2018, and drawing within 640 points of Rafael Nadal for the No. 1 spot. “But again, I have to keep on winning.”

Getty Images

Would you bet against that happening? Djokovic faced just one seeded player in Bercy, Stefanos Tsitsipas, but he responded with his sharpest performance and most lopsided win—6-1, 6-2—of the week. And he was never pushed on Sunday. Djokovic jumped out to a 3-0 lead as Shapovalov, who was playing his first Masters 1000 final, got off to shaky start. From there Djokovic won 81 percent of his first-serve points, 80 percent of his second serve points, and faced just one break point, which he erased with a service winner. Djokovic, in lockdown mode from the start, made just seven unforced errors.

“I think I had the best serving match of the tournament, and that’s why the match was pretty short,” Djokovic said. “I put him under pressure on the second serve, and from the back of the court, I was solid and not giving him too many opportunities.”

As good as Djokovic was, it was a shot of Shapovalov’s—his return, or lack thereof—that proved decisive. Shapovalov struggled to put Djokovic’s serve back in play, even when he didn’t have to stretch for it. He tried swinging through, he tried blocking it, he tried slicing it, but nothing worked.

“It was tough for me to find a groove just because he was really, really picking his spots on the serve,” said Shapovalov, who spent much of the match staring at the ceiling in disbelief at his futility on the return.

Getty Images

All in all, the Canadian’s maiden Masters 1000 final went about as well as you might expect, considering the fact that he was facing an opponent who was playing his 50th. Shapo stumbled out of the gate, kept himself in the match on the strength of 11 aces, but never looked comfortable. At least he and coach Mikhail Youzhny know what to focus on during the off-season.

While Shapovalov has played his last ATP event of the year, Djokovic heads for London and a potential showdown with Nadal. Rafa has the lead, but he also suffered an abdominal injury in Bercy. Djokovic hasn’t won the ATP Finals since 2015, but he’s a five-time champion, and he’ll have an obvious motivation to get title No. 6. The GOAT race may primarily be about major titles, but year-end No. 1 finishes are also a factor that will be weighed. If Djokovic passes Nadal in London, he’ll lead Rafa six to four in that category; if he doesn’t, it will be five year-end No. 1s apiece.

“There’s always a chance I win all my matches in London, that I play well,” Djokovic said. “I have done it in the past, and I like playing there.”

As I said: Here comes Novak Djokovic again.

WTA Finals confirms what was suspected: Ash Barty was the best of 2019

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 17:18:00 +0000

“It’s been a year of incredible ups and downs—I think more ups than downs,” Ash Barty said after her 6-4, 6-3 win over Elina Svitolina in the final of the WTA’s year-end championships on Sunday. “To cap it off with a very, very special night tonight in Shenzhen is really cool.”

“More ups than downs”: Does that sound a little, well…modest, coming from a player who had the season Barty just had? Someone who finished No. 1, after never being ranked higher than No. 15 before 2019; who won her first Grand Slam title, at Roland Garros, after never making the semifinals at any major before; who won the WTA Finals, after never qualifying for the event before; who had led Australia to its first Fed Cup final since 1993; and who walked away from Shenzhen with a record $4.42 million champion’s check for her efforts?

Well, Barty is a naturally modest person. In her victory speech, she began by praising Svitolina, moved on to call her coaching team “the best in the world,” thanked the fans and sponsors, and never got around to talking much about herself. Barty’s not a bask-in-the-applause type. In the first set, she scrambled forward to track down a Svitolina drop shot, and angled a perfect backhand off her shoe-tops for her winner. Instead of raising her fist or shouting “Come on!”, as most pros would, Barty celebrated by staring down at the court and quickly walking back to the baseline. If anything, she slumped her shoulders even more than she usually does, as if she were embarrassed by the attention.

But Barty’s assessment of her season as “up and down” wasn’t just a case of her being overly humble; there was a grain of truth to it, too. Since moving up to No. 1 after her title run in Birmingham in June, she had failed to win a tournament. She had made fourth-round exits, to much-lower-ranked players, at Wimbledon and the US Open, and had lost to her rival for the top spot, Naomi Osaka, in the Beijing final after winning the first set. She had even lost a match in the round-robin stage in Shenzhen, to Kiki Bertens.

All of that was enough to make some observers—or at least this observer—wonder if Barty was cut out to be a long-term No. 1. At 5-foot-5, she can’t rely on overwhelming power to save her when she’s a little off, the way some top players can. To be successful, Barty has to have all of her many, varied skills working in tandem. Also, modesty is not a trait that’s typically associated with champions in any sport; when you win all the time, you tend to start believing you should keep winning all the time. In that sense, maybe it’s a good sign that Barty acknowledged some disappointment with her season. Maybe she’s starting to believe she should be winning titles consistently. Maybe finishing 2019 with victories over four of the WTA’s Top 8 will raise her expectations for herself even higher.

Barty will likely never be a big personality, but that doesn’t mean her appeal won’t grow if she remains at the top. It’s an appeal that, like her friend and fellow Aussie No. 1 Evonne Goolagong’s, will be based around her seemingly effortless mastery of the game.

The Shenzhen final was competitive; both sets were tight until the end. But Barty still appeared to be playing rings around Svitolina. Usually, when we say one player is “doing all the running,” it means that player is losing. Not with Barty; the more she ran today—from alley to alley and baseline to net—the better she did. “In full flight” is a term we usually reserve for Roger Federer, but it can also apply to Barty, who plays with the same light footprint and tactical clarity as the Swiss. Barty is that rare hybrid: an offensive-minded player who excels at defense; a shotmaker and a speedster.

Getty Images

On one point against Svitolina, Barty ran beyond the doubles alley to retrieve a shot, but still made it all the way back to the other singles alley to retrieve the next one. On another point, she began with a brilliant defensive slice backhand down the line; followed that with a forehand approach into the other corner; and finished the rally by leaning back and easily executing an overhead that would have been tricky for most other players. With her flat and kick serves, her one-handed and two-handed backhands, and her handiness at net, Barty lets us see more of the game, and what it can contain, than virtually any other player on either tour.

“Tonight it felt like it was a lot more clear, a lot more concise from my end,” said Barty, who had lost all five of her previous meetings to Svitolina. “I took my opportunities when I got them…I think it was also important for me to move forward, then try to bring Elina in a few times as well, which worked really well.”

It’s rare to hear a player cite two opposing ideas—come to net, and bring the opponent the net—as part of a single strategic plan. But Barty has that ability.

Up, back, two-handed, one-handed, slice, topspin, flat, kick, attack, retrieve: Like a walking tennis textbook, Barty made it all look easy and logical on Sunday, and finished her “up and down” 2019 on a fittingly high note. In recent years, the WTA Finals has given us surprise winners, and a hint of bigger titles to come for some players. This year it confirmed what we already suspected about this season: Barty was the best.

Will Nadal finish back on top? The Spaniard faces two challenges

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 20:30:00 +0000

Rafael Nadal has given us some of the most mind-boggling statistics in tennis history, especially the ones he’s racked up on clay. But he’s also given us one of the strangest: Of his 84 career titles, only two have come indoors. The first happened 14 years ago, at a hard-court tournament in Madrid that hasn’t existed for a decade; the second came on clay in Sao Paulo in 2013.

Why does Rafa, who has won more outdoor titles than any male player in the Open era, have so much trouble when he’s under a roof?

We can start by noting that he doesn’t play many indoor events. The only ones that are regularly on his schedule—the Paris Masters and the ATP Finals—come at the end of the season, when he’s either worn down or banged up. In his 16-year career, this is just the seventh time Nadal has even entered Bercy. We can also note that the ball typically doesn’t bounce as high indoors, which doesn’t serve his heavy-topspin attack well. And we might remember his famous quote about how “the sun is energy.” Rafa likes the elements, and he likes to fight against them. I’ve always had the feeling that the pace of a match moves along too quickly and efficiently for him indoors.

Getty Images

This weekend, though, Nadal will have the chance, and the motivation, to end his run of indoor futility in Bercy. With his 7-6 (4), 6-1 win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Friday, he’s into the semifinals there for the first time since 2013. And if he wins the tournament, he’ll clinch the year-end No. 1 ranking for the fifth time.

Nadal has said that he came to this tournament looking to win more free points on his serve—even if that means living with a lower first-serve percentage—and to try to end rallies more quickly than he traditionally does. He has certainly succeeded at the former. Against Tsonga, Nadal made 69 percent of his first serves, but he won 93 percent of them and never faced a break point. The most important shot he hit in the match was a second serve at 5-4 in the first-set tiebreaker; instead of slicing the ball wide in the ad court, as he usually does, Rafa upped the pace and went down the T, surprising Tsonga and drawing a return error.

Getty Images

In Nadal’s mind, there are always new challenges to be met, even at 33. He’ll face two of them in the coming days: Can he temporarily remake himself into an indoor player and (a) win either the Paris Masters or the ATP Finals in London for the first time, and (b) hold off Novak Djokovic for No. 1. Neither will be easy. In the semis on Saturday, Nadal will face a suddenly solid Denis Shapovalov, who has a victory over Rafa on hard courts. If he wins that, Nadal will likely face Djokovic, who has won this event four times, and who played some of his cleanest tennis of 2019 in dismantling Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-1, 6-2 on Friday.

Whatever happens, it’s good to have Nadal finishing a season strong, and still trying to find ways to do things he hasn’t done before.

With coach Youzhny, Denis Shapovalov is disciplined—and winning again

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 23:05:00 +0000

When Mikhail Youzhny retired last year at age 36, after 19 years on tour, I had a moment of regret: never again would I get to use the phrase “Youz Your Daddy” after one of his wins.

In truth, I didn’t have the chance to do it all that often even when he was on tour. Youzhny spent most of his career just below the top tier, and just below the media radar; he was hardly a journeyman, but he wasn’t exactly a star, either. More than anything, he was a guy who made the most of the talents he had. But now that the Russian has returned as Denis Shapovalov’s coach, we have a chance to revive the saying. “Youz Your Daddy” may be the theme of Shapo’s 2019 season, and for the foreseeable future.

Shapovalov has been working with Youzhny since the summer, and while they haven’t spent every week together since, the improvement in the Canadian’s game during that time has been obvious, even dramatic. After a long dry spell through the middle of the year, he reached the semis in Winston-Salem and Chengdu, won two rounds at the US Open, and won his first title, in Stockholm. On Thursday at the Paris Masters, Shapo recorded another first when he beat Alexander Zverev 6-2, 5-7, 6-2.

What has Youzhny contributed so far?

“I think he’s done a lot of kind of talking to me and telling me what I should be focusing on in the matches, kind of how to operate with myself,” Shapovalov said when he was asked that question at the US Open. “It’s been really important for me.”

“I think he understands me really well, how I’m trying to play, finish the points.”

It also doesn’t hurt that Youzhny has first-hand knowledge of how to play so many of Shapovalov’s opponents.

Shapovalov has always been a world-class talent and shot-maker, but he hasn’t always been a world-class match player. How do you translate talent into results? How do you choose the right shot for the right moment? When do ditch the leaping backhand, and make the safe, smart play instead? How do get the most out of that lefty serve? That’s what Youzhny, who didn’t have Shapo’s raw athletic ability, must be talking to him about.

Against Zverev, Shapovalov was aggressive early. He moved up to take his ground strokes in front of the baseline, rather than waiting for them to come to him, and he won the first set easily. But it’s what Shapovalov did when things didn’t come so easily that made the difference.

In the middle of the second set, Zverev broke Shapovalov after a long rally and let out of a roar. In the past, that might have sent Shapovalov into a tailspin; at the first sign of adversity, he would start to look unsure of how to attack his opponent, and the errors would flow. This time, Shapovalov broke back right away, and while he lost that set, he bounced back again in the third.

Shapo has always had the flash; today he showed substance to go with it. While he made just 54 percent of his first serves, he won 83 percent of those points. Perhaps most important, and most indicative of his new mentality, was how he responded to break points: he saved 11 of 13. Shapovalov hadn’t won a set in three meetings against Zverev before today, but I had always felt like he had the more dynamic game. Today he made it a winning game, too.

This has been year of waves among the ATP’s Next Gen. Stefanos Tsitsipas and Felix Auger-Aliassime led the way early, but Shapovalov, who is still just 20, has answered their challenge over the season half of the season.

Did it take some old-fashioned military discipline to rein Shapo in? Youzhny’s father was a Soviet army colonel, and the son was famous for saluting the crowd after a win. Youzhny may not be Shapo’s daddy, exactly, but he seems to make a pretty good drill sergeant.

Remembered for balletic game and brandy, Suzanne Lenglen was much more

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:43:00 +0000

When it comes to the pioneering figures of the past, the facts of their lives may not change from one era to the next, but the meanings we find in them do. Whether it’s Martin Luther King or Billie Jean King, every generation takes what it needs from history’s inspirational individuals.

What does the life of Suzanne Lenglen, one of tennis’ most celebrated pioneers, mean to us today? The question seems especially relevant right now, 120 years after her birth in 1899, and 100 years after her first victory at Wimbledon in 1919. In truth, though, there’s never a bad or unedifying time to study Lenglen’s triumphant career and tragically too-short life. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that, while tennis was invented by Walter Wingfield in 1873, the tennis player wasn’t invented until this Frenchwoman flew into the public eye 50 years later. So many of the elements, good and bad, that we’ve seen in the careers of the game’s stars were present in Lenglen’s career a century ago.

The maniacally ambitious tennis parent? Charles Lenglen, universally known as Papa, was the original. Driven to create a champion who would defy the perceived limits of female athletes at the time, he pushed his daughter relentlessly. He laid down coins on the court as targets, and had Suzanne practice until she could hit them—after thousands of hours, she could. He had her jump rope, swim laps, and run sprints daily. Most presciently, he also signed her up for a ballet class.

Tennis Channel

The revolutionary style of play? Like Chris Evert with her two-handed backhand in the 1970s, Lenglen advanced the sport by moving forward to volley and launching herself into her shots rather than waiting for them to come to her. Just as her Papa hoped, Lenglen fused artistry with athleticism in a way that no one had before. (Just for reference, the woman she beat in the 1919 Wimbledon final, 40-year-old Dorothea Lambert Chambers, was still using an underhand serve.)

The game-changing fashion sense? Like the early WTA players with their Ted Tinling dresses, or Serena Williams with her cat suit, Lenglen was a forward-thinker when it came to her clothes. She ditched the floppy hat for a bandeau, the long skirt for a daringly short pleated version, and traditional whites for bright colors. She was the first woman to wear make-up and sport a tan on court, and probably the first to come with her own couturier, Jean Patou.

Getty Images

The cult following? Like Roger Federer, Lenglen drew audiences too large to fit inside Wimbledon’s stadium court when she made her debut there in 1919. Because of those crowds, the AELTC began work on a new facility on nearby Church Road, which opened in 1922, and which is where the tournament is still played today. Lenglen has an arena with her name on it at Roland Garros, but Centre Court at Wimbledon could rightfully be called “The House that Suzanne Built.”

The domination of her competition? Lenglen should feature prominently in any GOAT conversation. She won 181 straight matches, went years without dropping a set, and finished—by the best accounts available—with a 341-7 career record; even Evert and Martina Navratilova didn’t win 98 percent of their matches. As for her toughest competition, Lenglen beat Helen Wills in their only meeting, in what was billed as the Match of the Century, at Cannes.

Getty Images

The US Open controversies? Like Serena, Lenglen caused a stir in the Big Apple. In 1921, she disappointed the capacity crowd that had come to see her at Forest Hills by retiring, due to illness, in the middle of her second-round match. “A distinct hissing sound came from the stands as [Lenglen] crossed the terrace and passed from sight,” wrote New York sportswriter Al Laney. “The crowd was branding her with that horrid American word, ‘quitter.’”

The clash with tennis’ amateur authorities? Until the advent of the Open era in 1968, this was an unfortunate necessity for every star player. Again, though, Lenglen got there first. In 1926, she left the amateur game to sign with the first major pro tennis tour, created by U.S. promoter C.C. Pyle. While few of her colleagues took the same risk, the tour was a success with Lenglen as the headliner. In 1927, she made $100,000—$30,000 more than Babe Ruth. But the price was steep. Lenglen was banned by the French Tennis Federation and had her AELTC membership revoked.

If you’re an American of a certain age, you were introduced to Lenglen through the tennis-history segments that the late Bud Collins narrated for NBC. In those, Lenglen was portrayed as the quintessential French artiste, a dark-haired woman in white who twirled across the grass and took a nip or three of cognac on the sidelines for sustenance.

Is that happy-go-lucky, très francais version of Lenglen still the most useful for us today? To me, there are two aspects of the Lenglen legend that are more relevant to this era. The first is the toll that her parents’ pressure took on Lenglen. The second is the way she risked everything for a fair day’s pay.

WATCH: TenniStory, Suzanne Lenglen

“Many of those who watched Suzanne’s practice sessions expressed dismay at the way Papa and Mama Lenglen callously utilized emotion to keep their daughter practicing and working and running hour after hour and day after day,” Larry Engelmann wrote in The Goddess and the American Girl, his book about Lenglen and Helen Wills.

Papa “assaulted and battered the child’s self-esteem, ridiculed her in front of spectators, and reduced her to tears and hysterics.” When Suzanne made an error, “Mama too openly expressed her dissatisfaction, hissing, ‘Stupid girl! Keep your eye on the ball!”

“Love—the offering or the withholding of it—became the whip Papa snapped…She became athletically formidable but emotionally tattered.”

How did Suzanne respond? According to Engelmann, she used illness as an escape.

“Early in her career,” he wrote, “she learned of the temporary respite to be gained over Papa and Mama through sickness or collapse. Only when she was clearly ailing did she receive the rewards of unsolicited parental affection.c

Illness would follow Lenglen through her life, and she would die of anemia at age 39, just 12 years after her great victory over Wills at Cannes. Today, when we’re more attuned to the dangers and trade-offs that come with an over-ambitious tennis parent, we can see Lenglen’s career not just as a story of athletic triumph, but also as a cautionary tale.

Getty Images

Yet along with her vulnerability, we can also recognize her strength, in the way she stood up for an athlete’s right to make a living. It was a stand that still resonates today. While the amateur era is long over in tennis, it lives on in American college sports. Just this week, news came that the NCAA has finally decided to allow its athletes to earn money from selling their likenesses. That’s a tiny slice of the wealth they create for their universities, but it’s something.

Suzanne Lenglen, it turns out, knew exactly how college football and basketball players feel. Here’s what she wrote in the program for Pyle’s U.S. pro tour in 1927:

“In the twelve years I have been champion I have earned literally millions of francs for tennis, and have paid thousands of francs in entrance fees to be allowed to do so. I have worked as hard at my career as any man or woman has worked at any career. And in my whole lifetime I have not earned $5,000—not one cent of that by my specialty, my life study, tennis.

“I am 27 and not wealthy—should I embark on any other career and leave the one for which I have what people call genius? Or should I smile at the prospect of actual poverty and continue to earn a fortune—for whom?”

There are dozens of reasons to remember Suzanne Lenglen. This week, those words, which ring so true nearly a century after they were written, seem like the best reason of all.

Svitolina puts just enough between her and Halep to walk away with win

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 16:31:00 +0000

“There was nothing between them,” is tennis-speak for a close contest. It also works as a description of the entire match-up between Elina Svitolina and Simona Halep.

Coming into their round-robin match in Shenzhen on Wednesday, the Ukrainian and the Romanian were 4-4. Each woman is roughly the same size, and hits with about the same amount of pace. Each is a dogged runner and cussed competitor, and neither has the raw power to get the ball past the other from the baseline with one swing of the racquet. Each possesses a solid first serve, and a second serve that can be attacked. All of which means that their matches typically feature exhausting rallies, multiple service breaks, and an inordinate number of tactical adjustments, in the hopes that one of them will provide a tiny, decisive edge. Throw in the fact that Halep and Svitolina were wearing the same maroon-and-white Nike outfit in Shenzhen, and it felt like we were watching mirror images on each side of the net.

They had met twice this year, and, not surprisingly, had split those two matches—Svitolina won in three sets in Doha, Halep won in a one-sided straight-setter at Wimbledon. In Shenzhen, the momentum came and went in waves, and the slow hard court gave them plenty of time to track each other’s shots down. Halep tried to loop the ball high and push Svitolina back, while Svitolina tried to open the up the court with sharp-angled crosscourt backhands.

Getty Images

When it came to the end of each set, though, it was Svitolina who was able to clear her head, press the issue, and pull ahead, and it was Halep who chose the wrong shot at the wrong time. At 5-6 in the first set, Svitolina hit an excellent crosscourt backhand and an even better down-the-line forehand return, and broke at love. At 3-4 in the second set, she stepped forward again, and again broke at love. During one changeover, Halep’s coach, Darren Cahill, encouraged her to try the drop shot, and if she missed, it was “on me”—in other words, she was free to blame him for her error. Halep may have taken that advice a little too literally; late in the second set, she tried two drop shots, put them in the net both times, and shot a look at Cahill.

“It was an extremely physical match, and we were chasing lot of balls and using lots of energy on the court,” Svitolina said after her 7-5, 6-3 win. “I was playing very solid today, and my defense was vey good, and I’m very happy about that.”

Svitolina and Halep had one more thing in common on Wednesday: Their coaches—Cahill for Halep, Andrew Bettles for Svitolina—gave them energetic pep talks in the middle of each set. We know about Cahill, and the success that he has had with Halep (drop shots aside), but I also liked the way Bettles talked to Svitolina today. Rather than rattle off a long list of hard-to-remember suggestions, he took his time with each one, emphasized his point, waited until he felt like she had heard him and understood him, and then moved on. Svitolina obviously got the message and profited from it; after Bettles’ second visit, she broke and held for the match in quick succession.

AP Photo

Svitolina, who was 5-0 in Shenzhen last year, has won her first two matches this week in straight sets, which means she becomes the first player to qualify for the semifinals. What is it about this tournament that she likes?

“I was expecting tough matches here when I was arriving,” Svitolina said when she was asked that question today. “I had to stay really focused on each match.”

For a woman who lost in the first round seven times this season, it seems that knowing there are no easy outs in the WTA Finals helps bring out her best right from the start; she’s 13-2 in tournament finals for her career, and every match in Shenzhen feels like one. Today Svitolina’s focus helped her look across the net at her mirror image in Halep, and put just enough between them to walk away with a win.

Week in Preview: Two races will be run at the Paris Masters this week

Sun, 27 Oct 2019 19:03:00 +0000

In past years, we heard the phrase “limping to the finish” a lot at this late stage of the season. By the time the Paris Masters rolled around, after 10 months of non-stop tennis, the ATP tour could look like a march of the walking wounded. For the most part, that hasn’t been true in 2019. While Roger Federer says he isn’t sure whether he’ll play in Bercy after his title run in Basel this past week (Editor's Note: he will not), Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal look ready for the final November push, as do the young workhorses chasing after them, Daniel Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev and Matteo Berrettini.

That’s good news for the season’s final Masters 1000 event, where two separate races will be run: Nadal will try to hold off Djokovic in their battle for the year-end No. 1, while half a dozen players will make last-gasp efforts to qualify for the tour’s year-end championships in London.

FIRST QUARTER

When it comes to his year-end race against Nadal, there’s good news and bad news for Djokovic as he arrives in Paris. The good news is that he has won this tournament four times, while Rafa has reached the final here just once, in 2007. The bad news is that to reduce his 1,100-point deficit to Nadal, Djokovic basically has to win a fifth title here—last year Djokovic made the final at this event, while Nadal missed it entirely.

Djokovic could use the motivation, because his quarter isn’t a cakewalk. He might play Diego Schwartzman, who is trying to qualify for London, in the third round; and either Tsitsipas or Roberto Bautista Agut, each of whom owns multiple wins over Djokovic, in the quarters. Bautista Agut is also just 130 points shy of the No. 8 spot in London.

And if Djokovic does make it to the semis, another player who has had his number of late, Medvedev, may be waiting.

First-round match to watch: Taylor Fritz vs. Frances Tiafoe

Getty Images

Semifinalist: Djokovic

SECOND QUARTER

Medvedev has been a machine since Wimbledon, reaching six straight finals and winning two straight Masters 1000 events. But the grind finally seemed to catch to catch up with him a couple of weeks ago, when he pulled out of the Kremlin Cup after winning in Shanghai. Was the well-earned time away enough to restore his energy? If so, there’s no reason the 23-year-old Russian can’t win another big tournament. Still, nothing comes easily in events like this: To reach the semis, he may have to beat John Isner, who reached the final in Bercy in 2016; and Dominic Thiem, who has played some of the best hard-court tennis of his career in winning two 500-level events this fall.

Getty Images

Semifinalist: Medvedev

THIRD QUARTER

(Editor's Note: Federer has withdrawn from the tournament.)

As I write this on Sunday, Federer is the top seed in this section, but his participation is still in doubt. He’s coming off his 10th win in Basel, and wants to be ready to play in London in two weeks. If he does decide to play Bercy, he’ll have what would seem to be a manageable path to the semifinals. He’ll start against either Nikoloz Basilashvili or Radu Albot; could play Gael Monfils in the third round; and Alexander Zverev or Fabio Fognini in the quarterfinals. Zverev, who is currently hanging onto the No. 7 spot in the race to London, could use a win or three after going out in the first round in Basel.

Getty Images

Semifinalist: Zverev

FOURTH QUARTER

Is this the year Nadal finally wins Bercy? By this point in the season, the grind has usually worn him down, and he has won precious few indoor events over the course of his career. Which means that if it’s ever going to happen, it’s probably going to be now. Nadal seems healthy, he has a year-end No. 1 ranking to play for, and he’s coming off the twin highs of a US Open title and his own wedding. Rafa’s draw also could be worse. The first seed he could play is Stan Wawrinka, who had to pull out of Basel last week with a back issue after a tough win over Tiafoe. If Rafa gets to the quarters, he might face either Karen Khachanov, the defending champion, or Berrettini, who is clinging to the eighth and final spot in London. Right now he leads Bautista Agut by 130 points.

First-round match to watch: Andrey Rublev vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Getty Images

Semifinalist: Nadal

Semifinals: Djokovic d. Medvedev; Zverev d. Nadal

Final: Djokovic d. Zverev

New site, fresh cast, big money: Previewing the WTA Finals in Shenzhen

Fri, 25 Oct 2019 23:55:00 +0000

There was no dominant champion on the WTA in 2019, but it didn’t feel as if there were any fluke winners or one-Slam wonders, either. Among the eight players to qualify for the tour’s year-end championship—Ashleigh Barty, Karolina Pliskova, Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep, Bianca Andreescu, Petra Kvitova, Belinda Bencic, Elina Svitolina—five have won major titles, and the three who haven’t, Pliskova, Bencic and Svitolina, seem destined to do it at some point. Virtually all of this year’s finalists also seem destined to be at the top of the sport for many years to come.

Also new in 2019 will be the tournament site. After a five-year run in Singapore, the Finals will move to Shenzhen, China, a city of nearly 13 million people that has experienced explosive growth over the last four decades. Along with the change in venue has come an eye-popping explosion in prize-money. In 2018, the purse for this event was $7 million; in 2019, it’s $14 million, with $3.45 million of that going to the champion. Yes, the season is long, but a big pot of gold awaits the last woman standing.

Who might that be? Since Serena Williams last made the trip, in 2014, this tournament has given us four surprise champions: Agnieszka Radwanska, Dominika Cibulkova, Caroline Wozniacki and Svitolina. In other words, the big prize is there for the taking, for anyone who can get hot enough to take it. Here’s a look at the group breakdowns, and who might emerge from each.

*****

Red Group

Ashleigh Barty
Record vs. Group: 4-6

Barty comes to Shenzhen with an 1,100 point lead in the race for the year-end No. 1 ranking, and she reached the final of her last event, in Beijing. The young Australian can complete her breakout season with one last solid performance. That said, this is a tough group for her. She’s 2-4 against Kvitova, she lost her last meeting with Osaka in the Beijing final, and she’s never faced Bencic. Is Barty ready to be a long-term, full-time No. 1? This tournament will give us a clue.

Naomi Osaka
Record vs. Group: 4-6

First the good news: Osaka has been the WTA’s best player since the US Open, winning titles in Japan and Beijing. She has played with freedom, determination and a hard core of confidence, all of which were lacking when she felt the weight of being No. 1 earlier in the season. Now the bad news: She’s 1-4 against Belinda Bencic, who seems to have her number.

Petra Kvitova
Record vs. Group: 8-3

While Barty, Osaka and Bencic are relative newbies at the year-end championships, Kvitova is a veteran; she won this event in 2011, and lost in the final in 2015. She also has a winning overall record against her group, though she has taken her lumps from Osaka and Barty this season. She’s the least likely to suffer from a case of late-season, big-stage nerves.

Belinda Bencic
Record vs. Group: 5-5

Like Osaka, Bencic comes to Shenzhen on a roll. Needing a good result to qualify last week in Moscow, she went ahead and won the tournament. Now the level of competition will rise; from Bencic’s point of view, this group provides opportunities and obstacles: she’s 4-1 vs. Osaka, and 1-4 against Kvitova. Will her fate be decided by her match against Barty? They’ve never faced each other.

Semifinalists: Osaka, Kvitova

*****

Purple Group

Karolina Pliskova
Record vs. Group: 9-11

Pliskova is due for a big result. Beyond due, really; she has seemed to be on the verge of a Slam breakthrough for a good three seasons now. While one didn’t come in 2019, she still had a successful season by every other measure. Maybe Shenzhen is the next half-step she needs to take.

Bianca Andreescu
Record vs. Group: 2-0

The 19-year-old Andreescu has climbed the WTA ranks so quickly, she has hardly had a chance to face anyone in her group. She’s 1-0 against Pliskova, 1-0 against Svitolina, and has never played her idol, Halep. Andreescu had no trouble with Top 10 opponents in Indian Wells and at the US Open. Is there any reason to think she’ll start struggling against them now?

Simona Halep
Record vs. Group: 10-8

Halep’s 2019 revolves around Wimbledon, where she pulled off a career-best performance to win the title. Since then, she’s been roughly .500. Can she catch lightning in a bottle for one more week, or is it best just to wait for her to start fresh in 2020 and be happy with what she did? One of the game’s steadiest performers, Halep has been to this tournament many times before, but has reached the final just once, in 2014.

Elina Svitolina
Record vs. Group: 7-9

If there’s one player who might not be happy to leave Singapore, it’s Svitolina. Last year she went 5-0 to win this title, the biggest of her career. She hasn’t won anything bigger since, though she did reach her first two Grand Slam semifinals, at Wimbledon and the US Open.

Semifinalists: Svitolina, Pliskova

*****

Semifinals: Osaka d. Pliskova; Kvitova d. Svitolina

Final: Osaka d. Kvitova

Phenom: How did Coco Gauff get so good so fast?

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 13:14:00 +0000

Coco Gauff isn't playing this week, but it's her week on TENNIS.com.

—Monday: Coco's cover story, from the November/December issue of TENNIS Magazine
—Tuesday: U.S. Fed Cup captain Kathy Rinaldi breaks down Gauff's backhand, frame by frame
—Wednesday: Chris Evert on Serena Williams' possible successors
—Thursday: Steve Tignor on Corey's and Coco's father-daughter, and coach-player, relationship
—Friday: Coco in Photos—looking back at a breakthrough year

It was Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day at the 2019 US Open, and the hundreds of noisy young New Yorkers who had gathered in Louis Armstrong Stadium watched intently as a girl not much older than they were, 15-year-old Coco Gauff, walked on court with a smile and a wave.

Three girls darted down to the front row and leaned as far into the playing area as they could; they seemed most impressed by Gauff’s immaculaate green nail polish. Other children stood, cradling oversize tennis balls, and waited patiently for an autograph. Some beat the plastic Thunderstix that were handed out for the festivities. Others called out “Co-co!” Some waved in her direction as if she were an old friend. But when Gauff eased her long limbs to the left side of the court and blistered a backhand down the line, everyone in the arena—child and parent alike—made the same sound at once: “Ooooohhhh!!!”

That awed roar was a good summation of Gauff’s summer as a whole. It was a wow from start to finish; or, as Coco might say, it was “amazing” and “super shocking.”

In June, the Atlanta native and Florida resident was a promising junior; by Labor Day, she was the future of American tennis, and she had leapt to the top of the sports-marketing heap. Team 8, Roger Federer’s agency, represented her. New Balance rolled out an ad campaign, “Call Me Coco,” and designed a striking dress for her to wear at the US Open. Teen Vogue featured her on its cover. Michelle Obama hung out with her. Even Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson, professed herself a Coco fan on Instagram.

“I was, like, screaming,” Gauff said about that social-media shout-out. I hope she told her daughter about me.”

Getty Images

Just as amazing—and more important—was what Gauff did on the court. At Wimbledon, she became the youngest player ever to qualify for the main draw; she upset one of her idols, Venus Williams, in the first round; and she brought the normally demure denizens of Centre Court to their feet with a stirring third-round comeback win.

In August, at D.C.’s Citi Open, Gauff and 17-year-old Caty McNally won the women’s doubles. Christened McCoco, the all-American team also won two matches at the US Open and pulled off the rare feat of filling all 14,000 seats in Armstrong. Gauff herself staged two more stirring singles comebacks on the same court during her third-round run. The lines to get into her matches stretched through the grounds at Flushing Meadows. The chants of “Co-co!” reverberated even farther.

“I think this is my first match where people actually had a chant for me, so that was pretty cool,” Gauff said after her first-round win in Flushing Meadows. She sounded as if she didn’t think it would be the last time.

Gauff, who won’t turn 16 until March, will play a limited pro-tour schedule because of tour rules. “Stepping into the court more,” is what she says she needs to do once she returns to WTA competition. “It’s not like juniors where you have more opportunities in rallies. You have to take them in the pros.” (Getty Images)

What does a teenager do when her dream summer is over? For Gauff, moving on meant decompressing, and reassessing, at home in Delray Beach, a tennis-loving resort town of 70,000 an hour’s drive north of Miami. First, though, the family had to wait in Manhattan for a few days for Hurricane Dorian to clear the Florida coast. It has become a US Open tradition for Gauff; two years ago, after reaching the final of the girls’ event as a 13-year-old, she had to wait for Hurricane Irma to pass.

“This isn’t our first rodeo,” Gauff said.

Gauff says her US Open success was a dream come true, but that she also took it in stride—this wasn’t her first tennis rodeo, either. Within 24 hours, she was back practicing in Delray. As far as how she viewed her game, the Open hadn’t been all that different from other competitions.

"Every tournament is just like a test,” she says. “You see what needs work, and what’s been coming into its own.” For most 15-year-olds, September would mean the start of a new school year. But the studying never stops for Gauff, who is enrolled year-round in a virtual homeschooling program. She says science is her favorite subject, and she has shown an interest in African-American history, posting on Instagram during Juneteenth and Black History Month.

Michelle Obama gave Gauff her autobiography, Becoming, but Coco says she’s waiting to read a copy that doesn’t have the former First Lady’s signature on it. As far as reconnecting with friends, Gauff said she was hoping to get them to watch the horror film It: Chapter II with her, “But some of my friends don’t like scary movies.” Had she gone to the mall, or splurged on anything with her prize money?

“I didn’t go to the mall!” Gauff protested with a laugh. “I don’t really like buying things, actually. I mean, there’s not much I can buy.” One exception, Gauff said at Wimbledon, was a recent hoodie addiction.

My mom, she banned me from buying hoodies for two months,” Gauff told reporters. “Every week I was getting new hoodies sent to the house.”

The statement provided Gauff with an early taste of how tabloids can sensationalize even the most innocent remarks. "TEENAGER REVEALS SHE WILL SPEND £160,000 PRIZE MONEY ON HOODIES," the Daily Mail blared.

Gauff describes herself as “goofy.” She’s a Marvel movie fanatic who tears up when thinks about the demise of Ironman. To relax before matches, she watches makeup tutorials on YouTube.

“She’s just so laid back,” her doubles partner McNally said. “So silly and super easy to get along with.”

Getty Images

Is this laid-back teen ready to shoulder the dreaded Future of American Tennis label, and the expectations that come with it? That’s where the other, exceptional side of Gauff’s personality, and athletic ability, kicks in.

Gauff’s parents, Corey and Candi, were college athletes. Corey played basketball at Georgia State and Candi ran track at Florida State. Coco’s long, lean build—she’s 5’9”—and splay-footed walk reminds many of a young Venus. But the similarities, it seems, go deeper than appearances.

Thirty years ago, Richard Williams brought Venus to visit veteran coach Rick Macci at his Florida academy. At first, Macci wasn’t sure of her potential. Only when she put down her racquet and began to walk across the court on her hands did he understand what an athlete she was. This year, a clip of Gauff walking across a tennis court on her hands went viral.

But when Corey and Candi introduced their daughter to the sport at age 6, it wasn’t just her athleticism that convinced them to pursue the sport. It was also her mentality.

“One thing we noticed was that she had this unique ability to concentrate for 15 to 20 minutes,” Corey told ESPN.com. “As parents, we decided, ‘Let’s get her good coaching and a lot of feedback.’"

The Gauffs, who were living in Atlanta at the time, moved back to their hometown of Delray. At 8, Gauff won the Little Mo 8-and-Under event. Corey told Coco she was going to be “the greatest,” and she has believed in her ability to become a world-class player ever since.

Gauff’s backhand is perhaps her best stroke, but she’ll look to improve her serve and forehand, shots that also have the potential to be weapons. “They definitely helped me throughout my game,” Gauff said of the coaches at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, where she trains alongside tour-level players. “Helped me with spin and to be more consistent and learn how to play on red clay.” In 2018, Gauff became just the second American to win the Roland Garros girls’ title since Jennifer Capriati, in 1989. (Getty Images)

Another early believer was Serena Williams’ coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. The Gauffs visited his academy when Coco was 10.

“When a young player comes to my academy, I give them a series of tests,” Mouratoglou says. “Technique, speed, practice matches, individual discussions. She scored at the top in everything, especially motivation. Incredible competitor, and someone who believes in herself.”

While Gauff is typically compared to Venus, Mouratoglou sees elements of another champion in her game.

“I think she’s like Novak [Djokovic],” he says. “She has the amazing court coverage, both side to side and up and back, and the acceleration. They’re both consistent, but can also hit winners.”

Gauff trains at Mouratoglou’s academy in two or three-week stretches, alongside young pros like Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexei Popyrin. But Corey Gauff still handles his daughter’s day-to-day instruction and scheduling. Not surprisingly, balancing the duties of father and coach has had its challenges.

“When I turned, I would say, 12 or 13, we used to argue. He used to be annoying because he would bring tennis home, and he’s always around me,” Coco told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “So now we talked, and we understand each other more now.”

Getty Images

Whatever they’re doing together, it’s working. So far Coco has shown a precocious knack for making adjustments and thinking her way through matches. She says she hates to practice her slice, but she’s adept at mixing it into rallies, along with high, looping shots and heavy, topspin forehands. That resourcefulness is something Corey has tried to encourage.

“You can’t overcoach,” Corey Gauff told Tennis Channel’s Paul Annacone. “I don’t tell her what to do in every situation. I try to give her the tools to understand, those moments when you walk to the towel, try to understand what your opponent’s doing, and what’s happening, and see what you can do different.”

What has Coco learned from the pros so far?

“It’s important to trust your shots,” says Gauff. “But I think that comes with experience.”

In Mouratoglou’s mind, the key over the next three years will be to improve Gauff’s technique.

“This is the time to do it, while you have the chance,” he says. “Once a player is 18, 19, 20, it’s more difficult to make changes and add shots."

It took two of the WTA’s best, Halep and Naomi Osaka, to end Gauff’s runs at Wimbledon (fourth round) and the US Open (third round), respectively. With a 5–2 record in Grand Slams, the 15-year-old had nearly cracked the tour’s Top 100 by mid-September. She’s also ranked just outside the double digits in doubles. (Getty Images)

To date, Gauff’s rise has been meteoric and magical, a fairytale and superhero story rolled into one. Her play this summer reminded many of us of a phenomenon that was once a regular part of tennis: the giddy, gravity-defying innocence of the prodigy.

For the next year or two, though, Gauff’s ascension may be more gradual. To guard against burnout, the WTA limits the number of tournaments players Gauff’s age can enter. Mouratoglou, for one, is not a fan of the rule.

“You learn by competing,” Mouratogolou says. “The rule adds more pressure because you think you have to win every match you get to play.”

If there’s an upside, it’s that the rule may temper people’s expectations of Gauff, at least for the moment. And there is no reason to rush her. In this era of long careers and late-bloomers, it could be 10 years before we know how good she can be. Simona Halep was a junior champ who didn’t win her first major until she was 26. Ashleigh Barty was a prodigy at 16 who quit the sport at 18 and came back to reach No. 1 at 23. Venus is still going at 39.

“I was just telling her, thank you for everything she’s done for the sport,” Gauff said at the end of her match against Venus at Wimbledon. “She’s been an inspiration for many people.”

Venus opened a door for African-American women in tennis that Gauff is stepping through now. Venus couldn’t ask for a better successor, and the children who crowded around Coco at Kids’ Day seem to have found their own role model. It won’t be the last time they see her blister a backhand down the line and go, “Ooooohhhh!”

Week in Preview: Federer tries for 10th title in Basel

Sun, 20 Oct 2019 20:05:00 +0000

The men of the ATP can begin to see the 2019 finish line looming in the distance. This week their year-end run through Europe will kick into a higher gear at two 500-level events in Vienna and Basel. The latter will feature the return of Roger Federer, but between them the two tournaments will have half a dozen players vying to reach the tour’s year-end championships in London.

Swiss Indoors Basel (ATP)

Basel, Switzerland

$2,500,000; 500 ranking points

Indoor hard court

Draw is here

By now, Federer and Basel are virtually synonymous. This is the Swiss legend’s hometown; he was a ball boy at the event as a kid; and as an adult he has won it nine times.

Can Federer make it an even 10 at home? He’ll probably encounter his share of obstacles. Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, the No. 2 and 3 seeds, have looked sharp so far this fall. The next three seeds, Roberto Bautista Agut, Fabio Fognini, and David Goffin, are ninth, 10th, and 11th in the race to London, respectively, and need to leap into the Top 8 to qualify. And the seventh seed here is Stan Wawrinka, who will garner his own home-country love through the week. Federer and Wawrinka, old friends and Davis Cup teammates, look set to collide in the third round.

First-round match to watch: Alexander Zverev vs. Taylor Fritz

Getty Images

Erste Bank Open (ATP)

Vienna

$2,800,000; 500 ranking points

Rebound Ace

Draw is here

Vienna doesn’t have Federer, but it does have a group of players looking to make it to London, and who could really use the 500 ranking points that go to the champion here. Dominic Thiem, the top seed and native son, has already qualified, but Nos. 2–4, Karen Khachanov, Matteo Berrettini, and Gael Monfils, are all on the bubble. A poor showing this week and they could find themselves slipping off it.

First-round matches to watch:

Dominic Thiem vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Andrey Rublev vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime

Wild card to watch: Jannik Sinner. The 18-year-old Italian reached the semis this past week in Antwerp. He’ll start against Philipp Kohlschreiber in Vienna.

WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai (WTA)

Zhuhai, China

$2,419,844; Finals

Hard court

Score one for logic. In past years, the WTA Elite Trophy has been held the week after the tour’s season-ending Finals. This strange arrangement only served to undermine the significance of the Finals, and make the Elite Trophy feel like overkill. Now the 12-woman round-robin event has been moved up a week, where it can serve a more useful function as a warm-up competition before the big dance in Shenzhen.

Determined Murray scores biggest post-comeback victory in Antwerp

Sun, 20 Oct 2019 17:03:00 +0000

Some matches are so hard-fought and debilitating that, no matter who wins the battle that day, both players end up losing the war. Rafael Nadal’s four-hour victory over Novak Djokovic in Madrid in 2009 crushed the French Open hopes of each man that year. Djokovic’s five-hour win over Roger Federer in the 2019 Wimbledon final left both of them reeling for the rest of the summer.

While it isn’t as legendary as those two epics, Stan Wawrinka’s five-set win over Andy Murray in the 2017 Roland Garros semifinals was almost as good, and, unfortunately, even more damaging. Both Murray and Wawrinka would end their seasons a month later at Wimbledon, and both would have season-ending surgery soon after: Murray on his right hip, Wawrinka on his left knee. It was anyone’s guess whether these two 30-somethings would ever make it back on tour. At the start of this season, Murray went so far as to announce that he was retiring.

So it was fitting that, 10 months after that low point, Murray would record the biggest win of his miraculous 2019 comeback against Wawrinka in the final of the European Open in Antwerp. Murray’s 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 win, in two and a half grueling hours, was his third three-set victory in three days. Obviously, his 32-year-old, surgically repaired body is holding up well. And as he showed over the course of the last two, topsy-turvy sets against Wawrinka, his game is as good as it’s ever been.

Getty Images

“The last few years have been extremely difficult,” Murray said afterward, while holding back tears. “Both me and Stan have had a lot of injury problems the last couple of years. It’s amazing to be back playing in a final against him like that. I thought it was a great match.”

Halfway into it, though, this was a match that Murray looked certain to lose. Wawrinka was the more assertive player through the first set and a half, hitting winners from both wings seemingly at will. Stan had worked himself into an unstoppable groove in his one-sided semifinal victory over Jannik Sinner in the semis, and he was in that kind of mood again to start the final. When Wawrinka went up 3-1 in the second set, Murray’s shoulders slumped even more than usual.

“Stan was playing unbelievable, hitting winners all over the court,” Murray said.

Murray’s comeback began at 1-3, when he eked out what would prove to be a crucial, momentum-stopping hold. Suddenly there was a new determination in Murray’s stride, as if he had decided that he simply wasn’t going to lose this match. It’s a look we had seen from Murray when he’s faced Wawrinka before. While the Scot came in with an 11-8 record against the Swiss, I’ve always felt like Wawrinka has the advantage in their match-up; he can hit an opponent off the court in a way that Murray can’t. The times when Murray has won big matches against Wawrinka—like their 2016 French Open semifinal—Murray has brought an extra level of determination to the court, as if he needs to prove something to himself.

Murray had that look through the last set and a half on Sunday. He had to scramble to chase down Wawrinka’s bombs. He had to save break points with big serves of his own. He had to break back multiple times after being broken. And he had to break one more time, in a long final game, to escape with the win. But even as he was berating himself and tossing his racquet, Murray never lost that look of belief, that extra level of determination. He may have come into this tournament unseeded and not anticipating a victory, but now that he was here, in the final, like old times, he wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip.

Getty Images

“I just managed to hang in at the end of the second set,” Murray said. “The third set was extremely close again. I didn’t expect to be in this position at all, so I’m very happy.”

Since Murray returned to the tour in June, he had set out to prove that he could physically play tennis again. Against Wawrinka, he set out to prove that he could still be the player he once was, and he succeeded. Even for a former No. 1, it has been an astonishingly rapid rise. At the end of August, Murray lost in the round of 16 at a Challenger event to a player ranked just inside the Top 100; two months later he’s a title winner in Antwerp, with a win over a fellow three-time major champion.

Along the way, he has also reminded us, happily, of what The Andy Murray Show adds to the ATP. He has shown off his Hall of Fame hands, and his shrewd way of constructing a rally. He has raged at himself and his team as only he can do. He has told Fabio Fognini to “shut up.” And he flashed a little of his deadpan sense of humor on Sunday. Asked about going home to see his wife, Kim Sears, who is pregnant with their third child, Murray said with a smile, “When I’ve been off the road the last few years, my family’s gotten bigger, so I need to get on the road so we don’t get out of control.”

Whatever your reason for coming back is, Andy, it’s good enough for us. Perhaps there will be some cosmic justice in this victory: If Wawrinka’s win over Murray in Paris in 2017 brought about their demise, will Murray’s win in Antwerp signal a renaissance for both men in 2020?

Oracle's Mark Hurd, dead at 62, leaves an important legacy in tennis

Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:35:00 +0000

Editor's Note: This story originally ran on February 27, 2019. Mark Hurd, co-CEO of Oracle, passed away Friday at the age of 62. He had taken a leave of absence last month due to unspecified health reasons.

Ken Solomon's Statement: “Tennis Channel laments the passing of Oracle CEO Mark Hurd, a visionary and true friend of our sport and company. His generosity, impact and commitment to growing tennis at all levels will never be forgotten, nor will his passion and deep love of the game. Our deepest sympathies are with his family at this time.”

Mark Hurd laughs as he recalls a hitting session he recently had with young American pro Mackenzie McDonald. It was, apparently, a workout that pushed the 62-year-old CEO of Oracle all the way to—and maybe past—his physical limit.

“It’s hard to believe I’d have trouble against someone in his 20s, isn’t it?” Hurd asks with a sarcastic chuckle.

The veteran tech executive may be as competitive as anyone who has scaled the heights of Silicon Valley, but he didn’t mind getting a lesson in the modern game. If anything, he’s pleased to see how far McDonald, a former UCLA standout and NCAA singles and doubles champion, has progressed in his two years on tour. Hurd, and Oracle, can rightly claim to have played a role in the 23-year-old’s success.

In 2017, the company began the Oracle U.S. Tennis Awards: a pair of $100,000 grants given each year to two American college players who are trying to climb the pro-game mountain. The first recipients, McDonald and former Virginia Cavalier Danielle Collins, each used that much-needed cash infusion to make surprisingly deep inroads in their rookie years on tour.

“Danielle and Mackie have both done really well, and we couldn’t be prouder of them,” Hurd says. He has the same hopes for the 2018 recipients, Georgia Tech’s Chris Eubanks and Ohio State’s Francesca Di Lorenzo. So far, so good: The 22-year-old Eubanks began 2019 by qualifying for the Australian Open for the first time.

The grants have a personal meaning for Hurd. Introduced to tennis by an uncle when he was 10, he has loved and played the sport his whole life. As a teenager in South Florida in the early 1970s, he played it well enough to earn a scholarship to Baylor University. Hurd may have even played well enough to make a go of it as a pro, but he never had a real chance to find out.

“I was on the fringe,” says Hurd, who graduated with a degree in Business Administration in 1979. “In those days it was pretty tough to make more than you spent on tour, just like it is today, when you have to be [ranked around No.] 200 or 250 in the world to make any money at all. So I went in a different direction.”

That direction led him first to a job as a salesman at the NCR Corporation, in Dallas. Over the next 25 years, Hurd worked his way up to become chief executive, before leaving in 2005 to take the same position at Hewlett-Packard. In 2010, Hurd was hired by Larry Ellison and named president at Oracle, a Northern California tech company with $40 billion in annual revenue and 137,000 employees worldwide. In 2014, Hurd was elevated to CEO.

“What he’s done well,” Fortune magazine said of Hurd, “is run the sales operation very efficiently.”

Hurd never lost his love for tennis, or his interest in trying to help U.S. players survive in a line of work that has only become more competitive as the sport has become more globalized. He funded the Hurd Tennis Center at Baylor, a 12-court, 3,000-seat facility that opened in 2001 and hosted the NCAA Championships in 2015.

In the years since, Hurd has expanded his efforts beyond Baylor, and tried to fill in some of the gaps that have kept the sport out of reach for so many in the United States.

“We’ve tried to put some connective tissue between the juniors and the pro tour,” Hurd says.

To that end, along with the grants, Oracle has created a four-tournament Challenger Series in the U.S., with dual-gender events in Chicago, Houston, Newport Beach and Indian Wells. The American players with the best overall results receive wild cards into the BNP Paribas Open. The company has also partnered with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association to sponsor three of its national tournaments, as well as its rankings. At the recreational level, Oracle has backed Universal Tennis Rating (UTR), which, as the name suggests, offers a single, unified standard for rating players’ abilities and matching them with competitive partners.

“It’s an expensive sport,” Hurd says. “Players can spend $250,000 before they ever have a chance to compete for money. I always had this belief that if our players had the opportunity to keep going, they could play longer and give themselves a better shot at a career. The whole issue in tennis is accessibility.”

Collins wasted no time in validating Hurd’s belief. In 2018, she stunned many in the tennis world with her rise from No. 167 to No. 36. After finishing first in the Oracle Challenger Series, Collins took her wild card into Indian Wells and made it to the fourth round; she then made a semifinal run at the Miami Open. This year, Collins reached the semifinals at the Australian Open, and demolished No. 2 seed Angelique Kerber along the way.

“Things add up really fast when you’re playing, like, 30 tournaments a year or more,” said Collins, who was able to hire a traveling coach with the money. “I think I actually started performing a lot better once I had that kind of financial security.”

When Hurd started at Oracle, he found a kindred spirit in Ellison. The company’s billionaire co-founder had recently taken up tennis; in his case, that meant he had spent $100 million to buy one of the sport’s premier events, the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. In the 10 years since, Ellison has brought a tech mogul’s deep pockets and sometimes-disruptive ambitions to the clubby world of pro tennis.

During the Ellison era, Indian Wells has become the first tournament to install Hawk-Eye cameras on every court. It has opened a second stadium and dangled a $1 million bonus to any player who wins the singles and doubles events. Ellison spent $30 million on a new parking lot alone. In the competition for the mythical title of the “Fifth Grand Slam,” Indian Wells has surpassed its longtime rival event, the Miami Open. Last year, Ellison also signaled his support for the new, revamped Davis Cup format, and he plans to host a round of ties at Indian Wells in the future.

Ellison’s largesse has endeared him to many players, including Rafael Nadal, who typically stays at Ellison’s nearby 250-acre estate, Porcupine Creek, during the tournament.

“It’s true that not everybody has the possibility to do the things that he’s doing for this tournament,” Nadal told Sky Sports, “but it’s the tournament with more courts for practice, a lot of stadiums for the matches and Hawk-Eye on every court. Every year there is something new and something better.”

Ellison has also hinted at a desire to revamp the American game.

“I think we simply have to do something to improve the quality of American tennis,” Ellison told
Bloomberg Businessweek in 2015.

How deeply will Ellison dive into the sport, and how much of it would he like see transformed? It’s a question that may make tennis’ governing establishment—in particular, its non-billionaire tournament owners—nervous. But according to Dr. Timothy Russell, CEO of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, his organization’s partnership with Ellison, Hurd and Oracle has been as “great a formula as we can get.”

If Ellison is the ambitious newcomer to tennis, Hurd is the man who understands the game’s terrain and traditions from the inside.

“He’s passionate about college tennis,” Russell says of Hurd, “and he has a strategic vision for it, to move one block at a time, push the sport forward, and increase its visibility. There’s always a focus on both genders, and on trying to give everyone in college tennis a chance to compete in major events.”

Russell also says that Hurd “recognizes that tennis players make good employees.”

“We do a lot of recruiting on college campuses, a couple thousand recruits every year,” says Hurd, who has expanded the sales force at Oracle over the course of his tenure. “There are obviously a lot of great people in the sport, and athletes do well with us. College tennis is an individual sport, but in a team concept, which is what working in a business is like.”

What’s next for Oracle, when it comes to tennis? “We’re not done yet, by any means,” Hurd says, while declining to say what the firm’s future tennis initiatives might be.

For now, Ellison will make his annual appearance in the owner’s box at the BNP Paribas Open, perhaps alongside celebrities like Mike Tyson, Bill Gates, Bode Miller or Jared Goff, all of whom have taken in matches with him in the past. But when the celebrities leave town, and the pros move on to Europe, Hurd and Oracle’s commitment to the U.S. game, and their still-evolving vision for its future, will remain.

Week in Preview: The 2019 season comes down the homestretch in Europe

Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:03:00 +0000

With the Asian swing complete, and just one more trip back to Europe on most players’ calendars, the 2019 season is making its final turn and heading for home. Tournament-wise, this is a modest week; there are five events across both tours, but there are no Masters 1000s on the men’s side or Premier Mandatories on the women’s. For the players who remain on the year-end championship bubble, though, there’s a lot on the line.

VTP Kremlin Cup (WTA)

Moscow, Russia
$1,032,000; Premier
Indoor hard court

Things are getting complicated, as they often do, when it comes to qualifying scenarios for the WTA Finals. There’s one spot up for grabs in Shenzhen, and one tournament left to play, in Moscow.

The top three seeds at the Kremlin Cup are Elina Svitolina, Kiki Bertens and Belinda Bencic. Svitolina has qualified for Shenzhen. Currently, Serena Williams, who hasn’t played since the US Open, occupies the eighth and final spot, with Bertens and Bencic just behind her. Bertens is 160 points ahead of Bencic, and they’ve been placed in the same half in Moscow. So, essentially, the race is on between the two of them, and an absent Serena, for the last slot in Shenzhen. Would Serena play if she qualified? She hasn’t made the trip to the tour finals since 2014.

As far as who has the easier draw, Bencic’s prospective third-round opponent, Dayana Yastremska, seems like a tougher out than Bertens’ prospective third-round opponent, Anastasija Sevastova.

Getty Images

European Open (ATP)

Antwerp, Belgium
$950,000; 250 ranking points
Indoor hard court

Gael Monfils, the top seed in Antwerp, has qualified for the ATP’s season-ending championships just once over the course of his 14-year career. But he has a chance to do it again in 2019. It’s a long shot; he’s 13th in the race, and hasn’t done much since the US Open. But he’s still less than 400 points behind Matteo Berrettini at No. 8. Monfils may have to clear some high hurdles in his half in Antwerp, including Jan-Lennard Struff, Stan Wawrinka and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

One of the players Monfils would need to leapfrog into London is David Goffin, who will be playing at home in Belgium this week. Goffin is currently No. 10 in the race, 200 points behind Berrettini. The first seed Goffin could play in Antwerp is No. 5 Guido Pella.

Also here: Andy Murray, who will open against another Belgian, Kimmer Coppejeans.

Getty Images

Intrum Stockholm open (ATP)

Stockholm, Sweden
$950,000; 250 ranking points
Indoor hard court

Fabio Fognini, 32, has never qualified for the ATP Finals, but he’s in the running after having his most productive season. He’s currently 11th, 290 points behind Berrettini.

Can Fognini make any progress in Stockholm? He’s never loved the indoor season, but this would seem to be his tournament to lose. Grigor Dimitrov is the second seed, and Taylor Fritz is third. One potential obstacle could be the towering serve machine known as Reilly Opelka, who does like indoor tennis, in the third round.

Getty Images

VTB Kremlin Cup (ATP)

Moscow, Russia
$922,520; 250 ranking points
Indoor hard court

The men’s edition of the Kremlin Cup doesn’t come with much year-end drama, the way the women’s does; Karen Khachanov, the No. 2 seed, is 16th in the race to London. But the tournament does have the biggest star who will be in action this week, Daniil Medvedev.

The Russian native has been playing as well as anyone on tour since July, and is coming off his second straight Masters 1000 title, in Shanghai. The next question for Medvedev may have to do with his schedule: Now that he’s going deep every week, will he take a page from the Big 3’s book and reduce his workload? We’ll see. Kremlin Cup offers just 250 ranking points, but it’s a chance for him to return home as a conquering hero. Who would pass that up?

Getty Images

BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg Open

Luxembourg, Luxembourg
$250,000; International
Indoor hard court

Elise Mertens and Julia Georges are the top two seeds in Luxembourg, but the headliner, as far as fans in the U.S. are concerned, is Coco Gauff. The 15-year-old Floridian became the youngest WTA tournament winner in a decade and a half on Sunday in Linz. Now she’s scheduled to face No. 8 seed Anna Blinkova in the first round here. For someone with a limited schedule, Coco is certainly making the most of her 2019.

Getty Images

Daniil Medvedev is doing everything he needs to join the game’s elite

Sun, 13 Oct 2019 18:21:00 +0000

“Everybody’s talking about how they need new guys, something new, so I gave them something new: I don’t celebrate my wins,” Daniil Medvedev said after his latest big victory, over Alexander Zverev in the Shanghai Rolex Masters final on Sunday.

“I just stay calm, I do my job, and bam, done.”

Medvedev has a knack for concentrating on the essentials and ignoring what’s unnecessary in tennis.

On his serve, he doesn’t waste time with an elaborate motion, or any motion at all, really; he just grabs the ball, throws it up in the air, and slams it down. On his ground strokes, he doesn’t add much spin or shape to the ball, or much polish to his shots; he shovels his backhand and swipes at his forehand, but he rarely misses either. Tactically, he doesn’t bother trying to change the direction of the ball; he just keeps hitting that locked-in crosscourt backhand until his opponent finally loses patience, and the point. Even the way Medvedev stands to receive serve—straight up and down, rocking back and forth slightly—looks casual and unassuming.

But look a little more closely as Medvedev is watching his opponent get ready to serve, and you’ll see that he’s anything but casual. His intensity is all in his eyes. When the other player’s service toss goes up, his eyes narrow, calmly, to meet the challenge.

There are two “i”s in Daniil, and when it comes to the ATP tour these days, the eyes definitely have it. On Sunday, the 23-year-old Russian played his sixth straight final, won his second straight Masters 1000 event, and recorded his first win over Zverev in five tries, 6-4, 6-1. Since the start of August, Medvedev is 31-3, and since losing the US Open final (barely) to Rafael Nadal, he has won 18 straight sets. He also just passed Roger Federer in the ATP Race to London.

“It’s something outrageous I have done in the past few months, and I have been working for it,” Medvedev said. “I just take it and hope I’m going to do much more.”

What the 6-foot-5 Medvedev has done is find a sweet spot between offense and defense, steadiness and shotmaking. His simple service motion is endlessly repeatable; whenever he needs a point in the ad court, he pounds a serve out wide. From the baseline, he backs up and uses his long wingspan to cover every inch of the court. And when the other player moves forward, Medvedev’s eyes narrow even more; he basically doesn’t miss passing shots.

For the opponent, it must feel as if trying to get the ball past Medvedev is a futile exercise. Even if you hit a big serve, he has time to return it; even if you hit a good approach, he’ll come up with a better pass. Zverev served his previous two opponents, Federer and Matteo Berrettini, off the court; against the albatross-like Medvedev, the German’s old hesitancy on his serve returned. On crucial points, he hit double faults instead of aces.

Zverev’s one highlight came while he was serving at 2-3 in the first set. In the middle of that game, he sat back and rallied with Medvedev—and rallied, and rallied. Finally, after 31 shots, Medvedev missed. Zverev had done the impossible: He had outlasted Medvedev. But he must have wondered: how many more times can I do that? Is that what’s it going to take to win this match? Zverev would win just two more games.

PRESS CONFERENCE:

“In the past few months, he’s probably been the best player in the world,” Zverev said.

“This one is amazing because Shanghai I think is one of the most prestigious Masters on the tour,” Medvedev said. “Especially in the past 10 years, there were only three players who managed to win this one, so it’s really special to have my photo in the corridor over the next many years.”

The three players Medvedev is referring to are Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray; combined, they had won every title in Shanghai since 2009. Medvedev is still getting used to the idea of seeing his name and face alongside those of the legendary Big 4 generation. Could he be the first of his own generation to make the leap into their stratosphere? With his run of six straight finals, he has done something that virtually no other young player has: he has shown that he can maintain the highest level of success for a long period of time. To be like Rafa, Roger, and Novak, you have to be a threat to win every tournament you enter, and you have to make a full effort to do it every week. Medvedev is proving that he has the skill, and the pride, and the high standards, to do just that.

When he won the last point against Zverev, Medvedev didn’t raise his arms or pump his fist. He didn’t even take a ball out of his pocket and blast it into the crowd, the way most winners do. Instead, he just turned and tapped it to a ball kid. It reminded me of Barry Sanders, the Hall of Fame running back for the Detroit Lions; when Sanders scored a touchdown, he just handed the ball to the referee—no spike, no dance. As Medvedev understands, a lack of theatrics comes across as refreshing to many.

On his way to the net, when he saw Zverev coming toward him, Medvedev finally cracked a smile. He knows what’s not necessary in tennis, and he knows what is. Right now he’s enjoying every moment, and smiling his way to the top of the game.