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Coco Gauff, of the United States serves against Eva Lys, of Germany during the women’s singles quarterfinals match of the China Open tennis tournament, at the National Tennis Center, in Beijing, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
The Associated Press
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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff was surprised at how much tinier the replica trophy she got to keep after winning this year’s French Open was than the trophy she posed with on court at Roland-Garros for all the world to see. She even did a TikTok about the discrepancy, drawing more than 2 million views.
Why was Gauff so taken aback by what she called the “ miniature version ”?
“I honestly did not know the size it was going to be. … I know you never really take the original, but when I won the U.S. Open, they gave me the same size (trophy), with my name engraved on it,” Gauff told The Associated Press. “So I just assumed that Roland Garros would be the same.”
Actually, it turns out Gauff’s 2023 championship at the U.S. Open marked the first time the women’s singles winner in New York was given a silver cup significantly larger than the one that is used in the postmatch ceremony. Her replica hardware is 19 1/2 inches tall, the same as both the original and keepsake men’s trophies — and 7 1/2 inches bigger than the original women’s trophy.
That one, like the original men’s, is displayed during the tournament in a locked glass box near where players enter the event’s main arena and will be briefly handed to, then taken away from, whoever wins the women’s final in Arthur Ashe Stadium this Saturday.
From 1987, when the tradition of providing keepsakes at Flushing Meadows began, until two years ago, the female champion took home a 12-inch-tall copy. But the U.S. Tennis Association asked Tiffany & Co. to create replicas for the women to match the size of what the men are allowed to keep. That change coincided with the 50th anniversary of the tournament’s 1973 move to pay equal prize money to women and men at then-player Billie Jean King’s urging.
“Equality is in our DNA here at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Everything we do, we’re very intentional about equality … and we wanted to do the same as it relates to the champion’s trophies,” U.S. Open tournament director Stacey Allaster said in an interview.
“We had a very robust conversation: Should we recreate a new women’s singles champion’s trophy? In the end, we made the decision to stay with history and to not change the trophy itself, but to ensure that the replica trophy was of the same size as the men’s,” said Allaster, who is the chief executive of professional tennis at the USTA. “Trophies are so iconic to the history of this championships, and we just didn’t feel it was the right thing to move away from that history, but … (we wanted) to be able to award the singles champions the same sizes.”
King wasn’t aware of the switch until the AP asked her about it.
“I did not know they did that. It’s fantastic. It’s equal,” King said. “It sends very positive messaging that we matter just as much. Our trophy’s just as big.”
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff was surprised at how much tinier the replica trophy she got to keep after winning this year’s French Open was than the trophy she posed with on court at Roland-Garros for all the world to see. She even did a TikTok about the discrepancy, drawing more than 2 million views.
Why was Gauff so taken aback by what she called the “ miniature version ”?
“I honestly did not know the size it was going to be. … I know you never really take the original, but when I won the U.S. Open, they gave me the same size (trophy), with my name engraved on it,” Gauff told The Associated Press. “So I just assumed that Roland Garros would be the same.”
Actually, it turns out Gauff’s 2023 championship at the U.S. Open marked the first time the women’s singles winner in New York was given a silver cup significantly larger than the one that is used in the postmatch ceremony. Her replica hardware is 19 1/2 inches tall, the same as both the original and keepsake men’s trophies — and 7 1/2 inches bigger than the original women’s trophy.
That one, like the original men’s, is displayed during the tournament in a locked glass box near where players enter the event’s main arena and will be briefly handed to, then taken away from, whoever wins the women’s final in Arthur Ashe Stadium this Saturday.
From 1987, when the tradition of providing keepsakes at Flushing Meadows began, until two years ago, the female champion took home a 12-inch-tall copy. But the U.S. Tennis Association asked Tiffany & Co. to create replicas for the women to match the size of what the men are allowed to keep. That change coincided with the 50th anniversary of the tournament’s 1973 move to pay equal prize money to women and men at then-player Billie Jean King’s urging.
“Equality is in our DNA here at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Everything we do, we’re very intentional about equality … and we wanted to do the same as it relates to the champion’s trophies,” U.S. Open tournament director Stacey Allaster said in an interview.
“We had a very robust conversation: Should we recreate a new women’s singles champion’s trophy? In the end, we made the decision to stay with history and to not change the trophy itself, but to ensure that the replica trophy was of the same size as the men’s,” said Allaster, who is the chief executive of professional tennis at the USTA. “Trophies are so iconic to the history of this championships, and we just didn’t feel it was the right thing to move away from that history, but … (we wanted) to be able to award the singles champions the same sizes.”
King wasn’t aware of the switch until the AP asked her about it.
“I did not know they did that. It’s fantastic. It’s equal,” King said. “It sends very positive messaging that we matter just as much. Our trophy’s just as big.”
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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BASTAD, Sweden (AP) — Rafael Nadal recovered from a tumble and a 4-1 deficit in the second set to beat fifth-seeded Cameron Norrie 6-4, 6-4 in the second round of the Nordea Open on Thursday.
Nadal fell over in the first game of the second set after attempting to slide on the clay, and needed treatment on a couple of bleeding scrapes. He then went a break down before winning the last five games of the match to reach his first quarterfinal since January.
“Great feelings, it’s been a while without playing on the tour since Roland Garros and I had a chance to compete against a great player like Cameron,” Nadal said. “It’s part of the journey today. I haven’t been competing very often so matches like today help and holding the pressure on the opponent for the whole game is something I need to improve on because I haven’t played enough.”
Nadal is playing at the tournament in Sweden for the first time since he won the title as a 19-year-old in 2005 as he prepares for the Olympic tournament on clay at Roland Garros in Paris.
He beat Leo Borg, the son of Swedish tennis legend Bjorn Borg, in the first round on Tuesday. That was his first singles match since he lost in the first round of the French Open to Alexander Zverev. He teamed up with Casper Ruud on Monday to win a first-round doubles match.
The 38-year-old Nadal skipped Wimbledon as he didn’t want to switch surface to grass and then back to clay and risk injury. He has been dealing with hip and abdominal injuries over the past 1 1/2 years.
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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LONDON — Jasmine Paolini kept coming back, kept coming back, kept coming back, against Donna Vekic in what would become the longest Wimbledon women’s semifinal on record — after dropping the opening set, after being two games from defeat in each of the last two sets, after twice trailing by a break in the third.
And all the while, this is what Paolini kept telling herself Thursday: “Try, point by point” and “Fight for every ball.”
Paolini never had won a match at the All England Club until last week and now will participate in her second consecutive Grand Slam final, thanks to a rollicking 2-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8) victory over the unseeded Vekic across 2 hours, 51 minutes on Centre Court.
“This match,” said the No. 7-seeded Paolini, who faces No. 31 Barbora Krejcikova for the title, “I will remember forever.”
As will many of the thousands who were present or the millions watching on TV.
“It was,” Paolini said, “a rollercoaster of emotions.”
The same could be said of the second semifinal, which lasted 44 fewer minutes but contained its own share of plot twists as 2021 French Open champion Krejcikova came back to eliminate 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Whoever wins on Saturday will be the eighth woman to leave the All England Club with the title in the past eight editions of the tournament.
Krejcikova trailed 4-0 at the start, reeled off four of five games to take the second set, then earned the pivotal break to move ahead 5-3 in the third against Rybakina, who entered the day with a 19-2 career mark at the All England Club.
“During the second set, somewhere in the middle, I was getting my momentum,” Krejcikova said. “And when I broke her, I started to be in a zone — and I didn’t want to leave the zone.”
Still, it couldn’t approach the drama produced by Paolini and Vekic.
Consider: Vekic, making her debut in a Slam semifinal, ended up claiming more points (118-111), delivering more winners (42-26) and breaking serve more often (4-3).
“She was hitting winners everywhere,” Paolini said.
But Paolini never went away, eventually converting her third match point when Vekic sent a forehand wide. This showing on the grass courts at Wimbledon follows Paolini’s runner-up finish to Iga Swiatek on the red clay at the French Open last month.
Paolini, a 28-year-old from Italy, is the first woman to get to the title matches at Roland Garros and the All England Club in the same season since Serena Williams in 2016.
“These last months have been crazy for me,” Paolini said with a laugh.
Her win was anything but easy. Exhausting would be a more appropriate word.
Vekic often was in obvious distress, crying between points and while sitting in her changeover chair late in the third set — because, she said afterward, of pain in an arm and a leg — and often looked up at her guest box with a flushed face. She iced her right forearm between games.
“I thought I was going to die in the third set,” said Vekic, who repeatedly closed her eyes, sighed or shook her head during her news conference.
“I didn’t know how,” she said, “I could keep playing.”
How surprising is Paolini’s recent surge?
She never had managed to make it past the second round at any major tournament — losing in the first or second round in 16 appearances in a row — until she got to the fourth round at the Australian Open in January.
And then there’s this: Paolini’s career record at Wimbledon was 0-3 until this fortnight. Indeed, she did not own a single tour-level win on grass anywhere until a tuneup event at Eastbourne last month.
Krejcikova, a 28-year-old from the Czech Republic, is not nearly as out-of-nowhere, given that she has been a Grand Slam champion and ranked No. 2 in singles, as well as a seven-time major champ and No. 1 in doubles. She’s also now 6-2 at major tournaments against past Slam champs.
Her mentor, the late Jana Novotna, won Wimbledon in 1998, and Krejcikova teared up while speaking about her influence.
“I have so many beautiful memories, and when I step on the court here, I’m just fighting for every single ball, because I think that’s what she would want me to do,” Krejcikova said. “I just miss her very much. I miss her so much.”
Like Krejcikova, Paolini needed about 1 1/2 sets to get going. Her never-give-up attitude was apparent at 4-all in the second, when she sprinted with her back to the net to put her racket on a lob, somehow getting it back over the net, and Vekic badly missed an overhead.
Paolini held there to lead 5-4, then broke for the set with a forehand winner, looked up at her guest box — where her relatives and her doubles partner, Sara Errani, were on their feet — and screamed, “Forza!” (“Let’s go!”)
Vekic, playing her fifth three-setter in six matches, headed to the locker room before the last set, recalibrated and came out strong. She broke in the opening game, helped by a forehand return winner on a second serve, followed by Paolini’s missed forehand on an 11-stroke exchange.
Soon Vekic led 3-1. After a later trade of breaks, she was up 4-3.
“I believed I could win,” Vekic said, “until the end.”
But Paolini steadied herself, her racket and her resolve — and now gets a second chance to play for her first Slam trophy.
There was something else on her mind as she got ready to head to the locker room, though.
“Now I’m going to the ice bath,” Paolini said, “because my legs are a little bit tired.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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Warner Bros. Discovery and the French Tennis Federation made official on Tuesday what had been revealed over the weekend — the French Open will air on TNT Sports in the United States beginning next year.
TV sportscaster Noah Eagle announced at the end of NBC’s coverage on Sunday that TNT Sports would be the new home of the tournament.
The 10-year agreement will average $65 million per year, a jump from the $25-30 million a year the French Tennis Federation had received from NBC and Tennis Channel for the U.S. rights.
NBC first aired the second leg of tennis’ Grand Slam in 1975, and had been doing it uninterrupted since 1983.
“Once it became clear that the rights were available we jumped quickly and then went to Paris and explained the vision for what we wanted to do with the tournament,” TNT Sports chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser said. “We painted a vision where we’re not only talking to the tennis fan, but we want to talk to the sports fan overall. I don’t want to say that it was done quickly, but it was done in a relatively short amount of time.”
TNT will be the lead network for coverage, with additional matches airing on TBS and truTV. Every match from the tournament will also be streamed on Max. Highlights and other content will also be available on Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and HighlightHER.
The new contract brings the French Open on the same level as the coverage of the other three Grand Slam tournaments, which are carried by ESPN. Every match from every court for the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open are on the ESPN+ streaming service. ESPN also airs coverage from all three on multiple channels during select windows.
French Tennis Federation president Gilles Moretton said in a statement that the new agreement “will enable the federation to ensure maximum exposure for Roland Garros in the USA and help further promote the tournament.”
Warner Bros. Discovery already had a history with the French Open. It had aired the tournament on Eurosport since 1989 and distributed coverage to 55 countries outside the United States.
TNT would likely begin promoting the French Open during its coverage of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in March, and would continue that through their coverage of the NHL and NBA playoffs.
TNT will air two College Football Playoff games on Dec. 21 and has four NASCAR races beginning next year, but its future carrying the NBA remains up in the air as discussions continue with the league on a new rights agreement, which would begin with the 2025-26 season.
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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PARIS — This one’s for the birds: A pigeon landed on the court during a French Open match Saturday, leading the chair umpire to use a towel to rescue the fallen fowl.
The pigeon dropped to the red clay at Court Suzanne Lenglen — and remained on the ground — during a changeover in the fourth set of 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev’s third-round victory over Tomas Machac at Roland Garros.
Chair umpire Damien Dumusois, um, flew into action, climbing down from his perch and grabbing a white towel. He approached the bird, which appeared injured and tried hopping away. Dumusois gave chase and eventually bent over, using the towel to grab the pigeon with both hands, earning cheers from spectators.
The official then carried it toward a doorway and handed it off to someone else, who held the bird aloft, drawing more applause.
Dumusois returned to his chair, got back up on his seat and announced that play would resume.
The match continued with Medvedev ahead 4-3 in the final set, and the fifth-seeded Russian completed his 7-6 (4), 7-5, 1-6, 6-4 win about 10 minutes later.
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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PARIS — The noise was loud and relentless, a chorus of thousands of belting out “ Ra-fa! Ra-fa! ” whenever their guy found the occasional moment of brilliance of the sort he has conjured up so often at the French Open and elsewhere through the years.
The 15,000 or so on hand roared their support when Rafael Nadal stepped out into Court Philippe Chatrier on Monday, voices echoing under the closed roof of a place he called “magical for me.” When the 14-time champion at Roland Garros approached the net for the prematch coin toss. When he took his swings during the warmup. And, especially, when he whipped his trademark topspin lefty forehand or chopped his two-fisted cross-court backhand or placed a volley perfectly to claim a point.
The problem for Nadal, and for his fans, is that there were not nearly enough such points for him against Alexander Zverev. Not enough vintage play to allow his nearly 38-year-old, oft-injured body to claim one more victory, no matter how much the folks in the stands tried to will that to happen. And so he lost 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-3 in the first round of the French Open to Zverev in what might turn out to be Nadal’s last match at the clay-court tournament he dominated for so long.
“If it’s the last time that I played here,” Nadal said, “I am at peace with myself.”
It is the first time in his long and illustrious career that Nadal has been beaten in two consecutive matches on clay courts — he lost to Hubert Hurkacz at the Italian Open on May 11 — and the first time he has dropped a match earlier than the fourth round at the French Open.
“The last two years, I have been working and going through probably the toughest process in my tennis career with the dream to come back here. At least I did,” Nadal said. “I mean, I lost, but that’s part of the business.”
He had indicated 2024 likely would be his last season, but he said Saturday he is not absolutely certain he be at the French Open again. He reiterated that after only his fourth defeat in 116 career matches at the place.
“I am not saying I am retiring today,” said the Spaniard, whose 1 1/2-year-old son, Rafael Jr., sat on his mother’s lap in the stands.
While Nadal said it’s doubtful he’ll enter Wimbledon, which he won twice and starts on July 1, he did note he hopes to return to Roland Garros later that month, when the Olympics‘ tennis competition will be at the French Open site.
Monday’s match ended in anticlimactic fashion, with the 22-time Grand Slam champion unable to play his customary way after 1 1/2 years of hip and abdominal injuries. He had hip surgery during the 2023 French Open, the first time he missed it since winning his debut there as a teenager.
“My body has been a jungle for two years. You don’t know what to expect,” Nadal said. “I wake up one day and I (felt like I had) a snake biting me. Another day, a tiger.”
Nadal, who turns 38 on June 3, has been limited to 16 matches and an 8-8 record since the start of last year. His infrequent play dropped his ranking to No. 275, and he was unseeded for the French Open for the first time; he’d never been anything worse than the No. 6 seed in 18 previous appearances.
That is why Nadal ended up facing the No. 4-seeded Zverev, the runner-up at the 2020 U.S. Open, a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics and the only man to reach the semifinals in Paris each of the past three years.
Nadal’s other losses at Roland Garros came against Robin Soderling in 2009, and against Novak Djokovic in 2015 and 2021.
Djokovic, owner of 24 major championships and the man Nadal played against more than any other, sat in the stands Monday, as did younger stars Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz. Also there: Nadal’s uncle, Toni, who used to be his coach. Not surprisingly, it was difficult to spot so much as a single empty chair anywhere in the arena on what many realized could be a historic occasion.
Here and there, when Nadal was able to come up with the goods and get the better of his opponent, he would yell “Vamos!” and throw that celebratory uppercut that became so familiar, from the days of muscle shirts and Capri pants to Monday’s look of sky-blue sleeves and standard-length white shorts. His numerous and vocal supporters would respond in kind, thrusting their fists in the air right along with him or shaking their red-and-yellow Spanish flags or clapping to the beat of a drum.
If Nadal put a ball into the net, or sailed one wide or long, the groans of disappointment filled the chilly air. Between points, especially when he was trying to navigate a difficult spot, it was so quiet that a pigeon’s coos were audible from a corner of the stadium.
Nadal began shakily, with a misplayed drop shot and a double-fault contributing to getting broken at love. He got broken again to end the first set.
The 6-foot-6 (1.98-meter) Zverev is a talented player coming off a title on clay at the Italian Open. The 27-year-old German leverages every bit of his long legs and considerable wingspan to cover the court well and unleash tough-to-corral groundstrokes.
As he plays in Paris, he is awaiting Friday’s start of a trial in a Berlin court related to accusations of domestic abuse made by an ex-girlfriend. Zverev does not need to be present at the court and has said he won’t be there.
On Monday, there were two stretches, albeit brief, where Nadal looked as though he might be able to find enough muscle memory to make this a close contest.
In the second set, right after he flubbed a backhand and hung his head, Nadal faced a pair of break points that would have put Zverev up 3-1. Nadal escaped, using a 116 mph (187 kph) ace and a 117 mph (188 kph) service winner to hold, before breaking for a 3-2 lead.
Roars.
Not so fast. Nadal served for that set at 5-4, but Zverev broke at love, then was superior in the ensuing tiebreaker.
At the start of the third set, Nadal again erased a pair of break points, then broke for a 2-0 lead with an on-the-run forehand. He pumped his fists, gritted his teeth and screamed, “Vamos!”
More roars.
Once more, though, Nadal failed to sustain it and soon was back at 2-all. Zverev broke to lead 5-3, and that essentially was that. Nadal said his body felt as well as it has in a while during practice, and he finally could move without limitations, but he hasn’t been competing enough lately.
“To hold your level (with) this amount of energy, this amount of concentration,” he explained, “you need to be playing often.”
Addressing the fans directly, Nadal said: “The feelings that you made me feel here are unbelievable. I really hope to see you again, but I don’t know. Merci beaucoup.”
And with that, he gathered his bags and headed to the locker room, but not before stopping to look around. He applauded right back at those applauding him and saluting him with one final chant.
“Ra-fa! Ra-fa!”
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This story has been corrected to fix the year of Nadal’s loss to Soderling. It was 2009, not 2010.
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff dealt just fine with the heat, the humidity, her big-hitting opponent and the task of trying to reach the U.S. Open semifinals for the first time, defeating 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-0, 6-2 on Tuesday.
Gauff, a 19-year-old from Florida, is the first American teenager to reach the final four at Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams was the runner-up to her older sister, Venus, in 2001.
“Last year, I lost in the quarterfinal stage, and I wanted to do better this year,” Gauff said. “Still have a long way to go, but I’m happy and I’m ready to get back to work for the next one.”
This was the 16th victory in her past 17 matches for Gauff — a first-round exit at Wimbledon in July sure feels like ages ago. Her best Grand Slam showing so far was making it to the final at Roland Garros last year.
Gauff lost that title match to Iga Swiatek and those two could have met again in the U.S. Open quarterfinals. But Swiatek didn’t make it, instead losing to Ostapenko in the fourth round. That defeat not only ended Swiatek’s title defense but also meant she will relinquish her spot at No. 1 in the WTA rankings to Aryna Sabalenka next week.
When she is on the mark, as she was Sunday night against Swiatek, Ostapenko can be as challenging an opponent as there is, because she goes for broke on nearly every stroke. If the balls land in, she is in business. When they don’t, she is in trouble. She finished with 36 unforced errors Tuesday; Gauff had 14.
“I didn’t feel comfortable at all the whole match, even on match point. I know the game she plays. She has the ability to come back, no matter the scoreline,” said Gauff, who lost to Ostapenko at the Australian Open in January, “so I was just really trying to get every point, trying to play every ball.”
In the semifinals Thursday, Gauff will face No. 10 Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic or No. 30 Sorana Cirstea of Romania. They were scheduled to play Tuesday night.
The women’s quarterfinals on Wednesday will be Sabalenka of Belarus vs. No. 23 Zheng Qinwen of China, and Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic vs. No. 17 Madison Keys, an American who was the runner-up at the 2017 U.S. Open.
Tuesday’s men’s quarterfinals were 23-time major champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia vs. No. 9 Taylor Fritz of the United States, and No. 10 Frances Tiafoe vs. unseeded Ben Shelton in an all-American match at night. It’s the first time since 2005 that three U.S. men were in the final eight in New York.
When Gauff and Ostapenko started just past noon in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday, the temperature was at 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) and the humidity at 55%. At the break before the second set, Ostapenko headed to the locker room, and Gauff sat on the sideline bench with a white towel packed with ice around her neck.
The American, naturally, had the crowd on her side. They applauded and yelled for Gauff even before she stepped out on court, reacting when she was shown on the arena’s video screens during a prematch TV interview.
The roars crescendoed when Gauff was introduced before play began.
And once it did, she got off to about as good a start as possible, grabbing 12 of the opening 15 points to go up by two breaks for a 3-0 lead after just 10 minutes.
Only one of those points for the American arrived via her own clean winner. She didn’t need to produce those sorts of shots, though.
That’s because Ostapenko kept missing, to the tune of 10 unforced errors in that span alone. After many of those miscues, she would turn toward her guest box and glare at her entourage, as if perhaps it were their fault.
After one 118 mph ace (190 kph) by Gauff, Ostapenko held her racket and a hand inches (centimeters) apart, showing she thought the ball landed outside the box. But there are no appeals on that sort of thing nowadays, because electronic line-calling takes care of every such “Was it in or out?” ruling.
Gauff didn’t need to try to force things. To her credit, she didn’t. What she did do was use her instincts, smarts and speed to get to Ostapenko’s best groundstrokes and send them back over to the other side. That exemplary defense would extend points, more often than not, until Ostapenko erred.
“There’s a saying in basketball that defense wins games. In tennis, that’s not always the case, but today it was definitely the case,” Gauff said. “It’s important to have both ends of the court. The defense has always been there, but I’ve been improving my offense, and I think it’s showing and translating well on the court.”
Ostapenko was the first woman in 44 years to get to the U.S. Open quarterfinals by winning all four matches in three sets, and Gauff went the distance in three of four last week.
But this one was never headed that way.
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AP tennis coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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Wimbledon gets started on Monday with some of the biggest names in tennis in action
United States’ Venus Williams practices at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, Britain, ahead of the championships starting tomorrow, on Sunday, July 2, 2023. (John Walton/PA via AP)
The Associated Press
WIMBLEDON, England — WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — Wimbledon gets started on Monday with some of the biggest names in tennis in action, including Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek, Venus Williams and Coco Gauff.
It is the year’s third major tournament — and Djokovic won the first two: the Australian Open in January and the French Open in June. That puts him halfway to the first calendar-year Grand Slam in men’s tennis since 1969. He came close to the feat in 2021, falling just one victory short when he lost in the final of the U.S. Open.
He seeks a fifth consecutive title at the All England Club and eighth overall, which both would tie records for men.
Djokovic’s title at Roland Garros was his 23rd at a Slam event, breaking a tie with Rafael Nadal for the men’s mark in that category.
As the reigning men’s champion at Wimbledon, Djokovic is scheduled to play the opening match at Centre Court on Day 1, facing Pedro Cachin of Argentina.
They’ll be followed in the main stadium by Williams, a 43-year-old participating in the sport’s oldest major tournament for the 24th time and taking on Elina Svitolina of Ukraine. Williams — whose younger sister, Serena, retired after last season — won five of her seven Grand Slam singles trophies at Wimbledon.
The No. 1-ranked Swiatek, who owns four major titles but hasn’t been past the fourth round at the All England Club, gets things started at No. 1 Court against Zhu Lin of China. Up next in that arena will be three-time Grand Slam runner-up Casper Ruud against Laurent Lokoli, and then Gauff — a 19-year-old American who was a French Open finalist last year — against 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin.
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PARIS — Novak Djokovic made clear for years this was his goal. What drove him. What inspired him. The biggest titles from his sport’s biggest stages were Djokovic’s main aim and now he finally stands alone — ahead of Rafael Nadal, ahead of Roger Federer, ahead of every man who ever has swung a racket.
If Djokovic could wait this long to hold this record, he certainly could wait for the half-hour or so it took to straighten out his strokes in the French Open final. And so, after a bit of a shaky start in thick, humid air and under foreboding charcoal clouds Sunday, he imposed himself. The opponent at Court Philippe Chatrier, Casper Ruud, never really stood a serious chance after that.
Djokovic earned his men’s-record 23rd Grand Slam singles championship, breaking a tie with Nadal and moving three in front of the retired Federer, with a 7-6 (1), 6-3, 7-5 victory over Ruud that was not in doubt for most of its 3 hours, 13 minutes.
Djokovic, a 36-year-old from Serbia, puts this one alongside the French Open titles he earned in 2016 and 2021, making him the only man with at least three from each major event. He won his very first at the 2008 Australian Open and now possesses a total of 10 trophies from there, seven from Wimbledon and three from the U.S. Open.
“I knew that going into the tournament, going into the match, especially, today, that there is history on the line, but I try to focus my attention and my thoughts into preparing for this match in the best way possible to win, like any other match,” Djokovic said, wearing a red jacket with “23” stitched on the chest. “Of course I would lie if I say that I didn’t think about the finish line that is right there and that one more match is needed to win a trophy — a historic one.”
Also worth noting: He again is halfway to a calendar-year Grand Slam — winning all four majors in one season — something no man has achieved since Rod Laver in 1969. Djokovic came close to pulling off that feat in 2021, when he won the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon and made it all the way to the title match at the U.S. Open before losing to Daniil Medvedev.
Djokovic will resume that pursuit at Wimbledon, which begins on the grass of the All England Club on July 3.
“He has this software in his head that he can switch (on) when a Grand Slam comes,” said his coach, Goran Ivanisevic. “The day we arrived here, he was better, he was more motivated, he was more hungry. Every day, he played better and better.”
Entering the 2011 season, this is how the Slam count looked: 16 for Federer, nine for Nadal, one for Djokovic. The climb began with a trio that year and accelerated lately: He has clutched the trophy at 11 of the last 20 Slams, a remarkable run made even more so when considering that he did not participate in two majors during that span because he did not get vaccinated against COVID-19. Djokovic was deported in January 2021 before the Australian Open, and he was not allowed to fly to the United States ahead of last year’s U.S. Open under a rule that since has been lifted.
Getting to 23 not only sets the mark for men, but it also lets Djokovic equal Serena Williams, who wrapped up her career last year, for the most by anyone in the Open era, which began in 1968. Margaret Court won some of her all-time record of 24 Slam trophies in the amateur era.
At 20 days past his 36th birthday, Djokovic is the oldest singles champion at Roland Garros, considered the most grueling of the majors because of the lengthy, grinding points required by the red clay, which is slower than the grass or hard courts underfoot elsewhere.
Nadal’s 22nd major arrived in Paris a year ago, two days after he turned 36. He has been sidelined since January by a hip injury and had arthroscopic surgery on June 2.
Djokovic’s triumph on Sunday means he will return to No. 1 in the ATP rankings on Monday, replacing Carlos Alcaraz. Djokovic already has spent more weeks at the top spot than any player — man or woman — since the inception of computerized tennis rankings a half-century ago.
It was Djokovic who eliminated Alcaraz in the semifinals on Thursday, wearing him down over two thrilling sets until the 20-year-old Spaniard’s body cramped up badly. Alcaraz continued to play, but the scores of the last two sets of the four-set match told the story: 6-1, 6-1.
This was the third Slam final in the past five events for Ruud, a 24-year-old from Norway, but he is now 0-3. He lost to Nadal at the French Open a year ago and to Alcaraz at the U.S. Open last September.
Perhaps due to an awareness of all that was at stake, Djokovic, in his 34th major final, was the one who got off to a shaky start.
“Maybe feeling a bit nervous, little stressed,” Ruud said about his opponent.
But by the end the end of the first set, Djokovic was downright Djokovic-esque, as he was while taking 12 of the last 13 points of the match, most accompanied by spectators’ thunderous chants of his two-syllable nickname, “No-le! No-le! No-le!”
When one last miscue from Ruud landed out, Djokovic dropped onto his back with limbs spread wide.
“He kind of pressures you, in a way, to go for more risks, and that’s tough,” Ruud said. “He just stepped up, like he knows how to do.”
At first, though, Djokovic kept missing forehands — into the net, wide, long — then made a different sort of mistake, shanking an overhead from near the net way beyond the opposite baseline to get broken and trail 2-0.
For whatever reason, that shot always has been Djokovic’s “bête noire,” and he missed another overhead later in the set.
Soon, Ruud led 4-1, thanks in part to Djokovic’s troubles. By then, Djokovic accumulated 13 unforced errors, while Ruud made just four.
And then everything changed.
After finishing the first set with 18 unforced errors, Djokovic recalibrated himself, with merely 14 over the last two sets combined.
Then it was Ruud’s turn to flub an overhead, rocking back and depositing his into the net to end a 29-stroke point. Djokovic’s first service break made it 4-3, and he shook his right fist.
“A bit devastating,” Ruud called it.
They went to a tiebreaker, truly Djokovic’s dominion. When the import rises, along with the tension, he simply excels. Has forever, it seems.
“He sort of just goes into this mode,” Ruud said, “where he just becomes like a wall.”
During the first-to-7 segment, Djokovic contributed four winners and zero unforced errors.
That made his career mark in tiebreakers 308-162, a winning percentage of .655. In 2023, he is 15-4, including 6-0 in Paris — there were 55 points played across that half-dozen, and Djokovic’s sum total of unforced errors was zero.
Read that again: zero.
“He just steps up,” Ruud said. “Either he plays ridiculous defense or he plays beautiful winners. Just doesn’t do any mistakes.”
That set alone lasted 1 hour, 21 minutes, chock full of extended exchanges, the sort of points about which entire stories could be written. There were those that lasted 20, 25, 29 strokes. One was won by Ruud with the help of a back-to-the-net, between-the-legs shot. On another, Djokovic tumbled behind the baseline, smudging his red shirt, blue shorts and skin with the rust-colored clay.
Djokovic’s scrambling and stretching and bending and twisting on defense shows up on the scoreboard, for sure. But all of the long points also sap an opponent’s energy and will.
“It’s just annoying for me,” Ruud said, “but it’s very, very impressive.”
When Djokovic broke to lead 3-0 in the second set, his powers now on full display, he jabbed his right index finger against his temple over and over and over. He wheeled to face his nearby box in the stands, where the group included Ivanisevic, Djokovic’s wife and two children, his parents, his agent and even seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady.
The retired Brady is widely viewed as the NFL’s “Greatest Of All Time” — or “GOAT,” for short — and there has been a debate in the tennis world for quite some time over which among Djokovic, Nadal or Federer deserves that sobriquet.
If the barometer is Grand Slam championships, no one can argue against Djokovic’s status at the moment.
“I leave those kind of discussions of ‘who is the greatest?’ to someone else. I have, of course, huge faith and confidence and belief (in) myself and for everything that I am and who I am and what I am capable of doing,” Djokovic said at his news conference, the Coupes des Mousquetaires at arm’s length, and his son and daughter in the room. “So this trophy obviously is another confirmation of the quality of tennis that I’m still able to produce, I feel.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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PARIS — PARIS (AP) — Coco Gauff could have hoped for the easy way out. Ever since the French Open bracket determined that the 19-year-old Floridian might end up in a quarterfinal against Iga Swiatek, perhaps it would have been understandable if Gauff wished to avoid that particular matchup.
After all, Gauff lost to Swiatek in the final at Roland Garros a year ago. And, after all, Swiatek owns a 6-0 head-to-head lead over their still-nascent careers. But, at least in part because of what happened on June 4, 2022, and at least in part because she knows Swiatek sets the bar in women’s tennis these days, Gauff was thinking about, even wishing for, a rematch on June 7, 2023.
That is what will happen on Wednesday in Paris: No. 1 Swiatek vs. No. 6 Gauff for a berth in the semifinals. In Monday’s fourth round, Gauff put aside a bloody knee to produce a 7-5, 6-2 victory over 100th-ranked Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, before Swiatek moved on when her opponent, 66th-ranked Lesia Tsurenko, stopped playing because she was sick and had problems breathing while trailing 5-1 in the first set.
Gauff played earlier in sun-splashed, windy Court Philippe Chatrier, and she was wrapping up her news conference just as Swiatek and Tsurenko were playing their very first point in Court Suzanne Lenglen.
So the question was put to Gauff: Would you rather deal with the difficulty of facing Swiatek again or face pretty much anyone else?
Her answer sounded both honest and revelatory.
“Since last year, I have been wanting to play her — especially at this tournament. I figured that it was going to happen, because I figured I was going to do well and she was going to do well,” Gauff said. “But I’m the type of mentality: If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. I think also if you want to improve, you have to play the best. I feel like the way my career has gone so far, if I see a level, and if I’m not quite there at that level, I know I have to improve. And I feel like you don’t really know what you have to improve on until you see that level.”
Swiatek already achieved some of what Gauff wants to achieve — and, maybe just as importantly, believes she’s capable of achieving, too.
The 22-year-old from Poland took over at No. 1 in the WTA rankings 14 months ago, a status that is on the line at this tournament.
She owns three Grand Slam titles — two at the French Open and one at the U.S. Open.
Gauff’s best showing at a major was the runner-up finish at Roland Garros, where she is now into the quarterfinals for the third consecutive appearance.
“It would be almost cowardly to say that I want to not face the noise and not face the challenge, but I think that I’m up for it. I have improved a lot since last year, and she has, too,” Gauff said about a half-hour before it was known that she indeed would play Swiatek next. “I think it would be a great battle for us and for the fans, too. I’m sure they would appreciate that matchup, as well.”
Gauff gave away a 5-2 lead at the outset before gathering herself to claim that set, then was visited by a trainer, who placed a white bandage where she skinned her knee. The edges of that patch began to curl up as Gauff played, and she removed it soon after.
“It’s something that reminds me … I used to always scrape my knee as a kid,” Gauff said. “I’ve never gone through clay season without scraping my knee.”
Tsurenko said she had a sore throat and congestion and surmised the illness might have been similar to the virus that forced Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina to withdraw before her third-round match.
“My body could not handle it,” Tsurenko said.
The other quarterfinal on that half of the women’s draw will be No. 7 Ons Jabeur vs. Beatriz Haddad Maia.
The men’s quarterfinals will feature a redo of a contentious matchup last year in that round: No. 4 Casper Ruud against No. 6 Holger Rune. Another quarterfinal will be between the winners of two matches being played Monday night: No. 27 Yoshihito Nishioka vs. Tomas Martin Etcheverry, and No. 22 Alexander Zverev vs. No. 28 Grigor Dimitrov.
Ruud, the 2022 runner-up to Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros and to Carlos Alcaraz at the U.S. Open, defeated Nicolas Jarry 7-6 (3), 7-5, 7-5. Jarry, who served an 11-month ban in 2020 for a positive doping test, went up 4-1 in the second set and 4-2 in the third, but Ruud turned things around.
Rune, a 20-year-old from Denmark, edged No. 23 Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7) across a minute shy of four hours. The contest included a bit of a brouhaha over a point on which Rune hit a ball after it bounced twice on his side, prompting Cerundolo to try to indicate that to chair umpire Kader Nouni — and the official ruled the point was Rune’s.
In the fifth set, Rune appeared to be in trouble while trailing 4-3 and serving at love-40. But he then won 10 of the next 11 points to get back into things. In the tiebreaker, Cerundolo took a 7-6 lead, before Rune reeled off the last four points.
“Moments like this,” Rune said, “stay with you forever.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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PARIS — PARIS (AP) — Frances Tiafoe says he receives death threats via social media after he loses professional tennis matches. Jessica Pegula says the same. So does Donna Vekic — directed at just her or her family, too.
“Everybody gets them after a loss,” said Tiafoe, a 25-year-old from Maryland who was scheduled to play in the French Open’s second round on Thursday and was a semifinalist at last year’s U.S. Open. “It’s just how society is today. I know how that affects people’s mental health. That’s very real.”
Sloane Stephens, the 2017 champion at Flushing Meadows and 2018 runner-up at Roland Garros, says she often deals with racist messages directed at her online, and said some prompted the FBI to investigate.
“It’s obviously been a problem my entire career. It has never stopped,” said Stephens, who is Black. “If anything, it’s only gotten worse.”
In a bid to try to protect athletes from that sort of abuse at Roland Garros during the 15-day Grand Slam tournament that ends June 11, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) is paying a company to provide players with software that uses artificial intelligence to block these sorts of negative comments.
Every contestant in every category — singles, doubles, juniors, wheelchair competitors and so on, for a total of around 700 to 800 — is allowed free access to Bodyguard.ai for use on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. A few dozen players had signed up for the service as of the start of this week, according to Bodyguard.
“This is really important for us: for the players to be very comfortable and be able to focus on the competition. Tennis is mental. It’s really what you have in your mind that counts; you’re making 1,000 decisions during a match,” said FFT CEO Caroline Flaissier, who put the cost to the federation at somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000.
“We know that there is a lot of cyberbullying,” she said. “We have to address that major issue, so we thought let’s do a test.”
That includes monitoring social media used by the FFT and the French Open itself. An FFT spokeswoman said Wednesday that 4,500 messages had been deleted out of the 79,000 received on those accounts since May 21.
Yann Guerin, head of sports for Nice-based Bodyguard, said the company’s software — which is constantly updated by employees who might notice new words or emojis that should be part of the screening — needs less than 100 milliseconds to analyze a comment and delete it if it’s “hateful or undesirable.” He cited the example of one player who participated in qualifying rounds last week, before the start of the tournament proper.
“He lost … so he was disappointed. Then he checked his phone and was like, ‘Whoa,’” Guerin said, estimating that more than 70% of the comments that athlete received would fall under the heading of “toxicity.”
“Very bad,” Guerin said. “Not bad. VERY bad.”
That’s nothing out of the ordinary, according to players.
“It’s a big issue in tennis. We get these stupid and abusive comments all the time. And to be honest, we are tired of it,” said Daria Kasatkina, a 26-year-old from Russia who was a 2022 semifinalist in Paris. “People just do that and they don’t get punished. Nothing. Only we suffer from reading all of this (expletive).”
Several players, from various countries, described distasteful messages arriving via apps.
Usually accounts are flooded after a defeat — often, they say, from gamblers disappointed to lose money wagering on a match.
“Last week, I had three match points in the quarterfinals (at the Morocco Open) and I ended up losing in a tiebreaker. And that was probably the worst it’s been. Ever,” said Peyton Stearns, a 21-year-old American who won the 2022 NCAA championship for the University of Texas. “You keep seeing these notifications: Boom, boom, boom, boom. You have to go through it. You report. You block. It’s a hassle and it drains you mentally.”
There are skeptics, such as 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic.
“You think it’s possible? Do you really think it’s possible to stop those things? There’s always going to be something negative and it’s always going to be about the results,” she said. “When you’re winning, you get positive comments. When you’re losing, you get negative comments. That’s just the way it is. It’s in every sport and it’s not only for women or for men. That’s how the world is.”
Then there are players such as Tiafoe or the French Open’s 15th-seeded man, Borna Coric, who didn’t sign up for the AI service because they no longer get bothered by the vitriol.
“I was, for sure, upset the first couple of times,” said Coric, who is from Croatia. “But then you realize that those are not good people. And they would never come to your face and say it.”
Vekic voiced a similar sentiment.
“I wouldn’t say I got used to it, but it’s something that doesn’t really get to me that much anymore at this point in my career,” said Vekic, a 26-year-old from Croatia who is seeded 22nd at Roland Garros. “These people are gambling and I lose a match — and they lose money. So what does that really have to do with me at the end of the day?”
Still, every player the AP asked was appreciative of the FFT’s effort.
“It’s a nice way to kind of help us feel a little bit less pressure with the comments and stuff. It makes us more comfortable posting or sharing and talking about matches when we know we’re not going to get like 100 death threats after. It’s crazy,” said Pegula, a 29-year-old American who has reached five major quarterfinals and whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. “I mean, I get them, like, every day.”
The organizers of the year’s remaining two Grand Slam tournaments, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, are keeping tabs on how things go in Paris.
“We have relationships with the main social media platforms and we do take steps to flag comments that cause players concern,” All England Club spokeswoman Eloise Tyson wrote in an email. “We will be very keen to hear the feedback from the FFT and players regarding the technology they are using at Roland Garros.”
U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Brendan McIntyre said the USTA is “evaluating the product and determining whether this is something we would like to make available to players for 2023 and beyond.”
The No. 9-seeded Kasatkina, who faces Stearns on Friday, said she wasn’t sure whether she would sign up for the program in Paris. She tends to close the comments on Instagram before a tournament, anyway.
Then her eyes lit up as she considered another possible solution: earning the trophy.
“You get all these messages only if you lose,” she said, then added with a laugh: “If you win, then there’s only good things on social media. Everyone loves you so much.”
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/HowardFendrich
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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PARIS — Like many a kid, Peyton Stearns enjoyed participating in sports and tried her hand at plenty.
“Soccer, gymnastics, basketball, tennis, whatever,” the 21-year-old American said Wednesday at the French Open after eliminating 2017 champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 1-6, 6-2 to reach the third round at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time.
Then Stearns paused, before adding with a chuckle: “Well, not so much tennis.”
By her own admission, she came to tennis relatively late for someone who would end up at its highest level, starting private lessons at age 8. It wasn’t until about three or four years later, the 2022 NCAA champion for the University of Texas explained, that she decided to focus on holding a racket.
“Gymnastics was very structured. I didn’t like that so much. I liked to do what I want when I wanted,” said Stearns, who had never played in the French Open’s main draw until this week and next faces No. 9 seed Daria Kasatkina, a 2022 semifinalist. “I chose tennis because I loved that you can just hit the living daylights out of the ball.”So that’s what she does, and did quite effectively against the 17th-seeded Ostapenko, outhitting a big hitter — Stearns compiled more winners, 30-29 — and leaving the field at Roland Garros with just one remaining woman who has won the title there: No. 1 Iga Swiatek, the champion in 2020 and 2022, who plays her second-round match Thursday. Barbora Krejcikova, the 2021 winner, lost in the first round.
“Sometimes I surprise myself with how lethal my ball comes off (the racket) sometimes for my opponents, and how it really puts them in trouble,” Stearns said. “Maybe I didn’t realize that earlier on, but playing against top players, I realize that it is true. It comes off pretty heavy and big and that’s how I play. Definitely helps with confidence.”
Her victory over Ostapenko can be placed alongside a slew of other early upsets in Paris, where the sometimes-odd bounces of the red clay and the changing weather conditions can contribute to unexpected outcomes.
No. 5 seed Caroline Garcia of France was defeated by Anna Blinkova 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, and 18 of 32 seeded women already were gone before the second round was finished. In the men’s bracket, No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev bowed out Tuesday against a qualifier ranked 127nd.
“I feel like at Roland Garros, it’s tricky with the clay,” said No. 3 Jessica Pegula, who advanced Wednesday when her opponent, Camila Giorgi, stopped playing because of knee pain after dropping the first set. “You can see — to me, it feels like — a lot more upsets.”
Do not tell Stearns hers was a stunning result, even though she is ranked 69th in her first full season on tour and carried a 0-1 career Slam record into this week.
“I expected this out of myself. Maybe not this early in my career. … I’m ahead of what I projected myself doing,” she said, “but by no means cutting myself short.”
She had her own little cheering section at Court 14, a group that included her mother, Denise, Stearns’ coach, her coach’s girlfriend and a friend, which helped.
So did Stearns’ boundless self-belief, which she said allowed her to settle down amid some feelings she described as “crazy, nerve-wracking, overwhelming — all the emotions into one.”
Her tennis idol growing up was Maria Sharapova, who won five Grand Slam titles and reached No. 1 in the WTA rankings.
Sharapova was a powerful ball-striker who found her initial success on faster surfaces such as grass courts, winning Wimbledon at age 17, and hard courts, her next major championships coming at the U.S. Open and Australian Open. But Sharapova eventually did collect two French Open titles later in her career.
That’s not why Stearns came to be a fan, though.
“My mom and I loved watching her because of her outfits,” Stearns said with a snicker. “My mom’s a big shopper.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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PARIS — Unable to sleep the night before her first-round match at the French Open against Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, the Grand Slam tournament’s No. 2 seed, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine checked her phone at 5 a.m. Sunday and saw disturbing news back home in Kyiv.
At least one person was killed when the capital of Kostyuk’s country was subjected to the largest drone attack by Russia since the start of its war, launched with an invasion assisted by Belarus in February 2022.
“It’s something I cannot describe, probably. I try to put my emotions aside any time I go out on court. I think I’m better than before, and I don’t think it affects me as much on a daily basis, but yeah, it’s just — I don’t know,” Kostyuk said, shaking her head. “There is not much to say, really. It’s just part of my life.”
That, then, is why Kostyuk has decided she will not exchange the usual postmatch pleasantries with opponents from Russia or Belarus. And that is why she avoided a handshake — avoided any eye contact, even — after losing to Australian Open champion Sabalenka 6-3, 6-2 on Day 1 at Roland Garros.
What surprised the 20-year-old, 39th-ranked Kostyuk on Sunday was the reaction she received from the spectators in Court Philippe Chatrier: They loudly booed and derisively whistled at her as she walked directly over to acknowledge the chair umpire instead of congratulating the winner after the lopsided result. The negative response grew louder as she gathered her belongings and walked off the court toward the locker room.
“I have to say,” Kostyuk said, “I didn’t expect it. … People should be, honestly, embarrassed.”
Kostyuk is based now in Monaco, and her mother and sister are there, too, but her father and grandfather are still in Kyiv. Perhaps the fans on hand at the clay-court event’s main stadium were unaware of the backstory and figured Kostyuk simply failed to follow usual tennis etiquette.
Initially, Sabalenka — who had approached the net as if anticipating some sort of exchange with Kostyuk — thought the noise was directed at her.
“At first, I thought they were booing me,” Sabalenka said. “I was a little confused, and I was, like, ‘OK, what should I do?”
Sabalenka tried to ask the chair umpire what was going on. She looked up at her entourage in the stands, too. Then she realized that while she is aware Kostyuk and other Ukrainian tennis players have been declining to greet opponents from Russia or Belarus after a match, the spectators might not have known — and so responded in a way Sabalenka didn’t think was deserved.
“They saw it,” she surmised, “as disrespect (for) me.”
All in all, if the tennis itself was not particularly memorable, the whole scene, including the lack of the customary prematch photo of the players following the coin toss, became the most noteworthy development on Day 1 in Paris.
The highest-seeded player to go home was No. 7 Maria Sakkari, who lost 7-6 (5), 7-5 to 42nd-ranked Karolina Muchova in what wasn’t necessarily that momentous of an upset. Both have been major semifinalists, and Muchova has won her past four Slam matches against players ranked in the top 10 — including beating Sakkari at the French Open last year. Also out: No. 21 Magda Linette, a semifinalist at the Australian Open, who lost 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 to 2021 U.S. Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez, and No. 29 Zhang Shuai.
The first seeded men to bow out were No. 20 Dan Evans and No. 30 Ben Shelton, an Australian Open quarterfinalist and 2022 NCAA champion from Florida making his French Open debut. No. 11 Karen Khachanov, a semifinalist at the past two majors, came all the way back after dropping the opening two sets to beat Constant Lestienne, a French player once banned for gambling, by a 3-6, 1-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-3 score in front of a boisterous crowd at Court Suzanne Lenglen. Two-time Slam finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas came within a point of being forced to a fifth set, too, but got past Jiri Vesely 7-5, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7). No. 24 Sebastian Korda, who missed three months after hurting his wrist at the Australian Open, was a straight-set winner in an all-American matchup against Mackenzie McDonald, the last player to face — and beat — Rafael Nadal. The 14-time French Open champion has been sidelined with a hip injury since that match in January.
Sabalenka called Sunday “emotionally tough” — because of mundane, tennis-related reasons, such as the nerves that come with any first-round match, but more significantly because of the unusual circumstances involving the war.
“You’re playing against (a) Ukrainian and you never know what’s going to happen. You never know how people will — will they support you or not?” explained Sabalenka, who went down an early break and trailed 3-2 before reeling off six consecutive games with powerful first-strike hitting. “I was worried, like, people will be against me, and I don’t like to play when people (are) so much against me.”
A journalist from Ukraine asked Sabalenka what her message to the world is with regard to the war, particularly in this context: She can overtake Iga Swiatek at No. 1 in the rankings based on results over the next two weeks and, therefore, serves as a role model.
“Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody. How can we support the war? Nobody — normal people — will never support it. Why (do) we have to go loud and say that things? This is like: ‘One plus one (is) two.’ Of course we don’t support war,” Sabalenka said. “If it could affect anyhow the war, if it could like stop it, we would do it. But unfortunately, it’s not in our hands.”
When a portion of those comments was read to Kostyuk by a reporter, she responded in calm, measured tones that she doesn’t get why Sabalenka does not come out and say that “she personally doesn’t support this war.”
Kostyuk also rejected the notion that players from Russia or Belarus could be in a tough spot upon returning to those countries if they were to speak out about what is happening in Ukraine.
“I don’t know why it’s a difficult situation,” Kostyuk said with a chuckle.
“I don’t know what other players are afraid of,” she said. “I go back to Ukraine, where I can die any second from drones or missiles or whatever it is.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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FILE – Rafael Nadal of Spain celebrates defeating Andy Murray of Britain in the semi final match of the French Open tennis tournament in Roland Garros stadium in Paris, Friday June 3, 2011. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
The Associated Press
PARIS — This year’s French Open will not be quite the same without Rafael Nadal.
His energy. His lefty forehands and two-fisted backhands. His sliding across the red clay of Court Philippe Chatrier. His familiar limbs-spread, flat-on-his-back mixture of relief and celebration after winning the championship — whether the year was 2005 or 2019 or any of the many others that add up to a record 14 times in all.
Nadal, a 36-year-old from Spain, announced at a news conference Thursday that the hip injury that has kept him out of action since January will force him to miss his annual trip to compete at Roland Garros.
The clay-court Grand Slam tournament has not been contested without him since 2004, when an ankle problem kept him away. He made his debut the following year, still a teenager, and began his title-monopolizing run right away.
Nadal has gone 112-3 at the place since, right up through a year ago, when he overcame chronic pain in his left foot to become the oldest man to claim the French Open title.
“Tournaments stay forever; players play and leave. So Roland Garros will always be Roland Garros, with or without me, without a doubt. The tournament is going to keep being the best event in the world of clay, and there will be a new Roland Garros champion — and it is not going to be me,” he said Thursday. “And that is life.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Top-ranked Iga Swiatek has stayed undefeated against Coco Gauff after beating the American teenager 6-4, 6-2 to reach the final at the Dubai Championships
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Top-ranked Iga Swiatek stayed undefeated against Coco Gauff, beating the American teenager 6-4, 6-2 to reach the final at the Dubai Championships on Friday.
The three-time Grand Slam champion improved to 6-0 against the 18-year-old Gauff, and each victory has been in straight sets. The Pole beat Gauff in last year’s French Open final.
“One more to go. Will put all my heart into it,” Swiatek tweeted.
Swiatek will face Barbora Krejcikova, the 2021 French Open champion, in the final on Saturday.
Krejcikova beat No. 3 Jessica Pegula of the United States 6-1, 5-7, 6-0 in Friday’s other semifinal.
Swiatek retained her Qatar Open title last week.
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More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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MELBOURNE, Australia — MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Novak Djokovic found this trip to Australia far less complicated, and far more successful, than that of a year ago.
Unable to enter his best event in 2022 after being deported from the country because he was not vaccinated against COVID-19, Djokovic accomplished all he could have wanted in his return: He resumed his winning ways at Melbourne Park and made it back to the top of tennis.
Only briefly challenged in the final on Sunday night, Djokovic was simply better at the most crucial moments and beat Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) for a record-extending 10th Australian Open championship and record-tying 22nd Grand Slam title overall. As a bonus, Djokovic will vault from No. 5 to No. 1 in the ATP rankings, a spot he already has held for more weeks than any other man.
“I want to say this has been one of the most challenging tournaments I’ve ever played in my life, considering the circumstances. Not playing last year; coming back this year,” Djokovic said, wearing a zip-up white jacket with a “22” on his chest. “And I want to thank all the people that made me feel welcome, made me feel comfortable, to be in Melbourne, to be in Australia.”
And a moment later, he uttered a statement that is truly significant, given all the 35-year-old from Serbia has done on a tennis court: “This probably is the, I would say, biggest victory of my life.”
Djokovic stretched his unbeaten streak in Melbourne to 28 matches, the longest run there in the Open era, which dates to 1968. He adds trophy No. 10 to the seven from Wimbledon, three from the U.S. Open — where he also was absent last year because of no coronavirus shots — and two at the French Open, to match rival Rafael Nadal for the most by a man.
Only two women — Margaret Court, with 24, and Serena Williams, with 23 — are ahead of him.
This was also the 93rd ATP tour-level title for Djokovic, breaking a tie with Nadal for the fourth-most.
“I would like to thank you for pushing our sport so far,” Tsitsipas told Djokovic.
Djokovic was participating in his 33rd major final, Tsitsipas in his second — and the 24-year-old from Greece’s other one also ended in a loss to Djokovic, at the 2021 French Open.
Superior throughout on this cool evening under a cloud-filled sky, Djokovic was especially so in the two tiebreakers. He took a 4-1 lead in the first, then reeled off the last three points. He led 5-0 in the closing tiebreaker and, when it finished, he pointed to his temple before climbing into the stands, where he pumped his fist and jumped with his coach, Goran Ivanisevic, and other members of the entourage, then collapsed, crying.
When Djokovic returned to the playing surface, he sat on his sideline bench, buried his face in a white towel, and sobbed some more.
Little doubt this is of no solace to Tsitsipas, but there is no shame in failing to defeat Djokovic in Melbourne. Challenging his dominion on those blue hard courts is every bit the monumental task that taking on Nadal on the red clay at Roland Garros is.
Perhaps surprisingly, Tsitsipas was willing to engage in the kind of leg-wearying, lung-searing back-and-forths upon which Djokovic has built his superlative career. How did that work out? Of points lasting at least five strokes, Djokovic won 43, Tsitsipas 30.
Then again, on those rare occasions that Tsitsipas did charge the net, he likely regretted the decision, because Djokovic often conjured up a passing shot that was too tough to handle.
The trophy for which they were playing was displayed on a pedestal near a corner of the court, and both men would get within reach of it whenever wandering over to towel off between points at that end. So close, yes, but for Tsitsipas, never truly close enough.
It’s not as though he played all that poorly, other than a rash of early miscues that seemed to be more a product of tension than anything.
It’s that Djokovic was, put simply, too unyielding. Too accurate with his strokes, making merely 22 unforced errors, 20 fewer than his foe. Too speedy and flexible chasing shots (other than on one second-set point, when, running to his left, Djokovic took a tumble).
Djokovic pushes and pushes and pushes some more, until it’s the opponent who is something less than perfect on one swing, either missing or providing an opening to pounce.
That’s what happened when Tsitsipas held his first break point — which was also a set point — while ahead 5-4 in the second and Djokovic serving at 30-40. Might this be a fulcrum? Might the outcome’s tilt change? Might Djokovic relent? Might Tsitsipas surge?
Uh, no.
A 15-stroke point concluded with Djokovic smacking a cross-court forehand winner that felt like a statement. Two misses by Tsitsipas followed: A backhand long, a forehand wide. Those felt like capitulation. Even when Tsitsipas actually did break in the third, Djokovic broke right back.
There has been more than forehands and backhands on Djokovic’s mind over the past two weeks.
There was the not-so-small matter of last year’s legal saga — he has alternately acknowledged the whole thing served as a form of motivation but also said the other day, “I’m over it” — and curiosity about the sort of reception he would get when allowed to go to Australia this time because pandemic restrictions were eased.
He heard a ton of loud support, but also dealt with some persistent heckling while competing, including applause after faults Sunday.
There was the sore left hamstring that has been heavily bandaged for every match — until the final, that is, when only a single piece of beige athletic tape was visible.
And then there was the more complicated matter of his father, Srdjan, being filmed with a group of people with Russian flags — one with an image of Vladimir Putin — after Djokovic’s quarterfinal. The tournament banned spectators from bringing in flags of Russia or Belarus, saying they would cause disruption because of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Djokovic and his father said it was a misunderstanding; Srdjan thought he was with Serbian fans.
Still, Srdjan Djokovic did not attend his son’s semifinal or the final.
No matter any of it, Djokovic excelled as he so often has, winning 17 sets in a row after ceding one in the second round last week.
“He is the greatest,” Tsitsipas said, “that has ever held a tennis racket.”
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AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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