Sports
Emma Navarro keeps her eye on the ball at the Australian Open as tennis limelight shines brighter
MELBOURNE, Australia — A seriously cold December afternoon in midtown Manhattan, in the lobby of a hotel off Central Park.
A 23-year-old woman looks up from a club chair near an elevator. She’s wearing a baseball cap, diddling around a bit on her phone.
“Hey,” she says.
Take another look. Oh, right, that’s Emma Navarro: U.S. Open semifinalist and a top-10 women’s player after just one full season of top-tier tournaments. She’s chilling ahead of a packed evening of photo ops, press gaggles, and an appearance at the New York Knicks NBA basketball game with a few other tennis players you might have heard of — Carlos Alcaraz, Ben Shelton and Jessica Pegula.
It might be fun. Then again, hanging out in this comfy chair, anonymously watching the bustle of her native city pass by is pretty cool too. There are many reasons why Navarro, who plays Ons Jabeur in the third round of the Australian Open Saturday, pursued tennis. Being a famous person was not one of them.
“The exact opposite,” she said the other day, after a second-round win in Melbourne over Wang Xiyu of China, her second consecutive three-set battle with the outcome up in the air until the final point.
She was at it once again Saturday, when she opened a packed Margaret Court Arena against Ons Jabeur, a three-time Grand Slam finalist and darling of the sport on the way back from a torrid few months with injury. After winning 20 of the first 24 points and surging to a 5-0 lead in the first set, she had to scramble in the third to prevail, saving three break points when serving at 1-2.
When it was over, she credited her parents for taking her and her siblings on six-hour bike rides when they were kids for her third-set prowess. Then she scribbled “me heart 3 sets” on the television camera. She should. She went 19-6 in matches that went the distance last season. On her way off the court, she was straight into signing autographs for fans hanging over the stands. The match was played in the light and shadow of lunchtime in Melbourne and Navarro is not yet fully adjusted to being center stage, day after day after day.
“It’s something that I work really hard at managing and feeling comfortable with being in the spotlight. It’s the opposite of my nature. It feels unnatural,” she said.
This happens in tennis sometimes. Not everything develops in sync. Not everyone who can fire forehands and backhand on a wire seemingly all afternoon is an alpha-dog extrovert, letting their life unfold in a series of Instagram posts and TikTok videos.
And so it is with Navarro, whose tennis life had been an exploration in incrementalism up until the summer of last year. At 18, after a terrific junior career — including a singles final and doubles title at the French Open — she still wasn’t sure she wanted to be a professional tennis player. So she went to the University of Virginia for two years, where she won the NCAA nationwide college-level women’s singles championship.
When she did turn pro, she opted not to pursue wild-card entries that might have been easily attainable, given that her father, Ben, is active in the tennis business and owns the ATP and WTA 1000-level Cincinnati Open. She was fine climbing her way through second-tier tournaments on the ITF and WTA 125 circuits.
GO DEEPER
Win or lose, Emma Navarro wants to hit one more ball
Navarro was outside the top 100 as recently as April 2023. She finished that year as world No. 32, the magic number for a Grand Slam seeding, and won her first WTA Tour tournament in Hobart, Tasmania, the day before the start of the 2024 Australian Open.
Then she played her way into the spotlight. She notched consecutive wins over Coco Gauff, first at Wimbledon and then the U.S. Open, where Gauff, now a friend, was the defending champion. She rose into the top 10 for the first time. And that’s when things started to get a little busy.
Emma Navarro is figuring out how to live in the tennis limelight. (Daniel Pockett / Getty Images)
A flood of interview and appearance requests. A commercial portfolio that now includes deals with Fila, Yonex, Red Bull, Dove, Fanatics, De Bethune and, as of Friday, Mejuri, the high-end jewellery brand that put her in a bespoke photo shoot in Charleston, S.C., in December. Navarro is the company’s first athlete ambassador.
For Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, Naomi Osaka and Gauff, Iga Swiatek and Zheng Qinwen, something like that is just another day ending with a “Y”. For Navarro, it is, in her own words, “an adjustment”.
The adjustment has a tennis guise too, which might go some distance toward explaining Navarro’s first two matches here this month. Both ended up being tennis escape rooms, first on Rod Laver Arena and then on the site’s second stadium, Margaret Court Arena.
She was down a break of serve in the third set in both matches. Peyton Stearns, another former NCAA champion, had a match point against her in a second-set tiebreak that she couldn’t take. Stearns then served for the match in the third, but couldn’t get over the line.
In both cases, Navarro was in the first match of the day, putting her in the prime-time slot back in the States on ESPN — a slot that Gauff often plays in. Like the fame and exposure that winning and marketing deals carry, big court assignments and prime-time hours bring a not-so-subtle message of expectation.
In both matches, the usually steady Navarro sprayed balls from the middle of the baseline that she had roped back for much of last year, wearing down opponent after opponent. Then she found a way, stringing together her best shots of the afternoon in the handful of deciding points that made the difference twice over.
Against Jabeur, she raced through the first set to 5-0 before Jabeur started playing with the finesse that carried her to the brink of the biggest prizes in the sport. She got back to 5-4. Navarro still took the set.
For nearly her entire tennis life, Navarro had been the girl and then the woman who was thrilled when she showed up at a tournament and learned she was playing on Court 35 in the back of the facility.
“Like, put me in the forest,” she said.
That’s not happening anymore.
“You spend whatever 20 years working at something, mainly behind closed doors, and then all of a sudden you’re a form of entertainment for people,” she said. “People pay to come watch you do what you do. It’s definitely an adjustment.”
Navarro’s coach, Peter Ayers, has been working with her the past eight years. He said his way of getting Navarro used to being a new version of herself during the off-season was to stick with the formula that got her here.
“It’s always been a very methodical approach,” Ayers said during an interview in Melbourne. “We want her to get better without neglecting her bread and butter. It’s always a balance.”
For Navarro, who will never be one of the WTA tour’s giants, that means trying to play bigger and more aggressively within the parameters of her strengths. She is not about to start firing lasers, like some of her peers can do point in, point out.
“I’m very leery of just chasing velocity,” said Ayers.
There are other ways.
Ayers is a baseball guy. One of his favorite pitchers was Greg Maddux, the Atlanta Braves ace of the 1990s. Maddux was far from the hardest thrower, but no one could place balls on the edge of the strike zone as well as he could. “There’s a lot she can do with being more precise,” Ayers said.
Same with her strokes.
Navarro doesn’t have to try to out-hit players such as Aryna Sabalenka or out-spin Swiatek. But she can do a lot of damage if her feet are a step or two closer to the baseline more often, or even inside it.
Ayers, like Navarro, knows that life is different when there is a single digit next to your name on the rankings ladder. It’s been a while since Navarro sneaked up on anyone, as she did on Gauff at dusk in southwest London six months ago. People aren’t afraid of losing to her anymore, Ayers said; when that fear goes away, opponents can play free without worrying about the consequences.
“You’re getting everyone’s best shot,” he said. “The idea is that makes you better.”
Emma Navarro has found herself on her heels in her two Australian Open matches to date. (Daniel Pockett / Getty Images)
Navarro has always been something of problem-solver, whether it’s figuring out an opponent, how she wants to spend her time and who she wants to be as a tennis player. In a sense, what she’s doing now, is figuring out another problem — how to exist as this new version of herself, the version that has been better than all but a handful of players in the women’s game for the past six months.
“The single-digit gets me a little bit,” she said. “It’s just so far outside my realm of expectations for myself.”
There’s been some revelations lately, though, that will hopefully begin to pay some dividends soon. There’s a way to play a certain kind of tennis and still be that woman sitting on a club chair in a hotel lobby, anonymously watching the world go by.
“My tennis can be alpha and I’ll let that do its job and I can just be me,” she said. “If I’m not feeling like myself, I’m probably not going to be playing my best tennis.”
(Top photo: Ng Han Guan / Associated Press)
Sports
Ex-Yankees star Alex Rodriguez says Aaron Judge 'needs' an October moment to be a true franchise legend
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For the New York Yankees, it is always World Series or bust.
Of course, the Bronx Bombers have 27 titles to their name, and that includes a record 18-year drought from 1978 to 1996. But, after a new dynasty won four titles in five years, expectations changed once again.
The Yankees, still, are a perennial postseason team, not having finished under .500 since 1993. Former MLB star Alex Rodriguez knew all about the expectations when he went from the Texas Rangers to the Yankees in 2004.
Rodriguez made the postseason in all but three of his seasons with the Yankees (not including when he missed the 2014 season due to suspension). But today, he is part owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx.
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge reacts after hitting a grand slam off Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Cam Booser during the seventh inning of the game at Yankee Stadium in New York on Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
And while on the diamond, anything short of a title was a failure, he admits that as an owner, “you have to adjust” your expectations.
“At the end of the day, it’s so hard to win, and there’s so many different resources. The days of the Yankees winning four out of five years, those days are long gone, because the business models have changed, people are competing from a different point of view, the league structures are different, whether it’s the luxury tax in baseball, there’s different elements that are pushing and pulling,” Rodriguez said in a recent interview with Fox News Digital. “But I think that winning is more being one of the most respected organizations sports to treating your fans an impeccable way, your players or organization, and then your partners, your sponsorships and stuff like that, and then having a consistent winner that has an opportunity to strike every year. So I think when you think about winning and bust-or-nothing, it’s more about the behavior of an organization versus just black and white winning a championship.”
But the Yankees still have All-Star Aaron Judge, who, if it weren’t for the Houston Astros’ Jose Altuve in 2017, would be vying for his fourth MVP Award. His regular-season numbers are astonishing, but so are his postseason stats… in the opposite direction.
Since the start of the 2022 season (entering Thursday), Judge has MLB highs in WAR (30.9), home runs (178) and OPS (1.124). But in October, he’s hit just .205 with a .768 OPS.
Rodriguez was polarizing in New York from day one — he was the superstar shortstop with the largest sports contract of all time who didn’t exactly praise Yankees great Derek Jeter in a now-infamous quote — whereas Judge is much more universally loved, being a homegrown Yankee.
However, that love is not unanimous because of Judge’s postseason struggles. And if he wants to be forever in Yankees lore, Judge “needs” to find success in October, according to Rodriguez.
“I mean, I’m probably the one guy that can answer this from a personal experience more than anybody,” said Rodriguez, who notoriously struggled in autumn with the Bombers before carrying the Yankees to their 2009 World Series title.
Alex Rodriguez reacts after striking out during the game against the Los Angeles Angels at Yankee Stadium in New York on Aug. 13, 2013. (ap)
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“I can tell you that for me, 2004 was just an absolute debacle, being up 3-0 against the [Boston] Red Sox and then losing four in a row. And for five years, I basically did not sleep comfortably, until five years later in ’09, we brought it home and dropped the hammer. So I think he needs a moment like that. I think he will get one. I think being part of the Yankees and that lore is you’re going to get cracks at it every single year. So that’s on his side, the talent’s on his side, and the more at-bats, the more reps he gets, the chances increase. And when he does, it’s going to be such an enormous win for everybody, and it’s going to be an elephant off his back.”
The Yankees, though, didn’t exactly fare well in their World Series rematch last week against the Los Angeles Dodgers. They dropped two of the three games, including one contest where they were trounced 18-2 (both of the Yankees’ runs came on solo Judge homers).
Rodriguez is a partner with Lysol, which cleans up the stink — and the Yanks certainly could have used some in Los Angeles’ Chavez Ravine. The ex-Yankees slugger recently surprised a local umpire in Miami Beach with some Lysol.
“Umpires are unsung heroes of the game, and it was great to show my appreciation for the work they do on and off the field,” he said. “Lysol is just an incredible company to partner with. We’ve had a tremendous partnership, and one of the things we want to do is make impact in the community and recognize people that often don’t get recognized.”
One player’s impact that the Yankees are certainly missing is that of right-handed pitcher Gerrit Cole. And while the rotation has been a pleasant surprise, even with Cole’s Tommy John surgery and Rookie of the Year Luis Gil’s lat injury, an incomplete Yankees team is no match for the reigning World Series champs, Rodriguez thinks.
Mookie Betts, left, and Freddie Freeman of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate after scoring against the New York Yankees during the fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium in New York on Oct. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
“I think if you zoom out, I think it’s obvious to me with enough data points that the National League is far superior than the American League. So that’s one macro thought. And then obviously, the Dodgers have the Yankees’ number,” Rodriguez said. “It was great that they were able to salvage the series by at least winning one game and not getting swept. But look, when you have someone like Gerrit Cole hurt, the Yankees can still get through some pedestrian teams in the American League, but it’s obvious that when you play the Dodgers, you need your full team and then some, and even that may not be enough.”
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The Dodgers now have 15 pitchers on the injured list. This team, with all of its talent, is going nowhere without frontline pitching. Andrew Friedman realized this when he emptied Fort Knox during the offseason. But, like previous seasons, they are dropping like flies, with shoulder and forearm issues.
Other MLB teams don’t seem to have these issues, at least not to this degree.
At what point do we begin to look at the training staff, starting with pitching coach Mark Prior? What is it that he’s asking (and teaching) these guys to do with their arms, to get that extra ‘something’ out of them? Too often that extra something becomes nothing at all.
Rodger Howard
Westlake Village
The underperforming, injury-plagued — and very well-paid — Dodger pitching staff illustrates the true financial advantage of big-market teams willing and able to spend. Yes, the Dodgers can afford to sign and pay frontline players, but, just as important, they can also afford to set aside or simply eat the contracts of those expensive players if they become hurt or ineffective, and replace them with additional highly (over)paid players. It’s almost a lock that, if their staff isn’t healthier and more reliable come August, the Dodgers will probably trade for pitching help and take on even more salary. Small-market teams such as the Reds, Guardians and Pirates can’t sign many top-tier players in the first place, let alone replace them if they don’t pan out.
John Merryman
Redondo Beach
Instead of spending hundreds of millions on pitchers to sit on the injury list for the majority of every year, I recommend the Dodgers instead allocate those funds to put nine All-Star offensive players in the lineup. Then just do what the team always winds up doing anyway — rely on inexpensive, lower-tier and journeyman pitchers for the season.
Jerry Leibowitz
Culver City
Sports
Former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb reacts to Jalen Hurts skipping Trump White House visit
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Philadelphia Eagles quarterback and reigning Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts divided fans when he chose to skip the team’s celebratory White House visit in April.
Hurts was one of several Eagles players who chose not to go, alongside AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, Jalen Carter and Brandon Graham. But as the quarterback, Hurts’ absence garnered particular scrutiny. Hurts told reporters on May 20 that he didn’t go because he “wasn’t available.”
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) talks to offensive coordinator Kellen Moore during the first half of the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game against the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Former Eagles star quarterback Donovan McNabb, who says he’s mentored Hurts since coming to Philadelphia, gave his reaction to his protégé’s absence in an interview with Fox News Digital. McNabb also suggested that Hurts’ absence was based on a decision.
“I don’t have a problem with it at all. I agree, I totally agree with him and the decision that he made, it’s a grown man decision, and he stuck with it,” McNabb said. “And for him, his focus again is to get himself ready to possibly get back to another Super Bowl.”
McNabb added that he would have made the same decision as Hurts.
DONOVAN MCNABB SAYS THE EAGLES LOSING ANDY REID WAS A BIGGER MISTAKE THAN THE GIANTS LOSING SAQUON BARKLEY
President Donald Trump honors the Super Bowl LIX champion Philadelphia Eagles at The White House in Washington, D.C., on April 28, 2025. (Josh Morgan-USA Today via Imagn Images)
Hurts also raised eyebrows again when he attended the Met Gala the following week after missing the White House.
Still, the vast majority of the Eagles’ roster and coaching staff did attend the White House and celebrated with Trump, as well as the president’s daughter, Ivanka. Those players included star running back Saquon Barkley.
“It’s everybody’s choice,” McNabb said of the players who went. “You don’t harp on anybody else’s decision of what they made, it’s a decision. It’s a personal decision that he made, for both, for Jalen and for Saquon,” McNabb said.
“And again, after you do your visit or whatever it may be, you get right back to focusing on the task at hand and seeing if you can have that opportunity to be invited back to the White House.”
When the Eagles won the Super Bowl back in 2018, the team decided not to attend the White House. Trump rescinded the invitation to host the Eagles after several players said they would not participate in the visit because of his previous criticisms of national anthem protests.
The Los Angeles Dodgers visited the White House several weeks before the Eagles did, to commemorate their World Series title. Mookie Betts, who skipped a visit in 2019 with the Boston Red Sox, attended this year.
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