The Wall Street Journal - 03.09.2019

A14| Tuesday, September 3, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

York energy can be wildly enter-

taining, almost necessary, because a

player craves it and summons it like

a superpower. We’ve seen it in the

past with Jimmy Connors (“This is

what they want!” he bellowed amid

an epic geezer run in 1991), some of

Serena Williams’s matches, and

right now, we’re getting it with the

23-year-old up-and-comer Daniil

Medvedev, who may be from Rus-

sia, but seems to be falling in love

with the passion of this still noisy,

belligerent town.

Late last week, in a third-round

match, Medvedev began to unravel.

He was struggling versus the vet-

eran Feliciano Lopez, and he began

to behave poorly (“I was an idiot, to

be honest,” Medvedev admitted

later.) He rudely ripped a towel

away from a ball person, which in-

furiated the crowd. Then he flipped

a middle finger in the air, which the

nearby TV cameras caught.

I will argue that a middle finger

is basically a term of endearment in

New York, deployed liberally over

the course of a routine city day, but

when the crowd saw that, it was re-

ally on. Medvedev was booed the

rest of the night: loud, lusty, un-

I’m enjoying it—and I think I’m

not alone. Tennis fans can see that

Medvedev is in on the joke, that he

understands the town and loves the

New York City chaos. He was fined

$9,000 for his Friday behavior and

he’s acknowledged that his on-court

demeanor needs to improve—“I

need to be a better person on the

court”—but he is giving tennis

something it needs, which is some

occasionally raffish attitude.

I know, I know: We’ve been down

this road with numerous players,

including Nick Kyrgios, sometimes

regrettably. None of this is to de-

fend tennis boorishness; or ignore

the undeniable double standard

when it comes to men and women’s

players; or deny the far greater

value of civility and sportsmanship.

Nothing at this tournament has

been better than the scene after the

Naomi Osaka-Coco Gauff match,

when the 21-year-old Osaka con-

soled Gauff, and shared the post-

match spotlight with her van-

quished 15-year-old opponent. It

was the kind of moment that encap-

sulates what tennis can be, and

demonstrated how singular both

Osaka and Gauff are.

Grace goes a long way in sports.

But the U.S. Open is in New York

City, and it can only be so genteel.

Daniil Medvedev—who will play

Wawrinka in the quarters Tues-

day—is a delight, because he appre-

ciates the madness, good and bad,

that a loud town still offers. He’s

not a tennis villain. He gets it. As an

old man once said, this is what we

want.

Daniil Medvedev solicits

—and embraces—the

noisy edge that the U.S.

Open can still deliver.

SPORTS

Kraft’s NFL Influence Endures

The Patriots owner remains one of the league’s pre-eminent power brokers despite an off-season scandal

U.S. OPEN|JASONGAY

A Tennis ‘Villain’ With a New York Attitude

I love the U.S. Open
in New York City as
much as anyone on
earth, but if I have one
mild grievance, it’s
that, sometimes, this
giant tennis tournament feels
more U.S. than it does New York
City.
What I’m trying to say is that
the U.S. Open is nice. It’s really
nice. The grounds of the Billie
Jean King National Tennis Center
are remarkably well-maintained,
the crowd is well-dressed, the food
is a lot better than it should be,
the drinks are sophisticated, and
the souvenir T-shirts are made
with the kind of soft, luxuriant
cotton that make you feel like
you’re being caressed by a baby
goat.
It’s the kind of handsome tennis
tournament that should make
America proud. But it’s an expen-
sive ticket, and it isn’t very New
York gritty. You can take the sub-
way to get there, but the U.S. Open
isn’t the place to come if you want
to see a scrappy city rat carrying a
giant slice of pizza in its mouth.
Or a 20-person brawl in the
stands. Or a gargantuan pothole in
the middle of the court, with a
family of pizza rats inside, all of
them wearing Ramones T-shirts.
Once in a while, though, the
New York City escapes at the
Open, maybe because everyone has
had a little too much Grey Goose,
and the crowd gets antagonistic,
like it did Sunday night, when
some clowns in Arthur Ashe Sta-
dium booed No. 1 seed Novak Djok-
ovic after Djokovic retired with an
injury in the third set of his match
with Stan Wawrinka.
Oof. That’s not good. Djokovic
deserves better.
But other times, that rowdy New

afraid boos, the kind they unleash

up in the Bronx for the yokels from

Boston.

Medvedev wound up winning the

match, and then he made an unex-

pected move—what is known in pro

wrestling as a “heel turn.” In his

on-court interview, instead of apol-

ogizing for his misbehavior, Medve-

dev went right back at the crowd

and basked in all their animosity.

“Thank you all, guys,” he said,

with a grin. “Your energy tonight

[gave] me the win. If you were not

here, guys, I would probably have

lost the match...I want all of you to

know, when you sleep tonight, I

won because of you.”

The on-court interviewer tried to

get things back on a track, pointing

out that Medvedev, the fifth seed

here, is amid a breakout season,

which included a recent tournament

triumph in Cincinnati.

Medvedev wasn’t interested in

getting things back on track. He

kept trolling the boo-birds.

“The energy you’re giving me

right now guys, I think it will be

enough for my five next matches.

The more you do this, the more I

will win. For you guys. Thank you.”

And then he comically raised his

arms in the air, as if to embrace all

the hatred New York could unleash.

It was an amusing piece of show-

manship. I should be clear that

Medvedev is doing this with a bit of

a wink—he’s one of the best young

players on the planet; he doesn’t

need to be a villain to get attention.

But this part is working for him

here, so he’s sticking to it. Medve-

dev reprised the heel routine Sun-

day night after his fourth-round vic-

tory over Dominik Koepfer.

“You guys, being against me, you

gave me so much energy to win.

Thank you!” Medvedev said, raising

his arms once more.

GEOFF BURKE/REUTERS

Daniil Medvedev gestures to the U.S. Open crowd following a victory.

When the NFL and Jay-Z struck
a partnership last month, there
was one person both the rapper
and commissioner Roger Goodell
went out of their way to credit.
“I’d also give a callout to Robert
Kraft too,” Goodell said.
The moment was a tacit ac-
knowledgement that the new NFL
season will begin the way the last
one ended: with Kraft as one of
the most powerful men in football.
Which is a turn because, not that
long ago, the New England Patri-
ots owner looked like he might be
in trouble.
Kraft, 78 years old, has long
been one of the NFL’s pre-eminent
power brokers. Since he bought
the Patriots in 1994, the team has
been the league’s most successful
franchise. Off the field, he has
been a pivotal force negotiating
major pacts, from the NFL’s lucra-
tive media rights deals to collec-
tive bargaining agreements with
the players.
But in February, just weeks af-
ter the Patriots owner won the Su-
per Bowl for the sixth time, Kraft’s
status was threatened. He was one
of 25 men charged in Jupiter, Fla.,
with prostitution solicitation at
Orchids of Asia Day Spa. The inci-
dent raised broad questions about
his standing within the league.
In the months since, though, as
the case against him has crum-
bled, those have been resound-
ingly answered and Kraft’s influ-
ence appears undiminished. He
has remained one of the leading
figures involved in ongoing talks
with the NFL Players Association
for a new collective bargaining
agreement.
He was also the driving force
behind the NFL’s wide-ranging
partnership with Jay-Z, which ef-
fectively makes the rap icon the
face of the league’s social-justice
efforts and includes entertainment
offerings—including Meek Mill,
Kraft’s friend, performing at
Thursday’s season-opening game.
Kraft preserved his clout by
mounting an aggressive fight
against the charges. The result: by
scoring big wins in court, he main-
tained his public standing before it
ever eroded.
Kraft, Goodell and Jay-Z ini-
tially met in Los Angeles in Janu-
ary. Kraft organized that meeting
after he and Jay-Z worked to-
gether as founding members of
the Reform Alliance, an organiza-
tion that advocates for systematic
reform of the prison system. The
group was spurred by the impris-
onment of Meek Mill, a rapper
whose criminal case became a
public rallying cry for needing to

overhaul the system.

The same month Kraft orga-

nized that meeting, his personal

trouble began. In January, authori-

ties allege that they saw Kraft visit

Orchids of Asia on two occasions

and pay for sexual acts that were

caught on camera. The charges

were announced weeks later.

Kraft faced two misdemeanor

counts, but the situation appeared

even more disturbing because of a

narrative espoused by authorities.

Police and the state attorney de-

scribed the probe as part of a

broader sex trafficking case, and

they repeatedly characterized the

men who patronized the massage

parlors as willing supporters of

sex slavery.

But no one was charged with

sex trafficking at Orchids of Asia

Day Spa, and more than a month

after the charges were announced

in a string of high-profile press

conferences, prosecutors eventu-

ally conceded that there was no

human trafficking there.

Over the course of the off-sea-

son, a legal firefight ensued and

the key evidence against Kraft—

the video from inside the spa that

allegedly showed him receiving

the sex acts—was suppressed,

with a judge ruling that authori-

ties illegally obtained the footage.

The judge also threw out the traf-

fic stop that identified Kraft,

deeming it unlawful.

It added up to a series of major

wins for Kraft, and a crippling

blow to the case against him, after

his high-powered legal team had

argued for weeks that authorities

had overstepped their bounds and

unfairly tarnished his reputation

by publicly associating him with

sex trafficking, when it wasn’t

present in the case.

Still, the scandal produced un-

comfortable headlines for the

league and questions about

whether or not Goodell would

punish the Patriots owner.

In the meantime, though, Kraft

returned to business as usual. In

April, after weeks of keeping a

low profile in the scandal’s wake,

he emerged as the Celtics took on

the Pacers in the NBA playoffs—

where the Boston fans greeted

him to raucous applause. In June,

he took a group of more than a

dozen current and former players

to Israel, where he was awarded

the Genesis Prize for his philan-

thropy to combat anti-Semitism.

He traveled to France where he

watched Rafael Nadal win the

French Open and the U.S. women

win the World Cup.

Throughout the off-season he

has also been one of a handful of

owners directly involved in negoti-

ations with players to reach a new

collective bargaining agreement.

Although the current deal has two

more seasons on it, Kraft and

other owners have hoped to se-

cure a new deal as soon as possi-

ble to better position the league in

negotiations with its outside part-

have finished, the league has said.

That could be a while: the state

has appealed the ruling that sup-

pressed the key evidence against

him, paving the way for the misde-

meanor case against him to con-

tinue for months more.

ners. People familiar with the ne-

gotiations say Kraft is one of the

players’ preferred counterparts at

the bargaining table.

Any potential punishment from

the league against Kraft wouldn’t

come until the legal proceedings

BYANDREWBEATON

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, left, shares a moment with owner Robert Kraft before a preseason game.

BRIAN FLUHARTY/REUTERS