T HE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019| 13

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GARFIELD

KENKEN

Answers to Previous Puzzles

WIZARD of ID

DOONESBURY CLASSIC 1993

CALVIN AND HOBBES

DILBERT

Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz

SUDOKU No. 2908

Fill the grid so

that every row,

column 3x3 box

and shaded 3x

box contains

each of the

numbers

1 to 9 exactly

once.

Fill the grids with digits so as not

to repeat a digit in any row or

column, and so that the digits

within each heavily outlined box

will produce the target number

shown, by using addition,

subtraction, multiplication or

division, as indicated in the box.

A 4x4 grid will use the digits

1-4. A 6x6 grid will use 1-6.

For solving tips and more KenKen

puzzles: http://www.nytimes.com/

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(c) PZZL.com Distributed by The New York Times syndicate

Solution No. 2808 CROSSWORD | Edited by Will Shortz

Across

1 Indian royal

5 Molds

10 “Nonsense!”

14 Horse often used in

endurance races

15 Name that appears

2,698 times in the

Quran

16 Letter in the W.W. II

phonetic alphabet

17 Word that can

complete CARE___R

19 Already: Fr.

20 Teacher in une école

21 Number two

23 & 24 Namely

25 Person who might be

chosen to be maid of

honor, for short

27 Word that can

complete SH___ED

29 Chicken or veal dish,

in brief

31 Grande preceder

33 Shoe company that

makes Top-Siders

34 Fittings under the sink

37 Willing to listen

38 Word that can

complete DE___

40 Ostentatious display

41 They often end letters

42 Traded points

44 Kylo of “Star Wars”

villainy

45 Chow

49 Word that can

complete ___TING

51 Mil. title in a Beatles

song

53 Raiders’ org.

54 Thin bark

55 I.R.S. IDs

57 One who might

say “Well, I’ll be a

monkey’s uncle!”?

59 Stare slack-jawed

61 Word that can

complete ___ER

63 LAX listings

64 Protein found in

muscles

65 Store with a notably

mazelike layout

66 Indian wrap

67 River painted by

van Gogh

68 Goes unused

Down

1 Cleaning tool usually

used with a bucket

2 Grande preceder

3 ___ Pérez de Cuéllar,

former U.N. chief

4 Lend a helping hand,

in a bad way

5 Insouciant

6 Keyboard abbr.

7 Ukrainian, e.g.

8 “Star Trek” cast name

9 Noted father-and-son

Hollywood stars

10 Pea jacket?

11 First part of an English

“rule”

12 Stopover

13 Like some laughs and

stews

18 Feature of the king of

clubs

22 Run one’s mouth

26 Some Nordic skiers

28 State of inactivity

30 Bad stethoscope

sound

32 More of a head-

scratcher

35 They can stand on

their own two feet

36 Places for balm

38 Cause for

combatants’

confusion

39 A few notes that

require answering?

40 Like shareholder

distributions, typically

42 “Poor Richard’s

Almanack” filler

43 Keep from practicing,

say

46 Bean popular in East

Asia

47 Service easy to

break?

48 Ones always wearing

suits at work

50 Biblical figure who

“walked with God”

52 Besmirch

56 ___ speak

58 Cleanup hitter’s stat

60 Fraternity letter

62 Calculus calculation,

for short

PUZZLE BY JEFF CHEN

Solution to Aug 28 Puzzle

12345678910111213

14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 2223

24 252627 28

29 30313233

3435 3637

38 39

40 41

42 4344 45464748

49 50515253

54 55 565758

59 6061 62

63 64 65

66 67 68

SACSCPATHENET

PLANARCRAVINE

ALJOLSONAZALEA

YOUGOTSERVED

SYNWRYHEREIAM

YEASELDOTE

ACOUSTICSWAN

FAULTINOURSTARS

RITLUSITANIA

ORESNITSAX

SODACANSOTFEB

LOVEACTUALLY

SATORIHATEMAIL

STOOGEOROPITA

TENNISYESSLEW

Sports

The first day Sascha Bajin was at the
U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Ten-
nis Center getting ready for this year’s
United States Open, he went into Arthur
Ashe Stadium and took a quick look
around.
He could still feel the atmosphere
from a year ago, he said Friday.
It’s been about a year since Bajin was
in the Ashe Stadium stands, watching
Naomi Osaka win her first Grand Slam
title against Serena Williams. Bajin was
Osaka’s coach; he used to work for
Williams as a hitting partner.
It’s been about a year since the coach
in Williams’s box, Patrick Mouratoglou,
was caught using an illegal hand signal,
which sent the match spiraling into cha-
os.
Williams and Mouratoglou returned
to New York still a team, but Osaka and
Bajin arrived separately after Osaka
fired him in February.
Even in women’s tennis, where
coaches are often dropped, swapped
and scooped up rapidly, the sudden split
stunned many. It came on the heels of
Osaka’s wins at the U.S. Open and the
Australian Open, her ascension to the
No.1 ranking and Bajin’s winning the
WTA’s Coach of the Year Award. There
was little external sign of trouble.
Neither side has revealed the reason
for the breakup. When the top-seeded
Osaka began her title defense Tuesday
against Anna Blinkova of Russia, the
coach in her box was Jermaine Jenkins,
a former hitting partner of Venus
Williams. Bajin is in New York with
53rd-ranked Kristina Mladenovic of
France, who is No.2 in doubles but in
singles has had considerable highs (a
top-10 ranking) and lows (a 15-match
losing streak).
Osaka, a 21-year-old from Japan, said
she was more nervous in her match
against Blinkova than she had ever been
before on court.
It showed, too, as the top-seeded Os-
aka played sloppily and carelessly, mak-
ing 50 unforced errors to Blinkova’s 22.

Still, Osaka prevailed, defeating the 20-

year-old Blinkova, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-2, to

avoid becoming only the sixth top-

seeded woman to lose in the first round

of a Grand Slam tournament. Osaka will

meet Magda Linette of Poland in the

second round on Thursday.

And over all, Osaka’s results with

Jenkins have not been as strong as those

under Bajin, whom she hired in the lead-

up to her breakthrough 2018 season. She

has not reached the final of any tourna-

ment since the change, and she lost in

the first weeks of the French Open and

Wimbledon.

After her first-round defeat at the All

England Club, Osaka tersely rejected a

suggestion that the dip in her results

could be connected to Bajin’s departure.

“I don’t think it’s related at all,” she

said during a tearful news conference.

Though Osaka was able to back up her

first major title with a second a few

months later, several new young Grand

Slam champions, including Sloane

Stephens and Jelena Ostapenko, also

struggled with expectations and consis-

tency after quick ascents on the wom-

en’s tour.

Osaka seemed to reset for the sum-

mer hardcourt season. On social media

in late July, she declared herself “excit-

ed what the future looks like on and off

the court” after the “worst months of my

life.” She acknowledged that she had

been putting too much weight on the re-

sults of her matches.

That weight appeared to be lifted in

August. Osaka was smiling frequently

during matches, conscious of not taking

her opportunities for granted.

“Especially, like, the Wimbledon

match I played — for me, that was very

rough,” she said this month. “Because

normally I love Grand Slams. I love

playing on the big courts. But for some

reason when I was there, I wasn’t, like,

enjoying it at all. Like, I was playing my

match on, you know, the Centre Court in

Wimbledon, and honestly, I would have

rather been anywhere else.

“So I was just thinking about that and

thinking about all the opportunities that

I was given and how I’m kind of ungrate-

ful for it. Like, when I lost in the first

round, I was just, like, I need to start

having fun, because, you know, you train

your whole life for moments like that,

and if you’re not happy in those mo-

ments, then there’s no point.”

Playing more buoyantly, she reached

the quarterfinals in Toronto, losing to

Serena Williams — “It felt like I haven’t

fully leveled up my character, and I’m

playing against a boss,” said Osaka, who

plays computer games. She also ad-

vanced to the quarterfinals in Cincinnati

before halting her match against Sofia

Kenin because a left knee injury.

Osaka’s training has been limited in

her preparation for the U.S. Open, but

she expressed optimism on Friday.

“It’s getting better,” she said of her

knee. “I have been playing more, longer,

every day. It’s feeling better. Luckily I’m

a fast healer, so I think it’s looking good.”

Bajin, who had never had a head

coaching job before Osaka hired him, ex-

pressed a continuing admiration for his

former player.

“I still really hope that she does really

well here,” said Bajin, who has coached

Mladenovic since April. “She deserves

it. She’s a good girl, and an even better

player. Definitely I’m rooting for her — if

not for us.”

Bajin’s connection to Osaka is not

completely severed. He still wears the

logos of some of her Japanese sponsors

on his shirts at tournaments. And to fur-

ther capitalize on that connection, Bajin

published a book, available only in Japa-

nese, with a photo of him and Osaka on

the cover. The word “Naomi” appears

464 times in the book, which came out in

June, four months after his firing.

But Bajin insisted the book is “not

about her.”

“The book is about strengthening

your mind and mental strength itself,

and how to make your life a little bit easi-

er by experiences I’ve lived through,

that I’ve seen on the tour, and all that,”

he said. “It has nothing to do with her; it

has not much to do with tennis. Not re-

ally.”

At the tournament in Cincinnati this

month, Osaka’s eyes widened at a ques-

tion about Bajin’s book.

“I haven’t read it,” she said. “Don’t

plan on reading it.”

A new coach and a different mentality

Naomi Osaka is focused

on getting back the joy

of playing big-time tennis

BY BEN ROTHENBERG

David Waldstein contributed reporting.

Sascha Bajin, left, coaching Naomi Osaka at a tournament in Australia in January. She parted ways with him early this year.

TERTIUS PICKARD/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Osaka, hitting a return against Anna Blinkova in the first round of the U.S. Open, is now

coached by Jermaine Jenkins, below. She defeated Blinkova, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-2.

ELSA/GETTY IMAGES

JULIAN FINNEY/GETTY IMAGES

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