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      The Same Work but a Lot Less Pay for Women. Welcome to Tennis in 2023.

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      At the Italian Open, women will compete for less than half as much money as the men. Organizers say they intend to fix that, but not for two years.The best tennis players in the world descend this week on Rome, where men and women will play in the same best-of-three-sets format, on the same courts and in the same tournament, which sells one same-price ticket for both men’s matches and women’s matches.There is one massive difference between the two competitions, however: Men will compete for $8.5 million while the women will compete for $3.9 million.The huge pay discrepancy comes after two months of tennis that included three similarly significant tournaments in California, Florida and Madrid that featured men and women competing for the same amount of prize money. Men and women also get paid the same at the four Grand Slam tournaments, where men play best-of-five sets and the women play best of three.But not in Rome at the Italian Open. And not yet in the Cincinnati suburbs at the Western & Southern Open. Or in Canada, at the National Bank Open, where the men and women alternate between Toronto and Montreal each year.Angelo Binaghi, the chief executive of Italy’s tennis federation, announced recently that the Italian Open was committed to achieving pay equity by 2025 “to align itself with other major events on the circuit,” even though an expanded format will bring in additional money this year. For the next two editions of the tournament, women will have to do the same work for a lot less pay, which makes them feel, well, not great.“I don’t know why it’s not equal right now,” said Paula Badosa, a 25-year-old from Spain who is among the leaders of a nascent player organization, the Professional Tennis Players Association. “They don’t inform us. They say this is what you get and you have to play.”A spokesman for the Italian federation did not make Binaghi available for an interview.“It’s really frustrating,” Ons Jabeur, who made two Grand Slam finals last year and is seeded fourth in Rome, said during an interview Tuesday. “It’s time for change. It’s time for the tournament to do better.”Steve Simon, the chairman and chief executive of the WTA Tour, which organizes the women’s circuit on behalf of the tournament owners and players, said the disparate prize money was a reflection of a market that values men’s sports more highly than women’s, especially for sponsorships and media rights. He said the organization was working toward a solution that would strive to achieve pay equity at all of tennis’ biggest events in the coming years.“There is still a long way to go but we are seeing progress,” Simon said in an interview Monday.The explanations — and blame — for women in tennis continuing to be so shortchanged include ingrained chauvinism, bad agreements with tournament owners and the eat-what-you-kill nature of the sports business, where owners, officials and organizers often blame the athletes (rather than their incompetence) for not generating enough revenue. Then they use it as an excuse not to invest in the sport and keep athlete pay and prize money low.In tennis, women often receive second billing in mixed tournaments — less-desirable schedules on smaller courts, sometimes even lesser hotels. In Madrid last week, the participants in the women’s doubles final did not get a chance to speak during the awards ceremony. The men did.Organizers often tell the women they lack the star power of the men. At the French Open last year, Amélie Mauresmo, the tournament director and a former world No. 1 in singles, scheduled just one women’s match in the featured nighttime slot, compared to nine men’s matches, then explained that the men’s game had “more attraction” and appeal than the women’s game. She later apologized, but when second-billing can make it harder for women to achieve stardom, this self-fulfilling prophecy can lead to lower pay.In March, Denis Shapovalov of Canada, currently ranked 27th, published an essay in The Players’ Tribune criticizing the sport’s leaders for not being more unified.“I think some people might think of gender equality as mere political correctness,” wrote Shapovalov, whose mother has coached him and whose girlfriend, Mirjam Bjorklund of Sweden, plays on the women’s tour. “Deep down they don’t feel that women deserve as much.”The WTA has committed some unforced errors. At the most important mixed tournaments, attendance is mandatory for women and men. The WTA only requires participation at tournaments in Indian Wells, Calif.; Miami Gardens, Fla.; Madrid and Beijing, but not in Rome, Canada or Ohio, even though those events rank just behind the Grand Slams in importance. Also, the WTA awards slightly fewer ranking points than the men’s tour does in Rome, Canada and Ohio, where the women’s champion receives 900 points compared with 1,000 for the men.These minor differences have given tournament officials an excuse for paying women so much less, even though nearly all of the top women play the big optional events, unless they are injured. Organizers, however, say that without mandatory participation they can’t market the tournament as effectively, so local sponsors and media companies will not pay as much.“It’s time for change. It’s time for the tournament to do better,” said Ons Jabeur, who is seeded fourth in Rome.Marijan Murat/DPA, via Associated PressMarc-Antoine Farly, a spokesman for Tennis Canada, cited that difference when asked recently why the National Bank Open offered men $5.9 million last year, compared with $2.53 million for the women. Despite that difference, Farly said, “Gender equity is very important for our organization.” He pointed to Tennis Canada’s recently released plan to seek gender equity at all levels during the next five years and to offer equal prize money at the National Bank Open by 2027. “Over the next few years, Tennis Canada fully intends to be a leading voice with the WTA on a development plan to close the WTA/ATP prize money gap.”Like most aspects of the tennis business, the formula for prize money requires a somewhat complicated explanation. Tournament owners guarantee a portion of revenues from tickets, domestic media rights and sponsorship sales for prize money. The tours contribute a portion using money from their own media rights and sponsorship deals as well as the fees the tournament owners pay the tours to acquire the licenses for the events. Simon said the WTA brings in substantially less money than the men’s circuit, the ATP Tour, which means it has substantially less money to contribute to prize money.That said, if equal prize money is important to tournament owners, they can choose to pay it. That is what the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, owned by the computer technology billionaire Larry Ellison, has agreed to do for more than a decade under his contract with the WTA.“The tournament views the event as a single product,” said Matt Van Tuinen, a spokesman for the tournament. “Paying them equally is the right thing to do.”Same goes for IMG, the sports and entertainment conglomerate that owns both the Miami Open and the Madrid Open. Both pay equally.In addition to Italy’s and Canada’s tennis federations, the United States Tennis Association, which has long bragged about its leadership in pay equity, did not award equal prize money at the Western & Southern Open, the main tuneup for the U.S. Open. Last year, men competed in Mason, Ohio, for $6.28 million. Women competed for $2.53 million. The U.S. Open became the first of the Grand Slam tournaments to offer equal prize money, in 1973, and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the event in grand fashion this summer. The U.S.T.A. ran the Cincinnati-area tournament for more than a decade.Chris Widmaier, a spokesman for the organization, said the prize money was “dictated by the commensurate level of the competition as determined by each Tour.”In other words, since the Western & Southern was not a mandatory WTA event and the women competed for 10 percent less rankings points, paying them roughly 40 cents for each dollar the men received was justified.The U.S.T.A. last summer announced it was selling the tournament to Ben Navarro, the South Carolina financier and tennis enthusiast. Through a spokesman, he declined to be interviewed for this article.Help may be on the way.Earlier this year, CVC Capital Partners, the private equity firm, bought 20 percent of a WTA commercial subsidiary for $150 million. The investment, which will be used to enhance sales and marketing efforts, combined with a strategic plan being finalized that would eliminate the discrepancies between the men’s and women’s competitions at the mixed events, is supposed to help the WTA grow its revenues. That will allow the tour to contribute more to prize money and hopefully get tournament organizers to commit to pay equity in the coming years.The plan requires some patience, which is running thin among the players.“I don’t see why we have to wait,” Jabeur said. More

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      A Decade After U.S.T.A. Sidelined Her, Taylor Townsend Is Moving On

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      When Townsend was the world’s top junior player, the leaders of tennis in the United States told her to hit the gym. A decade later, she’s determined to play the best tennis of her career.MELBOURNE, Australia — Taylor Townsend is getting very good at moving on.It is happening more and more these days in tennis tournaments, including this year’s Australian Open, where in the first round Townsend destroyed Diane Parry, a promising French 20-year-old, in every possible way. And she has moved on from the body-shaming and benching by the United States Tennis Association a decade ago, when she was just 16 years old.Townsend, a 26-year-old mother of a toddler, lost, 6-1, 2-6, 3-6, in the second round Thursday to Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia, the No. 19 seed. But on Tuesday, she delivered a thorough and merciless beating to Parry during a 67-minute, 6-1, 6-1 rout. Her powerful serve topped out at 116 miles per hour, and her lacing backhand painted the lines; Parry never figured out how to handle Townsend’s whipping forehand and could not reach the precise volleys. The win was her first in the main singles draw of a Grand Slam tournament in three years, and the first since Townsend, ranked 135th in the world, became a mother in March 2021.And she’s not done in Australia; her women’s doubles tournament starts later this week.“Taylor is a top-20 player who right now is not in the top 20,” John Williams, Townsend’s coach, said moments after she finished off Parry with her seventh ace. “If you’re that kind of player, you should do top-20 things, like she did today.”Townsend has been the best of the best before, on the junior level. But then she — and her still-developing teenage body — became an early flash point in the debate about what top athletes are supposed to look like, and how much coaches should push their own definitions of fitness on young women.In 2012, Townsend, a star of the U.S.T.A.’s then four-year-old development program, was the No. 1 junior player in the world. That January, she was the girls’ singles champion at the Australian Open. In July 2012, she won the girls’ doubles title at Wimbledon with Eugenie Bouchard of Canada.But just weeks later, as The Wall Street Journal revealed, after a loss in the first round of qualifying at a lower-tier professional event in Canada, coaches at the U.S.T.A. decided the 16-year-old Townsend needed to work on her fitness. They requested her to pull out of the national girls championships and sent her back to their training center in Boca Raton, Fla.Townsend was the girls’ singles champion of the Australian Open in 2012.Lucas Dawson/Getty ImagesThey turned her down that August when she asked for a wild-card entry into the main draw of the U.S. Open, a spot she could have earned had she won the national girls title. They refused to cover her expenses to play in the U.S. Open girls tournament. She paid her own way, made the quarterfinals of the singles tournament and won the doubles.Flash forward a decade, to last September. Townsend is standing at midcourt in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the U.S. Open, accepting the runner-up trophy in the women’s doubles tournament with her partner, her fellow American Caty McNally.The master of ceremonies for the trophy presentation is Patrick McEnroe. Ten years ago, he was the general manager of the U.S.T.A.’s player development program, the guy who sent Townsend back to Boca Raton.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.Taylor Townsend: A decade ago, she had to contend with the body-shaming of tennis leaders in the United States. Now, she’s determined to play the best tennis of her career.Caroline Garcia: The top player has spoken openly about her struggles with an eating disorder. At the Australian Open she is chasing her first Grand Slam singles title.Talent From China: Shang Juncheng, once the world’s top-ranked junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave of players that also includes Wu Yibing and Zhang Zhizhen.Ben Shelton Goes Global: The 20-year-old American is ranked in the top 100 after a late-season surge last year. Now, he is embarking on his first full season on tour.“I’ve put in the work, I’ve earned my way to be here, and I think everyone sees that,” Townsend said that day, wearing a body suit without a sponsor name in sight that has become her signature outfit of choice. “And I’m going to continue to put my head down and grind, and this is going to motivate me to go even harder. So watch out for 2023.”Townsend said Tuesday that, until it was pointed out to her, she was not aware of the moment’s awkwardness, her steely stare while on the podium and the seeming chill between her and McEnroe. What she said in that trophy presentation was about making one thing clear to herself and anyone listening.“I’m coming,” she said, sitting on a couch in a lounge above a steamy Melbourne Park after her first-round win. “Everything that I’m working for, all of the goals and everything that I’m doing, is slowly aligning, and I don’t know when it will happen, but I’m coming, and you know to be ready and to be on the lookout because I know inside of myself what I can do and I know, that you don’t know the timing. I believe that things will happen.”Townsend and her doubles partner, Caty McNally, were interviewed on the court at the U.S. Open by Patrick McEnroe, who was the general manager of the U.S.T.A.’s player development program 10 years ago.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIn a text message from Connecticut, where he is working as part of ESPN’s television coverage of the Australian Open, McEnroe said all he had ever wanted for Townsend was success at the highest level. Asked whether his perspective on the fitness issue had changed, McEnroe said:“I could not be happier to see Taylor back on the courts, and continuing to do well. I have always, and will always, continue to wish her nothing but the best on and off the court.” That, he said, has always been his perspective on the issue.Every tennis journey is unique. The sport can seem like a conveyor belt of prodigies who survive the gantlet of development programs and academies followed by years of dues-paying and ropes-learning in the hinterlands, and finally the promised land of the pro tours and the Grand Slam tournaments. Each one has its own bends and twists, setbacks and injuries.Townsend’s, though, is as different as they come. A childhood in Chicago; the pinnacle of junior tennis and the birth of her pro career as a teen in Florida, despite the body-shaming; then several years of struggling to figure out what kind of player she was during the first part of her career; a mother at 24; a stint as a television analyst during her maternity leave; a rise to the top echelon of doubles; and now a slow and steady re-emergence as a singles player. Her goal, she said, is to be better than she was before she left the sport to have her baby.She is getting closer. Last year, Townsend won two tournaments at the International Tennis Federation level, the sport’s third tier. She also made the round of 16 at the Silicon Valley Classic.Williams said Townsend has achieved “clarity” in the last year about who she is on the court. She is an all-court player with a big serve and a powerful forehand that can be especially dangerous since it comes off her left hand and punishes right-handed backhands when she fires it across the court.“The quality of her ball was hard to control,” Parry said Tuesday.As a top doubles player — she and the American Asia Muhammad are seeded 12th in Melbourne — Townsend can come forward when she needs to, as well. In every match, she wants to be the one to dictate the play.Townsend and McNally were runners-up at the U.S. Open in September.Al Bello/Getty Images“She got away from that for a little while,” said Williams, who first worked with Townsend in 2009.Townsend represented the United States at the Billie Jean King Cup last year, enjoying the full embrace of the U.S.T.A. The organization has offered her and Williams whatever resources it can provide to assist in her continuing evolution.Kathy Rinaldi, the national coach for women’s tennis at the U.S.T.A., calls or texts Townsend after all her matches. She has noticed Ola Malmqvist, the organization’s director of coaching, watching her play. Townsend said she has no hard feelings. She wanted to take control of her narrative the same way she tries to take control of matches, to make it mean what she wanted it to mean, and she did.“We’re seeing people succeed who look totally different than the normal, from all industries, from athletics, sports, entertainment, acting, everything,” she said. “The fact that I could be a part of that and to live it and just to be an example for people, that’s the biggest thing for me.” More

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      Looking for More Frances Tiafoes

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      It is impossible to quantify how many young Black girls have signed up for tennis lessons since the late 1990s when Serena and Venus Williams burst onto the scene under the guidance of their father, Richard Williams, or how many parents of athletic Black girls living in America, tried to follow his blueprint and repeat the Williams’s success.The number is surely significant, though — enough that despite significant barriers to entry, two generations of top Black female players, including Sloane Stephens, Taylor Townsend and now Coco Gauff, already a Grand Slam finalist at 18 years old, have emerged.Black American men have not had a Grand Slam champion to look up to since Arthur Ashe in the 1970s, and have had precious few billboard-worthy top Black players to admire. Maybe one day they will have Frances Tiafoe, who is Black and played one of the most compelling matches in U.S. Open history Friday night, coming up just short in the semifinals against Carlos Alcaraz of Spain. Even in the loss, Tiafoe, who is 24 years old, announced himself, last night and all week, as a potentially transformative star.With the riches of far more accessible sports so obvious and ubiquitous, the people trying to make American men’s tennis better and more diverse have had a steep hill to climb to overcome that void that has long existed. Gauff’s younger brother, it’s worth noting, is a teenage baseball prospect.“The little Black kid will always understand which sports star looks like their skin color,” said Alexandra Stevenson, a former pro who grew up playing with the Williams sisters. “It matters.”Tiafoe’s parents are immigrants from Sierra Leone.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesTiafoe has long had a sort of magnetic appeal, especially among people of color. At the 2020 U.S. Open, when no spectators were on the grounds, he played a second-round match against John Millman of Australia on Court 11 that turned into a five-set marathon.As Tiafoe began to climb out of a two-sets-to-one deficit, perhaps 100 maintenance, food and security workers getting off their shifts at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where people of color account for much of the staff, began to fill the empty stands. By the time Tiafoe finished off his comeback win, it was loud on Court 11, louder than any match during that eerily quiet Grand Slam.Tiafoe’s origin story is fast becoming one of the great legends of tennis.An impoverished son of immigrant parents from Sierra Leone discovers tennis and thrives because his father does maintenance at a local tennis center, putting him on the runway to the top of the sport. The story is perfectly positioned to serve as an inspiration to a generation of young Black boys. For the people who make a living searching for someone like Tiafoe, the story is both inspiring and terrifying.They know how easily it could have gone another way, as it has for so many gifted young athletes, many of them Black, many of them poor, who never held a tennis racket until it was too late, if at all. Their physical gifts and dedication had turned them into teenage sensations in basketball or football, or any of the other lucrative athletic pursuits where they have long seen people who look like them at the pinnacle of the sport.Michelle Obama, center, the former first lady of the United States, attended Tiafoe’s semifinals match on Friday.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesBobblehead dolls of Tiafoe were set out for a U.S. Open watch party in College Park, Md.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf Tiafoe’s father had worked in an office park instead of a tennis center, would the boy with all that speed and strength instead be suiting up for his N.F.L. team’s opening game Sunday? Would he be using his hands that maneuver a 10-ounce piece of carbon fiber just so to make a fuzzy yellow ball behave exactly how he wants it to?“Finding that kid who has the athleticism and is a great competitor, and also has the sound foundation you need to have the opportunity to be able to grow, it isn’t easy to get them,” said Kent Kinnear, the director of men’s tennis at the U.S. Tennis Association.Kinnear and his colleagues at the U.S.T.A. are desperate to reap the rewards of an American man of any background winning a Grand Slam singles title for the first time since Andy Roddick won the U.S. Open in 2003. Private tennis coaches look across the parks where they work each day and see the ones that got away.“John McEnroe always said, ‘Can you imagine if Michael Jordan had played tennis?’,” said Bill Adams, who runs the Bill Adams Global Tennis Academy in Miramar, Fla., and worked with a young Naomi Osaka, who is Haitian and Japanese and identifies as a Black woman, a dozen years ago. “He was right.”Sports like tennis and golf are often less accessible to Black children because of the high costs of training and equipment, and because the facilities to practice often aren’t available in the communities where Black children are most likely to live. Black families typically have less wealth than white families because of a history of racist policies related to assets like housing.The U.S.T.A. has tried to set up a system that gives tennis a better chance to attract better athletes and more of them, especially from communities of color. That requires courts and also programs with equipment and high-quality coaching.“So many of the success stories in our sport are happenstance,” said Louis Bolling, a former college player who is a community outreach manager with the U.S.T.A. “I was able to walk down the street, and someone was there to say here is a racket and T-shirt and a program where you can compete and learn.”In Bolling’s program, the color of the T-shirt signified a player’s level. They got a new color as they moved up. Hundreds of kids across Philadelphia participated, and the best traveled across the city for tournaments. Bolling, who is Black, started playing tennis when he was 10 years old because his local baseball league folded, he said. By 15 he was traveling to Morocco to train and compete.Tennis officials wants children to keep playing other sports to help develop their athleticism, but a singular focus on tennis is often required by the early teens.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThat is the environment that Asha Rolle is trying to create in the South Bronx at the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis and Learning. Rolle, who is Black, grew up in Miami Shores, Fla., two blocks from a park with a tennis set of basketball courts where her brothers played. They told her about the tennis program behind the basketball courts and suggested she try it. Rolle received daily lessons for $20 a week. She ultimately rose to No. 82 in the world rankings. But she doesn’t just want brothers sending their sisters to her — she wants the boys to feel like they should be there, too.“That kind of program is out there, but it’s spotty,” Rolle said.The U.S.T.A. said it works with 250 nonprofit organizations that provide access to tennis for about 160,000 young players each year. The numbers suggest more children are at least giving the sport a try. The U.S.T.A. recently announced that youth participation — defined as playing the sport at least once a year — rose to 6.9 million in 2021, from 4.6 million in 2019. Participation among Black and Hispanic/Latino players grew to 5.5 million from 3.6 million during that time period.Most top players commit when they are very young. Rolle said a boy would probably have to start playing seriously, with solid coaching, by the time he is 8 years old. The U.S.T.A. wants children to keep playing other sports to help develop their athleticism, but a singular focus on the game is often required by the early teens. But coaching techniques and quality varies.Elliott Pettit, senior director of strategic development for the U.S.T.A., said the organization has tried to build a ladder that begins in elementary school by making tennis part of gym class. If a gym teacher agrees to connect with a local community tennis program, the school can receive a free package of equipment for an introductory version of the game — 30 rackets, 36 instructional balls, tape to use as the net and chalk for lines. It can be played in gyms, school hallways and cafeterias.Students at Tiafoe’s home club in Maryland reacted as he played in the U.S. Open on Wednesday.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesDuring the past five years 6,700 schools have participated. In the best case scenario, the gym teacher would point the best and most enthusiastic children to the community tennis center, which then can let the U.S.T.A. regional chapters know about any special talents so they can fund private coaching.But what will make that talented child stick with the sport in a serious way? A star like Tiafoe, if he wins, can go a long way, a burden he is happy to carry.“At the end of the day I love that because of Frances Tiafoe there is a lot of people of color playing tennis,” Tiafoe said Wednesday. “That’s why I’m out here trying pretty hard.” More

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      The Audacity of Big Foe

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      Frances Tiafoe’s rise has been the talk of the U.S. Open, but his path to the pros is difficult to follow for other young Black men hoping for a career in tennis.Frances Tiafoe has everything needed to be a difference maker in tennis.The swag. Calm and confident, Tiafoe danced off the court following his quarterfinal win on Wednesday, bathing in the roars from a packed crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium.The strokes. Propulsive forehands and backhands. Easy, 135-mile-per-hour aces. Volleys with McEnroe-esque touch.The back story. The son of parents who emigrated from Sierra Leone, he learned the sport at the nonprofit tennis center that his contractor father, Constant, helped build.Then there’s the smile. Oh, that smile. Tiafoe flashes it quickly and often. Before matches, after matches, during matches. He exudes a joy for the game he is playing that is not only uncommon in professional sports, it’s magnetic.Until this week, Big Foe, as he is known, has flashed each of these qualities in teases, while never quite fulfilling his promise. But at this U.S. Open, Tiafoe, 24, has put it together. And by moving through the singles draw to Friday’s semifinals, his star turn has pulled in a far wider audience than is typical for tennis.“CONGRATS Young King!!! You earned it” LeBron James posted on Twitter after Tiafoe sprinted to the biggest win of his career in the round of 16, a four-set demolition of Rafael Nadal.Apologies to the rest of the field, but this tournament has so far been defined primarily by the celebration of two players: Serena Williams, who jolted the grounds to life during Week 1, and Tiafoe, the American fan favorite, who has kept the heartbeat pounding.Williams’s legacy is so pervasive that her power game can be seen in players throughout the women’s singles draw — particularly in the strong number of highly ranked Black women who first got into tennis because they saw themselves in Williams and her sister Venus.But men’s professional tennis has not seen a similar surge of Black talent. Can the game find a Black male player who will energize the next generations?At least one top Black male player from every generation since Arthur Ashe’s has lived with the same question.Yannick Noah, who won the French Open in 1983.MaliVai Washington, who made it to the Wimbledon finals in 1996.James Blake, the former top-five star who beat Nadal and then nearly defeated Andre Agassi at the 2005 U.S. Open.James Blake, who beat Rafael Nadal at the 2005 U.S. Open, was once a player tennis fans wondered would energize the next generation.Robert Caplin/New York TimesNow it seems to be Tiafoe’s turn. He can certainly move the needle with a win, but how much?Well, first off, any movement at all would be a start.Other than Tiafoe, there are a scant few Black men on the ATP Tour. And other than Tiafoe, Canada’s Félix Auger-Aliassime, 22, and the 36-year-old Frenchman Gaël Monfils, none appears capable of competing for major titles any time soon.What about in the college pipeline that continues to churn out solid professional players who are white?If you’re a regular reader of my column you may know that in the late 1980s I played college tennis at California-Berkeley. Back then, I was among a rough handful of Black collegiate players ranked in the top 100. It was basically the same small number in the 1990s — the same in the early 2000s.And now?“Not much has changed,” said Bryan Shelton, the first Division I college coach to win national titles in both men’s and women’s tennis. Shelton, an African American, was a star player at Georgia Tech during my era, and went on to have a solid professional career. Coaching Florida’s men to a championship last year, his team included his son, Ben, who made it into the singles and doubles draws at this year’s U.S. Open.In men’s college tennis, “There are maybe eight to 10 Black players in the top 100 rankings now,” he said. “So that’s a tick up, but let’s face it, only a slight one.”As we spoke, I remembered how, up through my early high school years, I used to be embarrassed to be seen with my tennis rackets. Tennis wasn’t exactly hip, and for a while I thought of going back to basketball or football, sports where I could easily blend in and not feel so alone.“Frances can help make tennis cool,” Shelton said. But then he cautioned, “At the same time, the roadblocks that existed before, exist now.”In many Black American communities, it’s hard to find tennis courts and nearly impossible to find easily accessible coaching. The United States Tennis Association is making strides in building up a network of junior programs across the country, through National Junior Tennis and Learning, started by Ashe in the 1960s to bring the game to underserved communities.Programs like the N.J.T.L. are making a dent in the push to develop players. Still, the cost of playing remains the most significant barrier for many. Becoming a nationally ranked junior requires group and private lessons, intense training and travel that can cost parents $30,000 per year, on the low end. And because players tend to need several years to develop their games, the layout could last six to 10 years.Chris Evert, a former player and an ESPN analyst, signed autographs while visiting kids from six Philadelphia-area chapters of National Junior Tennis and Learning, a program Arthur Ashe started in the 1960s to bring the sport to underserved communities.Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated PressHow many parents of any color can spend that kind of money?I’ve talked to numerous parents of young Black girls over the years who said they were willing to make the financial sacrifice because there are so many college opportunities — usually nine full scholarships per team at the Division I level — available for female tennis players.For the men? Shelton said Division I teams typically have only four and a half scholarships, and those are usually split among several players. Fewer scholarships means less incentive to pay the cost in time and money required to raise a college-level male player.Tiafoe was lucky. He was a prodigy — so good, so early that he turned pro at 17.What if Frances had not had the exposure and access to tennis in grade school that led to him becoming obsessed with the game?What if Martin Blackman, then director of the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., had not spotted Tiafoe’s talent and helped his family handle the costs and training?“We wouldn’t be here talking about him,” said Blackman, now the head of the U.S.T.A.’s player development program. In other words, Tiafoe wouldn’t be Big Foe, a semifinalist at the U.S. Open, getting a shoutout from LeBron James. Tiafoe might not even be a tennis player at all.Full disclosure: When the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the N.J.T.L. was kind enough to give me its Arthur Ashe Award of Excellence in 2020, I interviewed Tiafoe over a videoconference for a celebratory gala.“I am the type of guy who can put two weeks together and win a Grand Slam,” he assured me, and I have to admit, at the time, with his ranking hovering around 50th in the world, I thought it a far-fetched statement.Now, I’m not so sure. More

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      US Open a Coming-Out Party for Russian and Belarusian Tennis Stars

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      Wimbledon barred players from Russia and Belarus over the war in Ukraine. At their first Grand Slam since the French Open, Karen Khachanov and Aryna Sabalenka are making a run.Earlier in the summer, barred from Wimbledon after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian and Belarusian tennis stars spent time with their families or trained far from tennis’s spotlight. Aryna Sabalenka, practicing in Miami, said she turned off the television whenever Wimbledon was being broadcast.But the door to Grand Slam tennis reopened last week in New York, and they have seized the opportunity.Karen Khachanov, a bearded Russian extrovert with a big game and forehand, is into the men’s singles semifinals at the U.S. Open after defeating Nick Kyrgios in a late-night five-setter.Sabalenka, a powerful Belarusian who has often struggled this season, is back in the women’s singles semifinals after her authoritative victory, 6-1, 7-6 (4), over Karolina Pliskova on Wednesday and is playing and serving well enough to win her first Grand Slam singles title.One of those watching from the stands in Pliskova’s box was Olga Savchuk, a former Ukrainian tennis star who continues to oppose the Russians’ and Belarusians’ being allowed to play in this or any tournament.“I try not to think about it anymore when I’m watching because it brings me really, really down and brings a lot of emotions,” Savchuk said after Sabalenka’s victory. “I realize it’s tough to continue to live every day thinking about this constantly. So, I just realize that I cannot change the decisions which are not made by us and which we cannot control.”Savchuk, now retired, was the captain of the Ukrainian team that lost to the United States in the qualifying round of the Billie Jean King Cup in Asheville, N.C., in April. During that competition, Savchuk and the Ukrainian players expressed gratitude for the support they were receiving from the public but said that one of their biggest fears was that the war, which began in February, would become normalized and that global interest would wane.The Ukrainian team at the Billie Jean King Cup qualifying in Asheville, N.C., in April.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSavchuk, 34, believes that fear has become reality, even though she appreciates the efforts made by the U.S. Open to raise funds in support of Ukraine by staging a successful exhibition before the tournament.“I feel, overall, people are tired of it now, tired of hearing about it,” she said of the war. “Things are slowly changing that way, and so it’s like I should just go with it. And this is horrible, because for us, we cannot just go with it. Nothing has changed for us. It’s just worse. More time, more destruction, more losses.”Wimbledon’s controversial ban, the first of its kind at a major tennis tournament in the modern era, was made under considerable pressure from the British government, whose prime minister was then Boris Johnson.The British leadership wanted to avoid Wimbledon being used as propaganda by Vladimir V. Putin and the Russian government.Ukrainian players expressed deep appreciation for the ban and the support.“All of us, we wrote to the Wimbledon organization and the tournament director as well, and I talked to him personally,” Savchuk said.But the ban did not quite work as planned. The surprise women’s singles champion turned out to be Elena Rybakina, a Russian-born player who had agreed to represent Kazakhstan because of its financial support but long remained based in Moscow.Shamil Tarpischev, the longtime president of the Russian Tennis Federation, made a celebratory statement after her victory.Though Russia and Belarus were also barred from team tennis competitions such as the Davis Cup and King Cup after the invasion, their players have been allowed to continue participating as individuals in other tournaments without formal mention of their nationality. The U.S. Open is not announcing their nationalities during on-court introductions, and ESPN is not displaying their national flags in its coverage.Elena Rybakina, a Russian-born player who represents Kazakhstan, won Wimbledon this year.Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated PressThough both the men’s and women’s tours condemned the invasion of Ukraine, they strongly opposed Wimbledon’s ban, arguing that individuals should not be prevented from competing based on their nationality or on governmental decisions beyond their control.Concerned that Wimbledon’s move could set a precedent for future bans based on politics, the tours made the unprecedented decision to strip Wimbledon of ranking points, essentially turning one of sport’s most prestigious events into an exhibition and contributing to Rybakina’s being seeded just 25th at the U.S. Open. (She lost in the first round on an outside court.)After lengthy deliberation, the board of the United States Tennis Association, which runs the U.S. Open, chose not to follow Wimbledon’s lead and allowed the Russians and Belarusians to compete.Four reached the round of 16 in both men’s singles and women’s singles, and while Khachanov and Sabalenka remain in contention, no Ukrainian players are left.It is an awkward scenario, but Lew Sherr, in his first year as the U.S.T.A.’s chief executive and executive director, emphasized on Wednesday that the U.S.T.A. “continued to condemn the unjust invasion of Ukraine by Russia.” He said the U.S. Open had raised $2 million in humanitarian aid for Ukrainian relief. Some of that came from the “Tennis Plays for Peace” exhibition staged Aug. 24 in Arthur Ashe Stadium that featured the Spanish star Rafael Nadal and the No. 1 women’s player, Iga Swiatek of Poland.But even that initiative generated tension. Ukrainian players, including Marta Kostyuk, opposed the plan to include the Belarusian star Victoria Azarenka in the event, maintaining that Azarenka had not been supportive behind the scenes and that as an influential member of the WTA Player Council had played a role in stripping Wimbledon of points.Azarenka withdrew from the exhibition, and after she defeated Kostyuk in the second round, Kostyuk declined to shake hands with her at the net, tapping rackets instead.Victoria Azarenka, right, played against Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine during the second round of the U.S. Open.Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAzarenka, a former No. 1 who is one of Belarus’s biggest international stars, said after that match that she had reached out to the Ukrainian players she knew personally and offered behind-the-scenes assistance since the invasion but had not spoken with the 20-year-old Kostyuk.“I don’t feel that forcing myself to speak to somebody who maybe doesn’t want to speak to me for different reasons is the right approach,” she said. “But I offered.”Some Russian players have spoken out, including Daria Kasatkina, who has been bold enough to actually call the conflict “a war” and termed it “a full-blown nightmare.” “A lot of respect for her,” said Savchuk, who said she had since sent Kasatkina a message of appreciation.Like Azarenka, Sabalenka has met in the past with Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus who has cracked down on protest and been one of Putin’s staunchest allies.But Sabalenka has avoided public comment on the war while acknowledging that the situation has made it a challenge to perform.“It’s tough, and it’s a lot of pressure,” she said on Wednesday. “I’m just thinking in that way that I’m just an athlete, and I have nothing to do with politics.”She said she made use of the forced break during Wimbledon to work on improving her serve. But Sabalenka, who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2021, said it was not easy to observe the tournament from afar.“Tough time,” she said. “Especially when I was working out in the gym, and there was Wimbledon playing on the TV. I was always turning it off because I couldn’t watch it.”Savchuk has struggled to watch television for different reasons in the past six months. Now based in London and the Bahamas, she was born and raised in Donetsk in the disputed Donbas region and still has family in Ukraine.Smoke from an artillery impact rising in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times“I have not seen my family, and until the war is over I don’t want to go there, and I miss them so much and more and more,” she said.She said she felt increasingly powerless and demoralized.“It kills you that you can’t change it,” she said. “I feel like we still are getting a lot of help around the world with money and donations, but I feel in people’s minds following the news, the interest has dropped. I even look at my Instagram whenever I post something about the war, people almost don’t look at it.”She said it stung to see Russian and Belarusian players competing down the stretch in the U.S. Open.“I was very disappointed that they were allowed to play,” she said. “But what kills me more is seeing Russian people continue living their happy lives and posting about it.”David Waldstein More

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      Serena Williams Prepared a Little Differently for This U.S. Open

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      Analytics, scouting first-time opponents, additional coaching input, new footwork drills and treating doubles like practice — so far it’s adding up to winning.Follow live as Serena Williams plays Ajla Tomljanovic at the U.S. Open.An underdog with the oddsmakers against the No. 2 seed, Anett Kontaveit, on Wednesday, Serena Williams will be back on familiar ground as the favorite against the unseeded Ajla Tomljanovic on Friday.The word is out, expedited by the roars in Arthur Ashe Stadium: Williams has worked her way with great speed back into form and into the third round of her final U.S. Open.It is remarkable but not necessarily astonishing, even a few weeks from her turning 41.“We can all ride a bike at an older age, and once the jitters are gone, you can even ride a bike without holding the handlebars,” said Sven Groeneveld, the leading coach who works with Bianca Andreescu and long coached Maria Sharapova.“It’s like walking for Serena,” Groeneveld said. “She has played tennis 90 percent of her life.”Williams has no shortage of positive memories to draw on from her younger years of pulling out of tailspins in a hurry.In 2007, she came into the Australian Open unseeded and ranked 81st, having played just five tournaments in the previous year and losing early in her lone warm-up event.But she soon locked in, defeating six seeded players, including the top-ranked Sharapova in the final.In 2012, Williams was beaten in the first round of the French Open by Virginie Razzano, a Frenchwoman ranked 111th. It was Williams’s earliest defeat to date in a major tournament, and it left her reeling and unusually open to change.She brought on a new coaching consultant, Patrick Mouratoglou, and though she played no tuneup events before arriving at Wimbledon, she quickly worked her way into devastating form. She won the title and then played what is widely considered the best tennis of her career to win the Olympic gold medal in singles and also in doubles with her sister Venus at the London Games on the same grass courts of the All England Club.That was, beyond doubt, a no-handlebars moment, but she is coming from even further back this time: playing no competitive tennis for nearly a year, arriving at the U.S. Open having won just one of four singles matches this season and ranked, strange but true, No. 605.“I just think because Serena is Serena and is a great athlete, that the more practice and the more practice matches she gets, she can play her way into an event,” said Kathy Rinaldi, the United States King Cup captain. “You’ve seen her do it in the past, and if you watched the match against Kontaveit, her movement to me got better and better by the third set, and I just think a great athlete can do that.”Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open was very likely the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Glorious Goodbye: Even as Serena Williams faced career point, she put on a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.The Magic Ends: Zoom into this composite photo to see details of Williams’s final moment on Ashe Stadium at this U.S. Open.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Court: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to each other’s.Some fitness coaches for other players were still shaking their heads on Thursday at their mind’s-eye images of Williams’s struggling to cover court at the National Bank Open in Toronto and the Western and Southern Open in Mason, Ohio: tournaments in which she lost last month in early rounds.“The change in a month is incredible,” said Maciej Ryszczuk, the fitness coach of the world No. 1, Iga Swiatek.But Williams said she felt her level in practice was often quite high as she returned to the tour, but that this was not carrying over into matches. The exception was the Western and Southern Open, where she was dealing with what several people had said was a flare-up of knee tendinitis: something that neither she nor her staff has confirmed.Williams during her first-round loss at the Western and Southern Open in August.Jeff Dean/Associated PressBut Eric Hechtman, Williams’s new coach, said the platform for the success so far in New York was in place.“The shotmaking was there, and the serve was there,” he said in an interview after her victory over Kontaveit. “She was actually moving well in practice, so in New York, we added in some more side-to-side running drills, and I think that’s helped.”So have the sellout crowds of nearly 24,000 in Ashe Stadium that are entirely in Williams’s corner.“That stadium is so big, and once you pack it in like that with a bunch of fired-up people, it’s a game changer,” Hechtman said. “It takes a little bit of time to get some rhythm, but it’s starting to come together. It was a great win against Kontaveit, but it’s still just the second round. None of us are getting carried away.”A loss against Tomljanovic would actually bring Williams full circle. She also lost in the third round in her first U.S. Open singles appearance in 1998 and has never failed to go farther in her 19 appearances since then: winning six titles.But the expectations are different this year. Given her recent level of play, the third round feels like an achievement. But the challenge as Williams goes deeper in the tournament will be to manage the load that comes with stacking up singles matches and doubles matches. She played doubles with her sister Venus at a tournament for the first time in more than four years, losing in the first round Thursday to Lucie Hradecka and Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic, 7-6 (5), 6-4.Unlike regular tour events, the Grand Slam tournaments allow a day of rest for women’s singles players between each round of singles, with occasional exceptions. Unlike the men, who play best-of-five-set matches, the women play best-of-three-set matches.But playing doubles on what would normally be a recovery day could still create a greater risk for the 40-year-old Williams. The last time she and Venus played doubles in a major — at the 2018 French Open — Williams withdrew from singles before the fourth round with a pectoral injury aggravated during a doubles match.Venus and Serena Williams last played doubles together at the 2018 French Open.Christophe Simon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMouratoglou, who had counseled against playing both events because Williams was returning from a long layoff, was displeased, and Williams had not played singles and doubles with her sister at a major again until now.But in what is most likely Williams’s final tournament, this sounds like a heart-over-head decision.“I feel like it’s been very important for her to be a part of this,” Williams had said of Venus. “She’s my rock. I’m super excited to play with her and just do that again. It’s been a long time.”Hechtman, who also coaches Venus Williams, said he fully supported the decision. “I think it’s great she’s playing doubles,” he said of Serena. “It’s not just the doubles, it’s the fact you get the reps on serves and return and play points and play with the crowd again.”Hechtman had not pushed for Serena to play doubles in her warm-up events.“This is a different situation,” he said. “It’s her last tournament. It’s a Grand Slam and you have the day off in between singles matches, and normally you practice on that day, so instead you are playing doubles. I talked to her a little bit about it in Cincy, and it was like, ‘You know what? This totally makes sense.’”What also made sense to Hechtman was the decision to play tournaments in singles heading into the U.S. Open, which Williams did not do before Wimbledon, where she lost in the first round to Harmony Tan, an unseeded Frenchwoman.“I personally thought we were very ready for Wimbledon,” he said. “The only thing we didn’t have was those matches. Even if she was a little banged-up in Cincy, I think those tournaments were crucial to getting to the level she’s hit here. You can’t say definitively they made the difference, but I would say they were very important.”Scouting and preparation have also been important in New York. She had not faced Danka Kovinic, her first-round opponent, or Kontaveit and has not played Tomljanovic either. Hechtman said he and Williams had been getting input on opponents from the United States Tennis Association’s analytics team, working closely with Rinaldi and David Ramos, a director for performance analytics.“It helps us see clearly how Serena’s strengths match up against opponents’ weaknesses, and we go from there,” Hechtman said.Hechtman said he also welcomed the arrival of Rennae Stubbs, an ESPN analyst, coach and former No. 1 doubles player, who has been providing counsel in New York.“They’ve been friends for a long time, and the more positive people — this is a very emotional state — the better it is,” he said. “I’m all for it. Look, I’m here to win so anything that’s going to help us get over that mountaintop.” More

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      At the U.S. Open, Data Analysts Are Just as Busy as the Players

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      A new era of data analysis has given players deeper insights into their opponents’ games and a strategic advantage.For the data analysts working with the top tier of American tennis players, the busiest time of year begins with United States Open qualifying. They will spend 15-hour days creating and curating a trove of quantitative data and video clips.They will churn out match statistics and about 200 scouting reports for nearly 70 players over the three-week competition. The ultimate goal: provide players and coaches with more granular insights into each point and, in the process, give them a strategic advantage.“Players will always get their match tagged, broken up into how a point starts and how a point ends, and back to them within 24 hours,” said Geoffrey Russell, who works for the United States Tennis Association as senior manager for Team U.S.A.’s professional players. “We’ll also do bespoke projects for coaches who ask us to break down certain things even further.”During this year’s Open, Russell will collaborate with a team of eight data analysts. Their efforts speak to growing interest and investment in tennis analytics, and represent one of many ways the sport is employing the in-depth data analysis long used by professional teams in baseball and basketball.In tennis, it’s been more a data evolution than revolution, a gradual search for new, objective performance measures. That’s largely resulted in a combination of statistics and video highlights that build a more sophisticated picture of how individual players compete and, as a result, guide some match strategy and development.Tennis lags behind other sports in analytics, but it has gained significant momentum over the last several years. Better technology means more opportunities to capture and analyze more data points efficiently.National governing bodies like the United States Tennis Association collect shot-level data. New metrics in the tennis lexicon include steals (when players fall behind in a point yet manage to win it) and balance of power (how much time players spend on attack versus how much time opponents spend there). And there’s more attention paid to how points develop.The strategy coach Craig O’Shannessy said that from 1991 to 2012 tennis analytics “was very primitive.” Then, in 2015, rally length appeared in tournament data. Analysis of that data revealed much shorter rally lengths than expected, driving curiosity and greater respect for analytics.Andy Murray and his coach, Ivan Lendl, during a practice in June. Toby Melville/Reuters“There has been a gradual acceptance of new data points in our sport that matter most to winning and losing matches,” he said. “So, we’re definitely going down a road where we’re improving.”Still, even with new metrics and keen interest in analytics from top players like Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, tennis has not fully embraced analytics, especially since the data requires time-consuming analysis and sometimes calls into question conventional thinking about how to compete and train.“The challenge at the moment is that coaches are looking at the numbers, but not always looking at them in the right way,” said Warren Pretorius, founder of Tennis Analytics, which provides players and coaches with match analytics. “They’re taking bits and pieces of match stats to support their theories.”So which new data points provide the most meaningful insights? It depends on the player. That speaks to another big tennis analytics challenge: What translates to more wins varies widely based on a player’s strengths, weaknesses and tendencies under pressure.“What we try to do is help athletes gain clarity about what their identity is,” said David Ramos, the U.S.T.A.’s director of coaching education and performance analytics. “How do they want to be playing in the most important points? How do they define a good performance if they don’t win a match? It’s definitely about the game style and personalizing the K.P.I. [key performance indicators] for a particular player.”To provide new insights and help process all the information, there are data-oriented companies eager to service players, coaches, broadcasters and fans. The U.S.T.A. works with companies like TennisViz, SwingVision, Hawk-Eye, Dartfish, Kinexon and IBM to generate meaningful data.The player Mackenzie McDonald of the United States calls himself a “big numbers guy” and finds the scouting reports provided by the U.S.T.A. helpful. At a recent U.S. Open tuneup tournament, he used data about his opponent’s preferred placement for first and second serves to his advantage. He also looks at the hot and cold plays metric (patterns that increase or decrease players’ chances of winning points).“You have to build a story for your opponent,” said McDonald, 27, who is ranked No. 77 in the world and will be playing in the Open. “It’s not x’s and o’s. It’s more like this is what can happen. This is what this guy likes. And these are the tools you can use.”Some top players add strategy coaches to their team for data analysis. O’Shannessy worked with Djokovic’s team from 2017-19, helping the former No. 1 player in the world understand his game better through analytics.O’Shannessy said that sometimes Djokovic asked simple questions, like whether he should hit a backhand or move around for a forehand when the ball landed in a specific spot. O’Shannessy then presented data for winners and forcing errors that came from the right side of the court versus the left side.“He was so good at absorbing all of this information and not rejecting it,” said O’Shannessy, who is also director of Brain Game Tennis, a strategy and analytics website. “His openness and willingness to just ask questions, anything to find an advantage, was key. His talking about it in the tennis world gave it a lot of legitimacy.”When the U.S. Open starts, McDonald will review the scouting reports provided by the U.S.T.A.“I think you’ve got to keep things as simple as possible,” he said. “You’ve got to keep some human element and instinct. Bottom line for me is I only look at a couple different areas.”Mat Cloer, who coached McDonald and is associate head coach for the University of Florida men’s tennis team, added: “It comes back to understanding the player you’re working with and how they absorb information. What information do you need to provide? That’s where the art of coaching comes into play.“If used properly, analytics can be game changing and eye opening.” More

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      Top Official Returns to the U.S. Open After Misconduct Suspension

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      Soeren Friemel served a one-year suspension and lost a top officiating job for inappropriate communication with an underling. The decision to bring him back has rankled some colleagues.The people who officiate tennis matches are supposed to exist in a quiet corner of the sports world, far from the spotlight. In most cases, if average fans know the name of a tournament referee, supervisor, chair umpire or line judge, something has gone terribly wrong, creating rare noise within an insular club whose members value rules and decorum over all else.And so it has been for Soeren Friemel, a longtime top official for the U.S. Open, who stepped away last year amid an investigation into accusations of harassment and inappropriate relationships with underlings but has returned as a tournament supervisor.Earlier this year, Friemel, who is from Germany, resigned as the head of officiating for the International Tennis Federation, the sport’s world governing body, after a disciplinary panel found that he had abused his power.The United States Tennis Association initially stood by Friemel and planned to allow him to serve last year as the U.S. Open tournament referee — the top official at the event — as an investigation unfolded, but Friemel stepped away just before the competition. The tournament said he had to leave for “personal reasons.” The I.T.F. later suspended Friemel for a year, starting from June 2021.The U.S.T.A.’s decision this year to bring him back to serve as one of the tournament supervisors has rankled the small community of current and former tennis officials, even though it is a lesser job than the prestigious and more public-facing post of tournament referee. Some wonder whether a supervisor who has violated codes of conduct can effectively enforce them on others, even if they believe, at least theoretically, in second chances and forgiveness for poor behavior.The I.T.F. has not released details of complaints filed about Friemel, when and where they occurred, and who made them. The accuser has remained anonymous. Details of Friemel’s suspension was first reported by The Telegraph in Britain in February; his suspension from the I.T.F., which other tournaments honored, ended in mid-June.Heather Bowers, senior director of communications for the I.T.F., said an investigative panel “found Mr. Friemel to have made inappropriate comments and invitation to an individual in a situation of power imbalance, causing unease and discomfort.” The panel ruled that Friemel had violated sections of its codes that require officials to conduct themselves professionally and ethically; prohibit them from abusing a position of authority or control; and forbid them from compromising the psychological, physical or emotional health of other officials.Norm Chryst, who umpired men’s tournaments and Grand Slam events for 19 years before retiring in 2010, said the ruling should have disqualified Friemel from serving as an official for America’s signature tennis tournament.“A guy that has been suspended by the I.T.F. for misconduct should not be hired by the U.S.T.A. to work at the U.S. Open,” said Chryst, who had previously worked with Friemel at a tournament in Germany.Another top umpire resigned this spring from a top U.S.T.A. officiating committee over the decision to bring Friemel back. The umpire, Greg Allensworth, a fixture of the tours and Grand Slams, left his role as vice-chair of the U.S.T.A. Officials Committee. Allensworth sent a blistering letter to the chair of the committee, which The New York Times has reviewed, stating that Friemel had verbally abused him in 2018. He also wrote that the ruling from the I.T.F. had caused Friemel to lose credibility with his colleagues.“The U.S.T.A.’s decision on this matter is wrong, both practically and ethically,” wrote Allensworth, who declined to comment for this story.The U.S.T.A. did not make Friemel available for comment for this article. Chris Widmaier, the chief spokesman for the organization, issued a statement on behalf of the U.S.T.A. saying that Friemel had served his suspension and noting his experience as a top official, implying that his experience merited his assignment at the tournament.“In this instance, we determined that it was appropriate to bring Friemel back at a lower position, with less responsibility and authority, than he previously occupied,” the statement said. “We believe this decision is consistent with our unwavering commitment to the integrity of tennis and our policy requiring a workplace that is free of abuse, harassment, or other misconduct.”Friemel’s tenure at the top of the U.S.T.A.’s hierarchy of officials was rocky from the start. The U.S.T.A. had planned to give the U.S. Open tournament referee position to Mark Darby, a longtime official with the ATP, when Brian Earley stepped down in 2018 after 26 years in the role. But Darby pulled out five months before the 2019 tournament after being diagnosed with a serious illness. Widmaier said the organization needed to make a quick decision and turned to Friemel, who had served as the chief umpire for the U.S. Open from 2016 to 2018.American tennis officials were not pleased. Roughly a dozen of them wrote a letter to the U.S.T.A. complaining that the organization had overlooked several qualified Americans for the job. While the U.S.T.A. has a long history of hiring foreign talent throughout the organization, the officials argued that without a proper search and interview process, the U.S.T.A. had simply given away a top job at its signature event. The letter, which The New York Times has reviewed, was signed “USTA Umpires.”Friemel walked off the court with Novak Djokovic at the 2020 U.S. Open after Djokovic was disqualified from the tournament.Jason Szenes/EPA, via ShutterstockFriemel impressed U.S.T.A. executives with his performance at the 2019 U.S. Open, and then again at the pandemic-restricted 2020 Open. There, he made the decision to default Novak Djokovic — then the world No. 1, the heavy favorite to win the tournament and the men’s draw’s biggest star — after Djokovic accidentally swatted a ball into the throat of a line judge during his fourth-round match.Afterward, Friemel calmly explained the ruling, saying that while Djokovic had not intended to hit the line judge, because he had and she had suffered an injury, regulations required an automatic default.Widmaier said the U.S.T.A. had begun pursuing a plan to prepare Jake Garner, an American, to succeed Friemel as the tournament referee. But that process slowed amid the canceled tournaments and travel restrictions caused by the pandemic. Garner, who is one of two assistant referees this year, is expected to take over the top job from Wayne McKewen of Australia during the next two years, Widmaier said.For the time being, though, the U.S.T.A. remains committed to employing Friemel, even if he no longer has the anonymous existence that officials prefer to maintain.“My job was to be invisible,” said Chryst, the former chair umpire. “Because if you don’t know my name then I have done a good job.” More