United States Tennis Assn

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares149 Views

      in Tennis

      Serena Williams Brought New Fans to Tennis. Are You One of Them?

      by

      Part of Williams’s legacy can be seen in the stands of her matches, where the spectators are among tennis’s most diverse.Tell us about your experience watching Serena Williams play in the form at the end of this column.When you watch Serena Williams play from the comfortable remove of a living room, she pops from the screen. All that willpower, athleticism and skill, even as she ages and fades.When you watch Serena Williams play live and up close, in a packed stadium during a tight match on the biggest stage — now, that is something else altogether. That’s an event, a happening, a mix of Broadway and Cannes and the Met Gala, with a whole lot of forehand winners and sometimes a soap opera mixed in.Those performances will cease now that she is “evolving” from the game, as she announced this month, to pursue a life beyond tennis and perhaps have a second child. But her legacy goes far beyond what she did between the lines: It’s clear in the stands of every tournament that Williams’s glitz and drama beckoned to fans of all kinds, including large swaths who only pay attention to sports when she plays.To be at a Serena match — among masses of attendees, particularly brown and Black spectators making their first foray to a professional match — was to feel a sense of new possibility for a sport long steeped in whiteness.Take the U.S. Open, for instance. Since her ascension to tennis’s upper reaches when she won there in 1999 at age 17, Flushing Meadows has been a special stage for Williams and her fans.In 2016, bidding for an Open-era record 23rd major singles title, the overall U.S. Open attendance figures showed nearly a quarter of fans there were Black, according to the United States Tennis Association. In 2017, with Williams’s career on hold as she sat out to give birth to her daughter, the number of Black fans at Flushing Meadows dropped by 10 percent.That is the Serena effect.“The magnetism of Serena attracts all kinds of new fans,” said Chris Widmaier, a U.S.T.A. spokesman. “But you can certainly see the outsize and indelible impact that she has had on Black Americans in their relationship with tennis.”Widmaier has been working communications at the Open for 20 years. He has seen Williams play all over the world and figures he has watched her more than any other top player.“When Serena would walk on the court and you had the ability to be courtside, you would get chills,” he said. “You just knew you were in the presence of greatness. And it didn’t matter at which point in her career. That is what I always felt.”Williams’s matches always made viewers feel. And while her career — and that of her sister Venus — has drawn onlookers of all kinds, it has had special resonance for Black fans and others traditionally at the margins of the tennis scene.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe tennis star is retiring after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.On Her Own Terms: Serena Williams announced her decision to retire in an article in Vogue in a way that felt unapologetically her own. A Beacon of Black Excellence: The tennis player achieved greatness without ever masking the struggles it took to win — especially as a Black woman.A Career on Top: Williams won her first Grand Slam in 1999, when she was 17 years old.  Over the next two decades, she became the sport’s most dominant force.Her Legacy: While emerging as the face of tennis, Williams, along with her older sister Venus, changed the face of the sport, carrying the load for the nation’s aspirations.If that’s you, I want to hear your story. Especially if you made the pilgrimage to see Williams play in person. Even if “up close” was the nosebleed seats at the Olympic tennis stadium in Rio. Or if you made it to one of the smaller tournaments on the WTA Tour, without the Grand Slam crowds and prices.Were you there at Indian Wells in 2001, as many in the majority-white audience booed Williams during her championship win? Were you there 14 years later, when she ended her boycott of that desert event?What moments and images from Williams’s career, good and bad and utterly astonishing, stick with you? What compelled you to see her in person?For me, when I think of Serena, of course, I also think of Venus. Watching them together was sports as beautiful alchemy. Just the right mix, even if their matches were sometimes full of nervousness and imperfection.At the U.S. Open in 2008, Serena and Venus were about to clash in a quarterfinal match on a hot, humid New York evening. Two hours before, I watched as fans gathered outside the stadium. Yes, it was still a mostly white and well-heeled crowd, but it was also Black, Latino, Asian, every hue, every class.It felt supercharged. The air surged with electric excitement and anticipation. I heard many say they would not have ventured to Flushing Meadows that evening if not for Serena. Adding Venus to the mix sealed the deal.The sisters put on a show. There were early pockmarks of sloppy play, but in the end, the evening sizzled with excellence, and Serena affirmed her superiority, winning, 7-6, 7-6.Looking back on the arc of Serena’s career, the swings of that match are a hallmark. She has always been capable of producing clumps of errors in batches — and then turning up the winners when everything counts. That’s part of the wonder.On the grounds of the most significant events, it often felt like the competition had not really stepped into high gear until Williams put on a high-pressure spectacle.A fan held a sign in support of Serena Williams during the Western & Southern Open in Ohio last week.Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesSerena brought the buzz, whether she won or not. It began from the moment she’d leave the players’ tunnel and walk before the fans. If you were there at the 2018 French Open when she entered that red-clay center court dressed in her tight black, Wakanda-inspired bodysuit, the feel in the stands, the swooning and gasping and awe, will be in your mind for good.God, I loved that moment. It gave me goose bumps.In her boldness and bearing, Williams has always reminded me of my undaunted nieces and cousins and my late paternal grandmother, Peggy Mae Streeter, a powerful Black woman born one generation from slavery. Dressed in that bodysuit — reveling in her complete self, with that trademark “I’m gonna do my thing, no matter what” kind of attitude — Williams, it seemed to me, was channeling their unbreakable spirit.I’m certainly not the only one to observe and feel that way. She spoke for herself and in doing so, spoke to us.It’s strange, but I seemed to have a knack for being in the stands when Williams was surprisingly upended. The loss to Elina Svitolina at the Rio Olympics in 2016. The time she blew a 5-1 last-set lead and succumbed to Karolina Pliskova at the 2019 Australian Open. With each loss, on the grounds of those events, you could feel energy and passion drain from fans once they realized she would no longer be around.When, in 2019, Williams worked in vain to fend off Bianca Andreescu, the talented young Canadian, I was one of the 23,000 who jammed Ashe Stadium for what may have been her last Grand Slam final.Thinking about it now, I can still hear the proud and melancholy sound of Williams’s straining breath as she served to stay in the match, facing a third match point. I can feel her gasping exhale echoing across the stands. I can remember Andreescu dialing up a forehand reply, just as I can recall Williams’s lunge as that forehand spun by for a winner.Game, set, Slam, Andreescu, 6-3, 7-5.You had to be there to feel the poignancy. A collective, mournful groan underlay the standing ovation applause for a new and deserving champion.This was the ultimate tennis champion on her last legs, coming up short, fighting to the end. I’m thankful to have been there as a witness.Has Serena Williams Impacted You? Share Your Story.The Times wants to hear stories from people who have seen Williams play at tournaments, and those particularly impacted by her career. We won’t publish any part of your submission without contacting you first. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      At the U.S. Open, Serena Williams Was a ‘Game Changer’

      by

      In 1998, when Serena Williams made her singles debut at the U.S. Open, it was typical to see a crowd of many white faces watching many white players.In the years since, she has done more than any other person to transform those tournament grounds in Queens into a more inclusive environment, where increasing numbers of women and girls of color, some of whom have gone on to play and win in the event, join in the fun each year.While emerging as the face of tennis, Williams, along with her older sister Venus, changed the faces of tennis.“It’s a great feeling to see it,” said Martin Blackman, the general manager of player and coach development for the United States Tennis Association. “I attribute that to Serena and Venus. They completely changed the narrative.”Blackman’s father attended the U.S. Open in Forest Hills, Queens, to see Althea Gibson in the late 1950s, and was one of three Black fans in attendance, he told his son. When Blackman went to the U.S. Open for the first time 20 years later as a fan, there were more Black spectators than the amount his father saw, but nothing like now, thanks largely to the Williamses. Blackman went to the tournament later, as a player representative in 1999, the year Serena won her first major singles title at age 17.“I had the privilege of working in the junior space at that time, and I gradually started to see more and more African American girls and African American boys coming to our camps,” he said. “And the common thread was the inspiration and demonstration effect that Serena and Venus provided. That was the inflection point. That was the game changer.”Over a quarter-century, Serena Williams came to dominate the U.S. Open, winning six singles titles and reaching four other singles finals; winning two doubles titles, with Venus; and winning a mixed doubles title. She also flamed out in spectacular fashion on more than one occasion.For each title, there were untold numbers of players, like Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff and others, whose passion for the game was ignited by Williams’s fiery and unapologetic charisma.There were groundbreaking victories, shocking losses, emotional outbursts and hours of thrilling, inspiring tennis, all of which is coming to an end. Williams wrote in a cover story for Vogue magazine, published online Tuesday, that she was transitioning away from tennis to focus on other pursuits, including growing her family.“I started playing tennis with the goal of winning the U.S. Open,” she wrote.She attained that goal, and plenty more. In an era of the sport when American men faltered, she more than carried the load for the nation’s tennis aspirations.Williams was 16, beads in her hair, when she played her first U.S. Open singles match, beating Nicole Pratt and making it to the third round. But being Serena Williams, she did come away with a title, winning mixed doubles with Max Mirnyi.Williams won her first U.S. Open women’s singles title in 1999, above, beating Martina Hingis in the final.Chang W. Lee/New York Times“Even at that age you could see her talent and athleticism,” Mirnyi, 45, recalled. “I would notice, every time she went back to strike the ball, the opponents would be back on their heels. They literally backed up.”Mirnyi’s father, Nikolai, was responsible for arranging the pairing two months earlier at Wimbledon. He asked Richard Williams, Serena’s father, and within days the two had won their first tournament. The only things that could stop them, Mirnyi felt, were the warnings and point penalties chair umpires would impose when beads fell out of Williams’s hair and onto the court.“I kept saying, ‘We don’t want to lose any points because of the beads,’” Mirnyi recalled. “And she would just say, ‘Oh, it’s OK.’ And it was.”But a singles title was her mission. Her first major singles championship came at the 1999 U.S. Open when she beat Martina Hingis in the final at Arthur Ashe Stadium to become the first Black woman to win a Grand Slam event since Gibson, who won five, including the 1957 and 1958 U.S. Opens.Upon winning, she put her hands to her heart and could be seen saying, “Oh my God, I won, oh my God.” Later, she spoke to President Bill Clinton and his daughter, Chelsea, by telephone.In 2001, fans saw the first of the awkward Williams sister duels at a major final, won by Venus Williams. The next year, Serena Williams captured rematches at the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.It would be six years before she beat Jelena Jankovic for the 2008 U.S. Open title, which was followed in 2009 by an on-court flare-up that abruptly ended her semifinal match with Kim Clijsters. Williams had been called for a foot fault that set up a match point, then accosted the lineswoman. Williams was assessed a point penalty, which gave the match to a stunned Clijsters, who went on to win the tournament.Williams won three straight titles beginning in 2012; in 2015, she entered New York looking unbeatable. She had won the three previous major events that year, and winning the fourth would have given her the coveted Grand Slam. But the pressure proved too much, and she was upset in a semifinal by an unseeded Italian, Roberta Vinci.Williams’s most recent U.S. Open win, in 2014, came when she beat Caroline Wozniacki.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesHer 2018 Open final, against Osaka, was marred by a lengthy and intermittent dispute between Williams and the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, who initially set off the uproar by calling a code violation on Williams because her coach was signaling to her from the seats. The argument ensued over two changeovers and resulted in her losing a game, and her focus, allowing Osaka to take her first major title amid a cascade of boos and jeers.The spectators were squarely on Williams’s side, and still are. On Tuesday, after news broke that Williams is retiring, 13,000 tickets were sold by 3 p.m., the U.S.T.A. said. As it has been for years, fans will flock to the U.S. Open again, because Serena, along with Venus, made Flushing one of the premier spots in the country to see a celebrated, groundbreaking Black hero in person. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Tennis

      As Wimbledon Begins, an Era of Sports Free of Bans and Boycotts Ends

      by

      For decades, sports has avoided punishing athletes for the actions of their countries. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put an end to that.LONDON — For roughly three decades, making sure athletes participated in the biggest events regardless of the world’s never-ending military and political battles has been a nearly sacrosanct tenet of international sports.Wars broke out. Authoritarian nations with egregious records on human rights hosted major events. There were massive doping scandals. And through it all, boycotts and bans on participation all but disappeared from the sports landscape.That principle — staging truly global competitions and not holding athletes responsible for the world’s ills — began to crumble after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It will be on hiatus starting Monday, when Wimbledon opens without the world No. 1, Daniil Medvedev, and the rest of the tennis players from Russia and Belarus, who have been barred from participating.World Athletics, track and field’s world governing body, has also barred Russian and Belarusian athletes from its championships next month in Eugene, Ore., the biggest track and field event outside of the Olympic Games.The bans represent a drastic shift after years of resisting letting politics interfere with individual athletes’ participation in sports. They are also a departure from the decisions that various sports organizations made earlier this year to limit punishments to banning Russian and Belarusian teams or any flags or other symbols of the countries from competitions.What changed? China’s authoritarian government has stifled free speech and other human rights, and its treatment of the Uyghurs has been deemed genocide by multiple governments, yet it was permitted to host the Olympics in February. Why were Russian and Belarusian athletes pariahs by March?Experts in international sports say that the so-called right-to-play principle ran headlong into the most significant package of economic sanctions placed on a country since the end of the Cold War. That shifted the calculus for sports leaders, said Michael Payne, the International Olympic Committee’s former director of marketing and broadcast rights.“For years, people would point at sports and athletes and demand boycotts, and sports could say, ‘Hang on, why are you singling us out but going on with the rest of your trade?’” Payne said. “But if you have full economic and political sanctions against a country, then I’m not sure that sports should still sit it out.”Daniil Medvedev of Russia, the world’s No. 1 men’s tennis player, will not be permitted to play Wimbledon this year.Cati Cladera/EPA, via ShutterstockThe leaders of tennis in Britain ultimately decided they could not. In April, acting at the behest of the British government, the All England Lawn Tennis Club, which runs Wimbledon, and the Lawn Tennis Association, which oversees the other annual spring and summer tournaments in England, announced the ban, explaining they had no other choice.“The U.K. government has set out directional guidance for sporting bodies and events in the U.K., with the specific aim of limiting Russia’s influence,” said Ian Hewitt, the chairman of the All England Club. “We have taken that directional guidance into account, as we must as a high-profile event and leading British institution.”He said the combination of the scale and severity of Russia’s invasion of a sovereign state, the condemnation by over 140 nations through the United Nations and the “specific and directive guidance to address matters” made this a “very, very exceptional situation.”The move is broadly popular in Britain, according to opinion polls, but it has received significant pushback from the men’s and women’s tennis tours. They condemned it as discriminatory and decided to withhold rankings points for any victories at the tournament.On Saturday, Novak Djokovic, the defending champion at Wimbledon, called the barring of players unfair. “I just don’t see how they have contributed to anything that is really happening,” he said.One Russian-born player, Natela Dzalamidze, changed her nationality to Georgian so she could play doubles at Wimbledon. Last week, the United States Tennis Association announced that it would allow players from Russia and Belarus to compete at its events, including the U.S. Open, this summer, but with no national identification.“This is not an easy situation,” Lew Sherr, the chief executive of the U.S.T.A. told The New York Times this month. “It’s a horrific situation for those in Ukraine, an unprovoked and unjust invasion and absolutely horrific, so anything we talk about pales in relation to what is going on there.”But, Sherr added, the organization did not receive any direct pressure or guidance from government officials.Tennis has been juggling politics and sport a lot lately. Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA, last fall suspended the tour’s business in China, including several high-profile tournaments, because of the country’s treatment of Peng Shuai.Peng, a doubles champion at Wimbledon in 2013 and the French Open in 2014, accused a former top government official of sexually assaulting her. She then disappeared from public view for weeks. She later disavowed her statements. Simon said the WTA would not return to China until it could speak independently with Peng and a full investigation took place.Sebastian Coe, center, president of World Athletics, said sports must take a stand on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Peter Cziborra/Action Images Via ReutersIn explaining the decision to bar Russian and Belarusian athletes from its world championships, Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, acknowledged in March that the move went against much of what he has stood for. He has railed against the practice of politicians targeting athletes to make political points when other sectors continue to go about their business. “This is different,” he said, because the other parts of the economy are at the tip of the spear. “Sport has to step up and join these efforts to end this war and restore peace. We cannot and should not sit this one out.”Michael Lynch, the former director of sports marketing for Visa, a leading sponsor of the Olympics and the World Cup, said the response to Russia’s aggression is natural as sports evolve away from the fiction that they are somehow separate from global events.Just as the N.B.A. and other sports leagues were forced to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake, international sports will have to recognize that they are not walled off from the problems of the world, he said.“This genie is not going back in that bottle,” Lynch said. “We will continue to see increased use of sports for cultural change, for value change, for policy change. It’s only going to happen more and more.”Sports’ sanctions against Russia could be the beginning of the end of largely unfettered global competition. Who gets to play and who doesn’t could depend on whether the political zeitgeist deems an athlete’s country to be compliant with the standards of a civilized world order.Should Israeli athletes worry because of their country’s much-criticized occupation of the West Bank? What about American athletes the next time their country kills civilians with a drone strike?“This a slippery slope,” David Wallechinsky, a leading sports historian, said of the decision to hold Russian and Belarusian athletes accountable for the actions of their governments. “The question is, Will other people from other countries end up paying the price?”This month, some of the world’s top golfers were criticized for joining a new golf tour bankrolled by the government of Saudi Arabia, a repressive government responsible for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident and columnist for The Washington Post. Looming a little more than two years from now are the next Summer Olympics, in Paris. Who will be there is anyone’s guess.“I do think Ukraine has rightly galvanized the West and its allies, but I also believe that sport will emerge as a connector instead of a tool of division,” said Terrence Burns, a sports consultant who in the 2000s advised Russia on its bids to secure hosting rights for the Olympics and the World Cup during a different era. “But it will take time. And during that time, athletes, for better or worse, will pay a price.”Christopher Clarey More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Tennis

      Her Tennis Coach Abused Her. Could the Sport Have Prevented It?

      by

      Adrienne Jensen does not know Pam Shriver, the 22-time Grand Slam doubles champion, but both believe tennis needs to change its approach toward predatory coaches.The grooming of Adrienne Jensen began with an invitation to train with a top junior tennis coach at a well-regarded tennis academy in suburban Kansas City in 2009.To Jensen, then a promising teenage player from Iowa City who had struggled to find elite training, the offer felt like the ultimate good fortune, even if accepting it meant upending her family’s life.Early on that fall, Jensen’s gamble seemed to be paying off as she trained with the coach, Rex Haultain, and played deeper into increasingly competitive tournaments.“I felt like he was my ticket,” Jensen, now 27 and about to begin a career as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, said in a recent interview.Soon, though, the praise and attention turned into demands for nude pictures and secrecy, and eventually sexual assault. Haultain, a New Zealand citizen, took a plea deal in 2013 for soliciting child pornography from Jensen, who was 15. He was sent to federal prison without the need for Jensen to face him at trial. The F.B.I. said in announcing Haultain’s deal that the coach eventually molested Jensen. She detailed the abuse to prosecutors, supported the plea agreement and publicly shared extensive details of her experience in a series of interviews with The New York Times and in a 2020 federal lawsuit against the United States Tennis Association and the club that hosted Haultain’s business.Haultain was released in 2019 and deported. Matthew Hoppock, a lawyer for Haultain, declined to comment on his behalf.In the lawsuit, Jensen claimed the U.S.T.A. and KC Racquet Club in Merriam, Kan., did not live up to their duty to protect her from Haultain. The U.S. District Court Judge John W. Lungstrum dismissed the complaint this month on a technicality related to the statute of limitations without resolving the central issue, and Jensen and her lawyers are considering their next move.Still, the filing of the lawsuit revealed the U.S.T.A.’s longstanding resistance to taking more direct ownership of what many people involved at every major level of tennis said was a big problem: a poorly run system of certifying coaches and educating players about inappropriate and criminal behavior.Professional success in tennis often starts in a player’s teenage years. Unsupervised travel is common. Inappropriately close, sexual and, in some cases, abusive relationships between coaches and players have long been an accepted part of the sport. The U.S.T.A. lists 81 people involved with tennis who have been suspended or are ineligible because they have been convicted or accused of abuse. The list, which dates back many years, is widely viewed as the tip of the iceberg.“We are not doing enough as a sport,” said Pam Shriver, the 22-time Grand Slam doubles champion and a lead commentator for the Tennis Channel at the French Open, now underway in Paris.Shriver, 59, rocked the tennis world last month with her revelation that she had been involved in a sexual relationship with her longtime coach, Don Candy, that began when she was 17 and he was 50. Candy died in 2020. Shriver never told her mother, who died last year.Shriver long viewed her affair with Candy as a relationship between consenting adults. But with the help of therapy, she now says her experience was a form of abuse that is far too prevalent in the sport.“I should have, by 13, had some training,” Shriver said. “The coaches should all have to have training. There should not be meetings between coaches and young players in private settings or giving of gifts. No going out to dinner with just the coach and the player. Certain things have to be put into place.”Pam Shriver, the multiple Grand Slam champion, is working as a commentator at the French Open.James Hill for The New York TimesShriver’s disclosure has prompted the women’s professional tour, the WTA, to review its policies on relationships between players and members of their support staff, including coaches, trainers, physiotherapists, mental health professionals, coaches and managers. The tour will also augment its training in “safeguarding” athletes. “It is an ever growing area of concern,” Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA, said. “There is a lot more to be done.”The U.S.T.A., the national governing body for the sport, declined to comment on Jensen’s lawsuit because the recent ruling remains subject to appeal. It did not make any of its executives available to discuss its approach to coaching.The organization, unlike some other national governing bodies, has for decades eschewed the responsibility of certifying and educating coaches, even those participating at U.S.T.A.-sanctioned events. (Coaches who work directly for the organization are required to complete safeguarding training.) The strategy has allowed it to claim it is not responsible for the behavior of most tennis coaches.In court filings responding to Jensen’s lawsuit, the U.S.T.A. has claimed it is “wholly unrelated” to the two organizations that do certify professional tennis coaches in the United States, the United States Professional Tennis Association and the Professional Tennis Registry. However, the U.S.T.A. does accredit the organizations and mandate training requirements, such as a two-hour course on harassment and abuse and spotting warning signs of them that was added in 2021.Nothing stops someone who has not been certified from teaching and coaching tennis. With roughly five million new players in the past two years in the United States, tennis facilities have been scrambling to find capable coaches and instructors.“This is the most fundamental question we have as an industry,” said John Embree, the chief executive of the U.S.P.T.A. “In golf, would you ever be at a course where the pro is not certified? No. In tennis, there has been no requirement or mandate that says you have to be certified and also Safe Play trained, and that is not right.”Lauren Tracy, the director of strategic initiatives for the U.S.T.A., said in sworn testimony during the Jensen litigation that the U.S.T.A. had no notice of sexual abuse of any minor member before 2011. She also stated that, despite news coverage of Haultain’s conviction, the U.S.T.A. had no knowledge of his crime until 2019, six years after his arrest and sentencing and two years after his deportation order.In a sworn statement, Tracy said that in 2013, the U.S.T.A. terminated Haultain’s membership for nonpayment of dues, four years after Jensen’s ill-fated experience with him began.Jensen grew up as the third and youngest daughter of a physician and a stay-at-home mother who loved tennis and introduced it to their children. Jensen played a variety of team sports growing up, including soccer and basketball, but nothing made her happier than the independence and responsibility that came with an individual sport like tennis and the feel of the ball hitting the sweet spot on her strings.She also liked winning and did plenty of it, becoming one of the top players her age in the U.S.T.A.’s Missouri Valley section and earning entry into national competitions.Haultain initially befriended Jensen’s father, Fred, telling him how impressed he was with her play and establishing a rapport. Then, at a tournament at the Plaza Tennis Center in Kansas City, Mo., in July 2009, Haultain approached Jensen’s mother to offer a spot in his academy.“In a sense, he was grooming us, her parents,” Fred Jensen said in a recent interview. “He became my buddy, then moved on to my wife.”The training and travel to tournaments would cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. In addition, Jensen and her mother would have to rent an apartment in the area and live there during the week. Jensen, a top student who loved school and had a close-knit group of friends, would have to switch to online schooling so she could begin her five to six hours of daily training early in the afternoons.It was a lot to take on and give up, but Jensen craved the chance to become a top player.Her parents asked the parents of other children who played for Haultain what he was like. Everyone raved and told them how supportive, talented and trustworthy he was, Fred Jensen said. They told the Jensens they regularly let their children travel alone to tournaments with him. Hearing that, the Jensens agreed to let their daughter pursue her dream.Jensen in downtown Nashville.Diana King for The New York TimesIn August 2009, Jensen and her mother moved to Overland Park, Kan. She was on the court every day with top players and received so much private attention from Haultain that other parents began to comment on it to her and her mother, she said.Haultain asked for Jensen’s phone number so he could communicate with her directly and give her tips and encouragement when they were not on the court, she said. The night before a match at a tournament in Palm Springs, Calif., in 2009, a note from Haultain flashed on her phone telling her she would dismantle her opponent and enjoy doing it.Then the gifts started. Often they were trinkets from New Zealand. Then Haultain began whispering to Jensen on the side of the court that she was arousing him sexually. He followed his comments with demands for secrecy. If she told anyone about what he was saying, she might blow this singular chance for tennis success, he told her. He showed her pictures of his penis on his phone. He demanded that she send him nude pictures and allow their relationship to become physical.When she resisted his advances, he lashed out at her for her lack of commitment to him and to tennis.“I told him I just wanted him to be my tennis coach,” Jensen said. “I pleaded with him.”He banished her to outer courts at the academy and ignored her, only to lure her back with praise and the promise of what she could achieve if only she would do as he said and never tell. Jensen kept all of this secret, she said, fearing the shame and guilt she would feel if she told her mother what was happening and the whole life she had built for her came crashing down.She traveled to San Diego with her family for Christmas in 2010 and sat by the pool in silence, she said, her eyes locked on her phone as Haultain bombarded her all day with text messages filled with threats and demands.She could sense what was going to happen when she left her family to travel to Arizona alone to meet him at the U.S.T.A. National Winter Championships.Standing in her pajamas in front of the door of her hotel room, she was terrified as Haultain entered. She had been watching her favorite movie, “The Sound of Music.” She knew what he was going to do and felt powerless to stop it. Then, she detailed to prosecutors and in her lawsuit, he penetrated her with his hands.The next day, she could barely get a ball over the net during the tournament. He berated her and told her to move on from what had happened.She returned to San Diego broken. Days later, back in Kansas City, unable to sleep or eat or do schoolwork and dreading an upcoming trip with Haultain to a tournament in Portugal, Jensen answered yes when her oldest sister asked if her coach had abused her. Her sister then told her parents.Jensen immediately stopped training with Haultain. Her parents encouraged her to keep playing, to not let Haultain steal her love for the game. They were not aware of the full extent of the abuse because they had not pressed her for details. So they tried to minimize the trauma by dealing with it privately, she said.Fred Jensen now realizes what a terrible mistake that was, for his daughter and for the safety of other children. His instinct told him to protect his daughter’s anonymity, to try to, in his words, “coach her through it,” “engineer her return to normalcy” and save her from the blame and victimization that so many survivors of sexual assault experience. That was the exact opposite of what his daughter needed, which was disclosure, the involvement of the police and, ultimately, justice.“Predators count on that you are not going to pursue something like this,” he said.In the summer of 2010, however, Jensen told a teacher what Haultain had done to her. The teacher was obligated to inform the police, and he did.Jensen understands now that Haultain essentially brainwashed her, that he was very good at getting what he wanted, as so many predators are.“He used my qualities as a player, and as a person, against me,” she wrote in a recent email. She added: “I was an incredibly obedient, naïve, perfectionist, hard-driving and respectful young girl, and was so motivated to do well, especially given all that was on the line.”She would play again, including in college, which was always one of her dreams, but she wonders if some kind of intervention might have made things different. Could Haultain have done this to her if she had been taught about boundaries or if another coach had been trained to spot the warning signs?The one thing she knows is that no one ever tried. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Tennis

      Ukraine Team Finds Escape, and Almost an Upset, Against U.S.

      by

      A supportive tennis crowd in Asheville, N.C., watched the Ukrainians nearly pull off an upset of the United States in a Billie Jean King Cup qualifier.ASHEVILLE, N.C. — The Ukrainian comeback attempt had come up just short, and Dayana Yastremska and her four teammates were preparing to pose for their final formal photograph at this Billie Jean King Cup qualifier.The blue and yellow ribbon representing Ukraine that had been stenciled onto the tennis court by special permission was no longer visible, obscured by the red, white and blue streamers that had fallen to the ground as part of the Americans’ celebration after their 3-2 victory Saturday night.The Ukrainians, with some help from the United States’ team captain, Kathy Rinaldi, cleared away some of the streamers. But as another official began removing them altogether, Yastremska insisted that they remained next to the ribbon for the photograph.“They were in the colors of U.S.A., and I wanted to leave this near the Ukrainian colors,” she said in an interview. “Because I think it’s a good sign of the support we got here and a sign for peace. I wanted it to stay.”It was that kind of week in Asheville: The symbolic gestures were more indelible than the results, and the usual rules of engagement were rewritten in an attempt to dull the edges of a national team competition.“It’s been hard not to cry,” said Billie Jean King, 78, the American who once starred in this competition, which was formerly known as the Fed Cup long before it was renamed for her in 2020. She visited both teams on Friday shortly before play began. “I just hope the Ukrainians had a moment of escapism.”After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, United States Tennis Association officials offered to postpone this qualifying-round match. The Ukrainians demurred, but when it came time to book hotels in Asheville, they conceded they no longer had the money for the usual visiting team expenses.“We said, ‘No problem, we will cover all your local costs,’” said Stacey Allaster, the chief executive for professional tennis at the U.S.T.A., which also provided support staff to the delegation. “With the war, it’s so horrifying what’s going on. What can any individual do? But we can all do little things, and what we can do is provide a platform for the Ukrainians to demonstrate that they are strong and fighting and are not going to quit.”The posters around this city in the Blue Ridge Mountains did not read, “U.S.A. vs. Ukraine.” They read, “U.S.A. hosts Ukraine.” On changeovers, the scoreboard flashed information on how to donate to the Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund, and about $225,000 was raised in connection with the matches. The American cheering squad supported individual players instead of chanting, “Go U.S.A.!”“We were just trying to find the proper tone and balance,” Allaster said.The Ukrainian players, all of whom still have family members in their embattled country, felt the job was done right: from the informal dinner for the teams at an Asheville restaurant on Tuesday night to the stirring a cappella rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem by Julia Kashirets that left members of both teams in tears minutes before the matches began.Julia Kashirets sang the Ukrainian national anthem at the Billie Jean King Cup qualifier on Saturday.Eakin Howard/Getty Images“We came here to play not against the U.S.A. but with the U.S.A. for Ukraine, and that’s how it felt to me,” Katarina Zavatska said. That was in part because of the numerous fans with Ukrainian connections and flags. Christina Dyakiv, 15, from William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach on Long Island, traveled to Asheville with her Ukrainian-born parents. Juliia Sherrod, a Ukrainian former leading junior player who now lives in Knoxville, Tenn., made the two-hour drive on short notice.“Every little win counts in any field for Ukraine right now,” said Sherrod, 35, who also goes by Yulia. “In the big scheme of things, a tennis match is no big deal, but it still means a lot.”In that supportive atmosphere, the Ukrainians nearly managed the upset. After falling behind, 0-2, on Friday, they won both singles matches on Saturday in straight sets. Yastremska, a former top-25 player now ranked 93rd on the WTA Tour, often overwhelmed No. 14 Jessica Pegula. More surprisingly, the 201st-ranked Zavatska defeated No. 46 Shelby Rogers.That meant the concluding doubles match would be decisive, and Pegula and Asia Muhammad, making her King Cup debut, earned a 7-6 (5), 6-3 victory over Yastremska and Lyudmyla Kichenok.“All day we just really felt that fighting spirit of Ukraine,” Rogers said. “It was really special to see, but really tough to go against. I’m just so proud of my team for stepping up to that, having nerves of steel.”Asia Muhammad, left, celebrated with Jessica Pegula after winning the concluding doubles match that qualified the U.S. team for the Billie Jean King Cup finals.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe first set of the doubles match came down to very little. With Muhammad serving at 5-6, 30-30, the Americans had to scramble to win the longest, most spectacular rally of the match, and at 5-5 in the tiebreaker, Kichenok’s full-cut passing shot struck the very top of the tape.“She wanted to take a little bit of risk,” Yastremska said, making a tiny space between her right thumb and index finger. “Just like this, in the net!”The victory qualified the Americans for the 12-team King Cup finals in November, but the Ukrainians are not necessarily eliminated. One wild-card slot is available, and depending on which nation is selected to host the finals, it might be available to Ukraine.A full-strength Ukrainian team could be formidable: No. 25 Elina Svitolina and No. 53 Marta Kostyuk, the country’s two highest-ranked singles players, missed this match because of injuries and personal issues.“I don’t want to be arrogant, but maybe we deserve this,” Zavatska said.Russia won the King Cup last year before being barred from this year’s competition because of the invasion. Olga Savchuk, the Ukrainian team captain in Asheville, believes tennis needs to take the next step and bar Russian players from individual events as well, something Wimbledon is considering.“Why is somebody who works in McDonald’s in Russia losing their job because of sanctions and the tennis players are exceptions?” Savchuk said.Zavatska, 22, who is based in southern France, believes the Russians need to take responsibility and “feel discomfort too, as long as people and children are dying in Ukraine.” She said some Russian and Belarusian players had told her the news of atrocities coming out of Ukraine was “fake.” The guilt some of the players felt in the first month at being safe while other Ukrainians were in so much peril has been superseded by the belief that they can be sporting ambassadors.“With people watching us back home on TV, you want them just to take a couple of hours to enjoy the tennis and to see that some Ukrainian girls are fighting for the country as well,” Yastremska said.Katarina Zavatska of Ukraine celebrated her win against Shelby Rogers of the United States on Saturday, which put the countries in a 2-2 tie.Susan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersSusan Mullane/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe arena in Asheville, in scale and design, reminded Savchuk and Yastremska of where the Ukrainian team played home matches in Kharkiv, which has been heavily damaged by Russian bombardments.Savchuk, now based in London, was born and raised in Donetsk in the disputed Donbas region and her father remains in Donetsk. “He decided to stay because it’s home,” said Savchuk, who said her relatives have spent long stretches in bomb shelters.Kichenok fled the country after the war started and needed 31 hours to get from Kyiv to Moldova with her parents. Her twin, Nadiia, also part of Ukraine’s team, left Kyiv just before Russia invaded, traveling to California with her husband.“It was two days of hell for me until they got to a safe place,” Nadiia said of her family. “I had constant panic attacks. I never experienced anything like that, like 40 minutes your body is shaking, and you don’t know what to do besides deep breaths.”The Kichenoks’ father, who is 64, has since returned to Ukraine and tried to volunteer for the military despite exceeding the age limit.“They told him, ‘Grandfather, go back home,’” Nadiia Kichenok said. “‘We have too many people here. We will call you when we need you.’”Yastremska, 21, fled Odesa, her home city, with her 15-year-old sister, Ivanna, crossing into Romania after saying goodbye to their parents on the Ukrainian side of the Danube River. The sisters have been traveling on tour together for nearly two months while their parents remain in Odesa, where one of their tasks has been organizing relief efforts through Yastremska’s charitable foundation.Unable to return home, the Yastremska sisters remain without a fixed training base, but they will head next to Madrid to prepare for the clay-court season. The Kichenok twins will travel to Stuttgart, Germany, for a tournament, and Zavatska will return to Cannes, France, where she is sharing her small apartment with her mother and other relations who fled Ukraine.After a week of togetherness and a final night of karaoke with the Americans on Saturday, the Ukrainians will move on, but with the hope that Asheville and the wider world do not move on too quickly.“I don’t want people to get used to this grief that we are experiencing,” Nadiia Kichenok said. “We don’t want people to be sorry for us. We want them to stay strong with us, fighting for freedom and humanity.” More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Tennis

      Kylie McKenzie Sues U.S.T.A., Claiming It Failed to Keep Her Safe

      by

      The tennis player claims the organization failed to disclose that her coach may have sexually assaulted one of its employees.Kylie McKenzie, a once-promising tennis player whom an investigation found was “more likely than not” to have been sexually assaulted by a coach at a United States Tennis Association training center, filed a federal lawsuit against the organization on Monday, claiming it had failed to keep her safe from someone with a history of assaulting women.Lawyers for McKenzie, 23, who lives in Arizona, said in the filing in U.S. District Court in Orlando, Fla., that the U.S.T.A. had failed to disclose that the coach, Anibal Aranda, had assaulted one of its employees years before the alleged incident with McKenzie.The employee said that Aranda had groped her and touched her vagina over her clothes at a New York City dance club around 2015, but that she did not disclose the incident to anyone. After the employee learned about McKenzie’s accusations, she regretted not reporting her allegations, she told the investigator for the U.S. Center for SafeSport, the organization tasked with investigating sexual and physical abuse claims in sports.SafeSport suspended Aranda from coaching for two years and placed him on probation for an additional two years after finding it more likely than not that he touched McKenzie’s vagina over her clothes and groped her under the guise of showing her a serving technique in 2018, when she was 19.“As of August of 2018, defendants knew or reasonably should have known of Coach Aranda’s propensity to sexually batter, threaten, harm, assault, and otherwise mentally, physically, and emotionally injure female athletes,” the suit states. Her lawyers say the U.S.T.A. did not live up to its duty of care by failing to engage a chaperone for Aranda’s associations with McKenzie and other female athletes, and allowing him to supervise young women in private “after being provided notice that Coach Aranda was inappropriately touching and inappropriately engaging in sexual communications with athletes.”The lawsuit comes at a time when the national governing bodies for sports are under increasing scrutiny for the people they employ to develop young talent. Female gymnasts who were sexually abused recently reached a $380 million settlement with U.S.A. Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.McKenzie’s case also calls attention to what some in tennis have long viewed as systemic problems with the development of young players, who often leave home for training academies, where coaches serve as mentors, surrogate parents and guardians on trips to tournaments.Chris Widmaier, a spokesman for the U.S.T.A., said the organization does not comment on pending litigation. Widmaier previously said that the organization first learned about the 2015 incident after McKenzie filed her complaint because its employee had not told anyone in the organization. After McKenzie filed her complaint over the alleged incident, which she said occurred on a back court at the U.S.T.A.’s Orlando training center, Widmaier said the organization acted immediately to suspend and terminate Aranda.In his testimony during the SafeSport investigation, Aranda denied ever touching McKenzie inappropriately, either during or after training. He also said he did not recall touching another employee inappropriately. He suggested McKenzie had fabricated a story because she had been told that the U.S.T.A. was planning to stop supporting her. Accusing him of abuse, Aranda said, would make it more difficult for the organization to cut her off, an assertion U.S.T.A. coaches and McKenzie rejected.“I want to be clear, I never touched her vagina,” Aranda told a SafeSport investigator, according to those records. “I never touched her inappropriately. All these things she’s saying are twisted.”He has not responded to repeated requests for comment.The SafeSport records are confidential, but The New York Times has reviewed a copy of the final ruling, the investigator’s report and notes from the investigator’s interviews with a dozen witnesses, including Aranda. The Times has also reviewed a copy of the police report by an Orlando detective.In an interview with The Times this month, McKenzie said learning that someone at the U.S.T.A. could have warned her to be wary of Aranda had doubled her trauma.“He told me: ‘You’re a champion. I want to work with you,’” McKenzie said of Aranda. “I had every reason to trust him.”The suit also alleges that McKenzie endured inappropriate treatment from two other coaches earlier in her training with the U.S.T.A., with one coach berating her for consorting with boys and instructing her to remove all male contacts from her phone and another joking with her about undergarments and how people might think they were a couple when they traveled alone to Texas for a tournament.McKenzie says she has suffered physical and mental injuries since the incident. Her lawyers argued in the filing that she was entitled to compensation for her physical and emotional distress because the U.S.T.A. failed to implement and enforce proper policies to protect athletes; fostered a culture of inappropriate coach-athlete relationships; and failed to intervene to prevent the escalation of inappropriate conduct. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      Kylie McKenzie Speaks Out Against a Former U.S.T.A. Coach

      by

      PHOENIX — Kylie McKenzie, once one of America’s most promising junior tennis players, is for now back where she began, hitting balls on a local court, often with her father, living at home while trying to rescue what once seemed like a can’t-miss future.There is little doubt where that future went astray. In 2018, McKenzie, then 19, was working closely with a top coach at the United States Tennis Association’s national training center in Orlando, Fla.Anibal Aranda liked to take her to the remote courts of the tennis center, where, she said, he praised her and put his hands on her body during their workouts, pressing against her while she practiced her serve.Maybe, McKenzie thought, it was because Aranda had grown up in Paraguay and was less aware of the kind of physical contact considered appropriate in the United States. For six years, Aranda had coached for the U.S.T.A., which had been supporting McKenzie’s career and practically raising her at its academies since she was 12. Its officials trusted him, and she trusted them, and so she trusted him, too.On Nov. 9, 2018, Aranda sat so close to her on a bench after practice that their legs touched, and then he put his hand between her thighs, she said. She later learned she was not the only person to accuse him of sexual misconduct.During the last week, Aranda has not responded to repeated phone calls and text messages seeking comment, sent to a mobile number associated with his name. Howard Jacobs, the lawyer who represented him during an investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, which investigates reports of abuse in American sports, said Aranda was no longer a client of his.In his testimony during the SafeSport investigation, Aranda denied ever touching McKenzie inappropriately, either during or after training. He suggested McKenzie had fabricated a story because she had been told that the U.S.T.A. was planning to stop supporting her. Accusing him of abuse, Aranda said, would make it more difficult for the organization to cut her off, an assertion U.S.T.A. coaches and McKenzie rejected.The SafeSport records are confidential, but The New York Times has reviewed a copy of the final ruling, the investigator’s report, and notes from her interviews with a dozen witnesses, including Aranda. The Times has also reviewed a copy of the police report by an Orlando detective.“I want to be clear, I never touched her vagina,” Aranda told a SafeSport investigator, according to those records. “I never touched her inappropriately. All these things she’s saying are twisted.”The incident, which McKenzie quickly reported to friends, relatives, U.S.T.A. officials and law enforcement, led to a cascade of events over the next three years. The U.S.T.A. suspended and then fired Aranda. A lengthy investigation by SafeSport found it “more likely than not” that Aranda had assaulted McKenzie. Police took a statement from McKenzie, stated there was probable cause for a charge of battery, then turned the evidence over to the state attorney’s office, which ultimately opted not to pursue a case. McKenzie said she began to experience panic attacks and depression, which have hampered her attempts to reclaim her tennis prowess.Anibal Aranda, left, with Jose Caballero, a coach, and the tennis player CiCi Bellis, who is a friend of Kylie McKenzie’s, in 2017.John Raoux/Associated PressBut what especially troubles McKenzie, now 23, is something that she only learned reading the confidential SafeSport investigative report on her case. An employee at the U.S.T.A had a similar experience with Aranda about five years earlier, but chose to keep the information to herself.The U.S.T.A. was unaware of that incident because the employee said she did not tell anyone until she was interviewed by the SafeSport investigator for McKenzie’s case.“To know he had a history, that almost doubled the trauma,” McKenzie said last week at a coffee shop not far from her home. “I trusted them,” she said of the U.S.T.A. “I always saw them as guardians. I thought it was a safe place.”McKenzie’s case highlights what some in tennis have long viewed as systemic problems with how young players, especially women, become professionals. Players often leave home at a young age for training academies, where they often work closely with male coaches who serve as mentors, surrogate parents and guardians on trips to tournaments.Chris Widmaier, a spokesman for the U.S.T.A., said any suggestion that its academies are unsafe was inaccurate. He said the organization’s safety measures include employee background checks, training on harassment and how predators target and make potential victims vulnerable to advances, as well as multiple ways to report inappropriate or abusive conduct.“More than three years ago, an incident was reported by Ms. McKenzie and that report was treated with absolute seriousness and urgency,” Widmaier said in a statement. “The U.S.T.A. immediately, without any hesitation or delay, notified the U.S. Center for SafeSport and cooperated in a full and thorough investigation of the incident. The U.S.T.A. suspended the offending party on the day of the report and has not permitted him back on property or at any U.S.T.A.-sponsored function or event since. In addition to promptly reporting this incident, the U.S.T.A. worked with Ms. McKenzie and her representatives to ensure that she felt safe while she continued to train and advance her tennis career. The U.S.T.A. supported Ms. McKenzie before, during and after the incident.”Widmaier said the organization was working to increase the number of female coaches. It has added women to its staff at its national training centers — there are now five women, six men and three open positions on its national coaching staff — and developed a coaching fellowship program in which women must account for half the enrollment.McKenzie has repeated her account of the events on multiple occasions, to friends, U.S.T.A. officials and law enforcement. In finding McKenzie’s account credible, SafeSport investigators wrote that her account had remained consistent and was supported by contemporary evidence, including text messages and U.S.T.A. records.In 2019, SafeSport suspended Aranda, 38, from coaching for two years and placed him on probation for an additional two years. Aranda is one of 77 people involved with tennis on the U.S.T.A.’s suspended or ineligible list because they have been convicted or accused of sexual or physical abuse.‘You’re a champion. I want to work with you.’McKenzie at an international hardcourt juniors championship tournament in College Park, Md., in 2015.Cal Sport Media via AP ImagesMcKenzie started playing tennis at 4 when her father, Mark, put a racket in her hands. By fourth grade she was being home-schooled so she could practice more.When she was 12, coaches with the U.S.T.A., who had seen her at tournaments and camps, offered her an opportunity to train full time at its development academy in Carson, Calif. She moved with the family of another elite junior player from Arizona, leaving her parents and two younger siblings behind.Within a few years she was homesick and burned out. Coaches kept her on the court for hours after training to talk about life and tennis, and one yelled at her while they attended a tournament at Indian Wells when he found out she had kissed a boy at 14.McKenzie left Carson in 2014 and returned to Arizona. But after she won two top-level junior tournaments, officials with the U.S.T.A. persuaded her to move to the training center in Florida.A shoulder injury eventually sent her back to Arizona for 18 months, but in 2018 she returned to Florida, moving in with relatives on Merritt Island. She occasionally spent the night at the home of her friend, CiCi Bellis, then a top American prospect. Bellis was injured at the time, allowing her coach, Anibal Aranda, to work with other players.McKenzie was initially flattered by Aranda’s attention and praise. “He told me: ‘You’re a champion. I want to work with you,’” McKenzie said of Aranda. “I had every reason to trust him.”One U.S.T.A. employee would have said otherwise.During the SafeSport investigation into McKenzie’s incident, the employee, who is not being identified to protect her privacy, told the investigator that a few years earlier, Aranda had groped her and rubbed her vagina on a dance floor at a New York club during a night out with colleagues during the U.S. Open. The employee said that she left the club immediately but that Aranda followed her and tried to get in a taxi alone with her, which she resisted.After the U.S.T.A. employee learned about McKenzie’s accusations, she regretted not reporting her allegations, she told the investigator.Aranda denied touching the woman inappropriately. He told the investigator he remembered the night at the dance club but did not recall details of the evening.What follows is the story that McKenzie told U.S.T.A. officials, a SafeSport investigator, police, and shared with The New York Times last week.By October 2018, McKenzie was training almost exclusively with Aranda, alone with him for several hours every day. Initially, their hitting sessions took place on the busier hardcourts, but he soon moved them to clay courts that got little foot traffic, telling her that the slower surface would improve her footwork. He scheduled training for 11 a.m., though most players practiced earlier to avoid the midday heat.The U.S.T.A. National Campus Collegiate Center in Orlando, where McKenzie trained with Aranda.Matt Marriott/NCAA Photos via Getty ImagesEach day, she said, Aranda increased his physical contact with her. Pats of encouragement moved down her back until he was grazing the top of her buttocks. He brushed against her as they walked to the courts, making casual contact with her breasts.He used her phone to film her practice session, then inched closer to her as they sat on a bench watching the video until their legs touched. Sometimes, she said, he held the back of her hand as she held her phone and intertwined his arm with hers. Then he began resting his arm on her thigh as they talked. Sometimes he would say, “You’re too skinny,” and grab her stomach and rub her sides and waist. He would ask her how her shoulder felt and massage it, she told the investigator.Under the guise of showing McKenzie correct body position and technique, he pushed the front of his body against her back and placed his hands on her hips as she served, moving them to her underwear. Another time, he knelt and held her hips from the front, his face inches from her groin. She dreaded practicing her serve.He also made her repeat daily affirmations. Some were about tennis, but others were not. “He’d say, ‘Say you’re beautiful because you are,’” McKenzie said.Aranda told the investigator he used affirmations in training but only those focused on tennis. He acknowledged touching McKenzie’s hands, feet and hips to teach proper body position but denied holding her from behind or touching her groin.All she wanted was a tennis coach.McKenzie in Anthem, Ariz., where she practices now.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesOn Nov. 9, 2018, McKenzie felt uneasy as she walked to the court for her late-morning training session, certain Aranda wanted to practice serving. He did, she said, grinding against her harder than ever as she practiced her service motion.At the end of practice he asked her if she thought she was pretty. She was wearing leggings and had placed a towel on her lap. Aranda rested his hand on her right upper thigh. Suddenly, she felt it between her legs, “rubbing her upper labia,” according to the report.McKenzie elbowed him away. Aranda then knelt in front of her, and started aggressively massaging her calves and knees. He asked her what she wanted him to be. She told him she just wanted him to coach her and provide mental training, an answer that appeared to agitate him.“Oh, that’s it?” he said, she told the investigator.As they left the court, she said, Aranda asked her to walk to a shed to store the tennis balls. She walked with him but did not enter the shed. A few minutes later, sitting on another bench, he spoke to her about finding an agent and sponsors. He tried to hug her as she hunched on the bench. She did not hug him back, and left.McKenzie went to Bellis’s home and, shaking and crying, told her what happened. They called Bellis’s mother, who urged them to report the incident to the U.S.T.A. Bellis and McKenzie called Jessica Battaglia, then the senior manager of player development for the organization. Bellis helped McKenzie, who struggled to speak, retell the story.Battaglia immediately contacted senior officials with the U.S.T.A., including Malmqvist and Martin Blackman, the general manager of player development, and female employees who needed to be notified, according to her testimony in the report. U.S.T.A. officials informed Aranda that a report had been made and that he would no longer be allowed at the training center.Ola Malmqvist, then the director of coaching for the U.S.T.A., told the SafeSport investigator that shortly after being suspended, a distraught Aranda called Malmqvist and said: “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I made a mistake.” Then, Malmqvist said, Aranda added, “It wasn’t bad,” and also, “But I made a mistake.” Malmqvist also said Aranda “made some comment along the lines of, ‘I got too close to her.’” Aranda later told investigators that he did not recall making those statements.Later on the day of the alleged assault, Aranda texted McKenzie to ask whether she had done her fitness workout and also added her on Snapchat. (She supplied the investigator with screen shots of her phone.) When she did not respond to his messages or pick up his phone calls, he started calling Bellis. The friends went to a hotel that night so Aranda would not know where to find McKenzie.McKenzie gave a sworn statement to the police in Orlando on Nov. 29. The detective wrote in his report that probable cause existed for a charge of battery. But prosecutors wrote to McKenzie in February 2020 to say they did not believe there was enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.As the SafeSport investigation unfolded during the first months of 2019, McKenzie continued to train at the center with other coaches. She had persistent stomach ailments and panic attacks, she said, that hampered her breathing when she tried to practice. On many days, she just wanted to sleep. Her love for the game never wavered, though.McKenzie practicing with her father, Mark.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesShe left the center in 2020, when the pandemic forced the U.S.T.A. to cut back. Since then, she has trained with coaches in South Carolina and Arizona. At the moment, she is playing on her own and working out several hours a day at a gym. Sometimes she goes for runs with her mother. She has worked with a therapist and would like to again, but treatment can be expensive, so she is trying to “plow through” on her own, she said.She completed high school in 2020, at age 21, and is considering attending college, possibly close to home, and maybe reviving her career through N.C.A.A. tennis but while gaining an education, a path several top women have taken, including Danielle Collins, who reached the Australian Open final in January, and Jennifer Brady, who did so in 2021 and used to hit with McKenzie on the U.S.T.A.’s courts. As a junior, McKenzie beat Sofia Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion.She often thinks of the U.S.T.A. employee with her own story about Aranda.McKenzie, who is soft-spoken and reserved, said she was motivated to speak out because she knows too well what can happen when women don’t.“That probably just empowered him,” she said of the silence that followed the incident at the New York club. “He felt like he was permitted to act the way he did.” More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      U.S.T.A. Chief Michael Dowse Stepping Down After Two Years

      by

      During his relatively brief tenure at the U.S.T.A., Dowse has had to navigate the coronavirus pandemic and the financial pressures it created.In an unexpected move, Michael Dowse, the leader of the United States Tennis Association, announced on Wednesday that he would leave the organization in March.The decision caught players, officials and U.S.T.A. board members by surprise. Dowse, 55, has been officially in his post as the association’s chief executive officer and executive director for less than two years.His predecessor, Gordon Smith, spent 12 years in the position, but Dowse, the former president of Wilson Sporting Goods Co., said he was ready to move on from having day-to-day management duties at a single organization.“After 15 years of being president or CEO, I am ready for more balance in my life and moving more into the role of adviser, consultant or board member in the broader arena of sports,” Dowse said in a statement to The New York Times.During his relatively brief tenure at the U.S.T.A., Dowse has had to navigate heavy weather: some of it in the forecast; some of it completely unexpected.He was hired, after an extensive search, in late 2019 to focus on reinvigorating community tennis and participation in the sport. He was also brought in to reduce the U.S.T.A.’s operating costs and made significant cuts in several areas, including player development.But the coronavirus pandemic created major financial pressure in 2020 by threatening the association’s ability to stage the U.S. Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments and the U.S.T.A.’s primary source of revenue each year. Unlike Wimbledon, the U.S.T.A. had no pandemic insurance in case of cancellation. It was unclear for months whether the 2020 U.S. Open would be held, but the tournament went ahead without spectators, allowing the U.S.T.A. to preserve a significant chunk of its operating revenue through existing broadcast and sponsorship deals.In 2021, the Open allowed for full attendance during the main draw, and the tournament struck a powerful chord with New Yorkers and fans eager to return to watching tennis in person.Dowse planned to leave his base in Orlando, Fla., and return to Phoenix.“We want to thank Mike for his deep commitment to tennis and the steady hand he showed at a time of extraordinary challenge and uncertainty,” said Michael J. McNulty III, the U.S.T.A.’s chairman of the board and president, in a statement.As an outdoor sport conducive to social distancing, tennis got a big boost in participation during the pandemic. The number of people who played at least once in 2020 rose 22.4 percent from 2019 to 21.6 million players, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. But keeping those new or returning players in the game will be a major challenge: one that will be left to Dowse’s successor.The other leading candidate when Dowse was hired was Lewis Sherr, the U.S.T.A.’s chief revenue officer. Other candidates included Todd Martin, a former top player who now leads the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and Stacey Allaster, a former head of the WTA who is the U.S. Open tournament director. But with the U.S. Open expansion and construction essentially complete, the U.S.T.A.’s focus will remain on grass-roots development, which could lead the organization to hire from its board of directors. More