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

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      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

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

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      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

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      Jane Brown Grimes, a Rare Female Force in Tennis, Dies at 80

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      She was a top executive at three organizations, including the International Tennis Hall of Fame, where she was later inducted.Jane Brown Grimes, who as one of the rare women executives in tennis in her time modernized the International Tennis Hall of Fame, ran the rule-making body of women’s tennis and was president of the United States Tennis Association, died on Nov. 2 at her home in Manhattan. She was 80.The cause was cancer, her daughter, Serena Larson, said.“Jane did everything behind the scenes,” Chris Evert, who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, said in an interview. “She didn’t crave attention and quietly went about her work. Not a lot of women tennis players know what she did, because she was under the radar.”In 1989, Mrs. Brown Grimes, as managing director of the Women’s International Professional Tennis Council, which governed women’s tennis, headed talks that led to a change in title sponsorship of the women’s tour — from Virginia Slims, a cigarette brand marketed to women, to Kraft General Foods. Both were owned by Philip Morris (now the Altria Group).Anti-tobacco activists, as well as some players, had for years demanded that women’s tennis move on from its tobacco sponsorship, the financial backbone of the tour since the early 1970s, to one that promoted a healthier lifestyle.“Jane was a very strategic, intelligent leader, and she was clear that the council had to move away from tobacco,” said Anne Worcester, who was director of worldwide operations for the Virginia Slims series and succeeded Mrs. Brown Grimes as the council leader in 1991.Pam Shriver, who won 132 titles in her career, acknowledged in an interview that “there were no apologies for Virginia Slims being a sponsor.” But, she added, “By the time Jane was in a key position to make a change, she made it happen.”Mrs. Brown Grimes speaking to Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, widow of the tennis star Arthur Ashe, during a match in 2008 at the U.S. Open in Flushing, Queens. The Ashes’ daughter, Camera, is on the left.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg NewsJane Trowbridge Gillespie was born on Jan. 20, 1941, in Freeport, N.Y., on Long Island. Her father, Samuel Hazard Gillespie, was a litigator who served as the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1959 to 1961. Her mother, Ruth (Reed) Gillespie, was the head librarian at the Collegiate School in Manhattan.In her youth, Jane played on her grandparents’ clay tennis court on Long Island and regularly attended the United States National Championships at Forest Hills, Queens — the precursor to the U.S. Open — with her family. She reveled in watching stars like Althea Gibson, Margaret Court, Tony Trabert and Maureen Connolly.“They were my movie stars,” she told The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., in 2009. “They were my idols.”She studied history at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and received a bachelor’s degree in 1962. After working as a fact checker for Life magazine and then for a documentary filmmaker, she joined the Manhattan office of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977.Starting as an event planner, she became a fund-raiser before rising to executive director of the Hall of Fame in 1981, a post she held until 1986. Working mainly from its Manhattan office, she helped raise money to rehabilitate buildings at the Hall, in Newport, R.I., and was the director of tournaments held on its grounds.After leaving to join the women’s tennis council, Mrs. Brown Grimes returned to the Hall as president in 1991 and stayed through 2000, overseeing the acquisition of tennis memorabilia critical to the Hall’s historical mission and continuing the renovations.She was elected to the board of the United States Tennis Association in 2001 and then rose through its ranks to become volunteer chairman and president in 2007. The second woman to hold that position, she served through 2008. During her two-year tenure she particularly championed youth programs and was involved in the U.S.T.A.’s acquisition of the Western & Southern Open.“Jane was one of the few who paved the way for other women to have leadership roles in tennis,” Ms. Worcester said.Mrs. Brown Grimes was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014.In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her sons, Jim Schwarz and Ames Brown; her brother, Sam Gillespie; and five grandchildren. Her marriage to Marshall Schwarz ended in divorce, and her marriages to Ames Brown and Charles Grimes ended with their deaths.Ever curious, Mrs. Brown Grimes continued her education well into her later years. She earned an M.B.A. degree from Baruch College in Manhattan in 2012, then used her knowledge of tennis to earn a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge in 2015.Her thesis was about the 1986 Federation Cup tournament in Prague, which marked Martina Navratilova’s return to her homeland for the first time since defecting to the United States in 1975 from what was then Czechoslovakia. Mrs. Brown Grimes had attended the tournament.“When it was over and the U.S. had won, Martina was given a big microphone and started her speech in English, but within about 10 seconds she switched into Czech and the place went nuts,” Mrs. Brown Grimes said in an interview with Steve Flink of Tennis.com this year. “Her mother was sitting in front of me, and down a ways, and she was in tears.”When she died, Mrs. Brown Grimes had nearly finished her dissertation in history at Cambridge — about women’s tennis during the Open era, after tournaments were open to professionals and not just amateurs in 1968. More

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      Reilly Opelka

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      There are currently 14 men in the top 100, the most since 1996, but none in the top 20. While the United States may not have any truly elite players right now, it does have youth.It took a while, but after the American Reilly Opelka and his big serve were eliminated in the fourth round of the U.S. Open on Monday by Lloyd Harris of South Africa, I decided to go searching.I had to weave through the big crowds that have happily again been part of the experience at this year’s tournament. I had to work my way up and down the concourse, examining the banners that commemorate, year by year, the past Open champions — most of whom seemed to be named Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal or Roger Federer — before arriving at my destination.There, near a coffee stand, dangling from the same post, were banners featuring the last two American men to win the singles title at Flushing Meadows: Pete Sampras in 2002 and Andy Roddick in 2003.It has been nearly 20 years now, the longest gap in the history of this Grand Slam tournament between American men’s champions. I covered both Sampras’s and Roddick’s victories, and there was no suspecting the length of the drought to come.New American men’s stars had always emerged, sometimes with a slight delay but never this kind of delay. There was concern about the future when John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors got older in the 1980s, but then along came one of the greatest generations from any nation: Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Michael Chang, with fine players like Todd Martin and MaliVai Washington playing secondary roles.There was big concern when those players aged out in the early 2000s, but Roddick still managed to reach No. 1 before being left knee-deep by the genius of Federer and the inexorable rise of Nadal and Djokovic.Roddick did his best, no doubt, which was often remarkable, reaching three Wimbledon finals and another U.S. Open final before retiring in 2012.But though Serena Williams, a winner of 23 major singles titles, has given American tennis fans plenty to celebrate since then, no American man has reached a Grand Slam singles final in over a decade as the Europeans have put a chokehold on men’s tennis.“We got a little bit spoiled,” said Brad Stine, the veteran American coach who mentored Courier and now works with the young American Tommy Paul.There has been no room in this upscale neighborhood. The prime real estate has been occupied by the Big Three, which for a time could have been considered the Big Five with Andy Murray and Federer’s Swiss compatriot Stan Wawrinka each winning three major titles.Now a much younger group has emerged that you could call the Next Four: Matteo Berrettini of Italy, Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, Daniil Medvedev of Russia and Alexander Zverev of Germany. If you like, toss in the still-reigning U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem of Austria and Andrey Rublev of Russia, a top-10 player.They, like the stars they are succeeding, are all Europeans.Tennis is more central to the sports culture in Europe, attracting more interest and presumably a greater percentage of top-quality athletes. There are more professional tournaments, both at the minor league and major league level, in Europe.But this season and this U.S. Open have offered up some evidence for better days ahead for the American men. There are 14 in the top 100 at the moment, the most since 1996. There were 13 in the second round at the Open, the most since 1994 when Sampras, Agassi, Courier and Chang were in full flow.But unlike those halcyon days, none of the new-age Americans are currently ranked in the top 20. There is depth but, for now, no truly elite players. What bodes well is that there is youth. All three of the American men to reach the fourth round here were under 25: Opelka, 24; Frances Tiafoe, 23; and Jenson Brooksby, 20.“In the top 100, we’ve got a huge group of guys there; we just don’t have the world beaters,” Opelka said after his 6-7 (6), 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 loss to Harris. “I don’t think we will have a Sampras-Agassi era of just dominance like that again. It’s rare for any country.”Brooksby, the last American singles player left in the tournament, certainly looked like a worldbeater for a set and a half on Monday night. In his first appearance in Arthur Ashe Stadium, he played with intelligence and resilience to take a 6-1 lead on world No. 1 Novak Djokovic. Brooksby then got back on serve in the second set after breaking Djokovic in an eight-deuce game that felt more like chess than tennis. But Djokovic, chasing the Grand Slam, has been playing best-of-five set tennis for nearly 20 years. Brooksby is just starting out and could not keep pace, losing 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.“I told him at the net he has a bright future ahead of him,” Djokovic said.Opelka, Tiafoe and Brooksby are not alone. Sebastian Korda is 21 and Brandon Nakashima is 20, and both also have had success this season with Korda reaching the quarterfinals of the Miami Open after beating three seeded players and then winning his first tour title in Parma, Italy. Nakashima made the singles finals in Atlanta and Los Cabos, Mexico, and upset John Isner, the most successful American man of the last decade, in the first round of this year’s U.S. Open.All this might not have been worth celebrating 25 years ago, but it counts as good news now.“I do think we’re moving in the right direction,” said Stine, who has coached privately and with the United States Tennis Association. “Ideally for U.S. tennis we want to have as many guys as we possibly can inside the top 250, which means we’re flooding the qualifying rounds of the Slams. And then from there, we need as many in the top 100 as we can get. It’s a numbers game, ultimately. You could ask, would you rather have 14 in the top 100 with none in the top 20? Or only six in the top 100 and all in the top 20? I think you’d obviously go with the six, but I do think we’re making progress.”They are a diverse group with varied game styles. Consider just the three American men to reach the round of 16. Opelka, who should break into the top 20 on Monday after the Open, is nearly seven feet tall with a big-bang game that can make him a nightmare to face. Tiafoe, who lost in four sets to Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada on Sunday night, is a compact power server from College Park, Md., with quickness and dynamic groundstrokes who has had a resurgent season under his new coach Wayne Ferreira.Brooksby, the newest arrival at this level, is a northern Californian who made good use of his wild card into the Open.“I think Brooksby is our best,” said Opelka, who picked Brooksby and Korda as the most likely Americans to win a Grand Slam title down the road.Brooksby has an unconventional game based on consistency, great defense and abrupt rhythm shifts rather than the power baseline style that predominates on the men’s tour.“Is his swing beautiful? No. But is it repeatable? Absolutely, and that’s the most important thing,” said Stine, who has known Brooksby since he was 11. “The contact point is clean, and he makes a million balls. He plays the game really at the simplest form there is. I’m going to miss fewer balls than you are. I’m going to run and get to all the balls you hit, and I’m going to make you hit one more ball. And it’s been extremely effective and extremely irritating to his opponents.”The next challenge for the young Americans is beating enough opponents to start going deep, truly deep, in the tournaments that matter most. More

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      Mardy Fish Can Relate to What Naomi Osaka Is Going Through

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      Anxiety forced Fish to withdraw from the 2012 U.S. Open. Now he is open about his mental health and works with the U.S.T.A. to provide more resources for players.The fourth-round singles matches at the U.S. Open were underway on Sunday, and Mardy Fish, the Davis Cup captain and former tennis star, was remembering the moment nine years ago in New York when he sat in the car sobbing with his wife, Stacey, and decided, with her help, that he could not play in the fourth round against Roger Federer.“It was just crazy anxiety, crazy, crazy, just how am I going to walk out on this court?” he said by telephone from his home in Los Angeles. “But it never, never would have crossed my mind, if my wife wasn’t there with me, that I wouldn’t play. We’re so trained to never show weakness, never show fear, to the other side of the court. But my wife saying, ‘Well, you don’t have to play’ — that part right there was like, right away, just instantly, I felt better, like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.”Fish is now 39, a parent with Stacey of two young children. He works in finance and is still involved in professional tennis as the U.S. Davis Cup captain. But he is also a mentor, sharing his experience as a prominent athlete who had to deal with mental health problems when the subject was close to taboo in professional sports.“The reason why I’m so vocal or open about it now is that I didn’t have that success story to lean on when I was going through it,” he said.He is friendly with Naomi Osaka and her agent Stuart Duguid, and empathized when Osaka announced tearfully on Friday after her third-round defeat at the U.S. Open that she planned to take an indefinite break from the game that no longer brings her joy, even when she wins.“I would tell her, do whatever makes you happy,” Fish said. “She doesn’t have to hit another tennis ball the rest of her life, and if that makes her happy, that’s what she should do. I think she would regret that, but it’s whatever makes her want to get up in the morning and be happy. And whatever she’s been doing for the last couple months, or however long it’s been, is not doing that for her right now. So hopefully she finds peace and comfort.”Fish spent months housebound with repeated anxiety attacks after his withdrawal in New York. He received therapy and medication.After playing intermittently on tour, he returned to the U.S. Open in 2015 and won a round. It was the upbeat closure that he desired and is part of the journey he shares in a documentary that will be released on Tuesday as part of the Netflix “Untold” series.“To educate is really the most important thing,” Fish said. “To try to reach people that have never understood mental health or had issues with it or people around them who have had issues with it. To just educate them and just understand that Naomi Osaka is not going to pull out of the French Open just because she doesn’t want to talk to the press. And Simone Biles is not going to compete in the Olympics just because she doesn’t want to lose. The people that think that, and there are lots of them, it’s just unfortunate.”For Fish, one of the keys is to stop regarding mental health as separate from physical health.“It’s just health,” Fish said. “They call it mental health, but your brain is part of your body. It’s an injury. You just can’t see it.”Long considered one of the most talented players of his era, Fish improved his fitness and broke through in 2011 to reach the top 10 and qualify for the eight-man tour championships. But he said his rise also created new expectations and stresses.“My life changed, for the better initially, and then just my body and brain, the way I’m put together, couldn’t handle it,” he said.In 2012, he began experiencing a racing heartbeat that would wake him in the middle of the night and was diagnosed as a form of arrhythmia. Though he was treated for the condition, the underlying issue was an anxiety disorder, and while playing tennis was a refuge, he also began experiencing panic during his third-round win over Gilles Simon at the 2012 U.S. Open.“It was like my only comfort was taken away from me that night and it put me into basically rock bottom, zero serotonin left in my brain,” he said.“It’s not about being tough. I practice kickboxing and muay Thai right now, like, come on, I’ll take anyone on in the ring. You can punch me in the face all you want, and I’ll hit you back. I train that stuff. It’s not about being weak. I was strong mentally. I was a bulldog. To win, I would have sacrificed anything. I’ll put my competitiveness up against anyone’s. It’s not about that. It’s actually the opposite. Showing weakness and that vulnerability is actually showing strength, in my opinion.” Fish is working as a mentor during the U.S. Open as part of a new initiative from the United States Tennis Association to provide more mental health resources for players, including on-call psychologists. Claudia Reardon, the U.S.T.A.’s new mental health consultant, is overseeing the program.Mardy Fish walked off the court after losing to Feliciano López in five sets at the 2015 U.S. Open.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times“Athletes who talk about their own use of mental health resources or their own struggles with mental health symptoms or disorders really do a wonderful service to sport in general in terms of demystifying and normalizing that experience,” Reardon said in an interview. “To have mental health symptoms is not incompatible with high-level sports, and it’s actually a sign of strength to reach out for help.”Fish said no player had yet contacted him during the tournament, but he said “tons of people” had contacted him since he began speaking openly about his condition.“People you’ve heard of; people you’ve never heard of,” he said. “Coaches, players, from tennis and other sports. It’s been really nice to be helpful in that way. I’ve made some great relationships because of it, so it’s been comforting in that way, to know I wasn’t alone and that other people wanted to be vulnerable as well, just not to the world.”Osaka, like Fish, has taken a more open approach, revealing this year that she struggled with anxiety and depression since winning her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2018 U.S. Open. In a round-table discussion before this year’s Open, she, Fish, Nick Kyrgios and Billie Jean King talked about multiple topics, including mental health and media relations.Though Osaka spoke before and during the Open about her desire to focus on the positives of being a world-class player, she struggled with her emotions in her loss on Friday to the Canadian teenager Leylah Fernandez. She tossed her racket and knocked a ball into the stands in frustration and then teared up at a news conference. She said she did not know when she would play her next tennis match.“Recently, when I win, I don’t feel happy,” she said. “I feel more like relief. And then when I lose, I feel very sad, and I don’t think that’s normal.”Fish was watching and listening.“That last press conference was her being really open,” he said. “I think it’s really important to put yourself first and what you feel is important to you and what makes you happy, and hopefully tennis is in there for her. I think it is. I know she understands her place in history. But the stuff outside the court has now gotten to her more than just wins and losses, and it’s unfortunate, but it’s important for her to make sure she feels comfortable again and happy again.” More

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      Tennis Programs at Historically Black Colleges Receive a Boost

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      The U.S.T.A. has initiated a grant program with the ultimate goal of enhancing opportunities for players of color, especially women, to become coaches and grow the game.Rochelle Houston had an advantage. Her father, Joe Goldthreate, is a legendary tennis coach in Nashville, who taught her not only how to play the game, but how to coach it, too.Houston is now the head of tennis at Florida A&M, which until recently meant she coached both teams. But the men’s team was cut in 2020 due to a lack of funding, and the women’s team makes do. It certainly does not enjoy the lavish facilities and recruiting budgets of many large Division I programs.That is typical of many, if not all, of the 38 historically Black colleges and universities that have tennis programs. To help address that, the United States Tennis Association has initiated a grant program to contribute funding to those college programs, with the ultimate goal of enhancing opportunities for players of color, especially women, to become coaches and grow the game.“There is a desperate need,” Houston said Wednesday from her office in Tallahassee, Fla. “We don’t have a lot of funding. We barely get by. This program will help significantly.”The grant is named after David Dinkins, the former mayor of New York who was a board member of the U.S.T.A. and longtime tennis player, fan and active supporter. Had it not been for Dinkins’ advocacy and intervention, the U.S. Open might not even be in New York anymore, and might not have its showpiece venue, Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest in tennis.The U.S.T.A. David N. Dinkins H.B.C.U. Coaching Grant will initially offer grants of up to $2,500 for each school, but that figure could increase if funding does. The money can be used for a wide range of areas where many H.B.C.U. tennis programs are underfunded, including for recruiting and basic equipment.“Our recruiting budget is very limited,” Houston said, “But maybe this can help us get new rackets for the girls, or strings and uniforms, things like that. Sometimes we can’t afford it.”The U.S.T.A. will announce the grant on Thursday as part of a day to celebrate Dinkins, who died in November 2020 at age 93. Dinkins met his wife, Joyce, who passed away in October 2020 at age 89, when both attended Howard University, one of the premier H.B.C.U.s. The U.S. Open will feature “H.B.C.U. Live” events throughout the day on Thursday, including a performance by the Howard band inside Ashe Stadium before the night matches.Dinkins, a former mayor of New York, watching a match at the U.S. Open in 2014.Andrew Gombert/EPA, via Shutterstock“This is really heartwarming for our whole family,” said David Dinkins, Jr., a senior vice president for sports programming at the Showtime network. “This has been a really tough year since mom and dad died, but the love and support that we have received, including things like this, are incredibly thoughtful and have made it a little easier to bear.”Dinkins added that his father’s support for tennis extended beyond the U.S. Open to grass-roots tennis, and that the grant program would have been especially meaningful to him.“He would have really loved this,” Dinkins, Jr. said.The concept was the idea of Marisa Grimes, the U.S.T.A.’s chief of diversity and inclusion. Although she did not attend an H.B.C.U. (she went to the University of Maryland), she came into the new job in January looking for a way to help support H.B.C.U. tennis programs and increase the ranks of coaches of color, particularly women.“This is a way for us to bring more people of color and women into the coaching profession,” Grimes said. “It’s an opportunity to tap into players who have a level of experience, but maybe have not seen a pathway to coaching. A lot of H.B.C.U. programs are underfunded.”Grimes said college players can get financial help through the coaching certification process that will help them not only after they graduate, but could also provide them with income while coaching at camps and clinics in the summers. Once an H.B.C.U. program reaches a certain threshold of players going through those coaching certification workshops, the school will be eligible for a Dinkins grant.The hope is that with more coaches of color and more women coaches spread throughout the tennis community, it will encourage more participation. Only four of the top 100 players on the women’s tour had a female coach in 2019, according to the Women’s Tennis Coaching Association.“For young people to see coaches that look like them and reflect their background is a big deal,” Grimes said. “We want to make sure there are role models for those young players, who can say, ‘Oh, maybe this sport is for me, too.’”Houston, the Florida A&M coach, said she is an example of that, primarily because her coach was her father Goldthreate, who was inducted into the Black Tennis Hall of Fame last year. Houston played at F.A.M.U. and was the team’s No. 1 women’s singles and doubles player, and in 2002 was named to the all-Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (which includes Howard) team in 2002.She went back to coach in Nashville but returned to Tallahassee to coach at F.A.M.U. in 2015. She said her experience, having learned from her father, made it easier for her, but others don’t have the same role models.“Anything that will help other young players recognize that they can become coaches, will help,” she said, “especially for women. Things have gotten a little better in that regard, but we have a ways to go.” More

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      Stefanos Tsitsipas Is Being Criticized for Mid-Match Bathroom Breaks

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      Andy Murray says his Monday opponent employs stall tactics too often for too long. Reilly Opelka says Tsitsipas is probably just changing his socks.It wasn’t his opponent’s dazzling foot speed or the velocity of his serve that Andy Murray was still dwelling on a day after his match. The statistic that stuck with Murray, the 2012 U.S. Open champion, was how long his opponent, Stefanos Tsitsipas, took during his off-court breaks.“Fact of the day. It takes Stefanos Tsitipas twice as long to go the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bazos to fly into space. Interesting,” Murray posted to Twitter on Tuesday morning, misspelling both the name of his opponent and the Amazon billionaire, but adding emojis of a toilet and a rocket ship for clarity.On Monday, the third-seeded Tsitsipas had defeated Murray 2-6, 7-6(7), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in a match that turned early in the fifth set following an off-court break by Tsitsipas. Though two off-court breaks are allowed by the rules during best-of-five-sets matches, Murray was incensed when he saw Tsitsipas leaving the court after the fourth set, which Tsitsipas had won.“Why are they allowed to do this?” Murray asked chair umpire Nico Helwerth with exasperation. “Why?”Murray, 34, sat on his bench in Arthur Ashe Stadium, changed his shirt, draped an ice towel over his neck and hydrated, repeatedly glancing toward the court entrance. After a few minutes of sitting and bouncing his legs, Murray rose and wandered behind the baseline, bouncing a ball and hitting it gently against the video wall behind the court.“What’s your opinion on this?” Murray asked Helwerth. “You’re umpiring the match. Give me an opinion: you think it’s good?” Murray then asked Grand Slam supervisor Gerry Armstrong, “You think this is OK, what’s happening?”When Tsitsipas finally returned more than seven minutes after the last point had been played, he went to his bench, then walked to a cooler to get a bottle of water. He then sat down on his bench, and Murray shouted “Get up! What’s going on, get up!”When the fans began to boo, Murray pumped his arms to encourage them.Murray, still steamed, dropped his serve in the following game, and Tsitsipas held onto that break advantage the rest of the set. Murray said he had been prepared for Tsitsipas to take long breaks if the match wasn’t going his way, for which he believed Tsitsipas had a reputation.“It’s just disappointing because I feel it influenced the outcome of the match,” Murray said. “I’m not saying I necessarily win that match, for sure, but it had influence on what was happening after those breaks. I rate him a lot. I think he’s a brilliant player. I think he’s great for the game. But I have zero time for that stuff at all, and I lost respect for him.”Told of Murray’s comments, Tsitsipas, 23, said he hoped to speak to him directly.“If there’s something that he has to tell me, we should speak, the two of us, to understand what went wrong,” Tsitsipas said. “I don’t think I broke any rules. I played by the guidelines, how everything is.“I don’t know how my opponent feels when I’m out there playing the match; it’s not really my priority,” Tsitsipas added. “As far as I’m playing by the rules and sticking to what the ATP says is fair, then the rest is fine.”Tsitsipas said his time off the court had simply been “the amount of time it takes for me to change my clothes and to walk back to the court.”Acknowledging that players are often accused of abusing bathroom break or medical timeout rules to change the momentum of the match, Murray said he and other members of the player council had discussed rule changes that might make gamesmanship more difficult.“If everyone else feels like that’s totally cool and there’s no issue with it, then maybe I’m the one being unreasonable,” Murray said. “But I think it’s nonsense. And he knows it, as well.”Murray waits for Tsitsipas to return to their match.Elsa/Getty ImagesIn a statement, the United States Tennis Association said it “regards pace of play as an important issue in our sport,” citing its past implementation of visible serve clocks and warm-up clocks in recent years. “We need to continue to review and explore potential adjustments to the rules, whether for bathroom breaks/change of attire or other areas, that can positively impact the pace of play for our fans and ensure the fairness and integrity of the game,” the statement said.Though tennis players are generally loath to weigh in on each other’s controversies, several couldn’t resist.“Andy is right!” Milos Raonic, a Canadian who is missing the U.S. Open with a right leg injury, posted to Twitter on Monday night.Asked after his first-round win on Tuesday if he felt Novak Djokovic was the favorite to win the U.S. Open, Alexander Zverev managed to fit in a dig at Tsitsipas in his answer.“I think Stefanos can play well if he doesn’t go to the moon and back for a toilet break, that will also help,” Zverev said with a grin.Zverev had previously leveled accusations of his own at Tsitsipas during their semifinal match at the Western & Southern Open in August, accusing him of using a mobile phone off court to illegally communicate about tactics with his coach and father, Apostolos.Zverev reiterated his suspicions on Tuesday. “He’s gone for 10-plus minutes; his dad is texting on the phone,” Zverev said. “He comes out, and all of a sudden his tactic completely changed. It’s not just me but everybody saw it. The whole game plan changes. I’m like, either it’s a very magical place he goes to, or there is communication there.“But I also don’t want to disrespect him,” Zverev added. “He is a great player.”Tsitsipas denied cheating on Monday.“I have never in my career done that; I don’t know what kind of imagination it takes to go to that point,” Tsitsipas said. “That’s not something I want to take seriously because it’s absolutely ridiculous to be thinking about that.”Tsitsipas received support from the American player Reilly Opelka, who also took a lengthy break during his first-round win.“We’re hydrating a lot; we have to use the bathroom,” Opelka said. “To change — my socks, shoes, my inserts in my shoes, shorts, shirt, everything, the whole nine yards, hat — it takes five, six minutes.“If people don’t understand that, then clearly they’ve never spent a day in the life of a professional athlete or come close to it,” Opelka said.Murray, who has spent most of his days in the life of a professional athlete, ended his news conference by saying that it was a shame that a five-hour match between two top players was eclipsed by stall tactics.“I’m sitting in here after a match like that against one of the best players in the world, and rather than talking about how fantastic he is, how good he is for the game, how great it was for me that I was able to put on a performance like that after everything that’s gone on the last four years, I’m sitting in here talking about bathroom breaks and medical timeouts and delays in matches,” Murray said. “That’s rubbish. I don’t think that that’s right.”Murray complains to an official between sets.Seth Wenig/Associated Press More

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      U.S. Open Tightens Protocols, Fans Must Provide Proof of Covid Vaccination

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      Under pressure from the New York City mayor’s office, the U.S.T.A. reversed its rules for fans attending the tournament, which will have full capacity.Under pressure from Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city leaders, the United States Tennis Association reversed its lax coronavirus protocols for the upcoming U.S. Open tournament, which opens to thousands of fans on Monday.Originally, the tournament did not require any proof of vaccination or a recent negative coronavirus test for fans to enter, and there were no mask mandates, either. But the mayor’s office stepped in over the past two days and demanded stricter protocols.On Friday evening, the tournament announced on its Twitter account that proof of at least one vaccine shot would now be required for entrance to the grounds for all fans age 12 and older. No masks are required.The mayor’s office was adamant that fans entering Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest venue on the grounds of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, be vaccinated. But the U.S.T.A. took it a step further and made it a requirement for all fans entering the grounds of the tournament.“Today, the U.S.T.A. was informed that the New York City mayor’s office will be mandating proof of Covid-19 vaccination for entrance to Arthur Ashe Stadium,” the statement said. “Given the continuing evolution of the Delta variant and in keeping with our intention to put the health and safety of our fans first, the U.S.T.A. will extend the mayor’s requirement to all U.S. Open ticket holders 12 years old and older.”De Blasio was not the only city official concerned about the potential for a large coronavirus outbreak. After the tournament announced on Wednesday that no vaccines or masks would be required, Mark Levine, a City Council member from Manhattan and chair of the health committee, said he was “alarmed” that the U.S. Open could become a super spreader event, especially with so many visitors from around the world and the country visiting the tournament in Queens, and also going into Manhattan during their visits.Reached after the tournament reversed course on Friday, Levine was pleased by the reversal.“I feel enormous relief,” he said, “and it’s just in the nick of time with crowds due to arrive on Monday.”Levine pointed out that because ticket holders were only required to get one shot, they had time before the tournament started, if they were motivated to get it.“No fan is excluded unless they want to be,” he said. “This is not a draconian measure.”Tournament organizers said they would add “extra measures” to expedite the process of checking vaccination records at entry points to the grounds.The U.S.T.A. said it had developed its original protocols for fans within guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the city’s Department of Health and the mayor’s office. But since then, it said, the mayor has introduced the Key to NYC Pass, requiring patrons and employees of indoor dining, entertainment and recreation to prove that they have received at least one dose of the vaccine.The mayor was particularly concerned about fans filling up Arthur Ashe Stadium with the roof closed. The U.S.T.A. claims that the ventilation inside the stadium is sufficient for it to be considered an outdoor venue — like one of New York’s two baseball stadiums — even when the roof is closed.The mayor insisted that the U.S.T.A either mandate proof of one dose of a Covid vaccine, or keep the roof open at all times, which could have caused scheduling headaches in the event of rain.Players are not required to be vaccinated, but they are tested upon arrival at the tournament and every four days after that. If they test positive, they must withdraw from the tournament.Ticket holders who do not wish to provide proof of vaccination may seek a refund.“I feel like that should be always a personal decision, whether you want to get vaccinated or not,” said Novak Djokovic, who enters the tournament looking to become the first player, man or woman, to win a Grand Slam since Steffi Graf in 1988. “So, I’m supportive of that. Whether someone wants to get a vaccine or not, that’s completely up to them. I hope that it stays that way.” More