Women’s Tennis Assn

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      Pam Shriver’s Fight to End Sex Abuse in Women’s Tennis

      by

      The 21-time Grand Slam doubles champion is doing four-way duty as a television commentator, a coach, an ally to sexual abuse survivors and an agitator for changing the game’s culture.INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — It was late in the afternoon of an early round at the BNP Paribas Open in the California desert, and Pam Shriver was having a day.There had been practice and strategy sessions with Donna Vekic, the talented 26-year-old Croat she has been helping coach since October. She had been going back and forth with Lindsay Brandon, the WTA Tour’s new director of safeguarding, the cause that has become Shriver’s focus over the past year.She was also spending time with a woman named Karen Denison Clark, who had reached out to Shriver in February as a fellow survivor of sexual abuse. Still ahead was a night match to call as a commentator for the Tennis Channel.This is how it is for Shriver these days. She was long known to fans as a 21-time Grand Slam doubles champion and a leading television analyst, but Shriver’s life changed last year when she spoke openly for the first time about the man who had coached her when she was a teenager. Don Candy, who died in 2020, was 50 years old and Shriver was 17 when the relationship moved beyond coaching. Shriver now understands that the relationship, which lasted five years, was sexually and emotionally abusive.Since she told her story, Shriver’s existence has become a test of juggling often conflicting missions. She is a leading face and voice for tennis. She is also the tip of the spear in the fight to expose abuse. She is one of the game’s few female coaches, as well as an ally for survivors of the kind of harassment she views as all too prevalent.“I don’t mind hurting women’s tennis if it means helping women tennis players,” Shriver, 60, said last week, sitting at a picnic table as fans streamed across the grounds of the BNP Paribas Open, the so-called fifth slam, with Clark beside her. “This is a tour that for decades and decades looked the other way.”She told her story, she said, because she wanted to change the culture of her sport, and the effects have already been significant.Shortly after Shriver went public, Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA Tour, announced that the organization would conduct a wholesale review of its safeguarding policies and hire its first director of safeguarding. Brandon, a lawyer, started late last year with a mandate to make the sport safer by overseeing investigations into complaints of abuse and revamping the WTA Tour’s rules and standards.At the BNP Paribas Open, her first tournament, she met with Shriver and dozens of players, and said she had spent most of her first three months on the job looking into ongoing investigations. Her first major move has been to require anyone seeking a women’s tour credential, including players and members of their support staffs, to complete a new online safeguarding education program before the French Open.After Shriver spoke with Dave Haggerty, the president of the International Tennis Federation, the organization required a wider range of people to adhere to its guidelines and strengthened its rules on prohibited behavior.Her advocacy also led to her coaching gig with Vekic, a member of the WTA Tour’s player council, when a discussion about safeguarding during a tournament in San Diego evolved into a conversation about Vekic’s play. Within weeks, Vekic had added Shriver to her coaching staff, making her one of the rare female coaches in professional tennis.Shriver, right, and coach Don Candy arriving at the airport in Sydney ahead of the Ladies Australian Indoor Classic in 1982.Antony Matheus Linsen/Fairfax Media, via Getty ImagesHer biggest impact, though, may be in her quiet conversations with current and former players about their experiences with coaches whose behavior ranged from inappropriate to abusive to possibly unlawful, conversations like the one that began with an email from Clark on Feb. 7.Like Shriver, Clark, now 65, was a top junior player in the Washington, D.C., area in the 1960s and 1970s. Shriver remembered Clark as being older and better than she was but knew nothing about why her fledgling tennis career had fizzled largely before it began. Clark kept the reason to herself for more than 30 years before telling her husband in 2006.“I thought, ‘If I file it away, and lock the cabinet, and throw away the key, it will never bother me,’” Clark said. “But then my children got older and left home, and it just had more space.”In the summer of 1973, when she was 15, a coach with a budding reputation saw Clark play at a tennis camp and sought out her parents, offering to work with their daughter. Clark had already competed in some of the most competitive age-group tournaments. Working with an up-and-coming coach felt like an opportunity.The New York Times has not been able to speak with Clark’s former coach, despite calling his mobile phone and sending several messages to an email address, to his most recent place of employment and through social media.That fall, Clark said, the coach asked her to accompany him to an adult clinic he was holding at a resort in Charlottesville, Va., where her sister was in college. On the first night, Clark said, the coach took her to the hotel bar under the guise of meeting other participants from the clinic, but they weren’t there.Clark remembers him as giving her a glass of “something brown.” She remembers stumbling along a hallway and entering the coach’s room. The next thing she remembers is coming to on the bed. She was lying on her back with her tennis skirt around her knees, and he was wiping her stomach with tissues. The coach then drove Clark to her sister’s townhouse.“I woke up the next day thinking I can’t ever tell anyone about this,” she said.She continued training with the coach for several more months, until she could barely hold her racket without shaking and her game fell apart.Clark said that holding in for decades her story of sexual abuse “made me feel like I was going crazy.”Allison Dinner for The New York TimesLast April, when Shriver told her story on “The Tennis Podcast,” Clark was listening. In December, after successfully battling breast cancer, she began to craft an email, a draft of which stayed on her computer for two months before she sent it to Shriver, who responded 90 minutes later. They traded emails and had a video call a week later, during which Clark filled in the details. She did not file a complaint at the time and said she does not intend to now. She wanted to tell her story in hopes that it might encourage other women to tell theirs.“It made me feel like I was going crazy,” Clark said as she sat beside Shriver last week.Shriver said she had felt the same way during those five years when Candy was coaching her. Her lessons from that experience are at the heart of what she has tried to convey to people like Simon and Haggerty, offering ideas on better certifying coaches and requiring players to find another coach if they become romantically involved with a current one.She urged Haggerty to make the policing of abuse the third pillar of the federation’s independent enforcement arm, the International Tennis Integrity Association, alongside doping and corruption, including match fixing.A spokesman for the I.T.F. said Friday that the organization and its safeguarding team, which includes an investigator, was committed to working “with all survivors — including Pam — to ensure that their voices and opinions are incorporated.”Shriver was hoping the tour would move more quickly than it has been, with its current promise of having a new, clear code for behavior in 2024.“That is a whole year later than what I was told,” Shriver said, donning the agitator’s hat.A 16-year-old Shriver at the U.S. Open in New York in 1978.Dave Pickoff/Associated PressShe has, though, found her first meetings with Brandon encouraging. As Shriver sees it, tennis players have led among female athletes, having long ago gained equal pay in the biggest tournaments, as well as exposure that is far beyond what women in other sports have received.The tour’s ethical code for coaches already discourages intimate relationships between coaches and players and prohibits them for players younger than 18. Brandon wants to establish a basic code of minimum standards and rules as well as “an environment where people feel safe speaking up” and don’t need to fear retaliation.The WTA declined to say how many cases were currently on its docket.At times, Shriver’s conflicting roles can be at loggerheads. During the Australian Open, she condemned on Twitter the coach of Elena Rybakina, Stefano Vukov, for his aggressive and public criticism of Rybakina from the courtside coaching box. Her posts drew a rebuke from Rybakina, who defended Vukov. There was chatter that she violated an unwritten code — that coaches don’t publicly criticize rival coaches.Still, she said that so far the juggling act had proved worthwhile, at times for unexpected reasons.At a cafe on Friday morning, Bradley Polito, the father of a 7-year-old daughter named Madeleine who is hooked on the sport, approached to introduce himself and thanked Shriver for everything she had said.Polito explained that he had no background in sports. Shriver’s story, he said, opened his eyes and drove him to make sure his daughter had a female coach.“It’s almost like a North Star for us,” he said. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Tennis

      CVC Capital Partners Will Invest $150 Million in WTA

      by

      CVC Capital Partners, the former owner of Formula 1, will take a 20 percent stake in a commercial subsidiary as the tour seeks to expand its marketing of events and players and increase prize money.SAN DIEGO — CVC Capital Partners, a global private equity firm that once owned the Formula 1 racing series and has remained a major sports investor, is joining forces with women’s professional tennis.The WTA announced Tuesday that CVC had become a commercial partner after making a $150 million investment that would give CVC a 20 percent stake in a new commercial subsidiary named WTA Ventures. The subsidiary will focus on generating revenue by managing, for example, sponsorship sales as well as broadcasting and data rights.“Hopefully this partnership will allow us to begin addressing that valley between the commercial rights that we are able to secure and the rights that the men are able to secure,” Steve Simon, the WTA’s chairman and chief executive, said in a telephone interview from Indian Wells, Calif., where the BNP Paribas Open is set to begin this week.Though prize money is equal for men and women at the four Grand Slam events, the gap in prize money for many stand-alone men’s and women’s events has widened in recent years. The chasm reached the highest levels in 20 years in 2022, with the men earning on average about 70 percent more than the women outside the majors.Last year, the ATP Finals, the season-ending championships on the men’s tour, offered $14.75 million in prize money. The equivalent women’s event, the WTA Finals, offered $5 million, with Iga Swiatek, the No. 1 women’s singles player, expressing disappointment at the disparity.The WTA has lost significant revenue because of the lack of tournaments in China. The tour had a major presence there and had signed a lucrative 10-year deal to stage the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, which offered $14 million in prize money in its first year as host in 2019. But China has canceled most professional sports events since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and the WTA suspended all Chinese tournaments in late 2021 because of the allegations of sexual assault made by Peng Shuai, a Chinese former player who remains in China.The WTA has said it will not reinstate Chinese tournaments until it can have direct contact with Peng and a full and transparent investigation is conducted by the Chinese authorities into her allegations.Simon said on Monday that neither condition had been met and that the WTA was continuing to explore a multiyear deal to stage the WTA Finals in other cities in case the China window remains closed.“We will make a decision at the end of this month how we are going to proceed,” he said.Simon said he hoped the new CVC partnership would lead to a near-term increase in prize money at tour events. “You certainly will see a plan with respect to that, which will be forthcoming,” he said.But above all, he said, CVC’s investment will allow the tour to invest more in marketing the women’s game and in producing or commissioning media programming that will raise the profiles of players and tournaments.“To tell the story and to build the brand and to get directly to the consumer, which are some of the key things I think we have to do a better job of than we do today to enhance the commercial results,” Simon said. “As we improve the commercial results, things like player compensation become a lot easier discussion.”Simon said most of the WTA’s current rights deals would expire in 2026. He declined to disclose a timetable for when the tour would receive CVC’s $150 million investment.“But it’s certainly not something that is a drip effect,” he said. “We have significant funding coming in that’s going to allow us to invest over the next several years at levels we’ve never been able to before.”Iga Swiatek, the No. 1 player in women’s singles, expressed disappointment in the disparity in the prize money offered at the ATP Finals and the WTA Finals last season.Karim Sahib/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSimon said the CVC deal was not directly linked to the lost Chinese revenue. “This hasn’t been done because of China,” he said. “I have had the concept for many years of bringing in some capital investment into our company, which I felt we needed to go to the next level.”But Simon was only recently able to get support for the move from the WTA board, and he emphasized repeatedly that the WTA still had autonomy despite the CVC deal.“The way we set all this up, WTA Tour Inc. is not touched,” he said. “The WTA still controls 100 percent all of the governance, regulatory and calendar issues.”But he acknowledged that tour and CVC officials would communicate to ensure that WTA decisions did not hurt commercial opportunities.“Absolutely we will,” he said. “But the WTA has complete control of both entities and can make the decisions it feels are in its best interest.”CVC will have no representative on the WTA board, but it will have two of the eight seats on the new WTA Ventures board, which will be chaired by Simon.CVC, based in Luxembourg, was founded in 1981 and has 25 offices worldwide and more than $100 billion under management. The WTA investment is relatively modest compared with the more than $2 billion it spent in 2021 to acquire a 10 percent stake in the commercial arm of La Liga, Spain’s leading soccer league. CVC also paid more than $700 million in 2021 to acquire the Ahmedabad cricket franchise in the Indian Premier League and about $500 million more the same year to take a 14.3 percent stake in the Six Nations rugby union series. CVC agreed to sell its controlling ownership stake in Formula 1 to the American company Liberty Media in 2016.Tennis has had some spectacular misfires with outside investors. In 1999, ISL Worldwide, a Switzerland-based marketing company, signed a 10-year agreement for $1.2 billion with the ATP that fell apart two years later. In 2018, the International Tennis Federation signed a 25-year, $3 billion deal with Kosmos, a Spanish investment group, that led to radical changes in the Davis Cup team event, but the partnership imploded this year.CVC has held talks with the ATP, but its tennis investment is only in the women’s game. For now.Simon continues to favor convergence and has even expressed interest in a merger between the ATP and the WTA at some stage.“If we can ever get to the point where we could bring it all together, this agreement with CVC allows for that to happen,” Simon said. More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Tennis

      Inside the Battle to Control, and Fix, Tennis

      by

      The sport’s hit Netflix series and rising collection of young stars has investors bullish on tennis, which is poised for a once-in-a-generation moment of disruption.Walking the grounds of Melbourne Park, where the Australian Open is in full swing, one could easily believe that all is well and peaceful in professional tennis.Stadiums are packed. Champagne flows. Players are competing for more than $53 million in prize money at a major tournament the Swiss star Roger Federer nicknamed “the happy Slam.”Behind the scenes though, over the past 18 months a coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for disruption in a sport long known for its dysfunctional management and disparate power structure.The figures include Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager and hard-core tennis hobbyist who built a tennis court atop his office tower in Midtown Manhattan. Ackman is funding a fledgling players’ organization led by the Serbian star Novak Djokovic. The group is searching for ways to grow the sport’s financial pie and the size of the players’ slice. In their ideal world, one day there might even be a major player-run event akin to a fifth Grand Slam tournament.Earlier this month, the group announced its core tenets, which include protecting player rights, securing fair compensation and improving work conditions. Players have about had it with matches that start close to midnight, end near dawn and put them at risk of injury, like Andy Murray’s second-round win in Melbourne that ended after 4 a.m. Friday. The group also announced its first eight-player executive committee, which includes some of the top young men and women in the game.There is also CVC Capital Partners, the Luxembourg-based private equity firm that has been working for months to close a $150 million equity investment in the WTA Tour that it views as a first step to becoming a prime player in tennis.Then there is Sinclair Broadcast Group, the American media conglomerate that owns the Tennis Channel, which wants to expand globally and has been trying to entice the people who run tennis to embrace that effort.All of them see tennis as uniquely positioned for growth, as a new generation of stars tries to take up the mantle of the last one, a story Netflix highlights in the new documentary series “Break Point.”“This is definitely the time to go long on tennis, 100 percent,” said Ackman, the noted short-seller best known for betting on a plunging real estate market ahead of the Great Recession. “You look at the global popularity of the sport and revenues and it is totally anomalous.”Through his philanthropic fund, the investor Bill Ackman is essentially bankrolling Novak Djokovic’s Professional Tennis Players Association, a new players’ union, and a player-controlled, for-profit entity.Elsa/Getty ImagesAckman has largely given up his noisy activist approach to investing, but tennis, he and others point out, is one of the few global sports and the only one in which men and women regularly share a tournament. That has helped it attract roughly one billion fans worldwide, with nearly equal numbers of male and female devotees.The 2023 Australian OpenThe year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 29 in Melbourne.No Spotlight, No Problem: In tennis, there is a long history of success and exposure crushing champions or sucking the joy out of them. In this Australian Open, players under the radar have gone far.Victoria Azarenka’s ‘Little Steps’: The Belarusian player took a more process-oriented approach than in the past. The outcomes were strong.Behind the Scenes: A coterie of billionaires, deep-pocketed companies and star players has engaged for months in a high-stakes battle to lead what they view as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to disrupt the sport.Endless Games: As matches stretch into the early-morning hours, players have grown concerned for their health and performance.Tennis executives estimate the sport collects roughly $2.5 billion in total revenues each year. However, it collects far less revenue per fan than other sports. The N.F.L. has a fraction of the number of fans but some $18 billion in revenues. Tennis players also receive a much smaller percentage of those revenues than athletes in other sports receive, and they have to pay for their coaches, training and much of their travel. Aside from a handful of premium events like Grand Slams and some of the Masters 1000 competitions, many tennis tournaments still have the feel of mid-tier minor league baseball.The cash crunch has been especially acute for the WTA Tour ever since it suspended its operations in China in December 2021, retaliating against a government that had seemingly silenced a Chinese player after she accused a former top government official of sexually assaulting her. The move, led by the tour chief executive Steve Simon, represented a rare moment when a major organization prioritized morals and human rights over the bottom line.China, the host country for nine tournaments, including the annual season-ending WTA Finals, had committed hundreds of millions of dollars to women’s tennis for a decade. The WTA has been hunting for new cash ever since the suspension, and with good reason. Some weeks, the disparity with the men’s tour is startling — in Auckland, New Zealand, this month, men competed for more than $700,000 in prize money while the women’s purse was $260,000.The jockeying for power has played out against the backdrop of significant infighting within men’s professional golf prompted by the debut of LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed effort to create a rival to the PGA Tour that has fractured the sport and caused some of its biggest stars to disappear from all events but the four major tournaments.The established cast of power players who run tennis — including Simon, his counterparts on the men’s pro tour, the four Grand Slams and the International Tennis Federation — have watched that unfold and worked to secure their primacy, even as they acknowledge that tennis has to change with the times.“The status quo is not an option,” said Stacey Allaster, the tournament director of the U.S. Open.Allaster, who has previously run everything from second-tier tournaments to the WTA Tour, described tennis as an “insular” sport that does not focus enough on what its fans want. “What is the road map for trial and experimenting?” Allaster asked.From left, Iga Swiatek, Stacey Allaster and Ons Jabeur after Swiatek beat Jabeur in the 2022 U.S. Open final. Allaster, the tournament’s director, said tennis has not focused enough on what fans want.Elsa/Getty ImagesAndrea Gaudenzi, the former player who is the chairman of the men’s tour, the ATP, said all the interest from private investors signaled that the sport was headed in the right direction.At a private players meeting last week in Melbourne, Gaudenzi heralded the ATP’s move to raise prize money by 21 percent, to a record $217.9 million this year. Unfortunately for the players, the ATP represents only about a quarter of the sport’s revenues. The Grand Slams collect most of the rest of the sport’s revenues, with the players’ cut at those events generally far less.Gaudenzi said his organization has had its own discussions with CVC executives but no deals are imminent.“Sometimes you need a catalyst event and someone helping you, and guiding you,” he said.That fallout from that catalyst event — the WTA’s withdrawal from China — is ongoing.The government of China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has given no indication that it will pursue a credible and transparent inquiry into the allegations from the player, Peng Shuai, which were made in November 2021 on her Chinese social media account. In November 2022, Simon called the pending deal with CVC “a very complex business decision and business move we need to work through.”CVC, which wanted to close the deal by the end of last year, has said little publicly about it. People familiar with the deal who were not authorized to discuss confidential financial information said it includes a $150 million payment for a 20 percent ownership stake in the WTA Tour.As CVC and the WTA closed in on the deal during the fall, executives with Sinclair, which acquired the Tennis Channel in 2016, expressed their growing concern that after building an international network and being one of the highest-paying partners in the sport, CVC might try to elbow out the company if it reaches a similar agreement with the ATP, some of the people said.In the short term, the women’s tour is expected to use a significant portion of the money from CVC to increase prize money for players, ensuring that men and women receive equal prize money at all the tour events they play together. That, however, will do little to produce a return for CVC, which is in this to make money.To do that during the next decade, people familiar with CVC’s thinking said, company executives want to increase collaboration with the men’s tour and hold more combined events. Then they could consolidate assets, such as media rights and sponsorships, and sell them together in hopes a combined product would fetch a significantly higher price than what each tour collects separately. That could help CVC gain a foothold within the ATP and flex its muscle.Those plans jibe with some of Gaudenzi’s priorities for the ATP, which include holding as many as nine combined events with the women’s tour, because those are the most popular with fans, creating with the Grand slams close to 200 days of the most desirable competition. The executive committee for the Professional Tennis Players Association includes Djokovic, Jabeur, the rising Spanish player Paula Badosa and Hubert Hurkacz.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe vision may break down, however, when the tours try to figure out how to divide revenue. Men know their tour is more profitable and have long resisted equal partnerships with the women’s tour.Gaudenzi said more men, especially the younger generation, understand the importance of equality and are much more open to the concept of joining forces with the women than they were when he played in the 1990s.“They understand the value, you just have to show them the business case,” he said.He added: “We are in the entertainment business, so we have to entertain people, not ourselves.”Also, the plan de-emphasizes smaller tournaments, where players can collect appearance fees. A few of those are the most successful and popular events on the tour, such as the Estoril Open on the Portuguese Riviera, where players love the packed stadiums, seaside setting and full embrace of some of the region’s wealthiest companies, as well as the country’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.Ackman said much of the maneuvering he has seen represents old-world thinking. That is partly why he aligned with the players, who have the most incentive to push for change. They are stars of the show but receive roughly 15 to 25 percent of the revenues — about half of what athletes in other sports receive.“Tennis is an oligopoly, and oligopolies are not innovative, and nonprofit ones are even less innovative,” Ackman said.Through his philanthropic fund, Ackman is helping to bankroll Djokovic’s Professional Tennis Players Association, a new players’ union, and the Winners Alliance, a player-controlled, for-profit entity, though he said he has no designs on profiting from tennis.Ackman made it clear that the P.T.P.A. was not seeking to launch a new tour, though in theory having an event like men’s golf’s annual Players Championship — considered a fifth major in some circles because of its top field and rich purse — would be appealing. He and the P.T.P.A. recently hired Ahmad Nassar, who for years ran the N.F.L. Players Association’s for-profit company, Players Inc.Nassar hopes to convince players and their agents to sign over their group licensing rights, which the Winners Alliance could in turn sell — to a video game company, a luxury hotel chain that could offer both payments and discount deals, or any number of potential corporate investors.Ahmad Nassar, hired as the executive director of the Professional Tennis Players Association, formerly ran the N.F.L. players’ union’s for-profit company.Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesThe P.T.P.A. spent much of the past six months recruiting its executive committee. The group now includes Paula Badosa, the rising Spanish player, and Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, the No. 2 women’s singles player and 2022 Wimbledon finalist who is the sport’s first major star from a Muslim country. Jabeur made it clear the organization doesn’t want any part of a golf-style dispute.“We don’t want to fight with everyone,” Jabeur said last Saturday, while expressing her determination to help the players get their due. “We just want to make our sport great.” More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in Tennis

      War and Motherhood Sidelined Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina. She’s Ready to Return.

      by

      Rather than struggling to compete on the WTA Tour most of 2022, the tennis star focused on her new daughter and raising money to help her fellow Ukrainians.Elina Svitolina, the most successful Ukrainian women’s tennis player in history, has not played tennis in 10 months.She is a new mother — her daughter, Skaï, was born in October — and Svitolina is, like many prominent Ukrainians, a crusader, focused on raising money and awareness for her embattled country.Based in Switzerland with her husband, the French tennis star Gaël Monfils, Svitolina has sensed that the wider world is losing interest in the conflict with Russia.“Here in Europe, a couple of times people came up to me and asked if there is still war going on in Ukraine,” she said in a video interview. “This was very, very sad for me to hear. I have close friends and family back in Ukraine, and I know what they are going through.”When hope and energy run low, she thinks of her 85-year-old grandmother Tamara, still in Odesa, the vibrant, strategically vital port on the Black Sea where Svitolina was born and lived in her early years.“The winter is very tough right now for Ukrainians,” Svitolina said. “Obviously, it’s very cold, and they are often without electricity and running water. My grandmother lives on the 13th floor, and she needs to walk all the way up to her apartment because she cannot use the elevator. She could get stuck, or there are no lights at all. I have many friends in different cities, and they tell me the same stories. No lights. No water. They are just sitting at home. Most of the time, the phones die after one day so you cannot connect with them.”With her grandmother and her compatriots in mind, Svitolina is using her clout to help keep the power on. An ambassador for United24, a Ukrainian fund-raising platform, she organized a gala event in Monaco in December that raised 170,000 euros, or about $181,000. She said that 57,000 euros that were raised have been earmarked for the purchase of generators for Ukrainian hospitals.“Without electricity in the hospitals, they cannot perform some essential surgeries,” she said. “Our goal for the generators is 10 million euros.” They have raised 2.9 million so far, she added. “But we need more help.”Svitolina, ranked as high as No. 3 in 2017, was a semifinalist at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2019 and has long been one of the sport’s best movers and counterpunchers. But she has not played since losing in her opening round of the Miami Open in March. Newly pregnant and reeling emotionally after the Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, she said she realized she could not continue to compete. She spent days drained or in tears and has worked with a psychologist and leaned on Monfils and her family but also benefited, she said, from time on her own, time in her own head.“I didn’t touch a racket for seven months,” she said. “I wanted to switch off from tennis. I had maybe too much because of what happened in the end of February and all the nerves and all the pressure. The tournaments I played were probably too much for me mentally, so I was really happy to switch off completely. Right now, for me the goal is to come back, but I’m sure I won’t regret that I took this time off.”Svitolina and Monfils, a luminous, acrobatic talent and intermittent top 10 men’s player, were married in 2021 and are one of the game’s power couples. But Monfils missed much of the last season with foot and heel injuries.Both are targeting comebacks in 2023. Monfils, 36, has often talked about his desire to play until age 40, but, as a new father, he has shortened that timeline. He now plans to continue at least until the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, where the tennis event will be held on the red clay at Roland Garros, the site of the French Open. Svitolina would like nothing better than to win a medal for Ukraine in those Games.But Svitolina, who only recently resumed training, is not planning on a quick return even if the back problems that troubled her before her hiatus are resolved for now.“I will try to be ready for the summer, but I try not to rush things,” she said. “Because I know I need to be very strong to be back on tour, because right now tennis is very physical. All your muscle groups need to be ready and after not playing for over seven months and not doing so much after pregnancy, of course, your body is different now. And I have to really break everything down into small pieces to put together the full strength of my body, which I will need if I want to get back to the top.”At 28, she certainly has time in a sport where more players are competing deep into their thirties and where more women also have made successful returns from childbirth, including Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka, Serena Williams and Tatjana Maria, who reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2022 after her second extended break from the game because of pregnancy.“I’m sure that they worked extremely hard to get back where they were and some of them are even better,” Svitolina said. “So that certainly gives me hope and motivation I can do the same.”Svitolina’s only contact with tennis during her break came in July, when she served as the chair umpire in an exhibition to raise funds for Ukrainian children that was organized by Iga Swiatek, the young and increasingly outspoken world No. 1 from Poland.Svitolina has appreciated Swiatek’s public support but remains disgruntled about the pro tours’ decision to allow Russian and Belarusian players to continue competing, albeit as neutrals without national identification. While Wimbledon barred the Russians and Belarusians because of the war it was an outlier and was stripped of ranking points in retaliation by both the men’s and women’s tours, who also fined the tournament and Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association.“I was shocked to see this,” she said. “The U.K., they always supported Ukrainians; they helped so many Ukrainian refugees to find new homes. I think the tours should have respected Wimbledon’s decision rather than punish them, but it’s really hard to see what will change the tours’ position, even if I don’t agree or understand it.”Through her personal foundation, she said she had been involved in helping more than 100 young Ukrainian players and their families find new training bases even if some have had to return to Ukraine. But she has no illusions about the challenge ahead and is all too aware of the destruction. She lived in her early teens in Kharkiv, recently reoccupied by Ukrainian forces but one of the cities that has suffered the most damage during the war. The arena in which she and her Ukrainian teammates once played Fed Cup matches has been destroyed by bombing.“Our athletes and our sports have been thrown back at least four or five years, because all the stadiums, all the facilities in Ukraine were destroyed,” she said. “After the war is finished, I really want to help to build a tennis center that kids can use to train. And it’s not just facilities that were destroyed. I think our kids have mentally been destroyed as well. Some of them lose their parents. Some of them are homeless. They see these explosions, these shootings. A whole generation I think mentally is really facing a big struggle.”It has been a year to rue but, for Svitolina, a year also to savor.“The most horrible year with the war and also the most happy I would say with welcoming our first baby in October,” she said. “So, it’s a mixture of everything, but we are here right now, and for me it’s just important to do everything possible every single day that I can. And for now, the goal is for the Ukrainian people to at least have a little light in their lives.” More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Tennis

      Tennis Said Goodbye to Roger Federer and Hello to Carlos Alcaraz

      by

      The game went through a lot of changes and drama this year, including an emotional farewell to Serena Williams at the U.S. Open.Right after Brandon Nakashima won the ATP’s Next Gen Finals — a year-end championship for eight elite players ages 21 and under — in Milan last month, he headed to London for a vacation with his girlfriend.Walking through the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, with its holiday lights blazing, Nakashima, 21, realized that he, too, had blazed new trails in 2022.“It’s definitely been a very interesting year,” said Nakashima, who won his first ATP title in his hometown San Diego in September and ended the season ranked in the top 50 for the first time. “A year ago, I was playing mostly [low-level] Challenger tournaments and now I’m one of the standout new players rising up to challenge the older guys. That’s pretty exciting.”Brandon Nakashima, above, had a breakout year, capturing his first ATP title in September, and ending the season ranked in the top 50 for the first time. Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesInteresting. Exciting. Melodramatic. Breathtaking. All apt descriptions of the 2022 men’s and women’s pro tennis season. With the emergence of Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz and the teary departures of Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Ashleigh Barty, it’s hard to remember a year in the sport quite like this one.When the season began in Australia in January, Covid was still a major issue. The nine-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic, whose steadfast refusal to be vaccinated for Covid-19 polarized fans worldwide, was detained for hours at the Melbourne Airport and then placed in lockdown at an immigration detention hotel.He was ultimately sent home just as the tournament was starting.With Federer in Switzerland nursing his ailing knee, Rafael Nadal, who had not won a major since the 2020 French Open, beat Daniil Medvedev for the men’s title and captured his 21st major championship, breaking a three-way tie with Federer and Djokovic.Nadal, who turned 36 in June, won his first 21 matches of the year until finally falling to Taylor Fritz in the final at Indian Wells in March. He then added a 22nd major by winning his 14th French Open.With much of the early-season drama on the men’s side, Barty, the world No. 1 and reigning Wimbledon champ, cruised through the women’s Australian Open, and became the first Aussie woman to win the title since 1978.Less than two months later, she announced her retirement, paving the way for Swiatek to become No. 1. Swiatek wasted no time in proving her worth, winning 37 consecutive matches from late February to early July and claiming her second French and first United States Opens.“I had times when I wasn’t that motivated,” Swiatek said during the year-end WTA Finals, where she lost in the semifinals to Aryna Sabalenka, who ended the year ranked No. 5. “I accept that I don’t have to feel always 100 percent motivated. But when I’m going on the court it’s still the same, I always want to win.”Serena Williams, above, gestured to the crowd at the 2022 U.S. Open after a match against Ajla Tomljanovic. Williams won two star-studded matches at the tournament, and announced her retirement after the Open.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersIf Swiatek’s rise seemed meteoric, it was nothing compared with that of Alcaraz. Still a teenager, Alcaraz began the 2022 season ranked No. 32 and ended it as the youngest year-end No. 1, at age 19. It was the first time since 2003 that someone other than Djokovic, Federer, Nadal or Andy Murray finished the season atop the ATP rankings.In all, Alcaraz won five titles, including Masters 1000s in Miami and Madrid, where he upset three of the world’s top four players: Nadal, Djokovic and Alexander Zverev.“This was really a head-scratching season,” said the former world No. 1 Jim Courier by phone last month. “It’s hard to look at the two No. 1s and not be amazed. Iga grabbed the mantle and didn’t let go. And Alcaraz, who we expected would be great, did it way ahead of schedule.“There really were three legitimate No. 1s for the men this year,” Courier added. “Carlos earned it on points, but Novak was incredible, because in spite of not playing half the year, he didn’t suffer the emotional strain from being out of the game. But, in the end, I judge No. 1 on the majors and considering that Rafa won two of them, I would think most people would want his year most of all.”There were plenty of other breakout performances. Casper Ruud reached two major finals, losing to Nadal at the French Open and Alcaraz at the U.S. Open. He was also the runner-up to Djokovic at the ATP Finals.Holger Rune, 19, went from relative obscurity to capturing 19 of his last 21 matches, including a victory over Djokovic in the final of the Paris Masters. Fritz won in Indian Wells and took Nadal to five sets in the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Frances Tiafoe beat Nadal and Andrey Rublev before falling in five exuberant sets to Alcaraz in the semifinals of the U.S. Open. And Nick Kyrgios finally reached his first major final at Wimbledon.Elena Rybakina had a breakout season this year, capturing her first major at Wimbledon.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesElena Rybakina captured her first major at Wimbledon, while Ons Jabeur delighted fans by reaching back-to-back finals at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Coco Gauff reached the final at the French Open, which helped her become, at 18, the youngest woman since 2007 to finish the year ranked in the top 10.Jessica Pegula won the WTA 1000 event in Guadalajara and ended the season ranked No. 3. And Caroline Garcia, who began the year ranked No. 74 and considering retirement, stormed back, winning four titles, including the WTA Finals, and ended up No. 4.Year-end rankings might have been different had off-court drama not intervened. Djokovic was barred from two of the four majors, yet he still managed to win five of the 11 tournaments he entered. He was 42-7 on the season.Russian and Belarusian players including Medvedev, Rublev, Sabalenka and Victoria Azarenka were barred from all tournaments in the United Kingdom because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, prompting both the ATP and the WTA to withdraw ranking points from Wimbledon, which skewed the ranking system.Team competitions flourished in 2022. Switzerland, led by Belinda Bencic, Jil Teichmann and Viktorija Golubic, won its first Billie Jean King Cup. And Canada, led by Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov, began the year by winning the ATP Cup and ended it by winning the country’s first Davis Cup.There were ups and downs this year. Dominic Thiem, the 2020 U.S. Open champion, returned after nearly a year away because of a wrist injury. Zverev had an ankle injury at the French Open and did not play for the rest of the season. And former No. 1 Simona Halep was suspended after the U.S. Open when she failed a drug test.Holger Rune celebrating after defeating Novak Djokovic in the men’s singles final at the Paris Masters. Rune had a standout season, winning 19 of his last 21 matches.Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere were tears and cheers when Serena Williams — who announced her retirement after the U.S. Open — won two star-studded night matches there, including a victory over the second-seeded Anett Kontaveit. Williams lost to Ajla Tomljanovic, but the 23-time major winner was already hinting at a possible return before she had left Arthur Ashe Stadium.But by far the most gut-wrenching moment of the year was reserved for Federer, who played his last pro match at the Laver Cup in London in September alongside Nadal, his longtime rival and friend . With hugs and tears flowing, Federer ended a 24-year career that included 20 majors:eight at Wimbledon and six Australian, five U.S. and one French Opens.“Someone who I have admired, who I have rivaled and also I have shared many beautiful things on and off the court was leaving,” Nadal said of his post-match display of emotion, in an interview with Reuters. “You know you’re not going to live that again, and a part of my life left with him. It was also the emotion of saying goodbye to someone who has been so important to our sport.”The future of the sport is now in the youthful hands of Alcaraz, Swiatek, Gauff, Rune and Ruud. But even Nakashima knows there will never be another Federer.“I grew up watching him on TV and idolizing him,” Nakashima — who still has posters of Federer and Nadal on his bedroom wall — said by phone last month. “Unfortunately, I never got to meet him. But if I did, I would just thank him for everything he’s done for our sport.” More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Tennis

      A Surprising WTA Finals Victory Mirrors the Year in Women’s Tennis

      by

      Caroline Garcia, ranked just 79th in May, won the season-ending championship and will finish at No. 4 in a year that saw Serena Williams and Ashleigh Barty retire.FORT WORTH — A sometimes shocking women’s tennis season neared an end here on Monday night with Caroline Garcia’s unexpected victory at the WTA Finals — one more surprise in a year full of them.In May, Garcia was ranked 79th in the world and was still recovering from chronic foot problems that had forced her to switch to a different brand of shoe. But the French veteran will finish the season at No. 4 after winning the biggest singles title of her career with a convincing victory, 7-6 (4), 6-4, over Aryna Sabalenka on Monday that capped a resurgent second half of the season.“I came from way back this year,” Garcia said in an interview near midnight conducted with one of her prizes — a new cowboy hat — perched on her head. “I would never have thought I’d be here today, but it was really a day-by-day project, and I progressively got more confident in my game again, and I started feeling better and better physically.”She needed all her quickness and agility to prevail in this elite tournament reserved for the top eight singles players. After losing in group play to tournament favorite Iga Swiatek, this year’s runaway No. 1, Garcia came within two points of elimination before winning her last round-robin match against Daria Kasatkina, a resourceful Russian who can defend brilliantly and likes to loop forehands and shift spins and paces.Sabalenka, a six-foot tower of power from Belarus with a large tiger tattoo on her left forearm, posed an entirely different challenge in Monday’s high-velocity final, which was full of big serves, full-cut winners and Sabalenka’s thunderous grunts. The margin for error was minimal, with both women ripping shots low over the net. Long rallies were rarer than aces and quick-strike groundstroke winners, and yet given Garcia’s yen for positioning herself inside the baseline and rushing the net, it was an eye-catching contrast in styles.An only child and self-described introvert, Garcia plays extroverted tennis: bold and often spectacular as she pounces on short balls and lunges to punch volleys or use her soft hands to generate more acute angles.“It’s true that being really sure of yourself in sports is an important factor,” she said. “But I think over the years I’ve become more mature and am more at ease with my mentality on the court, which is quite a bit different than who I am off the court, which is rather timid and reserved. It’s true I sometimes have had trouble harmonizing these two parts of my personality, but tennis helps you learn a lot about yourself, and I’ve gotten better at it this year.”More on Women and Girls in SportsHawaii Sex Discrimination: A lawsuit alleging Title IX violations at a Hawaii high school could be a landmark stress test for the law.Abuse in Women’s Soccer: The publication of the Yates Report, detailing “systemic abuse” throughout the sport, is only the beginning.Pretty in Any Color: Women’s basketball players are styling themselves how they want, because they can. Their choices also can be lucrative.Title IX’s Racial Gaps: Because race has never been part of the law, Title IX has heavily benefited white women over women of color.Though her game is high-risk, it translates to different surfaces. She was the only WTA player to win titles on clay, grass and hardcourts this year and also won the WTA Finals on the indoor court in Dickies Arena. She is the second Frenchwoman to win the season-ending singles championship since its inception in 1972, joining Amélie Mauresmo, the 2005 champion who also liked to attack and won her title in the United States.Mauresmo’s came in Los Angeles, Garcia’s in Fort Worth — a city she had barely heard of before the WTA announced it as the host less than two months before the tournament after it was moved from Shenzhen, China.“All I knew about was the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport,” Garcia said.But her first trip to Texas turned out to be a joyride, and Monday was so transcendent that she neglected to do her trademark “Fly with Caro” airplane celebration in victory.“It’s true! You’re right!” she said later when asked about it. “There was just so much emotion that I completely forgot the airplane. I’ll have to do it at the hotel or tomorrow.”Garcia’s run in Fort Worth came despite splitting with her coach Bertrand Perret, a key figure in Garcia’s revival. Perret quit shortly before the WTA Finals.“These last few weeks, there have been problems, and they ended up ruining the atmosphere,” he told L’Équipe, the French sports publication. “I do this job for pleasure and there was less of it.”Perret did not elaborate other than to say he had no problem with Garcia herself.Instead of folding, Garcia quickly rebuilt, arriving at the WTA Finals with a coaching consultant, Juan Pablo Guzman, and her parents, Louis-Paul and Mylène; Louis-Paul, long the architect of his daughter’s career, served again as the principal coach for the week.“Of course it was unexpected and complicated to handle,” Caroline Garcia said of Perret’s resignation. “I tried to rebound and keep in mind all the good memories we made this year and all we had worked on.”Much has changed this year in the women’s game. The season began with Ashleigh Barty entrenched at No. 1 after winning her home Grand Slam tournament, the Australian Open, in January.In March, without playing another match, Barty shocked the tennis world by announcing her retirement from competition at age 25. Though ruling out a comeback seems imprudent considering how many tennis retirements have come undone through the decades, Barty insisted this week that she meant it. “You can never say never, but no,” she said of a comeback in an interview in Melbourne with the Australian Associated Press. “No, no, no. I’m done.”This was also the year that Serena Williams, now 41, likely bid farewell to the game that she once dominated, playing in her farewell U.S. Open and showing flashes of long-ago form in reaching the third round.Garcia made her deepest run yet at a major in that event, advancing to the U.S. Open semifinals before losing to Ons Jabeur in straight sets. Though Garcia had struggled to recapture that form in recent weeks, she said she used her U.S. Open disappointment for fuel in Fort Worth.“I think that experience served me well today,” Garcia said.She served magnificently in the final, never facing a break point and repeatedly coming up with aces and service winners on pivotal points to keep Sabalenka, a streaky and aggressive returner, from building momentum.Garcia, ranked just 79th in May, will finish the season No. 4.Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesGarcia’s toughest service game came last, but though Sabalenka saved a match point with a backhand winner and pushed Garcia to deuce, Sabalenka could not generate a break point. When Sabalenka’s last forehand missed, Garcia tumbled to the court with delight while Sabalenka smacked her racket twice in anger on the indoor court. She embraced Garcia at the net and then took a seat, covered her head with a white towel and sobbed at length.Though she began the year ranked No. 2 in the world, Sabalenka failed to win a tournament in 2022 and was banned from Wimbledon, like all players from Russia and Belarus, because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The WTA Tour took a more inclusive tack, allowing those players to compete as neutrals, and they had a strong finish in Fort Worth, with Veronika Kudermetova of Russia teaming up with Elise Mertens of Belgium to win the women’s doubles title.The war continues, but Steve Simon, the WTA chairman and chief executive, said the tour intends to keep the door open for Russian and Belarusian players to compete as individuals in 2023 and will push for Wimbledon to restore access, as well.“We can’t condemn strongly enough the reprehensible actions of Russia against Ukraine,” Simon said. “But we will continue to stand for that principle, which is that our athletes need to be able to compete if they qualify for entry, irrespective of where they’re from.”Russia and Belarus are banned from team competitions, however, meaning that Sabalenka’s and Kudermetova’s seasons are over. Garcia will return to France to play in a playoff for the Billie Jean King Cup against the Netherlands, with matches in Le Portel on Friday and Saturday.She might not take off her cowboy hat until then.“It’s a nice souvenir,” she said Monday night. “And I got one just after I arrived here, so now I have two.” More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Tennis

      WTA Chief Talks Money, China and Why Tennis Needs More Female Coaches

      by

      Even without China’s “zero-Covid” policy, Steve Simon said that unresolved concerns about Peng Shuai would keep women’s tennis away from Shenzhen and a lucrative 10-year-deal to stage the Finals.FORT WORTH — The WTA Finals, the elite season-ending women’s tennis tournament, was supposed to take place in Shenzhen, China, for 10 years and fill the WTA’s coffers.It has not worked out as planned.China’s “zero-Covid” policy continues to keep nearly all international sports events out of the country. Even if China did reopen, women’s tennis has suspended all tournaments in the country, once one of its key markets, because of unresolved concerns about the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, who last year accused a former top Chinese government official of sexual assault.“We’ve made a strong stand, and we stand behind that stance, and we’re not going to compromise our principles,” Steve Simon, the WTA’s chairman and chief executive, said in an interview. “Clearly when we did it, we understood eyes wide open what it could mean.”Last year’s WTA Finals were moved to Guadalajara, Mexico. This year’s event, which was scheduled to finish on Monday night, was staged on short notice at the 14,000-seat Dickies Arena in Fort Worth with attendance that built from woefully low early in the tournament to modest, but enthusiastic, crowds of close to 6,000 in some of the later sessions.Some coaches and players, including No. 1 Iga Swiatek, said they understood the challenges but were disappointed with the turnout. Swiatek, who was defeated by the seventh-ranked Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals on Sunday, also cited the big gap in prize money between the WTA Finals, which offers $5 million, and the equivalent men’s tournament, the ATP Finals, which starts Sunday in Turin, Italy, and will offer an event record $14.75 million. The 2019 WTA Finals, the only time the tournament was held so far in Shenzhen, offered $14 million in prize money, which was $5 million more than the 2019 men’s event in London.“It’s just pretty sad the WTA kind of got hit by Covid and by not having the place to play before and organize everything properly,” Swiatek said. “But on the other hand, you have an example in the ATP that they were able to do everything and even increase the prize money. So, hopefully for next time, we’re going to be kind of more prepared.”But the ATP did not bank as heavily on China, and at this stage it seems unlikely the WTA will soon return to the country where it staged nine tournaments in 2019. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, doubled down on the “zero Covid” policy last month, and Simon reaffirmed in Fort Worth that the tour’s suspension of tournaments in China will not be lifted until there is a credible and transparent inquiry into Peng’s allegations, which were made in November 2021 on her Chinese social media account, as well as a chance for tour officials to communicate with her independently.“We’re still in the same place,” Simon said. “If they come forward with something else we should look at, of course we are open to it. But we haven’t seen it so far. I’m hopeful we do find a resolution. That’s the goal, to find the right resolution. What’s the truth? Then we can move forward.”Peng, a 2014 U.S. Open singles semifinalist who made public appearances during the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February, has since recanted the assault allegations, citing a misunderstanding. Now 36, she announced her retirement earlier this year. But the WTA remains unconvinced that she is able to act and speak freely and it has still not been able to make direct contact with her.“We know she’s safe, and she’s in Beijing and doing OK,” Simon said. “We haven’t spoken directly with her.”If the stalemate continues, Simon said the tour would seek a longer-term solution for the Finals, which have traditionally been a key revenue stream. Instead, the WTA was obliged to provide the $5 million in prize money in Guadalajara and again in Fort Worth: quite a downturn from Shenzhen providing it all in 2019.“It’s just pretty sad the WTA kind of got hit by Covid and by not having the place to play before and organize everything properly,” No. 1 Iga Swiatek said.Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty ImagesSimon said there was more interest from prospective cities in staging the event on a multiyear basis because of the economics. He said securing sites for a single year has been a challenge despite going to market in March this year. Though Fort Worth and its modern arena were welcome, announcing it so late in the season made it difficult to promote (as did football season in Texas).“We’re not going to continue to do these one-year decisions,” Simon said. “It’s not sustainable. If it looks like we can’t go back to China or aren’t ready to go back, then I do think we will carve out a multiyear situation, because we need to for the business.”The WTA signed a new title sponsor, Hologic, in 2022 that provided crucial funding, some of it up front, but the tour continues to seek other investors and is now in exclusive and advanced negotiations with CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Luxembourg that could take a stake in the tour and help address the prize-money gap that Swiatek complained about.“It’s just a very complex business decision and business move we need to work through,” said Simon, emphasizing that the deal, if concluded, would not further complicate the governance of a sport already awash in governing bodies.Though the four Grand Slam tournaments and several other top-tier combined events, like the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., offer equal prize money to men and women, the gap has widened between many stand-alone men’s and women’s events.“When are people going to start stepping up and actually following through?” Simon said. “They are saying one thing about support of women athletes and sports and leagues and the need to invest, but when it comes to actually stepping up and treating it the same way and investing that isn’t happening.”Though a merger with the ATP, an idea floated most recently during tennis’ hiatus in 2020 at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, has not materialized, there is increased cooperation, symbolized by the United Cup, the new men’s and women’s team event in Australia in January that was formerly the men’s only ATP Cup and will lead in to the Australian Open.But major equity issues remain, including the persistent dearth of women in coaching. The WTA said that there are only six working full time with the top 100 WTA singles players and top 50 doubles players. The issue is complex. Women have traditionally been more resistant to the year-round travel, and male coaches often still serve as hitting partners for female pros, thus fulfilling two roles and saving money. But Simon sees bias as well, and the WTA launched an initiative last week to increase those paltry numbers, offering an online certification course and opportunities to shadow coaches and players during tournaments.“I think you’re dealing again with one of those stigmas,” Simon said. “Hopefully we can recruit and get more women after they finish playing or they’ve gone through the coaching ranks that they will continue to rise and become a part of the tour.”Simon said the WTA will also soon appoint a new director of safeguarding: a topic at the forefront of women’s sports with last month’s investigative report on the National Women’s Soccer League revealing widespread sexual misconduct and coercion by coaches.In tennis, Pierre Bouteyre, a former coach of the leading French tennis player Fiona Ferro, was charged earlier this year in France with rape and sexual assault against Ferro when she was a teenager.“It’s a critical issue to the tour, and it goes way beyond sport,” Simon said of protecting players from abuse.The WTA has existing programs focused on player education and background checks and credentialing for coaches. But Simon and other tennis leaders believe the sport should do much more collectively. He said the International Tennis Integrity Agency, the independent body that investigates doping and corruption in the game, could add safeguarding to its portfolio.“It’s exploratory for now but serious,” said Simon, who said involving the agency would allow coordinated oversight across the “entire sport” from the junior level to the pro tour.“That’s not the case now, everyone is doing their own thing to the best they can,” Simon said. “One of the education pieces is we need to help ourselves. If you see it, you need to report it, so we can react to it versus just dealing with rumors, because it’s such a sensitive topic, and it’s hard to get people to come forward.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Tennis

      Jessica Pegula Is Peaking Just in Time for the WTA Finals

      by

      After winning her second career singles title a week ago, the American player with world-class timing on the court has found herself the world No. 3.The tennis partnership between Jessica Pegula and David Witt got off to a roaring start. Only a few days after their first practice session, Pegula arrived in Washington, D.C., for the Citi Open with Witt, her new coach, and went on to win her first WTA singles title.That was in 2019, when Pegula was ranked No. 79 and still learning to trust her body and talent after major knee and hip injuries.“In the beginning, it was more me pounding it into her head that she’s really good,” Witt said. “And that she can beat these people and that there’s nobody better and whether they are top 10 or 20, it doesn’t matter.”Three years later, Pegula is a genuine member of the tennis elite: at No. 3 in the world in singles a week after winning her second career singles title in Guadalajara, Mexico, and beating four former Grand Slam singles champions along the way.The top-ranked American, Pegula is one of the headliners of the WTA Finals — the year-end championships of the women’s tour, reserved for the top eight players — beginning Monday in Fort Worth. It will be her first appearance in the exclusive event, and that has extra resonance for Pegula because it comes at the relatively advanced tennis age of 28.“Of course, I would have liked success younger, but I don’t know if it would have panned out the same,” she said in a recent interview. “I don’t think it would have. So, I’m particularly appreciative of it now. If I didn’t go through all the stuff I went through, I don’t think I would have developed the kind of strength that I think I used to help me do well now.”Pegula comes from an overachieving family. Her parents are Terry and Kim Pegula, the billionaire owners of the N.F.L.’s Buffalo Bills and N.H.L.’s Buffalo Sabres. Terry Pegula made a fortune in natural gas and real estate and married Kim, who was born in South Korea but abandoned by her biological parents and later adopted at age 5 by a family in the United States.“I think my mom was left on police station steps,” Jessica Pegula said. “It’s a crazy story. It could be like a movie.”Kim has been facing significant health issues since the summer, which the Pegulas have acknowledged publicly without providing details. Jessica, tearing up, dedicated her victory in Guadalajara to her mother.“My mom always kind of joked I was the first sports team as far as helping me with my tennis career growing up,” Pegula told reporters in Guadalajara. “I definitely wanted to dedicate it to her. She’s had a really tough year. I know she was watching.”Pegula after defeating Maria Sakkari at the Guadalajara Open.Ulises Ruiz/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPegula plans on giving her mother plenty more tennis to watch in the next two weeks. After the WTA Finals, she will travel to Glasgow to lead the United States in the finals of the Billie Jean King Cup team event.It will be a grueling finish to a busy season, one that No. 1 Iga Swiatek will not attempt. Swiatek declined to play in the King Cup finals for Poland, explaining that the tight, intercontinental turnaround put her at risk of an injury.Pegula agrees that the scheduling is far from ideal. She wants the team experience she missed last year when she had to withdraw from the King Cup finals; she tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after her wedding to Taylor Gahagen in October and had to spend what she called “a Covid honeymoon” at home in Boca Raton, Fla.“I definitely want to go,” she said of Glasgow. “I think it’s a good problem to have if I’m in the finals of both. So, it’ll be a tough turnaround, but it’s a tough two weeks and then I’m done. It’s like a reward.”Pegula’s best season has been about juggling it all: newfound success, newlywed life, her skin-care business and a spot on the WTA player council in the midst of a politically and financially fraught time for the tour.She is eager to develop skills that could translate into a role with her family’s sports franchises after her tennis career is finished. She said she has learned to feel at home outside her comfort zone.“Player council, I was really nervous,” she said. “I didn’t know if I knew enough, but I felt that if I was afraid to do it, then I should probably do it. I like to put myself out there and learn through different experiences. At one point, I’m probably going to have to say no, but I like saying yes, and my mom always told me to say yes and to do a lot of things and put yourself in different situations too.”Her agenda will be packed again this week. Pegula has qualified in singles and in doubles with Coco Gauff, her 18-year-old compatriot. Pegula and Gauff, who is ranked No. 4 in singles, are the only competitors playing both events in Fort Worth.Pegula and Gauff each extol the benefits of playing both events regularly on tour for fine-tuning their games and lifting some of the pressure from the singles result. They have teamed up to win three doubles titles in 2022, also reaching the French Open final.Asked for one word that summed up her partner, Gauff thought for a while before settling on “resilient.”That rings true despite Pegula’s privileged upbringing, which alleviated concerns about the training and traveling costs that pose obstacles for many other tennis talents.“It doesn’t matter how much money you have,” Witt said. “It’s something inside that drives you to want to win. A lot of people probably say, she doesn’t have to play tennis, but what would somebody do to satisfy that competitiveness if they didn’t play a sport or challenge themselves with something? I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there that would have never thought in a million years that Jessica would be top 10 or top five. But they don’t know her as a person. They don’t know how hard she works.”Witt, a 6-foot-3 former touring pro from Florida who had a huge serve and forehand, struggled to duplicate his junior success on the main circuit. But he has now proved himself twice as a top-drawer coach, working with Venus Williams, first as a hitting partner and then as a coach, for 11 years before they split at the end of the 2018 season.Dave Witt coached Venus Williams for 11 years before they split in 2018.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesPegula and Witt clicked from the start; they have become regular golfing partners and often travel without any other support team members.“Dave’s very calm, laid back a little bit, but at the same time super competitive,” Pegula said. “He’s a good fit for me because I’m kind of similar. Not a lot of things get me fired up or revved up, but I’m also very competitive. A lot of times growing up, I didn’t really know how to balance that. It was like, ‘You need to show more emotion.’ But that’s not me.”Pegula is not an explosive, acrobatic mover like Gauff or Swiatek; she’s not a flashy shotmaker like No. 2 Ons Jabeur. But Pegula is a clean hitter with world-class timing and plenty of pop in her groundstrokes and improved serve. Unlike some baseline bashers, she also has a Plan B and C and is ever more comfortable at net. In Witt’s view, her even-keel approach (with the exception of the occasional thrown racket) allows her to channel her energy effectively during matches. Her progress with Witt has been steady and increasingly heady. She was ranked No. 62 at the end of 2020 and No. 18 at the end of 2021 after reaching her first major quarterfinal that year at the Australian Open. She is now within range of the No. 2 ranking after reaching three more Grand Slam quarterfinals in 2022, losing to the eventual champion in all three — including another loss to Swiatek at the U.S. Open in September, after which she sipped a beer in a downbeat post-match news conference.Pegula now expects more. The thought of winning a major singles title still makes her uncomfortable, but that seems all the more reason to increase the pace of the chase. Stagnation, as Novak Djokovic once said, is regression.“Exactly,” Pegula said. “That’s perfect.” More