An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
This weekends Fiend at Court Unplugged series was prompted by an inquiry from the National Women’s Tennis Organization (NWTO). The specific ask was for information and suggestions from former junior players, who stepped away from the sport but returned after an extended absence.
Yesterday I traced through the improbable events that brought me back to the immediate proximity of tennis. The junior tennis career of the umpire I gave birth to brought me into regular contact with tennis and tennis facilities. However, watching tennis is not the same as playing tennis. Today we examine the next leg of the journey.
I am a lifetime member of the National Women’s Tennis Organization (NWTO). Until very recently, that organization was known as the National Women’s Senior Tennis Association. As it turns out the use of the word “Senior” was confusing or possibly off-putting to some of the organization’s prospective members. “Senior” tennis starts at a much younger age than people generally expect.
Live the Best Story of Your Life: A World Champion’s Guide to Lasting Change is a book by Bob Litwin that haunted my nightstand at the top of my “next to read” pile for well over a year. I have been simultaneously highly interested in this book, and yet also somewhat ambivalent about the book during this timeframe. In retrospect, I wish I could have mastered the mood to dive into it earlier.
I highly recommend tennis as a sport to parents who are looking to raise independent and assertive children. Tennis is the perfect environment for developing and growing problem solving abilities in kids. Due to the unique rules of tennis, players learn to stand up for themselves. It is a valuable life skill.
One key difference between USTA league and tournament match play is that in a tournament you generally have some amount of advance notice of who your opponent will be. In league play, players generally do not know who they are playing until the rosters are exchanged. The net result of that is that the scouting report culture is very different between leagues and tournaments.
Television viewership for the recently concluded US Open tennis tournament was down sharply when compared to 2019. A lot of the decline in viewership can be chalked up to the COVID-19 sports bubbles that created a glut of major sporting events taking place at the same time. The overall average tournament viewership was down 45% compared to 2019.
Casual tennis fans are probably unaware of the business organizations that underpin tennis. It is important to understand that the Womens Tennis Association (WTA) and the men’s Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) are separate business organizations. Each organization sets prize money and other compensation standards for their own tour events.
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In a recent interview on the No Challenges Remaining Podcast, one of the “Original Nine” players, Kristy Pigeon, indicated that she thought that the “Battle of the Sexes” movie accurately depicted the events of 1970. Despite that, it is important to remember that “Battle of the Sexes” was not a documentary. Creative license was exercised to weave complex events into a narrative structure to fit within a reasonable movie run length.
The tennis world very recently marked the 50 year anniversary of the “Original Nine” that signed $1 contracts that formed the basis of the women’s professional tennis tour. That seismic event does not occur without the visionary leadership and organizational savvy of Gladys Heldman. In the words of Billie Jean King, “Without Gladys Heldman, there wouldn’t be women’s professional tennis.”