The Tennis Docket: August 16, 2021
Billie Jean King in advance of the release of her new autobiography “All In” and other offbeat news from the world of tennis. The professional tours head to Cincinnati for the Western & Southern Open.
Signs of the Times: Get Out and Play
The July Challenge of the USTA Tennis Champions initiative was to put up yard signs to promote tennis participation. I am concentrating my efforts in my childhood hometown of Wichita Falls, Texas. It isn’t my permanent residence, but recently I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time here. Once upon a time, Wichita Falls was a tennis hotbed with an abundance of courts. Unfortunately, one of the tennis centers is currently shuttered due to lack of public interest. It’s a modern tennis tragedy.
Trivia Time: What Year was the US Open First Conducted?
Here is a great trivia question to spark conversation and, more importantly – potentially win a bar bet. If you ask a person what year the US Open tennis tournament was first held, they are likely to come up with a date in the 1880s. It is a trick question. The US Open wasn’t played until the start of the Open Era, which was 1968. Before that year, the US Open wasn’t “Open.” That may prompt the question of what came before.
The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center
The US Open is played at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Throughout her playing career, Billie Jean King was in frequent conflict with the USLTA (later USTA) and one of its most outspoken and colorful critics. As an organization, the USTA has a long history of an extremely insular culture that ostracizes dissenters. That makes the decision to say “Thank You” to Billie Jean by naming the National Tennis Center in her honor all the more momentous. That recognition of her enormous contributions to the sport was an act that was entirely out of character for the USTA.
Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s Sports
“All In: An Autobiography” of Billie Jean King will be released in five days on August 17. In the interim, I am passing the time by revisiting previously published books on her life. This week’s selection is positioned as a history book on the revolution in women’s sports. Interweaving the biography of Billie Jean King with the emergence of women’s athletics makes the history more accessible than when presented as a standalone topic. That story is virtually inseparable from the life of Billie Jean anyway.
Play On: A Kerfuffle at the Citi Open
There was a controversial ending to a first round match at the Citi Open between Australia’s Jordan Thompson and Elias Ymer, a qualifier from Sweden. The disagreement between the players got so heated that the umpire had to separate them after the match. That is something that you don’t see every day in officiated professional tennis.
1 responseTheraBand Flex Bar
The TheraBand FlexBar is recommended for rehabilitation of tennis elbow. It is also useful for preventative strength training for the wrist and elbow muscles used in striking a tennis ball. The use of a FlexBar for treatment of tennis elbow was first reported in 2009 at the annual meeting of the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine. Unlike a lot of other tennis training devices, there are solid clinical trials behind the marketing claims. If you can get past the fact that it looks like an oversized licorice stick, the FlexBar might be for you.
The Tennis Docket: August 9, 2021
As both pro circuits heads up to Canada, we consider the sustainability of the tennis ball, tennis camp water fights, and a sudden appearance of beach tennis.
Serena’s Apology
Following her loss to Naomi Osaka in the 2018 US Open Finals, Serena Williams had a lot of soul searching to do. The emotional processing following that match included her own behavior, the code violations, and ultimately the reactions of the fans. In Serena’s own words, “Finally I realized that there was only one way for me to move forward. It was time for me to apologize to the person who deserved it the most.”
The Aftermath of the 2018 US Open
Yesterday I described a twitter firestorm that erupted following disclosure that Serena Williams had constructed a Laykold tennis court at her residence prior to the 2020 US Open. Some fans felt that the USTA was providing Serena with an unfair advantage. Others speculated that the organization was trying to make amends for “stealing” the US Open Finals from her in 2018. In the aftermath of that match, the USTA started an initiative to better educate tennis fans on the rules of the sport. Based on that twitter thread, it might not be working.