An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
“All In: An AutoBiography” by Billie Jean King was released two days ago. I am in the middle of a very busy week at work and haven’t yet completed my initial reading. Last weekend, in anticipation that I would not be able to turn around a review in two days, I hedged my bets by rewatching the “Battle of the Sexes” movie starring Emma Stone as Billie Jean King and Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs. My review of “All In” will run next Thursday.
There was an unusual call last week in a match between Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Bublik. Medvedev lost a point for apologizing to Bublik after almost decapitating him with an overhead. Miraculously, Bublik got a racquet on the ball and returned it. The umpire called hindrance on Medvedev for saying “Sorry” when the point was still in play.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
In 2020 the USTA changed the the court surface used for the US Open from DecoTurf to Laykold. It marked the first time the manufacturer of the surface had changed for the tournament since 1978. As a new surface for that venue, the players really didn’t know what to expect with one exception. Serena Williams had the court at her home in Florida resurfaced with Laykold.
I am counting down the days until the release of “All In: An Autobiography” of Billie Jean King which drops on August 17. In the meantime, I am revisiting previously published books on her life. First up is another autobiography, “Billie Jean” that was published in 1974. That work captures the chaos of the early days of the WTA as well as that moment when Billie Jean arrived at the realization that she was much more than “just a tennis player.”
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