The man in charge of women’s professional tennis, Steve Simon, has been sitting close enough to the action at the season-ending WTA Finals this week — from a seat in front of the front row, as courtside as can be — that a player easily could wander over for a mid-match chat.
Hasn’t happened. Probably won’t, of course. Simon does say he interacts with the sport’s athletes plenty year-round — “I’m not pen pals with all of them, per se; I’m not going to flop down on the sofa next to them, per se ... but I think we have a good relationship” — and listens to their concerns, many of which lately can be summed up by one particular word.
