NEW YORK _ The bigger names among them are gone from the U.S. Open now, but the wave of young women of color in elite tennis is becoming increasingly obvious. Naomi Osaka. Coco Gauff. Sloane Stephens. Madison Keys. Taylor Townsend.
And here is the thought experiment: Roughly a generation past the original impact of the Williams sisters, is this a see-it-and-be-it phenomenon? A culmination of the realization of possibilities, when Venus and Serena Williams began to dominate, not only by little black girls but also by their parents?
Also, with the Open this year unveiling a sculpture of Althea Gibson for having broken the sport's color line in the early 1950s, what took so long? And, at a tournament which named its show stadium after Arthur Ashe, who in 1968 became the first black man to win a Grand Slam tournament, why not more black men making a mark at the Open?
