Hey everyone …
• Here’s this week’s Served podcast.
• Here’s a dispatch from the Land of Wozniacki (and Ruud).
• Introducing NFL spotter Malibu Kelly Hayes …
• Huge Belgian tennis news (as if there is any other kind): The ATP Antwerp event will move to the ING Arena in Brussels.
While marveling that Ukraine and the Svitolina Foundation will host a BJK Cup tie next week in McKinney, Texas ...
There have been a lot of questions, chatter and DMs in recent weeks about the USTA, the departure of Martin Blackman and the upheaval in player development. With the WTA Finals mid-tournament, this is as good a week as any to address those queries.
• First, note to selves: We should try to have incoming USTA president Brian Vahaly on the Served podcast. Vahaly, a former pro, is the new USTA chieftain, and, right or wrong, he has been cast as the change agent and skeptic of the status quo. In my experience, he, like Blackman, is someone of integrity who wants to do right by the sport.
Here’s the deal: The USTA invests somewhere between $25 and $30 million annually in player development. (Why is an organization that makes north of $100 million from its U.S. Open TV rights alone—that’s before tickets, suites, sponsorships and Honey Deuces are accounted for—investing such a relatively paltry amount in minting players? Especially when we all accept the supposition that an American champion will drive interest and, in turn, more future revenue? A good question for another day.)
Anyway, Vahaly is leading the chorus of voices asking: How are we going to allocate this $25–$30 million? For years, a lot of these funds went to player development. That is, coaching, travel, training and making sure top players have what they need to be maximally successful as top-tier pros. Sounds reasonable. But every dollar that went to, say, subsidizing the travel and training of Jack Sock—who made more than $1 million in prize money in some years—was a dollar that wasn’t invested in junior tennis or talent spotting for that 10-year-old with superhuman hand-eye coordination.
Framed charitably: A new leadership team and board comes in, and asks: Are we allocating funds in the most efficient and effective ways possible? This is simply responsible stewardship. Asking division heads to justify their budgets? That, too, is simply responsible stewardship.
In this case, there is a lot of talk in tennis of emulating the Italian system, which is minting top players without the benefits of the revenues that come with hosting a major. The Italian system creates and funds tournaments that enable up-and-coming players to earn points—without big travel costs. The Italian system excels at finding and developing young players like Jannik Sinner, a convert from skiing. That’s a different model from the USTA. Investigating re-allocating funds to a different model, seems like a healthy exercise worth undertaking.
The less charitable explanation: When U.S. tennis is on an upswing and player after player is breaking through in the sport’s upper echelons, why cut budgets, inject chaos and make longtime, dedicated coaches and staff feel unappreciated and even demeaned? (The obligatory link to the Jose Higueras manifesto.) At a time when U.S. tennis is not only minting top pros but minting top pros who are quality people from diverse backgrounds—economically, racially and geographically—why inject chaos? When player development leaders are meeting their assigned goals (despite slashed budgets) and conducting themselves with dignity, why disempower them and cut them loose?
Some of this is the “what,” the substance and the perceived lack of data informing these decisions. Some of this is the “how,” a new slate of leaders and board members who could/should be more diplomatic and deferential to what has been achieved over the last several years.
Lew Sherr, the USTA’s capable CEO, has wisely created an advisory council to help make determinations and reach conclusions about how this player development best serves the aims of the USTA. One would hope this advisory council would rely less on anecdotes and more on data.
Without wasting money on consultants, surely there is a way to attach some empirical evidence to this quest. Unlocking talent and spotting potential is at the heart of many sports federations. If the USTA can deliver a compelling case for rebalancing the portfolio, as it were, great. If not, it seems awfully rash to mess with the current distribution of funding.
The USTA’s recent track record is, objectively, commendable. There are currently five American men in the top 25. Over the past decade, four different American women have won majors and five others have made major finals. The pushback: Dive deeper into the raw numbers and the waters get murkier. The Williams sisters took pains to avoid junior tennis. Does the USTA get to do a victory lap for their success? Did the USTA really help develop Sofia Kenin? How much credit does the USTA get to take for, say, Frances Tiafoe? The point is that an American champion doesn’t necessarily mean the player benefitted fully from the USTA.
Hi Jon,
It was interesting to read your Mount Rushmore for both genders and I'm not sure you'll get too much debate, especially on the women's side. However, I was disappointed to see you omit Monica Seles from those who just missed out. Even leaving aside the whole “What If”, this is still a player who won her first six slam finals, is the youngest French Open winner in the Open era, and at one point won seven slams out of the eight slams she entered. And all this before the age of 20!
The fact she didn't complete the career grand slam (though neither did Pete Sampras) or win as much as the others on the list will always be held against her, but it's important not to forget just how incredible she was. If you're going to laud Billie Jean King for her off-court achievements (which I do too), I think someone who came back after such a traumatic event and still managed to win another Australian Open, despite never being the same player, gets a lot of points from me.
Always a pleasure to read the mailbag,
Alex
• Thanks. Full disclosure: I take a backseat to no one in my high regard and personal fondness for Monica Seles. Your stats are accurate. And let’s also note she was a teenager at the time of the incident. Her career remains a triumph; a tragedy; and the great tennis hypothetical. How many majors would she have won at full strength and with 10 years of additional runway?
I also think that—without relinquishing empathy—we assess careers based on the factual and not the counterfactual. (“If, if, if” as another tennis Mount Rushmorian once put it.) Seles won nine majors, which is extraordinary. Who knows how many more she would have won, provided full health. But sadly that didn’t happen. And her total is half of the Chris Evert/Martina Navratilova haul and less than half of the Steffi Graff and Serena Williams haul.
If we are doing a Mount Rushmore of “credits to the sport” or “grace in the face of misfortune” or “awesome people we should admire to this day,” I would volunteer for Seles chisel duty. But based solely on accomplishment, I don’t how she knocks any of the aforementioned four off the mountain.
Maybe it's time to revisit the GOAT debate? Rafael Nadal has missed or had to retire from a combined total of 48 majors and Master 1000s due to injury. This compared to Novak Djokovic’s 14 and Roger Federer’s 25. Does this statistic factor into the GOAT analysis?
Fernando
• Thanks. You picked a peculiar time to drop this, as Djokovic withdrew from Paris last week and will not compete in Turin. But that’s a heck of a stat. And one that certainly cuts in Djokovic’s favor.
Hey Jon,
Prefacing with the fact that I truly like Andrey Rublev. He seems unusually kind and thoughtful off-court. That said, the Paris clips were just horrifying. The ATP has a duty of care to Rublev to not permit self-harm during their matches. I don’t think he can help it right now, which is hugely concerning and I’m wondering what you think the ATP can tangibly do when he’s resistant to true help? That moved me beyond words that Elina Svitolina was willing to sign with his agent post-invasion, speaks to who he truly is and how respected he is as a person. With that being said, mental illness and trauma can make good people act in very scary ways and just seeing what the possible organizational solutions are?
Best, Laura
• Thanks. I want to start with that sentence you tucked in there. I had heard a version of this, but, a few days ago, I confirmed this with the relevant parties. After the Ukraine invasion in 2022, Svitolina was in search of representation. She learned that two Russian players, Rublev and Daria Kasatkina, were clients of SeventyTwo Sports. She essentially said, I know their character and their stance on the war and we’re cool. That’s quite the character reference, given the context.
In the same way that we should resist speculating about physical injuries we have not personally diagnosed, we should probably be cautious about tossing around terms like mental illness. But Rublev’s pattern of self-harm via tennis racket is disturbing. (Aside: this seemed to get more attention from the tennis world than any match result last week.) Again, I think the ATP can reach out, recommend strategies and help, and perhaps, even therapy. However, the absence of an employer-employee relationship limits mandatory counseling.
As Laura notes, this goes into the deep recesses of Rublev’s psychology and history. A one-time lack of impulse control is one thing. Repeatedly bloodying yourself with your racket is another thing. Doing so while you are not only a top-flight player, but someone who is so well regarded and who has shown such capacity for kindness to others?… is something deeper. It was Daniil Medvedev, wise as usual, who, when asked about Rublev, said he wished his friend were better to himself. I also recalled this response to an impromptu question. Medvedev is not alone.
Hi Jon,
I'd love somebody who knows numbers and computers to work out this hypothetical. A top-20 player competes for a full year and wins exactly six games in every set he/she plays. Put another way, he/she wins every set that does not go to a tiebreaker but never wins a set that does go to a tiebreaker.
How good of a year does the pro have? Does he/she win any tournaments?
Alistair W., Toronto
• If anyone with analytics/coding skills wants to game this out, it’s an interesting question. I wonder:
A) If we need to game this out for the quality and identity of the opponent. Medvedev, for instance, wins almost 80% of his tiebreak sets. Rublev wins barely 40%.
B) Does the opponent know about this quirk? If so, wouldn’t they strategize accordingly? (If I just hold serve, I win the set. So, I can conserve energy and mental bandwidth on the return games.)
C) What, perhaps, you’re really asking: How much does a winning record in tiebreaks correlate to a winning record overall?
As long as we are here, a question I pose to the tennis knows-numbers-and-computers crowd … Is there a tennis Scorigami? That is, is there a tennis scoreline that has yet to be recorded? Has anyone, for instance, won a match 0–6, 0–6, 6–0, 6–0, 6–0?
HAVE A GOOD WEEK, EVERYONE!
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tennis Mailbag: Unpacking the USTA’s Player Development Conundrum.
