In the beginning it was Billie Jean King with her “Battle of the Sexes” and “Original 9”: red clay stars who in the late 60s were tired of playing in the same tournaments with men with prizes eight times lower, and they decided to challenge in tennis patriarchy, organizing a tournament independent of the International Federation. Prove to the world the commercial and sporting value of girls. From this act of rebellion BTA (there Women’s Tennis Association, which still brings together professional players from all over the world) and the germs of all future demands: of which there were many and in step with the needs of the world. From lgbt battles Martina Navratilova those of Venus and Serena Williams against racial discrimination in the very white circle of world tennis, until now, terrible tennis players have never ceased to drive the machine of the revolution of rights in sports, passing the baton decade after decade.
And if WTA players today have the lowest gender pay gap ever, the call to ask for more remains alive, addressed to different causes by a new generation of champions: champions of sports feminism and social justice, with multiracial backgrounds and solid reputations. a conscience capable of using racketeering and social media with equal force. For example, Corey Gauff called Koko. An African-American and the daughter of athletes (her father, her coach, was a basketball player, her mother was a sprinter), she is the youngest representative of the new wave of modern tennis: only 18 years old, thirteenth in the world ranking, she is the direct heiress of the Williams sisters. Four years ago, after signing his first major sponsorship deal with New Balance, he said he wanted to be a role model for girls, and it soon became clear. In early June 2020, on his Instagram profile, he posted a video taken at one of the protest demonstrations of the Black Lives Matters movement. “I’m here with my grandmother,” he said. “And it’s strange that I’m protesting for the same reasons you protested thirty years ago. Please contact us. If you choose silence, you choose to be on the side of the oppressors.” At the time, she was already winning titles and defeating the sacred monster of Venus Williams, and above all, she understood that tennis gave her a strategic advantage: glory. “Not everyone has the opportunity to connect with as many people as I do.”
A few months later, Naomi Osaka, then 22 years old and already number one in the world, at the US Open in New York, he took to the field, in each of his seven matches, with a different mask, bearing the name of a black man killed by police in the previous months. “Tennis is watched all over the world,” he told reporters at the awards ceremony. “For me, this is a way of spreading information: I want these names to be repeated several times. People need to start talking.” The daughter of a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, she has made racial justice one of her trending themes: participating in Black Lives Matters demonstrations in America, where she lives, and speaking out against hatred of Asians (“love what comes from hate the people who created this culture “, he wrote on social networks).
That tennis was a particularly effective mouthpiece for the movement of the waves was immediately clear to Madison Keys. The twenty-seven-year-old American, ranked seventh in the world, founded a non-profit association dedicated to empowering girls, Fearlessy Girl USA, in 2016, which has now grown into a new adventure: Kindess Wins. Always prone to cyberbullying, she launched a campaign on her social media to protect athletes from being attacked by haters: “Social media should put an end to hate messages on our accounts,” he wrote. “You can’t always win: some days are worse than others, and sometimes it hurts. Receiving death threats is unacceptable and I know it happens to athletes like me, my friends and even kids. I will continue to report on him until social media is a safe place for everyone.”
The battle that was divided Sloane Stephens, 29 years old, also American. Rising to third place in the world rankings and then plunging into a spiral of hardship, failing to repeat her best results, she faced thousands of violent messages, insults and threats. Tired of turning a blind eye, she launched an appeal on social media, which was shared by many athletes. He also founded a non-profit organization that promotes tennis to children as a means to combat poverty and marginalization. Same mission Leyla Fernandez, 19, Canadian, along with Radukan, one of the young tennis stars who combine talent and multinational background. She carries the banner of her roots: Canadian, daughter of immigrants (Ecuadorian father and Filipino mother), she achieved success at great cost to herself and her family, and today she uses her story as a tool to empower girls.
But in the battles of a new generation of tennis players, there is one thing destined to change the way the sport is played forever: the right to be fragile. That the history of tennis is paved with burnout is not a revelation today. Because, as Venus Williams says, in the end you are alone and win more with the power of the head than with the power of the body. The real novelty is to treat the head and the body in the same way. Naomi Osaka did just that last May after the French Open, speaking for the first time about “mental health” and the depression she’s suffered from for years, claiming her right to stop.
As it was, more than ten years ago, Martina Trevisan, who was number one in junior tennis but suffered from anorexia. For four years she was away from the fields, and then little by little she resumed her way, never hiding her difficulties. A few weeks ago at Roland Garros, he reached the semi-finals, winning the qualification he had been lacking since 2013 and demonstrating to the world that head and heart injuries are injuries like any other: if they are treated, they heal. The game. Install.
Source: Elle