Tennis Lessons

to me, it's first place. But I just want to add that our senior year you got voted most improved again. You got you. You were the only player in the history of any sport to get voted most improved two years in a row. That is only I looked at him. I am a hard work No, you are my game. You know that book from Good to Great? Come on, you should write a book Most Improved. I'm Khalil Dubron Muhammad and I'm Ben Austin. Were two best friends, one black,

one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist and the better tennis player. And this is some of my best friends are in this show. We wrestle with the challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. On this episode, we're going to talk about our favorite sports, tennis.

I mean, this year's US Open was incredible in so many ways, two young women of color coming from way behind to capture the hearts and minds I'm tennis fans everywhere, and really that leads us into this fascinating discussion about women's tennis. Professional women's tennis. It's so diverse, and it's so much more diverse than other sports. How did it get that way? And what can we learn from it? Something?

Don't One of the reasons that that women's professional tennis is is really diverse and that men's professional tenants is much less so is that for women who are athletic, this is the most lucrative professional sport. There's no other sport where you can you can make money like this and p W NBA nothing. Yeah. Yeah, And just to acknowledge, people like Billy Jean King are we're part of the

effort to make that possible. Because even someone like ALTHEA Gibson, who was trailblazing in every way, uh and you know, led the game for in the mid nineteen fifties. Um, struggle financially because she she never made much money. Part of it was her amateur status when she was winning those tournaments. But you know, it's a it's a it's a tale that fortunately, in this case, we can say has led to a really positive outcome in terms of

equity for women's tennis. And if you're a young man, whether you're white or black or Hispanic or Asian or whatever. In America, you know, the menu of sports that you can go to to if you're incredibly athletic and make a lot of money is much much bigger, and tennis is sort of down the list. And yet tennis remains this predominantly white elite sport totally, and so the progress of these black women and women of color in general

is all the more stunning. Yeah. Yeah, So so let's look at what US women's tennis has actually done to become so diverse and what they still need to do. You know, you think about the Williams sisters, and you think about Sloane Stevens, you think about Coco Gough, Madison Keys. When the Williams sisters were in the US Open in twenty ten, they were the only two black women in the draw. Of one hundred and twenty eight. Yeah, in twenty twenty twelve black women were in that's a tenth

of the entire draw. Yeah. No, it's incredible, and maybe there's a lesson there about how that happened. Yeah, but we're gonna look at how much that diversity has actually changed historically very very very white space. So let's do it. Serve it up, Khalil, spin the racket, let's go. I'm not going to take it easy on you. Okay, Before we talk about some of the greatest athletes who have ever lived, let's talk about ourselves. A couple of dudes

from the South Side Chicago. Yeah. Yeah. We spend a week together this summer our families, as we do almost every summer, and what you and I end up doing is pretty much playing tennis every day like we've been we've been We've been doing this for most of our lives. Now, we've been playing tennis together for like thirty five years. That's right, that's right. We've tried to get our kids involved. You know, my two girls played youth tennis, took tennis

lessons in tennis camp. We actually have a kind of strange tennis upbringing for the rest of the country. Being on the south side of Chicago, we're kind of in this this tennis bubble where a lot of the coaches, i'd say almost all of the teaching pros, and most of the players are black. Yep. I mean we came of age in it. And this southeast part of the city that was by the nineteen seventies was just brimming with tennis activity. And I remember, I have I have

a crystal clear picture. I was probably five or six years old, and I was tagging along with my mom, who I have this total memory of her in like a total like badass tennis outfit, you know, you know, she had a cute outfit on that's right, that's right, and you know, a little little tennis skirt, and of course back then the rackets were wooden. I still remember her giving me one and uh and I asked her recently, you know, just to make sure my memory was correct,

you know, did I get it right? Was it because of her that I was first exposed to the game. And here's what she said, Yes, you were a toddler, probably four or five. Then you had to hang along. There were other children there, so it was an open area and you could play with others and you were safe, and you can watch us if you wanted to. But

you were kids, so you kind of played. So about the tender age of being you know, four or five, all the way up until I wanted to say, about eight or nine, I stuck with the game and until until I was about eight or nine. Yeah, until you were about eight or nine, until you were at the age where you had friends where you didn't have to come with me to tennis. But yes, you enjoyed it as well, and apparently so well as to the fact that you continue. Man, it's so great to hear your mom.

I mean, I think I think people would be surprised and how sweet she sounds that to hear that that her nickname was Shorty rough. Yes, yeah, she did take no stuff stuff. So there's a tennis boom, and it's interesting to think how that creeps into all parts of American life. And there is a famous tennis match that's televised in nineteen seventy five of Arthur Ash beating Jimmy Connors. Jimmy Connors plays against Arthur Ash in a very exciting final.

Despite the determination and spectacular points scoring of favorite Connors, the cool head of Arthur Ash helps him to stay on top. Arthur Ash being an African American male player, Jimmy Connors was like invincible, and he beats them in Wimbledon, and it's televised, And I think that also helps to sort of extend this boom into into Black America as well. Yeah. Yeah, Actually I asked my mom about whether she had been influenced by seeing people play tennis, and she mentioned Arthur

ashe directly. Yeah, you know, and so in our youth sort of feeding off of this boom. A tennis club opens on the South Side of Chicago. I'd be curious to hear what you think of like seeing leaders, seeing teachers, seeing coaches who are all black, and it imprints something on you, you know, it's it's not it didn't seem like a white sport, at least within that bubble. Yeah.

First of all, to even have a racquet club in your neighborhood, you know, marks our neighborhood as largely middle class, which meant we had access in a way that wouldn't be true in the vast majority of communities that were predominantly black in Chicago or anywhere else. And of course, part of you know, even talking to my mom about this is being reminded of how the southeast part of Chicago,

stretching from Hyde Park to Chatham and South Shore. You know, all these places were really for the nineteen seventies and eighties, a large pocket of black middle class communities. And out of these communities where we grew up, one of the most amazing black women tennis players emerged Katrina Adams. I mean, growing up going to the Hyde Park Racket Club, she was the best player, boy or girl that I ever saw.

You know, that was powerful to see. And she comes out of the junior tennis among us and goes out to play at Northwestern University, and then she goes on the pro circuit and she wins twenty doubles tournaments. That's amazing. And after she retires, maybe this is even more amazing. She becomes the president of the USTA, the United States Tennis Association, and she's actually just written a book about her experience. It's called Own the Arena, Getting Ahead, making

a difference, and succeeding as the only one. Yep, and you know what she means by the only one. So I went and interviewed her about diversity in women's tennis. People look at us differently. It's just an automatic thing to do, and I mean, that's just human nature. And so anytime they are doing something that's different, the first thing that comes up is race. And it shouldn't be that way because other players who are doing the same thing and behavior is the same way or even more

outrageous or whatever it is. But yet our women of color are getting blamed for different things differently. When I spoke to her, she says that she created a kind of safe space, a bubble around her, separate, you know, in all black space within the white world of tennis, this world of not having black women. Because I immediately went out there and was training and playing doubles with

Zena Garrison and Laura mcnill. I moved to Houston because I was training with them, and when you are on the tour, you are kind of isolated in your own space, your own world, and so that was my world, in my space. So I competed during the day, I did what I needed to do with them. In the evening, that was my space. Yeah, I mean, it's such a powerful reminder of the loneliness of a sport that is overwhelmingly white, and how important it was to be part

of a community, even if a small community. I think what's also fascinating is that Zena Garrison and Laurie McNeill, two black women players at that time. Yeah, yeah, two black women players who also played in a development league for the American Tennis Association, which was a professional society

for black players that started in nineteen sixteen. I mean like literally over a hundred years ago, and it was out of that world people like Arthur Ashebo even earlier, Althea Gibson, who was the first black woman to play at Forest Hills in the National Tennis Championship. She won Wimbledon in nineteen fifty seven. She'd won the French Open

the year before, in nineteen fifty six. And so they, Zina Garrison, Laurie McNeill are coming of age at a moment when we get to see them, but they also represent this incredible tradition that is also about integration itself, because the ATA birth this black talent that then enters into this larger white world. And you said, I mean

it's also about segregation. It's about complete separation that the American Tennis Association forms in many ways because black people were not allowed to play in the US Tennis Lawn Association tournaments. Yeah, I mean, if it was an actual policy that they were forbidden from playing. Yeah, all the way into the late nineteen forties. Yep. I mean. So we know about baseball, of course, and Jackie Robinson and all of this, but it just, you know, people don't

necessarily think about tennis having this parallel story. So if you think about what that means, it was huge deal when Katrina Adams and Zena Garrison anothers rose through the tennis ranks beginning in nineteen eighties, and then, of course we we jump ahead just a few years to the nineteen nineties, to the end of the nineteen nineties, Serena and Venus Williams enter the scene. She's a phenomenon and icon, a legend, ladies and gentlemen, Serena Williams, they enter like

a hurricane French Open finals. Venus and Serena Williams have made tennis history. They're the first sisters and the first African Americans ever to claim the top two spots in the world rankings. Tsunami would be better like like an entire ocean of blackness descends upon the women's tennis game. I've been working so hard. I like to be here, and I was determined to get this. And it's not just that they you know, beads and they look different.

They hit different than any other women. Venuses are a little more wild and making more noise. They hit harder, they serve harder, They go for their shots in a way that women had not gone for their shots. You know, they're returning serves and going for winners off the returns to serves, and you know today that's basically how almost all of the top women play. They literally redefined the game.

They redefine the game. I mean, and so Katrina Adams even talks about, you know, like before the william sisters and after the william sisters and this kind of transformative moment. Their record of accomplishment is just incredible. Serena is my favorite all time athlete, not favorite tennis player, not favorite female athlete. She is my favorite, my favorite all time athlete. And that's not even something you choose. It's like something

when I'm watching her, like the emotional connection. Yeah, Serena Williams and Venus, they are ready have thirty Grand Slam single titles between them, I mean, just unbelievable, and for what it's worth, three Olympic gold medals for doubles and the winning women's doubles team of all time. So it's just it's just unparalleled. And the women, the girls who were inspired by them over the next twenty years to enter tennis will sort of get into that more and more.

But tennis doesn't, this white sport does not embrace them immediately. You know that it's it's actually, you know, there's actually a kind of backlash. So that gets us to the Indian Wells Tournament in two thousand and one. So Venus and Serena are twenty and nineteen at this time, and they're supposed to play each other in the semifinals, and Venus pulls out with an injury, and the fans don't

believe that she's really injured. They think that this is like the setup because their dad, who doesn't want them to play one another. So then Serena enters the finals the next day, this nineteen year old girl, teen years old, a girl, yep, you're billions walk down and here's the crowd again, sixteen thousand white people the vast majority of them booing her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean she ends up winning in three sets, but afterwards crying for hours. Yeah,

I mean she's nineteen years old. I mean, you know, not for nothing. The scene reminds me of that Ruby Bridges moment where a six year old is integrating a New Orleans schools, you know, surrounded by an angry mob of white people escorted by US marshals. So this reminds me of a piece that Claudia Rankin wrote about Serena Williams. I recommend this book to everyone's citizens. It's a book

that's sort of both like poetry and lyric prose. And one of the chapters is about Serena and it's about well, let me just read Claudia Rankin's words, because they're better than mine. She says, what does a victorious or defeated black woman's body and a historically white space looked like? Serena and her big sister Venus Williams brought to mind Zora Neil Hurston's I feel most colored when I am

thrown against a sharp white background. Yeah, and what's so powerful in thinking about Serena Williams is she basically is like her body contains the weight of history, and so when she shows up in multiple tournaments where she just gets cheated call after call, like the two thousand and four Years Open against Jennifer Capriati, her body contains the multitudes of the racism that has been thrown at black people. Yeah.

So you mentioned the match that Serena had in two thousand and four at the US Open against Jennifer Caprioti, who is another American, white white girl. She was also a girl at that time. And it's actually, if if you can, anyone should YouTube this. It's crazy to watch. Uh, Serena is hitting shot after shot that are clearly in and they're being called out. Now why are they being called out? Is it just a bad lines judge? Is the line judge unconsciously racist? Since yeah, you know this here,

you know unconscious bias? Is she actually like racist Serena? That means not unconscious bias, that's like some form of visual impairment. Yeah, so you don't you don't know what's going on, and it's it's crazy to watch. Okay, that ball was out. What what Serena is gonna come right over to talk to the chair that was way in John way In I always defer to you, No, it was not. This is crazy, not even I mean, that's not even close. Khalil. Even hearing that again, my blood

starts to boil. I mean, Serena ends up losing this match, and in a way, the match is taken from her stolen, straight straight stolen, and not just winning the match. It's actually the thing that makes them put in electronic line calling. It's like they have to it has to solve for maybe racism. You don't have to solve for bias. You know, it's like having the court system, you know, like we can't trust human beings because they have implicit bias. That's right.

And I know this is a little this is a little far afield, But in the case of the criminal justice system so consistently railroading black people in the early twentieth century, we got such things as indigent defense because poor black people didn't have legal representation. So this, just to me is yet another instance where racism has it's such a potent force on society, even in sports, where structural changes have had to be made to accommodate or

to deal with it. The USAA later apologized for the line calling in this match and as well they should have. Yeah, they should have, and they pulled the umpire from the tournament. But you know the damage is done, right, I mean, think about the psychological toll on Serena Williams and really on any black woman who's watching the match. You know, it's that idea of not being sure of what's going on. It's like it is actually makes you a little bit crazy.

It makes you insane. Yeah, and psychologically what that is like to be As as Katrina Adams said, the only one like to sort of think at every moment is this racism? Or is that me just thinking it's racism and and not being sure? And and then when you respond to it, when you finally explode with with frustration or rage that you're labeled even more outside it. Oh, look at that. Look at that black woman's rage. You know that this sort of like stereotype that you're fulfilling.

Me in two thousand and nine, when there's a foot fall, call that everybody watching this is like what you just called a football who calls footballs at a crucial moment, Hey clear, let me just quickly define what a football is. A football is when you're serving and you step into the court across the baseline, so that white line on the on the baseline you can't step on it when you serve. And John McEnroe is watching and he says

there was no footfall, that's right. And she literally turns to the line judge who makes a call and says something like, I'm going to take this ball and stuff it down your fucking throat. Yep, ye like that. That of course right. If you hate Serena Williams, or you've got some issues with black black people in their performance of whether they're respectable or not, this is another strike against her, but it's also a powerful moment where her

where she reclaims her voice and that matters. Yeah, this is the hypocrisy of racism. Like you have to overcome all the barriers to participate in the first place. You then have to prove that you can compete at the highest level despite the fact that you've been handicapped with

all kinds of disadvantages that we've already talked about. And then when you are subject to micro and macro aggressions wherever they're coming from, and often in the case of Serena Williams's career, both people in the stands and line judges. Then you have to somehow muster some source of respectability, like some kind of cryptonite that you apply to yourself so that you can't explode with rage. But again, what

that means is you can't actually fully be human. Yeah, because any human being facing those circumstances not only would explode, but should explode, because to internalize that is a form of self death. When we come back, we're going to talk about Naomi Osaka, this amazing tennis player. She is part of the future of tennis. Are things going to be different for her than they were for all the

women who came before her? We've been talking about the Williams sisters, but let's talk about a woman that's been on the other side of the net from them. Naomi Osaka. Okay, she wins her first Grand Slam at the US Open in twenty eighteen, beating her hero, Serena Williams. You know, Serena is one of the reasons that she started playing tennis in the first place. Naomi Osaka, um, She's Haitian.

She has a Haitian father and a Japanese mother. She grew up in America, but officially she plays for Japan, right, and she was born in Japan, but they moved to Long Island near Jamaica Queen and that's where she grew up playing at a young age. Naomi Asaka is just like an amazing player. She's incredible. You know, her steely nerves, you know this sort of like quietness, but like this this power and force on the court. She's the first Asian player or ever man or woman to be number

one in the world in tennis. She's won four Grand Slam tournaments at a really young age. But one of the things that I think is really important about Naomi Yasaka at this moment is she's doing something different. She's finding a way to find the balance between being this outstanding player and recognizing that this historically white space is still challenging and it is suffocating in a way. And just this past August, in a warm up of the

US Open, she's in a press conference. Yeah, so this is this is a tournament in the United States in August and a lead up to this year's US Open. And after this Matt she says she needs to take a break from tennis. I'm not really sure why, Like I felt like I was pretty I was telling myself to be calm, but I feel like maybe there was a boiling point. Like normally I feel like I like challenges,

but recently I feel very anxious. One things don't go my way, And she's asked about her tennis, but she's also asked about an earthquake in Haiti, where her father's from. And the second one is just related to your tweet over the weekend, related to what's going on in Haiti. Um, sorry, no,

you're super good. And you know it follows. It follows the Olympics with Simone Biles, the gymnast also stepping away, and you feel, you feel the unique pressures on young athletes, young women, and young women of color that she talks about it there of you know, being representative of and for her it's like it's not just her that she's black and Asian, it's also dealing with tennis, which is like, has these unique challenges on you psychologically. It is a rigorous,

rigorous mental and physical sport. Yeah yeah, no, it's uh. I think so powerfully illustrates the limitations of being the only one in these environments where people for all sorts of reasons can't see your full humanity and bring to bear issues onto you, project their own shit onto you in ways that only illustrate how much more needs to change in professional sports, and to just to put things

in context. In the summer of George Floyd in twenty twenty, Osaka went to Minneapolis to bear witness to the protests there. She decided that, as she posted on Twitter, She's like before I'm an athlete, I'm a black woman, and as a black woman, I feel as though these these things matter and they they are more important and require my attention than tennis. She actually contributes to disrupting a tournament, the Western and Southern Open, in the wake of another

shooting of Jacob Blake. Um in that tournament was he had been shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and she says she won't play, and then the tournament says, you know you're right, will actually take a pause, Yeah, which is like, think of how radically that you know, the tennis responding to her differently than they were, say, the william sisters. You know, in a way, I mean to put this in a

kind of frame that I think is really powerful. Um, you know this is totally ironic because we started talking about people like THEA Gibson and Arthur Ashe I mean, who were literally fighting against Jim Crow America, like formal segregation. And yet if there's a if there's a strange kind of period of our childhood, which we get to the william sisters, here we are again, and Osaka's like, hold up,

wait a minute. And for her, she's like, no, no, no, no, no no. I can't play in a sport and pretend as if black people aren't dying at the hands of

the state. And so she starts wearing masks after she's in Minneapolis, and she's literally presenting herself in tournaments with COVID masks with the names of people Brianna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Jacob Blake, George Floyd and for her and how powerful for a tennis audience to see that, right, So then send the announcers and the fans have to all respond to that they are literally saying those names. That's right.

She forces folks to say their names, either because they read it in their minds or because it becomes part of a conversation in the midst of the interviews. And I think her stepping away from the sport and saying I need to deal with my mental health is also a form of empowerment. Yeah, you know, here she is in this press conference saying, I'm trying to figure out this balance of being a representative figure and having all that weight and trying to play tennis at the same time,

and I haven't figured it out. And the kind of way that we talked about a driving Serena mad crazy at times She's like, man, you know, I gotta I gotta like take a break and try to figure it out. So let's talk about this year's US Open. I mean, really incredible for so many reasons. Yes, yes, it's time. Let's talk about the finals match. So so, Mma Radakanu is a British eighteen year old. Her parents and Romanian and Chinese. She ultimately wins this this US Open, this

year's US Open final. She is this year's Grand Slam winner. Her opponent is Leila Annie Fernandez, a Canadian nineteen year old whose parents are Filipino and Ecuadorian, and she was seated seventy fifth in the tournament. Just, I mean, just wow in every possible sense, including the sense of like

seeing them, these two women of color. It feels like, you know, this is the genesis of all the things we've been talking about, you know, to see these teenagers on the center stage, here's what diversity has has wrought. That's right. Yeah, Katrina Adams actually talked about all the women of color who played the game and how they created this moment in a way for Fernandez and Radakanu. Yeah, that's right. I mean that makes me think of my own studies on how do you achieve racial equity, whether

it's sports or companies or any organization. Yeah, so what does the USTA still need to do for women's tennis to be even more diverse and inclusive? Oh? Man, that that is such a such the right question to ask. Yes, thank you, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Because because I've been thinking about this for a long time, I've been

writing about this, I've been doing this work. I run this this UH research project at Harvard that is all about how do we build infrastructure, how do we move from black first and seconds and Latinos first and seconds and in this case Asian American and multiracial first and seconds to having a sustainable culture and institutional policies and practices that don't lead to repeating the same histories that we've just talked about, the histories of segregation, racist umpiring,

and increased media scrutiny around black women athletes. And in fact, that's what you've been reporting on. You've been writing about this, You've been up close and personal with people building tennis infrastructure and in Chicago in particular. Yeah, one of the things that the USDA has been doing is they don't just work from the top down with amazing athletes like Serena and Venus and Naomi Osaka, these representative figures. They

also work from the ground up. They have this program called the National Junior Tennis and Learning Program, which has this mode of getting more rackets in people's hands. They're they're extending who gets to play tennis, right, kind of like my mama put a racket in my hand at the young age. Yeah, a new tennis facility has opened

up in our old neighborhood. So the forty seven Street Club is now closed down and a guy named Kamal Murray has opened up the Excess Tennis and Education Foundation and it is this like giant facility on the old grounds of the Robert Taylor Homes, which is twenty seven courts right, which ye, twenty seven courts. Robert Taylor was the largest public housing complex in the world, and so it was torn down and here in its place on the south side of Chicago is this tennis village. And

with the with the purpose of you know, there's more accessibility. Uh, it's local and not just not just in a recreational sense. Also that there are high level tournaments there. So rather rather than having to travel far away to see whether you're any good or the suburbs, that you can actually find out early whether you know, this is a which you might not just enjoy, but you might you know, maybe play in college and get a scholarship and maybe

even if you're good enough, be a professional player. That's right, The institutions are now facing the change that is required to sustain this momentum. And what does that change mean for what does the purposes? Yeah, what that means is that I envision for XS on the grounds of the former Robert Taylor Holmes White elite and European players coming there as part of the tour that establishes the best of the best. And why so that that's interesting because

I did see a tournament there this summer. And why do you think, why do you think that would make a difference. That makes a difference because it fundamentally challenges

assumptions and it redistributes power. It literally gives those players from the South and West sides of Chicago, or even if they're black, coming from the suburbs, or even if they're Latino agent coming to play at excess from around the city, that's their home court, that's their community and everything we've talked about where you had to leave your community in order to prove yourself. Now, non black players, white players, international players may one day be coming to

the former grounds of Robert Taylor home. They will be coming to South Chicago home of the Blues. Brother like that. That is really powerful because because that is Yeah, I'm worked up, because that is what redistributing power means. Wow, Khalil, you really uh, you really got revved up on here. I love this. This is this is how tennis affects you. This is why I was hitting overhead back to back

to back, overhead, Sam Rowling rowling cross court. And why this is so powerful for me as a model for change, because you know, if we could think of the Williams Sisters as the kind of culmination of a of an entire epic of the last fifty years. Naomi is already a bellweather of change. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I'm riding. I'm riding with you. Yeah, And I'm riding with you always, all right, all right right? Love you, man, I love you too. Some of My Best Friends Are is a

production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil, Gibron Mohammed and my best tennis buddy Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheriff Vincent ken Wood and edited by Karen Shakerji. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez. Our associate editor is Keishell Williams, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias. Our executive producers are Lee Tall Mulad and Neil LaBelle.

Special thanks to Katrina Adams and Khalil's mom Shorty Russ Right Boy Levin Don't take no stuff at Pushkin thanks to Heather Famee, Carly Migliori, John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan Avery R. Young from his amazing album Tubman. You Will definitely want to check out more of his music at his website, Avery Ryung dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin pods, and you can sign up

for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. If you love this show and we hope you do and others from Pushkin Industries, consider becoming a Pushnick. Pushnick is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for four dollars and ninety nine cents a month. Look for Pushnik exclusively on Apple podcast subscriptions only. When's the first time you ever

saw someone play lacrosse? I still haven't watched anyone play lacrosse. You've never seen it before. You've never seen I. I see I see in the neaters with these nets in their yards, but you've never actually, I've never gone to a lacrosse game.