Latest news with #AllEnglandLawnTennisClub
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Serena, Allyson Felix, Coach K among US Olympic Paralympic 2025 HoF class
FILE - USA's coach Mike Krzyzewski, center, wears his players gold medals as they celebrate after beating Spain 118-107 in the men's gold medal basketball game at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008. Flanking Krzyzewski is Deron Williams, left, and Jason Kidd. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic, File) FILE - Track and field runner Allyson Felix arrives at the ESPY Awards, July 20, 2022, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, file) FILE - This Aug. 4, 2012 file photo shows Serena Williams posed with her 2012 Summer Olympics gold medal during the podium ceremony of the women's singles final match at the All England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon, in London. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File) FILE - This Aug. 4, 2012 file photo shows Serena Williams posed with her 2012 Summer Olympics gold medal during the podium ceremony of the women's singles final match at the All England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon, in London. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File) FILE - USA's coach Mike Krzyzewski, center, wears his players gold medals as they celebrate after beating Spain 118-107 in the men's gold medal basketball game at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008. Flanking Krzyzewski is Deron Williams, left, and Jason Kidd. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic, File) FILE - Track and field runner Allyson Felix arrives at the ESPY Awards, July 20, 2022, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, file) FILE - This Aug. 4, 2012 file photo shows Serena Williams posed with her 2012 Summer Olympics gold medal during the podium ceremony of the women's singles final match at the All England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon, in London. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Seven-time gold-medal sprinter Allyson Felix, four-time Olympic tennis champion Serena Williams and Mike Krzyzewski, who coached the U.S. to two basketball gold medals, are part of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Hall of Fame's class of 2025. Gymnastics champion Gabby Douglas, skiing's Bode Miller, beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings and Nike founder Phil Knight are also in the group that will be inducted at a ceremony in Colorado Springs on July 12. Advertisement Others inductees are Steve Cash (sled hockey), Anita DeFrantz (longtime IOC member, rower), Susan Hagel (Para archery, Para track and field, wheelchair basketball), Flo Hyman (volleyball) and Marla Runyan (Para track and field), along with the 2010 four-man Olympic bobsled team led by Steve Holcomb, and the 2004 women's wheelchair basketball team. The Hall of Fame's inaugural class was inducted in 1983, and this will be the first class inducted since 2022. It will bring the total number of those enshrined to 210. ___ AP Summer Olympics:
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Wimbledon tennis player and coach given freedom of Isle of Wight town
A tennis player who twice made it to the fourth round of Wimbledon has been given the freedom of an Isle of Wight town. Ryde Town Council has awarded Patricia (Pat) Maclean with the Freedom of Ryde Award for Lifelong Contribution to Sport, in recognition of her contribution to tennis both as a player and coach. The award recognises Pat's life of quiet service in the Island town, and acknowledges her position as one of Ryde's most cherished residents. Read more: Rare train appearances and ales at Isle of Wight Steam Railway Island's RSPCA branch looking for new homes for nine fundraising dog statues Born on November 11, 1934, Pat is a renowned former British tennis player and proud member of the All England Lawn Tennis Club. She twice reached the fourth round of Wimbledon's singles tournament and a two-time women's doubles quarter-finalist. She also represented Great Britain in the 1954 Wightman Cup. (Image: Contributed) Beyond her time on the court, Pat dedicated her life to coaching and inspiring young athletes. Pat has passed down her wisdom and passion for the sport by mentoring young sportsmen and women and simply offering kind words of encouragement. Despite rubbing shoulders with tennis stars and celebrities on her frequent trips to Wimbledon, Pat's heart has always remained with the Ryde community. Now in her 90th year, her wisdom continues to be felt at Mead Lawn Tennis Club. She most recently went to Wimbledon in 2024 with members from the Island tennis club, watching a range of elite matches and even bumping into Cliff Richard. She is a pillar of the community and has shown a true commitment to nurturing talent, earning her respect throughout Ryde and the Island. Her actions on and off the court will be remembered for generations. The Freedom of Ryde Award acknowledges not only her sporting achievements but also the love, dedication and inspiration she has brought to the Island town. The Mayor of Ryde, Cllr Richard May, commented: "Pat Maclean's name is etched into Ryde's sporting history. "Her contribution to tennis, both nationally and within our community, has been immense. "It is a privilege to present this award to someone who has shaped so many lives with kindness and passion."
New York Times
11-02-2025
- Business
- New York Times
U.S. Open takes Grand Slam tennis to a new scheduling frontier with mixed-doubles qualifying move
For years, the biggest tournaments in tennis — Wimbledon and the U.S., French and Australian Opens — have been tiptoeing around expanding from two-week events to three. They've opened the gates for practices and matches in their qualifying tournaments. They've held charity exhibitions involving star players. Three of the four have added a day to the first round, starting their singles draws on a Sunday rather than the Monday. Advertisement And the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) is pushing a $250million (£202m) expansion plan that will allow it to bring Wimbledon qualifying to the site of the main event in south-west London, just like its three friendly Grand Slam rivals. Tuesday, the U.S. Open crossed the Rubicon by announcing that a main-draw event will take place during what has always been referred to as 'the week before the tournament' — or 'qualifying week,' or 'Fan Week,' as the marketing whizzes at the United States Tennis Association (USTA) prefer. Starting this summer, the U.S. Open's mixed-doubles tournament will take place on the Tuesday and Wednesday of that week, meaning that there will be 'real' tennis, with an eventual Grand Slam title and $1million prize on the line, five days before the men's and women's singles competitions begin for real. Lewis Sherr, chief executive of the USTA, has pushed Grand Slam tennis towards its next frontier by staging an event that will allow the New York tournament to charge real money for tickets sooner than the sport's other three majors. It will justify possible price increases for corporate suites, sponsorships, media-rights and the premium box seats that the highest-end fans buy up for the entirety of the tournament. Entry to the grounds of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is free during qualifying week. For last year's exhibition tournaments, including the 'Mixed Doubles Madness' that inspired the format for the main tournament in 2025, the cheapest tickets were $30. A USTA official said it is too early to say what the cost of entry would be for the new mixed-doubles event, which will take place in the site's main two stadiums, Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong. In an interview, Sherr made it clear he doesn't anticipate going it alone with this for long. 'I'm hopeful this becomes a new franchise and tentpole in tennis, not just at the U.S. Open, but elsewhere and throughout the year to attract more folks,' he said. The change, along with a new format including first-to-four-games (down from the traditional six) sets up until the final, is designed to attract top singles players by reducing the risk of them getting injured in mixed doubles before their main priority gets underway. It formalizes an existential quandary that has occupied doubles basically forever: from tactics and court geometry to fame and finances, it is essentially a different sport to singles. Advertisement How much tennis should embrace that difference, as opposed to fighting against it, is the essential schism at the heart of decisions like these. The USTA believes that grafting singles stardom onto the doubles court will raise the profile of the latter discipline; while some top doubles players feel they are being denied the glamor of having their own show. Pam Shriver, the 22-time Grand Slam doubles champion who won the mixed title at the 1987 French Open with Emilio Sanchez Vicario, credits Eric Butorac, a former doubles player who is now director of pro tennis operations and player relations for the USTA, for buttonholing people around the sport for ideas on what the tournament could do to improve the two-v-two experience. Shriver said she opted not to play much mixed doubles, because juggling that, singles and women's doubles was a lot. 'Given the journey doubles has taken since the end of my career, I think this (new format) makes sense,' she said Monday night. 'If you had told me I could have played mixed the week before the singles, I think I would have done it.' Austin Krajicek, a former doubles world No. 1 who reached the mixed final at the 2023 U.S. Open, said organizers basically decided to go against 100 years of history. 'It just becomes an exhibition for singles guys; which you know, that's not the worst thing,' Krajicek said. 'Those tournaments have to evolve and then look for ways to sell more tickets and make money, but to call it mixed doubles is not correct.' GO DEEPER The Grand Slam arms race and a global battle for tennis supremacy Tournament organizers have noticed that when well-known men and women team up to play doubles together — even for hit-and-giggle exhibition events — fans pack the stadiums. They show up for the 'Tiebreak Tens' charity competition at the BNP Paribas Open Indian Wells, Calif. each March. And they certainly show up for doubles when an Olympic medal is on the line. In a statement released by the USTA, Tim Bunnell, senior vice president of programming and acquisitions for leading U.S. broadcaster ESPN, called the mixed doubles tournament 'an ideal fit.' ESPN's networks will televise the event this summer, attempting to use it to build momentum for the singles main draw during an otherwise dead time of the American sports calendar in the third week of August. Advertisement Ken Solomon, who ran Tennis Channel for two decades until last year, said Monday that when that network started showing wall-to-wall coverage of qualifying week with the bells and whistles of a studio show and expert analysis, the audiences were comparable to those for ATP and WTA 1,000 tour events. 'The dual-gender star matchups actually really rate well and are very, very marketable,' Solomon wrote in a text message. 'Fans LOVE doubles, and when stars play the ratings take off.' In other words, Sherr just has to convince the right people to show up. He's hoping that won't be too hard a sell, and that, before long, he won't just have a tentpole but a full-on colony in a third Grand Slam week, that henceforth may be known as the U.S. Open's first week of three. Solomon's comments, though, forecast the next battle for this new frontier. A week of Grand Slam tennis with the pull of a 1,000-level tour event is a black hole for any smaller ATP or WTA event that happens to be going on at the same time. At some point, the men's and women's tours are likely to push back against this encroachment, perhaps by offering more lucrative events ahead of the Grand Slams to ward off the big guns' calendar imperialism. For example, the ATP has long been working toward a new top-level tournament in Saudi Arabia ahead of the Australian Open each January, against which the four majors previously entrenched themselves. Every action in tennis usually has an equal and opposite reaction.
New York Times
31-01-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Wimbledon appetite for 15-day Grand Slam is ‘zero': Tim Henman
Tim Henman, a member of the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) board, has characterized the appetite for a 15-day tournament at Wimbledon as 'zero.' Speaking to a small group of reporters at a Sky Sports Tennis event Thursday, Henman suggested that the third Grand Slam of the year would never add an extra day to its fortnight of tennis, as the U.S. Open moves to a 15-day main draw from 2025. Wimbledon only moved to 14 days from 13 days in 2022, having previously used the so-called 'Middle Sunday' as a rest day for both players and its grass courts. Advertisement 'The middle Sunday was absolutely about watering the court so it would still be alive for the latter part of the tournament,' said Henman, a four-time Wimbledon semifinalist and former world No. 4. 'It was a big decision to go to 14 days, all the research and data around that — you're looking at 80 hours of tennis on Centre Court, that's the maximum, optimal amount of time. 'I think the appetite to go to 15 days is zero, first and foremost because of the courts… From Wimbledon's point of view, 14 days for the championships is enough.' The AELTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The AELTC intends to build 39 new grass courts — including one show court — on the former Wimbledon Park golf course opposite its main site, in a bid to move qualifying from nearby Roehampton and so follow the other three majors in becoming a de facto three-week event. It has secured planning permission, but local residents have lodged legal opposition to the plans, which are not expected to be completed until the early 2030s if they go ahead. GO DEEPER Why Wimbledon wants 39 more tennis courts, and why campaigners are so opposed The French Open moved to a 15-day event as early as 2006, while the Australian Open first adopted the format for 2024. Wimbledon 2025 will be the first without line judges, marking the end of a 147-year tradition. Henman said that while he understands the knock-on effect for umpiring and officiating pathways, Wimbledon opting out of electronic line calling (ELC) as it is widely adopted across the tours would have been out of step. 'If Wimbledon were to have taken the decision to say, 'Oh no, I think we're going to keep line judges,' that would have looked very bizarre,' Henman said. All ATP Tour events will use ELC for the 2025 season, with the WTA constantly reviewing its adoption of the technology. This year's Wimbledon begins Monday June 30.
