The U.S. Open kicks off next week with the world watching to see if Serena Williams can complete the calendar Grand Slam for only the second time in men’s or women’s tennis over the past 45 years. Overseeing the action will be Katrina Adams, who in January was appointed CEO of the U.S. Tennis Association, which runs the Open. Adams, 47, is the first African-American, first former player and youngest person to serve as CEO of the USTA, but she eschews the trailblazer label. “Everything that I do is with a purpose and intent of wanting to make a difference,” says Adams.
Adams has been on the USTA board for 11 years and has been around the game her entire life. She had a 12-year stint as a pro where she reached career-high ranks of No. 67 in singles and No. 8 in doubles. She captured 20 career doubles titles. Adams works as a television analyst for Tennis Channel, co-hosts CBS Sports Network’s first all-female sports show “We Need To Talk” and serves as executive director of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program in New York.
USTA CEO Katrina Adams (right) poses with Caroline Wozniacki and Derek Jeter the Player’s Tribune party to celebrate women in sports. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
Adams says her main initiative as USTA head, which is a volunteer position and carries a two-year term, is to grow the Hispanic base of players. Hispanics are the fastest growing population group in the U.S., but they are lacking in the tennis world. The only American player with a Hispanic background is 59th ranked Christina McHale, who is half Cuban. “I look at the kids who are athletes in this community and see a tennis racket in their hands,” says Adams.
In one of her first acts as president, Adams created a Hispanic engagement advisory group. The idea is to go to community centers, churches and schools and bring the game to Hispanic youths. “We can’t sit back and wait for them to play tennis if they are not familiar with it or introduced to it,” she says.
The Open is the largest annually attended sporting event in the world with more than 700,000 fans invading the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center each year. The Open site is two years into a $500 million transformation that will not be completed until 2018. The most visible feature of the renovation is a retractable roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium. The structure to hold the roof is in place, but the roof itself will not be installed until next year’s Open. The roof will provide more schedule certainty for players and fans.
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Other highlights of the project include a rebuilt Louis Armstrong Stadium with a roof, a new 8,000-seat Grandstand and a doubling of retail and concession space on the grounds. Adams says the updates are a matter of “catching up to the rest of the world” with the other Grand Slam venues going through major upgrades in recent years. “It is vital we provide the facilities for our fans and our players that are comfortable and exciting and contemporary,” she says.
Adams has a first-class product to sell with the Open thanks to the strong demographics of the fans who attend. The average household income of last year’s attendees was $161,000 with 80% holding at least a bachelor’s degree. The event attracts top level sponsors American Express AXP +0.00%, Emirates and JPMorgan Chase JPM +0.00%.
Adams knows all eyes will be on defending champion Williams during this year’s Open, as she guns for a fifth straight Grand Slam title. “If she can pull this off, it would be one of the greatest things in sports,” says Adams. “She doesn’t get enough credit for being an amazing tennis player. She is the greatest player of all-time.”
American tennis, excluding Williams, has been in a slump in recent years. But Adams doesn’t think there is anything wrong with American tennis, and instead feels it is more a function of the rest of the world catching up.
The evidence is pretty damning though. Williams is the only American in the top 10 on the men’s or women’s side. The Czech Republic with 1/30th the population of the U.S. has four players ranked in the top 10 (three women and Tomas Berdych on the men’s side). Serbia and Switzerland both have multiple players in the top 10 and populations under 10 million people. American men have moved from an era of McEnroe/Connors to Agassi/Sampras to one with only a single player (John Isner) in the top 25 and nary a Grand Slam title the past dozen years. Men’s tennis was identified as the favorite sport of 4% of Americans in 1998, according to the annual Harris Poll, but has been stuck at 1-2% over the past decade.
Adams does acknowledge a couple of factors that hinder the popularity of tennis in the U.S. “A new sport is being created every day in the U.S.,” says Adams. “We have a lot more distractions and opportunities in the U.S.” Adams also points a finger at the U.S. education system. “It is difficult for our youth to want to be active when PE is taken out of our schools,” she says.
The future of American tennis does look brighter. The boy’s winner (Tommy Paul) and runner-up (Taylor Fritz) at the 2015 French Open were Americans. Michigan-born Reilly Opelka is 6 foot 10 and won the junior title at Wimbledon in July. Fritz and fellow American Michael Mmoh are the top two ranked junior players in the world. Two American girls are also ranked in the top 10.
Paul, Fritz, Opelka and Mmoh might be the future of American tennis, but for now it is all about Serena. With 48 wins in 50 matches this year, Williams is an overwhelming favorite. The Open has been the site of some of Williams’ most memorable moments: her first Grand Slam title (1999), the first Slam final between sisters in the Open-era (2001), her infamous skin-tight black catsuit (2002) and her verbal abuse of a line judge after a foot fault (2009). Expect more history to be made this year during the Open fortnight.
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