Black voices, Black lives, Black players in focus

In this unique edition of the US Open, there are no fans in the stands.

But in the front rows of Arthur Ashe Stadium, there are Black faces. An art installation called “Black Lives to the Front” places Black people, and social issues, in a place and sport where they haven’t always been center stage.

This is a uniquely important—and unusually fraught—moment for American society. The Black Lives Matter movement has asserted itself in response to racially motivated police violence, unequal treatment and systemic racism, and people across the globe are paying attention and doing their own soul-searching.

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The sports world, from the NBA to NASCAR, has not remained on the sidelines. Professional tennis players—particularly players of color—are speaking out about issues that affect them and all people of color.

Fittingly, it is largely the younger generation taking up the megaphone—or, perhaps more appropriate for their ages, the digital equivalents: Twitter and Instagram.

Naomi Osaka, Francis Tiafoe, Coco Gauff and Felix Auger-Aliassime, who range in age from 16 to 22, have seized the podium to make plain what the moment means to them, both in the larger context and as regards to the tennis tour that provides their livelihoods.

There have been pioneering Black tennis champions and activists going back decades, of course: Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson, Yannick Noah and the groundbreaking Williams’ sisters, Serena and Venus.

Today, players’ voices are amplified. It helps that Black players are much less of a rarity today in professional tennis than in past decades. In the draws of this year’s edition of the 2020 US Open, there were 16 players either Black or multiracial, including 12 on the women’s side. That second figure is nearly 10 percent of the field.

Sloane Stephens, 27, the 2017 US Open champion, noted what those numbers meant for the game. “I think it's an amazing opportunity right now to get more people of color in this sport, because you can see now there are so many amazing players playing and it's a good opportunity for us.”

The main question that follows for tennis is: Can the increased presence and visibility of Black players and players of color translate into the sport taking a leading role on issues of social and cultural import?

Tennis has long been regarded as the ultimate country-club—read: white—sport. And despite those few earlier trailblazers, it has not always provided the most hospitable environment for Black players.

Just ask the Williams sisters, who came up from Compton, Calif., outside traditional elite tennis academies and ended up radically changing the sport. Over two decades, the Williamses have endured their share of racial animus directed at them, and they no doubt feel as though they have been treated differently than the white players they compete with and against.

Nevertheless, they persisted. And tennis is a better, more inclusive sport because of them.

Clearly, the foundation has shifted. When Serena and Venus came on the scene, they didn’t benefit from the wider sense of permission that Black athletes have fought to win today. Obviously, there remains resistance on the part of some, but that doesn’t nullify their amplified voices.

The burgeoning numbers of young Black players on tour is due largely to the inroads, monumental achievements and global star power of the Williams sisters.

The dictum “you have to see it to be it” applies. An entire generation of budding athletes has seen the Williams sisters not just competing in but revolutionizing a global sport, while staying doggedly true to themselves.

The men don’t yet have those superstar role models of color, although America’s Tiafoe and Canada’s Auger-Aliassime are working on it, with Tiafoe in particular taking a leading role in this year’s resounding outcry against social injustice.

Osaka, the 2018 US Open champion and one of the most high-profile (not to mention highest-paid) female athletes in the world, has led the charge this summer. At the Western & Southern Open tournament the week before the US Open, Osaka chose not to play her semifinal match, out of solidarity with other professional athletes and those protesting the most recent police incident, the shooting of unarmed Jacob Blake in the back, in Kenosha, Wis. Osaka also traveled to Minneapolis this summer to join protests and visit the site of the police killing of George Floyd.

"Before I am an athlete, I am a Black woman,” Osaka wrote on social media. “And as a Black woman I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand that need immediate attention, rather than watching me play tennis... if I can get a conversation started in a majority white sport, I consider that a step in the right direction.”

At the US Open, Osaka—now back in the final—has taken the court every match in a different face mask emblazoned with the name of a Black person who has been the victim of unwarranted violence. The 22-year-old said she brought seven masks, one for each match if she were to make it to the final. “It’s sad that seven masks isn’t enough [to represent all the people unjustly killed],” she said after winning her first match in Flushing.

“I just want to spread awareness,” said Osaka. “I'm aware that tennis is watched all over the world, and maybe there is someone that doesn't know Breonna Taylor's story. Maybe they'll, like, Google it or something.”

That Osaka is the daughter of a Haitian father and a Japanese mother and plays for Japan has not caused her to shy away from issues roiling American society.

Of course, the issues Osaka and others are responding to aren’t exclusively American. They are matters of global concern, though the events this spring and summer that pushed Black Lives Matter to the front pages—the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and the recent shooting of Jacob Blake, among others—happened on American soil.

Tiafoe, the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone who grew up playing tennis at a club where his father was in charge of maintenance, took to the court at the US Open—where he reached a career-best fourth round—wearing a Black Lives Matter mask and “Say Her Name” (referring to Breonna Taylor) written in marker on his shoes.

Tiafoe has taken on the role of mentor to young players of color, including the Washington, D.C., natives Hailey Baptiste and Robin Montgomery (both of whom were awarded wild cards to enter the US Open).

"It's huge—they know you both came up the mud, like I like to call it," said Tiafoe. "You both came up the mud, came up from tough times, going somewhere you never thought in a million years could ever happen.”

Tiafoe, 22, and ranked No. 82 in the world, is keenly aware of the moment. “I mean, obviously it's crazy what's going on in the world right now. It's sad. It's not right. Because we definitely matter. We definitely mean just as much as the person to the right or left of us.”

“It starts with young guys, starts with our communities, starts with representation, you know, really helping people of color. And especially being African-American, it's not just about taking care of yourself and your family anymore.”

“It's about taking care of your communities, taking care of—just putting African-Americans in a position to win,” said Tiafoe.

Gauff, the teenage phenom who caused a sensation at last year’s US Open, made another splash earlier this summer when the 16-year-old gave a moving, eloquent speech at a peaceful protest in her hometown of Delray Beach, Fla., after the murder of George Floyd.

Following her grandmother to the microphone, she said, “I think it’s sad that I’m here protesting the same thing she did 50-plus years ago.”

“I’ve spent all week trying to educate my non-Black friends on how they can help the movement,” Gauff declared. Though not yet of voting age, the Floridian encouraged everyone to take action and vote. “It’s in your hands to vote: for my future, for my brother’s future and for your future.”

“No matter how big or small your platform, you need to use your voice.”

Addressing her age group, some of whom might think “this is not my problem,” Gauff had a heady riposte: “If you listen to Black music, if you like Black culture, if you have Black friends, then this is your fight, too.”

“I was 8 years old when Trayvon Martin was killed. Why am I here at 16 still demanding change?”

Auger-Aliassime, the fast-rising Canadian (whose father is from Togo), advanced to the fourth round at the US Open for the first time.

“Seeing players from different ethnicities, different backgrounds reaching later stages of tournaments like these, I think it's a really good example for the people watching us,” he said.

Though only 20, the Canadian grasps his responsibility as a role model. “You want to send out a good message. You hope that you're leading by example, that kids, in you, they see belief, that you can reach that whatever city, country you come from, whatever neighborhood you come from.”

“Tennis has to be open to everyone,” he continued. “Maybe here in the U.S. it's not the most popular sport compared to basketball or football. Frances [Tiafoe] is doing a great thing in his hometown with the academy there. You see kids coming from all the different neighborhoods, different communities, playing tennis, reaching for a racquet. I think that's a good thing.”

“Now we're seeing change and we're seeing different faces on the tour. I'm glad to be part of that,” he added.

In a tennis complex named for Billie Jean King, where the main stadium carries the name of Arthur Ashe, and at its entrance is a statue of Althea Gibson, it is fitting that tennis, at last, ranks inclusion and diversity as fundamental goals. Ironically, this event, which didn’t have a Black participant before Althea Gibson broke the color barrier in 1950—participation that came only after the lobbying of the ATA and former champion Alice Marble—may now be one of the launching pads in sports for societal change.

Ashe, like King and Gibson, was both champion and activist. He dedicated his life away from the court to social change.

The first Black man to win the US Open singles title in 1968, another singularly fraught year, Ashe challenged us to see past “the barbed-wire fences of race and color.” More than 50 years later, that remains the mission—now passed on to a new generation.

With its ever-growing contingent of players of color at the forefront, tennis faces an enormous opportunity that extends beyond the sport.

Osaka, Tiafoe, Gauff, Auger-Aliasime and others at the 2020 US Open have laid the groundwork.

It's time now for the sport—as a whole—to build something meaningful, impactful and long-lasting upon that foundation. If it can do that, it will be a better sport, and leader in the crucial fight for social justice.