By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
One of the my steady recreational tennis games at The Boulevard Tennis Club in Vero Beach, Florida is with former sports reporter Ray McNulty, formerly of the New York Post and Florida Times Union among others. Invariably, our talks before and after (and sometimes during our calorie-burning fun matches) is almost mostly about sports and specifically tennis, since I first met Ray in the 1990s in the press room at the U.S. Open when I worked for the U.S. Tennis Association.
Our conversation during our Saturday, July 1 morning game was about media that covered the U.S. Open – and sadly don’t any more. We reminisced about all the talented daily beat writers and columnists who would annually attend America’s Grand Slam tournament but with the change in the media landscape, particularly in the United States, the numbers have dwindled
During my final few years while serving as USTA press officer from 1993 to 2005, the first five rows of media seats in the media room at Arthur Ashe Stadium were filled with tennis writers filing for daily newspapers across the country. Now, it is one with perhaps some overflow. I started to think that the mid 1980s, through the 1990s and into the early 2000s was a sort of “Golden Age” of U.S. Open tennis journalism. McNulty and I then started to rattle off the daily print reporters from American newspapers who used to annually cover the U.S. Open, most of which don’t any more.
Of course, you start with Hall of Famer Bud Collins, who wrote for the Boston Globe and he was supplemented by Cindy Shmerler, the former World Tennis magazine writer who now contributes for the New York Times and is also one of the prominent voices on the U.S. Open’s American Express Radio. The Hartford Courant would occasionally cover as did New Haven Register, with Dave Solomon and Seth Davis, now of CBS Sports March Madness fame, in attendance.
Of course the suburban New York dailies were stalwarts in the press room led by Al Picker of the Newark Star-Ledger, who I recall Collins always calling “The Dean” since he had actually covered more U.S. Opens/U.S. Championships than he had! Jane McManus was the beat writer for the Journal News in Westchester County, New York and John Jeansonne and Jeff Williams would cover for Long Island’s Newsday.
New York City has the New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News covering daily (The Daily News, strangely, did not provide daily on-site coverage of the U.S. Open in 2022). For a few years, the New York Sun was another now defunct printed daily New York newspaper and Tom Perrotta provided daily coverage. Perrotta would move to the Wall Street Journal, which would provide consistent, but not daily coverage. The New York Times had the likes of Robin Finn, Selena Roberts and Christopher Clarey as the main tennis beat writers with of course columnists such as George Vecsey, Harvey Araton and others and Liz Robbins putting in some long hours as well. The Daily News was held down for years by Wayne Coffey and also Filip Bondy writing columns. Mike Lupica, of course, was a major fabric of the U.S. Open, most notably with the Daily News. Marc Berman was the stalwart with the New York Post. Berman, the former New York Knicks beat writer, once told me that covering the U.S. Open was his favorite two weeks of the year, and I remind him of that statement to this day.
Philadelphia nearly stole the U.S. Open away from New York (as you can read about here: http://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/12260 ) and until recently both of their daily newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News covered the event daily. Diane Pucin represented the Inquirer before moving to the Los Angeles Times and then Ashley McGeachy had the byline there to follow. For the Philadelphia Daily News, Bill Fleischman was an enthusiastic reporter on the scene.
Moving south, the soft-spoken Sandy McKee represented the Baltimore Sun and for the Richmond Times Dispatch John Packett reported back to the tennis fans in his market, one of the most enthusiastic areas for tennis in the United States. During this era, the Washington Post was staffed at the U.S. Open by Jennifer Frey and then Rachel Alexander (now Rachel Nichols), following in the footsteps of Barry Lorge and John Feinstein. Sally Jenkins was also a mainstay. Doug Smith was the man at USA Today tennis for years and when he retired, his U.S. Open and tennis duties were handled by freelancers Andrea Leand, Doug Robson and Sandy Harwitt. Christine Brennan also was a near constant. In Atlanta, perhaps the biggest tennis town in the United States, the Atlanta Journal Constitution tennis beat was handled by Plott Brice and then Todd Holcomb.
Florida was never lacking in its tennis coverage in its daily newspapers as the Miami Herald, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times and Florida Times-Union were annual attendees. The Miami Herald was staffed in Flushing Meadows for years by Jim Martz, followed by Andre Christopher, Meri-Jo Borzilleri and then Michelle Kaufman. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel original tennis writer was Jim Sarni and then Charlie Bricker and the Palm Beach Post was staffed by Charles Elmore. McNulty covered the U.S. Open for the Florida Times Union in Jacksonville. On the west coast of Florida, Joey Johnston and Herb Branham made the trip for the Tampa Tribune and Darrell Fry from the St. Petersburg Times. Keeping it in the south, Jody Goldstein covered for the Houston Chronicle as well as Dale Robertson.
The Midwest didn’t have that strong of a tradition of covering the U.S. Open but Melissa Issacson and Bonnie DeSimone came to Flushing for the Chicago Tribune as did Janet Graham in Cincinnati as McNulty and I recalled.
In California, Bruce Jenkins from the San Francisco Chronicle made the cross-country trip as did the hard-nosed Jerry Magee from the San Diego Union-Tribune, who followed in the footsteps of Barry Lorge, who moved to San Diego from the Washington Post. At the Los Angeles Times, Bill Dwyre, the sports editor, loved tennis and loved to cover the U.S. Open. “He would pull rank to come cover the U.S. Open,” laughed McNulty to me when we discussed the lineage of Los Angeles Times reporters that covered the U.S. Open in his period that included Tommy Bonk and Lisa Dillman and Pucin. Rounding out the southern California daily writer contingent was Janis Carr, the long-time tennis writer from the Orange County Register.
While attendance and coverage from American daily newspapers has dwindled, many niche tennis websites providing insightful and enthusiastic coverage has certainly increased in this new era of media. Also, from a global tennis perspective, media from nations like China, Korea, Colombia, Poland, Serbia and others are now in bigger numbers in the U.S. Open press room.
Most of these daily newspaper now save on costs by just running Associated Press or other wire stories, but this is under-serving the reader/subscriber and tennis fan, particularly in the first week of the tournament. It is during the early rounds of the tournament where there are so many players with local ties to the markets served by the aforementioned newspapers excelling (or failing) and providing amazing story-telling content. To boot, not all of these players are Americans, but former college players from other countries who have interest in their local U.S. market where they competed collegiately or foreign players who may live or train in a certain part of the United States. This type of local coverage is a big component to promoting and developing the growth of tennis in the United States and further increasing the popularity of the U.S. Open to fans attending the event, watching on television or following on social media.
