March 27, 2022

Rich,

Because our industry has a variety of pieces, they are all in different places when it comes to attracting and including women as professionals in our sport.  I will speak to the organizations that I work with on a daily basis.  As the National Director of World TeamTennis, I am extremely proud that our Community Division is run by 3 women and our players are at an equal 50% men and women because of the coed format.  This is also true for the WTT Professional league players on the teams and 20% of the Team’s General Managers are women.  As the VP of the PTR and Lynn Rolley serving as our new President, I feel that we are leading by example.  28% of our PTR members are women and we are actively striving and recruiting with our newly launched PTRW program. Our incredible PTR staff is led by more than 50% women.  As Billie Jean King has always said, it takes at least 1/3rd to make a difference! Our sport was a leader in creating equal prize money for men and women as I am sure others will comment on.  At the local level, I am seeing more women coaching both boy's and girl's high school tennis teams.  I know when I started coaching, I was the first female to coach a boy's high school tennis team in our league and the men did not accept me and even asked me to leave when I arrived at my first coaches' meeting because they said there was nothing I could offer a group of young men and should not be coaching them.  It has been 35+ years and I am still coaching the boy's and the girl's teams at my inner-city high school!  As there are more and more women entering our profession, we are attracting more women as they see role models like Pam Shriver and Tracy Austin commentating on television or Liezel Huber running large tennis centers along with raising their families!  If you can see it, you can be it!!

One of the most influential women in the history of our sport was Eve Kraft.  She was a visionary that fought to get the industry to look to communities when the USLTA focused mainly on the US Open. In 1954, she founded the Princeton Tennis Program (which is still alive and well today)!  She wanted to teach tennis to the masses! In 1971, when Princeton University first admitted women, she became their first women’s varsity tennis coach and lead them to 3 undefeated seasons! She was the pioneer of community tennis organizations and she wanted to help communities, everywhere, establish these organizations and initiate group tennis instruction and programming so the masses could learn the game at affordable prices.  She created the USTA's Education and Research Center in Princeton where she began creating and distributing teaching resources.  She co-founded and directed the USTA Tennis Teachers’ Conference and helped to establish the USTA Foundation. She played an instrumental role in helping to create the USTA league program, schools programs for PE teachers, and anything that would help provide tennis to large groups in parks, schools, colleges, etc.  She lead the way and mentored women like myself, July Levering, Anne Humes, and many more community leaders. One of the most prestigious awards, presented by the USTA each year, is the Eve Kraft Community Service Award which recognizes community leaders that spend their lives bringing women, men, girls, and boys to our life-long sport of tennis. She is truly one of the most influential women in the history of our sport and I know she inspired me and many other women in our industry to provide tennis for the masses!

I do not know if Serena Williams will be able to add another Gand Slam title but I am sure she has many more amazing accomplishments ahead of her as a mother, leader, player, businesswoman, and an inspiration to others!

Delaine Mast

National Director

World TeamTennis Community Leagues