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How Did Covid-19 Affect Tennis In 2020? Q&A With Mark Leschly And Anne Worcester Of Universal Tennis

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The sporting world was plunged into an unprecedented crisis when the coronavirus pandemic struck in March.

Professional tennis was suspended for five months, including the first cancellation of the Wimbledon Championships since the Second World War.  

In a three-part series, I look back at this extraordinary year with a number of stakeholders in the game.

First up: Mark Leschly, chairman and chief executive officer of US-based Universal Tennis, and its president, Anne Worcester. Worcester was the first female chief executive officer of the women’s WTA Tour and a former tournament director of the Connecticut Open for two decades.    

Palo Alto, California-based Universal Tennis owns the Universal Tennis Ratings (UTR), a free platform powered by Oracle ORCL software that provides each player with a ‘tennis handicap’. It is being used by leading academies, clubs and federations around the world.

Here are the highlights of the interview, which was conducted via video call:

If you could sum up 2020 in a few words or a few sentences, how would you describe it?

Mark Leschly: “Challenging, yet remarkably productive. There's been such hardship and having to think through so many different new things and unanticipated things, and yet we feel like we've done some great things this year.

“But it's still hard in the industry.

“And it's sad to see the struggles of players and clubs and federations. And it's at all levels...There really isn't anybody in the ecosystem that isn't struggling.”

Anne Worcester: "Super-empathetic to everything that's happening in the pro game, the tournaments, the players, the tours. My heart goes out to everyone who is working so hard to come out of this healthy. And it's really shown that tennis is not recession-proof. And that's where greater collaboration is so essential. And I'm delighted that the seven stakeholders are spending a lot of time and energy on increased collaboration.”

Anne, as a former WTA CEO and former tournament director, how do you see the increased collaboration between the men’s ATP Tour and the women’s WTA Tour?

Anne Worcester: “Tennis has so many advantages to leverage: its global reach, men’s and women’s star power, and the attractive fan base. Thus greater collaboration among governing bodies would likely create more opportunity with global broadcasters and sponsors.”

READ: Roger Federer Says It’s Time For Men’s And Women’s Tours To Merge

What was the hardest part of this year?

Anne Worcester: “I haven't seen Mark since March 12! We used to be joined at the hip.”

Mark Leschly: “The hardest part, Anne and I run a team of 65 people. It's the ambiguity that you suddenly are faced with. Boy, there's a responsibility and not just to your customers alike, but to employees and their livelihoods and their families. And so suddenly to be faced with absolute ambiguity about what's going to happen and then having to pivot and figure it out. That to me was the hardest thing.

“What we did right away: we said, look, we're not letting anybody go. And so we gave assurances to our team, even though we had no visibility on any revenue or anything else. And then as we started to navigate through the year and as we're heading into next year, we actually made a dramatic increase in our team.”

Anne Worcester: “I think just practicing empathetic leadership as much as we all can is essential because you know that there are economic hardships, emotional hardships and mental hardships that go along with this pandemic, not to mention the rest of what's happening in the world. There's a lot to be worried about, there is a lot to be anxious about, and I think the more that we talk about it and show empathy, the better off we all are.

“I have adult children who have come back to live at home, there's a whole host of issues that go along with that. Companies are people and so I try to start every single conversation I have with any member of our team by just checking in and asking how they're doing. And you'd be amazed what comes out. People are more candid, are more honest, and sometimes it just feels good to talk about it.”

In May, Universal Tennis was the first company to organize a socially-distant tennis exhibition during the sport’s shutdown in West Palm Beach, Florida. More events soon followed in Australia, Denmark, Spain and other countries. Earlier this month, Universal Tennis said it would be investing $20 million in a three-year global circuit aimed at elite junior, collegiate and lower-ranked pro players. The UTR Pro Tennis Series Global Tour will host 140 events a year, including 40 in the U.S.

UTR also posted a 47% increase in new players using its ratings system in 2020.

Anne Worcester: “Our philosophy is all about local...Universal Tennis has been talking about this local tennis ecosystem for four years. And fast-forward to the pandemic, now everybody agrees that local is the new normal and tighter pocketbooks is the new normal.

“We have had extraordinary interest from high schools, from colleges, from clubs, from municipalities, from inner city tennis programs. Because UTR has the tools and the technologies to continue to grow tennis during this difficult time. It's the ability to run unlimited events, flexible formats of their choosing, small, safe, socially distant events and charging whatever is appropriate for each given situation.

“So that flexibility, that agility has really been helpful to the tennis industry. We got a beautiful note yesterday from a new multi-club on the platform saying: ‘Thank you for helping us put more sneakers on our courts at such a difficult time.’”

The vaccine rollout has started in many countries, including the US. When do you expect tennis to return for normal?

Mark Leschly: “Our hope now with a vaccine is that maybe by the second half of the year [2021], Q4, hopefully we can be back to normal.

“But I think it's going to be a new normal and it's not going to be what we had before. There is going to be economic strife. I think there is going to be weakened and wounded organizations out there. The idea that suddenly we flip a switch and everything's back to normal, I think this is going to take a while.”

Anne Worcester: “I agree with that timing. Tennis is a global sport....So at what point will the vaccine distribution be truly equitable among all players and all tournaments that make this sport one of the most global sports that there is? That's going to take some time.”

Next in the series: Micky Lawler, president of the women’s WTA tennis tour, looks back on a year like no other

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