The United States Tennis Association: Raising the Game - Hardcover

Kimball, Warren F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803296932 ISBN 13: 9780803296930

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2017

Synopsis

The United States Tennis Association is an in-depth look at the history of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and how this sports organization has helped cultivate and organize tennis in the United States over the past 135 years. Starting as a group of elite white men from country clubs in the Northeast, the organization has become the largest tennis association in the world, with women in top leadership positions and an annual revenue of well over $300 million. The USTA was key in establishing the Open Era in tennis in 1968, when professionals began competing with amateurs in Grand Slam events; for expanding the game in the United States during the 1970s tennis boom; and for establishing the U.S. Open as one of the most prestigious and largest-attended sports events in the world.

Unique among sports-governing bodies, the USTA is a mostly volunteer-run organization that, along with a paid professional staff, manages and governs tennis at the local level across the United States and owns and operates the U.S. Open. The association participates directly in the International Tennis Federation, manages U.S. participation in international tennis competitions (Fed Cup and Davis Cup), and interacts with professional tennis within the United States. The story of how tennis is managed by the nation’s largest cadre of volunteers in any sport is one of sports’ best untold stories.

With access to the private records of the USTA, Warren F. Kimball tells an engaging and rich history of how tennis has been managed and governed in the United States. 
 

About this title

About the Author:

Warren F. Kimball is the Robert Treat Professor Emeritus of History at Rutgers University. He is the author of a number of books, including Forged in War: Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Second World War. He was a member of the U.S. Tennis Association’s board of directors for four years. 
 

Review:

"The USTA is everywhere in American tennis. But until now there was no quality, in-depth history of the group that so adeptly shaped the US game. . . . Kimball tells us how league tennis became a mainstay; how once-chaotic rankings were computerized, how officiating was "professionalized" and the organization grew into an astounding, cutting-edge force. And readers will see that the USTA itself—which began with droopy nets, quirky balls and bumpy lawns—has survived many a bump in the road and now actually has its own impressive 406-page history, which provides delicious tennis czars and zealots, cigars and Chardonnay, conflicts and camaraderie, and the passionate, sometimes imperfect people who raised a great game."—Bill Simons, Inside Tennis (Bill Simons Inside Tennis 2018-08-11)

“Warren Kimball has created as comprehensive a look as you will ever see of the USTA and its innermost workings. A tremendous accomplishment and great fun for tennis insiders. I loved it.”—Patrick McEnroe, ESPN commentator
  (Patrick McEnroe 2017-02-24)

“As a distinguished historian of diplomacy, Warren Kimball has long shaped the way we think about the leaders and legacy of World War II. Now he has turned his formidable skills to chronicling the leaders and legacy of the United States Tennis Association and of the sport of tennis itself, charting the history and meaning of a noble and challenging pastime. This is an engaging and illuminating book.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (Jon Meacham 2017-02-24)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0803296932
• ISBN 13: 9780803296930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448