Whatsapp boosts solidarity on tennis tour
New 20-strong group of female coaches is providing support to lessen the effect of sport’s gender gap, writes Simon Briggs
How do people on the professional tennis tour react to female coaches?
A A lot of the time, they are mistaken for the player’s mother.
“Actually, that doesn’t happen so much right now,” says Biljana Veselinovic, Katie Boulter’s coach. “Because Katie is blonde and I am dark. But, for years, I had it every time I went to a tournament.”
The gender gap in tennis coaching remains overwhelming. Preconceptions are everywhere. So, Veselinovic and her female peers have clubbed together for solidarity, forming a Whatsapp group to boost awareness and provide mutual support.
“It started after San Diego,” Veselinovic says, in reference to the WTA 500 tournament that Boulter won six weeks ago, beating another all-woman team in Marta Kostyuk and her coach, Sandra
Zaniewska. “I was sitting with Nicole Pratt [a former top-50 player who now drives women’s coaching for Tennis Australia] having a glass of wine at the next event in Indian Wells when we decided to include everyone in a Whatsapp group.
“So, people like Pam Shriver, Conchita Martinez, Judy Murray and Anne Keothavong. I know Sandra well because she was also on the team when I worked with Petra Martic. There are a couple of new faces that I did not have the opportunity to talk to properly yet.
We will definitely have meetings in person. We are trying to get together at grand slams, starting with the French Open in May.”
According to Shriver, the very existence of the group represents progress. A couple of years ago, there would have been barely anyone to recruit. “My memory is that we started talking about it in San Diego,” Shriver says. “I was maybe the seventh or eighth to sign up. And then, by the end of Miami five weeks later, we had 20.”
Keothavong, whose coaching helped Great Britain score an upset victory over France last weekend, is buoyed by her inclusion. “San Diego felt like the first event where female coaches outnumbered male coaches in the latter stages of a tournament,” she says. “It was something we all mentioned to each other during the week and it felt kind of significant. On the group, stories and ideas are shared, including articles and relevant research. Personally, it’s been a good source of information for me, and it’s great to be in a group with like-minded women.”
The obstacles to women in this field extend beyond mere prejudice. Full-time coaching is impractical for anyone with an active family life, because of the volume of travel. As Zaniewska explained last week: “I imagine that if I had a family and kids, I would not be here at all. I wouldn’t even want to be here.”
But there are workarounds. Shriver is a part-time consultant with Donna Vekic, while governing bodies such as Tennis Australia and the Lawn Tennis Association (which employs both Keothavong and Veselinovic) do their best to help with work-life balance. On the flip side, WTA players clearly enjoy working with other women (even if it remains vanishingly rare for ATP players to go down this road). “It’s just more relatable,” Kostyuk has said.
Veselinovic adds: “We have something to offer that’s different. We understand female psychology – the mood changes that happen around menstruation.”
Perhaps the last word should go to Murray, who has spent much of the past decade trying to boost female representation within the coaching workforce. “When you bring like-minded women together, great things happen,” she says. “We listen to each other, share ideas, information, provide solutions and support. And we celebrate each other’s success.”