WTA CEO Steve Simon's first six months on the job "could be characterized as trial by fire," as he has "faced challenge after challenge in his new role," according to Nick McCarvel of USA TODAY. Challenges have included Maria Sharapova testing positive and admitting she "had been taking meldonium," a "tennis betting scandal from January at the Australian Open, a continued debate over equal prize money and the fits and starts that any big organization faces under an executive transition." Women's tennis also could be "without its three most marketable stars in the not too distant future" -- Sharapova and Serena and Venus Williams. Sharapova's career "hangs in the balance after her positive test," and while neither Williams sister has "uttered a word about retiring, Venus continues to battles the affects of Sjogren's syndrome." Serena is "chasing history" in Steffi Graf's Open-era record of 22 Grand Slam titles and Margaret Court's all-time record of 24. But McCarvel asks, "Will Serena stop once she's topped one record? Both records?" Simon said, "There is going to be a day when they don't play anymore, so we're looking at how we evolve our tour and our circuit structure so that we're in the best position to feature and promote the stars that are going to come in after that. Every sport goes through this. The legends of your sport do decide to not compete anymore. We need to be looking at that now." McCarvel notes what "troubles women's tennis fans is that there has been little consistency in the generation that would replace them" (USA TODAY, 5/31).
WORKING TOGETHER: In N.Y., Christopher Clarey writes from Sharapova's positive drug test to "renewed concerns about match fixing and integrity in tennis that compelled the sport to commission an inquiry in January, there has been no shortage of brush fires to try to extinguish" among the ITF, ATP, WTA and the four Grand Slam tournaments. But there has "been more cooperation of late, in part because it has become a necessity under duress and in part because the new wave of leaders in tennis has much in common." There has "been an unmistakable shift toward greater transparency in areas that had become particularly sensitive to the touch." The Tennis Integrity Unit has "begun publishing quarterly reports that indicate the number of professional matches that have triggered betting alerts." ITF President David Haggerty last week said that tennis's governing bodies "had now agreed in principle that it is time to change policy and announce provisional bans after a player tested positive rather than waiting for each case to be adjudicated before releasing the information" (N.Y. TIMES, 5/31).
