James Blake has a story.
It’s around 1990, and he’s trying to play in a regional under-12 tennis tournament in central Connecticut. He doesn’t have a ranking and there are more players than available spots, so he has to enter a lottery to get in. His number doesn’t get picked.
Don’t worry, the organizers tell him. Everyone who missed out this time automatically gets into the next tournament.
So Blake shows up a few weeks later. The same tournament director won’t let him in.
Blake’s mother realizes what is happening to her son, who is Black.
“My mom pitched a fit,” Blake, who would eventually rise to No 4 in the world, said during a recent interview.
Blake won that tournament. He remembers the tournament director being there at the start of the finals, but someone else handed him the trophy when it was over.
James Blake and Serena Williams lifting the 2003 Hopman Cup. (Greg Wood / AFP via Getty Images)
A little more than three decades later, Coco Gauff has another story. It started when Chris Eubanks, her close friend and surrogate big brother, called her just a few days before the start of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Eubanks had nominated Gauff to serve as the female flag bearer for the United States during the opening ceremony. The athletes have voted,…
