Ladies’s tennis works to safeguard towards predatory coaches

Lindsay Brandon is a lawyer whose previous purchasers embody athletes disputing doping suspensions. In her new put up because the WTA’s first director of safeguarding, Brandon is main an elevated effort to guard athletes from predatory coaches – and others – on the ladies’s skilled tennis tour.

“Safeguarding is about emotional abuse. Physical abuse, as well. And it’s not just coach-athlete,” Brandon mentioned in a phone interview from the BNP Paribas Open, which wrapped up Sunday in Indian Wells, California, and was the primary event she visited as a part of the job she started 3 1/2 months in the past.

“There are other people that are part of this process,” Brandon informed The Associated Press. “There can be athlete-to-athlete issues. There can be issue with respect to training staff separate from coaches. Those are just some of the examples.”

Her priorities embody managing the WTA safety group’s investigations of complaints – she didn’t reveal what number of are at the moment energetic – and “monitoring any potential concerns,” together with bettering schooling and making a safeguarding code of conduct she hopes will probably be revealed in 2024.

The goal of that code, which Brandon mentioned is separate from a common code of conduct that already exists, is to create a rulebook that outlines behavioral requirements and establishes procedures to comply with if a matter arises. It will apply to anybody who’s credentialed “in the WTA environment,” Brandon mentioned, together with gamers, coaches, physiotherapists, different members of entourages, event employees and tour employees.

“Safeguarding is multifaceted and strongest when the entire population is educated, invested and held to the same standards. … We have a diverse body of players, staff and support teams, so the challenges and areas of concern will vary. As the governing body, our focus is making sure that players feel they can come forward and share their concerns, which plays a critical role in being able to address the issues that may be at hand,” WTA Chairman and CEO Steve Simon mentioned in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Might be onerous to gauge the success of such an initiative so quickly, however Simon discovered not less than one optimistic measure.

“We are seeing more athletes coming forward,” he mentioned, “which is a great initial result.”

Adding what Simon known as “the expertise of a dedicated safeguarding position” is the most important public-facing step taken by the Florida-based WTA on this space because the difficulty of defending gamers drew elevated consideration final yr: A French participant as soon as ranked as excessive as No. 39 accused her former coach of rape; one other participant sued the U.S. Tennis Association for failing to guard her from a coach she says sexually abused her at one in all its coaching facilities when she was 19; 2002 International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee Pam Shriver, who gained 21 Grand Slam titles in girls’s doubles, mentioned she “had an inappropriate and damaging relationship with my much older coach” that started when she was 17 and he was 50.

“Maybe we need to talk more to players and tell them what’s going on with everything so they know to be careful,” mentioned two-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur, a 28-year-old from Tunisia. “Maybe it’s never enough and we should do more.”

Simon expressed the same sentiment throughout an interview on the tour’s season-ending championships in November.

“We have … background checks on our coaches. We have an athlete assistance program in place. We have mental health experts who are here to help if there’s an emotional issue. We have all sorts of education programs. We have investigators coming in,” he mentioned. “One of the things that we’re educating everybody on is: We need to help ourselves. If you see it, you need to report it. We need to work with our players to have them learn to set up the appropriate boundaries around themselves and what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Brandon, who mentioned she performed tennis by means of highschool and for one event in school, got here to the WTA after about seven years working for Howard Jacobs, a widely known sports lawyer who lately helped tennis professional Varvara Lepchenko get a doping ban decreased from 4 years to 21 months.

“Lindsay’s knowledge in this area (applicable rules, inappropriate behavior, etc.) is likely more in-depth than anyone the WTA could have hired for this role,” Jacobs wrote in an e-mail to the AP.

Brandon deliberate to journey to the Miami Open, the place play begins Tuesday, and “as many tournaments as I reasonably can this year,” together with smaller occasions the place youthful gamers compete.

“The earlier you can provide support and outreach to these athletes, the better,” Brandon mentioned. “I tell people that I don’t want to just be a response resource; I want to be a support resource and a preventative resource, as well.”