How pro tennis looks two years after the pandemic started

WATCH: Tennis Channel Live welcomes former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki to our BNP Paribas Open commentary team.

As the world attempts to re-enter some form of normalcy, ATP chief tour officer Ross Hutchins is relieved and delighted about what he and his colleagues have learned during these pandemic years. “Tennis is extremely healthy,” says Hutchins. “The thirst for tennis in existing and new locations around the globe is high.”

The thirst right now is being satisfied at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. On the tournament’s busy first weekend, all is in full flight. Defending women’s champion Paula Badosa comes off the soccer field to sign autographs. On practice court six, Matteo Berrettini lines one forehand after another. Reilly Opelka snaps off volleys and exits Stadium Three. Caroline Wozniacki heads to the Tennis Channel studio for her new gig as a commentator. One golf cart after another shuttles players to and from their matches. Stadium One ebbs and flows, filled to capacity for the stars, uncluttered in the afternoons while fans roam the grounds, alive with that night-time twinkle of desert and drink.

Two years ago this month, Indian Wells was the spot where the world of pro tennis first faced the pandemic. One minute the entire tennis traveling circus was on-site. Word came that one person had tested positive for COVID-19. Then, the deluge. Hit head-on with what tournament Tommy Haas calls “a moment of shock,” he and his team grappled with tons of unforeseen crises, followed by the consequences of being the first major international sports event to announce its cancellation.

“We all went home and the world shut down,” says WTA president Micky Lawler. “Many of us thought it would be impossible to host tournaments.” But by late summer 2020, events began to inch their way back onto the calendar. “We could see the light at the end of the tunnel,” says Hutchins.

With several ATP and WTA tournaments based in Asia canceled last fall, a 2021 version of the BNP Paribas Open was held too. “We were all excited about it,” says Haas. Consider that a dress rehearsal.

But now the tournament has returned to its traditional spot in March, with far more fans back on site for days and nights of spectating, eating, shopping. “We are so happy to be back here,” says Lawler. Standing inside the crowded FILA tent, Lauren Mallon, the company’s senior director of marketing, tennis and pickleball says, “It’s a breath of fresh air. There’s an energy here that’s incredible. People are happy to be here. It’s upbeat and positive.”

Make no mistake, though: Global tumult continues to leave major footprints on tennis. It always has, but usually in short-term ways that come and go as the circus leaves town and heads to its next stop. Back in 2010, the BNP Paribas Open held the “Hit for Haiti,” a charity event to benefit victims of a deadly earthquake. In early 2020, a similar event took place in Australia to raise money for wildfire relief. The US Open has frequently marked 9.11. But again, these moments have a transitory and localized quality.

The pandemic has fractured the entire planet. As the sport whose players trek into more countries than any other athletes, tennis is likely to deeply and perhaps even permanently feel the pandemic’s shock waves—from the cumulative stress of constant testing, to various protocols for entering countries, to the challenges of masked air travel and all the attendant dread. Add to this the contemporary political climate, from the unprecedented end of America’s 2020 presidential election, to the January 6 insurrection and its aftermath, to Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine. To steal an old movie title, it’s a raw, raw, raw, raw world we are now living in.

Did anyone ever think they would attend a sports event that demanded proof of vaccination? In California alone, more than nine million men and women have been diagnosed with COVID-19—25 percent of the state’s population. In tennis, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Madison Keys and Simona Halep are just a few of the notables who’ve had it. Nadal, soon after testing positive, said he experienced “some unpleasant moments.” If that’s the case for tennis’ Superman, what does that say about we mortals?

Fitting indeed to see the mission of the WTA’s new title sponsor, Hologic, a medical technology company. “We champion health,” says Lisa Hellmann, Hologic’s senior vice president of global human resources and corporate communications. On the tournament’s first Friday, at an event to unveil the new sponsorship, Hellman took part in a panel discussion alongside Lawler, Pam Shriver, Jessica Pegula and Christina McHale. Shriver cited the health challenges faced by two WTA icons, Martina Navratilova and Chrissie Evert. Back in 2010, Navratilova was treated for breast cancer. This January, Evert announced she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

When public figures like Navratilova and Evert reveal their vulnerability, the world takes notice. Ditto for the way Naomi Osaka last year brought attention to mental health. As much as a sport prides itself on revealing strength and self-reliance, the contemporary sensibility of tennis is flavored by strands of fragility and the need for community.

“We really don’t do anything alone,” Billie Jean King said Sunday night inside Stadium One’s banquet room. King that evening was the honored guest at the 11th anniversary of the Annalee Thurston Award Reception benefiting the Love & Love Tennis Foundation, a non-profit community tennis organization founded by two of King’s peers, Rosie Casals and Tory Fretz. The event was attended by more than 100 people, including Hall of Famers Martina Navratilova, Pam Shriver, Gigi Fernandez, Charlie Pasarell and many others—some of whom go back to the start of the Virginia Slims tour in 1970. In the course of her acceptance speech, King sent best wishes to Evert. “Please continue to connect with each other,” said King, who noted that she was wearing blue in support of Ukraine.

Speaking with the wisdom and experience of someone whose career was hindered by an avalanche of injuries that took him off the tour for long periods, Haas says, “You walk around this spectacular event and are so grateful, but you also have a heavy heart.” As psychologist M. Scott Peck once noted, we build community when we share our wounds.