I have had two journal articles accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals in the past week. The first article is, “Serena Williams and (the Perception of) Violence: Intersectionality, the Performance of Blackness, and Women’s Professional Tennis,” and will be published in Ethnic and Racial Studies. The second article is, “Rainbow Flags Over Margaret Court Arena: Commemoration vs. Grassroots LGBTQ Social Activism at the Australian Open Tennis Championships,” and will be published in Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture, 10(1/2). These two articles will be published sometime soon. I am so happy that they found nice homes.

I have had a book chapter published in, “Routledge Handbook of Tennis: History, Culture and Politics,” edited by Robert J. Lake (https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-of-Tennis-History-Culture-and-Politics/Lake/p/book/9781138691933). The book chapter, “The Original 9: The Social Movement That Created Women’s Professional Tennis, 1968-1973,” chronicles The Original 9, a group of nine women – Jane “Peaches” Bartkowicz, Rosemary “Rosie” Casals, Judy Tegart Dalton, Julie Heldman, Billie Jean King, Kristy Pigeon, Kerry Melville Reid, Nancy Richey, and Valerie Zeigenfuss – who banded together in 1970 to pressure the governing bodies of tennis to offer equitable pay and access to tournaments for women as they did for men.  They emerged in and through the women’s liberation movement in the US. “Women’s lob,” coined in the early 1970s by Gladys Heldman, the founding editor of World Tennis magazine, was used to describe the particular feminism that was being used in women’s tennis. The Original 9 drew on two main components of the rhetoric of the broader women’s liberation movement of the time: 1) equal pay for equal work, and 2) access to an economic livelihood (through a sustained and consistent offering of tournaments for women). The Original 9 are credited with creating modern day women’s professional tennis along with the creation of the Women’s Tennis Association in 1973. By contextually grounding the Original 9, the influences, motivations and risks of their protest, as well as the gains they achieved, are illuminated. I am especially proud of this publication because Rosie Casals was my coach throughout my pro tennis career. 

I have had an article published in the journal Fashion, Style & Popular Culture with co-author Rita Liberti, professor of kinesiology at California State University – East Bay. The article, “‘All Frocked Up in Purple’: Rosie Casals, Virginia Slims, and the Politics of Fashion at Wimbledon, 1972,” chronicles the disruption between Wimbledon’s “all-white” clothing rule and Casals’ support of the emerging women’s tennis tour, which was sponsored by Philip Morris as an advertising venue for their Virginia Slims. Casals’ ensemble and the reaction by officials and those in the media symbolized far more than a perceived fashion faux pas by the tennis star. Rather, Casals’ attire and public reaction to it threw into sharp relief debates around equal rights and female independence that raged throughout society during the late 1960s and 1970s. Importantly, the discussions and tensions in relation to Casals’ tennis outfit did not simply mirror these broader conversations, they contributed greatly to them. The dress, like Casals, challenged rules of conduct on the court – and social convention off the court. The attire was, for her, a form of self-expression, which personified a style she was eager to portray to a public not necessarily keen on its exhibition. I am especially proud of this publication because Casals was my coach throughout my pro tennis career.