There's nothing more exciting than watching women's tennis - it's the crème de la crème of all sports, in my humble opinion. The points usually take a while (the longer, the better - especially on clay!), the athletes move ever so gracefully across the court like ballerinas in the prime of their career; plus, you get to sort of live vicariously through the athletes' triumphs, tribulations and everything in between - you feel what they're feeling, in many ways. As someone who's played tennis, watched the game and followed it for my entire life, the only natural progression to approach the net from another angle would be from behind the scenes, so to speak, or in the press room.
A few years ago, I was approached online about writing for a new women's sports-centric website called "Excelle Sports." The director of the website said she had seen some of my articles on the USTA's website among other publications and liked my writing style and background in tennis, so it seemed like a no-brainer to join the writing team there on a freelance basis. The company was entering a niche market that only espnW occupied at that time in that its focus was solely on covering women’s sports, but there was room for more players; some topics I would write about were the financial backing of athletes (a hot topic these days, even more so than when the story initially came out), coverage of tournaments such as the Miami Open and the WTA's year-end championships (when Cibulkova, who’s now retiring, won) and human interest stories.
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For the latter, I interviewed the UCLA's head coach, Stella Sampras (sister of 14-time Grand Slam Champion Peter Sampras, and a legendary athlete in her own right) as well as one of her program's biggest boosters and supporters, the late great Ken Bodenstein. Ken and I had known each other for years (he regrettably passed away in 2016); a fellow graduate of Columbia, Ken and I would hit together when I was recovering from a knee injury and in a leg brace watching the Columbia women compete against Rice University on the road. He had the most charming way about him, and I thought he'd be the ideal "face" for the story on the UCLA women's tennis program in addition to Sampras. When Excelle ran the story and I sent it to Ken, I hadn't heard back right away; something was wrong as he was always quick to respond. Ken's wife had informed me by a handwritten note that he had passed away; Ken was so selfless, kind and full of life that you would have never known that he was ill at the time of the phone interview.
I don't always do this, but for this particular interview, I had recorded it on my phone. Ken’s wife (whose name I will withhold from publishing) was so happy to have a recording of Ken talking about the sport he loved more than any other, serving as a memory of his love for tennis and zest for life. There's a lot of value to having recordings of those you love - you never know who might appreciate listening to them on replay in the end. We all miss Ken.
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Let's backtrack. So, what ever happened to Excelle Sports? The site's website is down, and it was a truly beautiful layout and educational resource for those involved in sports. Some brilliant minds founded that company, and I hope that the platform comes back again. In the meantime, though, I plan on publishing the articles on this blog that originally ran on Excelle Sports' now defunct website. Stay tuned! And, if I haven’t said it before, thank you very much for stopping by and reading my work!