After a number of gamers complained about using a special ball for girls through the 2022 US Open, match director Stacey Allaster mentioned the USTA can be utilizing the identical ball for each men and women through the 2023 occasion.
Throughout a information convention Thursday held at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Allaster mentioned the choice was made on the conclusion of the 2022 occasion following suggestions from gamers.
“Yearly, the WTA informs us of what Wilson US Open ball they want their athletes to play with,” Allaster mentioned. “Final 12 months through the match, we had some gamers that wished to vary the ball and I met with a few of these gamers and mentioned, ‘Look, discuss to [WTA chairman and CEO] Steve Simon. Discuss to your participant council representatives. If the WTA needs to vary the ball, no downside, Wilson can accommodate that.’ It is no further price.
“The one situation we gave to the WTA was we have to know what ball you wish to play with in 2023 on the finish of the 2022 US Open. That is how far the lead occasions are for Wilson to supply the quantity of our US Open ball.”
Forward of the 2022 match, then- and present No. 1 Iga Swiatek advised media through the Western & Southern Open the balls used on the US Open have been “horrible” and mentioned she did not perceive why girls could not use the identical one as the boys. Swiatek, of Poland, additionally mentioned she was unable to buy the balls in Europe, and thus practiced at residence with the balls utilized by the boys, making it difficult to correctly put together for the match.
Swiatek, who went on to win the title, mentioned she and Paula Badosa, then ranked No. 4 on the planet, went to Simon to voice their opinion. Badosa mentioned the balls created “unfavorable situations” in a submit to her Instagram story.
The US Open was the one main to characteristic totally different balls within the males’s and girls’s matches.
In an announcement to ESPN this previous August, Amy Binder, the WTA’s senior vice chairman of world communications, mentioned the group would take the gamers issues under consideration going ahead.
“The WTA has all the time utilized common felt balls for hardcourt play, and we have now now begun to listen to from a choose variety of our athletes that they wish to take into account a change to utilizing the additional responsibility ball,” Binder mentioned. “The idea behind utilizing the common felt ball was that it restricted the potential of arm, shoulder, elbow and wrist accidents. That is one thing that we are going to proceed to watch and talk about additional with each our athletes and our sports activities science groups.”
Allaster mentioned the gamers started utilizing the brand new balls throughout final week’s Canadian Open and this week’s Western & Southern Open.
“Proper now this can be a trial,” Allaster mentioned. “We’ll count on the WTA to inform us on the finish of the 2023 US Open in the event that they’d prefer to proceed with the Wilson further responsibility [ball], or in the event that they would like to return to the common felt ball. So [it’s] one hundred pc the athletes’ choice.”
The US Open foremost draw will get underway Aug. 28 in New York.