“Can we please unmute?” An oral history of the Zoom era in tennis media

In an empty interview room at a small WTA event in Palermo, Italy, Alison Van Uytvanck took a seat in front of a freshly sanitized laptop. With a few clicks and a press of the unmute button, she settled into the first fully virtual press conference in professional tennis.

Down the hall, in a separate room and on another laptop, WTA communications director Alex Prior moderated the proceedings remotely. The experience was “nerve racking,” he told me, even though there were a total of two Belgian journalists on the call.

When should we mute or unmute? How to go about credentialing a ‘virtual’ journalist? Who gets invited? Is the bandwidth going to hold up? How is this going to work?

It was August 2020, and tennis was taking its first tentative steps out of a long suspension caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Back on March 8, the Indian Wells tournament was the first major sports cancellation to hit the United States, triggering a wave that would wipe out half of the season and change tennis, and the world, forever. But five months later, a “new normal” had emerged. The NBA was already conducting games in a multi-million dollar bubble environment, setting a precedent that all sports would soon attempt to follow.

The Palermo Ladies Open was the first tour-level tennis tournament to be put back on the calendar, with tight restrictions on the amount of spectators, photographers and reporters that could attend.

Not that many of them were even willing to make the trip, during the height of the virus and with no vaccine available, or able to travel due to international border closures.

“If you were to ask me in August 2020, if I wanted to board a flight to go to Lexington, Kentucky or to Palermo, Italy or to New York, I would have said ‘polite decline’. Absolutely not,” said Courtney Nguyen, the WTA’s embedded reporter and senior writer of WTA Insider.

With public health and player safety top of mind, and with few other realistic alternatives, the press room went digital. Zoom, the pandemic’s go-to platform for video conferencing, was the natural choice and quickly became the tennis tours’ go-to way of communicating.

"It's quite interesting to be in the room with a camera."

By this point in the pandemic, most people—including players and press alike—had already become used to using apps like Zoom to stay in touch with friends and family during lockdown. While it was initially jarring to speak into a camera and field questions from a screen full of pixelated faces in boxes, virtual media rooms were soon being set up at even the most traditional of tennis events.

“First I just want to say a little. It's quite interesting to be in the room with a camera. Thanks for being here,” Novak Djokovic told reporters before his first virtual press conference, ahead of the relocated Western & Southern Open in New York.

In a sport like tennis, which is usually played for 11 months out of the year and across more than 60 countries, covering tournaments remotely was necessary for most journalists even during a normal season. The perks of covering the action up close and in person are obvious: more in-depth coverage; (actual) face time with players, coaches and support team members; rapport-building with tour staff and agents; and the simple yet earth-shattering realization that the superstar athletes performing incredible feats on our screens were, in fact, human beings too.

But high travel costs were already a prohibitive barrier to entry for tennis writers, freelancers and bloggers, restricting their chances of breaking into the industry. And the demographics of reporters in a typical press room—on average, 77% white and 86% male, according to a 2021 study by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport—also limited the type of stories being covered.

“I was a big advocate of Zoom early on,” Nguyen told me. “I thought that it was a great opportunity to experiment with different ways to cover the sport. Travel [costs are] a huge barrier to entry in the sport, which is why I think that sometimes tennis and sports media looks the way that it does sometimes.”

Zoom opened up possibilities for more journalists, bloggers and content creators to cover the tour than had ever previously gotten to participate. Bloggers in Argentina could now sit down for a conversation with a national player after a big win abroad, without having to endure a pricey 13-hour flight to Europe. Sleepy-eyed media in India could call in during the wee hours of the morning to interview an emerging talent, without being scolded about budgets.

Over the last two decades, the face of journalism has undergone a massive evolution—and tennis media wasn’t spared. The decline of “old media” and shrinking newspaper revenue, combined with the advent of social media and the instant nature of the internet, meant fewer and fewer legacy publications were willing to foot the bill for a reporter to cover a tennis event. Specialized job titles like “tennis correspondent” have all but gone extinct.

“The numbers of people traveling dropped way, way off, even before the pandemic,” said Ben Rothenberg, a New York Times contributor and senior editor at Racquet magazine who got his start in tennis media while blogging for SB Nation.

“Like, USA Today doesn't really send people to most Slams anymore. The Washington Post, like only a handful. A lot of times it’s only for [major tournaments] like the US Open.”

When relatively unknown bloggers and freelancers from sites like SB Nation and Vavel began requesting credentials and popping up in press rooms in the mid-to-late 2000s, the initial reception from the tours was skeptical at best and hostile at worst. But faced with the alternative of an increasingly empty press room, tennis eventually relented, accepting the wave of new faces and perspectives.

“A lot of my closest friends in the sport, we are close because we have shared hotel rooms,” Nguyen added. She too got her start as a blogger and covering tennis for Sports Illustrated, before being poached by the WTA. “We have slept in train lobbies, you know, 'You sleep on the bench, I'll stay up and look out,' because we couldn't afford a hotel room that night as we were on our way to cover another event when we were freelancers.

“It's not cheap to do and it's very, very difficult. So I liked the idea of Zoom democratizing things.”

"The call to press comes across WhatsApp just minutes after the match."

As a steady stream of alerts and meeting-invite links began to pour in, some semblance of the hectic tennis calendar’s rhythm was restored. Life on tour continued for players—in bubbles, with fewer support team members, in front of empty stadiums—and for journalists back home, with the ability to cover the action, file their reports and meet their deadlines again, from anywhere in the world.

It also gave writers like Michael Dickens the chance to peek behind the curtain into the tour’s traveling media circus.

A Washington D.C.-based contributing editor for German website Tennis TourTalk, Dickens foots his own travel bill. In person, he usually only covers his local Citi Open in a normal season. But on Zoom, he was beaming into interview rooms from Bogota to London on a regular basis.

“After a while,” he told me, “you would learn the players' tendencies. Someone like [Daniil] Medvedev would want to do press long after a win or a loss because he probably wanted to get a rubdown or take a long shower. So you got used to the fact that after one of his matches, you're gonna have to wait a while.

“But with Rafa [Nadal], after losing, the call to press comes across WhatsApp just minutes after the match. I think no one wanted to be the first one to ask Rafa a question, and finally I raised my hand…

“And you also kind of became familiar with who a lot of the reporters were and what types of questions that they were prone to ask. You can figure out if they're working on a feature because [they] would ask the same type of question of a lot of different players. [Others] would always be like, ‘Walk me through the match.’”

But as with anything in tennis—a sport with seven governing bodies—each tour, tournament and press officer had a different way of doing things. Inevitably, there would soon be friction.

While the tours and their tournaments largely preferred Zoom, the Grand Slams seemed to favor Microsoft Teams—except for the sport’s favorite contrarian, Wimbledon, which also used Zoom. Some big events used flashy, branded Crionet virtual media rooms, but most press times and important updates were delivered via a closed Whatsapp group. Unless they were sent in a Teams channel.

But how many alerts journalists actually received, and how much notice they were given before having to drop everything and jump on a call, varied dramatically from tournament to tournament.

Getting those wires crossed resulted in embarrassment on an international stage, and irritation for players and media alike. Like when Hubert Hurkacz, the newly crowned Miami Open champion, sat down for his first press conference in Monte-Carlo to find that not a single journalist had shown up to the Zoom.

“I mean, you were requested,” said ATP public relations manager Stephanie Natal. And he had been; but the comms alert had landed just as Hurkacz himself arrived in the interview room, leaving interested Polish press with zero forewarning and no chance to attend the 35-second press conference.

Although Hurkacz gamely shrugged off the awkward situation, when the ATP Tour highlighted this “funny moment” on Twitter, social media users directed their outrage toward the media.

"They weren't designed to be fun. They were designed to be functional."

Once the novelty of Zoom faded away, the vibes started to feel… off.

Even more so by spring of 2021, when we finally started to emerge out of lockdowns and vaccines were widely available in many countries. It created the tense situation of having tournaments where the public was now able to attend and watch matches in person, while the press was still barred from entering.

A not-so-quiet standoff between journalists trying to get all of their questions in and meet their deadlines and file quality work, and moderators managing players who were increasingly struggling with their mental health on top of the usual stress of an international tennis tour, played out on tiny squares across the world.

All the while, “Zoom fatigue” and burnout were hitting hard.

“Going to Zoom definitely added an element of stress back to press again,” Katie Spellman, a PR professional based in Toronto whose clients include both players and tournaments, told me. “They're awkward. You've got the added technology stress. Muting, unmuting. Am I going to ask for a follow-up? Am I not going to ask for a follow-up?

“Press conferences can already be slightly awkward and stilted, but at least you have a moderator in the room who can see the player, who can see the press, who can call on you.

“As someone who has run past conferences on Zoom on behalf of the tournament, it's more stressful for that person, it's more stressful for the journalist, and it's more stressful for the player who's being asked the questions.”

Eventually, even being able to talk to a player, let alone engaging in an actual conversation, via Zoom was no longer guaranteed. One ATP 250 event in Austria phased that out entirely with some of the most stringent rules on record:

• Only two (2) questions maximum per user
• Only questions in English allowed
• Submit your questions before the start of each press conference
• “We will read out the questions to the players!”

Not knowing when they would be called on to speak or if they’d be allowed a follow-up question, journalists had to become progressively more assertive to capitalize on the shrinking access.

“It forced people to be more aggressive than they needed to be,” said Reem Abulleil, an Egyptian sports journalist with bylines in United Arab Emirates newspaper The National and Eurosport.

“Moderators were aggressive when they didn't need to be. And our response as well had to become aggressive, where if you could unmute yourself, you'd be like, ‘Hey, give me a chance!’ It just made things a bit more combative than they should be, because the chance to speak was so limited.”

That led to things like an off-topic question, which would normally be asked toward the end of a post-match press conference, being sprayed at players right from the beginning—a jarring experience for someone who has just come off the court exhausted after a grueling match.

Or questions being lost in translation, whether by an actual language barrier or by a glitch of technology. In person, if a player doesn’t understand the question, the journalist is there to instantly respond and clarify. On Zoom, where press was often muted immediately after they’ve finished asking a question, there wasn’t always that opportunity. Confused players answered the questions they thought they heard, and the press conference moved on.

“After we had been doing it for about a year, it started to feel a little bit more transactional,” Nguyen said. “I submit request. Player time is here. Player shows up. First question: How was the match? Here is my answer. Follow-up question. Next question. That's it, boom, done.

“They weren't fun, because they weren't designed to be fun. They were designed to be functional.”

"You're kind of opening up to the whole world."

By the time Roland Garros came around in 2021, back in its usual May start date, no one really seemed to be having fun.

Least of all Naomi Osaka, whose famously quippy and thoughtful interactions with press had become noticeably strained and stilted in the years following her meteoric rise to the top of the sport.

In a social media post before the start of the tournament, Osaka announced that she would not take part in another press conference during the French Open to protect her mental health. The move made headlines worldwide, and the swift backlash from the tennis establishment, who fined her $15,000 and jointly threatened to suspend her from future Grand Slams, created even more.

"I've often felt that people have no regard for athletes' mental health and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one," she wrote. "We're often sat there and asked questions that we've been asked multiple times before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I'm just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me…

"If the organizations think that they can just keep saying, 'Do press or you're gonna be fined,' and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are at the centerpiece of their [corporation], then I just gotta laugh."

FLASHBACK: Tennis Channel Live discusses their reaction to Naomi Osaka opting out of press at 2021 Roland Garros.

While Osaka later admitted she could have phrased her statement better and handled the situation differently, the message was still clear: the status quo had to change, because this wasn’t working—not for the players, and not for the media either.

“It's not easy sometimes to be on this side,” Victoria Azarenka told press when asked about the situation. “I think if we all take a bit of responsibility, like us doing our best to show up and give you honest answers. The same from you guys, have a little bit of compassion, because we are going through a lot. I think that's really important to have that balance from both sides…

“People need to realize that you're kind of opening up to the whole world, and it's not easy,”

It wasn’t the first time that a tennis player sounded the alarm about the mental toll of dealing with the media, but it was the first time in a while the topic got this much attention.

When the WTA surveyed the tennis community in 1994, they found that top players cited media as their No. 1 stressor; loneliness was listed at No. 5. That research would eventually form the backbone of the tour’s landmark Age Eligibility Rule (AER), and also led to the creation of player development programs—which include rookie hours and onsite media training—that are still in use to this day.

“The five highest stressors reported by top WTA players have shifted from external stressors in 1994 [media, parents and family, travel], to stressors typical of a high-performance international sport in the 10-year review [injuries, travel, length of season], to stressors typical of the competitive challenges inherent in professional sport in the 20-year review [self-expectations, finance, injury, competition],” explained Amy Binder, the head of global communications at the WTA.

If there is a 30-year review of the AER, it would be due around 2025. After the last few turbulent years of Zooms, social media abuse and global events, it will be revealing to learn where media will land on that list.

But in the meantime, the WTA took swift steps to mitigate some of the current stressors brought by Zoom. During the grass-court swing, while Osaka was still on hiatus from the tour, staff moderating the pressers began to ask players the first question—a practice now adopted this year during Roland Garros by ATP Tour, as well.

“The [first] question is always match related, so the player can be assured that every press conference will begin with what they are intended for: speaking about the match they just completed,” Binder told me. “This allows the player to be more at ease from the start.”

"Everything is a little bit better when it's face to face."

Eventually, the always-pinging Whatsapp groups slowly fell silent. The invite links came fewer and farther between.

With players over it, virtual media attendance dropping off steeply, and social distancing protocols loosened at most tournaments, the rush to ditch the screens and trade the new normal for something more like the “old normal” seems to have finally brought an end to the Zoom era.

So far, there aren’t many who will miss it.

“I think I have a bit of PTSD from all of the Zoom meetings that I've been in the last two years,” Madison Keys recently told Tennis Channel crew in Paris, echoing the sentiments of many fellow players. “After everything that’s happened, and obviously doing lots of meetings, calls and interviews, I think they are a very useful tool… But everything is a little bit better when it's face to face.”

Media is back at Grand Slams like the Australian Open and Roland Garros, and press rooms are filling up again in Indian Wells and Madrid. And even more exciting, we’re already starting to see the next evolution in our ways of covering the sport.

Informal mixed zones, a fixture on the ATP and in team sports like soccer, were used by both tours for the first time in Madrid. The experiment got overwhelmingly positive reviews from players and journalists alike, who appreciated having more touch-points for interaction besides a stiff post-match press conference. In a mixed zone, a player can walk through a group of press, choosing which ones to speak to; if an interaction goes sour, the player can always walk away, rather than feel metaphorically trapped in a room by a moderator.

“We have had a lot of conversations about that,” Sloane Stephens told press in Paris, “about people just being uncomfortable and not wanting to answer questions, just because maybe they don't know what to say or they don't want to say the wrong thing and then it comes out poorly or whatever it is. I think we have had a lot of discussion about that.

“It's a work in progress, but I think it was the right thing to do to try to make it more comfortable for the players and for you guys, so it's not a weird situation.”

At Roland Garros, the impact of Osaka’s one-woman protest is still felt a year later in the form of new post-match protocols aimed at prioritizing players’ mental health. Two mixed zones give media more relaxed access to players, but permission to enter player areas like the lounge—a common location for laid-back interviews with players and coaches—is now more limited.

And all of the press conferences are held in person; there are no more Zooms.

“[Mental health] is something that I personally felt when I was playing,” tournament director and two-time Grand Slam champion Amelie Mauresmo told Eurosport. “Indeed, I think that it was not as bad as now, especially because there were no social media, or much less at the time.”

For players and media in Paris, the return of unmoderated face-to-face interactions have marked a deeply gratifying and affirming move back to normalcy after nearly two years.

“Right now, I feel the players are genuinely happy to have us around,” said Abulleil, “and it hasn't always been the case for the last couple of years.”

But for bloggers like Dickens, things are indeed back to normal: despite his obvious desire to cover tennis and being the only English-speaking reporter at several WTA press conferences, he’s no longer getting invites and alerts. All of a sudden, and with little warning, he’s back on the outside.

“What the Zooms introduced was very cool, to be able to develop a rapport with players,” Dickens told me. “The WTA's approach initially was sort of 'the more the merrier' in terms of people that were able to participate in virtual media. I think they certainly welcomed it.

“And it's only too bad that it kind of dried up and that they didn't stay with it, or maybe push to be able to maintain some of it.”

So where do we go from here? While the tennis community might balk at the idea of bringing back a Zoom option—and indeed, when asked, most players said they’d prefer to never log onto another video call again—it’s hard to argue that smaller tournaments in far-flung locations like Bogota or Pune wouldn’t benefit from or welcome the additional coverage. Or that players competing far from home would mind speaking with their local press from abroad.

And Gen-Z’s favorite platforms like TikTok and Twitch still haven’t been fully embraced by the tours yet, but many that I’ve spoken to are strong proponents of moving tennis media and content creation in that direction—signaling another possible technological shift is just over the horizon.

How much would it have mattered that these athletes who were accomplishing these incredible feats were not just avatars on your screen, but three-dimensional people that you lived a Slam with?

If another wave of COVID-19 or the next great pandemic shuts everything down again, at least now tennis will have a blueprint to follow and the tools to make things happen. We’ll know what to do and what not to do, and what the consequences can be if mental health is brushed aside, needs aren’t met, and discontent is left unaddressed to simmer and bubble over.

But we’ll maybe never know, at least not for a long time, what it actually cost us to strip out the human element from our daily interactions. To reduce each other to boxes on a screen, muting and unmuting, communicating just well enough to complete an assignment but never truly connecting. Capturing a moment, without ever having lived it.

“There were some pretty crazy things that were happening on the court over the last two years that none of us could really be there for,” Nguyen told me, at the end of our conversation which, naturally, took place over Zoom. “Quite a few of tennis' young stars on both the men's and the women's side made a lot of major breakthroughs.

“I just wonder how much it would have mattered that these athletes who were accomplishing these incredible feats were not just avatars on your screen, but three-dimensional people that you lived a Slam with?

“Like Naomi winning the US Open in 2020 behind closed doors. You're trying to put this incredible accomplishment into context, and it's hard on Zoom. Swiatek winning the autumnal Roland Garros, which was also a no-press [event]. And then Ash [Barty], doing what she did last year and just marching through. And we're all just waving to her on Zooms.

“It’s weird. I don't know if things would have been different, but I wonder sometimes. It's weird to think about what we lost in the last two years.”