This year’s version of the annual Grand Slam tennis tournament in New York has two things that could alter the tide for American tennis. Tennis gets its biggest headlines every year, with Wimbledon and matches at the Australian, French, and the US Opens. This is an almost year-round grind for players, crossing continents and time zones from early January through late November.
The record books say Andrea Jaeger reached five Grand Slam semifinals and one Wimbledon final before turning 18 and was as high as second-ranked in the world. Andrea Jaeger defeated players such as Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, and Tracy Austin, who earned millions of dollars when women tennis’ popularity boomed in the 1980s and was a household name around the world before learning how to ride a horse all the way down her path. Andrea Jaeger has a newfound perspective on herself like this, neither formerly the teen wonder taking tennis by storm nor an arsenic-addled great devoted to giving children the awareness of the joie de vivre stolen from them.
The truth, she says now, is that her dad was approached by two concerned mothers of fellow players on securing teenagers on the WTA tour. That has left Andrea Jaeger incommunicado because it is still unacceptable for her to preach to a WTA-unit underling, who has consistently harassed her in locker rooms but forced Jaeger to use a portable bathroom at successful majors as an instrument to shelter him. Moreover, the issue started with the female locker room, the only place she could not keep tabs on every move. Jaeger was 14 years old when she turned pro and was pushed into adult surroundings.
While Jaeger still loved tennis in itself, her heart had long since left a circuit that made her feel unsafe, then unwanted. A two-time Grand Slam finalist when she was just a teenager, Jaeger is frequently mentioned as an early example of tennis burning out. Now 20, with a perm rather than pigtails, Andrea Jaeger is trying to recover from a nine-month layoff resulting from a string of neck and shoulder injuries, disappointment, and much-dreaded burnout.
When Jaeger played at the Wimbledon Legends event in 2019, she was not yet willing to use the locker room. Former Wimbledon finalist Andrea Jaeger had fewer than 30 incidents, all the physical, with WTA employees, in women’s locker rooms early on in her career. However, it is a culture of silence, allowing some individuals whose intentions are inappropriate and sinister. Jaeger specifically mentioned one WTA women’s staff member who had a huge issue keeping her hands off her.
