The US Tennis Association can do more to prevent abuse such as sexual misconduct, a review says

The USTA meets all requirements of the US Center for SafeSport and, in several respects, has policies and procedures that provide more protection than the Center's requirements. However, we did identify several ways to increase player safety that the USTA should consider, Hogan and ONeil wrote.

The report arrives less than two months later a tennis player was awarded $9 million in damages by a jury in a Florida federal court after her accusation that the USTA failed to protect her from a coach who sexually assaulted her at one of her training centers when she was a teenager. O'Neil, former head of the Justice Department's criminal division, and Hogan wrote that their review did not include investigations of specific incidents involving allegations of sexual misconduct, other than assessing whether the USTA met its obligations when abuse was reported to the USTA and so they did not investigate the events leading up to that Florida case.

They also noted that the USTA was a defendant in four other lawsuits, one of which resulted in a settlement related to sexual abuse of tennis players over the past two decades.

The attorneys said they conducted a thorough, independent review of the USTA's current policies and procedures for preventing, reporting and responding to reports of abuse, including sexual misconduct.

The review included interviews with USTA employees and access to hundreds of the organization's documents. It also included a review of protections at 51 other U.S. national sports governing bodies, Paralympic sports organizations and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, along with guidance from the U.S. Center for SafeSport.

The report states that the Council has expressed its intention to incorporate the suggestions into the USTA's Safe Play program.

We view this report, including the Debevoise team’s recommendations, as an important step forward in our efforts to further ensure a safe environment for everyone involved in the sport of tennis, USTA CEO and Executive Director Lew Sherr said in a written statement. We are working to implement the recommendations as thoroughly and expeditiously as possible.

The 19 recommendations include:

seven that focus on preventing misconduct before it occurs;

nine involved keeping individuals known to have engaged in misconduct away from USTA facilities and events, including by making information about them more widely known, because, the report said, one of the major concerns of parents and players is related to people who do. is known to have engaged in misconduct, whether as a result of an adverse action by the Center or a criminal prosecution, but seeks to continue participating in tennis, including by appearing as spectators at USTA-sanctioned tournaments;

two are aimed at increasing the number of individuals who become Safe Play Approved and individuals who receive SafeSport training, especially parents, who are often unaware of the ways in which coaches can manipulate both underage athletes and their parents, and it can be particularly difficult to identify problematic behaviors when a parent hopes a coach will help promote their child's success in sports;

and one calling for additional staff and resources for the USTA's Safe Play Program to help adopt the recommendations.

The review found that the USTA has only three employees dedicated to developing, implementing and monitoring compliance with the Safe Play program, and that its three player development campuses in New York, Florida and California does not have staff members exclusively designated to oversee athlete safety.

Howard Fendrich has been the APs tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich

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