{"id":873654,"date":"2026-08-30T08:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T08:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873654\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T08:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T08:52:19","slug":"pegula-and-tiafoe-note-progress-in-tennis-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873654\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegula and Tiafoe note progress in tennis diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"

American tennis players Jessica Pegula and Frances Tiafoe said ahead of the US Open in New York that tennis is moving in the right direction on diversity, although the cost of playing continues to limit access for young people. The Japan Times reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Global representation<\/p>\n

Pegula called tennis\u2019s international nature one of its main advantages. According to her, the sport includes players from all over the world, while fans from different countries and backgrounds attend tournaments.<\/p>\n

The tennis player also mentioned the representation of Black players and the development of tennis in Asia thanks, in particular, to Filipina Alex Eala and China\u2019s Zheng Qinwen. Pegula said that tennis offers the chance to see talent from around the world and called it one of the most diverse sports.<\/p>\n

The cost of playing remains a barrier<\/p>\n

Tiafoe said women\u2019s tennis has had strong representation of athletes from different backgrounds for many years. At the same time, in the men\u2019s tour, he said, more and more players from different backgrounds are competing at the highest level.<\/p>\n

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, Tiafoe and Frenchman Arthur Fils became the first Black players to meet in an ATP 1000 tournament final. This happened at the Cincinnati Open, where Fils won. Tiafoe called the event important for tennis.<\/p>\n

He also stressed the financial barriers for children from underprivileged communities. Tiafoe positively assessed the work of the United States Tennis Association to involve such children in the game, but pointed to the costs of racquets, strings, coaching and shoes.<\/p>\n

According to the USTA\u2019s 2026 Tennis Participation Report, 3.7 million Black Americans played tennis at least once in 2025, more than 450,000 more than a year earlier. The share of Hispanic participants rose from 18% to 19%, while the share of players of Asian and Pacific Islander descent remained at 11%.<\/p>\n

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\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American tennis players Jessica Pegula and Frances Tiafoe said ahead of the US Open in New York that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-873654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}