«Sinner wanted to meet me, I was speechless»- Corriere.it

LONDON «We had just left the club, my wife Ileana and I, we were walking along Church Road. We see this tall boy with red hair crossing the street and coming towards us. I’m Jannik Sinner, he tells us, very polite, looking straight into each other’s eyes: I wanted to introduce myself. I was speechless. In the meantime, why would I expect a guy like that, with that look, to express himself in German or Austrian, instead he spoke excellent English. And then because we know how young people are, I imagine also from you, in Italy: all the time on their mobile phones but they really don’t give a damn about history. Instead Jannik had not only recognized me, but he wanted to know me personally. Incredible. It was love at first sight. Ileana and I remembered seeing Jannik play in Milan, when he won Next Gen. But in short, we didn’t imagine that he was such a nice and kind boy ».

A breakfast, hot black coffee and chocolate chip cookies, with Billie Jean King never disappoints. And the anecdote about Sinner, who is a reserved person and of few words, is precious and fits perfectly into the hagiography of the South Tyrolean teenager who is revolutionizing tennis. The totem of women’s sport, protagonist of that battle of the sexes against Bobby Riggs who turns 50 this year (it was 20 September 1973) and after which nothing was ever the same again, is invited to the tournament in London, attends Wimbledon match on the center from the Royal Box, as a former champion (six times: ’66-’68, ’72 and ’73, ’75), she chats with Queen Camilla, speaks to the notables of the place (the All England Club is a private club), welcomes the waves of young athletes who queue up to meet her (last week half of the English national football team, queen of Europe, queued up).

Bjk is the woman who founded the WTA fifty years ago

, the association of professional tennis players, the first to come out as homosexual (Ileana Kloss, South African, former doubles partner, is the love of her life and accompanies her everywhere), the first to beat a man on a tennis court, the Before. Eve. The opportunity to meet Bjk, today an Lgbtq + activist and indomitable warrior in the name of equal rights, is the presentation of the finals of the former Federation Cup which now bears her name, Billie Jean Cup (“It means I’m old!”), in Seville from 7 to 12 November (Italy is also there), the women’s Davis Cup which – for a change – Billie helped to found, because it wasn’t right for girls not to have their own team competition. «I’ve always liked history – he says as lively as a cricket, one step away from his 80th birthday at the end of November in his penthouse in New York overlooking Central Park, behind the iconic red short-sighted glasses -, to be part of the first USA women’s team was a great moment because we opened a new path for girls. Tennis is the pilot sport among women’s disciplines, we first did things for which other sports then copied us and that’s perfectly fine, because someone who gets the first conquests must be there, then we proceed by emulation, by towing. But the wall, first of all, must be torn down.

Bjk loves Elina Svitolina

, in the semifinal against Vondrousova, on a mission for herself, for all mothers and for Ukraine. Obviously she supports Sinner against Djokovic and hopes that women no longer have to be subordinate to men. «We are ready to play 3 out of 5 sets, if they ask us to do so. People don’t remember but it happened before at the Virginia Slims Finals at Madison Square Garden in New York many years ago. Women run marathon, don’t they? And so in the Slams they can play matches on the men’s distance. Let’s experiment: the first week 2 out of 3 and the second 3 out of 5? Why not? And then it’s enough to be the men’s preamble, the appetizing appetizer: why not anticipate the men’s final of Wimbledon and the Slams on Saturday and schedule the women’s final on Sunday, as a grand final? To continue to grow we must work together, males and females. Alone, you’re not going anywhere.”