Tennis is a global sport with a complex organizational structure. After community spread of COVID-19 was being recognized in the US, the BNP Paribas Open played in Indian Wells was the first big tournament to cancel. As the virus continued to spread globally, players dispersed around the world waiting to come back to the professional tours as those gradually announced more cancellations.

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Tennis is a fair weather sport, and as such, players are used to packing up for an undetermined amount of time. If it starts to rain during a match, players may leave the court and stay warm while tournament officials read weather reports. Depending on the forecast, play may resume in a few minutes or maybe the next day. It could be on the same court, or it could be on another one. As players wait to resume play, they have to stay mentally and physically in the match, ready to resume right where they left off. A player may have had a commanding lead on a cold night match at Stadium 1 when rain struck, but when play resumes under hot morning sun of an outer court they can quickly fall behind.

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The stress and anxiety of not knowing when tennis would return, under what circumstances or on what courts, all while forecasters assess when play can safely resume, is a familiar feeling in tennis culture. Like rain delays allow players pause to reassess their game plan, the months long break COVID-19 inflicted on global tennis created conditions for players and officials to reflect on their values and priorities.

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Players, used to playing 10 or 11 months out of the year found, themselves with more spare time than ever, but also with the new burden of missing out on work, with many hundreds living paycheck-to-paycheck. In the time created by the pandemic pause, some played exhibition matches or took on regular jobs, some engaged in social justice activism, others still tried to upend the organizing structures of the sport.

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This project uses a number of data visualization tools to trace, archive, and recount what happened in tennis and it’s cultures between the cancellation of the BNP Paribas Open on March 8, 2020 and the return of Grand Slam tennis at the US Open on August 31, 2020.

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To bookmark that period, however, I begin with a before and after. The word clouds below show the words and phrases English speaking Twitter users most used in connection with tennis and related terms.

 

In the week before Indian Wells was cancelled, people were preoccupied with Melania Trump renovating the tennis pavilion at the White House.

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In the week after, the US Open begun, attention had shifted to women's tennis Black superstars Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams. Osaka stepping onto the court of Arthur Ashe Stadium wearing a "Breonna Taylor" mask drew particular attention.

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Use the slider below to see how the conversations around tennis changed.