Pam Shriver has made headlines once again. Once a top player in the 80s and 90s, touchy issues have plagued her post-retirement life and shone a light on the hardships women all over the world face in sports on a daily basis.
From Peng Shuai to Fiona Ferro, women tennis players have had to endure male dominance and oppression. In some cases, authorities help but, as with Shriver’s case, even legal remedies fail to suffice.
Who is former tennis player Pam Shriver?
Pam Shriver is an American former professional tennis player and current tennis broadcaster, pundit, and coach. She has won 133 WTA titles, 21 singles titles, 111 women’s doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title. She has also won 22 grand slam majors, 21 in women’s doubles and one in mixed doubles. She also partnered Zina Garrison in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where she won an Olympic gold medal in doubles.
Shriver and Martina Navratilova are the only women players to complete the career grand slam when she won all four majors in 1984. She was ranked as high as world no. 3 in singles and world no. 1 in doubles.
In 2022, Pam Shriver revealed that she had been in an inappropriate relationship with Australian coach Don Candy when she was a teenager.
“My relationship with Don was a traumatic experience for me. The after-effects lasted well beyond the time we had spent together. Our relationship shaped my entire subsequent romantic life. I had great difficulty forming normal relationships, my continued attraction to older men prevented me from maintaining healthy boundaries in my relationships.”, she said.
US Tennis reportedly accused of silencing Pam Shriver and downplaying sexual assault
The United States Tennis Association is coming under scrutiny after it came to light that one of their lawyers had downplayed an ongoing sexual abuse case by warning Pam Shriver to discuss the issue with caution.
The incident in this case happened in spring 2022, when US Tennis’ defense officer Staciellen Mischel walked Shriver to her car and warned her to “be careful” about her public statements on sexual abuse in tennis.
Chris Widmaier, the chief spokesman for the USTA, has recently stated that the USTA would never threaten anybody for voicing their opinion on important issues.
Pam Shriver has been representing Kylie Mckenzie, an ex-junior-level player who accused the USTA of a lack of protection after she was inappropriately touched by a 34-year-old coach, when she was 19. Kylie had approached Shriver after learning about her own tales of abuse.
The two talked about the USTA’s mishandling of the situation.
“Depends how you interpret the conversation from Staciellen. Part of my interpretation was that I needed to be careful. And in that interpretation, meaning don’t say too much.”, Shriver said.
How much does the USTA need to protect women tennis players who face harsh abuse from a male-dominated sporting world? Let us know in the comments section below.
