Rosemary Casals has many titles, but she still isn’t quite sure how to react when people call her a living legend.
The tennis star and equal pay advocate was one of just nine women who fought to close the gender pay gap between male and female tennis players early in her career. Casals began playing tennis in her hometown of San Francisco. Raised by immigrants from El Salvador, Casals learned the game at Golden Gate Park.
One day, she faced a fellow public parks player and soon-to-be icon: Billie Jean King.
“It left a big impression on me. I thought ‘God, that’s the way a pro’s supposed to look,’” Casals, now 75, recalled. “We went and played the match. It was very, very close. And I remember after, Billie Jean saying ‘You know, you’re pretty good. You better keep with it, and I’ll check up on you.’ … I definitely thought ‘Well, if she can tell me that I’m pretty good, I better do something about it.’”
King, the world’s number one player, soon became more than a rival. She and Casals became doubles partners and went on to win eight major championships in nine years together as tennis became a professional sport. Johnette Howard, an author and sportswriter, said both women had an “underdog mentality” and refused to “accept the status quo.”
American tennis player Rosemary Casals in action during competition to reach the semifinals of the Women’s singles tournament at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, London in July 1970.
Evening Standard
At the time, male tournament winners routinely netted 10 times more money. Howard said that Casals and other female players weren’t even making the “under the table money” that male players might.
“We were saying ‘You know, we’re really losing out on all of this if we don’t do something,’” Casals recalled.
So they decided to do something.
In 1970, after promoters refused to award equal prize money or organize all-female tournaments, Casals, King and seven other players banded together, forming an all-woman tour called the Virginia Slims Circuit.
“They kept on saying, “Well, you guys bring in the money. We can’t give it to you, so if you bring it in, we’ll do it.”. So, there it was,” Casals said.
Still, male players refused to let women join their burgeoning sports union, so the Women’s Tennis Association was formed in 1973. Howard said it was a “Big Bang moment for all of women’s sports.”
“Everything that’s happened since has sprang from that moment,” Howard said.
The money began flowing in to King, Casals and the other players. The women’s game became a pop culture spectacle when King trounced former Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs in a “Battle of the Sexes,” still the most-watched tennis match in history.
Now, half a century later, a new generation of tennis players like Coco Gauff are benefitting from the foundation laid by Casals and the original nine. Tonight, Gauff will play the U.S. Open women’s singles championship match, and she will walk away with at least $1.5 million. If she wins, it will be twice that, just like the men’s players. It will be the 50th time equal prize money has been awarded across gender lines at the U.S. Open.
Rosie Casals and Billie Jean King during a press conference, as the WTA celebrates their 50th with founding members on June 30, 2023 in London, England.
Kate Green
While the four major championships have been awarding equal prize money since 2007, the pay gap persists in the sport, with male players winning nearly 50 million dollars more than female players this year.
Last year, the Financial Times reported that outside the majors, men’s players earned roughly 75% more than their female counterparts. In June 2023, the Women’s Tennis Association announced a plan to close the gap over the next decade. However, Casals isn’t sure she’ll see those results.
“I don’t have ten years,” she said. “I mean, my gosh, it’s gotta happen before I die … I’ve been around long enough to be able to realize that there’s a lot more in my past than in my future.”
At 75, though, Casals is still fighting. She’s working to make the game more inclusive and lifts up young talent through the “Love and Love Tennis” and the “Latin American Tennis” foundations.
“I’ve always wanted to spread the love of tennis,” Casals said. “It’s been everything to me.”
Tennis has a fuzzy yellow problem most players don’t think about when they open can after can of fresh balls, or when umpires at U.S. Open matches make their frequent requests for “new balls please.”
Because tennis balls are extremely hard to recycle and the industry has yet to develop a ball to make that easier, nearly all of the 330 million balls made worldwide each year eventually get chucked in the garbage, with most ending up in landfills, where they can take more than 400 years to decompose. It’s a situation highlighted by Grand Slam events like Flushing Meadows, which will go through nearly 100,000 balls over the course of the tournament.
“Tennis balls, like a lot of objects, are made to be indestructible, which means they’re very resistant to mechanical processing,” said Nickolas J. Themelis, director of Columbia University’s Earth Engineering Center. “But do you take a useful object that lasts forever and say people shouldn’t use it because it lasts forever? That’s nonsense.”
That harsh reality in an age of heightened environmental awareness has sent ball makers, recyclers and the game’s worldwide governing body scrambling for solutions, and spurred sustainability activists to sound the alarm in online posts that pose the question: Are tennis balls a disaster for the planet?
Nearly all of the 330 million balls made worldwide each year eventually get chucked in the garbage, with most ending up in landfills, where they can take more than 400 years to decompose.
GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images
“Blip on the radar”
Themelis and other experts note that tennis balls make up a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions of tons of garbage produced every year, and the keys with all difficult-to-recycle materials are finding ways to extend their useful life through other purposes and taking care in their ultimate disposal to keep them out of the environment.
“Anyone who would say you shouldn’t play tennis because of the tennis balls is misinformed,” said Jason Quinn, director of Colorado State University’s Sustainability Research Laboratory. “In terms of the impact, it’s a blip on the radar. … And there are things you can do to reuse and repurpose tennis balls to lessen the impact.”
Among them are efforts by nonprofits and others to go beyond just using old balls for dog toys and the bottom of chairs. That includes collecting balls in bulk and grinding them down into material that is used to make products including the footing for horse arenas and — in a bit of perfect symmetry — tennis courts.
But experts and environmentalists question whether those initiatives are viable enough to make a dent, and they say such efforts don’t address the underlying problem of a lack of a fully recyclable tennis ball, or the factors that make balls particularly troublesome.
At the top of the list is the tennis ball design — substantially unchanged since the advent of pressurized balls in the 1920s — consisting of a felt covering glued to a hollow, air-filled rubber core.
The biggest barrier to recycling the rubber in the ball is the difficulty of removing the felt from the rubber core because of the tight glue designed to hold that cover on when it’s thwacked by a racket. And the felt is also a problem: a blended combination of wool and nylon that cannot be recycled.
What’s more, the core of most top-level tennis balls — such as the Wilson U.S. Open extra-duty model in play at Flushing Meadows — is only made from newly created, virgin rubber, which activists say leads to deforestation of rubber trees in the Amazon.
“It is true that virgin rubber is used because of the performance specifications required for the best in the world,” said Jason Collins, general manager of global racquet sports for Wilson Sporting Goods. “Other tennis balls within our product line absolutely can and do include recycled rubber.”
Another issue carbon-footprint-wise are the places most balls are made — Thailand and China — because those balls have to be shipped thousands of miles to reach North America and Europe, where most of the world’s tennis is played.
The biggest barrier to recycling the rubber in the ball is the difficulty of removing the felt from the rubber core. The felt — a blended combination of wool and nylon — also cannot be recycled.
Getty Images
Seeking to tackle these problems is the International Tennis Federation, which certifies tennis balls and sanctions competitions around the world. It launched a technical working group last year made up of manufacturers, officials from other tennis governing bodies and recyclers with an ambitious set of goals:
Is there a way to design a fully recyclable ball? What are the capabilities of balls on different levels of play? Can the ITF, using its rule-making muscle, keep balls in play longer in competitions, which would result in fewer balls used? Do Grand Slam events have to stick with replacing balls after the first seven games and every nine games thereafter? Could that be extended to 11 or 13 games? And could such changes to use fewer balls longer filter down to all players?
“We want to try and identify ways of making the consumption pattern more sustainable and the product more sustainable as well,” said Jamie Capel-Davies, the ITF’s technical head who works out of the federation’s lab in London.
“The overall strategy is to use the waste hierarchy,” Davies said. “First of all, to try and reduce the number of balls that are being used. Then reuse balls as best we can. Recycling is third. And then disposing of balls is right at the bottom, the least desirable.”
Among the positive signs getting scrutiny: Efforts to repressurize “flat” balls in bulk to bring them back to life, a solution that doesn’t address worn-down felt. A Dutch company’s development of a ball made from 30% old tennis balls (any more would apparently cut into playability). And Wilson’s introduction of its Triniti ball, a still-pressurized model that has a sturdier core that leaks less and a tougher felt designed to be used for at least four outings without losing bounce or fuzz.
“While there is not a fully recyclable tennis ball that meets the performance specifications of elite athletes yet, we are proactively innovating for the future,” said Wilson’s Collins.
A positive on the recycling front are nonprofits taking on the task of collecting and repurposing tennis balls, most notably Vermont-based RecycleBalls, which says it is on pace to collect 3 million tennis balls this year from across the U.S and Canada.
Efforts by nonprofits and others go beyond using old balls for dog toys and the bottom of chairs, and include collecting balls in bulk and grinding them down into material used to make products including tennis courts.
/ Getty Images
ReycleBalls distributes collection boxes at hundreds of tennis clubs, city parks, colleges and tournaments, where used balls can be shipped post-paid to the organization’s warehouse to be sorted for a variety of uses.
Some are sold as dog toys or for the bottom of chairs, some are ground up whole with the felt to be sold as footing for horse arenas, and still others are sent to a highly specialized, patent-pending machine that pulls the felt off the rubber and grinds the rubber into different-sized granules that have been made into a cushioning layer by the tennis court surfacing company Laykold.
And other possible uses for the granules are being explored, such as using them in mulch, building materials such as stucco and siding, and even components in furniture.
“We believe in multiple lives for tennis balls,” said RecycleBalls CEO Erin Cunningham, who acknowledged her organization could repurpose a lot more balls if there were more companies willing to incorporate the rubber into their products.
“We don’t want to just collect tennis balls and have them sit in the warehouse,” Cunningham said. “We need to make sure that there’s actually demand for recycled product on the back end.”
At the United States Tennis Association ‘s offices under the stands of Louis Armstrong Stadium this week, a row of RecycleBalls bins lined a hallway, quickly filling with U.S. Open balls and immediately shipped off for repurposing. Other balls from the event will get a second use at USTA clinics and training centers across the country, and still others will be packed individually and sold at U.S. Open gift shops for $10 each.
“We believe in multiple lives for tennis balls,” said RecycleBalls CEO Erin Cunningham, who said her organization could repurpose a lot more balls if more companies willing to incorporate the rubber into their products.
Europa Press News
Better to innovate or incinerate?
For the vast majority of balls that aren’t so lucky, Columbia University’s Themelis believes their final resting place should not be landfills but waste-to-energy plants that burn garbage to generate electricity. More widely used in Europe and China, Themelis says they handle only about 10% of the garbage in the U.S., where they have come under scrutiny because of concerns over emissions.
Opponents of such plants say that when it comes to finding solutions for hard-to-recycle items such as tennis balls, it’s better to innovate than incinerate.
“A big part of that is summoning the will to change,” said Claire Arkin, spokeswoman for Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. “And that really means that the companies behind these products need to take the entire life cycle into account.”
“We’ve seen myriad examples of innovation in terms of redesign of products, and tennis balls are overdue for that kind of a makeover.”
New York — A fan was ejected from a U.S. Open tennis match early Tuesday morning after German player Alexander Zverev complained the man used language from Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.
Zverev, the No. 12 seed, was serving at 2-2 in the fourth set of his match against No. 6 Jannik Sinner when he suddenly went to chair umpire James Keothavong and pointed toward the fan, who was sitting in a section behind the umpire.
“He just said the most famous Hitler phrase there is in this world,” Zverev told Keothavong. “It’s not acceptable.”
Alexander Zverev, of Germany, bites his necklace during a fourth round match against Jannik Sinner, of Italy, of the U.S. Open tennis championships on Sept. 4, 2023, in New York.
Adam Hunger / AP
Keothavong turned backward and asked the fan to identify himself, then asked fans to be respectful to both players. Then, during the changeover shortly after Zverev held serve, the fan was identified by spectators seated near him and was removed by security.
“A disparaging remark was directed toward Alexander Zverev,” U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Chris Widmaier said. “The fan was identified and escorted from the stadium.”
Zverev said after the match that he’s had fans make derogatory comments before, but not involving Hitler.
“He started singing the anthem of Hitler that was back in the day. It was ‘Deutschland Uber Alles’ and it was a bit too much,” Zverev said.
“I think he was getting involved in the match for a long time, though. I don’t mind it, I love when fans are loud, I love when fans are emotional. But I think me being German and not really proud of that history, it’s not really a great thing to do and I think him sitting in one of the front rows, I think a lot of people heard it. So if I just don’t react, I think it’s bad from my side.”
Zverev went on to drop that set when he began to struggle with the humid conditions after Sinner had been cramping badly in the third set. But Zverev recovered to win the fifth set, wrapping up a match that lasted 4 hours, 41 minutes at about 1:40 a.m. He will play defending U.S. Open champion Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals.
Zverev said it wasn’t hard to move past the fan’s remark.
“It’s his loss, to be honest, to not witness the final two sets of that match,” Zverev said.
Quarterfinals match-ups at the U.S. Open are almost set, with some familiar names advancing and some surprising exits. Lukas Weese, staff editor of news at The Athletic, joins CBS News to unpack the latest developments.
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The 2023 US Open, the biggest event in American tennis, is happening right now. This year’s US Open started Tuesday, August 22 (qualifiers), and runs through Sunday, September 10.
Whether you’re a network TV tennis watcher, or you like to stream your sports, it’s never been easier to watch Djokovic and Gauff compete for the championship. Likewise, you’ll want to tune in to watch Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek defend their titles.
ESPN and ESPN+ will air the US Open this year. Here’s what you need to know to tune in and watch the action.
How to watch the 2023 US Open
While ESPN is included in most cable TV packages, you don’t have to have a cable TV to catch the US Open. One of the most cost-effective ways to get ESPN coverage is through a subscription to Sling TV. The streamer offers access to the ESPN, NFL Network, local NBC, Fox and ABC affiliates (where available) and ESPN with its Orange + Blue Tier plan. Also worth noting: Sling TV comes with 50 hours of cloud-based DVR recording space included, perfect for recording all the season’s top NFL matchups.
That plan normally costs $60 per month, but the streamer is currently offering a 50% off promotion for your first month, so you’ll pay just $30. You can learn more by tapping the button below.
Top features of Sling TV Orange + Blue tier:
There are 46 channels to watch in total, including local NBC, Fox and ABC affiliates (where available).
You get access to most local NFL games and nationally broadcast games at the lowest price.
All subscription tiers include 50 hours of cloud-based DVR storage.
If your love of sport doesn’t stop at tennis, Sling TV has a new offering for the 2023 NFL Season called Sports Extra. The new package is designed for NFL and college football fans, with access to NFL Redzone, ESPN, NFL, SEC, ACC, PAC 12, Big10 and Longhorn Networks.
There’s a great preseason deal on Sling TV Sports Extra going on right now: You can get five months of Sling TV Orange + Blue + Sports Extra for $274. That works out to just $55 per month, an even better price than subscribing to just the $60 per month Orange + Blue plan. It’s the most cost effective way to stream most NFL games, college football and more this year.
You can learn more about Sling TV and Sports Extra by tapping the button below.
When to watch the 2023 US Open
While both men’s and women’s qualifying rounds began on August 22nd, the real action started on August 28th for the single first round. Matches are happening daily; the finals schedule is below. All times are Eastern.
Saturday, September 2
Men’s and Women’s Singles 3rd Round, 11:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m and 7:00 p.m. EDT
Sunday, September 3
Men’s and Women’s Round of 16, 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. EDT
Men’s and Women’s Doubles 3rd Round, 11:00 a.m.
Monday, September 4
Men’s and Women’s Round of 16, 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. EDT
Men’s and Women’s Doubles 3rd Round, 11:00 a.m. EDT
Tuesday, September 5
Men’s and Women’s Quarterfinals, 12:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. EDT
Men’s and Women’s Doubles Quarterfinals, 12:00 p.m. EDT
Wednesday, September 6
Women’s Doubles Quarterfinals, 11:00 a.m. EDT
Men’s and Women’s Quarterfinals, 12:00 p.m and 7:00 p.m. EDT
Thursday, September 7
Men’s Doubles Semifinals, 11:00 a.m. EDT
Women’s Semifinals, 7:00 p.m. EDT
Friday, September 8
Men’s Doubles Final (or Mixed Doubles Final), 12:00 p.m. EDT
Saturday, September 9
Mixed Doubles Final (or Men’s Doubles Final), 12:00 p.m. EDT
You can also catch the 2023 US Open on FuboTV. FuboTV is a sports-centric streaming service that offers access to the 2023 US Open and every NFL game of the season. Packages include CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, NFL Network, NFL RedZone and more, so you’ll be able to watch more than just the US Open.
To watch the US Open, the NFL, or your favorite sporting event without cable, start a seven-day free trial of Fubo. You can begin watching immediately on your TV, phone, tablet or computer.ESPN is the home of the US Open. Fox, so you know, offers Sunday NFC games via “NFL on Fox”; while ESPN is the home of “Monday Night Football.” ABC airs some “MNF” games, too.
In addition to the US Open and NFL football, FuboTV offers MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer games. FuboTV starts at $75 per month for the Pro tier (includes NFL Network); the $100 per month Ultimate tier includes NFL RedZone.
Top features of FuboTV:
The Pro tier includes 169 channels, including NFL Network; the Ultimate tier includes 289 channels, including NFL RedZone.
FuboTV includes all the channels you’ll need to watch live sports, including CBS (not available through Sling TV).
You can watch the US Open and the NFL, including the NFL Network, with Hulu + Live TV. The bundle features access to 90 channels, including both Fox and FS1. Unlimited DVR storage is also included. Watch every game on every network with Hulu + Live TV, plus catch live NFL preseason games, exclusive live regular season games, popular studio shows (including NFL Total Access and the Emmy-nominated show Good Morning Football) and lots more.
Hulu + Live TV comes bundled with ESPN+ and Disney+ for $70 per month.
Disney-owned channels — ABC and ESPN among them — went dark Thursday night for Charter Spectrum subscribers after Charter and Disney failed to come to an agreement on terms for Charter to carry Disney.
The dispute came to a head as ESPN was airing both the U.S. Open tennis tournament and a college football game between the University of Utah and the University of Florida.
Charter has the 14.7 million subscribers.
ESPN channels affected by the blackout include the Disney Channel, Freeform, National Geographic and many local stations on the ABC network. Some major cities affected include Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Houston.
“The Walt Disney Company has removed their programming from Spectrum which creates hardship for our customers,” Spectrum said in a statement on a website Spectrum created called disneyespnfairdeal.com. “We offered Disney a fair deal, yet they are demanding an excessive increase.”
The cable provider said Disney wants to limit the choice of packages for viewers, forcing them to pay for channels they may not necessarily want.
“They also want to limit our ability to provide greater customer choice in programming packages forcing you to take and pay for channels you may not want,” Spectrum said. “The rising cost of programming is the single greatest factor in higher cable TV prices, and we are fighting hard to hold the line on programming rates imposed on us by companies like Disney.”
Disney sent CBS News a statement justifying its prices.
“Disney Entertainment has successful deals in place with pay TV providers of all types and sizes across the country, and the rates and terms we are seeking in this renewal are driven by the marketplace,” the media giant said.
Both Disney and Spectrum say they’ll continue negotiating so subscribers can start getting Disney-owned programming again.
“We’re committed to reaching a mutually agreed upon resolution with Charter and we urge them to work with us to minimize the disruption to their customers,” Disney said.
Tennis champion Novak Djokovic is set to miss his second U.S. tennis tournament this year, after he was denied entry into the country for being unvaccinated against COVID-19.
The 35-year-old Djokovic will miss the Miami Open, which begins March 22, tournament director James Blake confirmed to the Tennis Channel on Friday. Djokovic has won the Miami Open six times — three of those consecutively. The latest win came in 2016.
Blake said tournament organizers spoke with federal officials and tried their best to get an exception to the U.S. policy, which restricts unvaccinated international travelers from entering the U.S.
“Obviously, we’re one of the premier tournaments in the world, we’d like to have the best players that can play,” Blake told the Tennis Channel. “We did all that we could. We tried to talk to the government, but that’s out of our hands.”
Some, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are calling on President Biden to remove the vaccination requirement and allow the Serbian athlete to compete in U.S. tournaments again.
In a press conference earlier this month, DeSantis joked that he would run a boat from the Bahamas to Miami to bring Djokovic to the tournament.
“He poses zero risk to the United States, zero risk to the state of Florida and zero risk to Miami,” the governor said at the time.
Novak Djokovic in action against Daniil Medvedev in the Men’s Singles Semi Final match during day thirteen of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium on March 03, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Amin Mohammad Jamali / Getty Images
A spokesman from the U.S. Tennis Association told the Associated Press Saturday that they are “very hopeful” Djokovic will be able to play in the U.S. Open, which begins on Aug. 28.
“Policies concerning access to the United States are determined by the White House. We are very hopeful that the policy preventing Novak Djokovic from entering the United States will be rescinded, or lapse, in the near future,” Chris Widmaier said. “No COVID-19 restrictions are in place at the U.S. Open for any player, fan or other attendee. Novak, one of our sport’s great champions, would be welcome to compete at the 2023 U.S. Open.”
Djokovic is currently tied with Rafael Nadal for the most career Grand Slam titles of all time, with 22. In February, he broke the record for the most time spent by a professional tennis player in the No. 1 spot of the ATP rankings after winning the men’s singles title at the Australian Open in January — a tournament he was turned away from in 2022 for being unvaccinated.
Iconic Sports Brand Donates to Equestrian and Polo Charities Chosen by the Finalists
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., March 8, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– U.S. Polo Assn., the official brand of the United States Polo Association (USPA), celebrates International Women’s Day on March 8, the globally celebrated day dedicated to economic, social and gender equality for women, alongside the 2023 U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship®. The most prestigious cup in women’s polo in the United States runs from March 10-19.
U.S. Polo Assn.’s involvement with the most celebrated cup for women’s polo in the United States includes donations made to polo and equestrian charities selected by the finalists in the 2023 U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship.
The qualifying games will be played at Port Mayaca Polo Club, while the U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship Final will be played once again at the world-renowned USPA National Polo Center (NPC) – Wellington on March 19. ESPN will distribute the Women’s Championship Final for sports fans around the globe, where it will be available on ESPN’s family of brands. Check your local listings for air times.
The 2023 U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship is being played alongside International Women’s Day which honors women’s achievements around the world while challenging inequality and working to increase visibility for women.
“Not only do these athletes exude incredible tenacity and strength on the field, but they also do off of the field. From lawyers, to entrepreneurs, to mothers, to movie producers, to students, to animal conservationists, and more, the contestants in this year’s Open fully show what a woman is capable of in their off-field endeavors,” said Meghan Gracida, USPA Women’s Committee Chair. “It is the great sport of polo that brings all of these women together to empower one another as players while exhibiting their love for the ultimate four-legged teammates—horses. I am honored to again be involved with this most special women’s polo event.”
Prominent players in this year’s high-goal tournament include Hope Arellano, Hazel Jackson, and Mia Cambiaso, to name a few.
“As a fourth-generation polo player, my love for the game started at a very young age and continues to provide opportunities for me to participate in top-rated polo tournaments, like the 2023 U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship, which I am so grateful to be a part of,” said Hope Arellano, professional polo player and U.S. Polo Assn. Brand Ambassador. “I look forward to competing against incredibly talented women polo players and being surrounded by those in the South Florida polo community who support women’s professional polo.”
Unlike other team sports, women and men play polo together as equals, and approximately 40% of USPA club members are female. Women are, in fact, the fastest-growing segment in the sport of polo at the club level.
“The 2023 U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship is both a celebration and showcase of women’s many polo achievements,” said J. Michael Prince, President and CEO of USPA Global Licensing, the worldwide licensor of the multi-billion-dollar U.S. Polo Assn. brand. “U.S. Polo Assn. continues to support the sport of polo and its players around the world both on and off the field, and this tournament highlights some of the very best female players in the sport.”
If you attend:
Who/What: U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship Final
When: Sunday, March 19, 2023
3:00 p.m. EDT Championship Final
Where: U.S. Polo Assn. Stadium Field
USPA National Polo Center, 3667 120th Ave. S, Wellington, Florida
To learn more or to purchase tickets, please click HERE.
About the U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship™
The U.S. Open Women’s Polo Championship® has a profound history dating back to the 1930s in California. The first women’s U.S. Open tournament was presented by the United States Women’s Polo Association (U.S.W.P.A) in 1937 at the Golden Gate Field in San Francisco, California. Women were officially welcomed into the United States Polo Association in 1972 with Sue Sally Hale becoming the first woman member. On the centennial anniversary of the USPA in 1990, a U.S. Women’s Open was officially sanctioned and held at Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. It was officially recognized as a national tournament in 2011 and has been hosted at the Houston Polo Club for the past seven years, becoming the largest annual women’s polo event in the United States.
About U.S. Polo Assn.
U.S. Polo Assn. is the official brand of the United States Polo Association (USPA), the non-profit governing body for the sport of polo in the United States and one of the oldest sports governing bodies, having been founded in 1890. With a multi-billion-dollar global footprint and worldwide distribution through some 1,100 U.S. Polo Assn. retail stores and thousands of department stores as well as sporting goods channels, independent retailers and e-commerce, U.S. Polo Assn. offers apparel for men, women, and children, as well as accessories and footwear in more than 190 countries worldwide. U.S. Polo Assn. was named as one of the top five sports licensors in 2022, according to License Global. Visit uspoloassnglobal.com and follow @uspoloassn.
About the United States Polo Association® (USPA)
The United States Polo Association was organized and exists for the purposes of promoting the game of polo, coordinating the activities of its Member Clubs and Registered Players, arranging and supervising polo tournaments, competitions and games, and providing rules, handicaps, and conditions for those tournaments, competitions, and games including the safety and welfare of participants and mounts. Founded in 1890, the USPA is the national governing body for the sport of polo. The USPA is currently comprised of almost 200 member clubs with thousands of individual members and oversees 40 national tournaments. For more information, please visit uspolo.org.
