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Tennis Dogs at US Open
by: Rovering Reporter
According to the New York Times, dogs have become an important and portable part of a tennis player’s entourage.
Princess, a three-pound Chihuahua owned by Kateryna Bondarenko, a 23-year-old professional from Ukraine, played under the pool table in a corner of the players lounge at the WTA tour stop in Ohio a few weeks ago. Princess was not supposed to be let out of her dog-carrying bag, no no one seemed to mind.
That included her tennis-playing sister and doubles partner, Alona, who usually travels with a Yorkshire terrier named Emily, and Victoria Azarenka, a top-10 player who often traveled with her Yorkie, Rolexx.
Dogs have been part of the touring entourage of women’s tennis players for decades, and several concealable canines will be a behind-the-scenes component of the United States Open.
Sam, a Jack Russell terrier, traveled with Liezel Huber, a top-ranked doubles player until a few years ago when she decided traveling with her pooch became too difficult.
Françoise Dürr may have been the first to tour with a dog, an Airedale terrier named Topspin that carried her racket onto the court. Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals often traveled with dogs. Martina Navratilova had a toy fox terrier named K. D. — for Killer Dog — that trotted the world with her for 16 years. K. D. would sit on a pillow in the lounge during Navratilova’s matches.
Harold, the Havanese usually travels with Venus Williams, and co-starred with her in a recent television commercial promoting the coverage of tournaments leading to the Open.
Serena Williams often travels with two dogs — a Jack Russell named Jackie and a Maltese named Lorelei
The United States Open is typical. According to its player handbook, pets are not allowed on any courts, locker rooms, training rooms or anywhere food is served. They are allowed in the players’ lounge on a leash or in a carrying case.
The dogs help players unwind and forget, if only momentarily, how different their lives are.
When Olga Govortsova, a 21-year-old from Belarus, won her first-round match, she went back to the players’ lounge. The first congratulatory kiss did not come from her mother, Tatiana, but from a tongue-slurping Yorkie named Bentley.
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