Black Tennis Pros

TULSA, Okla. (AP)—Marion Jones hasn’t lost much of her swagger.

The disgraced sprinter once called the world’s fastest woman was introduced Wednesday as the newest member of the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock and she offered no apologies for her steroids use or her time in federal prison. She was poised and ready for questions about her troubled past.

“The word redemption is not in my vocabulary,” Jones said at a news conference, flanked by team president Steve Swetoha and coach Nolan Richardson. “I’m a competitor, I want to play against the best in the world, and I know that I will be doing that.”

Her bid for a new career comes a decade after she starred at the Sydney Olympics, winning gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 1,600-meter relay, and bronze in the long jump and 400-meter relay. She was stripped of all five medals after admitting in 2007 that she was using performance-enhancing drugs—a designer steroid called the “clear”—at the time of the games.

Jones also spent about six months in a Texas prison for lying to federal prosecutors about doping and her role in a check-fraud scam.

The 34-year-old Jones joined the team just four days after working out for Richardson, who is also the team’s general manager. She was signed to at least a one-year contract but terms were not disclosed.

Jones was the starting point guard on North Carolina’s national championship team in 1994 and she was drafted by Phoenix in 2003 but never played in the WNBA.

“I think when I even started to think about this 10 months ago, I know how much the game has grown from the time that I played,” Jones said. “And that became even more of a challenge for me, because I know that although I know certain things and played a certain way, that it’s 10 times faster, that the athletes are 10 times more skilled.”

WNBA president Donna Orender, who attended the news conference, said Jones generates interest in the league because she’s a highly accomplished athlete who has competed on a global stage.

“This is a tremendous, real-life story of a person who made a choice that was not a wise choice, but is saying listen, ‘I’m going to be a role model, I’m going to showcase what I’m going to do with the rest of my life,”’ Orender told The Associated Press. “I join the rest of America in wanting to watch this story unfold.”

Jones will join a team that is a work in progress. All-Stars Deanna Nolan and Katie Smith had agreed to contract extensions, but apparently won’t play for Tulsa when the season begins in May.

Richardson said Nolan has indicated she intends to skip the upcoming season to rest instead of relocating with the team, which moved from Detroit in the offseason. And Smith, a six-time All-Star, has already said she doesn’t plan to play in Tulsa and is listed as a free agent by the league.

Also unknown is how much of an initial draw the city’s only major pro sports team will be. Tulsa County has a population of about 592,000 and Tulsa is the second-smallest city with a WNBA franchise, behind Uncasville, Conn.,—where the Sun play in a casino that draws millions of visitors per year.

“She made some ill-advised decisions in the past, but everyone deserves a second chance to excel at something they love,” Swetoha said. “The city of Tulsa gave a struggling franchise from Detroit a second chance, and I’m confident it will do the same for Marion. We couldn’t be happier to have her on board.”

The Shock will play at 18,000-seat BOK Center downtown. The franchise itself has a great pedigree: The Shock made their WNBA debut in 1998 and won titles in 2003, 2006 and 2008.

Richardson, who led Arkansas to the men’s NCAA championship the same year Jones won the title at North Carolina, plans to play the same “40 Minutes of Hell” style in the WNBA.

“Watching her go through drills, I saw a player who’s perfect for our system,” Richardson said. “The one thing I do know is she can run, and any player on my team who wants to be successful needs be able to run.”

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TOULON, France — Jo Wilfried Tsonga’s unbeaten run in the Davis Cup ended Sunday when the Frenchman was forced to retire with a sprained ankle against Simon Greul of Germany.

France had already qualified for the quarterfinals after Michael Llodra and Julien Benneteau defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber and Christopher Kas on Saturday for an insurmountable 3-0 lead.

Tsonga retired while trailing 4-6, 6-2, 1-0. The former Australian Open runner-up is expected to play the BNP Paribas Open starting next week at Indian Wells, California.

"I preferred to stop because it hurt me when I walked," Tsonga said. "It should take a few days before returning to normal. I will undergo scans tomorrow morning."

Julien Benneteau, who was named as a replacement for Gael Monfils, then gave his country a 4-1 victory with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Benjamin Becker in the last meaningless singles match. Benneteau won 83 percent of the points played on his first serve and broke his opponent four times.

On Friday, Gael Monfils and Tsonga won the opening singles against Kohlschreiber and Benjamin Becker respectively.

France will play Spain at home in the quarterfinals July 9-11. France’s last victory over Spain dates back to 1923.

"We won’t be favorites," Tsonga said. "They are the best and it’s a good moment to write history."

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TOULON, France (AP) — Gael Monfils will face Philipp Kohlschreiber in the opening singles of the Davis Cup first-round tie between France and Germany on Friday.

Monfils leads Kohlschreiber 2-0 in their head-to-head but is still chasing his first victory in the Davis Cup.

"We know Kohlschreiber's ability to raise his game and beat the best players in the world," France captain Guy Forget said on Thursday. "Gael knows it will be a tough match. He knows it will be painful."


Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will play Benjamin Becker in the second rubber on the indoor hardcourt of the Palais des Sports.

Tsonga has a perfect record in the event with six wins in six matches while Becker has lost his only two Davis Cup matches.

The French pairing of Michael Llodra and Julien Benneteau was drawn to take on Kohlschreiber and Christopher Kas in doubles on Saturday.

France is the heavy favourite as Tsonga and Monfils are former top-10 players while Germany will miss its best player, Tommy Haas, who is recovering from hip surgery last week.


"The French have come with the best team they have at the moment," Kohlschreiber said. "In both (singles) matches they're the favourite. It's going to be tough for us. But we have a good team spirit."

France has a 5-2 record against Germany in the Davis Cup. In their last meeting four years ago, France won 3-2 after leading 3-0.

France has won the title nine times compared to three times for Germany.

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NEW YORK (AP)—Serena Williams’injured leg kept her from a chance to avenge her U.S. Open loss to Kim Clijsters. So sister Venus took care of the job.

Venus Williams defeated Kim Clijsters 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 on Monday night at Madison Square Garden to win the Billie Jean King Cup in the BNP Paribas Showdown, a match she lost a year ago to Serena.

Venus said she missed having her younger sister around for the match but didn’t talk with her about the possibility of facing Clijsters.

“On the way here, I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to see Serena in New York,”’ Venus said. “We talked today, but we didn’t talk about tennis at all.”

Serena Williams withdrew a week ago because of her leg, ending what would have been the first meeting between her and Clijsters since the U.S. Open semifinals in September. Serena unleashed a tirade against a line judge after she was called for a foot fault near the end of the match, and Clijsters went on to win the championship.

The 26-year-old Belgian struggled early against the elder Williams before finding a groove in front of a very Venus-friendly crowd of 11,702 in the second set.

“In the beginning it took some time to find an aggressive game,” Clijsters said. “If you’re not feeling the ball 100 percent, it’s very hard. I kind of just had to look for my game a little bit, really look for my position on court. I got better as my match went on.”

Williams broke Clijsters in the first game and then held each of her serves to win the first set. Up 40-0 in the final game, Williams aced to take the set.

In the second set, Williams again won the first two games but got sloppy, volleying one break point out of bounds and hitting another past the baseline. Clijsters held her serve for the rest of the set to win.

Williams was down 3-4 in the final set when Clijsters hit a volley into the net on break point to tie the set. The pair held their serve the rest of the way until Clijsters, down 15-40, hit the break point past the baseline to hand Williams the win and $400,000 of the $1.2 million prize money.

“I always feel really confident on match point, so I love getting to that match point,” Williams said. “At quadruple match point I felt nice.”

King did not attend the exhibition because she is recovering from a recent double-knee replacement.

Clijsters beat Serena’s replacement, Ana Ivanovic, in the first of the one-set, no-ad semifinals, easily outscoring the 22-year-old Serb and 2008 French Open champion 7-2 in the tiebreaker.

Down 5-4, Clijsters rallied from 0-30 to hold serve and won the next two games. Ivanovic won the 12th game 40-0 to force the 13-point tiebreaker.

“I think our games in some ways are similar,” Ivanovic said. “It was a tough match. i was actually very nervous, but it makes it an important match. I just wanted to do so well.”

Williams beat third-ranked Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2009 French Open winner, in the second semifinal 6-4. Kuznetsova took a 2-0 lead but struggled with her serve. Down 15-40 in the final game, the 24-year-old Russian double-faulted on her serve to hand Williams the match.

“You would like for it to last a little bit longer because one set is very difficult to play,” Kuznetsova said. “It was fun. The match was close, and I enjoyed the experience.”

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WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., was born in Greenville, South Carolina, lived a rich and
distinguished life, and full of years at age 85, entered into eternal rest on February 17, 2006; and
WHEREAS, at the age of two, his family left Greenville to settle in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where John Andrew Watson, Jr., was reared with his three brothers and two sisters; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., was educated in the Bethlehem Public Schools, and attended Howard University until he interrupted his studies to serve in the United States Army during World War II from 1943 to 1946, and was present when General George Patton's forces liberated Paris; and
WHEREAS, after the war, John Andrew Watson, Jr., returned to Howard University, where he
earned a bachelor's degree in Romance Languages, and the desire for higher education compelled him to return to France, where he earned the Certificate of Graduate Studies, the equivalent of a master's degree, in Romance Languages from the University of Paris; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., joined the faculty at Virginia Union University in 1948 as an associate professor of Spanish and French, and, for 10 years, he concurrently taught Spanish at Virginia State University; and
WHEREAS, while teaching at Virginia Union University and Virginia State University, John Andrew Watson, Jr., earned a doctorate in Spanish at Catholic University; and
WHEREAS, with impeccable and impressive teaching credentials, John Andrew Watson, Jr., served as a member of the faculty at Howard University and as chairman of his department at Virginia State University for more than 30 years, and also held the position of professor and chairman of the Department of Foreign Languages at Virginia Union University, where he served for more than 57 years until his death; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., was noted for two speeches, and for 58 years he drilled the first speech into his students in the Department of Foreign Languages at Virginia Union University, in which he stated that "the mind learns how to learn when it learns a second language, and if you do not learn a foreign language before you leave college, you have left something behind"; and
WHEREAS, while at Virginia Union University, he discovered a new passion––tennis––which he taught himself to play well enough to become the University's tennis coach in 1959; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., coached tennis at Virginia Union University for 43 years, and from 1959 to 1987, his team never had a losing season; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., delivered his second speech for 46 years each June to tennis players packed into the bleachers at Battery Park before the opening of the Southeastern Open Tennis Tournament, which he had directed since its inception, lecturing and demanding "the highest level of sportsmanship, no bad language, no throwing down your racquet in disgust, and no temper tantrums"; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., demanded that his team and tennis students be sportsmen and more than just tennis players; he had the reputation of stopping grown men during matches and pulling
players off the court for less than good sportsmanship conduct; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., equally well educated in the finer aspects of tennis, achieved a Virginia District #6 ranking, held rankings within the top three senior divisions of the American Tennis Association (ATA), and was a finalist in the senior division of the ATA Championships in Boston; and
WHEREAS, while playing tennis at the old Brook Field courts, the only place in Richmond at one time available to African American athletes, he met nine-year-old Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr., assumed the youth's tennis instruction from his previous coach, and helped the future champion to hone his early court skills; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., coached Arthur Ashe, was his constant practice partner until Arthur Ashe's departure from Richmond at age 15 to train with Dr. Walter Johnson (who also coached Althea Gibson), and is credited with turning Arthur Ashe into one of the world's greatest tennis players; and
WHEREAS, Richmond native Arthur Ashe won 51 titles during his tennis career, became the first African American player named to the United States Davis Cup team, the first African American to win the United States Open, and the first and only African American man to win Wimbledon; and earned respect and a reputation for impeccable sportsmanship, a quality he undoubtedly learned under the tutelage of John Andrew Watson, Jr.; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., also made a name for himself in local tennis competitions;
was among the first four African Americans to play in the Davenport City Tennis Championship when it moved to Byrd Park in 1967; served as the longtime president of the Richmond Racquet Club and first vice president of the American Tennis Association, the oldest African American sports organization in the United States; and was inducted into the Mid Atlantic Tennis Hall of Fame in 1992; and
WHEREAS, he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and was actively involved in
community service, volunteering for many years as a tennis coach for the Richmond Department of Recreation and Parks; and
WHEREAS, John Andrew Watson, Jr., believed that tennis was a sport for a lifetime, and through the game he touched the lives of many young people, saving many from a path of destruction by introducing them to tennis, a portal to a different life, and secured hundreds of scholarships for them during his tenure as director of the Southeastern Tennis Tournament; and
WHEREAS, he derived great personal satisfaction from knowing that so many children and youths of diverse backgrounds had benefited from his instruction and encouragement, and had developed into productive and successful citizens; and
WHEREAS, the lives of many have been enriched through the life of John Andrew Watson, Jr., and his family, friends, students, and colleagues and the people of Virginia mourn his loss, but will cherish his memory and legacy; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring, That the General Assembly hereby note with great sadness the loss of John Andrew Watson, Jr.; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the Senate prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of John Andrew Watson, Jr., adopted son and distinguished educator and tennis coach, as an expression of the General Assembly's respect for his memory and gratitude for his service and contributions to the children and youth of this Commonwealth.

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