As a USTA coach for nearly 15 years, Rinaldi has logged thousands of hours working closely with dozens of players at all ages and stages of their development. But Rinaldi hardly arrived at those prominent positions overnight. She’s also captain of America’s Billie Jean King Cup (formerly Fed Cup) team. “There’s a warmth and a kindness to Kathy, an ease that’s bubbly and always friendly,” says Rinaldi’s good friend, Tennis Channel analyst Tracy Austin.Ĭurrently, Rinaldi is head of women’s tennis for the USTA. If you have a problem with her, that’s strictly your problem.
Seamless transition skin#
Rinaldi has a preternatural comfort in her skin that makes for an exceptionally gracious persona.
In other words, tennis is filled with a great many prickly people. Amid such pressure, egos, insecurity, assertion and conflict abound. Rinaldi savors knowing that her pro days began versus one VW-Virginia Wade, winner of the US Open in 1968-and finished it competing against another: Venus Williams, still active in the 2020s.īut the second part of Rinaldi’s childhood vision may well have proven even more meaningful.Īs an individual sport, tennis is filled with profoundly strong personalities, often vying versus one another in a highly competitive milieu. Over the course of nearly 20 years, between 1980 and ‘97, she reached the quarters or better in the singles at three Grand Slam events earned wins over Hall of Famers Stefanie Graf, Hana Mandlikova, Pam Shriver and Helena Sukova and attained a career-high ranking of No. When Kathy Rinaldi was seven years old, a second grader growing up in Stuart, Fla., she wrote these words for a school assignment: “If I can’t be a tennis player/I think I’ll just be me.”
0 kommentar(er)
