Still serving aces after 30 years

Tony Mitchell can look back to some interesting happenings both as a player and as a worker at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships that started on August 22.
Mitchell works for the United States Tennis Association (USTA) in player operations. His position involves scheduling practice times for all of the players during the entire tournament. The scheduling consists of men’s and women’s singles, and doubles, mixed doubles and tournaments for the juniors and seniors and wheelchair players. His job is mainly at the desk.
Of course, he would rather be playing, but injuries curtailed his career, including a car accident coming home from a tournament in New Haven, Connecticut and a shoulder one, that caused a deteriorated rotator cuff.
A teaching pro at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the site of the upcoming tournament, Mitchell has been at this job almost 30 years. He recalls some interesting competition during his career both on and off the court. And he didn’t come out victorious in many tournaments that he did enter into.
However, in one year while at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, he won the Iron Horse Award as the most valuable athlete in the Public Schools Athletic League while he was a member of the varsity high school team. There he was also on its track team and for one year on its soccer squad.
While working in operations, he recalled an off-court incident involving John McEnroe, former U.S. Open champion in the singles.
“McEnroe would tease the tournament director who was Bob Howe, at the time,” Mitchell said. “Howe, from Australia, was known to have a few drinks during the course of a day. When his nose would be red, you would know he was drinking. McEnroe would take advantage of him.
“Player operations were stationed right next to the locker room. Bob Howe would call me, because I was in charge of player operations. Howe would say ‘I want McEnroe down here. The night matches would start at 7. He would want McEnroe before the start of the Star Spangled Banner. McEnroe would never make it. When Howe called McEnroe, he would go out and sit in the toilet for a good 15 minutes before every match. He would drive them crazy.’”
On the court, Mitchell faced some decent players. John James and Dick Stockton were two of them.
One of the greatest tournaments that he played was in a qualifying one trying to get into a U.S. Open tournament in Forest Hills.
“I think I played Dick Stockton in a round and had him for two sets. But he came back and killed me.”
For now, the former teaching pro and tennis director for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation is concentrating on his job in player operations for the U.S. Open. Mitchell believes that Roger Federer will win the men’s singles tournament title.
“The Open has always been an attraction for me and I always did it,” said Mitchell who took a break from other tennis from 2002 to 2009.
Even when he took a break from working all year round in tennis, he would always come back to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park for the annual event that draws a field of international players and international crowds.
“To me, I love this tournament and the crowd we get is tremendous,” he added.