Amid U.S. Open Fanfare, U.S.T.A. Fights Questions of Its Handling of Sexual Abuse

For several months, the United States Tennis Association has positioned this year’s US Open as a key moment to celebrate its 50 -year leadership record in the heritage and empowerment of women, linked to the payment of equal awards.

At the same time, he has litigue that it is the handling of accusations of sexual assault made by a player who worked with a male coach at the UTA Marquesine Training Center in Florida, with statements that have been sexual in history.

Kylie McKenzie, a 24 -year -old girl from Arizona who was once the most promising Junior players in the country, sued the USTA last year, claiming that the organization had not been able to protect her from a preacher in 2018, when she went after the posterior.

Attempts to mediate in an agreement have not been successful in the legs, which leads lawyers to start deposing witnesses while preparing for a possible trial.

Duration those statements, a lawyer of the USTA asked McKenzie about how many sexual partners had he had before the incident, about medications that had tasks to treat anxiety and depression, and about the nature of discussions with his therapist.

The lawyer asked the player’s mother, Kathleen McKenzie, if she knew that her daughter had tasks of contraceptive pills and a morning pill after the morning.

The types of questions, thought common in the demands focused on sexual abuse, have been widely criticized by the defenders of the victims, who say they discourage women from presenting when they are abused.

“This is what always happens,” said Pam Shriver, a former player and television commentator who was deposed in the case as a McKenzie witness and who has worked with the USTA from time to time for a year.

In a statement, Chris Widmaier, spokesman chief of the USTA, said the organization “had no intention of revicting or shame” McKenzie in any way. “We were giving an inconsistent testimony and we were simply decorating which version was true,” he said.

Shriver testified that the main lawyer of USTA, Stacialles Mischel, last year warned that “be careful” about his public statements about sexual abuse in tennis. Shriver has become an ally of McKenzie since he became public with his own abuse history last year in an interview with the New York Times.

When a lawyer who represents the USTA in the case of McKenzie asked Shriver if in the USTA he had discouraged her about talking about sexual abuse, he replied: “It depends on how he interprets Staciall’s conversation. That is, which means you don’t say too much.”

When asked about Mischel’s conversation with Shriver, Widmaier said the organization had a deep sympathy for Shriver. “We would never suffocate anyone to tell their story,” he said.

The voice of McKenzie’s case of his work with a coach, Anibal Aranda, who worked in the center of USTA. The organization had supported its development since it was 12 years old, and had training time in its centers in California and Florida. McKenzie described an escalation of physical contact and the isolation that made her feel uncomfortable. Initially he thought that Aranda had different norms for physical contact because he had grown up in Paraguay before moving to the United States. Then, on November 9, 2018, Aranda sat near her in a bank after practice so that her legs were playing and then put their hand between the thighs, he said.

McKenzie quickly informed the incident to friends, family, USA and police officers. The USTA was quickly suspended and then fired Aranda, who denied having touched McKenzie inappropriately. A Longhy investigation conducted by the US Safeport Center. UU., The organization responsible for investigating claims for sexual and physical abuse in sports, considered that it was “more likely that” that Aranda had assaulted McKenzie. Police show a statement from McKenzie, declared that there was a probable cause of a position of aggression and then delivered the evidence to local prosecutors, who chose not to seek a criminal case.

Aranda did not return the repeated messages that rose in the comment.

McKenzie said he soon asked to experience panic and depression attacks, which has hindered his attempts to progress in sport.

Duration Safeport’s investigation, an Usta employee said Aranda had touched her and touched her vagina on her clothes in a New York dance club around 2015. He did not reveal the incident to anyone at that time. The employee told Safeport that after Deía about McKenzie’s accusations, she regretted not informing her interaction with Aranda.

Widmaier has said previously that the USTA learned of the accusations made by one of its employees towards Aranda after McKenzie informed his complaint to the authorities, and that moved to Aranda immediately.

McKenzie has spent the year playing in a lower level tournament while fighting anxiety and depression. At the end of last month, he held the 820th position in the world.

In April, after she made the final of a tournament in Tunisia, she testified for seven hours in her previous deposition. Kevin Shaughnessy, a Bakerhosteler’s lawyer represents the USTA, asked about the 2018 incident week and questioned why McKenzie did not report previous cases of touch inapplored by Aranda.

McKenzie said he did not expect Aranda’s behavior to intensify and that he did not expect to be sexual. “I was naive,” he said.

Shaughnessy then asked if he had a boyfriend before, or if he had ever had a boy “Let’s” go to her before. When McKenzie said she was not really involved with the children at that time, Hey asked about the number of sexual partners she had had and if she had an intimate leg with a particular player in the training center.

In July, Shaughnessy deposed McKenzie’s mother and asked if another USTA coach had told him when McKenzie was 14 years old that his social life was getting in his tennis, and that he had good distance tasks. Kathleen McKenzie was also ash if her daughter once believed she was pregnant.

Robert Allard, McKenzie’s lawyer and a specialist in representing victims of sexual aggression in sports, said the USTA interrogation showed a strategy of “belittling, seeing intimidating survivors.”

Shriver, who has worked to support USTA efforts to increase participation and helped raise money for the organization and its foundation, said it was initially torn when Allard asked him to testify. However, he has made support tennis players who are victims of assault a priority.

“In the end, I feel a real attraction to support and give a perspective to what it is to be a player and have a training situation not to be professional,” Shriver said Friday at the US Open, where he was commenting for ESPN. “I want to support young women who have been traumatized.”