The US Open — one of the biggest tennis tournaments around the world — began in New York City last Monday with a few Jewish athletes vying for a title.
As they compete in their respective tournaments, get to know the Jewish athletes taking to the court at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Diego Schwartzman
For Argentinian tennis star Diego Schwartzman, this US Open was especially emotional as the 32-year-old recently announced his impending retirement from professional tennis at the beginning of next year.
Schwartzman, who is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, got his start in a sports club established for Jews who were barred from joining other sports clubs in Buenos Aires in the early 20th century.
The Argentinian is shorter than many of his competitors, earning him the nickname El Peque (an abbreviation of the Spanish word “pequeño” meaning “shorty”). His shorter stature hasn’t kept him from playing strongly, though.
“There are reasons that I might not have made it here, but they have nothing to do with my size,” Schwartzman insisted in a 2020 interview.
While his family was once well-off from the clothing and jewelry company they owned, the Scwartzmans hit hard times in the 1990s amid an economic depression in Argentina. That made it hard to pay for Diego’s tennis training, but his family found ways to make it work, including selling rubber bracelets left over from their business.
“Knowing what my family went through taught me valuable lessons about the importance of family, and gave me a better understanding of how to look at the bigger picture when it comes to sports,” Schwartzman explained. “Whatever happens in my career doesn’t compare to what my parents endured.”
Schwartzman’s great-grandparents were Holocaust survivors. His great-grandfather was put on a train to a concentration campt, but the coupling between the train cars broke, and he and everyone in his car were able to escape. When his great-grandfather eventually made it to Argentina, he spoke Yiddish and no Spanish.
“So from my ancestor escaping a train on its way to a concentration camp to staying in tiny hotel rooms and selling bracelets, I consider myself lucky,” said Schwartzman in 2020. “But everyone has a story. I’m not the only one who has faced adversity. It’s about not letting the tough moments drag you down, and using them as motivation to help you turn a bad situation into something good.”
Schwartzman fell in the first round of the men’s singles tournament to French tennis player Gaël Monfils.
Sofia Kenin
While Sofia Kenin was knocked out of the singles competition in the second round of the US Open, she’s still in the running for the women’s doubles competition alongside Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
Kenin was born to a Jewish family in Moscow, but moved with her family to South Florida a few months after her birth. She’s been playing tennis since she was five years old, with her father as her main coach.
The 25-year-old went pro in 2017, and by 2019, she was ranked among the top 15 tennis players in the world.
In 2020, Kenin won the Australian Open, making her the first Jewish woman to win a Grand Slam singles title since Hungarian Jew Zsuzsa Körmöczy clinched the French Open title in 1958.
Elina Svitolina
Elina Svitolina, 29, came from a sporting family, but her path to becoming a tennis star was anything but simple.
She started playing in her hometown of Odessa when she was just five years old.
While competing in a children’s tournament, a businessman at the game was so impressed with her skills that he invested in Svitolina’s training at a tennis club in Kharkiv, hundreds of miles away from her home. Despite being only 12 years old at the time, Svitolina had to move on her own at first, since her mother had her own sporting career to handle.
By the age of 18, she ranked among the world’s top 50 tennis players; by the age of 20 she was among the top 20, and in 2017 she reached the top 10.
Svitolina spent much of her childhood with her Jewish grandmother, Tamara, in Odessa, Ukraine.She has described her grandmother, who she visits twice a year, as a “classic Jewish woman from Odessa.”
“If you want to see an Odessa Jewish granny, you have to meet mine,” Svitolina told the Daily Mail.
Svitolina made quick work of her opponents in the US Open this year, but was eliminated after facing off against defending champion Coco Gauff in the third round.
Denis Shapovalov
Denis Shapovalov was born in Tel Aviv. His Ashkenazi mother was born in Ukraine and immigrated with his father, who comes from a Russian-Orthodox Christian background, to Israel during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Shapovalov’s family moved to Toronto, Canada while he was still a baby, and he started his tennis career in Canada. One of the reasons the Shapovalovs resettled in Toronto was because of the large Jewish community there.
The 25-year-old told the Times of Israel in 2017 that while he plays for Canada, he’s friendly with the Israeli tennis players he’s met. His mother Tessa added that “Denis identifies with his father’s religion, but I consider him Jewish.”
Shapolov was eliminated in the first round of the tournament on Wednesday.
Valerie Glozman
Valerie Glozman, a 17-year-old tennis player from Bellevue, Washington, competed in the US Open qualifying tournament but was eliminated in the second round of qualifiers.
Glozman’s father is a Ukrainian Jew and her mother is Taiwanese. She’s always been curious to learn about her family’s heritage and is interested in visiting Israel after college.
