Simona Halep.
In this period between Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, professional tennis continues to grapple with a public relations nightmare of its own making.
It has now been ten months since one of the top players in the world - Simona Halep - was provisionally suspended after a positive drug test. Since the news broke Halep has defended herself against the implied implication of the positive test result and nearly everyone who knows her has stepped forward as a character witness on her behalf.
Still the tennis world has allowed her case to drag on without a conclusion for nearly a year, depriving Halep the chance to compete, depriving fans the chance to see her in action, and depriving the business of tennis the revenue she helps generate.
This is not the first time professional tennis has stepped on its own foot through negligent handling of public controversy. There was the 2022 debacle involving Novack Djokovic’s refusal to get vaccinated before the Australian Open. The year before there was the mishandling of Naomi Osaka’s mental health crisis at the French Open.
In each case internal policies reflected poorly on the public reputation of professional tennis.
When trouble erupts there is often an instinct to circle the wagons and embrace organizational rules that may seem poorly considered to observers on the outside. This stubborn refusal to consider the effect internal deliberations are having on an organization’s public reputation can be costly.
Bottom Line: When internal governance is effecting your public reputation it is time to make public perception a top concern. Sometimes public mis-management is worse than the crime.