An International Competition You Know Little About

The players, spectators and fans are about to embark on a two-week journey known as the U.S. Open Championships at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., the final Grand Slam event of the year. If you are an American tennis fan, you are likely going to watch a lot of tennis on television or perhaps you will scramble for tickets to see the matches live. What tennis fan during this time of year is not engrossed and intrigued by the action?

Halfway around the world, nearly 6,000 miles from Flushing Meadows was a tennis event that 95 percent of the tennis reading public did not know about that took place just a few short weeks ago. The Maccabiah Games takes place in Israel every four years, one year after Olympic Competition, bringing more than 6,000 athletes from around the world to compete in Israel making it the third largest sporting event in the world behind the Olympics and Pan American Games. Among those 6,000 athletes are more than 300 athletes competing in tennis for gold, silver and bronze medals from many age groups.

This year, I was honored to be named one of the coaches for the American team for Grand Masters Tennis. With Head Coach Bob Litwin, we coached many senior players to 17 medals for them to bring back to the United States.

More importantly, our game has transcended tennis to bring people from the world over to compete on a high level and to share pride in their Jewish heritage. Tennis is the tool used to show the world that people, although of the same religion still coming from different cultures, can put aside their differences and compete inside the lines. The rules of tennis are the same all over the world, and a racquet and ball are the instruments used to communicate in a way which is understood by all.

We watch our four major Grand Slams every year, and each Slam has a level of anticipation which always seems different from the previous year. Who will emerge the champion … who will be upset … what newcomers will emerge? Many questions need to be answered, and after two weeks of heated competition, they are.

However, with little fanfare other than in the world of the Maccabiah Games athletes, is a tennis competition that needs to have a footnote in the world’s stage. The United States tennis players marched into a stadium with over 40,000 spectators to rousing applause and with an entertainment spectacle as thrilling as any Olympic Games or Super Bowl. They competed in the hot Middle-Eastern sun every day in thrilling matches and hardly anyone in the States knew this event was taking place. It was thrilling and every bit as worthy of any world-renowned competition because it was just that, "an international competition.”

Many thanks to those who went abroad for two weeks and represented their country and heritage and played the game we love.