Inside the Lines

The US Open Almost Didn’t Happen

American tennis was already in trouble long before the world shut down. Participation had fallen by nearly half since 1979, and at the end of 2019, no American man ranked among the world’s top ten. Mike Dowse took over as CEO of the United States Tennis Association ten weeks before the pandemic closed the sport down entirely.

Inside the Lines is his account of what followed: a sealed bubble in Queens, a US Open played to an empty stadium, and a governance fight that revealed how a century-old institution really works.

Readers will learn how to:
Lead an organization through a crisis with no precedent to follow Recognize when tradition has quietly replaced mission Make hard calls kindly, a philosophy Dowse calls courage over comfort Read the politics operating beneath any legacy institution Understand why incumbents underestimate challengers until it is too late
Part memoir and part case study in institutional change, Inside the Lines is written for anyone who has tried to modernize an organization that would rather not change.