Dog Daily News

Tennis anyone?

Not if you happen to be the dog of a female pro tennis player. For decades, starting with Françoise Dürr and her Airedale terrier, Topspin, many top women players have toured with their canine best friends at their side.

“You’re trying to bring some kind of normalcy to a very abnormal lifestyle — some kind of consistency and constancy,” Martina Navratilova said in an article in today’s New York Times.

Navratilova and her old pack. Lapdog K.D. traveled the globe with her for 16 years.

Navratilova traveled the world for 16 years with her toy fox terrier, K.D. (Killer Dog). “It’s good on so many levels to travel with a little dog, or a bigger dog.”

Unfortunately for dogs and their leading lobbing ladies, there seems to be a trend toward a dog-free tour. The Times reports that between travel restrictions, expenses, and rules banning dogs completely at certain tournaments, many players are forced to leave their dogs behind.

The U.S. Open, for instance, bans dogs from all areas except the players’ lounge. And the French Open, where you’d think dogs would be dining at their own tables and clinking champagne glasses, prohibits pooches from every square centimeter.

Harold, tuck your head in! Hide!

No one is immune from this trend. Venus and Serena Williams still show up at tourneys with their tiny dogs in tow, but it’s getting much more difficult for the sisters to tote them along.

Venus has sneaked her Havanese, Harold, into areas where his type isn’t officially welcome. And Serena has been unable at times to get her two dogs past gatekeepers.

“I don’t understand why I get stopped,” Serena told the New York Times. “If I can take them onto the plane or into a restaurant, why can’t I take them into a locker room?”

Indeed. In a world that’s becoming more dog-friendly by the day, it’s dismaying and a little scary to see world-class players hobbled by these aracane-ine restrictions. The players need their dogs and the dogs need their players.

The WTA must rally against this trend before it creates a ripple effect for dog-friendly locales everywhere. Please, WTA, don’t roll over and play dead. Harold and Venus and so many others are counting on you.