By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
I first heard of Darian King when he drew American Steve Johnson in the first round of the Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio de Janiero. I was working on the production team for NBC Olympics television in Stamford, Connecticut and was in charge of compiling bio information on King for the TV announcers.
King’s story was an attractive one – the first tennis player to ever represent Barbados at the Olympic Games. He had received a special International Tennis Federation invitation to compete in the Games – a “wild card” per se – to help developing tennis nations promote the sport in their respective nations.
King was on an upswing in his career, winning back-to-back Challengers in July of 2016 – July 10 in Cali, Colombia, defeating Victor Estrella Burgos of the Dominican Republic in the final on clay and on July 24 in Binghamton, N.Y., defeating American Mitchell Krueger in the final on a hard court.
He had moved from No. 255 to No. 164 in the ATP rankings in just about a month, sitting just three spots off of his career-high ranking at the time of No. 161. The previous summer, he became the first Barbadian to qualify for an ATP World Tour event at Washington D.C., losing to Go Soeda of Japan 6-2, 6-1.
In Googling for more information, I read several articles written by Justin Marville of The Nation newspaper in Barbados. There was an email address for Marville at the bottom of the page, so I sent him some follow up questions. Marville immediately responded and offered to speak on the phone, where I not only made a new contact, but learned even more about King. He once had been invited to try out for the Barbados national soccer team but declined due to his dedication to tennis. He also had been mentored by Martin Blackman, a former Barbados Davis Cup player who is now the head of USTA Player Development program. It was interesting to learn that Barbados, where King still trained, has only 50 tennis courts in the entire country – that’s half the amount of courts that are on the new USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida!
King put up a fight against Johnson, but lost 6-3, 6-2 but exhibited the Olympic creed set forth by the modern-Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win by to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”
Fast forward two weeks to the qualifying tournament for the 2016 U.S. Open and I get an email from Marville, saying that he is spontaneously coming to New York to cover King’s effort to try and qualify for the U.S. Open. He asked to meet with me, which I was happy to do since I was now more invested in King and wanted to continue to follow his story.
King was able to win his first round match against Grega Zemlja 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 – and promptly did a court-side interview with Marville. I was able to briefly meet Darian and his brother Christopher and ran into an old acquaintance Richard Henry, a New York area tennis teaching pro and entrepreneur who is also from Barbados. Henry and I began discussing that with King’s success, Barbados needed to be a destination for a tennis event, even after King was defeated in his second round qualifying match against Alexandr Nedovyesov 6-3, 5-7, 6-3.
Perhaps we could set up an exhibition with King in Barbados, a major tourist destination served by many flights from JetBlue as seen from the many advertisements in the New York City area. Perhaps a “Caribbean Challenge” where the best players in the Caribbean could play to determine regional champion, also featuring Estrella Burgos from the Dominican Republic and perhaps Dustin Brown, the German with Jamaican roots. Perhaps a Futures event or Challenger might be appropriate to help Barbados develop more player that could one day reach the highest levels of the game like King.
In some of my sales efforts for putting together tennis events, I had a few contacts in Barbados that I could follow up on. I had brokered and helped put together a John McEnroe vs. Jim Courier exhibition to help promote the tennis offerings at the Casa de Campo resort in the Dominican Republic. I would love to help do the same in Barbados, to help a nation further develop a tennis tradition, led by emergence of King. At this point, we are in discussions to make an event of some sort happen. It would be an attractive trip for tennis-playing tourists wanting to visit Barbados!
King is fast approaching the Top 100 in the ATP rankings, sitting at a career-high No. 121 as of March 20 and fresh off reaching the second round at Indian Wells, where he won the first set in a hard-fought match loss to Gael Monfils. His win over Bernie Tomic in Memphis earlier this year made him the first player from Barbados to win an ATP singles match. He qualified into his second straight ATP 1000 event at Miami, where he has more opportunities to further create Barbados tennis history.
