Every August, professional tennis used to show up in my backyard. For one week every summer, the Bay Area wasn't just watching the women's tour, we were at the center of it. While the tournament was indoors for its early days, the last two and a half decades were played outdoors in Palo Alto and San Jose respectively, and let me tell you, the weather was glorious. A week off in the sunshine every year watching the WTA's best battle it out right there on my home turf was something I really looked forward to.

However, three years ago, the WTA folded the San Jose tournament into the ATP's Citi Open and shipped the whole operation three thousand miles east.

Now don't get me wrong, I understand the business logic is airtight. One combined 500-level moment kicking off the hard-court summer instead of two smaller stops splitting attention and sponsorship dollars. The move to D.C. also allowed for equal prize money for the women, which you know, is always something I'm gonna advocate for. It was a gut punch, but anyone sitting in Steve Simon's chair, probably makes the same call. If it don't make dollars, it don't make sense, I get it.

I don't need convincing. But I do need somebody to explain why one of the states that is essential to shaping modern tennis culture, the state that gave us Billie Jean King and the Williams sisters, the state with thousands of public courts and some of the deepest tennis communities in the country, got left with exactly one tour stop.

One tour stop between March and forever.

Indian Wells jumps off in the California desert every March and then the tour packs up and doesn't come back. No more Los Angeles. No more San Diego (also taken away). No more the Bay Area. Now I'm biased of course, but the tour bet big on D.C., and dealt the West Coast a bad hand in the process. 

Here's what made San Jose different, though, and why "just go to Indian Wells" was never really the argument. And while Indian Wells is a great tournament, it rivals a slam with regards to the dent it will make in your wallet.

San Jose wasn't necessarily polished. It wasn't at a multimillion dollar tennis facility, however, San Jose State (Go Spartans!!) did accommodate the event nicely. The tournament sat inside a Bay Area tennis culture that's been vibrant in public parks, colleges, and clubs for decades. It felt like, for one week out of the year the tour looked at a thriving ecosystem and said "we see you, this matters." Losing it didn't just erase a week of tennis from the calendar, it dismissed its legacy and the accessibility for a diverse, next generation of Bay Area fans to experience the sport at a high level up close and personal.

And sure, I'm big salty about the WTA ghosting the Bay Area (and San Diego). The Citi Open leveled up and is genuinely a great event. Equal pay, a stacked combined draw, D.C. in August is getting the opportunity to flex and I'm not mad at that.

In fact, I might even try to pull up for a few days, I've strangely never been to D.C., but humidity does wonders for my skin so a pre-U.S. Open glow up might just be what my esthetician ordered. This isn't a boycott. It's grief, and grief doesn't require the thing you lost to have be forgotten. Sometimes you just have to wonder if and when something better will come along. 

So three years later the rational tennis mind and the homesick one don't have to agree. I respect the merger and still feel the absence of a tournament that treated my hometown like it belonged on tour. I can watch the Citi Open and find the goodness in it, but you gotta trust me when I tell you, watching professional tennis and getting sun-kissed during a California summer is unfuckwitable.

D.C., do your thing, we'll be watching. As for the tour, we'll leave the sunshine on. California stays lit.