How tennis players’ dogs stay at Grand Slams and on tour, from side seats to massages
PARIS – Melanie Gauthier Knopp’s career at the French Open has nothing to do with playing tennis. He spends his days helping the hundreds of players who have walked through their gates in the past few weeks to feel cared for.
In that pursuit, he does everything from coordinating social events to leading foreign trips. He gives them the massages they need after a long day running around and, when it was unseasonably hot in Paris last week, he even opened a private pool for them to cool off in.
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If he’s really generous, Gauthier Knopp will hand-serve some clients their dinner.
No, not the players. Their dogs.
Gauthier Knopp is the first canine concierge employed by Roland Garros, hired to care for the beloved pets that top tennis players ride with them from tournament to tournament throughout the year, across borders and over seas, so that the competitors can focus on playing at the top.
The dogs tend to be smaller – better for transport – and some have achieved such a level of popularity that the sight of them heralds the arrival of their human.
When the little dachshund, Bella, walks down the hall, hope French Open quarterfinalist Anna Kalinskaya isn’t far behind. The same goes for Hailey Baptiste’s US dachshund, Oscar, and world number 1 Aryna Sabalenka’s Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy, Ash – named after Arthur Ashe, because Sabalenka had an agreement with her coach that if she won the US Open, she would get a dog.
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“We felt it should be related to New York,” Sabalenka told the Tennis Channel this year. “Apple doesn’t sound right.”
Small dogs have been playing tennis for years. Serena Williams’ puppy, Chip, has been a longtime member of her team, and other Grand Slams have adopted pet-friendly policies.
But this sport has seen a significant increase in popularity in recent years. At least half of the women who reached the quarterfinals this year at the French Open took their dogs on the trip. World No. 3 Alexander Zverev, who won the quarterfinal against the rising Spanish teenager Rafael Jódar on Tuesday, has been with the dog since the early years of his career. Zizou Bergs, the Belgian player who lost in the first round, is a rare dog owner who brings his pet, Copain.
There were so many dogs at this edition of Roland Garros that the tournament installed doggie bag disposal facilities in the players’ lounge area on site, and posted clear signs in areas where dogs are not allowed. The ten canines have been given their identification badges to wear on the premises, and although there are certain areas they are not supposed to be in, such as restaurants, they walk around.
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Dogs have been spotted on practice courts, listening attentively during press conferences, and even in the players’ boxes at Court Philippe-Chatrier, somehow enduring the horrific torture of seeing their owner repeatedly hit the wrong tennis ball.
As Madison Keys, one of the dogless players on tour, said at a press conference last week after closing her eyes and taking a deep breath: “There are just too many dogs.
“Dogs are great. I think dogs are a big burden. Well, as long as we do that, I think dogs are wonderful,” he said with a laugh.
“I can totally see how it feels, like a little routine and a piece of home. What are they called? Emotional support animals. I can see where that’s true when we travel a lot to have just a little bit of, like, something we love.”
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Professional tennis requires a lonely, nomadic lifestyle. Players live out of suitcases traveling without friends and family for most of the year; their team members, the people closest to them, are employees. It can be hard to feel rooted. It’s hard to escape one’s mind after a bad game, sitting alone in a hotel room.
When the dog needs to go out.
“It’s nice to have his responsibilities. He’s a good company, he frees my mind. It’s good not to think about tennis all the time,” Kalinskaya said in an interview. “Walking with him, relaxes me.”
The dogs also kiss and hug whether their player had a good day on the court or not.
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Sabalenka, who was upset Wednesday in the semifinals after another match at the French Open was uncontrollable, called Ash for her mental health support. Anastasia Potapova, whose mini-poodle mix Bula accompanied her to Paris as she ran for the fourth round, said her dog made her hotel feel like a happier place.
“There’s just a different atmosphere in the room, you know?”
João Fonseca, the Brazilian who beat three-time champion Novak Djokovic and two-time finalist Casper Ruud before losing his quarterfinal match to another rising talent, Jakub Menšík of the Czech Republic, on Tuesday night, is a dog lover whose family pet stays at home when he’s on the road.
At 19, Fonseca is still focused on learning how to navigate the ATP Tour. Besides, if he took his dog from his whole family, he said, his parents would go crazy.
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“It’s only my second year, but I can see that on the trip you stay alone most of the time, or you and your team, and it’s individual,” said Fonseca, his arms hugging the imaginary dog in front of him as he spoke. … “It’s good, you know, to have someone around. [A dog] you’re a friend too.”
These friends need to plan an involved trip. Different countries have different regulations regarding traveling with animals which means that players – or more often, their agents – must be educated on their pet policies.
Flying with a human dog from the United States to Paris? No problem. But flying a dog from the United States to England will require some preparation. Many players do not bring their dogs to Australia or to tournaments in China, Japan or Korea, due to rules that require pets arriving by plane to be quarantined for months.
Some tournaments do not allow dogs on site. Then there’s the hotel’s optional dog policy.
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There’s a lot to keep in mind when players jump around every week. Sabalenka, who added Ash to her family earlier this year, thought her team checked all those boxes in Paris.
But he prefers to stay in the same place every year when he returns to tournaments, and finds that the pre-Ash living digs may not be suitable now that he’s a dog parent.
“We live in the city and there is no place to go,” said Sabalenka in a press conference. “But so far it’s been great. He’s a very smart dog, very easy going, very cool, and very easy to get used to new places.”
For 19-year-old Mirra Andreeva, a semi-finalist here, the hardest part of being a parent to her bernedoodle Rassy isn’t walking, which her agent handles a lot. This is where he should leave him at home, as he decided to do so during the French Open.
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Rassy is not responding to her voice on FaceTime yet.
“I just look at him and say, ‘Hello, look at me!'” said Andreeva, waving her hands. “But he doesn’t respond at all.”
Andreeva’s opponent in the semifinals, Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine, had one dog on the trip – Mander – and now has two, with the addition of Chich.
Gauthier Knopp, a dog owner himself, believes that this tournament offers the best of both worlds – players can focus on their day’s work while knowing that their canine children are being pampered, not just left in a hotel room, only to meet again at the end of the day.
He started his concierge business in Paris, where he worked extensively with other athletes and actors, before joining Roland Garros. She only has four or five dogs at a time this year, which means she’s been able to do some personal care.
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“One of them likes to run and smell, so we take him for a long walk in the park. We say that they read their emails when they go outside and smell the plants and smell the fountain,” said Gauthier Knopp. “We were surprised that they didn’t want their owner so much. Sporting dogs do well.”
Gauthier Knopp expects other tennis tournaments to follow Roland Garros’ lead and offer on-site facilities for dogs as more players travel with them. The tournament gave him access to indoor playgrounds as well as services – like helping him fill an inflatable pool during hot afternoons last week.
He has never received a strange request from a player, although Gauthier Knopp said his definition of “foreigner” when it comes to dogs may differ from other people’s.
“I was never surprised,” he said. “But we’re all crazy dog moms here.”
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This article first appeared in The Athletic.
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