Help Ben Rothenberg Finish His Legal Battle for a Free Press

My name is Ben Rothenberg. I've been a freelance journalist since 2011. For about a decade I covered the professional tennis tours for The New York Times, and I was also a frequent contributor to Racquet Magazine (for which I was a Senior Editor), as well as other outlets including Slate. Much of my work has gone beyond the lines of the tennis court, focusing on the intersections between tennis and culture, features, and investigative reporting.

The story of why I have set up this crowdfunding campaign begins nearly four years ago, when I began covering one of the most important stories of my career.

In October 2020, a woman named Olya Sharypova posted on Instagram that she had been abused by an ex-boyfriend. Later that day, Sharypova confirmed in interviews with Russian outlets that she was talking about her relationship with the German tennis star Alexander Zverev.

I felt obligated as a journalist on the tennis beat to look further into her story and the serious accusations she was making. When I made contact with Sharypova, I learned she was living in New Jersey, and made plans to interview her there.

Our interview lasted more than two hours, with Sharypova at times taking breaks to collect her emotions as she described a pattern of emotional and physical abuse that had ultimately driven her to attempt suicide (Zverev has repeatedly offered blanket denials to Sharypova's accusations and has also given blanket denials to the subsequent accusations of a second ex-girlfriend, Brenda Patea, which became public years later). Sharypova only wanted to tell the first half of her story during our first interview; the experience of reliving these painful chapters of her life was understandably draining, and she wanted her story to be published in two parts.

After a thorough fact-checking process, the contents of the first interview (and of interviews with other people who could provide contemporaneous corroboration for details in Sharypova’s story) was published days later by Racquet Magazine, in early November 2020. Due to various delays which were primarily on my side (particularly my father’s rapidly declining health and eventual death), the follow-up interview took place several weeks later, and the second article telling the rest of Sharypova’s story—and the story of the sport’s failure to address the issue in the intervening months—was published more than nine months later, in August 2021, by Slate.

It was challenging reporting on a difficult subject, but I was proud—and remain proud—of the work that I and my editors did on both articles, and for choosing to pursue this story and tell it to the best of our abilities.

Zverev filed legal challenges against the publications and myself over both articles, which was not a surprise. The strong American laws around freedom of the press would have given his claims no chance of succeeding, so Zverev did not file any actions in the United States, where the publications were based and the interviews took place. Zverev also chose not to file in Monaco, where he lives, nor in his original hometown of Hamburg. Instead, Zverev chose to file in Berlin, where courts have a reputation for being favorable to celebrities in cases against the media.

The two court cases were “Zverev VS Slate and Rothenberg” and “Zverev VS Racquet and Rothenberg.” I was grateful to have the support of both Slate and Racquet through the proceedings: both organizations stood firmly behind me and our reporting, and with both publications (and their insurance) covered the fees for our German attorneys as the respective cases moved through an often-confusing legal journey in a foreign country and a foreign language that has lasted years.

Unfortunately, the steady support from Racquet unexpectedly faltered earlier this year. The two co-founders of Racquet Magazine had an acrimonious separation in late 2023, which led to the editor who had worked with me most closely on the story and the ensuing legal proceedings being ousted from the company. In May, the remaining publisher abruptly halted her support for the case, stunning both myself and our lawyer in Berlin, who said he had never seen a publication treat a journalist in such a manner in his decades working in press law. When I spoke to her, she said she still stood by the reporting in our story, but was upset that I had taken a freelance assignment for a new publication started by her Racquet co-founder (she had never instructed me not to in our previous conversations). She also mentioned that she believed our reporting on Zverev had cost her a sponsorship deal from one of Zverev’s sponsors for a pre-tournament party last year.

So instead of “Zverev VS Racquet and Rothenberg,” the case became “Zverev VS Rothenberg.” (Due to an oversight in an early stage of the case, Racquet had never been officially initiated into the case via process server, a technicality which had not previously been meaningful to Racquet leadership. When this discrepancy became a sticking point for a judge in Berlin during a hearing in June, Zverev’s lawyers dropped Racquet from their claim, leaving me alone on the docket.)

As a result, I have been left holding the bag for this case on my own, and am now facing considerable court costs I had never anticipated. Because of the stage of the appeals process which Zverev VS Rothenberg is now at, and the three possible results my lawyers have outlined, it makes sense to continue the case.

1) If I were to drop the case now, my lawyers have calculated that would leave me responsible for paying total costs (including reimbursing Zverev for his legal fees) of €16,130.26, or US $18,079.60).

2) If I continue the appeals process to its completion and lose, the costs are estimated to only be a bit higher as a percentage: €18,388.26, or $US 20,610.48.

3) If the appeal is successful, which our lawyers said they believed was more likely than not when Racquet decided to initiate this appeal process last year, Zverev would be required to reimburse my legal fees and the remaining costs to me would be negligible.

The unknown nature of how much I will ultimately owe at the end of this process is a challenge for fundraising that requires a goal, but also an opportunity. In order for some good to come out of this predicament, I am committed to donating 100% of all remaining funds raised here to House of Ruth , a Washington DC-based nonprofit helping survivors break the cycle of domestic violence.

I actually first visited House of Ruth as a teenager, during a school field trip around DC to various nonprofit organizations. I've donated sporadically to House of Ruth in the years since, and I'm hopeful that this moment can be an opportunity for people to come together to make a major contribution to the essential work House of Ruth has been doing for women and families in DC for decades. Since becoming more immersed in the issue of domestic violence through my reporting on this story over the past four years, I understand more now than ever how urgent their mission is.

Whether you're a tennis fan, someone who works in the sport, someone concerned about the pernicious prevalence of domestic violence in society, or someone who believes in protecting and defending journalism and a free press that is able to pursue difficult stories, I hope you can support this cause.

If you are someone who works within tennis (as a player, coach, tournament owner, etc.), and have concerns about a visible donation appearing like a public criticism of the ATP or Zverev, GoFundMe provides an option to donate anonymously.

Many thanks