Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, contact between reporters and tennis players has taken place via online platforms such as Zoom. But the BTJA now believes that the sport is "lagging behind" many others.

"We at the British Tennis Journalists' Association feel that the Zoom era of media access now needs to move forward into something more personal," the letter says.

"It is understandable that tennis has struggled to supply anything more than Zoom media access to players since March 2020. But, despite encouraging progress at the recent US Open, tennis is now clearly lagging behind other sports in returning to some semblance of normality.

"Some of us attended the Ryder Cup a fortnight ago, and the approach used there by the PGA Tour - an open-air tent with the players up front and reporters using microphones at a reasonable distance - was both safe and satisfactory. We can see no reason why this approach should not be adopted swiftly by the ATP and WTA Tours."

Having covered the Tokyo 2020 Olympics held during July and August, I can vouch for the fact that direct, albeit socially-distanced meetings between sporting figures and media have been successfully re-established.

As well as the post-event press conferences and monitored mixed-zone questioning, other forms of contact were engineered. At the end of the night of the men’s pole vault final I walked out of the stadium past the mixed zone to see the new Olympic champion Mondo Duplantis standing with a microphone in his hand, relaxed and happy, answering a series of questions put to him by Swedish journalists ranged at a healthily respectful distance.

The first reason offered in the plea for the ATP and WTA to return to more normal media practice is one which will resonate with any journalist who has encountered the huge economic impacts on the industry in recent years.

"It almost goes without saying that the present system favours reporting from home and has the danger of encouraging editors to believe they can cover tennis without sending anyone to events.

"The cost of travelling to tournaments was already proving prohibitive for many freelancers, and even those of us lucky enough to be in a staff job have had to work increasingly hard in recent years to convince editors to authorise trips abroad."

That is honest. And the letter goes on to point out that the "impressive turn-out" at the Indian Wells Masters currently underway was "driven purely" by the presence of Britain’s Emma Raducanu playing her first tournament since winning the US Open title.

"It seems extremely unlikely that any of our writers or broadcasters would be able to return to the desert in March if access to players does not improve markedly," the letter adds. "They need an incentive to travel."

A cynic interpolates: "Hark at the poor journalists! Worried that their precious trips are under threat."

Well yes. We all like trips. Most of them at any rate. But it goes deeper than that.

"You will be aware that, in the long run, this will inevitably lead to a slide in the quality of reporting," the letter goes on. "We will be unable to develop relationships with players and other tennis people, while also missing out on the colour that comes with being at an event in person."

The term "colour" denotes hugely more than descriptions of fluttering flags or cheering crowds. It is a term that covers everything - the physical impressions, the history, the context. It is the heart of what journalism is for and about.

And with the best will - and technology - in the world, you do not get as much talking to people via a screen as you can face-to-face.

A cynic interpolates: "Of course. You would say that wouldn’t you? Don’t want anything to spoil your awaydays in foreign climes."

Okay. Immediately after writing the previous paragraph I went onto Twitter and saw this from Kevin Mitchell, who has covered boxing, tennis and golf, among many other things, as chief sports writer of The Observer, reflecting on the aftermath of the momentous third meeting in the ring of the reigning World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and challenger Deontay Wilder:

"Another chaotic post-fight press conference: Bob Arum (!) asking a reporter, 'where do you get your facts from?'; the MC cutting off the champion in mid-flow to close the show. Fury is one of sport’s great talkers - let him talk. Brit hacks there will bring us 'afters', of course".

Of course they will. Because they are there. They can see what happens, see who is behind it - literally. They can talk to the trainers or other assorted associates, hangers-on, rival promoters…

Had that been an online-only press conference it would have been profoundly impoverished. Sometimes it is the all-powerful MC figure who shuts people or questions down. And even when there is goodwill the technology can undermine proceedings.

During one recent virtual press conference put on by the London Marathon a radio-reporting friend of mine with an occasionally unique path of enquiry tried in vain to ask one of the leading Ethiopian runners if it was true that there were separate names, as in, I don’t know, Haile or Selemon or Lamecha, for different types of training on different types of terrain.

A whimsical but rather beautiful enquiry. Sadly the sound cut out at key points and the MC, gamely picking up on a stray reference, asked the athletes how they managed to adapt to training on different surfaces before road running as my friend leaned forwards and then backwards in his chair, uttering the words "No! No! No!"

The London Marathon set-up can be set alongside the sterling efforts put together in recent months by World Athletics and European Athletics to facilitate online interviewing opportunities.

But again, with the best will in the world, it is a set menu. There has not been the chance to go a la carte and speak to someone who looks particularly happy or unhappy in the mixed zone, or to chat to a hovering coach or team official. Or to wander up into the stands to check something with one of the top bods.

This is the way the world - and the world of sports reporting - works. It is always the human contact that creates trust, which is the basis for any working relationship. It is always the human contact that offers unexpected prompts and opportunities. You start by talking about one story - then something in someone’s face, or a momentary hesitation, puts you on to a different course.

Two, somewhat random, examples spring to mind, involving the former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho and Polish shot putter Konrad Bukowiecki. Separately, that is.

I can’t remember the exact detail of the standard Friday lunchtime press conference with Mourinho at the Chelsea training ground during his first stint with the club, but he had one of his rows with the club chairman, Bruce Buck, and the main goal of most of the reporters present was to get a comment on it.

For almost an hour he spoke on every other topic you could imagine, parrying on several occasions the request to make his feelings known about the disagreement - or bust-up, depending on who you wrote for.

He knew. We knew he knew. He knew we knew he knew. And at the very end, as we were stowing our recorders and notebooks into our bags, he uttered a single sentence with a knowing grin that directly addressed and offered an immediate top line for the story everyone was after.

It was a moment of calculating mischief from Mourinho, but I don’t believe it would or could have happened without the brewing chemistry of the live questions.

Another example of the extra dimension of being there. At the 2018 European Championships I was interviewing Bukowiecki in the mixed zone after he had taken shot put silver behind his compatriot and training partner Michal Haratyk, who was speaking to other reporters nearby.

It was known that Bukowiecki had arrived in Berlin with a longstanding finger injury, but he added the information hat he had also twisted his ankle four days before the competition.

The middle finger of his throwing hand was still mottled and bruised. He seemed almost proud of it. I asked him what had happened. "I crushed a bone at the base of the finger while throwing," he said, and then turned and grinned towards Harytk.

"And then my friend shut his car door on it."

Again, the final comment seemed to have arrived as a result of a proper conversation.

On occasions while attending events or championships I have had people simply come up to me and either tell me about a story or give me their side of a story. At the 1993 World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart, Andy Norman, the controversial promotions officer for British Athletics, decided the new boy on The Independent should be the one to get his side of the story.

As we walked swiftly through crowds of people streaming out of the stadium, Norman insisted he was being unfairly treated and picked upon following the unsubstantiated allegations - later to found to be entirely without foundation - that he had made about the conduct of the then Sunday Times athletics correspondent, Cliff Temple. 

"The knives are out for me," he said. Within a year he was dismissed. This followed an inquest on Temple, whose suicide was, according to the coroner, partly due to Norman's intimidation.

In recent years, the sight of an insidethegames logo on my tee-shirt or the inimitable company tie has been enough to prompt some to come forward with things that might be of interest… they never told me about that aspect when I did my National Council for the Training of Journalists exams back in the 17^th century.

The tennis writers finish with another salient point as they relay what Japan’s four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka said on the subject at the recent US Open: "It's really off-putting just to be seated in front of a screen. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I feel, like, a lot of nerves. But it feels much better to be talking to a human."

A cynic points out: "Well she would say that wouldn’t she? Because she obviously doesn’t like doing interviews anyway and…"

Oh do shut up.

People like to talk to people.