Sunday, April 1, 2012

US and Professional Men's Tennis



There are two main reasons that the US isn't faring well in professional tennis, especially on the men's side.
 
The first reason is that tennis has become so global that many countries are producing quality players and the competition is much greater.  In the 1970's when the US had 25-30% of the top 100 pro players, tennis was only popular in 10-12 countries.  Now tennis is widely popular all over the world, and in many of those countries tennis is more popular than it is in the US in the heirarchy of sports.  This is largely due to tennis becoming an Olympic sport in 1988.  Countries started investing in tennis development for their athletes, giving tennis more credibility as a sport for the masses.  Now tennis is growing faster than any other major sport in the world.

Secondly, the US is failing to produce top tennis talent professionally among its citizens because our top athletes are playing football and basketball.  The US has some of the greatest athletes in the world, but they are not playing men's tennis.  Two of our best female athletes are the Williams' sisters, and they have done extremely well.  But our best boys aren't being funneled into tennis development.  Imagine if Kobe Bryant, Lebron James or Adrian Peterson were trained in tennis since the age of 5 or 6.  This is where the USTA should put their Player Development dollars.  The US could have as many or more top players than any other country if it went out and recruited the best athletes and sponsored them into tennis.  Only when this happens will the US once again have many top players, and this in turn will make the sport more popular to the US audience which will drive the sport for many years to come.

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