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Tennis is a hundred million times more fun than running.
Running after a ball, timing a precise swing and directing the ball over the net, within the lines and away from your opponent.
It is the most enjoyable individual sport in world history, and requires an equal combination of precision and athleticism.
You need more talent to play tennis than any other sport, but you also need money for membership, racquets, coach and eventually airfares etc.
I agree. I never enjoyed endurance running or jogging. I’d only do a bit of running for a warm up, but tennis and other racquet sports are a lot of fun.
But players like Nadal and Federer are pretty recognizable and household names, even though they have a non-US passport.
I am a big Nadal fan, but I think that many Americans only get excited if the player is American and they really want an American champion. On the men's side anyway, we haven't had anyone since Sampras who's been much of a winner at the top level. Of course the Williams sisters have done very well, especially Serena, who's been amazing. She's had a few controversies though (like when she threatened to assault a line judge), plus, I think for some fans, there is some bias against the women's game, and against African Americans, which doesn't help.
Besides the figurehead of the champion, if you look at the sports that seem to be popular in the US these days, they are largely more violent sports, like football and MMA. I think for some fans at least, the genteel sport of tennis is lacking the physical combat aspect they like.
US Open 2019- https://www.atptour.com/en/news/nada...endance-record
Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev's instant classic US Open final helped the season's fourth major set a new attendance mark this year. A record 737,872 fans strolled through the gates in New York, about 5,000 more than last year, to break the prior record of 732,663.
In total, during the past three weeks, 853,227 people attended the tournament, including the US Open Fan Week, which includes qualifying matches.
Nadal beat Medvedev in the five-set final that lasted four hours, 49 minutes to win his 19th major title and second of the season.
I didn't catch all of this thread, but a few thoughts:
1. Pro tennis 25-35 years ago wasn't competing with computers, smartphones, the internet, and an explosion of access to streaming content, that it is today.
2. Streaming access to live pro matches is such a disorganized patchwork of vendors, many with poor quality/unreliable services, that actually watching this stuff is a challenge. Add to that the poor video production quality of so many tournaments, the experience of watching tennis is poor and has absolutely not kept up with the times. They're finally starting to use hawkeye to replace line judges - why is that even up for debate? Who finds questionable calls by flawed human vision and time consuming challenges an entertaining or compelling part of the experience?
3. Popular pro sports will draw more young players in, so #1 and #2 lead to fewer new players.
4. Pickleball might be drawing people who might have played tennis away - it's less of a time investment to pick up and play at an ok level, from what I gather.
On the other hand, I'd make a couple of counter points:
a. Tennis got a lot more popular during the pandemic. Maybe because it was one of the only pro sports still putting on events. Maybe because the default of the sport is "socially distanced", and/or because there is lots of infrastructure in place already. And perhaps many people who used to play, but got sucked into a life of long commutes and work hours, were able to rediscover old interests and passions on lockdown. But I'm having a lot more trouble finding open courts today than I was a couple of years ago.
b. There is a ton of high quality instructional content today on YouTube. I think a total beginner could develop a 3.5->4.0 game fairly quickly without formal in person instruction, and probably without spending on anything but an internet connection.
c. It is crazy easy to stick your cell phone the fence, record your play, and either or both send to a coach for analysis and advice or push the video through some algorithms to instantly produce some data and information about your game.
d. In theory, it should be easier to connect with people to play today than it was 20-30 years ago, so hopefully there is some inertia that pushes tennis's popularity along.
Tennis is really a sport with declining numbers in Australia. It used to be enormously popular. My parents met through tennis and my mother played until she was seventy. I was not very good at it, but one of my kids still plays as well as all my grandkids.
People seem to just want to go to the gym these days. Golf is also declining and squash, which I played when I was young, has all but disappeared.
Tennis is really a sport with declining numbers in Australia. It used to be enormously popular. My parents met through tennis and my mother played until she was seventy. I was not very good at it, but one of my kids still plays as well as all my grandkids.
People seem to just want to go to the gym these days. Golf is also declining and squash, which I played when I was young, has all but disappeared.
Big problem in NY area is that its very expensive, 6-1 group lesson for a hour a week is over $1,000 a year for my kid. Also the courts take up too much land which is eventually sold to a developer for housing or other real estate. I see many be converted to multi use facilities, soccer, lacrosse, football etc..
Last edited by haywood16; 10-05-2021 at 12:22 PM..
Reason: c
Pete Sampras was the last dominant US player, and he retired back in 2002. Andy Roddick was certainly very good, and he was good enough to be in the running or even in the final on numerous occasions, but he only had one Grand Slam tourney win. I recall a revealing (and humble) comment by Roddick when a sports journalist asked him about his rivalry with Roger Federer after he lost in the final to Fed - and he answered something like "Well I have to win more of them [games vs Federer] first, it's not much of a rivalry yet". I do think the long drought in men's singles has affected the fanbase here.
Tennis is really a sport with declining numbers in Australia. It used to be enormously popular. My parents met through tennis and my mother played until she was seventy. I was not very good at it, but one of my kids still plays as well as all my grandkids.
People seem to just want to go to the gym these days. Golf is also declining and squash, which I played when I was young, has all but disappeared.
I love Tennis for two reasons- The first being, I used to play it as a kid. I know what players go through when they play and I know the sports is not as easy as it looks. So I appreciate good tennis playing when I see it. The second reason is, it's an individual sport instead of team-based, so I don't have to follow just one particular team like other sports. I watch all the individual players, assess their skills through their playing and look forward to seeing how two different individuals with different type of tennis skills compete against one another. It's not like Baseball or Basketball where I follow the Mets and the Knicks, respectively, and then just watch those two crappy teams lose so many games. It's such a bummer following sucky teams and NY certainly is full of them!
Pete Sampras was the last dominant US player, and he retired back in 2002. Andy Roddick was certainly very good, and he was good enough to be in the running or even in the final on numerous occasions, but he only had one Grand Slam tourney win. I recall a revealing (and humble) comment by Roddick when a sports journalist asked him about his rivalry with Roger Federer after he lost in the final to Fed - and he answered something like "Well I have to win more of them [games vs Federer] first, it's not much of a rivalry yet". I do think the long drought in men's singles has affected the fanbase here.
He played some amazing matches against Federer in Grand Slam Finals and pushed Roger to the limit, but no, never enough to break through and beat him.
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