How American Tennis Can Alter Its Course of Mediocrity

Are you sure this is actually a recipe for success and wouldn’t instead lead to major burnout? Outside of Ferrer, who was apparently literally locked in a shed and once quit tennis to work a construction job, what other top players have been put through such a rigorous regime?

What ship? Ship sunk. Row-boat.

Agree with Mitch.

I agree with Scoop. These players need to a kick on their bu**. No easy times, and enjoying with a little prize money. Work hard. No excuse, no alternative.

Obviously its only a 1.5 month long camp. Not life-long. So burnout is not an excuse.

Also USTA should do something to make the top 50 players come out in the limelight. There’s low tennis following now-a-days in the masses. A lot of people dont follow tennis, nor like to watch. Thats why so many tournaments are closing and have gone to other countries like South America. USTA should do something to get tennis into the limelight again. Maybe it needs to work with ESPN. Maybe it needs to get US tennis players in the top 50 paraded down a superbowl match (lol). Basically something to energize the appeal of tennis, so that players in the 50-200 rank range work harder since they know more people are looking at them, more people are following them, and more people have higher expectations of them.

The players have less motiviation now — they just work for themselves and their prize money. They need to work for the high expectations of the millions of fans. They need to know that millions of people are watching out for them and will not accept anything below top 50, or even top 20, or even top 10.

Yup this is a great idea for a commercial.

Scoop, yes — exactly. Player dont get motivated enough if they know that even if they reach rank 55, nobody will even know them. They want attention, They want people to know them. They want to be stars, if not superstars. If they had that — then they would fight harder instead of being satisfied have a decent enough life being ranked #118.

If you look at Spain, France, I am sure tennis is one of the most popular sports there.

Lets take an example of media coverage.

Go to Yahoo Sports ( http://sports.yahoo.com/ ) This is the default US version. You will see that Tennis is not even listed as a sport. There’s NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAAF, NCAAB, NASCAR, Golf, MMA, Soccer, but NO TENNIS. You would have to actually click on “All Sports” and then pick tennis among the 100 or so sports listed.

Now lets go to the UK version of the Yahoo Sports. (http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/ ) You will see that right away Tennis is listed as the second sport after Football.

Lets go to Spain’s version of Eurosports/ Yahoo Sports. ( http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/ ). You will see Tennis is listed as third after Futbol and F1.

Lets go to French version http://www.eurosport.fr/ You will see Tennis third after Football, Rugby.

Basically, tennis in US is a dying sport. It needs attention.

Can Annacone help Sloane Stephens? I think this is Annacone’s biggest challenge yet. Helping Federer, Sampras – already champs. The U.K.? Almost impossible to tease out Annacone’s role. So this is it – we will see how good he really is and if coaches matter.

First I want to say sorry for my poor english but I analyzed the american tennis and have some reasons why it is out of rankings.
I was a tennis coach 30 years, National Tester PTR and Coach Level II from ITF, Director of Tennis Coaches School from my National Association and Physical Education Teacher. I know some of Tennis.

25 years ago USA dominates the world tennis with Sampras, Agassi, Courier, Chang, Evert, Navratilova, Roddick and others. USA had the best tennis infraestructure with stadiums, thousands of public tennis courts, and low equippment prices. But now it is not enough to reach the top tennis rankings.

USA tennis have some problems:

1.- Tennis must start learning about 4 – 6 years old if you want to be a world class player. In USA players starts tennis at the middle school and the teacher isn´t a tennis coach. Too late to start.

2.- USA Tennis has not national structure and development model like european countries such Spain, France, Germany, Italy and the eastern countries like Ukrania, Checz Republic, Russia and others.

3.- USTA move thousands of social tournaments in Leagues and neighbords, but it means nothing to make ATP or WTA players.

4.- Al the fall of comunist sistem 1990, eastern coaches moved to occidental countries carrying knowledge and cientifically training methods. But they were cualified coaches with university degrees, it means TEACHERS, not only coaches with one week courses like USPTA and PTR. Coaches professional level is a big weak for american tennis. We can see the success of all the players from the east, they were formed for teaches and not only coaches.

5.- USTA has the High Performance Level to some coaches who work or have worked with national players, but a question: Which is the work with base coaches who will send well trained players to high performance coach?
If the great coach receive weak teen players, he will do nothing. At 17 years old a player could beat anyone if is pointing to the top and want to be at least top 50. Remember Courier, Sampras, Agassi, Chang, Becker, Graff, Williams sisters, Evert, and see they were superplayers before 18 years

I hope you agree my words and take some good conclusions. I usually travel to USA and have very good friends.

By

American tennis is definitely dead. We are not likely to have a GS champion for the next 5-10 years. Jack Sock is talented but does not have the right direction or coaching. AT least get a better coach.

However, the world of tennis has changed. The major reason for America’s failure is the lack of red clay court training. The best players are trained on red clay. In the era of baselining, where serves are more equal among players, the best baseliners with the best strokes and footwork win. Hence, clay court supremacy. Roger, Rafa, Novak and even Murray are trained on red clay. Red clay allows players to play longer and train longer.

Yes the slowing of the courts have an impact. But on average the hard courts are not slower. American players can’t use grass court spikes on clay anymore either. Just as the Australians of the 70s fell when metal spikes became illegal at Wimbledon and grass court tournaments. You all should read the excerpts of Bill Scanlon’s autobiography, and interviews with Rod Laver where he admitted he won the 69 US Open after he used metal spikes and Tony Roache forgot to bring his! In fact Bjorn Borg actually won Wimbledon in 1977-1979 having the Diadora nubs over all the players who had to wear conventional sneakers since metal spikes were not allowed. Only in 1980 were the nubs made by other companies. It’s in Bill Scanlon’s book!

Things are more equal now. Also American players don’t have the benefit of home town tournaments as much as before. No home town referees, no shafted line calls against foreign players also has killed American tennis. American tennis players need to play better defense, get better groundstrokes and get fitter. The best bootcamp is a big dose of clay court training. Since Borg, the dominant players are mostly clay trained. And, yes, I still believe Sampras got lucky because of Thomas Muster’s knee injury, or there would have been clay court dominance of most of the slams of the 90s too!

Gusta

I agree particularly with Marco Villanueva comment number 4 that there are few really good teachers of tennis. When I talk with colleagues from other countries who have had some success developing players, they have had extensive university training in sport science and teaching methods and have had great mentors helping them along. A good /former player at the satellite or college level or a tennis enthusiast, doesn’t automatically make a good teacher. I also remember hearing a story from a well known national us coach who went over to Spain to see what the “miracle formula” was since Spain has been producing so many strong pros….his conclusion? ” They work their butts off over there, and we don’t.” So how would one answer the question, ” what is the US method of developing tennis player?”

I think tennis got too tied up with money in this country. i dont know what it costs to take a lesson in other countries, but here in the US, a private lesson can run from 70 to 300. That’s a lot of loot. I watch my son’s lessons–i only splurge for a 85 dollar private once in a while–but in his group lessons, I don’t get the idea that the pro has a systematic plan on how to develop a player.

I would imagine that golf is a bit less stressful on the mind and heart than tennis.

Is Fish Cilic?

Well, I dont have trouble believing Fish. I mean he has heartbeat issues where heartbeat can go a little faster, right? He could appear to be physically fit, but his heart rate may be elevated or something. Maybe he his missing beats. From the outside, such a person may appear to be completely normal.

I am really sad to see him go though. He was a top 10, top 20 player. US needs more of them. I liked his game. He had no real weapons. He was good at serve, volley and forehand, but nothing was over the top. He used to earn wins by just being a better sensible player, with an attacking flair. Almost like a Blake, with different shots though (Fish’s forehand was nowhere as good as Blake’s). I used to always wonder how is he winning. I think he was better at point construction as well a bit?

If he was still in top 15, people wouldnt be writing so many articles about the death of US Mens tennis. (3 players in top 20 … thats not bad)

I still maintain a glimmer of hope that he can recover enough to play tennis, but him trying golf means the glimmer of hope is wavering. He appears to have decided that his heart cannot just sustain tennis. Its understandable, tennis demands more from your physique — probably 100x than what golf demands.

How do you guys describe Fish’s game, and his ability to win matches? Like his 4-4 head-to-head versus Murray!!!??? In fact, he is 3-1 in the last 4 matches against him. Thats no mean feat. Murray is a tough, tough player and a 2-time Grand Slam Champion.

Baker had to have another surgery this summer, though apparently it was a relatively minor one.