Question: Is Tennis evolving into a niche sport in the US?

Too bad you can’t delete but I was saying thanks for the post.

My point is that Roger Federer is BOX OFFICE. Anyone who has been in the building to watch this man play knows he is the king. Don’t tell me about Agassi, McEnroe, Sampras, etc. Roger is amazing. If the U.S. public doesn’t see this, that is insane.

That match yesterday was quality tennis. No coverage on ESPN news, etc. Roger is >>>> Tiger Woods. yet people still talk about Tiger when he sneezes or goes to rehab. Maybe if Roger had personal problems, he would be big in the States.

Roger goes to China and it’s huge, he’s just not as big a deal here. Never on the cover of Sports Illustrated instead some dumb college football player. It’s a travesty.

I agree that ESPN and Fox Sports are too liberal in promoting football and basketball. Foreign sports like tennis and soccer get little coverage and it’s a shame. Even cricket is a better sport than baseball – which is a bit silly since it is all about hitting home runs unlike the sophistication of batting in cricket.

Americans only want power sports – home runs, slam dunks and football brain damage. Sports that require finesse and technique along with power cannot be marketed.

I remember writing a story along these lines in a report on one of the USOs in the 80s. Everyone was asking, what’s wrong with US tennis ? Won’t bore you with what I said but it was basically the same as you guys are saying now about tennis not fitting into the American sporting mind and markets. It’s also true that the early 70s was a big boom time for tennis and then the balloon burst, or slowly deflated and that time will most likely never come back.

Speaking as an outsider I might suggest that the big sports in the US are domestic and therefore are seen as more important, whereas in many other countries they are international – football worldwide and cricket in areas of former British influence.

A lot of people take up tennis, and this is true in Britain, and drop it after a while because it’s difficult to play. That’s what happened in the 70s possibly.

Duke – dumbing down has also happened in cricket – limited over slogathons sell a lot more easily than 5 day Test matches which can end in a draw 🙂

Scoop – tennis was big in the US before the Riggs match – that’s partly why it happened. That and women’s lib.
And Jimmy Connors back then was just as big as Agassi in popularising the game.

I’ll never convince you – Mac v Serena wouldn’t mean a thing. Life’s moved on.

Scoop I agree with that 100 percent. The media has dumbed down the American public to an extraordinary degree. Pro wrestling and UFC are stupid compared to boxing, the sweet science. Yet boxing is too complex for a U.S. fan.

Football and basketball are mindless sports as well. No reason to think Americans want to think about the nuances and psychology of tennis and soccer.

Yes Catherine, cricket is being dumbed down but still more watchable and more strategy than baseball where the home run is the only play of note.

Richard Williams is a genius, and master manipulator. He played the system so well, his kids never played Junio Majors, yet had deals, used Tennis coaches like Macca, and others for everything he could, featured spots on 60 Minutes. Hype turned out to be true, so all credit to him. Everyone laughed when he said the younger daughter was better than Venus. Lonzo Balls father playing the same game, his only problem, oldest is best, so he’s in more of a rush to make all he can.

No women currently playing will get to 10 Majors. No youngster out that might dominate,They are all mirror images of themselves,same boring game,no fight like SW, maybe MS with 5 gets close.

On this fantasy match, have watched Tennis my whole life, would not waste 5 minutes on SW and Mac..Might sellout MSG or Staples Center in LA, nowhere else..TV rating would bomb..Have to believe some promoter or TV exec has played this scenario out in their head, don’t see it happening. If it happens it bombs.

Just one more point about our tennis comunity here on tennis-prose:

I say that for all us posters here: Tennis is part of our lifes – and I say not a little part.
In the past I was a tennis coach and made my living out of it but although I stopped it – tennis beeing part of my life has not changed mentally 🙂

I wake up in the morning and even before going to bathroom I check the results. Crazy isn`t it? But you all are same I assume.

I have 2 daughters but no matter how good they are doing in one sports – they will never have the same passion. This kind of passion teenagers just dont have anymore. I know one former Austrian soccer player (nationalteam) who just dont watch the championsleague because he is not interested in it. Just absurd.

Scoop – dear oh dear this is going to run and run until you’ve got your wish isn’t it ? I recall this exact same conversation around 6 months ago.
Bigger than anything we could imagine ? Mars colliding with Earth ? Angelique Kerber winning Wimbledon ? Marcello Rios elected to HOF ?
Serena’s got other things on her mind.

McEnroe’s obsessing over this he doesn’t seem to have any other overwhelming interest in his life. Like Navratilova, he’s a bright person who never really found a role outside tennis – or even in it – except peripherally.

Of course many people in the US love tennis – the big tournaments are very well attended and that’s been so as long as I can remember. I think what some other people are saying is that the game isn’t expanding anymore, not as maybe was once predicted, and for various reasons it’s not on TV as much as the big US sports. So its more a plateau, not a downturn.

No comment on the politics 🙂

Joe – I agree with your last comment re gimmicks and rule changes. ATP and WTA are always tinkering about.

Scoop – that comment on Angie wasn’t meant to be cruel. She was playing as I wrote it. I’d love for her to win W’don 🙂 Lost to Pav in 3 sets but sounded in a cheerful mood about her approach to playing in Zhuhai. Then off on holiday.
Rios in HOF ? Not for me to say. Ask Dan.

That match just doesn’t make sense. If SW lost it would be the end of women’s tennis, the all-time best female player losing to a 57 year old guy. JMac would only get money, can’t believe he needs money,they always claimed his father invested well,and especially after it was disclosed he pays himself 750G from his funded Academy. His contract for the match would say he has to say” you cannot be serious” 5 times.

Maybe get a top male player to play SW, doubles court vs. singles court
,and give her 15-0 every game

Joe – if Serena played (she won’t) and lost it wouldn’t be the end of women’s tennis. Why should it be ?

What’s this obsession with women playing men ? They don’t compete against each other. And a top male player against a 36 year old woman with a baby and bad knees ?
It’s the old equal prize money thing in a different (and very boring) guise. So I’ll check out of that.

Catherine, I agree, what is this obsession with male players versus female ones? Serena is great at what she does, she does not have anything to prove on the tennis court. And, as you say, she has other things on her mind far more important than John McEnroe.

As for Bobby Riggs, I understand he was a master promoter. Can’t imagine McEnroe being able to drum up that kind of interest, but maybe I am underestimating JMac in that dept.

If tennis needs something new to generate interest, an event like the Laver Cup is far better. It was incredibly successful around the world, but of course it had those magic names – Federer and Nadal.

I also think tennis is such a sport of focused intensity that it won’t gain a foothold in the States. I mean in basketball you can miss so many shots and Tom Brady can be intercepted time and time again and still win the Super Bowl and a baseball player can strike out all the time and be redeemed by one home run.

In tennis, you can’t just double fault all the time and miss easy shots regularly and not be punished. Some of the time, yes but your opponents will mostly make you pay.

Hartt – I haven’t come across any new tennis books lately, and I’m sure you’ve read more than me anyway. I’ve probably read more cricket than tennis books – on the whole the game has a better literature. But I’ll keep an eye out.

Duke – by ‘gain a foothold’ I assume you mean become a national pastime and a core of tv sports programming. I don’t actually think that’s true of tennis in any country. It’s not a mass sport and because the game needs a court, lines, nets etc it’s not a pickup type of activity. Needs money. And as you say, it’s a sport of ‘focussed intensity’ and difficult to play well.

Scoop, in case you have not noticed, Serena is busy with a new baby. Any time and attention she does devote to tennis away from the baby will go to what is really important, the Slams.

And if Laver Cup did not get much attention in the States, that is a real shame. However, on the other tennis sites where I chat, that have a lot of American posters as well as folks from a variety of counties, there was great excitement about the Laver Cup. People could not stop talking about it, even after the event was over. Those in the US were already talking about getting tickets for Chicago next year. And my sports channel showed every second of the tourney.

Hartt – I noticed there’s a ghosted autobiog of Jelena Dokic coming out in November I think. Should be in bookshops then or you can pre-order. I’m surprised they’re not promoting it around AO time.

I had to look up Dokic since I wasn’t following tennis during her early rise. Quite a story. She beat Hingis in the 1st round of W’don when Martina was No 1 and Jelena a qualifier.

Just reading about her gives you a good sense of the precariousness of life in the top ranks of sport.

Brutal loss for Sam.

he will never get this close to London again.

Mardy Fish remains the last U.S. man to make it.