Washington Post: ESPN destroying tennis in the US

[david aames]

Originally Posted by pound cat

Golf is big in Canada too. But unfortunately for them, many people also think Canada is nowhere.

It's not a continent... YET.

[Feña14]

Golf is major in Europe, alot of the worlds top 50 are european and the success of the European Ryder Cup team means that people now enjoy the game of golf and kids dream of holing the winning put for the Ryder Cup.

Liam

[pound cat]

Who's talking about Continents? Or has the US become a continent? Like Antarctica. Have I missed some new drifting of the continents? Geographers, help out here please ROTFL

I think the TV has a lot to do with it. One, like someone already said, there's a huge audience of old boomers who would much rather watch old geezers like themselves walk around on grass. So advertising money floats more towards golf than tennis.

Two, ESPN doesn't do a good job of presenting it. PMac and Drysdale just wing their way through match after match, repeating the same info over and over about the players ("This Guga is one laid-back, surfer dude... ). Dissing non-Americans (PMac: "Oh that's just HORRIBLE" when a non-Roddick/Agassi/Blake/Fish) commits an errror. Newsflash for Mr. Patrick Mc Enroe, you never progressed far beyond the TOP 30, so quit dissing Top Ten'ners like Coria, etc... just because they'll never play for your Davis Cup team...

Illiterate morons like Sally Jenkins do more to hurt tennis than ESPN.

Anybody got her e-mail address?

[ohplease]

Any "thing" is considered to be dying when the generation that experienced that "thing" in its so called hey-day witnesses a decline in that "thing." Any decline. The NBA is in decline, as is MLB, NFL, tennis, figure skating, Indy car racing, Star Trek, politics, movies, our respective bodies, etc. If tennis is dying, all these other things are dying, too (and guess what? We are dying). Want to compare the derivative of the respective rates of decline? Show me viewership/advertising/ticket sales numbers. Otherwise you're just ranting.

Here's where I look like a genius: in 10-20 years, when generation Y fails to steward its sports (snowboarding, surfing, whatever) to their children, we can do a find and replace on Ms. Jenkins' article and replace "tennis" with any one of those extreme sports. Bank on it.

Want to see tennis get really ugly? When we start applying information technology used in baseball/football/basketball (i.e. querying databases to show film for every third and long this team faced in the last year/every pitch this guy has thrown facing full counts/ever second serve this guy has hit when down break point/etc.) and tennis becomes more about keeping the other guy from doing what he does best - tennis will be even more dead then.

The criteria is winning matches, not something based on opinion like stroke aesthetics, or what racket you use, or how charismatic and commercially appealing you were. History doesn't care how you do it.

Sampras is the poster boy for this position. Just win. Think he played the way he did to satisfy some bozo in the cheap seats, or some luddite with an internet connection? Heck no. Pistol Pete and that baseline bashing, pure drive swinging junior are cut from the same cloth. To whine about how people play is barely different then whining about what people wear - it's all just style. Substance is your win/loss record.

[roundiesee]

I've often thought the game itself was OK but the scoring tends to be a bit tedious at times. I mean, how many of us really get excited in a match till say the 7th game or the breaker when someone gets a chance to break his opponent and/or win the set? We literally have to "endure" those early moments in a match till it gets interesting later on. Also, those change-overs tend to wear on you as a spectator after a while. (The introduction of the first change-over after the third game was such a good idea). I think the governing bodies need to make an attempt to try some thing new (on a trial basis at some small tournaments maybe) instead of simply sticking to something that dates back to the Victorians.

Originally Posted by rmsblue

PMac and Drysdale just wing their way through match after match, repeating the same info over and over about the players ("This Guga is one laid-back, surfer dude... ). Dissing non-Americans (PMac: "Oh that's just HORRIBLE" when a non-Roddick/Agassi/Blake/Fish) commits an errror. Newsflash for Mr. Patrick Mc Enroe, you never progressed far beyond the TOP 30, so quit dissing Top Ten'ners like Coria, etc... just because they'll never play for your Davis Cup team...

This is just a bald-faced lie. I've never ever heard PMac or Cliff ever diss a non-American player. In fact, during Nasdaq-100, Cliff was very passionate about getting viewers to tune in to watch the Coria-Gonzales semifinal. They have nothing but praise for non-American players. Carillo is always slobbering over Federer. He's not American last I checked.

It sounds like it's the usual selective hearing on your part. Because you just hate the American players or Pat Mac?

[atatu]

Sally is obsessed with this topic. She did a Sports Illustrated article on this almost ten years ago and after Goran won Wimbledon wrote another article about how boring tennis is and ridiculing Goran because he didn't have a physique (seriously, do a search through the Washington Post archives). Basically, she rode her daddy's coat tails into the journalism business and has contributed nothing except that SI article, so she continues to fall back on this subject as a way of keeping her name in the news.

[David I.]

I'm glad tennis is not as popular as golf. The 70's and 80's tennis boom created a wealth of nearby courts that are underused today which makes it easy for me to play for free. I also play golf and am glad that I don't see the crowds at the golf course at the tennis courts.

[BertieWooster]

Wonderful discussion.

I sometimes wonder how equipment changes have impacted the popularity of tennis. The manufacturers would have us believe that the light weight high-tech racquets improve a persons ability to play. I would disagree though. Many people new to tennis buy these racquets then find they have serious arm problems. Soon, they give it up. Typically, people playing and enjoying the sport follow the professionals of that sport.

Additionally, US Tennis is predominately hard court. If I only played on hard court, I wouldn't be able to play near as much. In fact, as I age, playing tennis on a hard court becomes less desirable. Maybe that's why tennis in FL is so popular.

[10sfather]

Sally Jenkins. Who gave her the job ? Her uncle. She knows zip, zero, nada, about tennis and seems to have a chip on her shoulder about the sport. I read her previous article about tennis and was going to use it against the Post when at first they weren't going to give my daughter All=Met Player of the Year as an example of their ignorance. I would not waste my time reading this one.

[Datacipher]

I just wanted to say the posters who mentioned that golf requires relatively no exertion hit the nail on the head.

Everyone can golf, no sweat/athleticism required. Dress up nice and look good! Golf is a GAME. A nice game. Like darts, pool, curling, bowling etc. Tennis is a SPORT!

In addition...IT IS A HARD SPORT TO PLAY. YOU MUST RUN ABOUT FAST!

It can be a hard sell...90% of the golfers I know are not gonna be interested in sprinting around the tennis court...running down shots!

Neither are a lot of the softball players, volleyball players (sports yes...but little exertion required...maybe with the exception of 2 person competitive beach volleyball) etc....