Reasons why Americans aren't dominating tennis like before

[droliver]

It all starts with the quality of the athletes. In Europe tennis is #2 to soccer, in the U.S. It's waaaaay down the list and largely absent from the male AA and Hispanic athletes radar.

I'm skeptical of the court surface behind the problem as 1) the game is played somewhat similar now on all surfaces 2) U.S. Kids actually play frequently on green clay in many areas. 3) serve and forehand are still the most important shots in men's tennis.

 

[KYHacker]

This will be a bit of a compilation of different reasons I've heard by experts over the last couple of years, that doesn't mean it's correct, just some possible reasons.

1. The first is my theory, and that is that everyone is a winner, everyone gets a trophy, everyone on school tennis gets a certificate, and in USTA you get a trophy for losing, I've never seen anything so abusive to kids as this, that you are a winner by losing? That's child abuse in my book, for it's not real life. I have a company, and I can see that attitude with younger employee's, they think they are doing good just by effort, they are quickly dismissed. My son's played 4 years, singles varsity tennis each time, I asked him before we started "Do you want the easy way, or the way I was trained", he opted for the latter and we TRAINED, sprints, raised voices (An act I'm never angry at him and he knows it). So we go to tournament, I hear the opposing coach giving his prep speech, "What's the most important thing", "It's having fun"! This takes all pressure off the kids, allows them to not fight to win, they literally think they are doing great if they are just having fun, that they are winners, they aren't, their losers. My son whose 15 now jokes with me that in real life, you don't get trophies for losing, you get FIRED. So these guys, I mean come on Jack Sock? They might have talent, but they never went above their abilities because of this attitude, it's all over America, that somehow you are a winner by losing. I would like to see Nadals or Federer's desire in some of these American players, guaranteed they'd do well.
2. USTA not changing to slow courts, clay courts. We haven't caught up with the rest of the world, is it any wonder that the Spaniards, French, Europeans start learning on clay, and now dominate slow courts? Americans learn their craft on faster courts, then are thrown in with master slow court players, not sure if they can adapt.
3. American has turned into an entitlement society, people expecting things, in short we aren't HUNGRY. If I see someone from a poor country, they are going to be monster fighters, many of these guys train as if their life depends on it, because it does! It's either kill yourself in training and getting your game right, or be a poor tennis coach in Ukraine, not a nice choice, but this has always been true of every sport, those that are hungry, that come from poor countries with no escape valve do best, get the most out of their respective talent. I remember Arnold talking about Lou Ferrigno's comeback, he said "Lou has a nice wife, home, comforts to come home to if he loses, which is the exact wrong thing you want if you want to be a champion, you have to be hungry"

Aside from that I don't know, we must have a good talent pool, great population, certainly tennis is available. I'm not one of these nationalistic "Oh we need an American" kind of guys, but it would be nice to have someone whose good, Federer "seems" American, he speaks better English than many Americans and just seems American, but yea we've totally turned into a sissy society.

I get SO TIRED of this. What's happened to American Tennis? Not much, it's everywhere on both tours. It's just the official country of citizenship of the players isn't the U.S. Tons of players come up through the American system and might as well be American. Case in point-- look no further than Sharapova and Vika. They are pretty American in style, outlook, attitude. Both have probably spent more time in America than their "native" country. Lot's of players like that on both ATP and WTA. U.S. academies just have a lot of foreign nationals coming through them but I would still say that the American style of play is the dominant one on both tours. I just look at the players as Americans if they are a product of any of our facilities.

 

[Casey10s]

Money.

There is not enough money in tennis for the top US athletes to commit to tennis. I did some research a few years ago. The 110th player on the PGA made more prize money than all but the top 10 in tennis for the Men's, even worse for the women (probably something like only the top 3 or 4. Average baseball salary is somewhere in the $4m per year. Probably the 100th highest salary in baseball is north of $10M per year,same for probably football and basketball. I think the 10th highest in winnings in tennis is around $1 to $2M. It is tough to convince parents to take a highly talented child and push them towards tennis when all the money is elsewhere. The 100th ranked player in the world for tennis doesn't make $200k per year.

Can you imagine having athletes like LeBron James, Stephen Curry. Andrew McCutchen, Derek Jeter, and others commit to tennis? The state of US tennis would be different. I have talked to a coach who produces a lot of players who go onto college tennis and have had some go onto pros. We were talking about the ones who play tennis and he gets mostly kids who don't have the skills to play other sports at the higher levels. I don't think other coaches would disagree. Get more money into tennis and you will have better players from the US.

It has really little to do with the courts or other things. It is all about the money.

Correction, for this year the 102nd player on the PGA tour has made more money than all but the top 14 in Men's tennis. Also the 100th player on the ATP will probably make around $400K

 

[dlk]

Money.

There is not enough money in tennis for the top US athletes to commit to tennis. I did some research a few years ago. The 110th player on the PGA made more prize money than all but the top 10 in tennis for the Men's, even worse for the women (probably something like only the top 3 or 4. Average baseball salary is somewhere in the $4m per year. Probably the 100th highest salary in baseball is north of $10M per year,same for probably football and basketball. I think the 10th highest in winnings in tennis is around $1 to $2M. It is tough to convince parents to take a highly talented child and push them towards tennis when all the money is elsewhere. The 100th ranked player in the world for tennis doesn't make $200k per year.

Can you imagine having athletes like LeBron James, Stephen Curry. Andrew McCutchen, Derek Jeter, and others commit to tennis? The state of US tennis would be different. I have talked to a coach who produces a lot of players who go onto college tennis and have had some go onto pros. We were talking about the ones who play tennis and he gets mostly kids who don't have the skills to play other sports at the higher levels. I don't think other coaches would disagree. Get more money into tennis and you will have better players from the US.

It has really little to do with the courts or other things. It is all about the money.

Correction, for this year the 102nd player on the PGA tour has made more money than all but the top 14 in Men's tennis. Also the 100th player on the ATP will probably make around $400K

Interesting stuff. Certainly the top athletes choose sports other than tennis. I bet MJ would have been a beast on the court.

 

[SublimeTennis]

Your elite shipped all of your jobs off to China so naturally you have huge unemployment and underployment while those employed get paid a pittance.

I hardly think that's called coddling. It's called abuse.

Not sure what you mean by "Elite", if you mean liberal hypocrites like Bush, Obama, etc. then yes, they get elected by saying how horrible the job creators are, and "Socking it to them", what do they do? They move offshore, we have about 3 trillion dollars offshore, lower the corporate tax, that money would be repatriated and guess what follows? Jobs! Amazing how that works, out of jobs are taxpayers, out of taxpayers you have people buying things, this makes for a great economy. It's how Reagan took our hideous economy, hyper inflation, hyper unemployment, everyone, Bush Sr. all said you couldn't do it, can't lower taxes that much, he did, within 2 years we had recovered and grew for two decades.

 

[SublimeTennis]

None of the problems you mention will be solved by either small government or the comb-over. They will only be made worse.

Small government has been the right wing mantra for nearly forty years and how have things really improved since Reagan?

Listen friend, you might actually be able to get this, you at least think. First, you can't say "How have things been since Reagan", one person liberals, like vampires with a cross are afraid of is Reagan's plan, yes they try to re-write history and people don't actually check the facts and just believe it, but it is FACT, forget commentary, forget sound bites from liberals where they hope you will just believe them which is the case these days, look back, do your study, in fact I'll back off you, you seem to be a bit of a thinker, look up what happened to the economy when Reagon took over from Carter, the economy was hideous, remember Carter's "Malaise Speech" (I wasn't old enough for any of this, just have done my study, when you study read both sides, don't make the fatal flaw of wanting to believe one side then just read what they say, read both sides and follow the truth wherever it leads you, and don't worry about demoncrat or Republican, be whatever you agree with, it's very important. No one said Reagan could get away with that huge tax cut, but it gave fuel to the economic engine, we had growth, huge growth every year for 20 years. It's a simple formula, yes some get super wealthy, good for them, but the rule is more business with more profits, equals more jobs, now you have an enormous pie of big business, start up business, and employees, all of which pay a SMALLER amount of tax to Washington, with the extra money it goes into investments, purchases, so small businesses grow because more consumers have more money, and the economy expands. China last year did terrible for them, only 4% growth, WE WENT BACKWARDS, our economy is now second to China! All because of politicians wanting to get re-elected, and using the "We are going to tax the wealthy who are holding you down" card, it works well, but it ruins our country, the COUNT ON low information voters, they think "Yea I don't make a lot of money, it must be big corporations", well those big corporations are in China, Mexico, all over the world, Ireland, giving the Chinese, Irish, Mexicans OUR JOBS, for crying out loud do you not have enough common sense to want those jobs back? Why make foreign countries rich? Why do you think our Wilson and Babolat, now Head are made in China? Wouldn't you rather have Americans out of work making them? And of course that's one category but perhaps one you can relate to. Our stock market is fake, the dollar is so weak international investors buy stocks artificially boosting the market, it goes on and on, we need to starve the wealthiest county in the country, that's the country right around WA DC where our rulers palaces are, eliminate these unnecessary departments, and put the money back into Americans pockets, this is supposed to be a country of the people and for the people, our servants have become our masters, so when someone talks about freedom we think they are crazy, we need the Government to shrink down to military and take care of the poor, and that's all, we do that we'll once again be an extremely wealthy nation, but as I said if we get to 23 Trillion, remember we borrow and spend one million dollars a minute, surely you must know that's not sustainable, no one in their right mind can say that's sustainable, yet Hillary is trying to get elected "I'll pay for your education", please we need a smart nut job who can crash and burn, that's why has nothing to do with personality, and I disagree with many things, but it seems America does have some survival instincts, we believe Trump will go in and do at least ONE THING, that is cut the debt, if not we are through, no one disputes that.

 

[coloskier]

America is in decline only to right wing men who cannot throw their weight around anymore. Rest are doing fine. Manufacturing is back and there is a budget surplus and no bogus wars. For those who thrived on low merit and discrimination, sure they will be left driving pickup trucks with guns. Rest will move on.

The last time there was a budget surplus was over 20 years ago. Our present Fearless Leader has gone from -12 trillion to -20 trillion (if you don't count the entitlement increases). At least right wing men who throw their weight around aren't pu$$ies trying to turn us into a Marxist country. Hanging is too good for the present administration.

 

[trader1499]

I was talking to a "coach" recently, and I wonder if other countries have the kids play with these kids balls, small racquets, and small courts? Seems like this style of bringing kids up will only hurt them by not preparing for real conditions.

 

[csmoove899]

In America it is no secret the athletically inclined kids flock to football and basketball. Even soccer is gaining ground. In my high school, the only kids who played tennis were rich white kids who weren't good enough at the other sports and Asian kids who do not consider tennis as a serious prospective career.

 

[tennisaddict]

It is a dying sport in America. When they realize in the future there are no tennis players from here, they will send the kids to practice at the Chinese academies in Shanghai and Beijing or get the Chinese coaches to Bolliteri.

 

[dondropshot]

This reads like a comment from the Blaze.

If you had said "Yahoobama" I'd have been insulted, melonhead.

 

[Booger]

The most talented young athlete in my area actually played tennis and had us locals excited for him. Last I heard, he stopped playing tennis completely to focus on football as his parents could no longer afford the travel.