"Tennis is dying, racquets will never sell at these prices"
- Thread starter Rosstour
- Start date
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
Need more Covid. Once these fat-$&@!? get back in movie theaters, tennis will die again.
Tennis is dying in the UK but it has nothing to do with equipment prices. The problem is the lack of facilities. If you want to play all year round you need indoor facilities and those are as rare as hens teeth and expensive. You generally have high joining fees and fees for court time, sometimes both.
Tennis clubs tend not to be the best run organisations and that is putting it kindly. Tried to get a friend into tennis, she was looking for a sport to try. She had one look at the joining fees and said no thanks. Couldn't blame her, clubs wanted a full years membership, no option to pay for a month and try it out. Which gyms and clubs for other sports were offering.
Even if someone decides to pick up a racket and take lessons. They are put off the moment they try to play. There isn't really a league or social play which is beginner friendly. There are too many players who see beginners as a chance to show off and basically be an arsehole. Drop shotting their serve and doing other stuff to humiliate them.
It is hardly a surprise so many give up and try something else.
Tennis clubs tend not to be the best run organisations and that is putting it kindly. Tried to get a friend into tennis, she was looking for a sport to try. She had one look at the joining fees and said no thanks. Couldn't blame her, clubs wanted a full years membership, no option to pay for a month and try it out. Which gyms and clubs for other sports were offering.
Even if someone decides to pick up a racket and take lessons. They are put off the moment they try to play. There isn't really a league or social play which is beginner friendly. There are too many players who see beginners as a chance to show off and basically be an arsehole. Drop shotting their serve and doing other stuff to humiliate them.
It is hardly a surprise so many give up and try something else.
t_pac
Professional
Tennis clubs can also be quite cliquey which is off putting for new members. Plus if you're a better player, trying to get decent games can be a minefield.
I play at a David Lloyd which lacks the classic tennis club social side of things (mostly because the tennis manager isn't particularly motivated) but does have some good internal leagues and sessions organised by playing ability so as a new member it's quite easy to find a group of players of a similar standard. And whilst it seems expensive you do have unlimited indoor tennis at no additional cost (plus swimming pool, gym, classes etc.)
ChaelAZ
G.O.A.T.
lol. Kinda sad and true.
The beginner classes for our facility have boomed since C-Vid, but being health conscious overall did as well. I have always loved walking in the evening and during the pandy I was FLOORED at how many more people were out in the evenings being active. Actually made me happy to see a little more balance and quality of life. I think once people get sucked back into the grind of work and lulled back into sedentary lifesstyles with fastfood meals, all of it will go back to the real pandemic of obessity, sugar poisoning, and preventable cardiovascular disease
When I was growing up, I played with regular cross trainers and it was fine. For child/adult recreational players around the 2.5-3.0 level, they really don’t need tennis specific shoes.
I agree, I have played in hiking shoes and croc's before (casual hitting). But my wife wants the pretty, tennis-specific shoes.
Purestriker
Legend
Your courts must not have much grip to them. I warmed up a teammate in my running shoes and the were shredded.
Running shoes are not made for abrasive surfaces. Try outdoor basketball shoes.
Purestriker
Legend
I will just stick to my Gel Res's.
movdqa
Talk Tennis Guru
Running shoes don't have lateral support. The newer high-tech stuff may not be that safe for playing tennis. High-end running shoes are $160 to $200+ these days. Don't use them for tennis. I don't use running shoes for tennis and I don't use tennis shoes for running.
GrandSlam45
Rookie
I actually liked it better when tennis was dying. It was much easier to get a court.
bitcoinoperated
Hall of Fame
Even aside from indoor facilities, most public courts here, if they even exist, haven't been surfaced for 20+ years. I know because I was there when they were put many of them up.
Every summer what is left of most public tennis courts in places I've lived with what is almost gravel for a surface in places, have queues of people which is really sad.
ballmachineguy
Hall of Fame
I lived in the Seattle area for a minute. There was a guy that played at the public courts in Renton, WA in wingtips. He may have been homeless. Speaking of homeless, the courts by the Bay Model in Sausalito have been turned into a homeless encampment that was moved from the public park.
Park facilities in the UK are disgrace, they are mainly tarmac, the nets are falling to pieces and the surface is broken up. Some are borderline dangerous, I played on one that was so slippy due to mud on the surface, it was like playing on ice.
Tried to get them fixed but it was a waste of time. What is shocking about this is we have one of the richest tennis associations in the world and they spend virtually nothing on these type of grass roots level facilities.
Have encountered the clique on a few occasions. If your face doesn't fit, you are definitely second class member.
Worst example was a club which allowed a member to organise his own invitational event, which took up loads of court time. He had absolute power over who was entered for his event and who wasn't. If you got on the wrong side of him you were frozen out, even though you paid the same fees as everyone else.
movdqa
Talk Tennis Guru
In the US, it's all managed at the local level so some cities and towns have great facilities and some don't. Also, tennis courts are located in schools and parks so you may have two different groups managing tennis courts. The school may manage the courts on their property and the parks and recreation department the city or town courts. It depends on how is in charge and the amount of lobbying by interested parties.
Umm isn't that kind of UK culture. I ve worked with a few UK guys. Never seen them give anyone a break.
LuckyR
Legend
That sounds terrible, they should raise taxes to pay for better upkeep.
Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
Don’t let the pandemic stats fool you OP. Golf, tennis and cycling saw huge booms through Covid.
Once people get back to traveling, going to concerts and movies, eating out, playing contact sports, etc., tennis and golf will get back to the process of dying.
Where I am in California, pickle ball is steadily encroaching on tennis. We’ve lost 7 courts to PB at our complex. And lost all the courts in the local public park. The PB sections of racquet shops are starting to overwhelm the tennis sections.
What is a PB specific shoe anyway?
Once people get back to traveling, going to concerts and movies, eating out, playing contact sports, etc., tennis and golf will get back to the process of dying.
Where I am in California, pickle ball is steadily encroaching on tennis. We’ve lost 7 courts to PB at our complex. And lost all the courts in the local public park. The PB sections of racquet shops are starting to overwhelm the tennis sections.
What is a PB specific shoe anyway?
Pickle is the future of tennis
Where I used to live (before I played tennis) I just looked at the cost for 2 hours group coaching/drills at the local club. £7.50 for non-members. Not bad at all.
The local place I use now is £19 for 1.5hrs.
Luckily my village has it's own outdoor floodlit courts and a village club. We pay £25 per year to be part of the village recreation society and £70 per year for tennis club.
£3 per night in the winter for floodlights. We play twice a week 3 hours at a time. It's not bad value.
This is not how I see it at all. My background...played as a junior in the mid-90s then took up tennis again in about 2018. Bournemouth as a junior, London area nowadays. Mid-90's, you either paid quite a lot for a private club or you hit a ball with mates on really shabby unmaintained recreation ground courts owned by the council...you'd be lucky to have a serviceable net in most cases, let alone a level surface and you would be dodging gangs of bored teens loitering around the court looking to cause trouble.
Nowadays, I'm a member of a private well maintained floodlit club in Greater London for £250 a year with group lessons for £8.95, social tennis, teams and individual lessons.
I'm also a member of "Tennis in the Parks" in both Bromley and Bournemouth which gives me access to well maintained courts all over the borough with optional coaching and associated clubs...all for just £24 and £36 per year respectively. In both these areas, a large local private club has struck a deal with the council to take it on themselves to be the guardians of recreational ground courts, maintaining them (locks, floodlights etc) and providing group coaching. In return, they get access to the courts for their coaches.
Yes, rec ground courts are not totally free any more but at least they are maintained and have a tennis buzz about them instead of wastelands for underage kids to drink and smoke on. Never had these schemes in the mid-90s. Tennis is more affordable/accessible than it ever was when I was a youngster.
The main problem with tennis is there is no escape from the fact it is an elitist sport in that it requires copious amounts of money to even be good enough to maintain a controlled warm-up rally. Most people can't even control the ball within a service box warm up. Unless a junior gets weekly individual coaching they will never develop the technique to compete at anything other than rec level player. It's the coaching costs, not courts that means tennis isn't accessible for a lot of people.
I disagree on weekly individual coaching. What they need is to play multiple times per week. I only started playing tennis 3 years ago. I've had 3 lessons. I actually learned my technique playing doubles twice a week for 3 hours at a time, and group drills once per week. Occasional singles matches mixed in there.
movdqa
Talk Tennis Guru
What I see at one of the more serious clubs is juniors taking lessons three days a week for $100 per session and then playing 5 days a week.
I was self-taught but I had to unlearn a lot of things over the years to improve.
Totally agree. With tennis, you have to get individual lessons to have enough dedicated instructional time. A lot of the technique is so nuanced that trying to copy and self teach just doesn’t work.
So I think tennis is much less accessible than something like football (soccer) where you can learn in a group and there’s much more emphasis on team skills.
My opinion is that tennis isn’t dying where I live, I just think national tennis bodies are always going to have a harder time to get job on a tennis court when you compare it to other sports. I’ve definitely seen an improvement in the UK over the last 20 years in the areas I played and I think that’s primarily down to local councils giving up their courts to private clubs to manage (and spend money on) in mutually beneficial deals. Without this, public courts were previously unmaintained wastelands.
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movdqa
Talk Tennis Guru
We had a dying club and a club in the next state over took it over and did a lot of construction on it and rebuilt the junior program. They are a thriving club today for adults and juniors but they have a lot of kids there. I only see a resurgence of tennis in my area making it harder to book court time but we'll be outside in May. It's possible that it could get difficult to get outdoor courts too. We generally use courts at schools as those are better maintained than the courts maintained by the parks and recreation department.
We have one pair of courts that have been taken over by the Pickle Ballers. We can use them for tennis but the Pickle Ballers often come out in large groups with lawn chairs and occupy the courts for half a day.
One guy I play with works at a company nearby and they have immaculate tennis courts and we're the only people that I've ever seen using them. I hope that we can keep this up. I'm considering applying there so that I could use the courts whenever I want to. They also have a large pond (with ducks and geese), basketball courts and a lot of wooded trails. The vast majority of employees are work from home and they want to stay that way.
We have one pair of courts that have been taken over by the Pickle Ballers. We can use them for tennis but the Pickle Ballers often come out in large groups with lawn chairs and occupy the courts for half a day.
One guy I play with works at a company nearby and they have immaculate tennis courts and we're the only people that I've ever seen using them. I hope that we can keep this up. I'm considering applying there so that I could use the courts whenever I want to. They also have a large pond (with ducks and geese), basketball courts and a lot of wooded trails. The vast majority of employees are work from home and they want to stay that way.
TennisDawg
Hall of Fame
I think the youngsters are the reason tennis sales have increased. Their parents spare no expense when it comes to buying Junior a couple of expense frames, clothes, shoes, lessons etc. The tennis boom generation of the 70s-80s now mainly play social doubles or even pickle. I’ve also noticed USTA in my area has a lot of Junior tournaments with just a few adult level, that also doesn’t do much to promote adult competition.
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movdqa
Talk Tennis Guru
The adults that want to play come to play. We do not have a lot of clubs so people typically have to drive up to 30 minutes to get to a club so clubs are busy during the winter. The financials are tough, though, because a lot of adults play on public courts in the late spring, summer and early fall. But the resurgence is definitely younger kids. My own club only has two courts so they see very heavy use in the evenings by adults and during the day by housewives or retirees during the school/work day. It is good to see that there is a pipeline of tennis players.
TennisDawg
Hall of Fame
Yes, the emphasis is on the youth and I understand that. I am a member of a fitness/tennis club and this year I’ve noticed adults arrange their own doubles group. I play in them, in fact I even make the arrangements. Quite often it’s hard to get a reliable foursome so paying the monthly fee is not feasible for me if I only play a couple of times per month. I’ve decided to drop in April and have signed up for a flex league. I’m at least gonna get 4 to 5 matches per session. I’m probably not rejoining the club next winter.
socallefty
G.O.A.T.
I think I‘ve seen stats that tennis players used to number in the >30 million range in the mid-eighties in the US. It then dropped to mid-teens according to USTA and now has increased in the last couple of years to >20 million players. Considering that the population is much larger, the % of tennis players is still way down from the peak 40-50 years ago.
Tennis has always been the refuge for those who are not fit and tough enough to play contact sports like American football, hockey and basketball. Most of those kids now play soccer and many of those adults now stick with video/online games. Plus, having hundreds of TV channels and streaming options has reduced the need to play any kind of outdoor sports to keep people entertained. I don’t know if that is going to change.
Tennis has always been the refuge for those who are not fit and tough enough to play contact sports like American football, hockey and basketball. Most of those kids now play soccer and many of those adults now stick with video/online games. Plus, having hundreds of TV channels and streaming options has reduced the need to play any kind of outdoor sports to keep people entertained. I don’t know if that is going to change.
I feel lucky that here in the UK there are plenty of available tennis facilites. Where I live it would almost be impossible to live more that 15 minute cycle ride from courts and I never have a problem with court availability.
Tennis Aloha
Rookie
True, Tennis is exploding due to certain events that shall remain unmentioned.
Tennis Aloha
Rookie
I agree, most of tennis sales are parents buying their kids stuff. IMO
I am not sure. I believe it is from adult recreational play.
movdqa
Talk Tennis Guru
I hit for a few hours this afternoon and the adjacent court was a high-school girls team. The assistant coach was the son of a guy that we used to play with. There was one player who was decent and the rest looked like 2.5 to 3.0 players. The coach had to give them some very basic instruction. Tennis just isn't that popular compared to the other big sports. But at least they have enough interest to field a team. I do see much better juniors at our club but perhaps they're attending private schools.
I'm glad that kids are interested and parents are supporting them.
I'm glad that kids are interested and parents are supporting them.
SpinControl
Rookie
A little secret that I learned. (Keep it between you and me.)
Play at your local high school. No pickleball lines.
The fact that tennis isn't broadcast as much on television hurts the sport. Too much tennis on pay channels vs. public airwaves. It was very popular in the 80s and 90s because one could always see tournaments on public airwaves. Either that or people just don't watch anything but streaming today, which could be true for youngsters, so their exposure is low. In the last 20 years, parents have been putting their kids in front of DVDs and now streaming channels, so where are they going to learn of the sport? Plus, movie wise, tons on baseball, soccer, and football. Less on tennis although King Richard was very very good.
As Agassi stated to Letterman, "My dad said that he would raise me the same way except he'd make me play baseball or golf. More money."
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andrehanderson
Professional
I'm obsessed with tennis but started to play pickleball awhile ago because it was easy to get into games every day. Tennis takes coordinating schedules so it becomes difficult once you're out of your 20s.
Luckily I moved to a place with plenty of courts and strong players. I'm now back to tennis full time.
Luckily I moved to a place with plenty of courts and strong players. I'm now back to tennis full time.
HitMoreBHs
Professional
You really wouldn’t expect anything else from the elitist snobs of the LTA who pay nothing more than lip service towards the issue of tennis facilities for the peasants.
socallefty
G.O.A.T.
When I was young, I would think of a private tennis club as an indulgence while I went out to restaurants/bars/clubs all the time. For under $200 a month, I would have gotten a lot of clean, healthy entertainment and likely met more dateable girls easier if I had joined a tennis club. Easy way to meet a lot of players at each level, join teams/leagues, play tournaments/ladders, reserve courts, get access to good coaches, even network professionally etc. and most of them have a bar/restaurant also to socialize easily with people you meet.
puppybutts
Hall of Fame
the number of people who went outside and took a walk for the first time in their adult life also increased exponentially. but we all know that won't last either.
aliceinpains
Rookie
Tennis has been dead here in NW Ohio for many years. Probably will never come back.
LuckyR
Legend
Compared to the Golden Age? Definitely true, but that may be an unfair comparo.
