It's like this thread pops up every week.25 years ago the game was dominated by the Americans. Connors, Agassi, Sampras, McEnroe, and many more legends. Now the best American you see is Isner... WHAT HAPPENED? please someone knowledgeable explain thank you!
The best juniors competition is now solidly in Europe.
But that was already the case when I was a junior, almost 50 years ago.
The tour as a whole reflects surfaces and game styles that favor Euro-centric competition today than it ever has.
Yep. As I said above, if the tour looked like this in the 90s, Sampras would not have been the dominant force he was. Rafter would have been a nobody. Chang would have been the dominant American, followed by Courier and then Agassi.
Sampras would have had a Mahut-esque career
no one gives a hoot about Mahut. And the only reason I can come up with for your post is you just wanted to write "Mahut" since you liked the sound of his name in your head which is ironically the reason why I respondedSampras would have had a Mahut-esque career
no one gives a hoot about Mahut. And the only reason I can come up with for your post is you just wanted to write "Mahut" since you liked the sound of his name in your head which is ironically the reason why I responded
American women are still strong because tennis, along with golf, is one of the only sports they can make money playing pro sports.The American woman tennis is super strong now! The American mens tennis is kind of lackluster still with nobody stepping up in the 18-30 year range. Where is the next Connors, Courier, Sampras, Agassi, Chang, Roddick, etc...?
Would American tennis have faired better if poly never came along and the surfaces remained fast?
Australian tennis would have, both at pro and lower levels. We had generation of pros teaching an eradicated sport. Now we have a generation of pros (mostly imported) teaching a sport that our country has no historical ties to.
There never used to be enough hours in the day for me to watch the AO, I don't think I looked at a single match in the second week this year. No interest.
That's not just because we had no-one there, because that's the been the case and I've still watched every match. It's the quality (type) of tennis. Take away the quest for 5 million slams and it's just boring.
As much as the early 2000’s era gets criticized, poly strings, the old school balls, and fast courts were an electrifying combo. They also didn’t cater as much to defensive baseliners and there was much greater parity. Bring it back!
I think that was just a transition period. Balls weren't as slow, most courts were slow (just not as slow as now) and not all players had converted to poly (none had grown up with it). You can't stay in transition forever.
Under the stewardship of the ITF, the character of the game was preversed by preventing undue spin (that was actually written into the rules). The ATP threw that all out and just wanted longer and longer rallies everywhere.
The result is that the rallies aren't actually that much longer (check the stats, they aren't). They are just completely one dimensional baseline bot tennis. If you like that to the exclusion of every other style, you're a pig in mud. If you like all court tennis or even just variety, tennis is dead.
Tennis is one of the cheaper sports, as far as the equipment goes.Also, the equipment is not cheap.
Connors was not dominating anything 25 years ago. He was 43 in 1995. Mac was 36, also no longer relevant.25 years ago the game was dominated by the Americans. Connors, Agassi, Sampras, McEnroe, and many more legends. Now the best American you see is Isner... WHAT HAPPENED? please someone knowledgeable explain thank you!
Tennis isn’t the highest earning sport for American men. NFL, NBA, Baseball etc have contracts in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Even with sponsorships and everything, players wouldn’t get anywhere near that level of finance.
Pretty simple really, why would you, as a promising male athlete in America, pursue tennis where the average top-100 player earns less than $1m per and has to travel globally for 11 months, as opposed say NBA (average yearly salary $7m across 450 players) or MLB (average yearly salary $4m across 800 players) where the earnings potential is much higher and the season is only 6 months?
There is not ANY incentive for top male athletes to pursue tennis in America, period. The earnings potential gap is enormous. Only a few tennis players can even dream of earning $50 or $100 million in a career whereas in the other sports, dozens of $50-$100m plus contracts are handed out yearly.
WOMEN'S tennis remains a big deal in America because there is MORE incentive as a woman to pursue tennis and the WTA in America than the WNBA or some other small potatoes female sports league. A female athlete in America can't make more money almost anywhere else than playing tennis.
Berrettini isn't the example I'd give, my guess is he played a lot on clay as a kid too.Also, to answer the question in the OP:
I don't have in-depth knowledge about the training facilities and organisations involved in US tennis, so I'm basing this purely off what I can tell from watching how those guys play. In my opinion there's too much focus on tactics and not enough focus on technique. Even worse: The focus is too much on tactics but they're completely the wrong tactics. It's all about big serve, big forehand, the ol' 1-2 punch. Well yeah I guess that sounds kinda cool and very American to dominate with big shots like that but it's simply not the winning strategy in today's tennis. All these guys focus on serving big and hitting a big winner. Then they go out on the ATP tour with slow courts and against opponents from other countries that have actually learned how to hit a good rally shot (notably a BACKHAND) and don't know what to do when they actually get caught in a baseline rally. In European facilities (the good ones, not the ones in my country for example) they put a LOT of emphasis on having a proper topspin forehand and backhand technique which is absolutely crucial. They put a lot of emphasis on athleticism, on-court movement. They train on clay so they know to manoeuvre themselves into winning a long, typical grinding-style rally and additionally get to work on their endurance. If you want to succeed on the pro tour, you've got to know how to win in those long rallies and you've got to make sure that ALL OF YOUR SHOTS are absolute top notch. I mean, even looking at a successful pro like Berrettini (yeah I know he's not American), it's ridiculous how he always has to run around his forehand and guard his relatively weak backhand all the time.
Also: I hate the excuse that people give about the best athletes going to other sports. That's such a weak BS excuse. You don't think other countries practice other sports as well? You think tennis is more popular than football in Spain? And the US has a population more than 7x larger than that of Spain. Keep playing those sports only you play, inside your little bubble, and keep telling yourself you're the greatest in the world.
Also: I hate the excuse that people give about the best athletes going to other sports. That's such a weak BS excuse. You don't think other countries practice other sports as well? You think tennis is more popular than football in Spain? And the US has a population more than 7x larger than that of Spain. Keep playing those sports only you play, inside your little bubble, and keep telling yourself you're the greatest in the world.
And the proof is in the pudding - the WTA has more top-100 players from the USA than any other country. America still dominates women's tennis because female athletes in America actually play tennis.