Why is Germany so bad at Tennis?

H

Hyde

Semi-Pro
I‘m a german myself, and I ask myself this question.

Throughout history, we germans were never really good at Tennis. The only exceptions being the era of Graf & Becker from mid-80s to mid-90s.

Now some people say: „Germany is just not a Tennis nation!“ But at grassroot level, this is absolutely not true. Germany has 1.5 million registered Tennis players, which I think is more than countries like France, Spain or Italy. So in Germany, more people, more kids play Tennis than in every other country in Europe.

But the fruits of it are just not there. We have very few players in the top-100 in ATP and WTA, our only good player is Zverev - and he isn’t even a product of German Tennis Federation, Zverev is a product of his Tennis family, so he isn’t a success story of the german Tennis system.

And yeah, there were players like Kerber who won some slams, but that‘s the extremely rare exception. We should kind of dominate european Tennis, with having so many kids and people playing it every week. But we are not even close, and never were (apart from Becker/Graf/Stich era).

So why is Germany bad at Tennis for the last 100 years, even though 1.5 million people are registered players, more than other big Tennis nations have?
 
Hard on Struff

As an American, I'd trade Fritz, Shelton, and Tiafoe for your Zverev, controversy attached. I want TP and Korda for perceived upside, but I'd be glad to keep the discussion open.
 
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Sounds not dissimilar to GB tennis, I can't speak for Germany but opportunity and resources seem to be a major limiting factor. It's an expensive sport with a low return on investment so difficult to convince the smart money to get placed there. National governing bodies policy on investing in the best juniors also has a dramatic impact ... elitism and cronyism are often criticisms of these systems. Murray similar to Zverev had his family and he trained in Spain when he was young, in fact it was argued that the LTA had an adverse impact on his brothers development but I'll leave that to the more knowledgeable than me. For me the serious competitors are streamed by wealth and so the talent pool is so narrow you have to wait a longer time for the next best player. Just my 2 cents.

What is the youth development system like in Germany? Does the German governing body provide subsidy and training for talent spotted youngsters?
 
Kind of wild that after Philipp Kohlschreiber, Haas, Becker, and Stich you got basically nothing. At least on the mens side. For women you got a few more.
 
3loudboys said:
Michael Stich? won Wimbledon and finalist in Paris and NY. Doubles champ at Wimbledon and year end Champion beating Pete. Bagged a few Masters as well. Not a bad CV.
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Stich was part of the Becker/Graf era. Becker was born in 1967. Stich was born in 1968. Graf was born in 1969.

Those 1967-69 birth years were that one crazy time when Germany actually was good at Tennis for some reason.
 
Hyde said:
Stich was part of the Becker/Graf era. Becker was born in 1967. Stich was born in 1968. Graf was born in 1969.

Those 1967-69 birth years were that one crazy time when Germany actually was good at Tennis for some reason.
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I know ... he was a notable mention 8-B
 
Hyde said:
I‘m a german myself, and I ask myself this question.

Throughout history, we germans were never really good at Tennis. The only exceptions being the era of Graf & Becker from mid-80s to mid-90s.

Now some people say: „Germany is just not a Tennis nation!“ But at grassroot level, this is absolutely not true. Germany has 1.5 million registered Tennis players, which I think is more than countries like France, Spain or Italy. So in Germany, more people, more kids play Tennis than in every other country in Europe.

But the fruits of it are just not there. We have very few players in the top-100 in ATP and WTA, our only good player is Zverev - and he isn’t even a product of German Tennis Federation, Zverev is a product of his Tennis family, so he isn’t a success story of the german Tennis system.

And yeah, there were players like Kerber who won some slams, but that‘s the extremely rare exception. We should kind of dominate european Tennis, with having so many kids and people playing it every week. But we are not even close, and never were (apart from Becker/Graf/Stich era).

So why is Germany bad at Tennis for the last 100 years, even though 1.5 million people are registered players, more than other big Tennis nations have?
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Lol....you think your're bad at tennis. At least you had Graf, Becker and Stich who notched up 29 Slams between them. Even now you've got the world #3 in Zverev. Maybe you think you should be doing better but try being British, where the modern game was invented, and we have had just the 1 Slam winner and top player in Murray (who also was not a product of our Tennis Association) within the last 4 decades.

It's all relative. :cool:
 
3loudboys said:
Sounds not dissimilar to GB tennis, I can't speak for Germany but opportunity and resources seem to be a major limiting factor. It's an expensive sport with a low return on investment so difficult to convince the smart money to get placed there. National governing bodies policy on investing in the best juniors also has a dramatic impact ... elitism and cronyism are often criticisms of these systems. Murray similar to Zverev had his family and he trained in Spain when he was young, in fact it was argued that the LTA had an adverse impact on his brothers development but I'll leave that to the more knowledgeable than me. For me the serious competitors are streamed by wealth and so the talent pool is so narrow you have to wait a longer time for the next best player. Just my 2 cents.

What is the youth development system like in Germany? Does the German governing body provide subsidy and training for talent spotted youngsters?
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Yeah I was thinking about the similarities to the UK as well. UK is an odd case as well, because normally, the UK is a very good sports nation (look at how many medals they get at the Olympics) and Tennis is very popular there. So you would think they should be killing it in ATP and WTA.
 
Hyde said:
The funny thing is: we probably had more german-speaking ATP slam winners since the 2000s than most or any other country: they just don’t happen to be germans.

Their names are Roger Federer, Stan Wawrinka, Dominic Thiem and Jannik Sinner.
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Stanimal can`t speak german, he is from french regional Switzerland
 
Fussball verdient auf jeden Falls mehr Geld und dann Tennis ist unbedingt relativ viel schwerer als Fussball.

Irgendwann hab ein Artikel gelesen dass die Tennis halle nach Fussball oder Futsal platz wechselt worden war.
 
Hyde said:
Yeah I was thinking about the similarities to the UK as well. UK is an odd case as well, because normally, the UK is a very good sports nation (look at how many medals they get at the Olympics) and Tennis is very popular there. So you would think they should be killing it in ATP and WTA.
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It’s to expensive and our national body are not spreading the net wide enough for talent. Until there is investment so opportunity is on a more level playing field then the pool is too small at a high performance level. Talent isn’t limited by money but places in performance facilities is unfortunately.
 
Hyde said:
The funny thing is: we probably had more german-speaking ATP slam winners since the 2000s than most or any other country: they just don’t happen to be germans.

Their names are Roger Federer, Stan Wawrinka, Dominic Thiem and Jannik Sinner.
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Thiem and Sinner are more German than Zverev and Kerber :) One could actually argue that Austria and Bavaria are real Germany while the north is actually Prussia. Anyhow, apart from Spain that produced Nadal and Alcaraz, whatever was said about German tennis applies to every other country.
 
Arak said:
Thiem and Sinner are more German than Zverev and Kerber :) One could actually argue that Austria and Bavaria are real Germany while the north is actually Prussia. Anyhow, apart from Spain that produced Nadal and Alcaraz, whatever was said about German tennis applies to every other country.
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Weren't the Prussians German? They actually created the modern nation. :cool:
 
Germany did have a very good wave of players on the women's side born within just over 2 years of each other between late 1987 and late 1989. Of course most notably there was Kerber, but also in chronological order of birth, Tatjana Maria (grand slam semi-finalist and won 3 WTA titles) Petkovic (grand slam semi-finalist, world no. 9 and won 7 WTA titles), Laura Siegemund (grand slam quarter-finalist and won 2 WTA titles), Goerges (grand slam semi-finalist, world no. 9 and won 7 WTA titles) and Lisicki (grand slam finalist, world no. 12 and won 4 WTA titles).

British success in women's tennis has been absolutely barren in comparison to that. In-between Sara Gomer's title at Aptos in July 1988 and Heather Watson's at Osaka in October 2012 so more than 24 years, there was a grand total of 0 WTA singles titles wins by British players. The format of the Federation / Fed / Billie Jean King Cup has changed a lot over the years making cross-era comparisons more difficult. But after the 1993 Federation Cup held in Frankfurt in July 1993, GB didn't play one single World Group tie in the competition until February 2020, when the competition had been significantly revamped and they faced Slovakia in a qualifying round for the finals.
 
3loudboys said:
It’s to expensive and our national body are not spreading the net wide enough for talent. Until there is investment so opportunity is on a more level playing field then the pool is too small at a high performance level. Talent isn’t limited by money but places in performance facilities is unfortunately.
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Is UK Tennis Association aware of the problems and trying to fix them?
 
Hyde said:
I‘m a german myself, and I ask myself this question.

Throughout history, we germans were never really good at Tennis. The only exceptions being the era of Graf & Becker from mid-80s to mid-90s.

Now some people say: „Germany is just not a Tennis nation!“ But at grassroot level, this is absolutely not true. Germany has 1.5 million registered Tennis players, which I think is more than countries like France, Spain or Italy. So in Germany, more people, more kids play Tennis than in every other country in Europe.

But the fruits of it are just not there. We have very few players in the top-100 in ATP and WTA, our only good player is Zverev - and he isn’t even a product of German Tennis Federation, Zverev is a product of his Tennis family, so he isn’t a success story of the german Tennis system.

And yeah, there were players like Kerber who won some slams, but that‘s the extremely rare exception. We should kind of dominate european Tennis, with having so many kids and people playing it every week. But we are not even close, and never were (apart from Becker/Graf/Stich era).

So why is Germany bad at Tennis for the last 100 years, even though 1.5 million people are registered players, more than other big Tennis nations have?
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Weather sucks and only rich people play tennis

/thread
 
Mainad said:
Rectified that in 1938 but funny how Austria was separated again in 1945. Wonder why?
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The history is very well documented. Prussia didn’t include Austria in the new federation because it was the strongest German state and would compete with Prussia over leadership.
 
Arak said:
Anyhow, apart from Spain that produced Nadal and Alcaraz, whatever was said about German tennis applies to every other country.
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Nah, France for example has much more Top-100 players than Germany for decades now.

Germany always has very few Top-100 players. It probably also was like that in the Becker/Graf era.
Countries like Spain and France always have much more Top-100 players than Germany. And when you take population size into account, a lot of countries have more Top-100 players per population than Germany.
 
Arak said:
The history is very well documented. Prussia didn’t include Austria in the new federation because it was the strongest German state and would compete with Prussia over leadership.
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Hardly applies today though. Do the Austrians regard themselves as German?
 
Mainad said:
Hardly applies today though. Do the Austrians regard themselves as German?
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You can ask the same question to the Bavarians. The Austrians consider themselves as Germans in an ethnological sense, but they have a sensitivity towards the German big brother state, so they wouldn’t appreciate the association.
 
Germany hasn't had lasting success since 1870--and that was just the Prussian region. They've had a few flashes in the pan since as a unified power but can't sustain it in the long run.
 
Does Germany have a strong tennis academy? I know Kerber trained in Germany but that doesn't mean it was at an actual academy. Even if a ton of people play unless you have access to good coaching resources you're only getting so far. Didn't Zverev travel to Spain to train? Petkovic's father was a tennis player in Yugoslavia so she had a coach in the family.

All that being said Germany over the last 50 years or so has had a fair amount of Success compared to a lot of the rest of the world in tennis all things considered...and I am saying this leaving out countries like USA, Russia, Spain, France and I'll throw in Serbia as well.
 
Hyde said:
Nah, France for example has much more Top-100 players than Germany for decades now.

Germany always has very few Top-100 players. It probably also was like that in the Becker/Graf era.
Countries like Spain and France always have much more Top-100 players than Germany. And when you take population size into account, a lot of countries have more Top-100 players per population than Germany.
Click to expand...
You make a good point but honestly no one cares about players out of the top 10 and you’ve got Zverev in there. Not too bad.
 
Hyde said:
Is UK Tennis Association aware of the problems and trying to fix them?
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Not entirely sure, it’s been a while since I had any contact with the system. I’ve known parents that had their children go through various training regimes with very mixed opinions.
 
Arak said:
You can ask the same question to the Bavarians. The Austrians consider themselves as Germans in an ethnological sense, but they have a sensitivity towards the German big brother state, so they wouldn’t appreciate the association.
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There was a deutschnationale Strömung (german-national movement) in austrian society and politics since late the 19th century and also for many decades after world war 2 (meaning they wanted close ties with Germany and the possibility of incorporation of Austria into Germany), mainly by the FPÖ, but in the last decades not anymore I think.

Also, there once was a strong movement in Südtirol (where Sinner is from) to go back to Austria.

Me as a german, I wouldn’t have a problem with having Austria and Südtirol back, lol. We would be even better at Winter Sports. And we would finally have a slam winner again!
 
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Hyde said:
There was a deutschnationale Strömung (german-national movement) in austrian society and politics since late the 19th century and also for many decades after world war 2 (meaning they wanted close ties with Germany and the possibility of incorporation of Austria into Germany), mainly by the FPÖ, but in the last decades not anymore I think.

Also, there once was a strong movement in Südtirol (where Sinner is from) to go back to Austria.

Me as a german, I wouldn’t have a problem with having Austria and Südtirol back, lol. We would be even better at Winter Sports. And we would finally have a slam winner again!
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I personally don’t think it’s a far fetched idea especially that Germany is a federation of states anyway. It probably won’t happen because a bigger idea has taken over which is the EU. As for Südtirol, the Italians went overboard to prevent that, offering the south tyrolians the impossible just to keep them with Italy :)
 
For some reason, I always think of Germany as being a strong tennis nation. But maybe that’s because when I was growing up and got into tennis in the 80s, Boris and Steffi were dominant faces of the game.
 
Arak said:
I personally don’t think it’s a far fetched idea especially that Germany is a federation of states anyway. It probably won’t happen because a bigger idea has taken over which is the EU. As for Südtirol, the Italians went overboard to prevent that, offering the south tyrolians the impossible just to keep them with Italy :)
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Italy had to bribe the South Tyroleans to stick around. There was even a terrorist movement in the 60's...
 
I was really hoping that Altmaier would at least have a similar career to Kohlschreiber, but that ship has sailed unfortunately. Maybe this new teenage sensation Engel will do something!
 
By the way, there is now a new guy named Justin Engel, who is 17 years old and recently won his first ATP match. So german media is hoping that he could be „the next Zverev“. But they hyped up guys like Nicola Kuhn and Rudi Molleker as well, so let’s wait how this one will play out.
 
Musterrific said:
I was really hoping that Altmaier would at least have a similar career to Kohlschreiber, but that ship has sailed unfortunately. Maybe this new teenage sensation Engel will do something!
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I liked that he has a one handed backhand, but honestly he’s not very likeable for some reason. In fact, there aren’t any likeable players at the moment, with the exception of Hanfmann, whom I find very charismatic but his tennis unfortunately isn’t that good.
 
Hyde said:
Nah, France for example has much more Top-100 players than Germany for decades now.

Germany always has very few Top-100 players. It probably also was like that in the Becker/Graf era.
Countries like Spain and France always have much more Top-100 players than Germany. And when you take population size into account, a lot of countries have more Top-100 players per population than Germany.
Click to expand...

So then shouldn't France be asking why they aren't producing Slam champs?
 
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