Is Tennis In a Healthy Place?

Lots and lots of threads and posts over the past 12 months talking about the game from the past to the present and the future too. My question is with all technology, science, conditions is tennis in a healthy place? Does it offer the balance of a sport that demands all the excellence of it's competitors?

As I was growing up, the Clay was almost dismissed as another sport entirely. The Australian Open grew in prestige and importance. Britain has had it's fair shares of highs and lows in the tennis world. We have seen the wooden racquet vanish. Balls have become light and fluffy like mash spuds. Energy drinks and bananas have replaced Coca Cola and Robinsons squash as the food of kings. Womens tennis future became the Williams Sisters.

Players are running faster and for longer. Players are hitting harder. Tournaments outside of the Slams are growing in interest and prize money.

Is tennis right now if it stood still in a healthy place compared to past standards?

Will tennis progress or decline in the future?

In some respects tennis is doing very well in others, not so much.

I no longer play competitively at a club, and hardly ever pick up a raquet now so I am not au fait with modern technology - there are some very interesting posts from you guys who do play.

Listening to some of the points made in other posts, I just hope that any future changes to strings, frames and balls will be very slight, and that tennis doesn't become even more of a power game.

I actually love the baseline game, but it is good to see variety in play and in courts.

I would say tennis could be in a better place with a little more variety in court speed so that we saw more of the volleying, all court skills of all the players, but that all in all it is in a pretty good place.

Great post legend -

Tennis is good, very good at the moment. Better than it has been fir many years. A bit on the physical side now and then but self regulating still.

Media have to live off something. I have never bought their junk and neither am I going to start now.

In terms of popularity tennis is booming.

It's a global sport with a huge fan base. RF and RN are two of the most recognisable athletes in the world. I can't really comment on how it's current popularity compares to say it's popularity in the eighties.

Is it the most popular individual sport in the world? I mean in terms of viewership and not participation? I can't off the top of my head think of a more popular individual sport at the moment.

I dunno, golf is pretty popular too, but don't know how they compare.

Golf is just popular because it gets so much coorporate backing and sponsorship. You know the joke; the higher up the ladder you get, the smaller your balls get.

I mean, as a spectator sport, how can anyone spend hours watching golf? It's soooooooo booooooooooring.

emancipator wrote:Golf is just popular because it gets so much coorporate backing and sponsorship. You know the joke; the higher up the ladder you get, the smaller your balls get.

I mean, as a spectator sport, how can anyone spend hours watching golf? It's soooooooo booooooooooring.

LOL very true mate, that's way I spend my w/e playing marbles nowadays..........

It's really strong. How much of tht is due to two personalities I do not know.

My habit in business has been to use the good times to learn why things are going well, and not to come to the wrong conclusions about what will sustain it. It serves me well. Just because it's strong now doesn't mean that everything now is right, and my guess is that if you removed Federer and Nadal it would take a huge step backwards. That tells me they need to reflect quickly on the weaknesses regardless of the apparent health.

I think that is a great point BB, I do wonder if some of the homogenisation of courts is to ensure that the top four players are making their seeding at the big events then this is short termism and the sport will pay in the long run for that.

At the moment the two biggest box office stars have shown up in the latter stages of the slams because the surface suits - but tennis does not know atm where its next box office star is coming from and it would do well to 'hedge' and go back to having variety of court surfaces/size of balls at the majors to cover all bases.

bogbrush wrote:It's really strong. How much of tht is due to two personalities I do not know.

My habit in business has been to use the good times to learn why things are going well, and not to come to the wrong conclusions about what will sustain it. It serves me well. Just because it's strong now doesn't mean that everything now is right, and my guess is that if you removed Federer and Nadal it would take a huge step backwards. That tells me they need to reflect quickly on the weaknesses regardless of the apparent health.

That has to be best summary of how to evaluate the strength in any organisation and look to learn from it.

bogbrush wrote:It's really strong. How much of tht is due to two personalities I do not know.

My habit in business has been to use the good times to learn why things are going well, and not to come to the wrong conclusions about what will sustain it. It serves me well. Just because it's strong now doesn't mean that everything now is right, and my guess is that if you removed Federer and Nadal it would take a huge step backwards. That tells me they need to reflect quickly on the weaknesses regardless of the apparent health.

Yes very true but we also have to accept that there are great times and not so good times, be it tennis, economy, art, science, weather and everything else....and more importantly this notion, though not completely subjective, varies from region to region and person to person. SO when Kung Sushi will be world number one playing versus world number 2 Mohamed El Saharah, we may lose interest here in the West but the East might finally got interested in the sport.

Tenez wrote:

bogbrush wrote:It's really strong. How much of tht is due to two personalities I do not know.

My habit in business has been to use the good times to learn why things are going well, and not to come to the wrong conclusions about what will sustain it. It serves me well. Just because it's strong now doesn't mean that everything now is right, and my guess is that if you removed Federer and Nadal it would take a huge step backwards. That tells me they need to reflect quickly on the weaknesses regardless of the apparent health.

Yes very true but we also have to accept that there are great times and not so good times, be it tennis, economy, art, science, weather and everything else....and more importantly this notion, though not completely subjective, varies from region to region and person to person. SO when Kung Sushi will be world number one playing versus world number 2 Mohamed El Saharah, we may lose interest here in the West but the East might finally got interested in the sport.

El Saharah is a moonballing fraud.

bogbrush wrote:

Tenez wrote:

bogbrush wrote:It's really strong. How much of tht is due to two personalities I do not know.

My habit in business has been to use the good times to learn why things are going well, and not to come to the wrong conclusions about what will sustain it. It serves me well. Just because it's strong now doesn't mean that everything now is right, and my guess is that if you removed Federer and Nadal it would take a huge step backwards. That tells me they need to reflect quickly on the weaknesses regardless of the apparent health.

Yes very true but we also have to accept that there are great times and not so good times, be it tennis, economy, art, science, weather and everything else....and more importantly this notion, though not completely subjective, varies from region to region and person to person. SO when Kung Sushi will be world number one playing versus world number 2 Mohamed El Saharah, we may lose interest here in the West but the East might finally got interested in the sport.

El Saharah is a moonballing fraud.

You player basher! Constantly rehashing the same things!

emancipator wrote:I mean, as a spectator sport, how can anyone spend hours watching golf? It's soooooooo booooooooooring.

I am pretty sure that here in the US golf is far more popular than tennis as a spectator sport. This is partly due to the lack of the US tennis talent, but even if Americans were top stars, tennis would likely not come anywhere near golf.

Not sure why.

Outside the US, popularity-wise, I think tennis is in a nice place.