What Makes Tennis Interesting?

What makes tennis interesting?

Playing it.

^ Well stop talking about it and do it!

At 10:30 on a Friday evening in the snow?

OK you like talking about playing tennis. Strange that it is not something that I've noticed you doing...

Obviously something in between the two options. You really had to ask?

hawkeye wrote: OK you like talking about playing tennis. Strange that it is not something that I've noticed you doing...

I posted earlier this week about it

Neither of those things, a good close tense contest between contrasting styles... the players needn't be of top quality either, though it gets special when it does

Looking at option one:

Many of the things are fine as long as the emotions do not get completely out of hand.

"He said what" articles are utterly pointless. Usually a tabloid media quote that is quickly debunked leaving the OP looking silly and gullible.

Media hype - purely in the eye of the beholder. Not based on any solid facts. Can be argued but never effectively.

Opportunists? Not sure what is meant by this. Sounds dangerously close to asterisks though


On the second option

Rules should be enforced and tennis is about the shots. Why does niceness have to be airbrushed?? Who wants to look like a nasty piece of work?

As for everyone's a winner. Everyone who has ever won a match at ATP level is a winner. Robert Dee. No issues with having favourites but denying talent of any player - especially top four is laughable.

Neither option covers what makes tennis interesting though.

to what Carrie said.

carrieg4 wrote:



As for everyone's a winner. Everyone who has ever won a match at ATP level is a winner. Robert Dee. No issues with having favourites but denying talent of any player - especially top four is laughable.

To be fair, anyone who's ever won a match at futures level is playing a standard of tennis that is alien to anyone of us posting on these forums.

It always entertains me how some who is ranked 1000 is world is painted as some untalented loser, when in fact, they're actually a very handy tennis player. This is at a level where decent club players would struggle to even win points, let alone games or sets.

It's worse than that DJ. Someone like Almagro gets absolutely derided on this forum whenever he loses. In reality, there are only ten or so people better at tennis than him on the whole planet, yet you'd think he was about as talented as a chimp holding a racquet by the comments on here.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good laugh to mock players at times... But some people genuinely seem to think a player like Almagro is awful. Which I find bizarre. Everyone outside the top 4 are essentially crap according to some.

carrieg4 wrote:Looking at option one:

Many of the things are fine as long as the emotions do not get completely out of hand.

"He said what" articles are utterly pointless. Usually a tabloid media quote that is quickly debunked leaving the OP looking silly and gullible.

Media hype - purely in the eye of the beholder. Not based on any solid facts. Can be argued but never effectively.

Opportunists? Not sure what is meant by this. Sounds dangerously close to asterisks though


On the second option

Rules should be enforced and tennis is about the shots. Why does niceness have to be airbrushed?? Who wants to look like a nasty piece of work?

As for everyone's a winner. Everyone who has ever won a match at ATP level is a winner. Robert Dee. No issues with having favourites but denying talent of any player - especially top four is laughable.

Neither option covers what makes tennis interesting though.

carriege4. But you didn't say what makes tennis interesting for you?

For me it's the drama. And whether you want to recognize it or not there is drama and this is because players are human. Emotions would not be emotions if they didn't get out of hand. We get an insight by listening to what players say. Sometimes what they say is well reported sometimes not because reporters are human too. Meaning isn't always obvious either. Contrary to what some may think (or even prefer) there is a large psychological content to the sport so what people say or think can impact on results.

Nothing against the number 456th ranked player or player ranked higher or lower than that but if I'm watching sport I'm interested in results. That's the whole point of sport isn't it? It's what makes it exciting to watch. All the better if a win results from beautiful and exceptional play. I know what beautiful and exceptional play is but strangely not everyone else does. Sometime others including the media (Ha ha) don't recognize it or see it where it doesn't exist. Sometimes the best player wins but sometimes luck or dangerously close asterisks play a part.

There are rules, spins and other technical aspects and these can be interesting but not when isolated from all the other stuff. Rules are not set in stone and like everything else can be good or bad. Sometimes niceness is genuine and sometimes it is airbrushed. And sometimes because it is so competitive some may not care about niceness if it means they can win.

Technical stuff and stats can be interesting (I love stats... ) but only as part of the bigger picture.

Oh and JuliusHMarx. I like playing tennis too but I wouldn't presume many here would like me to write too many articles about how I came back the other day serving at 0-40 and down 4-5 to win the set. Despite my tendency to double fault in this sort of situation and half an eye on the post match americano...

hawkeye wrote:Oh and JuliusHMarx. I like playing tennis too but I wouldn't presume many here would like me to write too many articles about how I came back the other day serving at 0-40 and down 4-5 to win the set. Despite my tendency to double fault in this sort of situation and half an eye on the post match americano...

You're right - I usually only bring it up if it's apropos to something that is already being discussed.

My original 'playing it' was just a indication that I find playing tennis more interesting that watching it.

Watching Bepa (Vera Z) was interesting. Sloane Stephens, Laura Robson, Carol Garcia are others that make it interesting. Madison Keys is fun to watch.

Clijsters and Henin were great to watch too. The comebacks from both of them were good too.

Cibulkova is fun to watch as well.

Bellucci breaking Seppi to love is interesting.

- unique scoring system
- perfect blend of mental and physical challenge
- gladiatorial aspect of "combat"
- hugely watchable as a spectator (vs e.g. squash)
- a truly global sport
- matches played in different conditions, different (still) surfaces
- technology aspects
- social game - play from 4 to 84