I think part of the question is tied up in the fact that for decades US tennis players WERE among the elite men’s players. Think Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, and Jim Courier come to mind.
But looking atthis list of male tennis players, and it strikes me that there haven’t been any particularly awesome US players born since 1971- Andy Roddick is about the best of a not so great crop.
What happened to kids who grew up in the late 80s-90s and later that made tennis unattractive? Or maybe the question could be what was going on in the 1950s-1970s that made US players so good?
I sort of doubt it’s the competition from the big 3-4 sports (football, baseball, basketball, hockey/soccer), because that’s been in place for 50-70 years now, and tennis has always been an also-ran.
Years ago sports Illustrated had a famous issue titled “Is Tennis Dead?” and in it they blamed the US Tennis top leagues and organizations for failing to help push the sport with youth and especially inner city youth.
The Williams sisters are somewhat unique in that they were brought up from childhood to become professional tennis players. They were homeschooled - the only schools they attended were tennis academies.
I think the answer is that other sports (soccer, golf, even LAX) have surged in popularity in the US while tennis stayed fairly stagnant.
I suspect that this may be the case; as a white, suburban middle class guy born in 1972, I can say that tennis as an organized sport was nonexistent. The few people I knew who played tennis competitively got into it via mysterious paths, usually involving parents’ country clubs or the like.
Contrast this with the other sports like Pop Warner football, Little League baseball, club soccer, YMCA basketball and neighborhood swimming teams which all handed out flyers through our schools and either on our doors or through the mail at our homes. We were fully aware of what you needed to do as an elementary school kid if you wanted to play one of those sports, and what to do if you wanted to continue past the youth levels (join a club team/league and/or join your middle/high school’s team).
Yeah, that bugs me. At K-State half the female tennis players are foreign.
SOO, in this day and age where American families are struggling to afford college, they are giving away tennis scholarships to foreigners. I cannot believe they cannot find at least some decent American girls to play!
In the meantime, some young MEN are locked out because KState has no mens tennis.
Along with that, where are the tennis “stars” who go around to kids events and act as role models?
My sons football team regularly has visits from Chiefs players and other pros also put on events for kids or do charity softball games and such.
Can you imagine? A pro tennis player doing say, a celebrity bycicle race, softball game, or golf tournament? Other pro athletes do events outside their sport. Why cant tennis players do it?
The last person who DID this was Arthur Ashe but that was back in the 70’s. Check out this LINK.
TonySinclair - The main difference is that golf is incredibly freaking EXPENSIVE, for players and course managers alike. Furthermore, it can only be played in places where it’s possible to grow a large amount of grass, that aren’t subject to extremes of temperature, and that don’t get a lot of violent or erratic weather. That takes a pretty big chunk of the planet out of the picture. There really is no such thing as a casual golfer, not with all the equipment they have to buy, all the swings and stances they have to learn, and the sheer distance they have to walk (and if they can’t get those swings down, that’s even more walking time).
So it’s only natural that the nation with the most suitable land and the most money to blow on a dumb irritating so-called hobby would dominate the sport, and places like Canada and China…certainly no slouches in the international sports scene…would have almost no presence.
And yes, I would also argue that Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer hitting their stride at the same time and give us one of the legendary rivalries was largely a matter of luck. (I’m not even going to try to wrap my head around Tiger.)