I’d occasionally watch tennis but what kinda killed it for me is it’s only tournament, tournament, tournament. I love the long season of baseball. Watching as they jockey for position in the standings. The dread you feel about that late season 12 game road trip. You really feel they’ve built something when the they win that last game. Tennis just turns over their Etch-A-Sketch and shakes it out too much for me.
They’ve tried to counter that lately, actually. There has always been a season-long points race, and now there’s the “U.S. Open Series” (basically the American hardcourt season), which offers some big monetary rewards. But no matter what they do with points, the history and everything just make the major tournaments a far bigger deal. The end of a major is the moment that’s comparable to the World Series.
Although this is a rather pointless route to go down, late-1800s rugby did have similar fatality rates. As glee points out, the game’s authorities simple tackled (heh) the problem in a different way.
I’ll expand on what Marley hinted at upthread.
While, I don’t agree that it is the best sport, I do like tennis for a couple reasons.
Besides NFL, boxing is probably my favorite sport and no sport (even football) can touch a good boxing match for drama.
However, the only one that comes close, IMO, is tennis. That’s because it is the only other really major sport that is mano a mano. 1 & 3 are the crucial points for me from the OP. It is individual and every match has the potential to be epic. The epic possibilities arise from the individual nature.
Like boxing, a tennis match can sometimes move beyond a battle of skill and become a battle of will. The best matches are riveting. You feel like a guy’s psychological well-being is hanging on every point. A really good tennis match CAN’T be turned off.
The sport as a whole, I don’t follow so much, but a great tennis match is some of the best drama in sports. Sometimes you see a match and you go, “that’s why I watch sports.”
The only problem I have with televised tennis is that it doesn’t effectively show the “speed” of the game or the intricate spins put on the ball. From that full court aerial view they use it looks way too simplistic a game, almost 2 dimensional.
When in reality, the balls arc, spin, lob, and move so damn fast it’s amazing these guys (and gals) can return them over the net. Try watching a professionals serve coming at you from the backcourt viewpoint. Unless you a pro there not a chance in hell you could ever return one of those over the net.
And you can really appreciate the size of the court on tv. It’s huge and it’s amazing they can get across the thing so fast.