Tennis Anyone? Anyone?

I don’t know if you saw the recent Australian Open Tennis Tournament, but it was AWESOME.

Ash Barty of Australia won the women’s competition — which was such a beautiful thing for the host country.

Rafael Nadal of Spain won the men’s competition against Daniil Medvedev of Russia in a Match for the Ages — a five-set duel that was quite simply an incredible comeback for Nadal in the end.

It showed me that tennis — from its high point in the mid-70s — remains an amazing sport that’s still going strong just about everywhere — except the United States.

If you watch tennis (at least the four major open tournaments like me), it’s becoming more and more apparent that Americans are showing up on the top courts far less frequently than in the past.

Players from Canada, South America, the Far East and – especially – Europe are fielding the best players these days. In the swinging 1970s, it was Americans Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Jimmy Conners, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi who were continually lighting up the courts.

Later, the American Williams sisters – Venus and Serena – would come to dominate women’s tennis.

But in recent years, the numbers of up-and-coming American players has decreased fairly dramatically. In 2018 – the latest figures before the arrival of COVID – there were an estimated 17.8 million tennis players (professional and non) in a total population of more than 320 million.

In 1974, there were an estimated 33.9 million players in a population of about 213 million. So roughly HALF as many players in 2018 compared to 1974, when there were about 107 million fewer people.

So what’s happened? Why do we see so many American tennis courts with grass growing through huge cracks on their surfaces?

Well, LOTS of things.

First, why was tennis so popular in the 70s?

In 1968, the Tennis World decided professional players could play at any of the four Grand Slam events, where they could earn huge paydays. That resulted in the TV networks getting excited about broadcasting the games, and more and more people became exposed to the sport.

And that brought about an explosion of city-built and private tennis courts with players dreaming of making it big.

For women players, tennis offered a high-visibility sport in which they could achieve popular fame, make great money and lift the banner of feminism at a time when it was just beginning to be taken seriously.

But while that is still a part of the American tennis story, several factors have limited its continued rise in popularity.

Like never before, tennis is regarded as an “elitist” sport in the U.S. because of how expensive it is to learn and excel. Kids without rich, dedicated parents stand little to no chance of becoming a great player by the time they leave high school.

In America, there is very little of what’s seen in Europe and elsewhere, with public tennis clubs, community organizations and government support helping advance anyone with talent.

Also, American kids are opting for other, more popular sports like football, baseball and basketball. European kids are crazy about soccer, but that’s about the only other big sport diverting them in their home regions.

Because of this, a larger percentage of the best athletes in other countries will go into tennis. In the states, the best male athletes mostly go into the Big Three Sports because of the money and celebrity.

But – according to long-time tennis coaches – perhaps the biggest problem for American tennis is junior development programs. The coaches decry a horrible amount of bureaucracy, ego and territorialism between the two primary competing systems of professional teaching, the USPTA and the USPTR.

If America expects to see its players regain some of their dominance of tennis, it starts – as always – with the young. We must develop a better system that provides our best young players with the training and support that currently only goes to trust fund kids.

If that doesn't happen, seeing an American win a major tennis event in the future will become a very rare occasion indeed.