What Happened To American Tennis?

The last American grand slam champion on the men's side was Andy Roddick winning the US Open in 2003. Many tennis fans are wondering, "What happened to American Tennis?" In today's video, I present some statistics on American tennis and what could be done better to develop more great American tennis players.

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[KRN]

Nothing sadder than empty courts on a nice day

[thematthewpatrickshow]

It’s no wonder the Laver Cup is organized as Team “Europe” vs Team “World”.

[saintrobsantos]

Any time I'm playing indoor courts, it's usually older adults playing reserving all of the court times. It's an expensive sport to get lessons, develop and train younger players year round. Also, USTA point system is a joke. USTA matches are usually older adults who's ranking vs skill is all over the place. Also, American tennis needs to add the 'cool' factor like the more popular American sports to attract younger kids.

[MainstreamMoviegoer]

Man...I'm pretty jealous. I'm in LA and almost every court is almost always full with people tryna kick each other off the courts

[SqeezaStressBall]

Very easy to understand breakdown - love hearing about personal stories and experiences that you won't find in other tennis channels.

[coachhillscta]

Spot on. When I played as a kid in the U.S. you had to win against a higher ranked player to move up. His statement about the USTA point system is absolutely right...total smoke and mirrors. The USTA is very slow to respond to change but UTR tournament competition is forcing it now. USTA rankings are currently so meaningless that most college coaches look only at a player's UTR rating and completely ignore USTA rankings. Two of my kids played NCAA Division 1 and they regularly smoked kids who had way higher USTA rankings...it was ridiculous. When my son won the state championship everyone was shocked because he was ranked 89th in USTA, but that's because I put him in just a few of their tounaments to see how he played in his age class. I played with him continually, took him to a local college to play their players...one of them was 76th in Futures, 17th in Australian mens. In the state championship my son played the kid that was ranked #1 in USTA and my son took the first set 6-1 in seventeen minutes. That's what the USTA point system produces. USTA has just this year changed some of what they're doing but it won't help that much. The European club process and adult tournaments is the best way to go for juniors to excel, but the NCAA, for American kids, is very prejudiced against American kids who win money or work for money in tennis before college and have blocked college scholarships...but not for foreign players. Needs to be a level playing field. Great video...I agree with every word.

[charlesferber]

Hi, I enjoyed Eric’s TED talk!
Jim Loehr did a great study of various sports based on different variables, and the conclusion was that Tennis is the hardest most difficult sport to succeed in out of all sports in the study.
So you’re right, the most exceptional athletes can make it, but the hurdles ahead are just too big for most.
It’s so much more fun to be a weekly warrior

[dr.e.r.blomgren]

I gained a lot of insight from listening to your talk today. Thanks!

[alexanderroberts]

This dude isn't even from the United States and yet his passion for US tennis far exceeds the vast, VAST majority of the population.

I'm also going to say that you could switch about "tennis" for "soccer" in this video and it almost completely applies all the same. European development models run circles around what we do in America.

[Rin_o]

The levels and maturity as a player are spot on. Great vid

[sean]

@Intuitive Tennis, you nailed it on your synopsis. Here's a little bit of my tennis journey growing up in the US.

I played alot of junior tennis in U12-U14 holding national ranking in the top 100. I started playing men's tournaments and in the US, the only adult draw I could enter was Men's Open (typically NTRP 5.0+). We had a few 5.0 level guys in my area which were great to train with that young. At 14-15 years old, I started to beat them and win Open division tournaments but that's where it ended. High school tennis in America is just an 'activity' for 99% of the participants and there were no higher level tournaments to play in my area.

Three years later, I got to finally play better players at a D1 university where I was the only American on the team (even my head coach and assistant coach were foreign). In one season, I improved drastically. You're 100% correct in saying that to get better, you have to play better players.

So, I think in those very critical tennis development years from 14-18, the US system lacks and your only real option is a tennis academy. To improve the competitiveness for average Americans attending public/private schools, there needs to be an incentive. That incentive should be Division 1 University scholarships but those are extremely difficult to get with the influx of foreign players since they're all just better. I was in my D1 coaches back yard and he hadn't even heard of me since he only recruited overseas. Yet, I walked in at #6/7 out of 10 guys. Not really sure how you fix recruiting without reserving at least a few scholarships for US players. Loved all my teammates, but kinda sucks for US players trying to go D1 where they could really develop. (John Isner and Steve Johnson are great examples of US players maturing playing NCAA)

[ambadale]

Thank you for this excellent analysis of the American tennis situation. My wife and I became obsessed with tennis in our 50’s when we moved to a community with 5 outdoor courts. Meanwhile, the park that hosts 3 of these courts built 4 picklelball courts and they are always full of doubles teams - 16 players - plus another 10 waiting to play. Meanwhile, once the autumn-winter temps drop below 50, all the fair weather tennis players in our neighborhood disappear and we have the courts all to ourselves. But an interesting phenomenon has occurred over the past two winter months - defectors from the pickle ball ranks spotted us playing in conditions as cold as 30F, and came over to join us, three of them, realizing that they love tennis more than pickle ball. We’re thrilled to find new partners and are learning a patience with our own games by accepting these new players and offering them insights into our techniques, or lack thereof. We do see young kids, early teens, playing the game, but what you described doesn’t exist in our region, yet, either - tournaments offering national ranking points.

[Jordan-wsjy]

Very sad to see those courts empty. Funnily I was explaining to a friend of mine who just took up tennis, that I used to copy the serve of guys like Andy Roddick and Sampras and explained how US tennis was big powerhouse once upon a time and hasn't been for a while.
This video is a great help to understanding what's happened.
Side note, I am not American, I am Samoan and live and coach in Tonga. Tennis isn't very popular here and we don't even have a single club in the country

[jamesssss]

Great vid! Really descriptive and very accurate! Once you explained it all started to make a lot more sense

[boontatt]

I wish I can be there to play. It's hard to find tennis court in my area.

[dariusd]

You also missed a crucial reason is that as a young person, you're pushed into other sports like football, basketball, baseball, or even soccer, or track. Tennis was seen as an after thought. A wealthy person activity with private clubs, private lessons, and etc. Similar to lacrosse. Not to mention the pay of a pro athlete in top 100 in tennis versus other sports. You could be on the practice team of the NFL and make more than a tennis player. Yea you get the occasional Williams story or Tiafoe but that's a rarity.

But back to schooling, some of us did tennis for fun, but we focused on the more "serious" sports especially when it came to college. Little leagues due to the social nature of it. Some of my friends even went pro.

[peterslater]

We say the same thing in Australia. What happened to Aus Tennis, a country where Tennis courts are free or very affordable to access. Tennis Australia (TA) is so focused on the top end players and the AO that grass roots Tennis is dying. As a coach I don't see any genuine top juniors coming through the ranks. No wonder the game is dominated by Europeans.

[yboulais]

Hello Nikola, great video about American tennis. I am Canadian and we are going through the same issues. My partner and I are both director of the 2 successful tennis Academy in Toronto. We have started an open co-ed league that have the purpose of helping juniors to develop competitively which include pros, former players and former college players which provide the juniors to compete vs the top players as you point out in your video. The top players are paid (not enough yet) but we are working on it. Keep up the great work and thank you!

[rectim]

Thanks for the video! I really appreciate the insight on this topic as well as your background with playing tennis. It really puts things into perspective when I watch grand slams and see that there aren't many Americans to represent the male side.

[jgunnink]

Couldn't agree with you more. I lived in Germany for a year and played club volleyball. I was good enough to play for the second team in my area (near Dortmund), but we got to practice with the first team. This had a huge impact on my development as a player such that when I returned to the US I was able to play at the highest club level available and be competitive. I think as you say having a club style environment for these sports could help the US compete better, and if it means we disentangle amateur athletics from the education system (whether in high school or college) then all the better. Probably would never happen for big sports like football and basketball but for others I could see it working very well.