An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
I returned to the tournament trail last weekend so it is the perfect time to revisit the state of USTA Senior Tennis from a player perspective. This article touches on player participation, tournament policies, and the USTA tournament engagement platform.
Television ratings are a leading indicator for the future financial prospects of professional sports. While tournaments also earn money from from sponsorship and ticket sales, television broadcast ratings arguably have the strongest influence on the future revenue across all other categories. Television ratings drive future broadcast contracts which directly translates into media exposure of the sport. That, in turn, is how the majority of fans experience tennis. The number of people who watch an event is factored in when corporations make sponsorship decisions.
Emma Raducanu’s professional tennis ranking has risen meteorically this year. That should not be much of a surprise as breakout performances at Wimbledon and the US Open earned her two fairly significant chunks of WTA rankings points. Additionally, her US Open performance was both a rankings point record and anomaly. Raducanu is guaranteed to lose ranking points at the 2022 US Open, even if she successfully defends her title. The situation is unprecedented.
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Late in the 2021 US Open Women’s Finals, Emma Raducanu skidded for a ball in the deep corner of the court. She was so low to the court that her knee dragged the court leaving a skid mark of the skin that was formerly on her knee on the surface. The match had to be paused while the wound was bandaged.
The September challenge for the USTA “Tennis Champions” program was to hang a large banner that promotes tennis play. I hung my banner on a fence that borders a highly trafficked running and biking trail. It is highly visible to active people in the area who are currently outside the tennis ecosystem.
I have never seen anyone actively charting matches during high school or collegiate team tennis. It astonishes me that match charting isn’t a compulsory duty of players who are on the roster but not in the lineup on match day. It is an opportunity loss on an epic scale.
During the fourth round of the 2021 US Open between Bianca Andreescu and Maria Sakkari, one of the player’s coaches was observed to be charting the match. It is the first time in my recent memory when that activity was highlighted during a broadcast. It probably occurs more frequently than the television commentators notice and mention. More notably, he was using old school paper and pen, which is a throwback to an earlier era.
Since I have been writing this weekend about culinary traditions associated with the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, I decided to share a tennis associated food tradition in the Fiend at Court household. Labor Day weekend signals the unofficial start of our favorite season, which of course is “Football.” It is also signals the start of the Tennis Competitors of Dallas (TCD) Adult Mixed league.
The Honey Deuce cocktail traditionally served at the US Open is one of those topics that I initially thought would be a “one and done” post. As it turns out, I had a lot more to say about the beverage than originally anticipated.
With the US Open in full swing, I have been wondering what the iconic traditional concession is for that event. After lengthy thought and consideration, it is clearly the Honey Deuce cocktail.