Tennis Hits the Books and Sometimes Media
From time to time I embark on a fruitless quest to find dynamic tennis content targeted at the tennis playing population. That particular effort pre-dates the creation of this blog. Indeed sometimes I characterize this site as the content that I would read if I could get someone else to write it. The simple fact of the matter is that there really aren’t any great tennis blogs targeted at recreational players. It is a hot take that I float out as a desperate plea: Please prove me wrong.
Fundamentally, this line of thought raises the question about the current state of blogs in general. I do not think that blogging is dead, but the nature of how successful blogs are structured has evolved significantly over time. Currently, the majority of active blogs are written to promote a business. Adjacent to that purpose are blogs that are genuinely informative, helpful, or inspirational. That is the niche I am attempting to hit with Fiend at Court.
My day job as a cybersecurity engineer puts me in a narrow demographic of people that rely on blogs as an essential aspect of communication and information sharing. Security researchers frequently write detailed technical analysis of emerging vulnerabilities and malware that contribute to a broader understanding of cybersecurity events and failures. I have only recently started to understand how that influences my optimism that a similar niche can someday be carved out for tennis playing enthusiasts.
Searching for “best tennis blogs” is a frustrating and fruitless endeavor. The query turns up link farms purporting to be a rank ordered list that doesn’t align with the search that was performed. The “blogs” that are returned are dominated by traditional news publications that report on professional tennis. The most popular tennis blogs in terms of the amount of internet traffic are those that regurgitate professional news stories. That space is over populated and not all that interesting to me.
There should be a corner of the internet where tennis playing enthusiasts gather to exchange thoughts and ideas. Whether the form is blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or other forms of digital media doesn’t really matter. The algorithms that are the kingmakers of social media don’t recognize the tennis playing niche because it doesn’t exist. A the same time the niche is unlikely to emerge because the algorithms don’t recognize it.
There are a smattering of tennis instructors who produce regular quality content targeted at improving on-court tennis performance. Those sites usually exist as a funnel to paid services and instruction. Some of the content is quite good, but tends to be oriented more around driving a specific instructor’s business. General promotion of tennis is a secondary concern.
I am trying to determine what catalyst is needed to carve out a corner of the internet for tennis playing enthusiasts. The search engines aren’t going to help, but maybe you can. To my regular readers I pose this question: What other sites/sources do you frequent for regular new content targeted at people who play tennis?
