Fiend at Court Unplugged
“Every Russian Schoolboy Knows…” is a concept that was introduced yesterday. The Russians and Soviet Union dominated the international chess world championships for almost 50 years. As a community, they were simply better than everybody else. Soviet propaganda would assert that the dominance was a reflection of intellectual superiority. Others would point to the efficacy of the chess knowledge, training, and mentorship available in Russia. While that is certainly a part of it, it is also an undeniable fact that the sheer numbers of people that were formally and systematically taught to play chess was also a factor. The high levels of participation dramatically increased the odds that prodigies naturally skilled in chess would be identified. It was a numbers game.
Yesterdays post also shared some very tedious lists of American players currently ranked in the top 100 on their respective tennis tours. The American women are currently outperforming the men. Yet both are under the purview of the same USTA Player Development program. One potential reason for the disparity of performance is that tennis is one of the very few professional sports opportunities for women. As a result, tennis development programs are able to attract and retain a higher quality of female athletes. That certainly contributes to the recent success of the American women at the professional level.
In an interview featured on Jon Wertheim’s Beyond the Baseline podcast last year, legendary tennis promoter Donald Dell lamented the fact that men’s tennis is not attracting the best athletes. Baseball, football, and basketball are attractive professional options for men.
Anecdotally, I have heard second hand accounts that if you go to a USTA National Junior tournament the girls draws reflect the socioeconomic diversity that is somewhat aligned with the basic demographics of the United States. The Boys draws are filled with a bunch of rich white kids shepherded around by their dads. I have been unable to find hard data that supports or refutes that observation, but it feels plausible to me.
I don’t think that the solution for tennis is to directly compete directly with the team sports that are wildly popular in the United States. However, a lot more can certainly be done to attract higher numbers of junior players to at least dabble in tennis. The more players that pick up a racquet, the more likely the natural athlete with an inherent love of the game will emerge.
Last year in “A Deeper Cut: USTA Restructuring and Player Development” consolidation of USTA Player Development centers was discussed. That post focused more directly on the 5 strategic “choices” are currently prioritized for the USTA. Player Development was not explicitly included among this priorities. From the outside looking in, it appears that the USTA is rethinking how training and coaching is provided to players who might develop into competitors on the international stage.
Before the dawn of the Open era of professional tennis, it made a lot of sense for the national tennis organizations to support and sponsor those players who would compete for their country at the Davis Cup, Wightman Cup, and of course the amateur Grand Slam events. In the modern era of professional tennis it is highly questionable if players who are earning millions per year on endorsements should receive free or subsidized coaching from a non-profit organization.
The question is fundamentally how should the USTA invest its resources to support the development of the best American players. One way is to funnel resources to those players who have already risen to the top of the American talent pool. A better approach might be to direct resources toward attracting larger number of players to give the sport a try in the first place coupled with a new engagement model for retaining and developing those players that show the greatest potential.
The #1 Strategic Choice listed by the USTA is to “Attract, Engage and Retain a New Generation of Diverse Tennis Participants.” Done right, that could be the very foundation of the next superstars of tennis.
- Donald Dell on How Tennis Can Build a Strong American Audience, Jon Wertheim, Beyond the Baseline Podcast, Sports Illustrated, June 30, 2020.
