As I watch Wimbledon, French Opens and see only A Rod as America's hope for a major title, I wonder what the future holds. I see Andy Murray from UK and the kid from France, and a line of top players from Argentina, and nothing from the US. We have great junior programs, a good population base, good weather, and scratch my head. Wonder if us giving college scholarships to foreign players is a factor. Granted, Federer is a rare dominant talent, but lets at least be competitive.

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I firmly believe that the lack of scholarships do affect the young players. I have talked to a number of parents who really look at why bother, especially if they want a college education for their student. The only way to play competitively and go to school is to go Div II or III. Then the education is compromised. Many coaches won't even look at US kids. It is simply easier to recruit overseas.

Many of the phenom's don't go to college. They turn pro at 17 or 18. I don't think it's the lack of scholarships. I just think we are in a dry spell of talent.

Pretty long dry spell, all we have now is Roddick. It seems all the top young players are foreign, just odd that Argentina and Spain pump out top notch tennis talent, and we can't. We have all the resources, it seems junior tennis has surged, yet no tangible results. I wonder if US juniors burn out on competition at an early age (many start playing competitively at 8). Just curious, and I wondereed if anyone had any insights or theories.

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Many of the phenom's don't go to college. They turn pro at 17 or 18. I don't think it's the lack of scholarships. I just think we are in a dry spell of talent.

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That's true, but if more opportunities were available for men's D1 scholorships more kids would stick with the game (spend $ on training), and possibly some of these people that would have quit could develop into tommorow's stars-- instead we are financing the foreign players with college tennis scholorships if they don't make the tour right out of high school.. Look at the average age and country of the Baylor tennis team- almost exclusively all foreign and 21+ years old.

that's a good point. I think that it is also due to the lack of coverage and media interest that it isn't as popular in the US anymore.

The surge of Tiger took all the juice that tennis had in the late 90's. Golf was the thing when tiger turned pro. so the afluent kids and some of the innercity kids that make up where tennis is targeted turned to golf because it was popular. its not a coincidence that in about that time sampras and agassi were getting towards the end of their careers or at least majorly competitive to reach Slam finals.

I would say in the early 90's tennis was really really booming (by its standards) and then Tiger took all the wind out of its sails.

It has been a longer than normal dry spell, but we will be back!!

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that's a good point. I think that it is also due to the lack of coverage and media interest that it isn't as popular in the US anymore.

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I'd agree with that as well... In addition tennis has seemed to get more popular in other parts of the world, in particular Spain and South America- making the competition that much harder.

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I would say in the early 90's tennis was really really booming (by its standards) and then Tiger took all the wind out of its sails.

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The talent coming out then was a result of the McEnroe/Connors tennis boom in the 80's. Participation and general interest began drying up in the 90s, and not surprisingly not as much talent is coming through now- in addition to the foreign players using the limited D1 scholorships problem hurting the situation.

Not that many pros came from the college ranks. Most of these guys/girls are pro by the time they are 18 years old. I'm not sure that the problem lies in the availability of D1 scholarships.

I think that there is some sort of ebb and flow to US tennis. We seem to produce great players in cycles rather than on some consistent basis. But realistically, that is true for almost all other "dominant" nations. And England has been struggling for years to produce.

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That's true, but if more opportunities were available for men's D1 scholorships more kids would stick with the game (spend $ on training), and possibly some of these people that would have quit could develop into tommorow's stars--

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But for your argument to hold true, then all of US men's sports (with the exception of the big 3) should be declining. Look at the sports that have lost not only scholarships, but also full D1 representation because of Title IX.

I can see two sides to the argument, but when you repeat what the dude above said and don't address the argument he conceded might also be true below that- it's frustrating.

Now, to address your new point, the other small sports haven't nearly had to deal with the big problem of foreign players taking the limited scholorships- we are in essense financing the other national tennis programs around the world, to the detriment of the US mens players.

[This message has been edited by Aston04 (edited 7/2/2005 4:35p).]

We're funding quite a bit of soccer, as well. Probably not as obvious as in tennis, but one institution where I've been on faculty had about 50% of the men's soccer team roster filled with kids from other countries - various African nations, Carribean nations, etc.

I do agree that there are too many scholarships handed out to foreign players, in all sports.

Our culture doesn't hold tennis as high as football, baseball, basketball, etc. Our top athletes migrate towards these sports and not tennis.

Most foreign players go semi-pro (liberal expense money) for several years after HS and unless they move into the top 150 or so switch to college during their mid 20s.

The two top players for Baylor were in their early 30s.

New rules require players start college within a year of graduating HS. This change is expected to reduce the number of foreign players.

Another problem is the limted number of ships (either 4 or 4 1/2) in men's tennis means few if any get full ships.

Women's tennis allows 8 ships.

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Our culture doesn't hold tennis as high as football, baseball, basketball, etc. Our top athletes migrate towards these sports and not tennis.

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That's true, but I would say it doesn't take a great athlete to make a great tennis player. I think the more important factor working against is the percentage participation level has gotten low in comparison to other countries. Compared to golf, which also doesn't generally attract the top athletes, our players are the best of any country because of the relative high participation and accessibility of golf compared to other countries around the world.

As far as foreign players go, the poster who mentioned the changing of the rules helping things is right. No longer will Baylor be able to pull 21+ year European players off the semi-pro circuit to play for them.

[This message has been edited by Aston04 (edited 7/3/2005 1:11p).]

It is not the D1 scholarships that would make a difference in the number of US representatives on the ATP tour. The ones you see on TV had scholarships to a Florida Tennis Academy and lived there for many years to nurture their talent and provide them the opportunity to play at a multitude of high level tournaments to develop the skills and mental toughness. Check to see ho wmany graduated from high school or college. I know James Blake did, but how many others have their college degree? College tennis is not a factor in the development of ATP tour players. Some play for a year, maybe 2 (Johnny Mac)but turn pro because of the glint of gold.

The problem is there are to many opportunities for atheletes, tennis is a very hard indivudal sport mentally and physically. It takes a considerable sacrifice for an athelete to dedicate themselves to an individual sport when their friends are playing football, baseball, soccer and basketball. A tennis player has to train year round, no breaks. The season never stops.

The scholarship situation is what it is because of the rules, but also for the lack of US players to fill the college ranks. There are more needs for players than there are players to fill them. So coaches have been going overseas in order to fill their programs. It si a Catch 22 becuase it seems many coaches look there first, except Tim Cass.

So look around the US, where is the player development path?

Where are the players coming from? Not just their country affiliation, their training centers.

Where are the current ATP tour players living and training?

Where are the upcoming foriegn tennis ATP tour stars living and training?

It is not on a D1 campus.

40 love- Under the old rules, a D1 campus served as a nice backup plan for foreign players that our first trying to make the tour, thus encouraging more foreign guys to try to make a go of it, cause they could always come to the states and get a free education if it didn't work out. I've never argued on here that D1 serves a training ground for new players, it virutally doesn't. But you'd be kidding yourself if the option of playing D1 tennis give the kids in training at a young age more incentive, than if the only reward possible was the pros.

Actually playing D1 tennis does give rising juniors a goal to shoot for. We stress the opportunity in our community tennis association since less than 1% of the tennis players that turnpro actually make a living at it and you have to be in the top 100 to do so.

I could talk for hours, and have, on why we don't have more top layers in the pro tour. We discuss it all the time and it is a complex problem. What I was trying to say is the top players from the US on the tour are not from D1 experience. They are from the Florida Tennis academies. So are many of the foriegn players on the tour.

Many that can not afford that look to the D1 schools to give them the play experience they need if they want to turn pro, with less of the expense, but there are only 4 men's scholarships as we all know. And today foriegn players with 2-3 years of futures and challenger tour experience get the majority of them.


So getting more men players from the US, is all about opportunity and MONEY. The USTA has not figured out how to help yet and they do not participate in player development.

Our best athletes are not playing tennis, plain and simple. They are playing football, basketball, and even soccer.

The USTA has grassroots inititatives in urban communities which is why you are starting to see minorities appear more and more in larger tournaments. But it takes time and money to develop these programs. Tennis has a sketchy past when it comes to minorities for an array of reasons. Tennis must reach beyond their country club strongholds if they are going to see Americans at the top ATP rankings.

It is hard to convince a young athlete to start out in tennis because initially tennis is very difficult. It really takes some time to see some improvements and basketball and football are sports in which naturally gifted athletes can progress quite quickly.