In Professional Tennis Tournaments Do You See What I See?
Javier Palenque
Living in South Florida is a great thing, fabulous weather year round and a Master 1000 tournament and a smaller ATP 250 event. The other night I had the pleasure of taking a few kids to the Delray open in Delray beach. Two top players were the event of the night, Ivo Karlovic #29 and Dustin Brown (#95). Of the two there is much to learn from both, in Brown’s case he can beat the worlds number one any day, problem is he can also lose with the worlds 800 any day. Though his unpredictability is unique and a trait so very hard to teach and communicate. Ivo Karlovic is a veteran who is top thirty and has a very good record and serve that is more like a guided missile.
The first impression I always get when I go to tennis tournaments (last year Indian Wells, Sony Open, Now Miami Open, Delray Open, Orange Bowl, UM college matches) is that the vast majority of the attendees or fans are over 55 years of age. The last tournament we saw a week ago was the Delray open. I kid you not, there were at best 100 fans in a 3500 stadium and 80 of the 100 fans were seniors. My son even asked me where are the kids? When I started to think about it, indeed my 10 year old is right! Where are the kids? Why don’t we see a coaches with loads of kids learning from the very best? Seeing a match, criticizing a serve, talking to the pros? Bus loads of kids everywhere, It is a kid sport after all, that we adults also enjoy.
In fact last year I even wrote to the Tournament Director of the Miami Open and asked him why is not every high school kid, tennis enthusiast here filling the stands? I never got a response. From my perspective, the problem is that tennis has a limited audience and it is not the audience that is young, loud and can make a tennis tournament fun. Weather we like it or not, tennis is a very expensive sport that is cost prohibitive for the majority of people and takes too long to develop the skill at a very steep price. This is a recipe for failure. Considering that the right attitude to play it well is to have the work ethic of a blue collar person. But, it is a white collar sport.? Where is the new Jimmy Connors? The new Williams’s sisters. What can we do? How can we help? What should our governing body do?
When I see the stands, I feel guilty of not doing enough for other kids, happy to be there, but overall truly worried that it just does not look right, feel right or seem to have a long positive outlook.
I know some readers will say, that there are kids days, and disagree with me. It just seems like we can all do more for our sport. So, next week when you are at Indian Wells, study the audience and when the week after you go to Miami and study the audience. Maybe you get some ideas as to what we can do as parents, coaches, and Americans. You may get that feeling I get, it just does not feel or look right.
We have to do something about it. We have to. Our kids and our country is losing out.
If you enjoyed this article, please don’t forget to tap 
. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you.
The problem is worldwide. Not just in the US. The match you saw was the first round of a 250 tennis tournament on a Monday night. Same in other countries especially first round matches. If you watched some 500 tournaments, you would see the same phenomena. Yes, ticket prize might be one problem that as the tournament advances, the prizes only get higher to the point that in many cases, for a lot of fans, it is a full one day work pay. About the kids, you are absolutely right. Organizers should think about inviting kids and schools and think less about money. I am sure their sponsors would love to see more people on the stands instead of empty stands. I was also in that Karlovic vs. Brown match. It was a very good match and few fans that made think the tournament is considered as a second class citizen by its organizers that do not promote free entrance to kids. This way more parents would buy more tickets to go with their kids, and with packed stands, the tournament would look very important inside the US and outside the US.
Excellent post, Javier! Having been in the sport playing and teaching since 1980, it embarrasses me to see a televised tennis event that looks like almost noone is spectating! In the end, its the same ole story – follow the money – as long as the event makes money, I fear that the owners of the event could give a dump who shows up. Of course there are some events where the tourney admins “get it” and are in it for the right reason – to grow our sport. There are special price days, events to attract and encourage kids to take up and pursue the game, etc.
i was at Delray in a weeknight. It was a morgue. Can’t believe they charge so much for tix. Only fans were friends of players. Terrible marketing.
Will be going to Infian Wells and Miami.
Tennis should do better though the rise of soccer In the U.S. has taken away many would-be tennis players.
I’ll address the problem with getting kids involved in a roundabout fashion.
First a short story about what some coaches did for myself and other kids when we were growing up in the 80’s and how that increased overall participation and interest.
At the club where myself and others were training there were four “pros.” I use quotes because to be honest only one of them was even a decent tennis coach. The other three were not so good on the court but excellent in providing opportunities and promoting the sport for young players. As an example I had what was seen as a lot of “promise” but our family was poor so one of the guys helped finance my tennis. They did this for others- unconditionally and helped out in many other ways that were less direct.
One thing these guys did is that they organized matches for our club to play others. We would go around the city and play other clubs- we would go around the state and play other clubs and we would go around the region to play other clubs. This in addition to playing regular tournaments. This was all done “ad-hoc” and it gave us lots of match experience as well as gave the players who were not as skilled not only match experience but a sense of involvement. These guys would just pack us in a van and cars and off we would go to play these matches. They did it for free and we only paid a nominal fee for court time at these various clubs. We would play for three or four hours, playing full matches, and then hit a restaurant on our way back.
Some of us went on to play college tennis and a few of us went on to play satellites off and on over a few years. I use to travel a bit with one of the guys who cut his teeth at the same club as we were trying to make our way on the satellite circuit, stumbling around is more like it, and we would recount those matches and how formative it was. And I know for the kids who were not necessarily going to pursue tennis beyond their teens it really meant a lot and kept them involved in the game. No doubt that translated into a deeper interest overall.
Fast forward to today. Two years ago I tried to arrange a similar sort of thing where I now live. I coach most of the better juniors in the area (this is not as big or as competitive as where I grew up)and they were all very interested in this type of program as were their parents. I began calling clubs from neighboring cities and the various “pros” (quotations again) at these clubs were intrigued by the idea. As we moved forward and got closer to getting some matches in one club after the other backed out. The reason was purely financial. The clubs either couldn’t or wouldn’t open up for three hours on a Sat. (the court rental would’ve have been paid for) for these kids and in some cases the pros themselves would not do it for free. It all fell apart in the end for various reasons that were connected to the fact that both club management and the pros themselves were not willing to give a little for these players.
In the end analysis this is just another example of how there is no, or very little, “giving back” to these kids and just another case study in how tennis is diminished by the nearsightedness of too many people involved in the decision-making processes- too many people at the higher ends of the tennis bureaucracy who are interested in only their bottom line and/or their own agendas.
Get those kids involved and engaged as we were and you will see more kids at events. Get the hierarchy too be more imaginative and connected to the “grass roots” and you will see greater attendance at events.
Pros are also paranoid about other pros taking their students.
In both Atlanta and Boca, I’ve been told not to use a ball hopper with my son since pros might “think” I’m an unauthorized pro giving lessons.
Just a real bush-league with most (not all) pros.
Great post, Michael! The SAD thing is you can’t “Get the hierarchy” to do anything. The golden rule applies – those with the gold, rule. I hope you keep trying wonderful things like you did despite an increasingly greedy tennis infrastructure. A possible avenue would be to start your own non-profit and hit up the USTA or your USTA section for the money. Good luck!
Problem, cost for a ticket not in the range for a lot of college studets and play is during the week most of the youth are in school. Older adults have money and time to attend this events.
the Kids’ Day promotions, which usually is at very reduced ticket prices, take place early in the week as opposed to later when the stands will be more filled (with full paying ticket buyers) and better action. Here in Houston I try to take my team to the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship and it is great motivation. But players are not that accessible to the kids. What would be great would be if some of the players would go do their post-match interview on a court in the back of the facility where kids and coaches only could go and listen, and then maybe the players could sign some autographs?
I prefer college tennis over the pros because they’re the Home Town team. And because they’re local, they’re accessible. So when I plan field trips for my players, we go to college tennis matches. I call ahead to speak to the coaches so that after the matches we can meet the players. We get pictures and they all sign our shirts! That’s the way it should be at the professional level. We give them our attention, and they give back to us. And now some of our players have a goal; they want to play for FAU or UCF or Miami. Tournaments fail to inspire the next generation in large numbers because the players are only playing for themselves, not the fans. Support your local college tennis team.