In the downturn of tennis fortunes, the industry still hasn't sorted out whether to dodge or bite the bullet. Or both. But during the debate over tactics, we may have lost our way by forgetting to magnify the sport's marvels. We have gotten defensive, even snarly, when outsiders point up the game's alleged weaknesses — difficult to learn, to handicap, to find partners, to find courts, to find time, etc. I'll answer the latter later. But first a primer of tennis' untouchables.
There is no other sport that has built in cross-gender and cross-generation components. Mixed doubles, for instance, is one of the official competitions at both Wimbledon and your club. Moreover, father and son tournaments in tennis have a tradition that is legendary among families. We have failed to brag about either phenomenon. The most famous competition in golf, The Masters, by contrast, not only doesn't have a mixed doubles category, women's can't even compete alongside the men as they do in all four major championships in tennis.
How about those other televised spectacles like football, baseball, basketball or hockey? Few fans past the age of college play any of the four team sports they're watching on television. In other words, no one I know plays Horse against the garage door or scrimmages with mouth guards and helmets on the front lawn. More importantly, there's no such thing as father-and-son football or mixed hockey or vice versa. If the era of the family has made such a striking comeback, why can't tennis come back correspondingly?
Tennis is the only sport that folds the entire family into its format. Maybe our public relations experts should be romancing the spaces kids hang out — malls, munchkin magazines and MTV. If we're trying to get the young's attention, shouldn't tennis be joined at the hip with the hip marketplaces? For instance, identify with cereals rather than serials, nickelodeons and not custodians and heavy metal instead of heavy handed? The usual tennis sponsor suspects — luxury cars, The New York Times and prime-time TV continue to look over their shoulder for fancier fish to fry than tennis. Their loss.
Continuing to trumpet tennis, no other sport has obeyed age discrimination laws more devoutly than tennis.
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In fact, our game's multiple-age competitions, which preceded the Civil Rights Amendment protecting the privileges of all ages, could have been behavior modems for the legislation. Imagine over 1,000 national and sectional championships in age categories from 12 to 85! Can you name another sport with so many family variables? Forget it. Nothing comes close.
And remember tennis courts are close to home, unlike many golf courses, and you can play the game quickly unlike all golf courses. Moreover, doubles offers the team aspect absent in golf, skiing and our new rivals, in-line skating and walking . Some extras should be tabulated too, such as tennis' international element meaning the game is played in over 200 countries across the planet. We shouldn't need reminding that it's a lot simpler to carry a tennis racquet on the plane than a golf bag or a pair of skis.Figure in the health factor that establishes tennis as a real exercise (which the scientific community says golf is not) and the total landscape of tennis is a masterpiece.
So what's the problem?
For one thing, the conclusion that our audience already knows the positive messages of tennis is a fallacy. We're told we're just singing to the choir. Nonsense. We don't even know the words. We mumble like we're singing the Star Spangled Banner. The tune is familiar and so our lips move but we can't punch out the refrain precisely. Ask a random dozen amateurs, teaching pros, touring pros and spectators what's so great about tennis. Surprisingly, many are stuck for an answer. They know the melody but not the words. The lack of responsiveness behooves us not to take for granted our sport's positive points. Repeat them occasionally. Even a choir needs to rehearse every so often.
The area that we angst over needlessly is the game's supposed weaknesses. Difficult to learn, Difficult to handicap and Difficult to find a partner are excuses, not reasons, and have been memorized more smartly than the positives. In fact, the excuses are bunk. Difficult to learn? I know one pro who says he can create a 2.5 player in two hours from a bare beginner.
The handicap in golf is overrated. So, a scratch golfer can play with a palooka? Can you imagine extolling the virtues of a sport where the palooka can beat the champ by counting on a different set of fingers? How legitimate does that sound? Tennis singles has a dozen handicap formats from bisques and the Vass to Canadian singles and straight points handicaps. Frankly, if you take enough time to learn the systems, they work. For most people, however, the naked competition of tennis without handicapping is so challenging that they'd rather spend an extra 20 minutes on the phone looking for a good match-up. Furthermore, handicapping in doubles is simple, fair and fiercely competitive. Ask anyone who has played the Huggy Bear tournament in Southhampton right before the US Open.
Difficult to find a partner? More bunk. How many do you require? Just one, unlike every team sport where a veritable troop movement is needed to field two teams. Opposing football squads are in an army barracks. Tennis is just one bloke who plays more or less like you. If you're seeking a dozen such practice partners with similar skills, you're spoiled and don't deserve our game. Go golf (or garden) instead.
One tactic where Madison Avenue succeeds and tennis often collapses is to emphasize, even exaggerate, a product's strength. In this case the product is tennis which shoots itself in the foot (and elsewhere) with such frequency that the space for communicating good news is filled with holes. A few weeks ago, for instance, coverage of the Italian Open final on ESPN was interrupted mid match for a senior golf tournament. We don't need the skill of a commissioner to correct such heresy. A janitor will do.
A practice which is starting to discourage industry insiders is market research. The first quarter figures for ball and racquet sales are not glowing, but we have no spokesperson putting positive spin on negative numbers. The most obvious constructive interpretation is that the first quarter was the final reflection of a sorry 1994 and that gradual growth will finally register with semi-annual reports.
Two final pleas. Instead of returning to past research companies following the same track to collect data, either hire a new firm or feed the firm the good statistics that are available but ignored. For example, we know the USTA can track five million school children who are exposed to up to 10 hours of tennis each year. This number has never shown up in any research—even as an asterisk.
Lastly, could the USPTA and PTR please indulge me with some basic research which would forever dispel the myth that "tennis is too tough to learn?" I know of no study defying naysayers with an answer. "You're nuts, it only takes two hours to take a child of 12 with average intelligence and athletic ability to become a 2.5 player. If he's exceptional, the same two hours will take him to a 3.0 level." Maybe my numbers are wrong, but the direction is right. We need some hard research to dis our disclaimers.
Vic Braden and Dennis Van der Meer, the game's instructional gurus, may have already scribbled some of this research informally (and perhaps illegibly) in a notebook somewhere. It's time to take this research to the public. In other words, stop counting the house rather than our blessings.
Editor's Note: Tennis Week.com will periodically post vintage Vantage Point columns by Tennis Week founder Eugene L. Scott. This Vantage Point was published in June, 1995.
