In a recent interview after his penultimate match at Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic expressed his concern about the future of tennis. His concern focused on two aspects, basically: the widespread conversion of tennis clubs into padel clubs or pickleball and, on the other hand, the poor generation of resources in the world of professional tennis. It is in ninth or tenth place in this respect, when in popularity it occupies third or fourth position. As for the first problem, he argued that the causes were of an economic nature but, in my opinion, the flight of tennis practitioners to other racket sports is due more to a change in parameters in society than to the search for profitability by the clubs.
Why do we play sports? Basically for three reasons: for entertainment or fun, for health and for our need for social interaction. While padel tennis quickly meets these three requirements, in tennis you have to go through a very long learning period to find it fun and at the same time take care of your health.
Without any intention of disparaging the game of padel (playing it well and mastering it is difficult), learning to play it and having fun is quicker and easier. The fact that the paddles are shorter and do not have strings, and that the playing field is much smaller, requires less coordination and makes ball control not so complicated.
How far away are those times when I started in the sport of racket and I saw men of 30 or 40 years old, in our club in Manacor, exercising the drive or the backhand on the court for several weeks with no other purpose than to improve their strokes before starting to play. Nowadays, this is practically unthinkable. We start an activity and sooner rather than later we need to have fun and, on top of that, be able to compete. Seeing all these facts and the data on the rise of other sports should be reason enough for the leaders to be open to addressing certain changes.
I made some suggestions years ago, including shortening the rackets and reducing the pressure on the balls. The game would necessarily be slower, a fact that would make learning easier for newcomers and, on the other hand, would make it more difficult for professionals who would be forced, once again, to look for strategies that would make professional tennis more varied and entertaining.
As for the problems on the tennis circuit and the few players who, according to the Serbian, can make a comfortable living from it – between 350 and 400 between men and women – the generation of resources inevitably involves making our sport more attractive to watch.
If we want tennis to attract public interest not only to the big names but also to second-level players, certain changes are also necessary. While this has been done in many other sports, in tennis the same rules have always been maintained, without taking into account the very different stature of today’s tennis players or the vast improvement in the materials used. The execution of the game has been modified to such an extent that the sport we see today has little to do with the spirit with which it began.
I am not unaware of the additional problems faced by the ATP tour managers, who, on the one hand, would certainly like to increase the variety and spectacularity of the plays, but on the other, would clash with the interests of the big names, who are the least willing to accept the implementation of changes. Naturally, they do not want to upset the latter.
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