04/26/24
May 09, 2011
US Tennis Players Completely Absent from Top 10: Monday is a historic day for United States tennis. For the first time since computer rankings begain almost 40 years ago, no man or woman from the United States is ranked in the top 10 in the world in singles. "Europe has done a remarkable job; they are producing virtually all of the top players," said Doug MacCurdy, the former director of player development for the United States Tennis Association.
I thought the Times was supposed to let links from blogs go to full stories. Anyone seeing that?
posted by rcade at 12:40 PM on May 09, 2011
Because of the company I work for our proxy is in the UK. Maybe it's just filtering out dirty forriners like me.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 01:03 PM on May 09, 2011
Nope, wants my login as well. However, I can get to it directly. Wonder if it's the strange domain (www10.)
posted by yerfatma at 01:10 PM on May 09, 2011
I got the login page, too, and I've been to the NYTimes site already today.
posted by bperk at 01:29 PM on May 09, 2011
Try the new link. Auugh!
posted by rcade at 02:19 PM on May 09, 2011
Interesting comment from Patrick McEnroe:
McEnroe says too many young Americans have learned to strike the ball but not to play the game. To combat that, he and his team are pushing the clay-court game, which they see as one of the foundations of Europe's success in that it demands point construction, stroke variety, patience and endurance.I think it's more of a push-pull: the advantages of pure power in the serve, return and groundstroke have been neutralised to some degree on hard courts, and while it used to be the case that the clay season stood apart from the rest of the year -- and the French Open would be won by people who didn't figure in the other majors -- you now see more continuity in performance between clay and hard court play, with grass as the outlier.
posted by etagloh at 03:02 PM on May 09, 2011
New link worked for me.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 03:44 PM on May 09, 2011
I think there is a couple of problems with tennis in the United States. First, it is expensive. Just to be a good, not great, player, you probably need a private instructor, court time, and expensive equipment. Second, there isn't a mini-version like tee ball that is fun for kids. When I first sent my daughter to tennis summer camp (age 5), she thought it was boring because she could hardly hit the ball at all. Finally, the boring factor is an issue because at least in my area of the U.S., practice is generally a solo instructor with one child. Kids like playing together at the young ages. Or, it could be just my child who has the attention span of a gnat.
Why does the United States get compared to the whole of Europe anyway?
posted by bperk at 03:51 PM on May 09, 2011
It's a fairly close 1:1 for population. And we're always tooling on them anyway (c.f., last week's thread about WWII), so fair's fair.
posted by yerfatma at 05:34 PM on May 09, 2011
bperk: that sounds like the list that's been rattled off for the past forever whenever the Great British Hope gets beaten at Wimbledon.
Why does the United States get compared to the whole of Europe anyway?
If you want to make a country-by-country comparison, there are four Russian women ahead of Serena Williams, who's the top American in the WTA rankings and three Spanish men above Mardy Fish, the top American in the ATP rankings.
Those rankings are partly a quirk of the calendar: I'd expect the top Americans to re-appear in the top 10 once the tours move to grass and hard courts. But there's a genuine question about who's going to succeed the current generation, when previously there was an overlap between the top Americans and those rising through the rankings. Sam Querrey? John Isner? Melanie Oudin? Bethanie Mattek-Sands?
posted by etagloh at 07:40 PM on May 09, 2011
It's a fairly close 1:1 for population. And we're always tooling on them anyway (c.f., last week's thread about WWII), so fair's fair.
They were comparing us to all of Europe, not just Western Europe, and the population differential is much larger.
If you want to make a country-by-country comparison, there are four Russian women ahead of Serena Williams, who's the top American in the WTA rankings and three Spanish men above Mardy Fish, the top American in the ATP rankings.
I could tell the country-by-country comparison was pretty bad as well. I'd like to know what Spain is doing.
posted by bperk at 08:21 PM on May 09, 2011
There was an interesting article I posted here a couple years ago, about youth sports in the former Soviet Union. It pretty much contradicted each of your points about what tennis has to be for children, bperk. Seems like they've tossed out a lot of the givens about what tennis has to be, and come up with a winning formula.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 10:43 PM on May 09, 2011
Eh. Article requires signup?