Why Tennis is More Intriguing than Other Sports
Not only does tennis include potential match-fixing, cocaine users and steroids, it can now add attempted murder to the list! Ok, so maybe I am exaggerating a bit on the whole attempted murder thing, but it is a wild story none the less. Do I think Martina Hingis has a cocaine problem, or that Tommy Haas was actually poisoned by the Russians? Probably not. Do I think that top tennis officials need to do something to steer tennis away from becoming a completely tarnished sport (eg – cycling)? Absolutely. On the tennis page for cnnsi.com there are currently 10 headlines, I’ll paraphrase them for you:
1. Hingis and cocaine 2. Tommy Haas poisoned 3. Serena pulls out of season ending championships* 4. Federer’s round robin opponents in Shanghai 5. Bryan brothers pull of season ending championships 6. Henin may skip ‘08 Olympics 7. Nalbandian upsets Nadal is Paris 8. Davenport wins Quebec City 9. ATP President would ban match-fixers, not dopers, for life 10. Australian Open to crack down on illegal betting.
*FYI – this is the 9th tournament Serena has pulled out of this year, that is pathetic.
Here’s some basic statistical analysis for you (I’ll spare you all details such as variance and regression analysis): seven of the ten headlines are negative. That’s 70%. That’s a lot. Maybe some of it is due to the fact that currently the only professional tennis happening is the Sony Ericsson WTA Championships, meaning only eight people are currently competing at the top level. Still, something needs to be done, and quickly. Tennis, like all sports, lives and breathes because of it’s casual fans. All sports will always have their die-hard fans that will never stop following a specific sport. But if a smaller sport loses it’s casual fans, that’s when the trouble starts.
Sports like baseball and hockey have recently lost a number of it’s casual fans, due to scandals, work stoppages, etc. There is a difference between those two sports and tennis though, they are far more popular, at least in the United States. Another words, they can afford to lose some fans (although hockey has barely survived). Tennis really can not afford it. Go to the homepage for espn.com, notice the link for the Tennis homepage is pushed all the way to the right, barely making the cut before being lost in the oblivion that is the “Other Sports” category, that includes the wildly popular Bowling link.
Right now tennis has the best tennis player of all time in Roger Federer, one of, if not the best clay court tennis player of all time in Rafael Nadal, two very popular and marketable American male players (Roddick and Blake), one of the best all around female players ever (Justine Henin), new mom’s, Lindsay Davenport, making epic comebacks, beautiful women like Ivanovic and Sharapova on the cover of magazines, and yet we fans are forced to deal with the same old crap we deal with in “tainted” sports like steroids, cocaine and illegal gambling. Fans make a sport, we buy the tickets, ticket sales increase sponsorship, and sponsors pay the tournaments, and tournaments pay the athletes. Time for tennis to start caring about its fans more.
Wow, sorry to get so preachy…here are some links:
Tennis.com Newsticker reports that Gustavo Kuerten’s brother has passed away.
Jon Wertheim’s latest mailbag.
After all the above seriousness, you deserve some humor. Scroll down towards the bottom to # 9.
Probably the best shot of all time, courtesy of Federer.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Jeremy,
There is a theory out there that the sport of cycling was thrown under the bus, so to speak, to save other, more popular and more spectator-friendly sports from the doping and steroid spotlight. While I am not arguing that it goes on in cycling and other sports, I think it is an interesting theory to consider especially considering the effect it has had on the sport of cycling and the athletes. As you say, it is tarnished.
-Nifer
November 8th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Jeremy,
First of all great post. I can say pretty confidently especially from being around the major tournaments and playing some poor professional tennis back in the day, that I have never heard any player talk about performance enhancing drugs as it relates to tennis. I personally do not think there is a problem with drugs in tennis. Although gambling I can see being a problem. Again I have never first hand heard anything about a player gambling on tennis but… It is such an easy sport to rig. All you need to do is convince one sorry soul. Tennis is a totally accountable game. If for some reason one person loses his/her way spiritually or even physically, it can effect a whole betting market. Unlike other sports where you would need to convince more than one or not have an entire effect on the outcome. Also in tennis you can not only bet on the outcome but what the score in the first set is, or how many total games a player wins. There seams to be many ways to cheat. Also some of the lower ranked players can play a match where there is moer money being bet on their match than they will win in an entire year of playing. For someone ranked as high as Pashanski or Polito (both around 75-100) it can mean alot.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Since when has honesty become so popular in sports? I want more home runs, bigger hits, faster players, harder serves! I remember I lost interest in baseball back in the early 90’s…then Mark McGwire and Slammin’ Sammy started mashing home runs. I, like the rest of the country, started to become fired up about America’s past time. We were all watching every at bat of each player to see if they would break Bath Ruth and Roger Maris’ record. Maybe tennis needs more steroids! It is just a shame that the best player in the history of the game can’t get viewers. So here is to gambling, steroids, and poisoning players before big matches! It surely sounds like a show I would tune in to watch.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Not to mention Alessio di Mauro (who?) banned 9 mos. for betting.