Monday, July 04, 2011

What's Wrong With French Tennis?

A friend recently attended a USTA High Performance Coaches Workshop.  At the workshop he was told that France has 10x as many juniors than the US playing tournament tennis.  The message was that we're doing something wrong in the US.  Could be.  Probably.

But the most recent ATP World Tour rankings show the US with nine men in the top 100, while France has eight.

Spain leads the way with fourteen.  No word from the USTA on how many juniors play tournaments in Spain.

Once proud Sweden has one, same as Australia and Great Britain.  Fewer than Kazakhstan.

Maybe it's a prosperity problem.  More prosperity means higher opportunity cost of becoming a tennis champion.  You'd think rich countries would produce more great players since it costs a lot to become great at tennis.  But maybe it doesn't cost much to become great at tennis and the more important factor is how much are you giving up to become a great tennis player.

Maybe rich countries can afford more coaching and more coaching ruins players.

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