Reading the Readers: Oct. 2

Here's this week's Reading the Readers. If you have a question or comment you'd like addressed, email me at stignor@tennismagazine.com.

Steve,

I know that a lot of people say this every two years, but while I was watching the Ryder Cup this weekend I was thinking: Why can’t the Davis Cup be like this? It gets so much more attention for golf and the players, and is just a great event. I heard other people say the same thing this weekend. What do you think? Could tennis ever finally do anything like that?—Bob Burns, in Maine

I can definitely relate. Maybe it was because I was home on Friday this year, but I watched virtually every shot of the Ryder Cup, from Friday morning to Sunday evening. When I went out, I just left the TV on, so it would be on when I got back.

I had a lot of thoughts about golf vs. tennis during that time. First, if golf were anything like this every weekend, I would watch it a lot more. As it is now, I typically watch the last round or two rounds of each major, but none of the regular tour events. I guess, when it comes to golf, I’m the definition of the “casual fan” that we care so much about in tennis. That’s how most people I know watch tennis; they tune into the Slams, especially Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, but have no idea what the players do when they’re not at those events. I can remember being stunned when someone I played squash with, who wasn’t in the tennis business or a card-carrying super-fan, actually uttered the words “Masters Series.” That was 10 years ago; it hasn’t happened since.

Anyway, the Ryder Cup. One thing that struck me was how much better golf would be for the casual fan if the field of players was limited, the way it is in the RC. By the the end of the three days, I knew something about Steve Stricker (mostly that he was having an awful weekend), Martin Kaymer, and Jason Dufner. These are top players—Kaymer has been No. 1 in the world—but I had barely heard of them before.

In most golf tournaments, you don’t know who you’re going to see by Sunday. Even the big names, the Rorys and Bubbas and Phils and Tigers, will often be out of the running, and off your TV set, by then. This is a problem tennis used to have as well; that was the reason behind the ATP’s ill-fated round-robin experiment a few years ago, to give fans more chances to see the stars play. But now that Roger and Rafa and Novak and Serena and Maria almost always reach the semifinals of the big tournaments, it’s not something tennis worries about. The downside, from a U.S. perspective, is that, unlike in golf, none of the male stars are American.

That’s where the Ryder Cup is especially brilliant, in playing up the nationalistic element. I used to work with an editor at Tennis Magazine who had been involved with golf, and in particular with the re-branding of the Ryder Cup in the 1980s. He said that the idea had been to “wrap it in the flag” and play up the American-Euro rivalry in a way that was more in-your-face than is typical for golf. It worked. The players bought into the importance of the Ryder Cup for their side, and its profile rose considerably—now you've got two former U.S. presidents and Michael Jordan watching from the fairway. At this point I think Ryder Cup could be held every year without losing its significance.

To get to your question, Bob, I used to think the same thing as you, that Davis Cup should follow the Ryder Cup format—hold it every two years, in one rotating location, for one week at the end of the season. Now, though, after seeing umpteen great Davis Cup moments over the years, I don’t think that competition is broken. It’s not perfect—champs should get a first-round bye—but it still creates a lot of localized excitement for tennis all over the world, all year long. And you can’t say that last year’s final between Spain and Argentina wasn’t a huge, intense spectator event. Davis Cup also happens to help fund the sport in many nations.

What tennis should consider trying to create is a new team event. Make it dual gender, use the Hopman Cup format of singles, doubles and mixed, and hold it in one place over a week near the end of the season. Try to get Larry Ellison, or someone along those lines, to put money into it. Market it and work with ESPN to try to show it—the modern Ryder Cup is nothing if not a triumph of marketing and television coverge. It wouldn’t be the Ryder Cup, but as we saw at the Olympics, tennis players like to play for their countries, and when they do the game takes on an urgency, and sociability, that it doesn’t have elsewhere. Tennis, like golf, is an individual sport 9/10ths of the time, which is what makes it so different, and interesting, when it’s not.

Hi Steve, with the recent success of Laura Robson and Andy Murray, as well as perhaps Heather Watson, where do you think British tennis stands currently compared to five years ago? And where do you think British tennis will be in five years?—Shane Scanlon

After dry spells in the pro ranks and disasters at the national training level, U.K. tennis is suddenly hot. Andy Murray is the first British man to win a Grand Slam in 76 years; Laura Robson is the first British woman to reach a WTA final in 22 years; Heather Watson has improved; and the country has at least three promising young male players, Oliver Golding, Liam Broady, and Kyle Edmund.

I talked to my friend Alexandra Willis, who works at Wimbledon and writes for the Telegraph and Tennis Space, about this subject last week. She said that as far as Murray, Robson, and Watson went, they weren’t really products of the British system, but they had all benefited from LTA funding. A lot of players there have been helped by the LTA and its facilities, but these three had the individual drive to make the most use of it.

Judy Murray, Andy’s mom and the country’s Fed Cup captain, deserves some credit for helping not just her son, but her Fed Cuppers Robson and Watson. Alex also said that the LTA seems to be doing a better job of allowing juniors to use their facilities but not taking them from their coaches and taking all of the credit for their successes. Just having a winner like Murray inspires everyone, and gives younger players—including Robson—more belief.

In general, there’s no good answer to these questions. Even Robson said yesterday that she has no idea why she's been playing so well. Most tennis champions seem to be unique, to be one-shots: Who would have thought that Mallorca, Basel, Compton, and Dunblane would give us four of the sport's biggest stars today? One thing that seems to be true over the years is that small groups from odd places can suddenly catch fire together.

When Harry Hopman moved to Long Island in the early 70s and opened an academy, suddenly we had champions from New York—McEnroe, Gerulaitis, Fleming. Since then, the area hasn’t produced anyone. Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish, the best of their particular American men’s generation, lived in the same house in Boca Raton and trained with the same coach, Stanford Boster, as teenagers. Boris Becker and Steffi Graf grew up in the Heidelburg suburbs at the same time and even practiced together. Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin in Belgium; the Spanish Armada; the Belgrade brigade; the Swedes of the 80s.

You wouldn’t say any of these successes were the result of a master plan by any one country, and none of them lasted forever. They were sparks, surprising sparks, that briefly caught. Maybe that’s what Team BG has going today. Enjoy it while it lasts.