“One theory as to tennis’ declining popularity is that baby boomers who grew up with Borg, Connors, McEnroe, et al, are too old to play it anymore”
That’s it in a nutshell. Tennis is a punishing game, especially for those of us who never got good enough to serve, volley and pound groundstrokes without tearing up tendons and joints. After fifteen or twenty years off it’s hard to get interested in the latest generation of killer tennis bots. Sorry kids.
Thats a good portion of it. I played competitive tennis for years, was MVP of my high school team and played All-League. I made the JC team and my coach gave me a choice of work or tennis. I had to work to pay for school so I told him to piss off and I haven’t really looked back. I was burned out after so many years of it. My son has occasionally expressed an interest but we live miles from the nearest tennis court and his real love is football. He and my daughter both rodeo as well. Much more American pursuits than the playground for Eurotrash that so much of tennis has become....