15 hours ago, Faulkner said:

For aging players like Roger, Serena, and Venus, I wonder what will happen to their careers. They aren’t getting any younger. Even Novak and Rafa (and folks like Stan) must feel like they are being robbed of chances to pad their resumes before the steep decline.

 

Also, tennis revenues will be looking at steep declines without these veteran players. Let's be real, those players bring an enormous amount of ad dollars, media attention and they put butts in seats.

3 hours ago, DramatistDreamer said:

 

Also, tennis revenues will be looking at steep declines without these veteran players. Let's be real, those players bring an enormous amount of ad dollars, media attention and they put butts in seats.

And the tennis media has the blame here. Yes, you continue to feature the veterans but instead of featuring the obvious ones we get the pimping of the overrated players and the reject Americans and they continue to do it as of yesterday with Taylor Fritz. 

 

How many matches did Tennis Channel feature last year with champion Dominic Thiem?  ZERO...none.....

 

Did they not get a clue with his match against Nadal in 2018 at the US Open? Even this year's Australian Open the majority of fans in the stands were for Thiem which angered Novak.

Edited March 24, 20205 yr by Soapsuds

Tennis will be in trouble without its superstars at their best, and they will have trouble commanding the world stage with so many other sports returning from long delays to fanfare. They haven’t done a great job of building the next generation of stars (Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Thiem, Bianca, Naomi, and Kenin are all great and play the social game well, but not sure any of them are even close to household names).

1 hour ago, Faulkner said:

Tennis will be in trouble without its superstars at their best, and they will have trouble commanding the world stage with so many other sports returning from long delays to fanfare. They haven’t done a great job of building the next generation of stars (Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Thiem, Bianca, Naomi, and Kenin are all great and play the social game well, but not sure any of them are even close to household names).

 

Osaka has the best chance out of the pack.  She has a Netflix documentary in the making, that LeBron James' production company is producing.

Even having said that, tennis has only become more of a niche sport in the last decade or so. Many of the most charismatic players that have emerged tend to be the least consistent ones. You also have a point that tennis will be competing against all the other sports like NBA that has a much higher degree of popularity.

https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/28943052/novak-djokovic-weeks-no-1-ripe-rankings-controversy

Roger and Mirka Federer are donating 1 million Swiss francs to help vulnerable Swiss families.

 

 

pic.twitter.com/l0bnPPKEQe

— Roger Federer (@rogerfederer) March 25, 2020

Some people are saying that this will mean slower hard courts but I hope this won't be the case. Hard courts are  already too slow, if anything, they need to be made faster. There are too many slow non-clay courts in professional tennis.  If this keeps up, players under 30 will inevitably have shorter careers than those over 30 will have had by the time they retire.

 

The @usopen slow downs courts surface

New-York's tournament has announced that Laykold will replace DecoTurf on its courts. Already in use in Miami, Laykold is a slower surface.

What do you think? pic.twitter.com/hm5o558d20

— We Are Tennis (@WeAreTennis) March 24, 2020

ATP tour player Thiago Wild tested positive for coronavirus. He just won his first title on clay in Chile in February.

ESPN2 will a 10-hour Serena Williams marathon on Friday at 6 pm ET, including 5 Slam finals with 3 against Venus.

 

2017 Australian Open vs Venus

2003 Australian Open vs Venus

2002 Wimbledon vs Venus

2012 Wimbledon vs Radwanska

2012 U.S. Open vs Azarenka

 

 

2 hours ago, Faulkner said:

ESPN2 will a 10-hour Serena Williams marathon on Friday at 6 pm ET, including 5 Slam finals with 3 against Venus.

 

2017 Australian Open vs Venus

2003 Australian Open vs Venus

2002 Wimbledon vs Venus

2012 Wimbledon vs Radwanska

2012 U.S. Open vs Azarenka

 

 

 

👍

Novak Djokovic with his family donates one million euros for respirators and medicine equipment in Serbia.

— Saša Ozmo (@ozmo_sasa) March 27, 2020

https://www.atptour.com/en/news/federer-nadal-espn2-marathon-2020

 

🤣

 

 

Stan and his alters.

 

My workout partners and I shared a lot in common today 🤷🏻‍♂️🤔💦🏀🏋🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️☀️ #stayfitstan #workout #enjoy #fun #staysafe pic.twitter.com/8AIHwXnh5O

— Stanislas Wawrinka (@stanwawrinka) March 27, 2020