I blame Sabalenka

 

Sabalenka is at least consistent and take the tour seriously.

 

The cult of Raducanu

 

There is no 'cult'

 

It’s hard to beat nostalgia. Past players are seen better than they really were

 

We have all the matches online, this is not just nostalgia.

 

It isn't in decline. It gets more TV and media coverage than it did twenty years ago, even Dart making BO comments about Boisson made the Sun. It also gets to share the main courts at the slams much more equally than it did around 2000. TF posters love all this nostalgia about 20 years ago or whenever they were young and first started following tennis but it keeps moving on.

 

Lol no, WTA was way more popular back then, it's not even close, you will see Senna going to see Graf versus Seles, the most watched full matches on the RG and Wimbledon sites are respectively the one featuring Hingis-Graf and Sharapova- Serena. Besides, most people knew the top players on Wta, while no one really know Iga.

 

It’s far better now than it was 7-8 years ago…those were the dark dark days so count ourselves lucky. We will never go back to the glory years because it’s a different sport now.

 

It’s far better now than it was 7-8 years ago…those were the desk dark days so count ourselves lucky. We will never go back to the glory years because it’s a different sport now.

It's definitely better, but at the same time we had Sakkari on the top 10 up until one year ago, that's horrible.

 

It’s not in decline. It’s pretty good. But it could’ve been truly great if Barty, Osaka and Andreescu stayed on top all these years combined with Swiatek, Gauff, Sabalenka 😢

 

People who keep saying "Back in my day..." are the real reason.

 

Look, we all know this is from a perpetually injured Andreescu. You don't have to rub it in, it's right there out in the open. She's working on it! She's in qualies for Wuhan! The comeback is NOW.

 

Swiatek doesn’t have the charisma that others had. Sabalenka has the media against her
Emma can’t play that well
Gauff is flaky
Rybakina has issues

pegula and Navarro are introverts
Osaka is nasty


There’s no star

 

Assuming that this is a genuine question and not just a covert Swiatek dis thread, I think the contemporary era is the consequence of the power game taking over. It created an ecosystem that is hostile to variety, where mediocre athletes who paint the lines a few tournaments out of the year can cash in and everybody's game is built around coping with the pace.

Serena basically represented the ultimate evolution -- a player with big power off both sides who moved well to boot (not to mention the serve). Since nobody could match that, the basher vs. backboard divide deepened, and for the first decade or so, nobody could achieve consistency for any length of time. The defensive players were vulnerable to getting hit off the court, while the offensive ones were vulnerable to hitting themselves off. Now at least we have a few players who can consistently produce a high level at the big events, even if we haven't entirely overcome the issue of randos winning Slams.

As for the fairness of comparing the current era with the (brief) early 2000s peak, we've been down that road so many times here, usually in the context of people complaining that Swiatek's success was not just distasteful to them personally but a genuine "crisis" for tennis. There are ebbs and flows in sports history, and women's tennis itself is doing just fine. If you want to cherry-pick events with thin audiences, go ahead, but you can find plenty where the stadiums are full. Would I like to see a return to more variety in tennis? Absolutely, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

This is a ridiculous thread. I did an attendance thread and the all wta events, Charleston & Stuttgart, were huge successes
The joint events like IW, Miami and majors set all time records.
Tennis is doing great and the majors are making $300M profit, 4 times a year
The majors should pay much more for qualies & early rounds and I blame the idiot tennis media for that. The big story before every major should be that the owners are making hundreds of millions and not paying enough to 95% of both tours
money for the rank and file in qualies should be double what it is now

 

This is a ridiculous thread. I did an attendance thread and the all wta events, Charleston & Stuttgart, were huge successes
The joint events like IW, Miami and majors set all time records.
Tennis is doing great and the majors are making $300M profit, 4 times a year
The majors should pay much more for qualies & early rounds and I blame the idiot tennis media for that. The big story before every major should be that the owners are making hundreds of millions and not paying enough to 95% of both tours
money for the rank and file in qualies should be double what it is now

I thought this was obvious. As for what I’ve been told, the WTA is actually doing quite well, and is in the best shape it’s been in over a decade. Tennis as a sport is breaking new numbers every year. The WTA hasn’t declined at all- outside of TF’s own personal preferences ^^

 

I blame Marta Kostyuk... I mean, I don't even know what for, but I always blame Kostyuk for everything...

Shes a root of all evil after all...

 

I feel like some of it is the coaching, players are so one dimensional and ball-striking has declined.

 

Yeah' this pretty much. Iga' Saba' Coco' Anise' they are all fit' fast' strong' can chase balls and smack them so hard they leave Earth's orbit.. but that’s not tennis. That’s somesort peculiar mix between baseball and 100 m running.

 

There’s no decline much more competition that’s why you see different winners at the big tournaments

 

I miss Serena, her greatness and intensity. My childhood days (90s - 00s) were the best era. Now, I hate Sabalenka, she sucks and comes from a problematic country.

 

Lack of passion, bad schedule, two weeks mandatories, road map.

 

This and I say wardrobe. They all look the same with those hideous visors. Adds no visual elements, especially with female players not to sound sexist.

 

This and I say wardrobe. They all look the same with those hideous visors. Adds no visual elements, especially with female players not to sound sexist.

Do you not want players to protect their eyesight to any degree? I agree that they're not particularly flattering, but nor is any headwear that has ever been designed to be useful rather than decorative.

 

Only good thing is consistency from the top 2 and Gauff & Pegula too. Sabalenka has brought slam consistency of golden age. 2ga has over 80% career w/l..its leaps & bound better than one with Wozniacki-Zvonanera regin..& the times of Kerber-Pliskova-Mugsy-Halep as number 1.

 

Perhaps this is just a feeling, but I feel like the players fans care about aren't meeting each other often enough. Gauff and Rybakina have only met once, we had 2 failed opportunities for a Sabatek GS final this year, no Osaka vs Sabalenka USO final, stuff like that

 

The real downfall started in 2017, let's be honest. We went from Serena, Sharapova, Azarenka etc. to the likes of Halep, Woz, Pliskova and all those other random GS champions.

But 2020-2025 hasn't been much better, ngl. Today, you can be a 2x GS champ and consistent top 3 player with the worst FH the tour has ever seen. That says a lot about the level today.

I wasn't even born in the 90's so I'm not gonna pretend I know anything from that era, but the level since 2017 has been waaaaay lower than the level from the late 2000's and early 2010's.

 

The real downfall started in 2017, let's be honest. We went from Serena, Sharapova, Azarenka etc. to the likes of Halep, Woz, Pliskova and all those other random GS champions.

But 2020-2025 hasn't been much better, ngl. Today, you can be a 2x GS champ and consistent top 3 player with the worst FH the tour has ever seen. That says a lot about the level today.

I wasn't even born in the 90's so I'm not gonna pretend I know anything from that era, but the level since 2017 has been waaaaay lower than the level from the late 2000's and early 2010's.

And back in the early 2010's people were saying the level on the tour back then was also rubbish. Is it really is all about nostalgia. 10-20 years from now people are going to be nostalgic for this era.

 

Krejcikova et al who win a slam and then disappear for a year. There was a period where it was different players at the end of each big tournament, and that makes it hard for casual fans to latch on to.

It’s improving though with the consistency of Sabalenka and Swiatek at the slams and a competent group not far behind then too

 

"Decline" compared to when? The WTA is in the healthiest shape it has been in donkey years. Just because you think the tour peaked in the early 2000's with its multiple rivalries doesn't mean that any other era that doesn't have as many rivalries as the absolute peak is signs of a "decline".

 

I am interested to see how few people talk about the homogenization of the courts, this is an interesting prospect that killed variety and in a way damaged women tennis even more than men given the fact that those slowed courts were more suited to men's gamestyle.

 

prize money.

(not inserting li na gif)

 

Everything has lower viewership than in 2000 because the media and entertainment landscape is vastly bigger and more diverse today.

 

yes, the sport has to get more creative in competing for people's attention