EPIC FAIL! How the US Massively Underperforms the World in Tennis Player Development

An expectation reducing mind-set has come out of the United States Tennis community trying to explain away the remarkable decline in US men’s tennis the past few years.  US tennis enjoyed a golden age of tennis where male professional players won more than 25 slams between Michael Chang’s 1989 French Open win and Andre Agassi’s 2003 Australian Open Championship.   Since then, the US has won no Men’s Grand Slam championships.  At the time of this writing the US has 9 players in the top 100 in the world today, five of those players are near 30 years old or above and are likely to drop out or retire from the top 100 in the near future (At the time of publication 2 players have dropped out of the top 100, down to 7).  Pro player development is at a standstill as “keystone cops” management fumbles Grand Slam wild cards substituting washed-up older players for younger players with potential.

USTA executive leadership or pro players have two lines of thought about the US cliff dive out of the tennis world elite.  First, US tennis fans are spoiled and they need to expect less.  Second, the US tennis public will need to wait 10 years for US tennis to bounce back.  Much of this is echoed by sportswriters like Peter Bodo who doesn’t expect things to get better any time soon or Peter Alfano who reports tennis is in a nose dive.  Greg Couch, in “From Spoiled to Rotten…”  covers the same territory as this article in a qualitative, Royko-esque fashion.

We wondered if there some way to assess and illustrate if American expectations for professional tennis should be abandoned?  Is this the end to American Tennis Exceptionalism?  Should we expect to be outperformed and viewed as another sport where American supremacy has been bypassed like Lebron and Dwayne watching Dirk Nowitzki driving to the hoop?

In response, we created a methodology called the Secada Population and Economic Country Tennis Efficiency Rating (SPECTER) with a formulation to measure a country’s tennis player performance vs others measured by youth population available to play tennis and by a country’s tennis economic power rating.  Note:  We’ll address the second, corrosive, 10-year wait line of thought in another post.

Our ratings  show the United States radically underperforms the market to the extent that any programs instituted have no impact on US tennis.  When adjusting for youth, the United States has more children of tennis playing age than all of its modern European rivals combined including Russia, Spain, France, UK , Switzerland and  Serbia.   Also, the U.S. is home to one of the grand slams, the US Open, which we have already analyzed as a $1.4 billion economic powerhouse worth $200 million to the cash flush USTA foundation which has $200 million of it’s own money already socked away.  When you factor in the economic capability for tennis development the US program is a catastrophe!

First we show the results.  We came up with a metric to measure tennis performance by country using number of players in the top 100, providing a power score for each ranking by adding up the difference between 100 and a players ranking.  So #1 Novak Djokovic would have 99 points, #10 Andy Roddick, 90 points.  When we add up these scores (based on mid July, 2011 rankings) by country, we can compare actual results by country reducing the impact of quantity focusing on total quality of rankings.  Note:  Tennis historian Phil Secada has done a similar study on power ratings for tennis.  

Tennis Players in Top 100 Rankings

Country	# of Tennis Players in top 100
Spain	14
USA	9
France	8
Argentina	6
Russia	5
Serbia	3
Swittzerland	2
Great Britain	1
Australia	1

Weighted Average Strength of Program by Country

Country	Total Weighted Rankings
Spain	815
France	519
USA	372
Argentina	334
Russia	268
Serbia	254
Switzerland	181
Great Britain	96
Australia	29

Total Tennis Economic Capability by Country

Country	Market Potential (Millions)
France	235.67
Australia	232.30
Great Britain	214.65
USA	210.00
Spain	38.11
Switzerland	16.50
Russia	9.29
Serbia	5.02
Argentina	4.41

Total US Power Efficiency Rating vs. Other Countries or Secada Population and Economic Country Tennis Efficiency Ranking (SPECTER)

Country	SPECTER
Serbia	48.27
Switzerland	10.47
Argentina	7.71
Spain	3.21
Russia	1.40
France	0.19
Great Britain	0.04
USA	0.03
Australia	0.03

As shown by the tables above the US appears to have a respectable tennis program ranking second with 9 of the top 100 players in the world after Spain which has fourteen players.  Drilling down a bit further even when adjusting for the cumulative rankings of all players by country, the US finishes third behind Spain and France, slightly ahead of Argentina.

But what happens when we adjust country ratings by population and then by the ability to commit economically to tennis development.  As discussed above, the US has more people of tennis player development age than all of its main European rivals combined.  In addition, the USA is one of four tennis economic super powers.  As we discussed in our prior article on the billion dollar US Open, the USTA is a remarkably wealthy not-for-profit with the US Open as its central cash cow.  It spends more than $15 million a year on player development and richly rewards their executive staff in total compensation ranging from $8 million in 2009 to $50 million in 2008 with a steady $10 million a year in travel expenses for those executives and others.  When factoring in these numbers as shown in our SPECTER Power Ratings, the US finishes dead last among the major tennis countries to an extent that it has a power rating less than 1% of world leader, Serbia.  Though Serbia may be a super-charged performance outlier; the US still rates less than 10% as effective as Switzerland, Argentina and Spain.

Demographics is Destiny Everywhere but the USTA Development Program

In providing this analysis, we took a deep dive into the demographics of tennis development age youth by country.  Our data came from the CIA factbook and 2010 US Census data.  Since detailed 18 and under Census data by country wasn’t readily available, we used CIA factbook data for 14 years and under population as a proxy.  Reviewing prior ranking data, we found that most top rated tennis players began playing professional tourneys at 16 or 17 year olds so for development purposes, the numbers aren’t divergent from population trends.

Country	Population Size  14 Years and Under (Millions)
USA	61.9
Russia	21.6
France	12
Switzerland	1.1
Serbia	1.1
Great Britain	10.8
Spain	7
Europe Total	53.6
Argentina	10.3
Australia	3.9

The chart below shows the US placing last among leading tennis countries based on population of potential tennis players.   Some may argue that the US has less temperate weather than Australia.  But we can eliminate all tennis regions with the exceptions of historical hotbeds California, Florida, Texas, Georgia and Arizona and the US potential population is still greater than every other country combined except Russia which has some bad weather of its own.

Realized Tennis Potential by Population

Country	Realized Tennis Potential by Population (higher ratings mean better)
Serbia	2309.09
Switzerland	1645.45
Spain	1164.29
France	432.50
Argentina	324.27
Russia	124.07
Great Britain	88.89
Australia	74.36
USA	60.10

But weather isn’t the only rationale for impact on tennis player development as Serbia worked its way through the breakup of Yugoslavia and a civil war, Spain suffers from massive unemployment and Argentina has had to work through two existential financial crises in the last decade.

Economic Potential for Player Development

After reviewing for population we next determined what is the economic potential for player development.   We looked at Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an indicator but determined that GDP  represents a country’s entire economy and would overstate the US and European countries ability to commit to youth tennis development.  We also looked at GDP by potential player development population but determined that it would reflect negatively on a small country like Switzerland which has a large GDP/Capita and a small birth rate.  Likewise, low birthrate countries like Australia and Great Britain would suffer.

Eat What You Kill

Ultimately, we determined a better measure would be what we call Market Economic Potential (MEP).  MEP states that a tennis program can only spend money it has and no more to develop players.  We measure MEP  by the largest tennis tournament held in a country and the revenue it generates.  Though some may argue by purchasing power parity that one tennis dollar in Argentina or Serbia is worth more than a tennis dollar in the US we reviewed purchasing power parity GDP indicators vs country GDP indicators and found less than a 30% variation in real GDP vs. purchasing power parity GDP for any countries involved in this study.  So a dollar in Argentina may be worth more than in the US, but not more than 30% more.  Negligible since Argentina outperforms the US in tennis by a factor of 10 not .3.

We measure MEP using revenue generated by the largest tennis tournament run by each country’s tennis association.  Like the US Open that generates $210 million a year in revenue for the USTA which it then applies about $15 million to player development, most countries have a main tennis tournament which feeds resources into their player development program.  Though we don’t have the revenue for each tournament, assuming cost and profit ratios are the same as the US Open, we use prize money as a proxy for revenue and estimate it based on that prize money number which is easily available via the ATP web site.   As an aside this approach can only OVERSTATE, the ability of other countries to compete with the U.S.

The Grand Slam (dis) Advantage

Using these numbers, we see that any of the 4 hosts of the grand slams, Australia, France, Great Britain and the United States offer more prize money than the other leading tennis countries combined.  As a result we would expect that these countries would have outsized tennis programs with outstanding performance.   But outside of France, (with a potential tennis population a bit larger than California’s) with 8 players in the top 100 (4 players under 25), all the grand slam hosts radically underperform the market.   It’s as if the Anglo Saxon world forgot how to play tennis.  Assuming that all of these countries pay the same sort of $8 million in executive compensation as made by the top 8 or 9 USTA executives, The typical tennis fan sees pay for  non-player development and turns off the tv.  We can see the value of the prior USTA executives who fixed the broken US Open and doubled revenue from the tournament over the last 10-15 years, but existing programs are in “run the engine” mode with respect to their prized events.  The US Open already sells out every year, unless USTA adds seats, there isn’t much new work to be done.  But player development has gone into the abyss.

Country	Score / Market Potential
Argentina	75.67
Serbia	50.57
Russia	28.84
Spain	21.39
Switzerland	10.97
France	2.20
USA	1.77
Great Britain	0.45
Australia	0.12

It is easy to explain Great Britain’s lack of performance, they have bad weather, but the US has many states with moderate weather that historically have been suppliers of world class tennis talent and are still ripe for tennis player development as US population moves southward.  One of the negative statements about US tennis players has been that there are no clay court players coming out of the US.  How is this possible when we have Florida, the state that gave us Jim Courier and Chris Evert (Brian Gottfried, Eddie Dibbs and Harold Solomon)?

Fair Weather States	Potential Tennis Player Population (Millions)
Florida	4.12
California	9.51
Texas	6.98
Georgia	2.55
Arizona	1.68
	24.84

Perhaps the best explanation is that building a complex regionally centralized development program may not be terribly useful if developing players can’t afford the gasoline to get to those centers and don’t like being away from their parents.  At the same time there hasn’t been any substantial growth in USTA membership that exceeds US general population growth so it is hard to imagine where USTA dollars are going.  Let’s say there are 1,000 meaningful tennis centers around the country, then each center potentially could receive a $15,000 infusion to drive participation, pay the guys in the trenches more and lead more recruiting efforts.  But that doesn’t happen under the present regime’s model.  Likewise, the USTA web site offers no significant on-line tools for learning tennis or receiving coaching. ($15 million works out to about $15,000 a center.)

Regardless, we believe there are many ways to spend dollars on US tennis on a depth and breadth approach where players can be discovered and as they advance get the coaching they need without prejudice or obstruction.

If development dollars being spent are misdirected then what does work?  Serbia and Argentina have secret weapons.  It’s called “coaching”.  Serbia’s national ascendancy coincides with their usage of Niki Pilic as coach of their national team.  Pilic is the only person to win Davis Cup titles as coach of 3 different countries.   Marcelo Gomez has been the tennis development coach for US Open Champ Juan Martin Del Potro, Juan Monaco and a plethora of other top Argentinian talent.  We stole Jose Higueras from Spain, but so far his main response has been “Ay Caramba” to the broken development program.

And the US has great home-grown coaches who have developed top level talent, won Grand Slams, but are not associated with USTA tennis.  Their names, Brad Gilbert and Paul Annacone.  Between them they’ve coached players who have won far more grand slams than anyone presently involved with USA tennis.   Add in Michael Chang and Jim Courier you’ve got strategies for every surface category.

Wimpledon and the Inflated Tennis Era

Fans at the 1980’s Wimbledon tennis finals between Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker would wonder what they’re watching if they entered a “hot tub time machine” and saw the 2010 semifinals.  2001 rule changes by tennis corporate rule makers diluted the value of a Slam victory and inflated the likely number of wins for any all time great.  Wimbledon court was slowed the same year to align better with the other surfaces all but removing the serve and volleyer from contention in the game.  Wimbledon has become “Wimp”ledon.

In 2000, tennis was faced with the loss of their “Greatest Open Era Generation”.  Boris Becker, Jim Courier, Michael Chang, Stefan Edberg, and the aging Sampras, Agassi and Gustavo Kuerten were all heading to the tennis court in the sky.  They were also the “Greatest Marque Generation” with championship level players from high net worth countries besides the U.S. including Germany, Sweden, France, a well-liked player of East Asian descent and a great South American champion.

Sponsors and Slams revolted as the brand dissipated.    Independently controlled Slams wanted to seed by surface and sponsors were concerned about the relative no-names or surface specialists  (read “unbranded players”) who could pull an upset in an early round and ruin attendance and tv viewership for later rounds.  Unable to bridge the discrepancy between relative talent on different surfaces corporate tennis decided to save the brand moving to the 32 seed (A32) approach which limited all the Grand Slams with the exception of Wimbledon from seeding by surface.  A32 reduced risk and the number of tough matches a top ranked player would play in succession saving them only for the later rounds.  Like McGwire and Sosa in baseball’s home run era, by inflating statistics, in this case the number of times the top players reached later rounds and finals, they could market the brand and hide underlying problems in the game while satisfying sponsors.  Like baseball, this resulted in smashing hard won tennis records and metrics as high seeds win more slams than ever due to A32.  Tennis corporatist’s stewardship of the game’s integrity is questionable with A32.  When considering their disastrous PEDs testing program after 25 years of scandal or inability to develop metrics to measure tennis athleticism across eras it is awful.

A32 business decisions impacted the game’s integrity with intended and unintended consequences that were many and immediate.   Besides minimizing surface specialist challenges, older champs in decline would typically fall into the 17-32 unseeded rankings slots but now had no “puncher’s” chance to knock off younger, high seeds in earlier rounds when they were well-rested.  This would then open up the draw for a deep run into a tournament and for new contenders to emerge.  Falling out of the top 32 for a tennis Pantheonist was equivalent to retirement as almost every all-time great has fallen out of the top 100 within a year of falling out of the top 32 rankings.

A concrete example of this was Federer’s US Open victory over a 35 year old Agassi in 2005 after Agassi had already played 3 consecutive 5 setters the prior 6 days, the finals played on one day’s rest.    It was a triumph of a player in his prime against one with an expired warranty and more than 1,000 pro matches under his belt.  Agassi’s prior match record to Federer before turning 33 was 3-0 including a shellacking at the US Open where Federer won 7 games.  Low-seeded Sampras faced a similar uphill battle in decline, losing to Hewitt in 2001 after performing a Slam Triple defeating the last 2 players to beat him at the Open, Rafter and Safin (the year before, he beat Hewitt).

Meanwhile Federer (82%) has an almost identical winning record against a weaker non-slam field to Sampras after 874 matches.  He has played about 55% as many slam winners as Sampras and played 30% the matches against tennis Pantheonists than Sampras and less than 20% the matches than Connors and Lendl.  Simply put, Federer won slams in an era with a dearth of challengers in a system favoring champions.

The “Slam Triple” is a metric we’ve created that marks when a player in a slam defeats 3 prior slam winners in a row, typically to reach the finals or win the tournament.  A32 has decimated this metric.  12 times on fast surfaces between 1973 and 2001 a player had to defeat 3 slam winners in a row to either win a slam or get to the finals.  Sampras did it 3 times.  It is another measure of the difficulty of a tennis tournament.  Post A32, no fast surface slam winner has beaten 3 slam winners consecutively to win or reach the finals of a slam.  Federer had a chance in 2009 but instead lost his 3^rd consecutive slam final on a 3rd surface to Nadal in Australia.

In addition, since A32, the top seed  has not won Roland Garros which speaks to the spurious use of seeding by ranking across surfaces.  When incorporating the slam triple for clay courts, we find multiple occurrences by Pantheon players as Ivan Lendl did it in 1984, Jim Courier did it twice to win his two French Opens in 1991 and 1992 and Rafael Nadal did it to win the 2007 Roland Garros.  Between the 1990 US Open and 1993 Wimbledon the slam triple was accomplished 7 times (in those 12 tournaments) by 5 different Pantheon players.  Clearly the most competitive era in tennis.  Thomas Muster and Yevgeny Kafelnikov won slam triples later in 1995 and 1997.

Wimbledon’s decision to slow down the surface and balls with A32 eliminated some of the power player’s advantage as seen by the contrast in the serve and volley slugfest of 2001 with dozens of net approaches by both players and 40 aces to the 2002 baseline tournament with 7 aces in total and few jaunts to the net.  Tennis commentators and former pro serve and volleyers:  Paul Annacone, John McEnroe and Darren Cahill, all commented on how balls no longer skid, they popped up while match after match saw multiple lengthy baseline rallies.

Commentators  blame racquet technology, but racquet technology doesn’t alter physics much when a ball skids 6 inches high.  The biggest change is most players are hitting down on the ball at a height equal to or over the net height which favors the groundstroker.  Indeed, no serve and volleyers made it to 2010’s quarterfinals.   Federer averaged net approaches on less than 15% of his total points in the tournament before elimination, averaging a measly 118 mph first serve for the tournament (well below some of Sampras 125 mph average service speed in many matches).

Wimbledon used to see the days of a hard charging Boris Becker, John McEnroe or Pat Cash coming to the net at all costs to avoid the balls skidding bounce.   Frequently the players would hit the ground before the ball, as grass tennis was a crazy form of hockey and rugby.  It wasn’t unusual for players to face off blasting volleys a few feet from each other.  You are lucky to see players get within a court length of each other in a match today and Nadal who frequently plays 10-20 feet behind the baseline remains the best all court player left in the draw.  Today’s tennis is like a basketball game where players only shoot 3 pointers.  What about using the rest of the court?  When this happened in the NBA threatening to ruin the game, they changed the rules.

Another consequence has been the advent of serving giants like Ivo Karlovic, John Isner, Tomas Berdych and Sam Querrey.  Though tennis has slowed the ball, the geometry of the game has made it easier for big men who can serve at greater angles and speed as the balls now pop up at stroke level for taller players rather than forcing them to bend to hit skidding balls.  In 2001 3 seeds were 6’4” or taller.  This year there were 10 such seeded players prior to Ivo Karlovic dropping out of the tournament.   Only Berdych, a baseliner made it to the semifinals.  Gone is the “serve and volleyer”, now we have the ”serve and rallyer”.

Other consequences are what to do as favorites begin downward progressions.  Federer is at the age where Sampras saw marked decline and has lost in successive slam quarterfinals.  Nadal at 24 is closing on the age where Borg retired (25) and is the same age when Wilander won his last slam.  Unless Nadal dramatically changes his game to reduce wear and tear and reliance on backcourt movement, it is likely that tennis will see substantial changing of the guard within the next 2 years.  And then what for the tennis brand as A32 starves its young talent of wide open draws?  Next, a framework for determining all time greats.

Unexpected Consequences of A32 Era
*		No First Seed Wins Roland Garros in 8 years.
*		Serve and Volleyers become Serve and Rallyers – Wimpledon
*		Slam Triple, Eradicated
*		Diminished New Branding Possibilities (What to do as Federer winds down and Nadal reaches 26, old age for 2 handers)
*		Super-Sized Players
*		Greater Difficulty for Older Champions to Win Tournaments