Trends Shaping the Tennis World: a Comprehensive Analysis

Introduction

This paper talks about the current trends in tennis, and I have addressed match-fixing, tennis tournament structure, and the growth of tennis. For this paper, I used certain evidence from articles and addressed what my role would be.

Body

Match Fixing

In tennis, one of the biggest problems of late is integrity. There are a lot of reports involving issues like honesty; match-fixing is notable in the lower dimensions of the sport. One of the major reasons for this is an increase in internet betting, with few players winning money by losing or forfeiting their opponents on purpose.

“To totally eradicate match-fixing, it is essential to introduce preventive measures along with ethics education and training for the athletes is essential. It is also critical to detect one in time on occurrence”. For example, encourage athletes to be aware of the seriousness of match-fixing by persistently providing them with ethics and education.

The way I would deal with this issue is to propose to study how tennis players are paid. As of now, the players are currently paid based on their appearances; for example, each player has a price tag. If the organizers prefer to invite players to their tournament, they have to pay the player the appearance fee just for their participation. This leads to fixing matches in lower level tournaments because players who are in need of money start to fix to lose the match. The players at the lower level get paid more than the prize money from the bookies and betting agents to fix and lose matches. As a coach, I would like to propose an open and structured prize money and appearance fee in the tournaments; this will lead to reducing players fixing matches for financial needs. It will also encourage them to play with dedication when they know they will be earning what they deserve when they progress deeper in the tournaments. They choose to fix matches because they get paid more than what they would earn if they win and progress in the tournament. That is mainly due to the lack of structure and transparency in the tennis circuit. If every player gets what they deserve, this might be a step forward towards ending match-fixing in tennis.

Tennis Tournament Structure

Tennis has become a global sport; it is popular among developed countries and features prominently in local sporting life. “The study investigated the number of professional tournament opportunities in Men’s tennis and the number of players professionally ranked inside the top 300 within different world regions and countries. Most of the tennis tournaments at the ATP level are held in Europe and North America. This gives them advantages to play in their region, which they are familiar with, and saves a lot of money from traveling to other regions of the world to be ranked higher. Whereas players from Asia, South America, Africa, and Australia are forced to travel outside their countries to participate in tournaments, this affects a lot of players to break into higher rankings due to financial expenses. According to De Bosscher, there are three levels of success in sports. Firstly, the macro level, the social and cultural context in which people live; second is the meso level, sports policies, and politics that may influence the long-term performance of the sport and lastly micro level, the individual athletes and their close environment. Meso-level factors are adopted for tournament structure by a nation, according to De Bosscher.

To overcome this, as a registered member and player myself, I would closely work with International Tennis Federation and different countries' federations to come together for an even development of a tournament calendar where it benefits players from every region. One way to do this is by forming a committee to study the number of players involved in tennis tournaments in every region and conduct tournaments that will benefit them. For example, if the Asian region has a lot of players representing in the juniors u/18 tournaments a lot, the committee should plan on conducting three weeks tournaments very often to benefit them. When the players grow in their rankings based on their performances, they can award scholarships to compete in tournaments in another region. This will give hope to upcoming players and encourage people to take up tennis. When the committee is involved in the player’s growth, it will lead to the growth of tennis in a particular region. This will automatically bring in corporates to invest in tennis.

Tennis Global Evolvement

Tennis has come a long way; it has evolved globally and will continue to grow. The last three decades have seen the sport reach greater heights and move into new markets. It has attracted audiences and encouraged young talented athletes to take up the sport. : One of the main reasons for this is players like Rod Laver and Martina Navratilova, who reached greater heights representing countries where tennis was once considered a black sport, gave the belief and opened doors down for today’s generation of young talents”. According to WTA Chair and CEO Stacey Allaster said in a statement “Having ten different countries represent in the top 10 rankings show how truly global tennis has become.

This is a great sign for tennis, Even though tennis players play a big role in growing the popularity of the sport. Social Media plays a bigger role in order to reach an audience; ATP has done a fantastic job introducing live streaming of matches in challenger events, where I feel that’s where tennis can be taken to various audiences. Not all prefer to watch Roger and Rafa play when someone they know is also playing. This is my personal example; a few weeks ago, my friend was playing an event in Germany where they had no live telecast because they had a top 10 player play at the same time. Since ATP introduced live streaming of all their matches on the website, I was able to watch him play and share it with other people. This has been a big boost to increase the popularity of the sport.

Conclusion

In my conclusion, this paper covered the major issues tennis faces and its positives as I want to be a director of tennis in a club or association setting. I feel my job will play a key role in taking tennis forward in the community I choose to represent. It will be my responsibility to grow tennis in the right way.

References

1. European Sport Management Quarterly, 2018. "An in-depth study into the professional tennis market." Volume 18, Issue 3, pp. 297-314. DOI: 10.1080/16184742.2018.1459567

2. De Bosscher, V., Shibli, S., Westerbeek, H., van Bottenburg, M., & De Knop, P. (2015). "A conceptual framework for analysing sports policy factors leading to international sporting success." European Sport Management Quarterly, 15(2), 215-237. 

3. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 2020. "Match-fixing in sports: A systematic literature review." Volume 20, Issue 3, pp. 211-236. DOI: 10.1504/IJSMM.2020.107743

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