Tennis’ Global Evolution is Bringing the Sport To New Markets: An Analysis

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: February 7, 2011

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Tennis is a global sport, the appeal of which only continues to grow in countries once considered tennis black spots. Players like Rod Laver and Martina Navratilova paved the way for Bjorn Borg and Steffi Graf. They, in turn, opened doors down the road for the likes of Yevgeny Kafelnikov and, today, Li Na.

The last 30 years have seen the sport move into new markets. It has attracted wider audiences and encouraged young talent in a way that would have never seemed possible just a couple decades ago.

No point proves this more than the fact that the top 10 players on the women's tour represent 10 different countries.

"Having 10 different [countries] represented in the top 10 rankings shows how truly global tennis has become," WTA Chair and CEO Stacey Allaster said in a statement published in the Washington Times after the release of last Monday's latest rankings.

So what has been happening? The United States has started to lose some of its long-standing dominance in the sport and western European countries such as Spain and France have started to get a stranglehold on the sport.

But it's not just there where the biggest waves are forming. Russia has erupted onto the scene in the last 20 years to be considered a real tennis powerhouse and, as widely documented through the stories of Li Na, China is leading Asia's contingent of up-and-coming players who are threatening to make even bigger inroads into the sport's elite.

Over the last few weeks, I have been researching the global growth of the sport, and the patterns are there for everyone to see. I've studied the top 100 men and top 100 women at four points in history (1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010) and mapped the results to show the world's tennis hotspots at a glimpse.

The women's tour data is courtesy of the Virginia Slims rankings, the Sanex WTA rankings and the WTA rankings.

To summarize my basic method, a woman who was in the...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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