I am based in the United States and I can only talk about what I think are the reasons the USTA is in trouble. The observations begin and end with two women, Venus and Serena Williams.
There was noise about them way before they made their pro debuts, but they did not come up in the tennis factories of Florida. Instead, their coaches were their parents. Their father Richard used the tennis establishment when he had to but he was the man in charge and made no bones about it. When his daughters exploded on the scene, all beaded braids and with no apologies for being African American AND playing explosive tennis, the establishment was shaken to its country club roots. These girls came out of Compton but spoke well, carried themselves with quiet self-assurance, and were blowing every one of the anointed ones off the court. The first ever prime time US Open women's final was played between these two women and got the best ratings ever for tennis. No women's final has come close since.
So did the USTA go out and actively recruit not only in African American communities but in Latino communities or places like Appalachia or anywhere outside of their traditional country club base? No. They went looking for the blondest women they could find. And since the last good woman to come out of the rich bitch environment of tennis was Lindsay Davenport (who regularly talked trash to TPTB and was not a favorite) they went overseas. That is why Shamil Tarpishev can talk trash and not be called on it. That is why we have the Siberian Bansidhe being promoted as an American but playing Fed Cup for Russia where her countrymen consider her an American and the Russian women make no secret of despising her.
Meanwhile a Russian man, Dmitry Tursunov, who wanted to play for the United States was not helped to get his paperwork done and is now also playing for Russia while being based and training in the United States. Players like Tommy Haas and Xavier Malisse play for Germany and Belgium respectively but live and train in the States. So does the Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean, by the way.
In my very humble opinion the seeds of the problems found in England and the United States are based on class and then race. When Tracey Austin, another player out of the rich bitch milieu of Southern California said that the Eastern European women played so hard because they didn't want to go back to the hovels they came out of her comment went unchallenged. I guess she doesn't realize that many of these women come from middle class backgrounds in their respective countries. Yes they fight hard but isn't that what athletes do? Don't we have players here, male and female, who would fight just as hard if given the chance? Is the tennis establishment so afraid of another father like Richard Williams deciding to do it on his own and raise children able to break down the walls of the tennis establishment that they've made the walls thicker and higher than ever before to make sure a home grown Yuri Sharapov from the mountains of Tennessee has no chance to invade the hallowed halls?
Until tennis stops trying to have its cake and eat it, tennis will continue to be seen as an elitist sport and not tuned in to the rank and file citizen especially here in the States. "Too foreign" some say about Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, yet baseball, the most American of sports, boasts an Albert Pujols, an Ichiro Suzuki and many other players from overseas. Willie Randolph almost got the Mets to the World Series with a roster made up of mostly Latino players. And the fans have not run away. Those walls will have to come down. They can either be taken down in the spirit of peace and openness or torn down by the perceived barbarians.
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