Setting the Record Straight
Kurt Desautels
Editor, Colorado Tennis

If you haven’t yet had the chance to pick up a copy of the May 27, 2004 issue of Westword, better hurry up and see if you can dig one out of the recycle bin. Better yet, take a few moments to visit Westword’s website and give it a read, it’s worth the effort. The latest diatribe against tennis (Opening Lob by Eric Dexheimer) reads like every other article decrying the state of tennis in America: our heroes are past their prime or retired from the game; the sport still suffers from its lily-white image problem; and worst of all, tennis is plagued by an aging participant base with the complete inability to recruit and develop new players.
Gee, didn’t I read this article in Sports Illustrated about a decade ago? Let’s see – pro game boring, no new players, minority participation lagging, yada yada, yada.
Yep. Same story – different masthead.
But Dexheimer didn’t just rehash the age-old arguments, he decided it would be fun to poke fun at tennis’ old guard, the ones that remember tennis’ heyday some 20 years ago. According to Dexheimer, players over the age of 50 are “…a doddering gang of lobbers and dinkers.”
Clearly, he has never watched the USA League Tennis Adult Division District Championships, where a handful of doddering old farts capture state titles year after year in the 4.5 division. By the way, Dexheimer profiled a handful of them a few years ago in Westword, but back then, they weren’t “doddering,” they were “crafty.”
Dexheimer did turn a clever phrase or two in the article, like his quip that Denver Tennis Club players who fall outside the 20-40 age range are “…more worried about avoiding strokes than practicing them.”
Wait, didn’t Westword just name the DTC “Best Tennis Club 2004” in their annual “Best of Denver” issue? I’d hate to be on their Worst of Denver list!
Oh well, bad publicity is still publicity, right? Particularly in a pub like Westword!
Now I’m the first to admit that I frequently turn to Westword when I am looking for an alternative viewpoint, which is what the weekly prides itself as providing. But “alternative” doesn’t always have to mean “negative”, especially when that story has been told already.
I was kind of hoping that Dexheimer’s story would reflect some of the cool things going on here in Colorado. When he first called me a few weeks ago and asked me to comment on the hopeless state of tennis in Colorado, citing lagging ball sales and a general decline in tennis participation, I should have known that the story was already written, even if the first words had yet to be committed to paper. But that’s journalism today. Never let a positive story get in the way of a good ol’ fashioned lampoon.
The problem with the Westword article is not that Dexheimer got all his facts wrong. He just told the wrong story.
Dexheimer could have written an article about how Net Results Junior Tennis Foundation is using tennis as an incentive to help students here in Denver achieve academic and personal success.
He could have included information about how the USA School Tennis Program introduced tennis to close to 75,000 Colorado kids last year alone as a part of their schools’ PE programs.
He might have mentioned that high school tennis participation in Colorado is at an all-time high, with close to 7,500 participants statewide, a 70% jump in the last decade.
But it was far easier to complain about the insipidness of the pro game and to lament the technology that allows a player to hit 140 mph serves. Dexheimer complains that, “Never has the gap between the game played by the pros and that played by the club player been greater.”
Any cyclists out there who think that their 45-minute spin class just narrowed the gap between them and Lance Armstrong?
Just so I’m clear, what does the pro game really have to do with recreational participation? I mean, I love to watch tennis, and I certainly like to daydream of a matchup between me and Andre in the US Open finals, but I have never actually thought I would have much of a shot on the pro tour.
Tennis is one of the few sports that people can play outside of their youth. Need proof? The USTA National 90s Championships were recently captured by a 92-year-old dinker. His opponent was 95. Doddering? Sure, but who cares? How many sports can boast a Super Senior division, much less offering a National Championship for players just shy of the centenary mark?
There are a lot of issues that face the USTA today, and will continue to face in the future. The recent survey results indicating that close to six million people played tennis for the first time in 2003 are tempered by the fact that nearly as many quit because they found the game too challenging to learn.
What does Dexheimer’s blathering about a dying game and our ineffective ways to bolster participation ultimately mean for tennis players? Not a whole lot, when you really think about it. Tennis may never recapture the magic of its heyday. We may never again have to wait for two hours until a public court frees up, and we may never again see the kind of rivalries that Borg-McEnroe-Connors gave us in the 70s and 80s. Our sport encompasses the past, but it is not defined by it, and it really shouldn’t be measured by it.
Tennis is opportunity, camaraderie, sportsmanship, competition, coordination, social interaction, personal responsibility, persistence, self-esteem, appreciation, fitness and mental wellbeing.
And more Coloradans are reaping these benefits today than ever before. That’s the real story.
So to Eric Dexheimer and Westword, I say thanks. Thanks for sharing our sport with so many of your readers, even if you didn’t quite get it right.
And thanks for giving me a topic to write about, I was kind of stuck for a while.