And I still disagree with you. (And I also never wrote that tennis is as popular as ever with American athletes; check the Australian Open thread.) To convince me you'll have to cite statistics that show that tennis is vastly more popular in Russia and other European countries than it is in the U.S. I don't believe that to be the case. Tennis remains a popular sport here, not as popular as it was in the heyday of Connors, McEnroe, Borg and Evert, but still a niche sport which millions of Americans play, including those with pro aspirations. The existence of the Tennis Network, and the coverage that major tennis tournaments continue to receive, testifies that tennis has lots of fans.
Secondly, even if on average tennis is more popular in European countries, our population, i.e., potential pool of athletes, is far higher than all of them except Russia. Again, it would have to be wildly more popular to account for the discrepancy, and even then only if popularity alone equates to topnotch pros with no other factors involved.
I'm not sure what you mean by "American athletes rarely go into tennis." What are the numbers now as compared to 20 years ago? And even if the numbers are smaller, does that alone account for the fact that virtually none of them are becoming successful? Are there a substantially higher number of Spaniards and Serbs "going into tennis" than Americans?
What sports are white Americans pursuing and having dominant international success in these days? Other than swimming. . . It seems to me the decline of the white American tennis player is part of a pattern, namely a decline of the white American athlete in most sports these days, which is part of the greater agenda of beating whites down psychologically to accept second class status and marginalization in U.S. society.Edited by: Don Wassall