McENROE’S CONTRIBUTION TO US TENNIS
The American brigade has been quite dominant in the tennis circuit up until the past few years. John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi to name a few lifted the hopes of the American people in the past few decades. However since then, there seems to be a lull, no American tennis player has made a long lasting mark on the current tennis circuit. Thus, in order to make American tennis rise from the ashes and attain the position it once had, former American great John McEnroe invested eighteen million dollars to open a tennis facility that houses twenty tennis courts in Randall Islands, New York. The purpose of this facility is to provide a platform to people who are interesting in taking the sport to a professional level.
John McEnroe was very patriotic and passionate about tennis during his career, always enlisting himself in the Davis Cup ties to represent the United States of America. Even though he has been out of the game for a while now his passion has definitely not died down. It is his drive that has led him to make such a huge contribution to the game of tennis in the United States. It was not just McEnroe’s patriotism that has led him to take such a step, but it is the inaction of United States Tennis Association that frustrated him even further. McEnroe strongly believed that the governing body of tennis in the United States was not doing anything to bring the US back on the map of high quality tennis. It is true that Serena and Venus Williams have been the saving grace of the US but in the men’s circuit there has been no player that has shown consistency. There was hope in the form of Andy Roddick and James Blake but somehow that success factor did not last long. These days the new hope on the horizon is Sam Querry who won the title at Queens, but much more needs to be done to inspire the next generation of Americans to take to the court.
This is what McEnroe’s objective is; to give the next generation Americans an opportunity to hone their skills and go on to represent their nation at the international level. It is a known fact that the USTA has the financial resources to open such a facility of their own, it has been said that the USTA has an annual operating budget of 200 million dollars. It is thus surprising that they are not directing the funds for the benefit of American tennis. It has been said that internal politics have marred the working of the USTA and an American newspaper printed an article in 2009 claiming that the USTA paid its then chief executive a total of nine million dollars in 2008. Therefore that leaves very little money to be spent on player development. Thus many youngsters have to miss out due to lack of funds beings directed towards the development of young talent.
What is ironic is that John McEnroe’s brother, Patrick, who himself is a former tennis player, is the General Manager for player development in the USTA. Instead of one brother doing the job on behalf of the USTA, the other brother has taken charge to develop players out of the love for the game and his country. What would be favourable for the USTA would be to become partners with McEnroe in this project, but McEnroe feels that it is highly improbable that the USTA will extend its hand.
John McEnroe made his country proud by winning seven grand slam titles and leading his team proudly during countless Davis Cup ties as well. He was the person who can be credited for reviving interest in Davis Cup matches as well, and now he has taken another bold initiative to revive tennis in America. McEnroe is best known for his tennis outburst “You cannot be serious”, but this time it looks as if he is very serious in bringing pride back to American tennis.
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