Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?

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TigaSefi
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by TigaSefi » Tue Jun 18, 2013 1:53 pm

Tennis was tediously dull with a gooseberry fool partner

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Mr Chips
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Mr Chips » Tue Jun 18, 2013 2:34 pm

Yes there are extortionate rates out there. £15 p/hour at my local indoor. £75 p/month at our virgin active. For most in many places its is simply not viable.

Luckily there is a place in another town that only charged £6 p/hour and does not charge for second and third hour if its not busy.

However, there are exceptions. Places like Bristol have it much better due to there huge selection of courts including Canford park which offers 8 decent hard courts for free.

More free tennis courts is one answer but well run leagues is another. Finding people to play against is the thing for me, I am currently part of a localtennisleague.com and playing singles matches against many other adults who have a knack for it but have not had any or many lessons. The standard is ideal, the competitive edge makes it more fun and addictive and I have never found as well a run league as this. Pay a bit of money, they give you the names, numbers and a recommended court to play on and then you sort the matches out between yourselves. If you get three matches played before the halfway point they give you a free can of tennis balls which gets people playing them. I have found its by far my favourite sport to play. I keep loosing to people 15 years older than me but I can't describe how addictive and fun I find the sport to play.

But it would be better if it was even more accessible allowing more people to play. Once you have plucked up the courage to actually try and find some people to play against and maybe joined a league like me a big problem is cost, for a proper game of tennis you also need decent balls and they only typically last one, maybe two matches. I spend much more on tennis balls than court time.

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Fatal Exception
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Fatal Exception » Tue Jun 18, 2013 4:35 pm

Mr Chips wrote:Yes there are extortionate rates out there. £15 p/hour at my local indoor. £75 p/month at our virgin active. For most in many places its is simply not viable.

Luckily there is a place in another town that only charged £6 p/hour and does not charge for second and third hour if its not busy.

However, there are exceptions. Places like Bristol have it much better due to there huge selection of courts including Canford park which offers 8 decent hard courts for free.

More free tennis courts is one answer but well run leagues is another. Finding people to play against is the thing for me, I am currently part of a localtennisleague.com and playing singles matches against many other adults who have a knack for it but have not had any or many lessons. The standard is ideal, the competitive edge makes it more fun and addictive and I have never found as well a run league as this. Pay a bit of money, they give you the names, numbers and a recommended court to play on and then you sort the matches out between yourselves. If you get three matches played before the halfway point they give you a free can of tennis balls which gets people playing them. I have found its by far my favourite sport to play. I keep loosing to people 15 years older than me but I can't describe how addictive and fun I find the sport to play.

But it would be better if it was even more accessible allowing more people to play. Once you have plucked up the courage to actually try and find some people to play against and maybe joined a league like me a big problem is cost, for a proper game of tennis you also need decent balls and they only typically last one, maybe two matches. I spend much more on tennis balls than court time.


yeah, Women's tennis is gooseberry fool.

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smurphy
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by smurphy » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:04 pm

Xeno wrote:due to it being uber dull (now to wait for Cutty, Kil and Smurphy to tell me I'm wrong).


:lol: I think I've mentioned tennis on here once in the last year.

Thought you are 100% wrong, tennis is awesome. There's gooseberry fool loads of courts round here, though a lot of them I have no idea how you get access to.

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by KK » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:10 pm

Your Mum has to be on the "committee".

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Fatal Exception
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Fatal Exception » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:12 pm

Your mum's on my committee.

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Xeno
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Xeno » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:17 pm

smurphy wrote:
Xeno wrote:due to it being uber dull (now to wait for Cutty, Kil and Smurphy to tell me I'm wrong).


:lol: I think I've mentioned tennis on here once in the last year.

Thought you are 100% wrong, tennis is awesome. There's gooseberry fool loads of courts round here, though a lot of them I have no idea how you get access to.


We were talking about Tennis in mumble a couple of days back which reminded me that you liked it.

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Irene Demova » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:23 pm

Slartibartfast wrote:The institutions and many clubs are elitist, but the sport itself (accessibility to facilities, how widespread it is (facking everywhere) and so on) is not.

This is true of many sports (but I do think Tennis appears to be a grave offender) progression through the system relies on committees, coaches and selectors and these roles are quite often taken by those biased in one way or another for the roles are often occupied by parents who favour their children and coaches and selectors on a regional level who favour their old clubs.
In short elitism is in every sport but the smaller and more expensive the sport is the more you find, tennis appears bad because of the small number of clubs and the difficulty of playing tennis in a normal school.
The only people I actually know who play tennis/are in a tennis club live in a wealthy part of London, so I feel the access to the sport is severely limited compared even to other individual sports

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Meep
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Meep » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:38 pm

Proper blokes play footie, innit.

Seriously, football is one of the dullest sports around and yet everyone goes nuts for it and ignores everything else. Tennis is not expensive to take up; there are some equipment costs but quite little.

I could argue that equestrian and rowing sports are elitist though. Maintaining a horse or a boat is expensive.

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by PaperMacheMario » Tue Jun 18, 2013 5:58 pm

Football's so dull that it's by a mile the most popular sport on the planet.

I don't think tennis is 'elitist' per se, but it does cost a lot of money if you want to keep progressing. I guess it's the same in a lot of sports, like golf, where you need to have lessons to improve. The lessons aren't cheap.

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Qikz » Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:02 pm

Football's so dull that it's by a mile the most popular sport on the planet.


The majority of people on the planet are idiots.

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That's not a growth
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by That's not a growth » Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:04 pm

StayDead wrote:
Football's so dull that it's by a mile the most popular sport on the planet.


The majority of people on the planet are idiots.


Wait, by definition wouldn't, at most, half the people on the planet be an idiot?

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by PaperMacheMario » Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:04 pm

StayDead wrote:
Football's so dull that it's by a mile the most popular sport on the planet.


The majority of people on the planet are idiots.

brb, just gonna go find a cartoon sexier than a real woman

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Qikz » Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:10 pm

PaperMacheMario wrote:
StayDead wrote:
Football's so dull that it's by a mile the most popular sport on the planet.


The majority of people on the planet are idiots.

brb, just gonna go find a cartoon sexier than a real woman


shouldn't take you long

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Kanbei
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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Kanbei » Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:18 pm

It's definitely not an elitist sport like Polo but more should be done to make it accessible to people. Membership fees for clubs are ridiculous and the state/price of public courts is insane.

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Preezy » Tue Jun 18, 2013 6:47 pm

I like watching tennis, but it is definitely an elitist sport. Try turning up at your local tennis club - see the looks of disgust you get from people there if you're new or a non-member. It's as if a peasant has entered the Royal Court :lol:

Horrible.

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by ~Earl Grey~ » Tue Jun 18, 2013 7:05 pm

I suppose it's like golf: it's kind of fun to watch on TV and the computer games of it are fun for half hour, but in real life it's just too much faffing about, too long-winded and too many posh wankers in gay-ass clothes....

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by That's not a growth » Tue Jun 18, 2013 7:34 pm

~Earl Grey~ wrote:gay-ass clothes....


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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Lagamorph » Tue Jun 18, 2013 7:36 pm

Tennis is just for peado's who want to watch underage kids running around and bending over to pick up balls.

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PostRe: Is tennis a niche and/or elitist sport?
by Shadow » Tue Jun 18, 2013 8:23 pm

Everywhere I've ever lived there have been free, council run, tennis courts where you could usually just turn up and play. You can get a racket and balls for about £15 so I wouldn't say it's elitist at all.

I think Skarj may be right about the schools not putting enough focus on it.

I think the weird thing about Tennis is that, for it to be enjoyable, you either have to not be playing to win - and just be trying to get a rally going - or you have to be playing with someone of a very similar skill level or it's just boring.

I'd say that squash and badminton don't suffer this issue as they're both "easier" games and a novice will still get points against a good player.


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