Strange goings on across the Atlantic, where challenge racket sports are becoming increasingly audacious in parking their tanks on tennis’s lawn.
Sunday’s men’s singles final at the Miami Open had competition of an unlikely sort – John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Michael Chang and Andy Roddick playing a pickleball exhibition match at the same time.
Not only did these run concurrently, the rival event was held just 10 miles up the road in a resort bearing the same sponsor as the Open venue, Hard Rock.
The promoters were clearly unbothered about the clash, and the whole thing was televised on ESPN.
It was also notable, while in Miami, to hear the grapevine buzzing with a potential major development for another of the challenger sports, padel.
ESPN’s broadcast of a pickleball exhibition – which featured Andy Roddick (left) and Andre Agassi (right) – highlights the growing popularity of the format across the United States
Tennis has to get rid of its disdain for forms like pickleball and look at why they are so popular
According to some, industry giants Nike are planning to follow others in making a significant move into the game, which has already enjoyed widespread growth across Europe and South America.
Attracting such a powerful brand would be a boost, among other things, to padel’s hopes of gaining acceptance into the Olympics.
The earliest realistic date for that is probably 2032, and it would be massive. Nike declined to comment on the possibility.
On recent visits to the US you hear more and more about a sort of culture war developing between tennis and pickleball (for the uninitiated, a sort of mini-tennis with a harder ball and paddle that create an annoying clack).
In some places tennis players have become frustrated to the point of anger by courts being taken over by its short-form rival, with different painted lines appearing on existing facilities.
Sunday will only have revved up that conflict, though a $1million prize fund was evidently enough to salve any concerns among the four Grand Slam champions.
To this pair of eyes pickleball is a perfectly dreadful sport to watch, though its fast-rising numbers are testament that it is fun to play. As with padel, its big advantage over tennis is that it is extremely easy to pick up and an equaliser between talent levels. By the same token pickleball, in particular, has fewer dimensions and is less interesting for spectators.
Tennis would do well not to regard either with too lofty a disdain.
Sunday’s ‘Pickleball Slam’, complete with McEnroe’s compulsory amateur dramatics, was an example of the kind of innovative thinking which the more established sport too often lacks.
Padel is also growing in popularity and could eventually be recognised by the Olympic Games
The Miami Open was won by Daniil Medvedev but a bonafide US star would be a big help
And neither of these challengers are going anywhere, as further emphasised by other developments from the past fortnight.
This summer in New York’s Central Park, a large 14-court pickleball facility will open. Those behind it reckon demand will be high enough to charge an eye-watering £65 to £97 per hour.
There are also signs that padel, now gaining ground in the UK, is making a mark in the US. Last week the New York Yankees announced they were investing in the sport’s fledgling circuit to be rolled out across America. All these investments are not being made for altruistic reasons.
None of this is to say tennis is somehow on life support in the United States. A total of 15 women in the world’s top 100 and 14 in the men’s rankings suggests otherwise.
Yet how helpful it would be if one of them could emerge as an authentic superstar.
MIAMI OPEN FELT LIKE F1’S UNDERCARD
The Miami Open is over, and with it the initial hard-court segment of the season.
The main draw tournament went on for the same length of time as the Twelve Days of Christmas, and Cam Norrie played his opening match four-and-a-half days after the women’s first round started.
The good news is there was some high-class tennis. Jannik Sinner’s win over Carlos Alcaraz in the semi-finals was acclaimed as being among the matches of the year to date, a reminder that this has the potential to be a rivalry that will take the sport forward in the long term. That result notwithstanding, the Italian is further away from being the finished article.
The women’s final saw two Wimbledon champions slugging it out and featured a memorable tiebreak. Petra Kvitova showed she is far from a spent force, while Elena Rybakina is clearly a player of the highest calibre.
Yet as a visitor it was hard to ignore Miami’s shortcomings as what is meant to be one of the biggest events in the sport outside the Grand Slams.
Nostalgia is not what it used to be, and you had to fight the urge to think back to when the tournament was held on the other side of the city on Key Biscayne. It had significant logistical challenges there, but there was a certain magic and soul.
It was hard to feel a sense of excitement during the Miami Open with up-and-down crowds
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Bold plans to revolutionise the circuit for F1 has seen lots of construction take centre stage
The contrasting new venue since 2019, the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium out in a distant suburb, is hardly without its challenges either.
It had the feeling of a massive building site, due to the fact that the vast paraphernalia around next month’s Formula One Grand Prix, being staged all around it, has long been under construction. There was almost the sense a tennis tournament was incidentally happening, amid the preparations for something bigger.
Few places have as strong a tennis culture as south Florida yet it was rarely easy to discern much of a buzz.
The stadium court within the main NFL arena was never full and often lacked atmosphere. Another issue is the shadow from the Hard Rock roof, which gradually spreads over the court in the early afternoon.
With so many sessions thinly spread over 12 days it is hard to create a big-event feel. And the sight of acres of empty seats is a poor look for the sport.
A more profound question for tennis is how, in Miami of all places, did one of its flagship events come to feel like the hors d’oeuvre to a Formula One race?
POSTCARD FROM A LIFE ON TOUR
Coinciding with the Miami Open is Ultra, one of the world’s biggest electronic dance music festivals, which sees tens of thousands flock to the downtown area in eye-popping costumes.
My accommodation turned out to be only a few hundred yards from the huge outdoor venue, and certainly close enough for the windows to rattle from the booming base pumped out from midday to midnight.
Among the star DJs performing was the UK’s Dimension, who happens to be the very talented son of a longstanding friend and colleague. And thereby an invitation arrived to attend a late-night Festival performance and after-party, stepping into a warehouse and what is something of an alien world.
It was fun and an education, and the accompanying ringing in the ears was worth it for the reminders of an increasingly distant misspent youth.
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