Tennis and the Tiger Woods Factor

In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, golf tournaments that did not involve world number one, Tiger Woods, suffered lower attendance, lower television ratings and less media attention. The other players on the PGA Tour appeared to play at a level a cut below Woods and thus were viewed as lesser players. Are we seeing a similar phenomenon in tennis with tournaments that don’t have Roger Federer and/or Rafael Nadal participating?

If we use the ATP Master Series event in Hamburg, Germany as a barometer, then the answer to that question has to be “yes”. The world’s number one and two players were slated to play in Hamburg, but both withdrew due to exhaustion and fatigue following their five-hour epic final in Rome. The problems with scheduling two Master Series events back-to-back have been well documented, so we won’t re-hash them here, but the point is that there’s a let-down in anticipation for this event without Federer and Nadal. The promotional posters for the tournament featured the top two players (and only them) so that tells you how important the event organizers believed that these men were to the success of the event.

Federer and Nadal have separated themselves from the rest of the tour in terms of class, and by comparison, the rest of the tour appears to be a seriously flawed group of individuals that fail to inspire the same excitement among fans that the top two do. Hardcore tennis fans may disagree with the premise, but even they would have to admit that tomorrow’s Hamburg final between Tommy Robredo and Radek Stepanek isn’t in the same league as a match involving either Federer or Nadal in terms of quality and drama.

So while the Federer-Nadal-less events may suffer some, there will be a boon to events in which one or both of these men play. Even the mainstream sports media in the United States briefly woke from its tennis slumber to discuss the dramatic final in Italy. Their next event should draw more attention in the US as ESPN2 has extensive coverage planned for Roland Garros. The network would be wise to promote these two men in the run-up to the French rather than the usual fascination with American players only. With Lindsay Davenport and Serena Williams skipping the event, and the absence of any Amercian male with a chance to win, ESPN may be left with no choice but to hype Roger and Rafa.

Although the rise of Tiger Woods created some resentment among his fellow PGA Tour members (at first), one of the by-products was an incredible surge in interest in the sport in America. As more attention begins to be paid to Federer and Nadal, let’s hope that tennis can experience the same rise in popularity and interest throughout the world that golf did in the United States.