{"id":162633,"date":"2025-08-21T02:12:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T02:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/162633\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T02:12:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T02:12:18","slug":"pat-cash-says-what-he-hates-to-admit-about-the-current-state-of-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/162633\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Cash says what he \u2018hates\u2019 to admit about the current state of tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Professional tennis is in flux across the ATP and WTA Tours.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both tours have undergone transitions in the past few years, with the ATP Tour moving on from the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal to Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> and Jannik Sinner.<\/p>\n

The WTA has transitioned from household names like Serena Williams to a new era dominated by Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff<\/a> and Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\n

There are various current affairs in tennis that have warranted regular discussion in recent times, including the ongoing scheduling debate<\/a> and questions surrounding the validity of this year\u2019s US Open Mixed Doubles event<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"JessicaPhoto by Selcuk Acar\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Pat Cash, the 1987 Wimbledon Men\u2019s Singles champion, regularly vocalises his opinion on the players, coaches and personalities concerned with tennis.<\/p>\n

Cash, who was known for his serve-and-volley game style during his playing days, recently expressed his concern for tennis in its current form.<\/p>\n

Pat Cash says the tennis product \u2018is not as good as it was\u2019<\/p>\n

Cash, recognised on-court by his iconic black-and-white chequered headband, was speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live about the current state of tennis.<\/p>\n

The Australian legend admitted tennis will \u2018never\u2019 be able to compete with some other sports, arguing that festivals, such as the one currently being held at the US Open, are a \u2018great idea\u2019 for the sport.<\/p>\n

Cash said: \u201cIt\u2019s [tennis] never going to be able to compete with football or NFL or basketball or Aussie Rules Football in Australia. It\u2019s just got no chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what it can do is create, for the whole year. Because they [other sports] have a whole season, or six to nine months of constant media attention towards, you know, who\u2019s playing well, who\u2019s kicked a goal, who\u2019s throwing the baskets.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in tennis, you can\u2019t do that, so having these festivals, yeah I think it\u2019s a great idea. I think it\u2019s the best way, and obviously the WTA and the ATP are trying to make it a 12-month thing, that they [fans] can follow their favourite player and whatever.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s only a good thing for tennis, because I think if you really drill down, to what we have, to what we\u2019re watching right now: we\u2019re watching two players, two men, and we\u2019re maybe watching maybe a couple or two or three women.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s about it, and it\u2019s not necessarily healthy like it was, where we had Andy Murray and the whole\u2026 everybody. There were a bunch of players all over the place and the generation before that with the Williams sisters and everything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was big. That was big. And we don\u2019t have that at the moment. So the product, I hate to say it, but it\u2019s not as good as it was. But we can create brands out of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The WTA Tour\u2019s 1.1 billion audience in 2024<\/p>\n

The WTA\u2019s 2024 viewing figures present an opportunity to offer an opposing argument to Cash\u2019s.<\/p>\n

In February 2025, the WTA revealed its global audience figures from 2024. As per their report<\/a>, \u2018the WTA\u2019s cumulative global audience rose by 10 per cent last year to reach a record 1.1 billion on broadcast and streaming platforms worldwide.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"ArynaPhoto by Hannah Peters\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Furthermore, ESPN<\/a> reported that the Wimbledon Men\u2019s Singles final averaged 2.9 million viewers: the most since the 2019 Wimbledon Final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer. ESPN\u2019s average viewership for the women\u2019s semi-finals was their highest since 2015, when Serena Williams was in the Wimbledon semi-finals.<\/p>\n

The BBC<\/a> also reported a record Wimbledon viewership of 69.3 million digital video views across the two-week competition.<\/p>\n

While Cash\u2019s comments may hold weight in terms of trying to expand the amount of marketable players across the ATP and WTA Tours, it seems the sport is in safe hands with the current crop of elite players.<\/p>\n

Tennis may not need a wide range of marketable players, as the current exclusive list of stars seem to be attracting record-setting audiences. There can be no doubt that this audience will grow in the next few years, due to the young ages of the sport\u2019s elite players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professional tennis is in flux across the ATP and WTA Tours. Both tours have undergone transitions in the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":162634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[4412,35118,62,1464,67,132,68,48336],"class_list":{"0":"post-162633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp-tennis-players","9":"tag-pat-cash","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-wta-tennis-players"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115064336872504204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}