Show me the money
Like it or not, tennis is still a middle class sport, and the cost of playing (racket, balls, kit, court fees etc) along with the ‘exclusivity’ of many tennis clubs, is a barrier to wider participation. I played a fair bit of tennis as a kid but it was an ‘appointment sport’ - you had to book a court, well in advance, and you could only afford to play every so often. And new tennis balls were a tennis or christmas present. Where as we played football at every opportunity, before school (often with a tennis ball, as footballs were