Tennis a sociological perspect

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's February 2008

download word file, 8 pages 5.0

Young people have to devote a large portion of their time to studies and/or part-time work. As a result, many of them do not have enough time to engage in leisure activities. Some people, somehow, manage to find some spare time to engage in a number of leisure activities in order to release the pressure from boring daily routine.

Although people may be able to find time to do sports, only a very small number are found on the tennis court. This is surprising for the reason that tennis is a popular sport in many countries. Despite its popularity, there are many perceivable barriers in terms of age, race and gender.

Because of the high speed and power of the game, tennis has a great demand on physical strength. Most people who engage in tennis are in their adolescence or early adulthood. While a number of seniors find it hard to keep up the pace and eventually change to other less rigorous activities such as: jogging, swimming, golfing and bowling.

10-times grand slam champion and former world No.1, Ivan Lendl, at the age of 38, admitted to the Tennis Magazine "I have increased my interest in Golf over the past few years as I feel that my physical strength is diminishing in a rapid fashion." The average age of a female player who is ranked in the top 100 is 21.91 while the average age of a male player who is ranked in the top 100 is 25.32. The trend of the average age of the tennis players is still decreasing. It is not surprising that all of my fellow tennis partners are in their early 20's. Most of them are college students who manage to spend some time on the tennis court.

Race seems to be a factor in...