Richard Branson is worried about the future of tennis and has an idea to fix it.

Richard Branson is a tennis player and is worried about the future of the sport.  His take is that there aren’t enough people playing at the “grassroots” level and he blames it on the fact that Tennis hasn’t followed Golf in adopting a handicap system that allows people of all levels play against each other.  His solution is interesting.  Check it out here.

In my opinion, his system sounds kind of fun, but I’m not sure it will solve his issue.  Based on what I’ve seen in Denver and previously in Texas, there is not shortage of opportunities to find your level of competition if you play within the USTA NTRP framework.  The problem is that not all cities offer this.  My hometown of St. Louis falls in this category.  They offer USTA NTRP leagues, but very few tournaments.

The other issue is that kids aren’t playing tennis and therefore aren’t playing as adults.  It’s expensive and the equipment isn’t always accessible.

I applaud Branson for contributing to the solution and I’m sure it makes his games against Novak more enjoyable, but Tennis needs more than a handicap system.