How Many Tennis Players In The World?
In the sports world, tennis takes a backseat to many different games. However, it’s still one of the most popular sports out there, with many different types of players picking up a racquet each year and giving it a try.
How many tennis players are there in the world? There are 87 million tennis players globally, according to the ITF. The majority of the players come from the US and China, making up almost 50% of all the players in the world.
These types of studies don’t happen frequently, so that number gets cited regularly. Too high? Too low? This is a closer look at the tennis world population.
Breaking Down the Study From the ITF
The detailed study done by the ITF gives a lot of factual statistics about the sport. With 87 million players worldwide, that means about 1.71% of the global population plays the game of tennis.
That might not sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but tennis is much more popular in certain pockets of the world. China and the United States by themselves combined for just under 50% of the global tennis population. It’s also extremely popular in Europe.
Tennis Players By Region:
- Asia: 38.3%
- North America: 27.3%
- Europe: 25.9%
- South America: 5.2%
- Oceania: 1.9%
- Africa: 0.7%
- Central America & Caribbean: 0.7%
Percentage of Population That Plays Tennis:
- North America: 6.46%
- Oceania: 5.54%
- Europe: 3.2%
- South America: 1.46%
- Asia: 0.96%
- Africa: 0.9%
- Central America & Caribbean: 0.45%
In the study, tennis seems more popular with men than women. Roughly 53% of the tennis population in their study were male, compared to 47% female.
One area where the statistics don’t match up is in North America, as 55% of players were female during the study. This is in contrast to South America, where just one out of every five tennis players is female.
How Many Professional Tennis Players Are There In The World?
Technically speaking, any player who has earned some type of money from playing tennis can be considered professional. At any given time, there are around 3500 to 4000 actual pro players on tour. This counts ATP and WTA players, as well as the lower pro levels.
- This means that 1 out of 21500 tennis players is playing professionally (or 0.0000465%)
At the junior level, the number swells to about 6000 or so players ranked and trying to move up to become professionals one day. The numbers clearly show that a good amount of players will never actually become professionals, but that’s part of the goal when starting now.
Of course, professional tennis players don’t necessarily make a huge amount of money. It’s commonly thought that to make a significant amount of money on tour, a player needs to be ranked inside the top 150 on the ATP or WTA tour. That means the majority of these professional players are barely making enough money to consider it a full-time job.
In a gray area for professional players are those who also teach the game. Being a teaching pro is different from a playing and touring pro, but they are both making money from the game. Some lower-level touring pros will coach on the side to help make ends meet.
Professionally Ranked Players By Region:
- Europe: 58.7%
- Asia: 14.9%
- North America: 11.7%
- South America: 7.6%
- Oceania: 3.4%
- Africa: 2.2%
- Central America & Caribbean: 1.4%
Why Is Tennis Not More Popular Worldwide?
For those looking at 87 million tennis players and wondering why it’s so low, why isn’t tennis more popular worldwide?
To put this into perspective, here’s how many players other sports have:
- Soccer: 250 Million
- Basketball: 450 Million
- Badminton: 220 Millon
- Baseball: 65 Million
There are a few major reasons why it’s never been a hugely popular sport. These are also what’s likely keeping it from ever getting to that level.
Team Sports Dominate
In most parts of the world, team sports are always more popular than individual sports. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, and cricket are just a few examples of this being the case.
Not only do they get more fans, but the odds of becoming professional are greater since there are multiple spots on each team.
Athletes early on notice this, and gravitate towards team games. It’s easier to get involved in a team, and many don’t love the pressure of participating in individual sports.
Cost of Entry
Tennis isn’t the most expensive sport in the world, but it certainly isn’t cheap. It takes a lot of training and a lot of money for a tennis player to get to the professional level. Some parts of the world just don’t have those resources to make it happen.
The only way to become a professional tennis player is to either come from a lot of money, or get a ton of support financially from some source. If a player shows early talent, they might be able to latch onto a coach or even a company to help them pay the bills.
Getting into a well-respected academy also makes a difference. With it being one of the most expensive sports for a child to get in, most parents are not exactly thrilled to jump in.
Weather
The weather plays a huge role in sports participation. While tennis is hardly the only sport played predominantly outdoors, it’s a sport that pretty much has to stop as soon as there is any type of precipitation coming down.
The lone exception is clay courts, which can take a little bit of water before having to call it quits. You can read more about this here.
Tennis courts exist indoors, but this adds even more money to an already expensive sport. Kids growing up might view tennis as simply a seasonal sport when the weather is nice outside. To become a professional, it takes more than just a casual interest in playing.
More Choices
There are just more choices available than ever before when it comes to sports. While players can make a ton of money if they are at the top of tennis, only about the top 150 players on the ATP in WTA tour are making huge amounts of money. If a player is one of the top 150 in another sport, they have quite a few more opportunities to make money.
The skillset needed to play tennis at a high-level overlap with quite a few other sports. There are aspects of baseball in the pitching motion, movement like in basketball, and speed like in several sports.
The great athletes might gravitate towards a safer bet instead of specializing in the individual sport that has low odds of working out.
Has Tennis Popularity Peaked?
The harsh reality is that many people believe that tennis has peaked as a sport. Not only is there a lot of competition from the typical players, but even recreational players have more options than ever.
Racquetball, squash, and table tennis are just a few racquet sports that rival tennis on the recreational level. Now, pickleball has grown into a casual option as well.
While there are plenty of people who play all the sports to some degree, others are only focusing on one. Pickleball is without question taking some players away from tennis, and tennis might not be able to ever make up for that loss.
Tennis will remain in the limelight for the foreseeable future, but it’s probably never going to be as popular as it was in the 1970s and 1980s.
Not only did the United States catch the tennis craze, but it experienced worldwide growth. The game is more global than ever because of that boom, but the sheer numbers are dwindling.
I wrote a more detailed article on this subject, you can read it here.
