My son plays tennis. What prompted this question is now approximately 60% of DI rosters are international students.
A growing concern in the tennis community is American players being squeezed out. Furthermore, a lot of these kids are older and have been playing professionally for years. SEC freshman of the year is Timo Legout, a 23 year old Frenchman who has been training and playing full-time for years. He was ranked as high as 400 in the world.
He is just an example of what's happening on tennis rosters. International players who wash out professionally get recruited to play in college. American players lose a year of college eligibility 6 months after high school graduation and so on year after year, so those opportunities are impossible for Americans.
The tennis community feels this flys under the radar because it's just tennis. I sort of agree but all sports are adding more internationals. What would we say if for instance the baseball team was made up of 60% 20 something year old Dominicans who are playing minor league baseball? Or if we could recruit 25 year old Canadian football players to our roster?
A growing concern in the tennis community is American players being squeezed out. Furthermore, a lot of these kids are older and have been playing professionally for years. SEC freshman of the year is Timo Legout, a 23 year old Frenchman who has been training and playing full-time for years. He was ranked as high as 400 in the world.
He is just an example of what's happening on tennis rosters. International players who wash out professionally get recruited to play in college. American players lose a year of college eligibility 6 months after high school graduation and so on year after year, so those opportunities are impossible for Americans.
The tennis community feels this flys under the radar because it's just tennis. I sort of agree but all sports are adding more internationals. What would we say if for instance the baseball team was made up of 60% 20 something year old Dominicans who are playing minor league baseball? Or if we could recruit 25 year old Canadian football players to our roster?
