The race, gender, and socioeconomic background of tennis as a "rich, white person's sport"

As I develop my focused knowledge more and more, I decide that the best way to do this is to break it down into race, gender, and socioeconomic stereotypes differently; and then connect them as a whole in the end to gather my final thoughts on this topic.
Let’s address the rumor that tennis is a “rich, white man sport”.
I'm not sure if this is historical or the fact that there still are some country clubs out there that hold on to dated traditions, such as wearing all-white attire. But this isn’t true for all tennis players I can tell you that.

As far as the race issue in tennis goes, I thought that it would be easiest to look up more percentages first to get a rough idea of what I'm dealing with. I looked at percentages of white professional tennis players on the circuit today and also from years past.
With the ATA (American Tennis Association) being the oldest standing African American sports organization in the United States, it's important to see how tennis is a sport that stays true to the character of professional black athletes. Some of their rules regarding race include:
 • To bring black tennis enthusiasts and players into close and friendly relations,
• To hold an annual national championship tournament,
• To appoint referees and officials for each event with no discrimination, and
• To promote the standard of the game among black players.

From these rules being set in place in the beginning, it is easy to see how tennis has come to be one of the most friendly and welcoming sports to African American athletes. Those such as Gibson, Ashe, and the Williams sisters also set the stage to knock down any racial barriers that did exist after this association was put into place. Yet, it is easy to notice that it is still predominantly white players on the circuit. The statistics[1] show that only 4% of the Top 100 tennis players in the world are not white. When comparing this to other sports, it is easy to see that it is not yet diversified that much espciellay compared to basketball and football. You also see that as time goes on, many foreign players start to pick up on the sport as well, and many countries show up on the pro circuit wanting to show their talents regardless of what their skin color is as time goes on. As noted earlier, tennis is associated with snobby upper class people, but the fact that it's played by folks of several different levels of income and races deletes that.
When talking about gender as far as tennis goes, a slightly different approach is taken. When tennis was just starting on the professional circuit, it was heavily dominated by males at the time. For instance, when the ATA held their first championship tournament, there were was women's singles, but not women;'s doubles offrered like there was for the men. The notion that tennis is a “white” sport has long passed. This change goes back over 60 years, to when Althea Gibson became the first black athlete, male or female, to play an international tennis match. In six years, Gibson had become the first person of color to win a major tournament (the French Open) and added two Wimbledon and two U.S. titles by 1958. The onyl issue that comes into play regarding race is that the major tournament Wimbledon, where the players aer required to wear all white, not any other color. Regardless of this one small rule, it can be said that tennis is starting to be one of the sports that is even with the amount of African American and white American pro athletes, which is good to see.

The socioeconomic side of this sport takes a completely different turn although.  The environment plays a huge factor into how tennis is seen as a "snobby" sport or not. There is a possibility for someone of lower class to be in the professional circuit, but the odds are a lot smaller because they would be relying on their own skill and determination, deprived of the luxuries in their environment that the wealthier can have right at their fingertips.

Today, though, it still has that reputation. I think tennis appeals to a lot of people in my opinion, and a lot try to play it. The sport is actually much more difficult than it looks and it generally isn't associated much with athletes so much as it is with intellects because, let's be honest, you have to be smart in order to play the sport well. It is a very mental game that requires lots of tactical skills. It's a technical sport which means that because the motions aren't really natural for the body, it takes a lot of skill and practice to do well.
As for the "snobby" part, I don't see the reasoning behind to as to have access to public court for free is a bad thing. I learned this concept tennis through my high school team (and we also practiced on the city courts) and met a lot of different kinds of players from all kinds of backgrounds. It is a more expensive sport to play, but it doesn't have to be. Court access can be free and balls aren't that expensive. Any kind of sports clothes will do and racquets can be as cheap as $30 or less.  Of course, as you get better and play more important matches, the expenses do come. Also, it is a fact that those who are rich do take up tennis as a hobby for fun just because it is a fun, leisure thing to do, but doesn't mean they are necessarily "snobby". Also, this misconception is typically still an issue in the London area, where it originated, but it is a different story here in the United States.
Of course, I'm not going to deny that tennis does become an expensive sport if you want to go pro or play at a high level. However, to say that only rich people can enjoy tennis is ridiculous.  As time goes on, my general consensus to this question is even though tennis has always been considered a high class sport, more kids nowadays are starting to pick up racquets. Tennis is for anyone, everywhere. No matter who you are or where you come from, tennis welcomes you with open arms always! A sport is just a sport and you should be able to play it regardless of your circumstances. So generally I would say that tennis as a sport for the rich, white person is a huge misconception.
After much research, I would not call tennis a "rich" people sport but rather a high maintenance sport. 
This part is based generally off of my own personal opinion, but some of the info was taken from the given website at the bottom of this post. The reason that I used this as a credible source was because stats are given on every player in the pro circuit quite in depth so I know that I can trust it. In addition, this source was useful to me because it had recommendations and other links if I was looking to get other info, which is an important thing to give a researcher like myself. The purpose for this website I determined was to solely give you the current up to date stats on tennis players in the pro circuit. This unique part with this is that you can choose females or males to look at, and then you can also look at country to look at the race area as well. This was effective for my project because I wanted to know the stats of non-white players in the pro circuit to base my research off of and this website helped achieve that.


[1] http://www.tennis.com/stats/ATP/