– That is fun! And fun!

Arianna, Arianne, Jenny, Emil, Karl and Kai spend several hours a week at the Stavanger tennis club. And the gang contributed greatly to their sport becoming one of the fastest growing between 2016 and 2022.

Tennis is played only by the Norwegian Golf Association. This is shown by the latest figures from Norwegian Sports Confederation.

The number of members of the Norwegian Tennis Association increased by almost 50 percent during these years.

And there is little indication that the numbers are declining. Casper Ruud is world number nine, and before the summer was number two at the French Open.

– We see a clear Casper effect, says president Lars Gjerdåker of the Norwegian Tennis Association.

Golf is also one of the sports that has experienced great progress in recent years. And currently, only the Norwegian Football Association is bigger than the golf association.

There is no proven connection

The similarity between tennis and golf is that Norway has the two biggest profiles in these sports.

Viktor Hovland recently made a major contribution to Europe’s victory in the Ryder Cup golf tournament.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to see any connection between profiles in sports and why we choose sports the way we do, he argues researcher Marlene Folkestad Persson at Oslo Met.

– As far as I know, no one has definitively stated that sporting success itself permanently increases participation in the activity, he says Folkestad people.

He has researched sports and youth.

– But it is clear that some sports become very visible when someone achieves great success, he said.

However, some others don’t. Persson highlighted beach volleyball, where Christian Sørum and Anders Mol became world champions in 2022.

– So maybe it’s more about which sports get media attention and which don’t. Maybe you, as a journalist, would be better off answering that, he said.

He highlighted golf and tennis as sports where the potential of all groups and segments may not have been fully exploited.

– But if the women’s national handball team wins gold again, there will be no problem in terms of recruitment. They already have advantages, he said.

padel boom

At the same time, the Norwegian Tennis Association estimates that several hundred thousand Norwegians have tried the relatively new sport of padel tennis.

This sport is included in the tennis association and has around 3,000 members.

Around Norway, commercial padel tennis facilities have opened with low shoes in recent years.

– Padel is a great sport, which has an easier entry level than regular tennis. At the same time, starting padel is also easier, because you are always playing doubles, says Gjerdåker.

InterPadel is one of the largest commercial padel tennis players in Norway. They have several centers across the country, and are owned by Thor Hushovd and Bjørn Maaseide, among others.

InterPadel Bryne general manager, Tommy Myhre, said traffic had been very heavy since it opened in October last year.

– The draw is as big as anywhere else. We have had 3,000 registered customers since we opened. “But there were three other people who ordered, so we can’t measure for sure,” he said.

– But it’s almost full every day all winter. It really hurts.

– The affairs of very rich people

Tennis has long had a reputation as a rich man’s sport. This is no longer the case. Now almost “everyone” plays some form of tennis.

But many people who grew up in the 90s and 2000s probably associate tennis with the book and film “The Man Who Loved Yngve”. And the quote “Tennis? In the savior name of Jesus Christ. Tennis? Do you have AIDS or not?” from the character Helge Ombo.

– I think the outspoken and lying abuser, Helge Ombo, will have a bad day today, Tore Renberg told NRK.

The author of Renberg’s book still believes that the views of Helge Ombo’s character would be very similar today, even though tennis is now almost everyone’s property.

– He must think tennis is a rich man’s hobby.