All I can say is, about freaking time. Sure, tennis might not rate among the "big four" sports of baseball, football, basketball and hockey. In North America it also rates behind Nascar and golf (if Tiger Woods is playing). But why has it been more than a decade since the last licensed set of tennis cards. In that time tennis fans have been limited to things like the cards from Sports Illustrated for Kids. It doesn't make a lot of sense considering some of the players who have debuted in the same time period: the Williams sisters, Martina Hingis, Leyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick, etc.

Finally, NetPro has come out with a set that is simple, relatively cheap and chalk full of rookies. The set consists of 100 cards, including 10 shortprints (numbers 91 to 100) that are apparently found at an average of two per box. There's no inserts, no complex variations, just a bunch of beautifully photographed tennis cards. And did I mention rookies?

I broke three boxes of the stuff after deciding to go after the complete set, SPs and all. My first two boxes were similar in that they had just one double (both #86 Andre Agassi) and three SPs. I was happy. But my third box was a different story: 13 doubles and just two SPs. In all I got a full base set and was one card short of a second. In the SPs department, I had six different ad two duplicates. Unfortunately for me, one of the missing SPs I needed was that of Anna Kournikova. Although she's never won a tournament, Ms. Anna is by far the hottest card in the set (pun not intended). Still, I got the rest of the big ones including doubles of Serena Williams, which should make good trade bait.

I'm a big fan of the simplicity of this set as it's not bogged down with gimmicks other than the attainable SPs. The bios and stats on the card backs are short and to the point, giving career highlights and rankings.

2003 Netpro tennis is unlikely to catch on as a mainstream set, but for tennis fans the shear number of rookies and lack of competition should help sooth their card appetite.

Card Gallery

Base card - front