the japanese foreign minister stepping up his efforts to help tokyo electric contain its water. verizon is buying out vodafone, hopes full control will make verizon more competitive against at&t and smaller rivals like sprint. 64-year-old diana nyad completed her swim from cuba to key west florida. consider this ask up next on al jazeera. >> russia standing firm against america's intervention plan against syria offering a tense backdrop to g-20 in st. petersburg. also, chemical investigation on syria to labs as pressure mount and time ticks away. the former chief inspector in iraq richard butler takes us inside a sairng gas probe. plus, facebook, is it making a lot is of us depressed? can seeing friends happy pictures somehow make people sad? and is winning the u.s. open closed to men from the u.s? no american man reached the fourth round for the first time ever this year. is it game, set and match against men's tennis in the u.s? hello i'm antonio mora and welcome to consider this. handing off the decision on intervening to syria to congress. >> all members of congress of both parties, i ask you to take this vote for our national security. i ask you to consider that some things are more important than partisan differences or the politics of the moment. >> the president is leaving one rancorous relationship in the government with another, with russian president vladimir putin. not on the table but likely to remain the main course. so who will make the next move in this delicate situation with syria? joining me to discuss the latest is hilary mann leverett, joins us from washington, d.c. and robert o'brien, former policy advisor for mitt romney and the u.n. thank you for joining us. this weekend in a speech russian prime minister described a catch 22 which seemed to prove how intractable the relationship is between the two countries. he describes that the u.s. why argues it has conclusive evidence that the assad regime was against the chemical weapons attack. then it's secret and lavrov's conclusion is that it has no evidence. robert that sounds like a gap impossible to bridge. >> it's a gap that can be bridged. lavrov is very crafty diplomat. he's been at it for years. they're right in the center of the big game they haven't been in the center of a diplomatic situation like this for many years probably since the fall of the sof yet union so they're going to milk this for whatever it's worth. the russians know that assad used chemical weapons on its own people but they are looking at this as an international geopolitical opportunity to push the u.s. around and to get back in the game. this is where this is coming from and i don't know that anyone disputes that assad is a bad guy and that he's used chemical weapons. the russians are smart enough to know that. >> hilary, the last time we saw obama and putin together, they were at the g-8. the relation was getting worse and worse they hit a wall then, then edward snowden came on the scene. he cancelled the meeting that would have taken place this week before the summit. back then, the cancellation was criticized by some but supported by others. in retrospect was it a mistake for president obama to cancel that meeting with putin? >> well, if president obama wants to have any diplomatic strategy of any serious import whatsoever it was a serious strategic blunder. you can't have serious diplomacy, russian is a critically -- russia is a critically important country. i think it's critically important here, sergei lavrov is a professional diplomat. he knows what he's saying, there's no record of him lying or cheating or doing anything else that may be implied here. what the russians have done and this is critically important and doesn't get out, the last alleged chemical weapons attack in syria in march, the russians had their people on the ground. we don't. they did an 88 page report that their ambassador gave to the united nations, one was that the rockets that delivered the chemicals then were home made. they weren't military or industrial. and the same thing about the serin. it wasn't military or industrial. it didn't have stabilizers in it. who did that and why? these are critically important questions. these are questions that people in the united states have, people around the world have. putin is a very serious contender, lavrov is a serious contender and i'm afraid the obama administration has really underestimated it at america's peril. >> robert, is there any chance at the d-20 later this week that there will be any progress on syria? putin has signaled through his aides, that there is an opportunity because all five permanent members of the security council will be there. what do you think? >> i agree with hilary, there has been an underestimation of our adversaries and haven't paid attention to our allies. it's very hard work to build a coalition to take on a situation like syria or iraq or afghanistan. it requires paying attention oour allies so you have a situation now where the united kingdom, canada, have both said they will not be involved in a military strike against syria. that hands the russians, the chinese, the real cards and lavrov and putin will know how to can exploit this. they will use this time in st. petersburg, and he's got to go to an away-game very weakened position, and this is something that we brought on ourselves because we didn't do the legwork and lay the groundwork for a strike. i mean the fact that anyone's surprise they'd assad used chemical weapons on his own people, that's a little shocking that we didn't have a response prepared early on and the groundwork laid early on and we're going to pay for that now. >> what hilary said earlier, after president obama's press conference calling on a congressional vote as to whether to attack syria or not, and reiterating that the assad regime needs to be punished. >> common sense speaks for itself. the syrian forces are advancing, in some areas they have circled the rebilities. military -- rebels. military intervention makes no sense. especially in the visit of u.n. inspectors. >> hilary what do you think about what putin is saying? >> i was just in the region in july. there are tremendous doubts. 88 page report from the last alleged chemical weapons attack in march. the part of the syrian organization that has been sedatinged a terrorist organization. they found them with home made serin gas. the iranians nine months ago, their foreign minister has come out publicly that said nine months ago they sent a memo through the swiss protecting agency to the united states saying they had picked up credible information that home made serin gas was being smuggled to extremists inside syria and there would be a massive attack. is this evidence credible i don't know. is the russian report credible i don't know. but they have a lot more facts than what john kerry has put out there. when you lead up to the iraq in 2002 and frankly there is a joke. colin powell had much more intelligence to put out there, it was wrong in the end but he had a much more sturdy case than what is being presented today. >> we'll go into this more with intor richard butler. russia's calling for president obama'presidentobama's nobel pee are rejekded. listen to this. >> the u.n. cannot galvanize the world to act as it should. >> you were on the romney campaign, he said that russia was our number one geopolitical foe, he got some flak about that. what needs to be done in order to try to have them not be our number one geopolitical foe? >> the governor was right then and he's right now, the russians have acted on the side of every bad actor. president obama promised putin flexibility after the election. he tried oreset relations with russia. we haven't gotten anywhere whether it's on a nuclear proliferation or nuclear arms reduction proposal with iran's nuclear program, with syria, and it is ironic. i don't find myself agreeing with senator kerry or secretary kerry all that often. but it is ironic that iran has killed all these people and he mowed down nonviolent protestors and we sent our ambassador to reach out to our foes because president obama wanted to negotiate with our foes and we didn't do anything, when there were peaceful protestors and just like we didn't do anything in the green resolution. now russia has blocked every green resolution, as secretary kerry points out. they're suddenly taking the lead and being on the rights of peace and justice and human rights. it's ironic. >> a blast from the past on decision to take it to congress, former president mikhail gorbachev. >> now they are criticizing the president of the united states for not being decisive. if he's not decisive enough on shooting and bombing i think it's a good kind of decisiveness. >> being aplaysingly, the pew poll shows that 25% only support the president's action he,. >> it plays well for him but there's a critically important problem here is that the united states manufactured evidence to invade iraq over ten years ago. and today we're set yet again to attack yet another country in the middle east on very, very questionable evidence. so of course there's an opening for russia to jump in and to rub our face in it. of course there is, why wouldn't they do that? any power of any minimal self respect would do so, evil for doing it doesn't make sense. countries don't have permanent allies and permanent foes. they have permanent interests. we should pursue them as permanently and doggedly as putin is pursuing them from russia. >> bottom line is there no way that russia can afford to lose their only strong ally in that area? >> you're absolutely right. this is an important point. this is an historic ally. russia's only naval base outside of russia is at tardis in syria. russia is a consumer, the eastern orthodox church is close to the russian orthodox are church, so there are all kinds of interests tying russia and syria together. in addition to just having an opportunity to you know rub our noses in a bad situation. so the russians are going to support assad, they're going to support their ally and that's -- we've just got to be prepared for that and take it as it is. >> and in this show that's ongoing that has such serious consequences, the russians are talking about sending some of their legislators over here to talk to american congressmen and congresswomen. but who knows what will come of that? hilary robert really appreciate you being with us tonight and hope you'll be back to discuss this very serious topic to come. wanchts had does evidence of such an attack look like? some answers to the delicate questions raised by the u.n.'s investigation is coming up next. and what do you think? our associate producer hermella agawi is helping out. we'll be right back. >> united nations chemical weapons experts are back from syria with samples, of the august 21st attack. samples have been sent to sweden and finland for testing. syria president assad for that attack. on sunday secretary of state john kerry told, according to kerry those hair samples and blood samples have tested positive for signatures of serin. so this case is building and this case will build. will the case though be strong enough for the u.s. to launch a punitive cruise missile strike that could trigger a wider war? for more i'm joined by intor ambassador richard butler. >> good to be here. >> you've heard all of those accounts of whoopped on august 21st. is it almost irrefutable that there was serin or some type of chemical weapon attack? >> the simple answer is yes. absolutely, serin is a key one. >> and what did you think of what secretary kerry said signatures of serin that they somehow got out of syria? >> well, he said that these signatures were found in tissue samples, hair and so on taken from first responders. i've not heard that word, in the past, perhaps it's a new one in the lexicon of chemical weapons analysis but i'm not quite sure what that means. also, i'm not quite sure who this first responders are. look antonio, i think there's something truly vital at issue here. there's the facts, and their meaning. we need more facts. as hilary mann levere tervetiont was saying, we really need more facts. i would like to think they would come when united nations inspectors have finished their analysis. i'm not sure what signatures mean but to keep the story moving forward, you said a moment ago the case is being built and built, i agree. pictures tell their own story. i think it's pretty easy to conclude that a nerve agent was used on those people and it's a shocking shocking business but we need more facts about what agent it was, who delivered it, who ordered it to be done, before taking decisions on what actions should follow. >> you referred to what hilary manleverett said, do you think there's any chance that this could have been done by anyone other than the assad regime? was there enough out there for this to have been done by rebels in syria? >> i heard what she said and she's an immensely capable person in this field. i listened very carefully. we read a list of what we don't know, i agree with her. there is a strong suggestion that more than strong suggestion, that serin or some kind of nerve agent was used. but what we don't know is the list she went through, we don't know what kind, who did it, how it was manufactured, how delivered. we need to know those things. >> is it easy for there to be confusion about what might have been used? if we take your point and the point that almost everyone else is making that some sort of chemical agent was used could it have been some chemicals that are out there in widespread use in agriculture that somehow could have been combined and caused this problem? >> not really. serin was originally developed by a la laboratory in germany tt was looking for a stronger pesticide. and it went further and they developed this nerve agent, in theory i suppose there could have been that sort of thing lying around. but not really. we are looking at a use of serious chemical weapons. what i suggest toind is that we now move on to get more and better facts to clear up exactly what was done and then, ask the question well what is the meaning of these facts? and then, what action should be taken? >> i want to talk about the weapons inspectors for one more point on what chemicals were possibly used. could something have been used that there would be confusion between some more -- again not a technical term obviously but a more home spun kind of chemical, and that could still confuse the inspectors and whether it was serin or not? >> i think you're making a heroic attempt to be objective here and i applaud you for it. but misbrief answer is i strongly doubt it. >> let's talk about the weapons inspectors, they were there when this attack took place but the syrian government didn't allow them to go to the site for five days. was that too long for them not to come to collusive evidence what happened? >> it you have to ask yourself the question why was the syrian government doing that? others have made this point if they were completely innocent of what they're being charged with it surely would have been in their interest to have those men and women in there as quickly as possible to get the best possible samples and the clearest possible result because that would have proved their innocence. >> right. now you know the region very well. you know chemical weapons well. could the -- could a serious weaponnized serin have gotten into the hands of the rebels from other areas in the region? >> i don't know and i'm not sure if anyone does but let's try and find out. >> how -- again, it will take them a few days. ban ki-moon the head of the ung has asked for things to be accelerated as much as possible but not in any way to compromise the investigation. what do you think we're going to see on the 9th when we get a report back from -- >> what a wonderful confluence of events about the 9th of september the scientific report should be in and the congress of the united states will take up this matter. look, in all fairness and objectivity, especially given what the russians are saying, and they too haven't really presented evidence for their strongly held opinion, why don't we all calm down? 9 september is on the calendar, we should have some technical results to look at, have a political debate, i keep saying to you we need the facts then we got to weigh their meaning then only then can we decide what action should be taken. 9 september looks like not too far away and a pretty good day on which to do that. >> what about the ploi logic as president assad said, he talked to a french newspaper and said it wanl wasn't possible that their troops would use a gas and some of his soldiers were wounded by the gas. he keeps arguing that it's not his -- that they were not in any way responsible. is there any logic to that statement? >> he reminds me of a person who became famous in the iraq invacation period whose name was chemical ali. do you know chem ali, for goodness sake, without being gra gratuitously rude, what is the value of the statements from syrian president at this time, they haven't based in a way that they have an interest of us getting the facts, so we can assess what to do about it. >> as the chief weapons inspector often through the late '90s if i remember correctly. >> that's right. >> and you heard hilary mann levere tervetion trvetiont, faulty in some accounts -- >> her word was fabricated, i'm not going to disagree with her. >> you also believe there were chemical weapons and weapons of serious plas destruction in iraq? >> when i was in charge of those inspections our mandate was and i'll quote, the security council resolution, destroy locate destroy destroyed, removed or rendered harmless with the exception of a few chemical agents that we believed were created, but we couldn't locate. we couldn't account for them that it was a very small quantity. that was the case when i finished work there. four years later, after four years of further investigation dr. hans blix told the security council the same thing yet three years after that an investigation took makes on the basis that they had wmd. you know why those weren't found because they didn't exist. >> but they had used them. >> when? >> against the kurds. >> that was 20 years ago. >> if a dictator, if a tyrant uses these kinds of weapons wus any kind of consequences isn't there a problem like saddam where he used them on many occasions which emboldened him to use them again. >> absolutely. get the facts assess their meaning and then as an international community, do something about it. if it's a truly series matter, rather than have one country, into the sunrise, and say we will fix this? i'm not quite sure why. many americans think the same. why is the united states taking the view that it must go and do this? when the echoes of ten years ago, with the iraq fiasco are still resounding in people's ears, when ordinary people around the world saying they don't want this, and you know, it's not right. the legal system is to be done through the security council as the international community acting together. that could happen. if we could get a better handle, and some understanding amongst all, on what the real facts are. >> we have a question from viewers. i want to get to hermella our assistant producer for that. >> thanks antonio, viewer john horner wants to know what makes chemical weapons quote unquote worse than any other deadly weapon? >> that's an excellent question. i suppose the remoteness and the instantaneous quality. a bullet through the heart will kill you right away, but serin ingested, stops you from breathing. >> it's a miserable death. >> i think you know chemical weapons have a long history that were first revealed in full measure during the first world war and it was a universal horror about them and it was then that the chemical weapons treaty was done. and the current one is from 1992. the answer to that excellent question is because they universally a source of revulsion. they sneak up on you, you can't see them or smell them, you're dead pretty quickly. there's something awfully inhuman about spraying the air. like an insecticide. >> it's a horrible, horrible death. >> and it's a horrible way to go. >> ambassador richard butler thanks for being with us tonight. up next facebook has expand he our world but a recent study shows it is bumming out its users. does the usefulness outweigh, we'll be right back. protestors. i'm morgan radford, you can see us again at 7:00 eastern. tonight 10:00 eastern on al jazeera america. >> i'm kim bondy, growing up in news was always important. you have this great product that you are ready to share with the country. i'm a part of a team that is moving in the same direction. >> consider this. it's been credited with aiding the aish spring and bringing around a billion people closer together. but as we wrap up a long labor day weekend how many times have you checked in on your facebook page? maybe you saw friends celebrating without you or someone who had a far more exciting weekend. whatever you saw when you scrolled through your news feed, a new study suggests the more you scroll through facebook the worse you feel about yourself. why do we log on every single day? here to discuss what's going on with faishes please welcome peter shankman, and from los angeles dr. gary small, professional of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences of ucla, and the author of ibrain, surviving the technological alteration of the mind. conventional wisdom tells us being more connected to people is about for the mind that it's good for us all. so why do you think this study is finding this connection to dees pressing? >> it's complicated. our brains are complicated. our minds are complicated. and clearly the new technology is very complex. we are social an plals. we love -- animals. we love to be connected. what social media allows us to do is to remain connected all the time. it just puts our urge to be close to others into high gear. now we may crave that and it may tweak the reward centers of our brains. but it isn't always successful in making us feel good. >> but do those broader connections, that constant connection, also lead to shall ower relationships? >> you know i think the big issue with it is that we're communicating in a two dimensional world. and it doesn't have the same kind of emotional impact as the face-to-face discussion. our brains have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to have these face-to-face discussions. we maintain eye contact, we notice nonverbal cues and it really causes a lot of emotional reaction, that can be positive and negative. with facebook, it's a really different kind of arena where you're constantly seeing feeds, it's a bit impersonal. it doesn't have the same kind of emotional impact and even though we're craving that connectedness it kind of makes us more isolated. >> you think peter that facebook is essential to modern life at this point and it's important for modern businesses. you don't see it quite as negatively? >> there is a negative aspect to it, quite obviously, if you are only looking at a screen all day and not getting out in the real world of course. if you are staring at a screen all day there are a lot of cues that you miss and a lot of people miss your cues you might be depressed, there might be signs of potential violence. that being said, there is a tremendous advantage to having a network. and to being able to utilize that network for whatever reason whether it's personal work hey i just got into a relationship i'm looking to meet new people can you introduce me to them. a famous psychiatrist once said we covet what we know. it's true. we'll go to the people we trust and ask them what movies we circulate see what jobs we should take. and we do find those people through networks. the doctor said it very well, we like to talk to people and we like to do two things we like to brag when something good lapse to us and not to them. and when something bad happens we like to make everybody miserable. we do that very well. if we're in a concert, and we're taking pictures, saying look at where i am and you are not, or when we're on an airplane and we have to tell everyone how horrible it was. >> is that part of the issue that somehow people seeing others being happy, is somehow making them sad? >> we don't know all the explanations. i mean they're just reporting the news. and we can try to interpret it and yes that can be one explanation. i mean facebook has a tendency to have us put our best foot forward. everybody likes things. there are a lot of thumbs up and that makes us feel good. but we don't see the other side of it. behind all those feel good displays on the screen are a lot of conflicts, a lot of struggles. it is human nature to sometimes feel better and more connect whed we can share those struggles with each other. i think the media the way it's set up doesn't really allow itself to present those kinds of negativities. >> doesn't it create some keeping up with the joneses, at a higher level? >> obviously. this is an equivalent, times for college students back ten years ago, to connect and look up and get together. it's come to dude look at this new poster from my dorm to look at my new porsche. i posted last night that i'm working on slightly becoming a vegan and that i've lost some weight and i'm feeling really good. for all the great job great job, it was littered with, well you're not going to get enough protein. there are people who like to be miserable, now they have this wonderful outlet to be miserable to everyone. at the end of the day it is a useful tool but it is a process. and if the process of connecting with someone becomes more about the act of connecting than about going out and doing something then you have a problem. if it's more about when it was just about hey do you want to meet flit and have dinner, if you want to meet and have dinner is the act, but if the act is let's get on facebook and talk about our day that diminishes the experience. but there are studies that have shown if you're out with a friend and you're posting pictures of you and him or you and her, the friend that you're out with actually feels less than. this is supposed to be our time. >> what about peter's bragging side to this? another interesting thing found in this study was that people actually felt better on facebook whether they were on facebook if they were looking at their own page, at their home page while they were depressed while they were using facebook at other times. when they were actually on their home page they actually felt good. >> you know it's an interesting phenomenon and i would agree with peter, i don't think facebook is all bad. it does some wonderful things for us it keeps us connected in marvelous ways but it takes over, we're not in command of it. and a very interesting study found that when somebody likes your page and this is relevant to your question, there is actually a part of your brain, the reward part of your brain lights up. and the more you use facebook the more activated that part of your brain becomes. so we know the brain is very sensitive to this type of mental training. if you repeat the process over and over again those neural wires get very strong. so any concern is that it can enslave us at sometimes and it disincentivizes us from going out and having a face-to-face conversation. >> very apt title to your book then. we've got a poll we've conducted and i want to get to hermella for that. >> thanks antonio. we asked our readers on social media, this question, do you think using facebook makes you less happy? 83% said yes it makes you less happy and 17% said no, they think facebook doesn't make you less happy. on that note, the does facebook make people unhappy or is some external force directing unhappy people to facebook? >> what a question. >> that's a tough one to answer definitively, and i think both theories hold. however i've got to say this new study really tried get behind that. and the way they did their research, it suggested that facebook may very well be having that affect on people. i mean you can always argue well, unhappy people are drawn to it and misery loves company but i think there can be a negative effect. >> the researchers did say that they found no evidence that people turn to facebook when they're already lonely or depressed but you think that's a possibility that shouldn't be discounted? >> it is a possibility. and other studies have found had a those that are social phobic really will turn to the electronic media because it's more comfortable. it's less anxiety provoking and so they're searching for this fix in their brain reward system and they're really not getting it. >> well study was done with 82 young adults with an average age of 19. i don't know if adults are less susceptible but let's look at numbers that are involved here. informs pert of americans 128 million people visit facebook every day. 1.5 billion people visit facebook every month. peter, despite those numbers, obviously, because of those numbers, despite whatever it may be making people feel, this isn't going anywhere. >> it's not. and the interesting thing about it is every once in a while you go to people that say, we hate facebook i'm quitting and they do it in sort of like i'm taking my toys going home and the the head to you gieks. but i'm quitting facebook and i'm going on facebook telling everybody why. and then they sit there for two days and say i have no one to talk to. if all of your friends, all of your acquaintances and all of your family is on facebook where are you going to go? we've reached that tipping point, no one has equated linked in with fun. to the doctor's point is very true. when you get a text, when you get a tweet to you, when someone texts to peter shankman or whatever, you want that. its dopamine. >> all right, thank you gentlemen. diana nyad makes it from cuba to key west on her fifth try. next. ♪ >> in today's data dive, we could swimming or more precisely, diana nyad goes swimming. this is her fifth attempt dating back to 1978, past swims were cut short because of problems with boats, storms, currents and nightmarish jellyfish stings. as the saying goes, if you don't succeed, try, try again. in her case it's more like try try try try try again. the 110 miles she wam in 53 hours plarkd a record for an ocean swim without a shark cage or flippers. she crossed a divide that two governments haven't been able to cross on more than a half century. on that point a close friend of nyad said, the swimmer wanted to send the message of peace love and happiness between the people of the united states and cuba. since her first attempt nyad has aged 35 years technology has advanced and helped make her attempt possible. she wore a silicone mask to help protect from jellyfish tings stings -- stings. technology also helped with equipment that created a slight electrical field around her to keep the sharks away. still the most amazing achievement is nyad herself. 35 years after her first attempt and 34 years after she swam 102 miles from the bahamas no june oh beac -- juno beach florida, d was victorious. as she said, you are never too old to chase your dream. inspiration to us all. coming up we move from an amazing athletic field to one that is well -- that well isn't. is u.s. tennis at a crossroads? raise up to 12.35 or 15. >> once upon a time americans dominated the sport of ten is. now we're in the midst of the worst season of tennis history. this year became the first time since the no american man even reached the third round. that's the first time it happened since 1912. is tennis facing an even bigger crisis, steve bellamy, the kerry of the ski channel and the surf channel. joins us in the studio, he has been around tennis his whole life. your wife was one of the top american tennis players in the world. so you are the guy to talk about this. what has happened to the home grown american man tennis player? let's look at what tim smechec said this weekend. >> i know that we got really spoiled with pete and andre and all those guys and andy for so many years. >> now, is that the case or is it a problem with u.s. tennis in general, that we're facing broader world competition and simply we're just not going to be as dominant as we once were? >> there is a portfolio of answers that would take way longer than this segment to get into. but in general, tennis started out with golf and bowling as being the big tv sports, baseball, football and basketball came later. we gestated internationally, we became a global sport, all the other sports became domestic sports, it was local rooting rivalries, a much more successful model. we have globalized and corrected so to speak and probably those days are not going to come back again. >> tennis has been around in other places in the world for a long time. to take the other side, is thisful to do about nothing, the 60s and 70s were dominating, the swedes were dominating, now it's the spanish. is it a cyclical thing and we're looking back at where we have pete sampras and andre agassi and maybe that was the aberration? >> tennis has forever melted and we have hiccups where we do great. but i don't think you'll see the days where 50% of tennis were americans. >> how much of it have we got football and baseball and other countries don't have that are almost -- mostly american we also have basketball and hockey even golf competing for our best athletes and in fact those sports actually many more people make money at them as professionals as do tennis players. >> the harsh reality is right now tennis is barely played in america. the big ones have done great, indian wells and miami and of course the u.s. open is the biggest sporting event in the world but for the rest of america, there isn't tennis like there is baseball, football and basketball. if you're growing up in dallas you're saturated with those big stick and ball sports but not tennis. >> the college situation, if you're a baseball player, a football player there are literally hundreds if not thousands of scholarships for those kids while in tennis it's much harder to get a college scholarship. >> it's very challenging. tennis is the most global sport outside of soccer. but for scholarships in america, america's the only place that really has a robust college system. so the whole globe is gunning for those college scholarships. so it would really hurt americans. >> we have a quote from telco resources kerry jeff hoffman, the scales have almost tipped to foreign players. not only are there not a lot of scholarships but a lot of that money is going to people outside the united states. >> sure. you go to france and there are agencies at racquet clubs that literally focus into getting kids there to american colleges. if you are a guy take title 9 which basically tried to fix discrimination against women and basically discriminated against minority nonrevenue sports so american men only get four scholarships for a team and they field ten or 12 on a team. >> ists because all those other sportsmen are getting scholarships for. >> there is no such for women, so we don't have much for other sports. >> american parents of competitive kids of which you and i are, tennis is ridiculously expensive. $400,000 to raise a kid to be able to be a professional tennis player. most conservative calculations say when you factor everything in tennis rack quets racquets, r courts if you are in the cold pardon of the country, professional lessons that it's at least $2,000 a month if you are a competitive player in many cases as much as $5,000 a month. who can afford that? >> it's, tennis balls still cost $3 a can like they used to 30 years ago. racquets are more expensive than they were 30 years ago. but going to tennis practice, it's forced best players to travel more and expense has gone up a lot. i would still argue right now if you oar competitive ten is player and you spent a lot of money you're pretty much guaranteed to get into a school you want to go to. you won't get a scholarship but -- >> it won't give you much return on your investment so that can be rough. >> sure. >> now one of the issues that's been much criticized in the press is that the united states tennis association thement usta has spent a lot of money to generate relief players and not much going to general population. your thoughts about that. >> player development, australia, france, england and ughts, england has poured a fortune into that, it hasn't worked. >> sorry to interrupt one of the big efforts that's creating what they call ten and under tennis which is to have kids play on smaller courts with softer balls and kids as young as 5 can really hit the ball, that's been the thing to get more kids into tennis, is that working? >> i think it's too young in life cycle to see if it's working. for 30 years people have used mini balls and small courts. right now it's been packaged and pitched to consumer america so hopefully it will work. >> sports illustrated's john wortheim, one of the problems is got a vicious cycle. fewer americans in the upper ranks means lower events, fewer americans in the upper ranks, if that's the case are we ever going to break this vicious cycle? >> i think we are, i think there's hungry smart entrepreneurs in tennis still that are going to do things to fix this. certainly, we as an industry are clearly understanding that there's a problem and clearly understanding there needs to be significant change. it can't -- we can't go on like we've been. so i think that we are -- we've hit a bottom and it will go up, just how fast. >> to take the other side of the conventional wisdom, women's tennis, there are a lot of young up and coming women. we have two women in the top 20, serena williams and stevenson, maybe the best as it's been, but the brian brothers are the best ever and the williams sisters. still great tennis out there. >> tennis has many management mistakes. we have the worst governance of any sport by far. there's a commissioner, one smart guy who makes decisions and general oversight. you look at tennis, it's governed by 80 organizations, thousands of volunteers, everything is done by committee. it's terrible governance. take for instance doubles. everyone plays doubles. played way more than singles. it's so fun to watch arguably much more than singles. but we squash it at all costs. >> 30 seconds. how do you solve it? >> it's a cocktail of things and it would take a lot longer than 30 seconds, probably 25 seconds now. but in general we've got to produce american stars. we've got to get more people just period, playing tennis and loving the sport. >> let's hope the efforts to get there succeed because it's a great sport, great for kids, great for adults, it's a lifelong sport so we only wish tennis the best and hope the stars start coming up soon and bring back american tennis to its former glory. steve thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> the conversation will continue on aljazeera.com, or our google and twitter pages. to consider this, we'll see you next time.