Tennis, everyone? Here's hoping that golf finally loses its grip as the favorite sport of CEOs.

Ever since the late 1970s, when more than 20 million Americans regularly played on local public courts or enjoyed social doubles at the club, tennis has been losing ground to golf. If not always in actual participation, certainly in terms of popularity in the corporate world.

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But now the balance of power may be shifting. Suddenly, it's golf that is losing adherents, while tennis is gaining them. Although golf's overall popularity still dwarfs that of tennis, the number of frequent tennis participants (defined as those who play 30-plus days a year) rose from 2.4 million to 3 million between 2000 and 2002; for golf, the corresponding figure fell from 6.4 million to 6 million over the same period, according to the Sports Business Research Network.

CEOs might do well to take note of the uptick in national tennis participation, a development that could render all those titanium drivers and endless golf lessons useless at corporate outings a few years down the road. If the current trend holds, some of that time spent on the practice range honing those short-iron shots would be better spent grooving your first serve. The resurgence of tennis may soon push a singles or doubles match onto your business calendar.

More tennis enthusiasts means more opportunities to play, and thus a higher expectation that a CEO will know the basic skills and etiquette of the game. Reaching a critical mass of golfers at the corporate level is how golf drew so many executive athletes away from tennis in the first place. (The ascent of Tiger Woods hasn't exactly hurt either.)

Take John Mutch, CEO of Peregrine Systems, a San Diego-based enterprise software firm and a self-described golf addict. Mutch grew up playing tennis and competed at a high level into his mid-30s. Then, while at Microsoft, he grew tired of trying to round up playing partners. "We'd have these outings, and two or three of us would play tennis and everyone else was going off and playing golf," Mutch says. "Finally, I just decided to join them."

The situation could reverse itself if tennis continues to increase its "cool" factor and the golf outlook stays bearish. Executives who don't play tennis could feel as left out as nongolfers so often do at corporate outings today.

One of the many benefits of tennis is that, unlike in golf, it's relatively easy to learn the basics. Elementary physics makes hitting a tennis ball far easier than striking a golf ball. Golf clubs have long shafts and small heads, making it difficult to hit a sphere as small as a golf ball. Tennis rackets are shorter and have large heads, so making solid contact with the ball is, by comparison, a breeze. "If you work at tennis a little bit, you can hit it and be competitive," says Len Pagon, CEO of Brulant, an Ohio-based information technology firm. "In golf, you can spend tons of time hitting balls and play lots of rounds and still be at a 50- or 60- percent competency level."

Tennis is also a fine antidote for the twin banes of modern life: too little time and too much of everything else. Two sets of tennis can be played in less than 90 minutes, while a quick-moving foursome will be lucky to get off the links in four hours. A tennis match burns hundreds of calories, while a typical round of golf in a cart burns as few calories as bowling or gardening. "In some ways, I think golf is the ultimate in frustration," says Jim Kraus, the tennis pro at the Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Conn., home to one of the most highly rated private golf courses in the state. "You're not getting a workout and you're spraying the ball all over the place."

What's more, tennis makes life simpler than golf does. All you need to play tennis on your next business trip is a racket, a pair of sneakers, socks and shorts. No need to pack various combinations of khaki pants, polo shirts, sweaters, rain suits and wind shirts, or to lug a golf bag through airports and hotel lobbies and in and out of the trunk of a car.

To be sure, golf's unique mix of natural beauty and the camaraderie that comes with spending four or five hours of uninterrupted time with a client or colleague may always carry more appeal to some than tennis's offer of a grinding three-set match on a fenced-in rectangle of Har-Tru. And tennis, no doubt, has its own frustrations, such as double faults and ground strokes that maddeningly sail too long.

But even that may not be enough to keep golf on top as the game of choice for the C-suite. And besides, any CEO who remains convinced that golf--with its guarantee that every round will include botched shots and frustrating bounces--is the better metaphor for life would do well to remember this: In tennis, as in business, there are no mulligans.