Serving up mediocrity at the Australian Open
Columnist By Brett McKay, 26 Jan 2009 Brett McKay is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- Adam Scott, Bernard Tomic, commentary, Geoff Ogilvy, Lleyton Hewitt, Mark Philippoussis, media coverage, Southern Hemisphere, Tennis, Tennis Australia
Some interesting commentary has been made this week regarding the perilous nature of professional tennis in Australia, and more worryingly, how there seems to be no end in sight to the current slump in the fortunes of our country’s best.
Media experts and armchair critics alike all seem to be onto a common theme, that until apparent complacency is lost and significant investments are made at the grass-roots level by tennis administrators, mediocrity is here to stay.
In The Australian last week, Patrick Smith wrote a series of columns on the current state of tennis in Australia, and in them he hasn’t painted a rosy picture.
Smith made an interesting observation on the relative states of professional tennis and golf, the sports we typically say we’ll be steering our kids to, commenting:
“Golf cannot boast anything as grand as the annual money-making Australian Open here at Melbourne Park but it has nine men in the top 100 rankings, and two women in the top 20 alone. Mens tennis will end this tournament with no one in the top 100. Golf produces winners, tennis just excuses.”
It’s a fair comment, and probably says as much about how well our golfers seem to be getting on internationally than it does about the way Tennis Australia (TA) perhaps takes for granted the lone Southern Hemisphere Grand Slam tournament.
In the ten years since Pat Rafter hit the top of the world rankings, with dual success in New York, and a couple of near-misses at Wimbledon, where are the young serve and volley grass court specialists that should have followed?
In fact where are the grass courts now?
Where are the new big-serving Mark Philippoussis clones? (That’s Mark Philippoussis the tennis player too, not Mark Philippoussis the reality television failure.)
Even with Lleyton Hewitt on the comeback trail, and despite the unbelievable media hype surrounding Bernard Tomic, it’s hard to see how a Grand Slam title will come Australia’s way in the next ten years.
Conversely, with Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott in or about golf’s top ten ranked players, it’s hard to see a golf major not coming Australia’s way in the next ten years.
And there are new golf courses going in everywhere.
So while promising young golfers seem to have reasonably clear pathways to turning professional, and ultimately hitting the international circuits, Patrick Smith highlighted that the same cannot be said for our young tennis kiddies.
Smith wrote that “TA has said that 100 players have been targeted but the parents wonder whether the people who count in Australian tennis development could put a name to a face or know who plays left- or right-handed.
“They are irked, too, that Tomic’s entourage has been set up with major sponsorships, additional coaches of their choice to train and travel with while the majority of the other would-be stars might not even have their player touring or training schedules outlined.”
So if TA seems to be pinning all its hopes on Tomic – and the overwhelming media coverage Tomic received last week suggests they are – what hope is there for future tennis success in this country?
And that’s without looking at the obvious problems at the grass roots, where courts are increasingly been ripped up and replaced with townhouses and apartments.
And is Tomic going to play Davis Cup ties on his own?
Tennis Australia clearly needs to have a good look at itself in the mirror. Certainly the tennis public doesn’t like what it sees of its peak body, and in particular the narrow-mindedness when it comes to supporting up-and-coming players.
It’s hard to see how the situation has been allowed to get this far.
Perhaps tennis’ part-time media presence has been both a blessing and a curse, in that it’s only around the time of the Grand Slams that the problem raises its head. But still, four times a year should be regular enough to be noticed and acted upon.
Imagine the uproar if Cricket Australia just rested on past successes and suddenly pinned all hopes on a new dashing batsman who’s been on the scene for five minutes?
Actually …
Brett McKay is a former non-tackling scrumhalf and not-quite-1st Grade middle order stalwart. A rugby and cricket expert for The Roar since July 2009 (having joined in Sept 2008), Brett has written for Inside Rugby and Cricket Australia, and is also PLAY Canberra's rugby correspondent. He tweets from @BMcSport
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January 26th 2009 @ 8:07am
Spiro Zavos said | January 26th 2009 @ 8:07am | Report comment
Aside from the woeful efforts of Tennis Australia to manage the game here, the main problem has been the lack of athleticism in the players presenting themselves as top tennis talent. Wally Masur made the point in a discussion on Channel 7 (which gives an excellent coverage, despite the platitudes of Sandy Roberts) that Pat Cash and pat Rafter were great athletes, first and foremost.
Masur pointed out that Rafter once hit three consecutive 6s in a charity cricket match, something the modern Australian tennis aspiring stars could never hope to emulate. ‘Alfie Langer was the bowler,’ Rafter quipped.
Masur suggested that Tennis Australia should start recruiting from young AFL players, particularly.
A good suggestion, in my view.
January 26th 2009 @ 2:42pm
Greg Russell said | January 26th 2009 @ 2:42pm | Report comment
Dealing first with Spiro’s comment on AFL, my suspicion is that it is emasculating Australian men’s sports across the board, not just in tennis. It is well known that AFL has highly sophisticated and effective talent recruitment programs going on everywhere. Last year a Brisbane kid played wing for the Australian Schoolboys rugby team and then signed with the AFL Gold Coast franchise a matter of weeks later. It is not clear to me that a young Ricky Ponting or Shane Warne would choose cricket over AFL these days.
Now to Brett’s comment that “it’s hard to see how a Grand Slam title will come Australia’s way in the next ten years. Conversely, … it’s hard to see a golf major not coming Australia’s way in the next ten years.” Well maybe this is hard to see, but let’s look at reality over the last 12 years: 4 majors in tennis (Rafter twice, Hewitt twice), 1 in golf (Ogilvy). Even if one makes it exactly 10 years, it’s still 2 versus 1.
This in one is the justification for pouring so many resources into Tomic: if he comes off, then he will win multiple majors, undoubtedly more than all of Australia’s golfers.
Having said all this, it is indeed an obvious thought to wonder what Australian golf does right that Australian tennis does not. I am not aware of any especially effective talent identification and nurturing programs in Australian golf. Are there any? It may be that golf is simply a less international and more elitist sport than tennis, and consequently the “same old, same old” that no longer works in Australian tennis does still work in Australian golf.
Finally, on December 28 Spiro wrote a Roar piece entitled “Australian tennis needs clay feet to get back on top”. Ken Rosewall was reminisced over and quoted at length. Arguably the most interesting comment was
“Rosewall made the point that when tennis came into the Olympic Games, it opened up funding in a host of countries that hadn’t had much to do with the game before. With the funding came new star players.”
In this context it’s interesting that golf is not in the Olympic Games. If Rosewell is correct, then this is the simple reason for the golf vs tennis discrepancy. There is not a lot that Australia can do about this situation.
January 26th 2009 @ 3:36pm
mahony said | January 26th 2009 @ 3:36pm | Report comment
I don’t know much about the ‘grass roots’ – elite pathways in tennis, but I was pleased to read the Australian Football Development Plan and to see the key strategic appointments being made by the FFA to implement the plan and its key elements such as (1) small sided games (2) national technical regulations (3) national football curriculum (4) review of elite academies such as VIS/State IS’ (6) national CRM to integrate the revenue generating brands of the game and maintain communication with participants (7) specific programs for developing women, youth and indigenous people (8) National leagues for young men and women (9) the integration of something like 9 national teams for both genders across a range of disciplines into Asian and FIFA competition – the list goes on and that is just in (or related to) the ‘player development stream’ of the plan. Now tennis Australia may have already developed and implemented a plan such as this, I have no way of knowing, but it seems to me that a well researched, integrated and long-term plan such as the Football Development Plan would be useful to a game like tennis with all of its comparative advantages (relative to some sports). TA should be getting on with it – and quickly.
January 26th 2009 @ 5:50pm
Brett McKay said | January 26th 2009 @ 5:50pm | Report comment
Happy Australia Day everyone, and to those over the Ditch, Happy Monday…
Greg, it was an interesting angle you took on my comments regarding the likelihood of an Australian winning a tennis or golf major in the next ten years. In fact, you’ve almost proved my point perfectly. The point I was getting at was that TA seem to be quite happy resting on the success of Hewitt and Rafter most recently, but to the detriment of the game nationally when it comes to unearthing the next major winner. Maybe it will be Tomic, maybe it won’t. If it’s not Tomic (and I’m not convinced just yet it will be), I can’t see who it would be. And perhaps you’re right that if he’s most likely, then TA should plow everything into him. But why wasn’t Todd Reid or even Guccione afforded the same opportunities and support?
I would argue that any one of four or five golfers could win a major in the next ten years though, and as I mentioned, Scott and Ogilvy would seem the most likely. Both have already enjoyed success in early-year tournaments.
Similarly on your comparison, Hewitt and Rafter would be the only Australians to have spent time in the top 10 over the last ten or twelve years, and both had stints at No.1. Now while a certain Woods,T has had a mortgage on No.1, there have been several Australian golfers in or around the top 10 in the same period. And as I wrote, Scott and Ogilvy are thereabouts now, and would look likely to remain for the forseeable future.
Tomic may get there in the future, but it’s doubtful currently that any Aussie accents would be joining him…
January 26th 2009 @ 11:11pm
ChrisGS said | January 26th 2009 @ 11:11pm | Report comment
Echoing Greg Russell, it’s noticeable how many male international tennis players in the top echelon tend to be in that 6 foot-2 to 6 foot-6 range, with good agility – exactly the same body type that the AFL has targetted over the last 5 or so years. It’s been claimed that the same problem has affected cricket in AFL states (esp. Victoria, SA) as well, with potential fast bowlers opting for AFL (along with plenty of potential batsmen e.g. Brett Deledio). The problem is not as actue in NSW/Qld, where stockier builds are more suited for rugby. Hence a higher proportion of the nation’s quicks seem to be drawn from these two states.
What this doesn’t explan though is why female tennis is in pretty much the same hole. Perhaps swimming is scavenging all those athletic 6-foot girls with strong shoulders out there?
January 27th 2009 @ 9:47am
Mad mack said | January 27th 2009 @ 9:47am | Report comment
The (hard) truth is, our youth is not hungry enough to put in the hard yakka of basic training. That’s where the mothers come in. Mothers decide which sport the kids should get stuck into – and a lot of them are street wise. They know their kids will be separated from them at an early age to attend overseas colleges if they are to make it to the top. Mothers dont like that. They dont mind at all getting up at sparrows fart to get their kids off to the pool to train like little frogs. But overseas without mum. No way.
What we (must) do is create a college here in our grand continent, where education scholarships are made available to the hungry kids who crave an education – as well as have the heart for the hard yakka. Mums would go for that mates….!
January 28th 2009 @ 10:53am
Wendy said | January 28th 2009 @ 10:53am | Report comment
Good one mack. Another hard truth is that all the local tennis courts are being swallowed up by developers. They are not being used, because we have become a society of watchers, rather than doers. We are more interested in the nausea of another country’s election campaign, than what our youngsters are (not) doing…which is why they are so fat minded…
About the colleges. Briisbane is the cradle for rugby players – so why not the same thinking for tennis players? The Institute for Sport is not a cradle, so we need to think outside the square to produce wotld class tennis players. And the media needs to play its part. Forget the mammery glands and focus on the game. And give the boys some attention. Equal if you are serious about re-growing great Australian traditions.