By Darren Walton
December 26th 2009 @ 12:26am
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Bright Aussie tennis future being moulded in clay
Davis Cup captain John Fitzgerald has hailed the recruitment of Spanish claycourt coach Felix Mantilla as one of the most significant developments in Australian tennis in decades.
Mantilla has been appointed to nurture Australia’s next generation of stars and, given we have the most exciting batch of juniors in world tennis, his role is crucial.
In Bernard [...]
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Marshall said | December 26th 2009 @ 10:15am | Report comment
Well something needs to happen. This current lull period is not good for the game here and interest in tennis has gone down
bever fever said | December 26th 2009 @ 11:43am | Report comment
I play quite a bit of tennis in Perth and my experience is thus.
Tennis clubs are run (usually IME) by aging volunteers.
A big drop out rate by teenagers, and low conversion rate from junior to senior members for clubs.
Fast food sports seem to be the go, tennis is not a easy game to learn/play at reasonable level.
Australia has many times had wimbledon winners etc at junior level who have not gone on with it.
Tennis is just not a commonwealth sport and athletes from eastern europe who IMO have a far greater will to win to fight out of poverty etc will continue to shine through… especially in the womens division.
Grass court tennis with small rallys is just quite boring and continual aces are just as bad, although i enjoy smashing the odd one down (rarely) its becomes boring for TV viewers and live crowd.
Having said just about everything negative i can think of, i really enjoy tennis and wish more people would take it up.
ira said | December 26th 2009 @ 5:24pm | Report comment
They have to be kidding. Is this the same Tiley that was hired four years ago to re build australian tennis development.
The one who spent money laying blue hardcourts all over the country, and yet now is deciding four years later we need clay.
Is this for real that Tennis Australia think they have the best ten boy players ever ?
What happened to the whole fantastic lot of kids he had when he came in four years ago, at least 30 talents between 14 ad 18, where are they all now ?, that the best they can come up with is finding ten more younger players and changing the surfaces again.
Maybe had the last lot of great boys had been sent to spain instead of mucked around here for four years , we might be on track already.
How many excuses so these guys have ???
IF TENNIS AUSTRALIA HAD OF BEEN DOING THEIR JOB THAT IS REBUILDING OVER THE PAST FOUR YEARS AS TILEY WAS EMPLOYED TO DO , WE WOULD SURELY HAVE MORE PLAYERS IN THE TOP 100 NOW.
Who are all these ex players in there I would like to know, ??
Jack said | December 30th 2009 @ 9:39pm | Report comment
Australian tennis has a future only if we teach our kids our classic serve and volley game. We have to persuade Atp board that people are getting more and more bored with these slow sufaces and long rallies. We have to get back to the glorious days of grass courts and so our kids will be shining again.
Mantilla, please don’t destroy our tradition. WE WANT PAT RAFTER, NOT TOMMY ROBREDO. I just don’t see the point in completely changing our tradition. In the end clay court tennis is only played two months a year. I would rather prefer that our young players could hit volleys properly. It’s nonsense that nowadays seve and volley game doesn’t pay off. It has become very difficult but you have to remember as well that players are not accostumed anymore to pass. Radek Stepanek is a successful attacking player. Michael Llodra, Rajeev Ram, all won tournaments recently and these are serve and volley players. FITZGERALD, PLEASE. IF YOU ARE READING, REFLECT UPON THIS. Bar Lleyton we have always been successful playing serve and volley. Pat was winning with modern racquets and managed to get to a Rome final chipping and charging whenever he could.
jenny said | December 26th 2009 @ 8:21pm | Report comment
yes Tiley it has been quite a journey back for Australian Tennis,
I wonder are the weeds out of the one clay court yet, that was laid at great expense at Melbourne Park ?
Yes the ONE CLAY COURT LAID some years ago with a grand opening,!!!
Funny the last few years I walked past it , it was ready for cows,,,,
Meanwhile you laid blue hard courts right across Australia , at what expense of the budget was that ??
Players will travel will assigned coaches . Well only took four years for you to work that out … Good idea. !!
Great that our mens Davis cup has found some 11 year olds to transition into the mens game, I am sure they will do great
now when we need them against Rafa Nadal.
Oh and we wont forget the name of who you already think will be the best of all . Jay Andrijic ?
James said | December 28th 2009 @ 1:08am | Report comment
Surely the biggest drop in terms of Australia’s overall performance in a sport in the past decade has been in tennis. Remember the days we would have multiple players in Grand Slam finals matches? No chance today.
Marshall said | December 28th 2009 @ 1:28am | Report comment
Agreed. No one replaced Hewitt and co. Real black hole in Tennis at the moment for Australia
jim said | December 28th 2009 @ 7:26pm | Report comment
FiITZGERALD obviously has no idea what he is taking about.
There is three 17 year old boys going into the AIS ” fully funded touring program ” Australia’s elite program “for 2010 , all 17 and none of them near Top 720 ATP OR TOP 10 ITF. WHEN SELECTED.
SO THIS IS A LIE FROM TENNIS AUSTRALIA,,,,
YES JAMES ….. IN FACT THIS IS OUR WORST SHOWING EVER.
NO WONDER THEY HAVE TO COME OUT WITH ARTICLES LIKE THIS TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE THEY ARE GETTING RESULTS, BUT THEY ARE CERTAINLY NOT GOING TO BE AT THE GRAND SLAMS FOR OUR MEN.
jim said | December 28th 2009 @ 9:05pm | Report comment
Four years ago we had these players ready to go and transition lindahl, donald, lemke, klein , jones, coelho, nichols, maher, bouchier, ley, reed, lee, reed, smith, ballamy, smith, thomas, mcnamee, rigg, dixon, easton, weightman, hogan, crow, bothe, kelly, levinski, klein, mckenzie, gregory, verryth, goh, peers,proppogia, reid, marsland, scacinski, millman, chaplin, sanders, queenan,hoh, barker, szabo, young, androlio eames, the list goes on and on of great players we had…
This was the youth when Tiley got in .
It sure is a lost generation, and yet how can they say that, then say now they have found the best kids ever they think !!
Rather then call them the ” lost generation” why not say “sorry ” to all these kids and families who sacrificed so much time and money for this sport and country, for the job over the past four years that after Jason Stoltenberg walked out never got done the way it should have been or would have been had they listened to him.
This article is a slap in the face to so many players these and the older ones who also needed help, over the past few years out of that huge budget
2,500 coaches, in direct contact ,and 30 ex coaches !!!
This is the other side of their exhaustive research they did not bother to show, and obviously thats what they were doing intstead of giving these kids and many more a real go.
gemma said | December 28th 2009 @ 10:07pm | Report comment
“EVERYONE IN AUSTRALIAN TENNIS SHOULD BE BLAMED ” the article states.
Is that also blaming the many players and families who worked and funded so hard that should be blamed while the infrastructure was changed ?
GREAT, Will take years and years they say… totally understandable why tennis comes under “other sports these days “