Potential supporters of Paul McNamee in last year’s Tennis Australia presidency battle were allegedly told voting for him could jeopardise million dollar television rights, the ABC reports.
In the Four Corners program State of Play, Dean Williams, the president of Tennis West which represents 190 tennis clubs in Western Australia, claims he was approached by Tennis Australia board member Harold Mitchell, who is Australia’s largest media buyer.
Mitchell apparently told Williams a vote for McNamee would have serious implications.
“He said, basically, you realise you’re putting the whole project into jeopardy with regards to the Channel 7 TV rights,” Williams told Four Corners.
Mitchell had been part of the tv rights negotiations.
Other delegates were also allegedly told a vote for former doubles champion McNamee could jeopardise the multi-million-dollar Victoria government redevelopment of Melbourne Park tennis centre.
Tennis Australia CEO Steve Wood said “I don’t know if that’s been said” to Williams but the television deal was completed two years previously.
McNamee lost the October election, the first contested in 20 years, to Pollard by two votes.
In the documentary, The State of Play, which aired on the ABC on Monday night, Tennis Australia were accused by past players such as Pat Cash and Liz Smylie of being too controlling.
Former Wimbledon champion Cash is against Australia’s top juniors being centralised at the Australian Institute of Sport.
“They have five or six different coaches, they don’t know what they’re doing,” Cash said.
“They’ve just absolutely messed up a bunch of really talented kids and we’ve lost an era of tennis players, unfortunately.”
Smylie said TA needed to be made more accountable for the money it spent on player development, with Australia’s tennis talent under-performing in terms of world rankings.
But Craig Tiley, TA Director of Tennis, rejected this.
“Right from the beginning we’ve been accused of being too controlling and wanting to have it only our way or the highway,” Tiley said.
“Those (allegations) are all just simply not true.”
Australia’s top men’s player Lleyton Hewitt said in the documentary there was too much emphasis on junior results, which is a reason why young players struggle to make the transition to senior tennis.
He says experienced coaches such as Tony Roche, Jason Stoltenberg and Darren Cahill should be used, as they all have been by TA in the past.
“At the moment those guys aren’t being used in Australian tennis and that hurts,” Hewitt said.
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