Former world top-tenner John Alexander has pinpointed what many good judges believe is the real reason behind Australia’s dramatic decline from tennis superpower to Davis Cup minnow.
While several disgruntled greats led by Lleyton Hewitt and Pat Cash have condemned Tennis Australia for not retaining the services of esteemed coaches like Tony Roche and Darren Cahill, Alexander insists the game is suffering Down Under because of another area of serious neglect that is undermining player development.
“My debate with Tennis Australia for quite a number of years has been focused on the biggest issue in tennis – which is the loss of facilities,” Alexander said in an interview to be aired on ABC Radio on Sunday night.
“We have lost enormous numbers of courts, particularly in Sydney and Brisbane.
“Sydney has lost over 2,000 tennis courts in the last 10 or 15 years.
“So when you lose tennis courts, you lose participation.
“The majority of them might be (private courts), but private tennis courts were where we as kids got free access.
“Kids never paid for tennis. You could play from the time you could get out of school until it got dark, which is what I did as a kid.”
Alexander’s concern is very much a society problem.
Australia has long been known as the lucky country.
Forget limited access to tennis courts, these days beach balls, the Mexican wave and full-strength beer are banned to Joe Public at Test and one-day cricket matches.
The fun police have also outlawed beach cricket, frisbees, dogs and – god forbid – topless women from many Australian beaches and absolutely nothing, including access to tennis courts and other facilities for sports-minded children, comes cheap, let alone free.
Little wonder kids are turning to Wii – if they’re smart or lucky enough not to be swayed towards other more sinister pursuits – to beat boredom.
“There’s got to be a recipe of replacing those lost tennis courts with public accessible tennis courts or tennis clubs,” Alexander said.
“In various conversations, they’ve agreed that tennis facilities and the loss of facilities is a very big issue, if not the biggest issue.”
A former Fed Cup coach and Davis Cup winner, Alexander agreed with Cash’s assertion on the Four Corners program last week that TA tended to “mess up” young players with too many different coaches.
“Oh, I think that happens,” he said.
“I think sometimes we’ve got a coach working very well with a young player and then they get picked up and brought into the state system and the player is doing really well.
“Then somebody in the national system (thinks) `gee, I want my name on that player, he’s going to be great’ and he grabs him and, you know, wants to take credit.”
But Alexander was adamant the loss of facilities was the biggest killer of Australian tennis.
“We have had a history of having great coaches and we have great coaches now,” he said.
“Our international coach is the most sought after.
“Tony Roche is seen as one of the great coaches of our time, Darren Cahill is very sought after and any number of our other coaches (too).
“In a period of anxiety, we have over-emphasised coaching. You can’t coach a champion.
“A bad coach might mess up somebody who could have been a champion, but you can’t take somebody and make them into a champion.”
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