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.”
bever fever
Guest
On a junket somewhere as we speak, never spoken to or heard from them at our club, although i am not on a committee or down at the club all the time. But the talk from time to time is "what the hell do they do with our fees" ?.
Whiteline
Guest
Tennis West are a joke Bever - Never seen or heard. I wonder how many people in Perth even know where they are based. Aren't they hidden out behind the Burswood somewhere?
bever fever
Guest
Its not marketed correctly, in other words volunteer run clubs have really no marketing, and quite frankly tennis clubs have a elitist stigma attached to them ( some quite rightly) People think they have to be at Rodger federers standard to join which another furphy as our senior club ranges in age from 16 to 78 and let me tell you there aint no RF's at our club. Tennis west is no real help and with a aging voluteer base more clubs go by the wayside and get townhouses built on them. I have said to our club, employ someone, pay a commission on memberships, advertise properly and see what happens. We are lucky that our club has a couple of dynamic young (20 year olds) that give of their free time arranging club champ, club captains etc, but most clubs dont have this.
James
Guest
I think the problem is the game's perceived - rightly, perhaps - as time consuming, and with our decreasing attention spans, we would prefer to play a quick game of indoor soccer, netball, cricket than a tennis match. Just a theory.
bever fever
Guest
Our tennis club is cheap to join, but i find it anazing that people will pay stacks more money to play indoor cricket, netball and even indoor beach volleyball rather than tennis. For EX : i play indoor beach volleyball, 4 a side costs $11 and lasts 45 min, yet i can pay a family tennis club membership of around $200 annually and play every day at no extra cost, attend social day during the week at no cost and penants which cost about $4 ( ball fees). Please explain why we find getting members hard ?. PS .. drinks are also cheaper at tennis than the privatly owned Indoor beach volleyball centre which is always chockers.
Whiteline
Guest
A few things Tennis has going against it is include: * An elitest coaching system which in order to become a level 1 or 2 coach or whatever the minimum standard is, you have to jump through a thousand hoops, pay a heap of money and then earn your dues! * When was the last time your heard of a tennis club promoting their services to kids at the local school - NEVER * How many junior development people are there employed by Tennis Australia or the state associations? If there are any, what are they doing in our schools? Not much if anything * As has mentioned - it is just too hard these days to have a casual game Bottom line is that it fast becoming (if not already) a bit like swimming and gymnastics. Either become part of out little squad and train 10 times a week otherwise you are not allowed to play!
James
Guest
Great point. I sense the further down tennis goes down our pecking order in terms of interest, the harder it'll be to pick up. With the state of the game at present, I can't see us rebounding.
bever fever
Guest
I live in perth now but where i grew up, all the schools had tennis courts as they do now but the nets were left on them and they were unlocked, so you could have a hit after school or on the weekend. Dont know for sure but try finding a court and having a hit for free on it, in the city, a lot of schools now have fbarbed wire fences around them. But those days where you could become a tennis pro purely because of your talent are long gone, now you have to start as a little kid and be coached all the way through. Eastern european kids want it more (especially girls), our kids have just as much talent but not as much drive, if they fail to make it they can go to uni etc, life is pretty good. Tennis is a world game, not just the British Empire with the US thrown in. Never again will Australian reach its dizzy heights of the 50s, 60s and 70s. In those days footy, cricket were just about it with tennis and swimmimg probably a teir below, count the sports that now compete with them.
Mr Real Australian it's called Football Man formerly known as Kurt
Guest
"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". Even by the standards of The Roar this is a bizarre article. It starts out by claiming the loss of courts is hurting Australian tennis - which may or may not be the case - but ends up attempting to connect this with the banning of beach balls at the cricket and topless women at our beaches. WTF?