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The plight of Australian men’s tennis has become even more significant with the collective failure to progress past the first round of Roland Garros. The last time that Australia has found itself without a male representative in the second round of a singles draw was 1949.
Tennis Australia’s director of tennis, Craig Tiley, defended the results by declaring that they were still in the process of developing players on clay.
The withdrawal of Lleyton Hewitt before the tournament due to injury meant that Bernard Tomic carried the hopes of a nation on his young shoulders.
On his least-favoured surface, poor shot selection and unforced errors resigned him to a straight sets defeat.
Tiley warned impatient fans that Tomic and other talented youngsters were still “a long way off” making inroads on the men’s circuit, particularly on clay.
But to make matters worse, Australia’s women did not fare much better, with the promising Jarmila Gajdosova and Sam Stosur, last year’s runner-up, both knocked out in the third round.
Australian tennis’ lack of success over the past decade has been frustrating to those who remember a time when we were once dominant.
However, it is pleasing to hear that Tennis Australia is working towards improvements that will not only benefit the future generation, but also the current.
A sports science program has been implemented that focuses on six specific areas of player development. They include: medicine, physiotherapy, strength and conditioning, psychology, nutrition and performance analysis.
The last two areas are of particular interest when considering the recent success of Novak Djokovic. Having discovered that he was allergic to gluten, the world number two now follows a strict gluten-free diet. Many believe that this has contributed to his unbeaten start to the year.
In regards to performance analysis, Djokovic has admitted that changing his service motion has been a major contributing factor in his current winning streak.
“I’m a different player from last year. I have a serve. Last year, the serve was not there and I was struggling a lot. I was using a lot of energy. Now, I get to have some free points, which is important,” he said.
Australia’s own could learn a great deal from the man who has taken the tennis world by storm in 2011.
While the sports science program will undoubtedly help to improve Australia’s players, whether it will be to the level required is another matter altogether.
Though nutrition and a change of serve has clearly helped Djokovic, he was already number three in the world and a Grand Slam winner beforehand.
Australia, at the moment, has been left behind the rest of the tennis world and is not producing players who have the natural ability to reach the top echelons of the sport.
It was a long time ago when Pat Rafter and Hewitt were winning Grand Slams. But, as Stosur’s success last year proved, there is an opportunity, for those who work hard on conditioning and other areas of the program, to challenge the current dominance of the Europeans.
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