Australian Tennis

Left: The last triumphant Davis Cup Team of Australia 2003.

What has happened to Australian tennis. In the past Australia produced some of the best players in the world. We were able to compete with countries which had much larger populations and win. We used to dominate Davis Cup and the four majors, now look at us. We struggle to have any male or female in the top 100, let alone the top 10.

It might seem like I am stuck in the past, but what I am actually trying to say is, what has caused the demise. Is it the lack of structure in the system? Is it the lack of early identification of talent? Is it that there are too many other sports and recreations to choose from? Has everyone else in the world just caught up and as their populations are bigger, are able to find more talent? Or is it a combination of some or all of these and possibly other things not mentioned?

Tennis needs help. We need to find money to keep our past players in Australia to coach our next generations. We need to find money to spot talent and pay new talent so they won't go to other sports. And we need to prasie people and not try and knock them down when they do well.

This is over simplifying the problem, but it is a start.

PS: We also need to go back to grass courts and get rid of the synthetic rubber. It was our advantage in the past and we should bring it back, just llike the Europeans play most of their tennis on clay.