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Slumping Australia must re-build from grass-roots up

Struggling former tennis superpower Australia is unlikely to claw itself out of its “black hole” unless administrators throw more money into grass-roots development rather than elite programmes, according to former Fed Cup captain John Alexander.

The country that produced grand slam titans Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, now boasts only a single seed in both singles draws at the Australian Open, with women’s world number six Sam Stosur shouldering the burden of a nation’s hopes.

Alexander, a former top 10 player in the mid-1970s, pins the country’s decline on the loss of thousands of backyard courts to development — and blames administrators for failing to provide new infrastructure.

“It’s a numbers game... The loss of courts is commensurate with the decrease in the number of participants and which is also commensurate with the drop in the number of top players on the tour,” Alexander told Reuters in an interview.

“We’ve lost 90 percent of our courts in parts of Sydney, for example. If you’ve got 1,000 kids trying out the game, then you’ve got 1,000 chances for one of those kids to go on with the game.

“If you get a lot of participation, you’ll get some champions, which would show through in the health of the sport.

“It’s up to (administrators) Tennis Australia to have a serious initiative to build more courts... I’m not aware that we have any.”

While French Open finalist Stosur’s rapid improvement has raised the country’s hopes of a first home champion in 33 years, Australia’s highest-ranked male in the draw is 29-year-old Lleyton Hewitt, who delivered the country’s last grand slam title at Wimbledon in 2002.

Organisers of the Australian Open have had to hand out a raft of wildcards to boost the local complement in the men’s draw.

Once a Davis Cup power with 28 titles, second only to the United States’s 32, Australia has fallen out of the world group, leaving local media and the public impatient for a new generation of top players to restore the country’s former prestige.

Open Distraction

Alexander said local administrators had dithered while the likes of retired two-time US Open champion Pat Rafter and Hewitt were winning titles around the world at the turn of the millennium, and placed too much emphasis on turning the Australian Open into a commercial powerhouse.

“At the time, I warned of a black hole coming,” said the 59-year-old Alexander, elected a member of parliament last year.

“We had some good players with Mark Philippoussis and Pat Rafter but we actually had very few players in the top 100 and second and third hundreds. And women’s tennis was even worse.

“In many ways, the success of the Australian Open has actually been a negative for the development of our tennis. The tournament now subsidises the whole game, with shares going to the states, who now all run at a loss.

“Prior to 1985-86, every state made a profit from collecting revenue from tennis registrations.”

Tennis Australia has brought former players like Davis Cup captain Rafter and 1987 Wimbledon champion Pat Cash back into the fold to act as coaches and mentors for the new generation, but Alexander equated it to Australia’s hopes to ‘buy’ the development of soccer with their failed World Cup bid.

“I think it’s the wrong way and an un-Australian way to set up academies and bring in coaches to develop a few quality players,” he added.

“We might get lucky and we might produce one kid. But the kid won’t get much competition.”

Alexander, whose tennis career coincided with the golden era of Australian tennis in the 1960s and 1970s, said he still held hope of a local tennis renaissance, but conceded it would not come quickly.

“I can’t see any reason why we can’t dominate the game like we once did,” he said. “It’s not to do with population, it’s about participation. Spain has great club participation, as does Argentina and it shows.”