Sunday, September 14, 2008

Weakest Team in History of Davis Cup- Australian tennis depth shown up



Next weekend some important battles world wide begin as the next round of the Davis Cup begins,AUSTRALIA has named its most inexperienced line-up in Davis Cup history for this month's daunting World Group play-off in Chile.Yes Hewitt is recovering from surgery and Doubles specialist Paul Hanley is also having an operation,World No. 87 Chris Guccione is the only certain selection, as Peter Luczak (171) has only just returned from a hip injury, and Carsten Ball (188), Brydan Klein (239), serve-volleyer Sam Groth (234) and Tomic (818) would all be representing Australia for the first time, Tomic is only 15 and showing plenty of promise but not up to this level of competition yet on the physical side. Australia's last two trips to South America have ended in 5-0 whitewashes at the hands of Argentina in Buenos Aires - in 2006 with Hewitt and four years earlier without the country's most prolific Davis Cup singles winner.Questions will once again be asked on Australia's development programs at high performance level,it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work things out,! there is just not enough money being spent on players and coaches that are doing a great job but not being recognized if they are outside "the boys club" of Tennis Australia's High performance programs.Some of the best coaches are simply not being utilized.Money is continually being spent on administration and over payed executives in charge of running or sometimes ruining the game of tennis ,and not on the athletes or the coaches that are shedding blood sweat and tears in doing the best they can with limited resources and funds.TNZ need to watch very closely the failures of the Australian system and learn by them, one of the biggest factors is isolation and distance, the fact is numbers wise depth and standard its all on the other side of the world. When New Zealanders travel to Australia they are in awe of their depth but really in World standards Australia is lacking in this department.40 years ago we had the bulk of players playing the game and this is an important factor.To get this international exposure its beyond reach for most players and family's financially,Money is the key for players this side of the world because competition depth and standard is just not here and this means to be any good you have to travel.New Zealand take on China in their group final and will be expected to win and if Australia loses the two Nations may once again meet in Davis Cup. And if that happens support and interest will be very much on the decline as Australia falls behind other improving country's.

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