Aussie tennis players are soft | Hack | triple j

Aussie tennis players are soft | Hack | triple j

Have a listen to this interview. Newcombe asks a few hard questions.The Tennis Australia Guy (Morris) dances around most of the issues.

More support to the coaches that are getting these guys to the level is needed.Have a look at the tour each player has their own travelling coach, Tennis Australia puts them into a sheep paddock with a sheep herder they don't know.We are too soft have a look at the tournament schedule on some of our top juniors....they needed to be harder, obviously they are set by someone.Included is a Interview with Luke Saville who is still at writing in the Junior Boys singles.Let me say don't get excited about ITF Junior results, there are a lot of good juniors around the world not playing these events and getting good results in futures.Tennis Australia treat our juniors like babies giving them a easy pathway to some ranking success with tournaments.Work harder , get a tougher tournament program for juniors, cut out the talk and funding on Has beens like Alicia Molik and Dokic , Get real when talking about our womens rankings , Only Stosur has been a true home grown talent. The discipline is not there , the talk of Duckworth and Mitchell progressing as they get older is absurd , we don't want another Pete Luczak we want a higher ranked player. Bernard Tomic is a hope but he has made success outside the norm of what Australian Tennis calls their development program. I can see the difference.... its Tomic's mental and discipline prowess that is ahead  in comparing with his peers, even Stosur lacks this and has stopped short at major matches because of this.Stop thinking by putting down clay courts is the answer,its trying to change a culture of "having it too good this side of the world" is a key , do all what you want until this attitude changes we will produce mediocre tennis players.Newcombe talks about the Hopman days and my thoughts its the discipline era that made our tennis players.We need to get it back!

Late news!
Whilst on the topic former Australian Open Director had this to say re coaching and playing development.

McNamee said the link between player development and additional funding was tenuous.

The lack of top players was in part due to administrators micro-managing the talent by assigning coaches to players rather than letting them choose their own development paths, he added.

"There's no evidence that more dollars are going to help the game anyway, otherwise Great Britain would have many more players than they have," he said.

"You've got a situation here where coaches are assigned to players and that's not an ideal scenario.

"I just believe in a different philosophy where the player gets to choose their own coach and that builds the trust and respect and that should be supported financially and in non-financial ways.

"I think a much more decentralized system and a system that has more freedom in it is the sort of environment where talent and creativity can flourish. I think the model we have now suppresses creativity, which you need to produce players." 

Tennis New Zealand could take notice in this area!