The future of tennis in Australia

[amer]

I think the Australian sporting landscape has been hit hard by the evolution of AFL footy into a full-fledged, high-paying professional sport in the past 15 years. Other sports have had to regroup and innovate to find ways to reclaim their share of elite athletes. There are probably a few more challenging years ahead as this process continues and sport in Australia finds a new equilibrium. The worst of it looks over.

But you have to wonder. Once that is accounted for, does tennis still hold significance in our culture? It certainly doesn't feel like it at present. Cricket, yes. I think cricket has suffered more than CA would like to admit. The utter dearth of batsmen doing anything right now and the sheer number of older players able to hang on for so long domestically looks conspicuous. But junior participation is very much there, state players are being offered increasing incentives locally and internationally, kids look like they're responding to that and the game looks like it will steady itself. But tennis, the other traditional big ticket in town with footy, rugby and cricket, its work looks cut out. I really think it could be off the radar this time next decade.

It feels misguided to say that Tomic and Barty are signs of a revival. It looks like further evidence of what has been observed pretty consistently for years now - the depth isn't there. Dumb luck and we strike gold every so often, and the rest is left to dregs. Our wildcard entrants each year are terrible. You can see it before they strike a ball. They don't look like athletes. You can see out of the gate that Tennis Australia is struggling to get its hands on the likely types that they could mould into something - the kids the AFL scours the country for and snaps up into development programs before you've flown a scout down for a meet and greet.

I love the game. Tennis is brilliant. Variety is thin today but it's still a spectacle. I don't want to see it die, but I'm not convinced the recent participation programs are going to be enough to get kids out on the court and enjoying a hit enough to choose it over the other increasingly powerful codes in this country. I think the seismic changes we have observed are pretty much the death knell.

Anyone see it differently?

 

[TassieEagle]

Dunno really what the problem is but for mine it seems to come right down to junior coaching and participation. I am not sure what age most of our imports have came to Australia but the seem to make up the majority of players representing Aus right now, which is great they are choosing Aus don't get me wrong but it is worrying that we don't have enough quality home grown kids challening for the second week of a major.

I have no doubt that other sports are diluting the talent pool as well as other countries putting many more resources into tennis (Who would have predicted Serbia becoming a tennis powerhouse?)

 

[Caesar]

Tennis is just so damn expensive. It's not like footy where you just pay your rego and your match fees, chuck a kid in a club, and he will learn how to play. Tennis requires small group or individual coaching, which costs money. The lack of public courts is also a bit of an issue here. In America, pretty much everyone plays on free public courts at least some of the time. Here you struggle to find too many courts where you're not paying at least $10 an hour.

Tennis also has a steep learning curve initially. You can be a complete novice at footy, and still step onto the field and participate in a game and have a few touches (even if you suck). On the other hand, with tennis, it takes a long time from picking up a racquet to being competent enough to play a match.

Tennis is also a poor choice for a talented athlete considering their options. You can be one of the top few hundred footy players in Australia and even if you're not a massive star you still get to stay close to home, be a relative celebrity, make a very tidy living, and get sponsored through university by the AFL. Or you can be one of the top few hundred tennis players in the world and be travelling constantly, sleeping on the floors of airports, playing in shitty Futures tournaments in the middle of nowhere, losing money, and living in complete obscurity. It's just crappy odds. I mean, even Hewitt probably would have become a footy player if he was taller.

Tennis will always be a popular pastime, particularly with more affluent people. My parents live down the road from a group of 3 courts in a nice suburb and they're in use pretty much 10 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. But in terms of its position as a professional sport, I think it is at risk.

 

[hirdy_is_champ]

Tennis is just so damn expensive. It's not like footy where you just pay your rego and your match fees, chuck a kid in a club, and he will learn how to play. Tennis requires small group or individual coaching, which costs money. The lack of public courts is also a bit of an issue here. In America, pretty much everyone plays on free public courts at least some of the time. Here you struggle to find too many courts where you're not paying at least $10 an hour.

If you're referring solely to becomming a professional, yes it is very expensive, unless TA decided to bankroll you, you could't be "poor" and become a champion tennis player. Otherwise if you're just your average weekend comp player it really isn't that expensive at all (that's without going to private lessons though). Also I don't know where you're from, but I can tell you where I'm from (North western suburbs of Melb.) there are heaps of tennis courts and an abundance of clubs, that's even with a number of churches replacing their courts with car parks. It doesn't cost much to be a member of a club and you can basically go and hit whenever you like. There are even a couple of ashphalt courts in parks that you can use for free.

I'm really not in the know about these things, but from what I've read part of the issue is TA trying to pretty much make a "factory" (i.e. AIS acadamy etc) and churn out players who all have the same coaches etc. This would pretty much destroy any individuality, which in tennis is pretty important.

 

[Caesar]

I'm talking more from the perspective of someone picking up the sport, which obviously involves learning to play. I sort of shudder to think how much my parents spent on tennis lessons when I was growing up, and I only ever went to group. It's a lot pricier than your kid learning how to play footy, which is a disincentive for a lot of people.

We don't have a lot of free public courts around here. Private clubs tend to be expensive. Tennis complexes where you just hire a court for an hour are the cheapest option, but then you need someone to play with etc. But the main cost is learning to play in the first place.

 

[bombermick]

You can easily become a decent pennant-level player without any coaching, but there's no way you'll become a pro without extensive - and expensive - one-on-one coaching from a very early age.

 

[Poseidon]

Tennis is just less of a 'muck around' sport. In basketball you can find a court with your mates and shoot 3's or try to dunk, soccer you can have penalty shootouts, footy you can try and boot it as far as you can or take speccy's. Tennis you can't 'muck around' with really unless you're actually playing the game or learning a skill, which I think can be a bit off-putting for kids as well.

 

[Kaan]

I heard you don't even make a living out of tennis unless you're a top 300 player.

No wonder there aren't many young players choosing tennis as profession.

 

[Selective Retention]

There was an article on Millman I posted at some stage during the open and he considered last year a big success for him (cracking the top 200) but said he still lost 20k for the year.

 

[hirdy_is_champ]

I heard you don't even make a living out of tennis unless you're a top 300 player.

No wonder there aren't many young players choosing tennis as profession.

Its probably more like top 100 to actually make some money, then I'd say to become "wealthy" top 50. I remember looking at prize money for a challenger event one time and seeing that rnd 1 money was about 700 euros. What are you gonna do with that? Keep in mind that's only one level below the ATP/WTA tour.

 

[CAS79]

Its probably more like top 100 to actually make some money, then I'd say to become "wealthy" top 50. I remember looking at prize money for a challenger event one time and seeing that rnd 1 money was about 700 euros. What are you gonna do with that? Keep in mind that's only one level below the ATP/WTA tour.

The tour is tough for Aussies, and 700 euro is above averege I would think for a first round knock out at a challenger. Once the tour settles in Europe our players are a long way from home having to pay for accomadation and travel. The Europenas get knocked out they just catch a train home and I think US tennis has bought a couple of propertis around Europe for their players to set up base. I think Australia should look at something similer, a home base for the players ranked around the 150-500 mark.

However next week there is a challenger in Burnie and the winner walks away with 7.5K and a decent amount of ranking for points for those outside the mainstream, Most of the Aussies from 150 to 500 will be there as well as a couple of internationals who were early knock outs and stuck around.

It's important for Ducky and Millman they make something of this, a win there or at Mildura a couple of weeks later could give them a bit of a rankings boost to qualify for main tour events for a while. Ducky needs to push on this year.

 

[hamohawk1]

i think a bit of our demise has to do with the widespread use of synthetic grass courts in australia. i really find these courts don't offer much to any player to attack, defend they are quite a neutral court. TA is trying to put more clay courts in to follow the europe model but i don't think they understand that a lot of the europeans have also not been spoon fed by their countries tennis academy giving them funding and wildcards into copious amounts of tournaments even if there results don't warrant it. By all means use these measures to players who genuinely deserve them and need that bit of help but giving players who can't win at wta level isn't exactly helping their motivation. It's also a worldwide game, not dominated by 6-8 countries thus is harder to crack the top echelon of tennis. You will notice a lot of players at every code will play up to 3 codes until 15-16 often playing at state level before choosing their own respective sport. If i had my way and could control how tennis is run in Aus, i would try and create a balance between motivating the players and assisting players to get to the top. There is a lot of money for those players with the talent and desire to reach the top, just look at tomic. Extremely talented, bit of a c***head but is richer than most other 20 year olds in the world and will probably make a decent living off tennis if all things go right.

 

[Sellout Scully]

It's interesting that people think of tennis this way in Australia at the moment, however I completely disagree that tennis is going downhill -I think if anything we're improving but some of the European countries have improved faster. I actually work as a tennis coach part time, usually dealing with kids aged anywhere from as young as 6 to as old as 17, but mostly i take 6-10 year olds. The participation rates are actually increasing and each year my club has to create extra teams to fit in more people.

Tennis Australia has been bringing in a program called Hot Shots (you've probably seen the ads) which is a very good program focused at ensuring kids stay much more interested in tennis and enjoy it more in the hope that they see it out longer resulting in a greater number trying to make it professionally. There have been programs similar to this in most European countries for 20 years and now it's starting to pay off for them. All we have to do is stick with it and over time it will work.

One thing I will confess though is that whilst the numbers are increasing, their attitudes aren't and it amazes me (including some of the 15 year olds I take who play junior pennant) how easily they throw in the towel and I don't know where this attitude is coming from, and even Bernard Tomic has been known to do this. Maybe it's because he has everything already and doesn't feel the need to work as hard as opposed to someone like Jerzy Janowicz who had to work incredibly hard. Who knows?

All I can say is that I have a lot of faith, and I am confident we will see several more Australian's pushing into the top ten in the next two decades.

 

[hamohawk1]

It's interesting that people think of tennis this way in Australia at the moment, however I completely disagree that tennis is going downhill -I think if anything we're improving but some of the European countries have improved faster. I actually work as a tennis coach part time, usually dealing with kids aged anywhere from as young as 6 to as old as 17, but mostly i take 6-10 year olds. The participation rates are actually increasing and each year my club has to create extra teams to fit in more people.

Tennis Australia has been bringing in a program called Hot Shots (you've probably seen the ads) which is a very good program focused at ensuring kids stay much more interested in tennis and enjoy it more in the hope that they see it out longer resulting in a greater number trying to make it professionally. There have been programs similar to this in most European countries for 20 years and now it's starting to pay off for them. All we have to do is stick with it and over time it will work.

One thing I will confess though is that whilst the numbers are increasing, their attitudes aren't and it amazes me (including some of the 15 year olds I take who play junior pennant) how easily they throw in the towel and I don't know where this attitude is coming from, and even Bernard Tomic has been known to do this. Maybe it's because he has everything already and doesn't feel the need to work as hard as opposed to someone like Jerzy Janowicz who had to work incredibly hard. Who knows?

All I can say is that I have a lot of faith, and I am confident we will see several more Australian's pushing into the top ten in the next two decades.

the mental aspect is something i wholeheartedly agree with. as a junior i used to see this immensely. many of the opponents i came up against and at times beat were much better players than me, technique, footwork etc but once something started to go wrong for them they chuck in the towel. another issue is australian tennis players often struggle to 'grind' a point out. whether it be from the junior ranks to senior players many players cannot place the ball for more than 3-4 shots before trying to create something. while someone like lleyton was the master at this, clay courters have been doing this for years and with courts seemingly slowing on the professional tour a level head and ability to get the ball in can go along way. maybe TA could employ a few more sport psychologists to assist players or buy some concrete