TNZ ‘has to do better’
Tennis NZ chief executive Julie Paterson admits it needs to do a better job at getting its message across after receiving criticism.
The federation believes the way to get another top 100 singles player is to set an extremely high benchmark for young players before they receive the full support of Tennis NZ.
Only two players reached their criteria last year, 15-year-old Corban Crowther and 14-year-old Vivian Yang.
Some have questioned why Tennis NZ spent $757,917 on high performance last year plus $150,003 on coaching, according to its most recent annual report, for just two players.
While last week there was the shock announcement that Neil Carter had quit as Fed Cup captain after less than 15 months in the job.
Carter clashed with Tennis NZ high performance director Simon Rea over a number of issues.
While things aren’t as bad as they were a decade ago, when infighting, cliques and egos within Tennis NZ and the regions left tennis in a fractious state in New Zealand, these are the first signs that there is some discontent over the way things are being run.
A Sunday Star-Times’ story last month on when New Zealand will have another top 100 player was posted on the Tennis NZ website and drew a number of responses critical of Tennis NZ’s current philosophy.
Paterson conceded an issue it faces is explaining what its intentions are to the wider tennis community.
‘‘We’ve communicated to the people that are directly involved really clearly about the high performance programme,’’ Paterson said.
‘‘But I don’t think that we have to a broader tennis community audience been clear enough about the programme and ongoing development of it.
‘‘I think that Tennis NZ has a whole can do a better job of being clearer of the evolution of the performance programme and also about communicating it more widely to the tennis community.
‘‘A focus over the next few weeks is drafting up a plan around how we can hit different audiences with how we’re communicating what we’re doing.’’
Rea said the high performance budget went way beyond just supporting Crowther and Yang.
‘‘The Davis and Fed Cup stuff takes a big chunk out of that budget right there,’’ Rea said.
‘‘It was only a couple of years ago that we weren’t involved in Fed Cup at all. We’ve returned to the competition and we’re keen to be a part of it moving forward and we invested in a captain to the tune 10 or 12 weeks a year.
‘‘Similarly, when the Davis Cup athletes are here during the course of the year and certainly in December and January, we’re really hands on in being invested as best we can.
‘‘I spent an extra 10 days in Melbourne, primarily with Mike [Venus] and Marcus [Daniell], but also with Artem [Sitak].
‘‘Additionally, there are national junior teams that go away to Asia. Our junior teams go next month to Kuala Lumpur and our Junior Davis and Fed Cup teams go in April to Delhi.
‘‘There’s a significant expense for that and under Julie’s leadership, she’s made the decision that we absorb all of the costs of that and don’t charge the kids for that representative opportunity anymore and in the past we have.’’
For a coach of Carter’s experience and standing in the game to quit after such a short amount of time as Fed Cup captain sets alarm bells ringing.
Carter is staying quiet on the reasons why he resigned, but it’s not a good look all round.
‘‘We’re disappointed that Neil chose to leave at this stage,’’ Paterson said.
‘‘But Neil as Fed Cup captain was part of a wider team of coaches.
‘‘So while it’s disappointing, the players will not be left with no-one and they are all still in communication with Simon and Christophe [Lambert, national performance coach].