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Throw a bunch of tennis players into a cake tin. Put a few on the top, nothing but air in the middle and leave the rest to fight their way out of a soft and chewy base with a better than average chance of coming out of the oven burnt.

Tennis Australia (TA) must do more if they intend the trend of the past of producing world-class players to continue. TA implies through its posters, advertisements and Davis Cup (where the players are playing for Australia and therefore in TA's eyes "part of or a product of" tennis Australia) that they have played some kind of "major role" in the development of Hewitt, Rafter and Philippoussis and that everything is "bonzer" with oz tennis. However, what is clear is that if you scratch the surface, all is defiantly not Ok with Australian Tennis. The top Australian players all went out solo with even a reluctance to accept Tennis Australia's help (especially when TA's track record at the AIS was examined). Now with Rafter out, Philippoussis injured all too often and a swag of pre-veteran aged players making up the lower ranks, Australian tennis could crash through the cake and land with their face covered in pudding.

The first signs of a deep-seated problem started to surface during the Davis Cup 2001 final with Australia losing the vital doubles. Playing the "hobbled by history" Sandon Stolle who had previously very nearly chocked away a win against the Brazilians in the semis, Australia showed that there was a serious lack of depth in the squad and one year later it all happened again. It was Fitzy this time who was dragged over the coals for bad captaincy by the press when in reality he had almost no in-form players to play in the crucial 3rd doubles rubber other than Hewitt and the physically suspect Rafter. In former days the doubles was the easy choice but it became the Australians "Achillis Heal". The only real Captaincy mistake was putting the tie on grass and the players must take most the blame for that, as they would have had "major" input in that decision.

This tragic state of affairs came to a head at the 2002 Wimbledon tournament, the tournament where Aussies traditionally do well playing on the grass. Though Hewitt's win was nothing short of magnificent, the broader view shows a totally different picture. Only four men made the 128 main draw, which for a grass court rich nation was a disaster. The facts are even worse if you consider how many Australians are in the top 200 on the ATP list. Out of the four players in the main draw,

1. was given free passage with a wild card.

2. came through qualifying and

3. were directly accepted on ranking.

As for the 3 women in the main draw singles, not one made the second round. (this is not a criticism of the players but rather the system that has let them down).

TA. would claim to have created the "competitive environment" for the top players to develop and prosper in but at closer scrutiny, it's clear to see that these players' development has grown out of an unwavering single mindedness (especially in Rafter's case where he even travelled for years without a coach) and unparalleled family commitment in the case of Hewitt and Philippoussis that was able to create a positively charged nurturing environment. In these cases the financial burden to families, even when the players have had early success, puts a strain on family resources way over most families' means.

Welcome to the land of the late bloomer. It's hard to forget about Hewitt, but if you take him out of the equation, the average age of the Australian players who break into the top echelon of world tennis is comparatively old. Being isolated from the rest of the world is a big disadvantage. In former times this problem was minimised by the fact that tennis was simply less professional and the majority of top players came from Australia, therefore, there was simply less risk of losing ground to foreign players.

As the game moves forward professionally, the "competitive side" of tennis training has been given new added value. However, in spite of this, tennis athletes looking to broaden their experience are being let down by an antiquated tournament system and infrastructure that is not properly maintained and/or adequately upgraded.

In Josef Brabenec's (Canada) article (for the ITF May2002) "Competition: the most desirable form of training", he argues that "today competition (tournaments) have been substituted by monotonous sessions of drilling with stroke technique being perfected mostly in "un- match" like situations. Repeated drill sessions can after a certain time stifle competitive instinct, the desire to compete or worse, the "know-how" to compete".

Whilst there are a number of small money ("pro") tournaments available for players to cut their teeth on, the number of them as well as the money in them has shrunk terribly. In other words, local tournaments 20 years ago offered much more money than they do now, especially when you factor-in the price of living.

Furthermore, local initiative is, for the most part, responsible for the promotion and running of these tournaments. TA has neglected to offer assistance to these minor tournaments, that in the present economic climate, struggle to secure the much needed but largely depleted sponsorship dollar causing many tournaments to either scale down to hobby tournaments or disappear completely.

What chance has a young pro got of winning an ATP tournament if he can't get experience winning a local money tournament. Winning is learnable, and not totally hereditary, therefore either practice matches or mock competitions cannot substitute the "winning" or "losing" experiences on court. In essence, practice matches, drilling or having raw talent like Hewitt is normally not enough, Pro's need tournaments.

Psychologically speaking, young players feel better about themselves and their situation if they can help their parents out by covering some expenses with their winnings, as well as having the chance to experience the "real Pro" feeling with perhaps the first goal being to break even on expenses.

In the 80's, the Australian (Satellite / Challenger level) players would gravitate to Spain where satellite circuits were lined up back-to-back six months in a row. We were always perplexed how and why such a country would invest so much at this level, not even having a grand slam tournament to bank role the events.

Twenty years down the track things have become very clear. With Spain being responsible for a good portion of the top twenty ATP players, makes it quite clear that competition breeds champions. In the world tennis development hierarchy, Darwin is behind Perth, which is behind the Eastern States that are further behind California and Europe respectively. The question is, how far behind do you let it slide before you do something?

The old masters like Emo, Rocket and Muscles belonged to another era where there was the possibility to jump a couple of rungs on the ladder of success as there wasn't the depth of today's game. Their schedules were jammed with challenge matches, exhibitions and small money tournaments and though they played each other almost all the time in semis and finals, it was never the less considered "dinkum".

Although difficult to quantify, match fitness and match toughness are the attributes that win tournaments and not necessarily the amount of time spent on the practice court. In the mid 80s, John McEnroe played over 200 matches in one year (doubles included) and was number 1 in the world. McEnroe was noted to hardly practice at all, 40 minutes a day max, but he played a match nearly every day. It is absolutely imperative that our juniors/aspiring young Pro's play at least 50 tournament matches a year.

I played the French system of money tournaments for years. (see: http://www.fft.fr/competitions/joueurs_etrangers.html) Each club that is part of the pennant system is required to run a tournament relevant to the class it plays. Thousands of tournaments are on offer. Many players used this highly competitive system to get into form for upcoming ATP tournaments. The story goes that the year Mark Edmondson won the Australian Open, he was coming off the back of winning a whole heap of French "big ones (30 000 FF+)" in a row.

Australia has always been an ideal place to discover raw talent. We are an out-door people that in most cases would prefer to play sport than watch it. The "no quit" mantra of the golden age of tennis built strong gutsy athletes and although a thin residue of a bygone era still permeates the young, they are being held back by a system that has failed to keep up with the times.

TA. and the AIS should be assisting small tournaments financially and by sending their student players to represent them. These top Australian youngsters would be the "draw cards" and would help with promoting the event. If these young stars win the prize money, they could recycle a percentage of the money to expenses. This would be a great way of giving young Pro's practical survival experiences and would allow them to develop the "street smarts" vital to surviving the weekly travelling involved in the modern game.

Tennis Australia can play a leading role in re-establishing these tournaments back to their former stature by "reinvesting" money into the lower tiers from the big money spinners such as the OZ Open, Hopman / Davis / Fed Cup's or we will run the risk of losing a generation of players who need to work through their apprenticeship and not simply do a "Hewitt like" jump, clean over it. I hope Tennis Australia doesn't wait until there are no Aussies at Wimbledon before they wake up, but I have the feeling that just might be what it'll take.

Good luck young Pro's; you're going to need it!