At the tennis club today one or two of us will come in out of the sun to watch the professionals on television. Most won't. No doubt they would if a New Zealander was doing battle for the national open title but, frankly, the lack of a local hero doesn't
concern them at all.
I can't decide whether this is a problem or a virtue. Participation, after all, is supposed to rank higher than excellence in the sporting ideal.
And tennis is second only to golf in the numbers of New Zealanders playing the game. Its lack of a Michael Campbell is having no discernible impact on the enthusiasm of duffers like me who simply enjoy swinging a racquet in the sun.
But what if I was young and about a hundred times better than I was? I was talking to just such a young player on the North Shore not so long ago.
He was keen enough, and maybe good enough, to make tennis his life. But the more he talked the more it was apparent the culture of the game at the highest level in this country was against him.
None of the participants seemed to get along. The young players didn't like each other, wouldn't practise together, couldn't form the sort of unit that provides a mutual challenge, encouragement and improvement.
From what you hear, the coaching and even the administration in this country are little better. Organisational power resides in the big regional associations, Auckland and Canterbury, rather than the national body. Back-biting, patch-protection seems to prevail.
That at least is the tale we hear at the clubs but, again, club members don't really care. So long as interclub competitions are well organised - and on the whole they are - the game is in good heart. What a waste, though.
We have the natural conditions to be a nursery for one of the world's truly universal sports, one that can provide a fortune to the exceptionally talented and set others up for life. We have the climate, the courts and most of the infrastructure needed to launch young players into a career that should be an option for the best of them.
A few are given grants and good wishes to go and try their luck on the hard travelling circuits. It has been a decade since any made the grade.
Maybe the competition is tougher now than when Fairlie and Parun were touring in the 1970s or Simpson and Lewis in the 80s and Evernden and Steven in the 90s. More countries are producing top players these days. The defending champion in Auckland this week was Chilean and he was not the only one from that country.
But that is all the more reason to rue our absence. If Chile, or Croatia, Argentina or Australia can do it, why not us? They haven't produced the odd flash in the pan, they have produced two, three, four or more contemporaries in the top 100. They are doing something right and it should not be too hard for New Zealand to copy it.
Long ago, when I was entering under-age tournaments, the toughest competition came from a large contingent from Southland who travelled under the care of a single coach. I don't know that any grew up to go further than national rankings but they had the best start I've seen.
They did not just play with a certain tutored style and confidence, they generally had a good attitude as I recall. They were not - or not allowed to be - sullen, selfish little sods. Tennis at teenage level seems to spawn more than its share of those.
That is also the level at which it is failing to retain participation. Tennis clubs are like tribal villages with their warriors away. Membership is typically made up of the young and the quite old, with a dearth of people in their 20s and 30s.
Too many good players lose interest late in their teens and do not pick up a racquet regularly again until they are around 40. The transition from disappointed ambition to pure enjoyment seems to be a long one, and some never make it.
Among those playing the game for fun few take more than a passing interest in the premier local competitions. When the Chelsea Cup was played at North Shore clubs this season it was still possible at some of them to watch in almost solitary splendour the best players in New Zealand trading blows.
Tennis in this country is a well-cultivated but fallow field just waiting for the right fertiliser. If I was the farmer the first thing I would try to do is devise a competition capable of catching the imagination of television.
In my dreams we have our six or eight best players, male and female, leading teams with a regional identity and have the teams compete weekly at a time armchair sports fans are looking for something to watch.
Well-presented with insightful commentary a tennis match can be absorbing. If the players are prepared to stand up straight and speak and dress as well as they play, they could give the game the local stars it needs.
Stars bring not only public attention but give young players greater pride and aspiration. It becomes possible to eradicate the brat culture by working on well-publicised performers at the top.
Once inspired, young talent needs to be nurtured in a hothouse. It needs to be brought together under the country's best coach of children, who will not necessarily be our best former player or even one of the best.
Tennis needs a secondary school that wants to distinguish itself, much as Rotorua Boys High School has done with golf. The national coach could be set up there with funds to provide holiday programmes for selected children from around the country. The aim would be to have as many of them as possible attend that secondary school for their education, their billeting and school costs paid so that they could play together every day.
It will probably take something like that to give us heroes again. And if it happens, we contented old clubbers might feel a quickening of the pulse.
At the tennis club today one or two of us will come in out of the sun to watch the professionals on television. Most won't. No doubt they would if a New Zealander was doing battle for the national open title but, frankly, the lack of a local hero doesn't
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