David Leggat: Tennis must find way out of wilderness

A search of the men's international tennis website for any of New Zealand's leading male players, Dan King-Turner, GD Jones, Rubin and Oliver Statham, initially came up with the following: "the player you entered does not exist".

Actually they do. Put it down to a highly user-unfriendly website, but in one sense it seemed appropriate.

New Zealand's men are going nowhere fast and that's unlikely to change in the near future.

King-Turner is the best-ranked at No 324 and is enjoying his best year on the circuit, with earnings of US$20,533 ($28,570).

The latest embarrassment on the world stage was the 4-1 dunking by the Philippines in the Asia-Oceania group two playoff in Manila last weekend.

Now consider these names: Sebastian Lavie, Riki and Ben McLachlan, Barrett Franks and Briar Preston. If you've heard of any of them, you are either a serious tennis head or telling porkies.

They are the latest batch of junior players looking to make their way in one of the two genuine worldwide individual sports.

It's a tough gig, up against thousands of teenagers armed with skill, a whiff of the big time and a killer instinct, in many cases automatons driven by those ghastly parents who aim to live their lives vicariously through their kids' sporting talent, and bolster their bank accounts along the way.

And yet New Zealand has generally more than punched its weight at junior level.

Marina Erakovic was a junior Grand Slam winner; several others have made a similar encouraging impact in recent years.

Lavie is No 47 on the junior rankings; the McLachlans' 60th and 71st and Franks No 118. Preston is No 94 on the girls list. All are between 16 and 18 and all have played junior Grand Slams. So they've had a taste of it.

These players are covering familiar territory, showing signs of promise in those teenage years but who tend to fade in that 18-20 period. Why?

It is when players move from squaring off against pimply-faced kids yet to require a razor to tackling physically dominant men, or women, utterly determined to crush the game, and spirit of any rising talent.

Then there's the money needed to get them a toehold on the international ladder.

Tennis New Zealand are hamstrung by their own cash issues. It is understood three of their six regions have financial problems.

There is a giant question mark over the Futures tournaments, which last summer provided purses of US$15,000 for men, US$10,000 for women at events in North Harbour, Waikato and Wellington.

Government funding agency Sparc has provided $1.5 million for a revitalisation project, which originally ran from 2007 to this year, and has been extended to April 2011. It is angled on sports development as opposed to high performance. Plus there is an annual $175,000 investment.

The aims of the project included creating a unified sport, financial sustainability, a change in coaching culture and quality and an environment to encourage more youth involvement.

Former top player Onny Parun's biting criticisms of the national administration would suggest that this is not a sport collectively pulling in the same direction.

Where other sports have a clear pecking order, tennis is split.

Rugby has the All Blacks at the top of its tree; league the Kiwis; cricket the New Zealand team.

New Zealand is as far away as it has ever been from a return to those days when Chris Lewis, Parun and the like duelled with the game's big hitters.

The sport is stuck in a fug of mediocrity with no exit door in sight.