Michael Brown: Tie another bad look

Dan King-Turner is Hawera-bound. Photo / Getty Images

Hawera, for those of you who don't know, is 75km south-east of New Plymouth on State Highway 3 in the shadow of Mt Taranaki/Egmont.

It's best known for the water tower, built to improve water pressure to help fight fires, and the largest dairy factory in the Southern Hemisphere.

It's also the birthplace of Michael Campbell, Adine Wilson, John Mitchell, John Plumtree, Conrad Smith and even this writer.

Its latest claim to fame is the fact it will host June's Davis Cup tie with Pakistan at the new TSB Hub.

It's great news for the 11,000 people who call Hawera home but it's the latest in a catalogue of bad looks for tennis in this country.

The Davis Cup, as Tennis New Zealand spout on their own website, is "the most prestigious teams event in the world". It started in 1900 as a challenge between Great Britain and the US and has developed enormously, with 131 nations now competing.

It seems incongruous, then, for New Zealand's tie against Pakistan to be played in Hawera.

What has happened to the sport in this country that TNZ believe it's a good idea to play the Davis Cup in a rural town?

This is not intended as a slight on Hawera. The new stadium is, by all accounts, a good facility. And to borrow a terribly overused line by Kevin Costner from the film Field of Dreams, "if you build it, they will come".

It will be a great event for the town. People there will likely jump enthusiastically into organising the tie and many who wouldn't normally watch tennis might be encouraged to head down to support a local event.

But that's the important word here: local.

It's hard to believe national media organisations will commit money and resources into sending people to cover the tie in Hawera, which means few people outside Taranaki will even know it's on.

There could be an argument that the Davis Cup doesn't court coverage anyway. It's a legitimate point. But staging it in Hawera won't help.

Similarly, it can be argued that Aucklanders hardly got behind it when it was played there.

It's easy to see why TNZ, who aren't exactly flush with money, chose Hawera to host the tie. Hosting a Davis Cup tie can be an expensive operation, particularly as the venue is needed for eight days.

The North Shore Events Centre, for example, costs about $7000 a day and presumably the Hub offered their venue, if not for free, then at an attractive rate.

Perception, though, is a powerful tool in sport.

TNZ have a policy of alternating between playing in metropolitan and regional centres but few know about this, meaning the perception is that they are happy to play anywhere regardless of how it looks.

In recent times, they have played at Parnell, North Shore, New Plymouth, Hamilton and Dunedin.

Professional sport works in a cycle. With coverage comes publicity, with publicity comes sponsorship, with sponsorship comes money and with money comes opportunities. Money is everything in tennis.

Maybe TNZ should opt out of the Davis and Fed Cups until they have teams worth investing in.

They lost about $20,000 hosting China in New Plymouth in 2008, even though the Davis Cup tie attracted good crowds.

They also spent close to $80,000 to send the New Zealand Fed Cup side to Malaysia in February. The team of Marina Erakovic, Sacha Jones and Ellen Barry finished fifth in a group that also featured Japan, Chinese Taipei, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Indonesia.

While you would be hard pressed to find someone who could name a player from each of those countries, New Zealand don't appear capable of progressing from Asia-Oceania Zone Group I, where they have been since 1997.

Perhaps that money could be used to develop promising juniors and New Zealand could then return to the fold when they have a team worth investing in.

Similarly, New Zealand's Davis Cup side has struggled for some time. They have been in Asia-Oceania Group II since 2005 and could struggle to progress against Pakistan in June, even playing at home.

TNZ have apparently considered pulling out of the Davis Cup until they had a stronger team but felt they needed to at least try regardless of the costs and to maintain an international presence.

Many will point romantically back to the good, old days when New Zealand regularly contested the World Group. A return to the upper echelons is unrealistic.

They haven't been in the World Group since 1991, although they contested playoffs to return there in 1993,'94,'96,'97 and '99.

Too much has changed in world tennis since then, not least the development of Asian and Eastern European countries that has coincided with our decline.

Something special needs to happen if tennis in New Zealand is to be taken seriously again.

It was a bit like what football encountered until the All Whites qualified for the World Cup.

A similar upsurge of interest isn't likely to happen for some time, at least not until we produce players who capture the imagination of sports fans in this country.

It's hard to see that happening in Hawera in June.