"If you go back three or four years you didn't even have guys playing in the qualifying," said Steven.
"It's hard to compare us against Australia because they have a budget of about $15million that's created out of Tennis Australia and the Australian Open.
"Our guys basically do it themselves so I commend the young guys for getting their rankings up and they're able to play in the main draws of grand slams. It's a great achievement.
"I think they're doing as best they can at the moment in New Zealand. There are some good coaches who work hard with the kids. We need to get them overseas to see what it takes to become a top tennis player."
Steven retired in 1999 and his best grand slam result came when he managed to reach the quarter finals of the Australian Open in 1993.
No Kiwi has come close to competing at anywhere near the same level since the turn of the century.
Steven added: "Tennis is a minority sport now. When tennis clubs were thriving back in the 1970s and no-one worked on Saturdays or Sundays, tennis was a big sport. There's so many more things that kids get to do now.
"We don't get any money from the government and it all comes out from what we can raise privately or out of affiliation fees. It's always going to struggle."
Mark Lewis, club and schools manager at Tennis Auckland, said participation and funding for secondary schools was, however, in a healthy position. Funding at regional and junior levels does not struggle like the sport does nationally.
"There is an Auckland secondary schools competition that's traditional and has been running for years and years and years.
"It's a pretty strong competition with good numbers - probably between two or three thousand kids who play.
"You obviously need funding to provide opportunities and infrastructure but certainly getting into schools in the Auckland area, we've been very fortunate to have received funding from regional sports trusts and some of the gaming trusts to give kids an opportunity to play at primary schools.
"We're probably averaging about 12,000 kids who are getting the opportunity to play over the last four or five years. That's courtesy of a lot of funding that's come through Auckland sport and Kiwi sport."
Tennis New Zealand will be hoping that Wimbledon can inspire young Kiwis to take up the game with all the focus on juniors right now.
Steven said: "It's hard to say in five years' time that things are going to be dramatically better but Tennis New Zealand is investing some money into the junior level of the game and it's starting to see some results.
"There are all sorts of 12 to 15 years old so they're going to take a while but if you can get one male tennis player and one female tennis player competing in the top 100, that would be terrific."
Lewis added: "With something like Wimbledon coming up, it's high profile, it's on TV One and that can sometimes trigger kids to pick up a racket so we're lucky in that respect as a sport."
