Tennis one big tangle

The crisis deepens for Tennis New Zealand at both a personnel and financial level as the sport struggles with the issues of international isolation and a disgruntled regional base.

The country is broken up into six regions and the Herald on Sunday understands only Auckland and Canterbury are running with any sort fiscal surety. Of the others - Waikato Bays, Central, Southern and Northern - some are thought to be receiving significant support from private benefactors.

Various sponsors and trust foundations are also believed to be hesitant about making further investment because of the uncertainty surrounding how the structure will continue at regional level.

The list of concerns is long. They include:

Worries over issues with senior staff, including consternation over how long Australian chief executive Steve Walker will continue to commute from Melbourne where his family have recently returned; and the length of national director of coaching Peter McCraw's contract. McCraw is based in Sydney.

Strong opposition from the regions over the desire by TNZ to increase affiliation fees.

A widespread belief the Sparc-influenced Tennis Revitalisation Project is a disaster, despite the investment of $1.5 million over four years to build a decent base of clubs and players.

Not enough money is being channelled into high performance and it's felt it would be better to develop individuals on the European futures circuit. Marina Erakovic remains the only Kiwi to make the top 50 in the world, in July 2008, since Brett Steven slipped outside that bracket exactly a decade earlier.

Having Davis and Fed Cup captain Marcel Vos flitting between tournaments checking on individuals is putting a sticking plaster on a deep wound when it comes to having coaching assistance on hand for top players.

Tennis in this country has been in a bad way for some time and attempts by the Herald on Sunday to get anyone to discuss the issues on the record proved difficult. Most feared a Stalinist-type purge if caught.

To his credit, TNZ chairman David Patterson defended the charges. Patterson has been chairman for less than two years but a board member for eight.

"It's easy to spend time kicking Tennis NZ around, that's frustrating," he said. "The reality is we don't have enough money to fund every activity so we make choices. It's a twin exercise, providing as much support for top players while trying to build the base of the game through participation in the regions.

"We get pretty much no funding for high performance from Sparc and gaming trusts tend to only want to fund at the community level. We're hoping to raise $500,000 - $50,000 from 10 benefactors over three years - to support high performance."

Staffing issues with senior personnel like Walker and McCraw commuting from Australia have contributed to what's bordering on disbelief in some quarters. Patterson still believes the decision's justified.

"Steve [Walker] still has a home here, but he has five kids including newly-born twins, so his family wants to be close to a support base. He wants to continue while he's got unfinished business and his proposal to personally pay for travel was accepted.

"For the next three months, he'll spend one week less in the office than he otherwise would have. However, we don't see that as viable long-term. If we start looking for another CEO now you couldn't rely on having another one for five to six months. So it's a transition phase, but it gives us time to look for a replacement."

Patterson hoped Vos' recent appointment as both Davis and Fed Cup captain would be an asset overseas as he would be guiding a number of New Zealand's top players up to 40 weeks of the year.

"I'd rather invest in that type of infrastructure than putting money into any particular player," Patterson said. "[On his own] a player can decide he's going to give up, chase women or be injured.

"What we need to do is put money into several players by way of support rather than directly. That's the priority."

Patterson is also conscious of pampering players too much at the high performance level, citing the rise of players in former Eastern bloc communist countries and poorer Asian nations in recent years.

"They've got lots of people who are determined to make a living whereas we generally produce players from safe middle-class backgrounds. You possibly need to be more desperate than that."

New Zealand also faces the constant issue of geographical isolation.

"If you go into Europe you're playing 200 competitive matches a year from the age of 11-12," Patterson said. "You can't get that sort of competition in our environment. And it's a huge cost to get our players exposed at that level."

Crunching the numbers

Tennis NZ financial numbers for the year to end April 2010:

1) The total spend is expected to be $2.2 million.

2) The spend on high performance - $1.22 million.

This money is divvied up as follows:

a) Approximately $458,000 on events such as Davis Cup/Fed Cup/other tournaments at top end.

b) Direct payments of $235,000 to 'transitional' players based on international ranking, with bigger payments to those who are higher or are improving more quickly.

c) Coaching top players at regional performance centres - $182,000.

d) International tours/camps and coaches - $347,000.

3) Spend on game development/participation $343,000 - including spending on Grasshoppers children's programme and also on regional development officers working at the club face.

4) Finance and administration - $ 488,000 for salaries; International Tennis Federation fees and other expenses.

Diagnosis: there's not enough money to achieve all TNZ wants to achieve. The key problem is balancing a desire to invest in top players while building the player base.

The numbers are for TNZ and do not include the spend in the six regions and remaining associations.