Tennis: Top players urged to forget feuds

No action will be taken against Adam Thompson for walking off court in a semifinal of the Auckland championships - but top players are being urged to get together to sort out longstanding feuds.

The championship finals were played last night, but one of the men's finalists, Teo Susnjak , had an easier-than-expected passage to the final when Thompson picked up his racquet and headed home, trailing 3-0 in the deciding set of their semifinal.

Thompson had been riled by abusive remarks passed by a player on the next court where the men's doubles final was being played. That quartet included some of New Zealand's top players - Matt Prentice of Wellington, Aucklanders Lee Radovanovich and Jacob Olsen and Dan King-Turner of Canterbury.

Spats between the country's leading male players are not uncommon.

For example Thompson, back from a lengthy stint playing Futures tournaments in Africa and the country's second-ranked player, had a verbal stoush with another leading player, William Ward, during a Caro Bowl club match in October.

Ward was also reprimanded by Tennis New Zealand for "a serious breach of his responsibilities" after a bustup ahead of the Davis Cup tie against Pakistan in Islamabad in September when he felt he should have had one of the singles spots ahead of either Mark Nielsen or Simon Rea.

There have been other instances of bad feeling among the leading players and immature behaviour on court in the past few months.

Both Auckland Tennis operations manager Richard Palmer and Tennis New Zealand chief executive Don Turner reckon it's time the top players sat down, aired any grievances and put past differences behind them.

Palmer said last night he had spoken to five of the six players involved in Monday's incident, and some spectators, and received various versions of events.

Thompson had apologised for the walkout. Palmer, although unimpressed, believed the incident had been blown out of proportion and won't be taking any further action.

"It's not ideal. It's not good for your top players to have this nonsense going on and we don't like it," Palmer said of Thompson's walkoff.

"But players at the top level do have rivalries. They all need to air their dirty linen, to get it off their chests, shake hands and start hitting tennis balls again rather than chipping each other.

"We don't have a big enough pool of players to have this sort of thing going on."

Part of the problem is that the bulk of New Zealand's leading players are aged between 17 and 22. There is a shortage of mature, influential players in New Zealand.

Turner believed some players had struggled to cope with what he called the "gladiatorial" aspects of one-on-one competition.

"There's no hiding place on a tennis court, and it's the nature of sport, but we certainly don't condone poor behaviour," he said.

One relevant factor is that there is a group of roughly the same standard trying to break free of the pack and establish themselves as top dog. None has yet been able to do that.

"There is quite a lot of competition for places in the New Zealand pecking order, and a few of the younger ones are pretty passionate about putting their hand up to be counted," Turner said.

Some of the leading players are in the Residential championships starting at Forrest Hill today. Between Christmas and New Year the top group will play off in a mini round-robin tournament to decide two wildcards into January's Heineken Open and four qualifying event places.

Among that group will be Thompson, Ward, Prentice, Radovanovich, King-Turner and Nielsen.