Goh-ing up in the world :: Australian Daily Telegraph

Goh-ing up in the world:: Australian Daily Telegraph via Fox Sports (September 29, 2005)~~~

I just spoke with Craig Tiley about his plans for Australian player development for a story I'm writing for Tennis Magazine and as I expected, he had some very concise plans for changing Tennis Australia's High Performance culture.

Although Tiley didn't mention seventeen-year-old Steven Goh, or any player for that matter, he did suggest that Australia would start looking for athletes who could become tennis players. Australian Tony Roche, Roger Federer's part-time coach, echoes that same sentiment when he touts Goh in this story. (Goh is barely inside the Top 400 in the ITF rankings, but has been playing Futures almost exclusively this year.) I don't disagree, but another item that Roche mentions, the plan to build more clay courts, seems equally important to me. If a great athlete doesn't understand the complexities and nuances of the game of tennis, he isn't going to challenge the Federers and Nadals consistently. And clay courts are the best place to assess and develop that side of the tennis brain. Tiley also revealed Australia's plan to develop alternate "home bases," and if they are in Europe, as expected, clay will play a prominent role.

The restructuring that began last week will take some time to implement, but the deck-clearing has brought with it an undeniable sense of optimism. It's refreshing when tennis icons of a country refer to it future as "exciting."