In this weeks edition of The First Serve, hosts Brett Phillips and Sam Groth discussed the upcoming US Open and all the noise that surrounds it as players start to arrive in New York.
"It's great to see players heading towards New York, it's exactly what the sport needed. With everything else going on globally, to get almost everyone in one place ready for a grand slam tournament. I fully commend everyone who's gone to New York and made the effort to be at these events and try and get our sport up and running. I fully give credit to everyone who's gone there," Groth Said.
Australian doubles specialist John Peers joined the show to reveal what the setup is like for players in New York:
"Even from the word go once we got to the airport, getting checks to leave the country, getting given face shield as well as face masks to wear on the flight and then once we got here, just straight into the bubble and you get tested straight away and then from there you've gotta wait for results. Sometimes it takes 12 hours, sometimes it takes for quite a few of us 26, 27 hours. Then a quick scramble to try and get a practice court for that evening. It's been a long wait today to wait for the results to come back to make sure we can practice," Peers explained.
"The biggest thing's just all the precautions of social distancing. Everyone's wearing a mask all the time, any public areas now they've started to set up and have something for the players, but everything's very much distanced out. I went to the gym after practice today at the hotel, there's four metres between each bike and between each piece of gym equipment. At the end of the day everyone's sticking to themselves and trying to be as safe as they can because we know it takes everyone to do it and it takes a big effort from everyone," Peers said.
Coach Bill McDonald joined the show to voice his opinion on the Tennis Australia performance review and how it's effected him:
"I've travelled the length of Australia the past 30 years going to tennis tournaments every week in front of all the people, all the officials, all the players, all the people who every year lead tennis. They've all been in a very expensive game with coaching, tournament fees, restrings, travel, accomodation, meals etc. This is the realm of grass roots tennis for tennis tournaments. TA staff are very rarely at any of these events, but they run all of these events and they also put a levy on entry fees. I've just been reading the annual reports and I'm here speaking for all the people, I'm speaking for thousands of people. Grass roots tennis is facing a life and death struggle against Tennis Australia. there's no bones about that", McDonald said.
"This is nothing personal, but this is their policies, the last thing they spend money on is tennis. According to the TA annual report, 387 million dollars revenue in that year, that same year, I looked at the AMT prize money. $860,000 and ITF events, $1,00,025. This money in the main is put up by grass roots tennis, not Tennis Australia. Tennis Australia mainly spends money on controlling tennis. We do not have the luxury of a country like France, where the tennis administration there works famously with all grass roots and for tournaments there. All the tournaments they have there, the tournament programs are renowned world wide and the people from all over the world go to their tournaments. Grass roots tennis is about tennis, that's what it's all about, clubs, regions, associations, there is much more nous in all these places than there ever is in all the people that work in Tennis Australia put together, because most the people that work in Tennis Australia are not tennis people," McDonald explained.
To listen in on the full discussion on the US Open including our chat with John Peers, and an in depth discussion with Bill McDonald on the state of tennis at grass roots level in Australia, tune into the full edition of the show! Listen in below on your preferred podcast platform by clicking their icon!