TA strategy and performance officer Tim Jolley believes Aussie tennis is 'on a very strong trajectory'

Tim Jolley (Tennis Australia)

First appointed by Tennis Australia in 2020, chief strategy and performance officer Tim Jolley has spoken publicly about the state of Australian tennis and addressed concerns from those within.

Tennis Australia is going through a massive transition period, with Craig Tiley currently in the process of helping narrow down a suitable candidate to replace him as CEO and Australian Open tournament director, as the 65-year-old was announced as the USTA's CEO back in February.

As Australian tennis searches for the next big breakout star to emerge, it could be a barren period for a proud tennis nation.

But Jolley shares a different view.

"I think the internal assessment is that we are on a very strong trajectory at the moment," Jolley told The First Serve Live.

"We've got some very good results in terms of what we consider to be one of our most important metrics, which is the number of players that we have in the top 100. In 2025, which is obviously the last full year of data we have, we had 14 players across our men and women in the top 100, which is actually the most number of players that we've had since 1989.

"But of course, there are lots of things that we can be doing better, and certainly part of my job is being really clear on what those gaps are and what those development opportunities are."

Listen to The First Serve Live every Monday at 8pm AEST in its 18th year on the SEN Network/App, Australia's only dedicated weekly tennis program on commercial radio running through till the end of November.

Five Aussie men currently sit inside the top 100 with an average age of 28.7 years, while the women's side is producing more promise with the likes of Maya Joint (20), Talia Gibson (21) and Emerson Jones (17).

Jolley insists that he's "certainly not writing off the Aussie men" and shared Tennis Australia's criteria when it comes to evaluating performance.

"We see our role as developing top 100 players," he said. "Obviously we have an aspiration of players to kick on well beyond the top 100... and we have a very proud tradition in Australia as Grand Slam champions.

"As a federation, our primary job is to develop athletes, and of course, I'm talking about able-bodied athletes, not our performance players with disability program. For able-bodied athletes, it is very much to prepare athletes to get them into the top 100 at a stage in their career where they can take full control of their careers and then drive themselves forward.

"As a secondary metric, we look at the age of our players in the top 100 versus the average age of our players that are in the top 100, and we're pretty much on the average."

Jolley added that "it's difficult to get a true sense of where an athlete is" by relying on ITF ranking, which is why he believes tracking players via UTR ranking is important.

Over the years, The First Serve has received plenty of feedback from parents, players, and coaches, mostly negative, surrounding the UTR system.

Despite the backlash, Jolley remains firm that it's here to stay for the long haul.

"UTR, like any new system, we're all aware that in the early days, there was some reluctance for players to play certain matches because of nervousness around the impact that it might have on their rating," he explained.

"But the really positive news is that it really has turned around in recent times. If you look at traditionally what's been a really important time in the tournament calendar, which is January, this year in January we had an eight per cent increase in the number of tournaments and an increase in the total number of entries across those tournaments. Even significantly, it was up over 10 per cent in entries in regional tournaments, which was one of the early complaints that people were moving away from regional tournaments.

"So we think that players, parents, and coaches are beginning to understand how the rating works now. There's less anxiety around it."

The standard of coaching has become a hot topic of debate amongst people involved in Australian tennis.

In March, Australian tennis legend and former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash posted a lengthy statement on Instagram to express his dissatisfaction concerning the player development and coaching space, as well as other areas.

"Over the years, many opportunities to provide top-level coaching and mentoring at all levels have been missed," he wrote.

"In my view, general coaching standards in Australia lag behind the rest of the world and urgently need upgrading."

When asked about the level of coaching under his watch, Jolley explained that it isn't perfect.

"I think there are some structural challenges that we're facing with performance coaches," he admitted.

"I would say that within the Tennis Australia team, I think we're very blessed to have some incredible talent that's spent careers developing professional tennis players. Obviously we've got former Grand Slam champions like Lleyton Hewitt and Sam Stosur in the system.

"But today there are less and less people who are prepared to spend 35 weeks of the year away from home on tour with their athlete. Quite frankly, particularly if you're operating in the private sector, you can put on a private if it's a performance player that's having five lessons a week. You're not charging them 100 bucks an hour, but let's say you were; alternatively, you could put on a hotshots clinic and have eight kids on the court, charge them all 30 bucks, and you're making 240 dollars in that hour."

A few weeks have passed since the news about Mustafa Ege Şık switching from representing Türkiye to Australia.

Şık, 16, was granted funding by Tennis Australia despite not being an officially recognised Australian citizen at the time, as he was awaiting document approval.

"There's a consistent framework, that's for sure," Jolley confirmed. "A framework is not a rules-based system; it's a system that provides some opportunity to take into account the circumstances of individual athletes, but yes, we have published benchmarks for each age that we think players should be meeting to be selected for our programs.

"Many of those players do meet those benchmarks, but as I was saying, we know that not all athletes develop at the same pace, and so we do try to ensure that we're not missing any athletes with really high potential."

He shut down rumours suggesting that Tennis Australia intentionally import players from overseas, stating that "the narrative is not correct". Listen to the full interview below:

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