WHERE there should be grassroots, Virginia Wallace sees weeds, growing up through the cracks in the asphalt courts at Cororooke, a hamlet outside Colac. Where there should be a smooth baseline, she sees divots and potholes. "You can't have a good rally with the ball pinging off all over the place," said Ms Wallace, who helped to refound the Cororooke tennis club four years ago, after 10 dormant years. "It's really hard."
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Cororooke's pitted and pockmarked courts fit into a vivid anecdotal picture. Possibly, these are the holes into which Australian tennis is falling. Country Australia always has produced sports stars disproportionate to population. Up the road from Cororooke is Cressy, home to Stacey Keating, current holder of the French and Spanish Open golf titles. The bracing effect of country air is more than myth.
Yet something is awry, said Ms Wallace. "I drive through Melbourne sometimes, see beautiful courts with lights and proper fencing, and think: what would we do to play in facilities like that," she said.
At Melbourne Park, if she used one of the 30 ground passes donated to Cororooke by the Australian Open, she would see the footings of the final stage of a $366 million redevelopment, including eight clay courts, meant to ready Australian players for all surfaces and conditions and predicted by government spinmeisters to guarantee Australia's tennis future. Ms Wallace is a lifelong tennis player and fan and does not question this investment.
But she notes that a super-sized Melbourne Park can only refine players, not find them. "It's important to invest in elite facilities," she said. "But it's important to put into the grassroots, too. Kids are not bred in elite facilities. They come from passion for the game."
At Cororooke, that passion burns. The economy is pinching again; the Fonterra dairy, one paddock away from the courts, is shutting down, costing 140 local jobs. Yet Ms Wallace boasts of a club that in a short time has built a membership of 80, including the oldest of her three children in a thriving junior division.
Yet only recently was power connected to the clubhouse; until then, a gas burner was used for coffee and tea. Then there are those craterous courts. "It's unfair to our juniors, I think," Ms Wallace said. "You can't keep offering low-grade facilities to kids. Eventually, they'll walk away. We can't let this keep going. We won't have any kids."
Tennis Australia says 1480 courts had been built or rebuilt around Australia in the last four years, costing $186 million. About 75 new and upgraded tennis centres were on the drawing board. "Of course, we still want to do more," said TA community tennis manager Robin O'Neill. "Yes, courts have been lost, with churches and private courts being used for other investment needs. But . . . we are building new ones in growth corridors giving the greatest access to the largest number of people."
Cororooke, meantime, has left no piece of gravel unturned. It has enlisted the support of tennis star-turned federal MP John Alexander, state politicians and candidates, the shire council, local businesses and the Neale Fraser foundation. It has available $30,000, a pre-election Baillieu government promise. But that won't touch the surface, so to speak; new courts would cost $200,000.
"Not lights. Not a new clubhouse. Nothing fancy. We're not asking for Plexipave," said Ms Wallace. "Just properly built, properly drained asphalt courts. We just want something that will be usable, and functional — and last."
Surveying the wreckage in the 2013 Australian Open draw, Tennis Australia might think much the same thing.
