I'll admit to being disappointed that I wasn't invited to participate in this conference call (that's what I get for not being at Wimbledon) about the new Player Development initiative, but I appreciate having access to the entire (lengthy) transcript.
Paul Roetert, Chris Evert, John Evert, Billie Jean King, Pat McEnroe (before he was disconnected) and Franklin Johnson discussed the move from Key Biscayne and took questions from reporters. (Someone did try to get some dollar/budget numbers). My initial reaction is, as I said yesterday, positive, but if they keep to the 20 player number, I don't like the math. That boils down to just two players from each birth year--10 boys and 10 girls. One of the biggest complaints I hear, and share, is that the USTA selects a few players at a very young age and devotes all their efforts and resources to them, ignoring hundreds of other talented juniors who may develop or come to the game later. These small numbers put even more pressure on the USTA to make unerring talent assessments, and frankly, their past track record in that regard doesn't inspire confidence.
Here's an interesting quote I ran across in the London Times from Craig Tiley, now Australia's Director of Player Development, and from some of the comments I received on yesterday's post, I think many of you share this view.
Tiley said: “I am not a believer that national federations are the answer to player development. They play a part, they can accelerate the process, but the moment they become the ‘whole solution’ to the process, the athlete will likely not make it anyway. And I don’t believe in measuring success by a player’s ranking — success is measured based on the pathway the player has through a process, whether it be privately funded, government funded or federation funded. In that way you are more likely to have positive results."