Year-end rankings confirm Australia’s tennis struggles

With the 2005 tennis season coming to an end, the year-end ranking for Australians competing on the professional circuit has confirmed the current lack of depth in Australian tennis.

In singles, the current crop of Australians only yields three active players finishing the year in the top 100 in the world.

Australia’s most recognised player, Adelaide-born Lleyton Hewitt, will finish the year at number four in the world on the men’s ATP Tour, while Queensland local Samantha Stosur finishes the year at number 46 on the women’s circuit, the WTA Tour.

Hewitt, at 24 years of age, had another consistent year to backup his performances in 2004, but could only manage one season title, which came in Sydney at the beginning of the year.

However, Australia’s best player performed well at the three Grand Slams in which he competed, being a finalist at the Australian Open, and falling in the semi-finals at the US Open and Wimbledon. All three losses were inflicted by the eventual winners, extending Hewitt’s run of falling to the eventual winner in Grand Slams to seven.

The next best-ranked Australian male, Wayne Arthurs, will finish the season ranked 97, only four spots higher than his 2004 year-end ranking.

The 34-year-old, despite capturing his lone career title in 2005 at Scottsdale, will finish the season with more singles losses than wins.

At the completion of the 2000 season, Australia appeared to have greater depth possessing seven players in the top 100 in the world. Five years later, only five Australian men end the year ranked inside the top 200, with Peter Luczak (145), Chris Guccione (155) and Mark Philippoussis (171) joining Hewitt and Arthurs in this slight group.

In fact, Hewitt was the only Australian male to get passed the second round of a Grand Slam in 2005 with only four others – Nathan Healey as a wildcard at the Australian Open, Chris Guccione as a qualifier at the French Open, Mark Philippoussis as a wildcard at Wimbledon, and Arthurs also at Wimbledon – featuring in a second round match at a major.

Considering these rankings and the performances of Australia’s top men, Australia’s Davis Cup quarterfinal loss to Argentina in July should have come as no surprise, with Argentina presently boasting 10 players in the top 100, compared to Australia’s two, and four in the top 13 alone.

On the women’s tour, there are two Australians in Alicia Molik (28) and Samantha Stosur (46) who will finish 2005 holding a world ranking in the top 100. Taking into account Australian women in the top 200, only two more players can be added to this list in the feisty veteran, Nicole Pratt (126), and the not yet established Casey Dellacqua (195).

However, this is no great demise as, in recent years, the most number of Australian women finishing the year in the top 100 has only peaked at three. It is clear then, that the current lack of depth of women’s tennis in Australia reflects that of Australia’s men.

For Molik, who had been tagged to become Australia’s next successful female player for good reason, the events of 2005 could not have come at a worse time. After finishing 2004 and kicking-off 2005 in career-best form, including a quarterfinal appearance at the Australian Open, 2005 was meant to be a year of career bests and high achievements.

Unfortunately, after nine first round losses from her last 10 attempts, Molik finally conceded to a sever inner ear infection that had been hampering her progress since April of this year.

The news didn’t get any better for Molik (and the state of Australian women’s tennis) when she was forced to announce that she would not be returning to the WTA Tour before 2007 due to her illness.

Molik’s temporary absence from the Tour leaves Stosur as the single active Australian woman in the top 100 on the WTA Tour, but as Stosur’s 2005 win-loss record of 23-25 suggests, the 21-year-old still has a way to go before she can become a consistent performer on the circuit.

Jelena Dokic, currently ranked 349 in the world, will rejoin the Australian contingent on the WTA Tour and, having been as high as number four in the world, is probably the most promising Aussie prospect to make a move towards the top of the game.

Considering the current situation, it is no secret that the Australian tennis community will welcome 2006 with a desperate optimism for improved results and a continuing aspiration to unearth the next Aussie hopeful.

•  Have a view on this story? Send us your feedback!