I have often been baffled here in my home country why tennis Australia hasn't looked to acquire more coaches from Eastern Bloc countries. Many of them would love the opportunity to live and work in Australia and  have the chance to help propel our girls to the heights that the Russians have achieved in the past half-decade.

Let's face it, the Russian coaches'  techniques have worked for some time now and could prove pivotal to some of our up-and-coming girls such as Jessica Moore and Monique Lynch, not to mention our under-12, 14 and 16-year-olds.  It seems like such an obvious choice, to look at the most successful countries and entice their coaches to come to Australia. But I think a far deeper issue of laziness and lack of national pride in these countries relinquishes such hopes.

Many people like to take refuge in the fact that our comfortable Western lifestyle means that our girls aren't prepared to do or die in their quest to be world-beaters. If you talk to the girls, though, they all deny this.

'Our coaches are bound by putting our girls' training schedule around schooling and other curricular activities. In Russia, they spend all day practising and their nights studying'


Sam Stosur is world No.1 in doubles so I don't think that shows a sub-par commitment to tennis in Australia. I simply don't think she has the tools to propel her to those heights in singles.

Venus Williams has just won Wimbledon for a fifth time. Again hardly lacklustre. So what is it, then, that our girls are missing? For me, it's determination of coaches. Our coaches are bound by putting our girls' training schedule around schooling and other curricular activities. In Russia, they spend all day practising and their nights studying.

Their girls are equally intelligent , worldly and clearly more dominant on court. So the real question we have to ask aspiring tennis stars is: Which is more important - school or tennis? This is always going to be a tough question when a career starts so young and finishes so young. My theory is that coaching and practice need to occupy the bulk of the day. This, of course, is frowned upon by educational institutions here and in the U.S. but we have to be realistic. If you want to be a supreme athlete, then sport has to dominate your life. 

The other element to be looked at is coaching. When does it become too much?

Well, to be world No.1 you need to be able to push through boundaries. The coaches from Russia understand this and hence they test their players with variety in the coldest of winters and the warmest of summers. They instil a determination and a mind matter to get them out of situations when they are forced behind in a match.

Doubles is also a critical factor in improving techniques and diversifying abilities. Nadia Petrova, Dinara Safina, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Maria Kirilenko and Anna Chakvetaze are regulars on the doubles circuit and the Russian dominance is no more clear that it is here at the Acura Classic, where five Russians are among the eight in the quarterfinals.

So it is my belief that if our girls want to get to the top again, they will have to work as hard and take on new techniques with the help of coaches from the new tennis super powers in Eastern Europe.

Perhaps they can combine the laid-back nature of the Aussies and the ferocity of the Russians and perhaps add a new generation of Australian dominance in the women's game.