‘Imagine the success’: Pat Cash issues rallying cry amid Australian resurgence | Simon Cambers
With nine men in the world’s top 100 and 14 in the men’s singles draw at Melbourne Park, Australian tennis would appear to be in rude health as the first grand slam event of the year begins,World No 8 Alex de Minaur is the nation’s big hope for a first men’s Australian Open champion since 1976 and the return of Nick Kyrgios from injury adds a nice touch of spice to proceedings,In the 49 years since Mark Edmondson won the title, Australian men have gone close on a number of occasions; Pat Cash reached back-to-back finals in 1987 and 1988 while Lleyton Hewitt was runner-up in 2005,Hewitt and Pat Rafter each won two slam titles but getting over the line at Melbourne Park has been a step too far for the men, although Ash Barty won the women’s title in 2022,Cash was the only Australian to win a men’s slam in the 1980s, his victory at Wimbledon still remembered fondly, partly for his climb into the stands to see his family, a scene now an annual tradition at the All England Club.
As someone who grew up in the shadow of the tennis greats who dominated the game in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, Cash benefitted from having their ear, with many of them helping the country’s best players.Now Australia’s best coaches, like Darren Cahill, the coach of world No 1 Jannik Sinner, work with overseas players instead.“That’s been the disappointing thing,” Cash told Guardian Australia.“We have some really good ex-players, champions … you’ve got Roger Rasheed, you’ve got Wally Masur, you’ve got Darren Cahill, you’ve got me, you’ve got Mark Philippoussis.And none of us, all the best players in the modern generation, none of us are being used by Tennis Australia.
“If Tennis Australia brought all these guys in, can you imagine the success we would have? Paul McNamee is another one.He works with foreign players.Peter McNamara was the same.I think we’ve missed plenty of opportunities to actually improve players more rapidly.”As Kyrgios pointed out at Melbourne Park on Friday, the depth of Australian tennis is as good now as it has been, perhaps for a generation.
Alexei Popyrin won his first Masters 1000 title in Canada last summer and beat Novak Djokovic at the US Open, Jordan Thompson is seeded at a slam for the first time and others are knocking on the door of career-high rankings,“The big thing is, where’s our next champion,” Cash says,“Where’s the next real superstar? I worked with Popyrin a little bit, early in his career, his first Wimbledon, when he got through and qualified, but by and large, there’s so much coaching talent in this, in Australian tennis, that is being used by other nations,“There’s Craig O’Shannessy, who’s one of the best stats guys, he’s working for the Italian Federation,So all this talent has been used by other people.
Why isn’t it being used by Australian players? We’ve got some very good players, de Minaur’s obviously the one who’s top 10, but that influence can make a difference between a good player, which we’ve got, and great players.”In recent years, there has been a trend of Australian players breaking through late in their careers; Thompson is a case in point, making the top 30 for the first time at the age of 30.All of the Australians in the top 10 are hard workers, maximising their potential, but for Cash, homegrown coaches lack some of the experience of those who have been out there and done it.Sign up to Australia SportGet a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports deskafter newsletter promotion“I think that’s typically because Australian coaches themselves are slightly off the heartbeat of world coaching,” Cash says.“We do have some good international coaches … but Popyrin and de Minaur, they grew up in Spain, didn’t they? I mean, basically their parents realised, OK, you can get stuck in Australia a little bit.
So they grew up in Spain and developed some good basics on the clay.My concern is the lower-level coaches in Australia are not good enough.They’re not experienced enough, and they’re the ones that are working with our top juniors.”Despite his misgivings, Cash believes the current crop of Australian men have the work ethic, desire and mental toughness to succeed.“The amazing thing in Australia is somehow, we’ve had a grand slam champion just about every generation,” Cash says.
“[Sam] Stosur and Barty and Lleyton … it’s not easy, of course.“It’s full credit to the guys who just get out there and work hard.It’s good to see those guys come through.They’re tough competitors.Other than a couple, you’ve got to really fight every time you play an Aussie, you know it’s a battle coming on.
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Rail passengers face disruption from Avanti strikes every Sunday until June
Passengers on Great Britain’s west coast mainline have been warned of disruption to Avanti services on every Sunday from this weekend to the end of May.Train managers represented by the the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) have said they will strike on every Sunday from 12 January to 25 May 2025, in a dispute over their pay for working on rest days.Talks between the union and the company are understood to be continuing but the strikes are still scheduled to go ahead. Meanwhile, the RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch, announced on Thursday that he planned to retire in the first week of May.Avanti, which runs services between London, Birmingham and Glasgow, said passengers should try to travel before or after Sunday if possible to avoid disruption from a “significantly reduced” timetable caused by the strikes and engineering work
JPMorgan Chase requires all workers to return to office five days a week
JPMorgan Chase is summoning all staff back to the office, becoming the latest corporate giant to call time on era of remote and hybrid working sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic.The US’s largest bank, which has some 316,000 employees worldwide, announced on Friday that all workers on hybrid work schedules will be required to return to the office five days a week from March.Five years after Covid-19 emptied offices across much of the world almost overnight, prominent employers are now seeking to draw a line under a prolonged period of hybrid work and draw staff back to their desks full-time.While leading Wall Street firms have led the charge, the debate over the merits and pitfalls on remote work – for employers, employees, customers and communities – continues across multiple industries.Amazon required employees to return to the office five days a week from last week
TikTok ban: supreme court appears inclined to uphold law that could see app barred in US – as it happened
The supreme court heard from lawyers representing TikTok, video creators and the US government on Friday regarding a looming ban of the social media app. TikTok argued that a ban or forced sale amounts to a violation of free speech, while the government said TikTok could be manipulated by the Chinese government to harm Americans.The justices peppered the lawyers with questions, with TikTok notably getting far more questions than the US government – indicating skepticism from the court.In his final statement, Noel Francisco, TikTok’s lawyer, implored the justices to enter an administrative stay or a preliminary injunction on the ban, which is slated to go into effect on 19 January.The justices are expected to rule quickly
Let’s teach teenagers how to use smartphones responsibly | Letters
In the article (As a child psychiatrist, I see what smartphones are doing to kids’ mental health – and it’s terrifying, 3 January), Dr Emily Sehmer, a UK-based psychiatrist, expressed concerns about the deleterious effects of smartphone use on children. She hopes to keep her children away from such devices and social media until they are 16 years old. She suggests other parents do the same.Her “sheltering” approach may be counterproductive. Some children could source alternative devices and secretly engage with social media
England’s Lauren Filer: ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone, but to get a few helmets is fun’
It’s not often that you hear a fast bowler describe themselves as “smiley”, especially not with an Ashes series around the corner. But with days to go until she spearheads England’s attack in Australia, that’s exactly what the 24-year-old Lauren Filer is claiming as her defining characteristic. “I’m a bit too smiley to be the scary fast bowler,” she says. “I tried to stare someone down in South Africa and I laughed because I just couldn’t do it.”Instead, her approach is to “let my bowling do the talking” – as it did, loudly, in last month’s Bloemfontein Test
Callum Simpson: ‘Lily would want me to carry on … I know I made her proud through my boxing’
Before the defence of his British and Commonwealth belts, the 28-year-old reflects on the tragic death of his sister“I’ve heard her voice in training sometimes,” Callum Simpson says quietly as looks up in his apartment in Dewsbury and remembers his sister Lily-Rae who, just over four months ago, died tragically following an accident on a quad bike at the age of 19. “I hear her when the sessions are hard, especially during running sessions, and her voice will say: ‘Just keep going, keep pushing.’”West Yorkshire looks beautiful on a bitterly cold yet sunlit morning. A new year has just begun, and there is still snow on the ground, but the same raw pain churns though Simpson. The 28-year-old boxer is a composed and impressive man who will defend his British and Commonwealth super-middleweight titles against Steed Woodall in Sheffield on Saturday night
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