THERE were more boos for Jelena Dokic yesterday. This time they came from
a group of teenage boys when she took to court 17 to begin a practice session
with doubles partner Jennifer Capriati.
But as Dokic continues to deal with the public fallout from her decision to play
for Yugoslavia instead of her adopted country, an influential international
tennis figure yesterday laid part of the blame for her troubles squarely at the
door of Tennis Australia.
Martin Mulligan, the international tennis marketing director for sports apparel
manufacturer FILA, said that until TA included someone from a European
background on its board, it would continue to have problems with its new
generation of players and their immigrant parents.
The chairman of the TA player development board, former Davis Cup player
John Alexander, was publicly critical of Dokic and her decision to switch her
allegiance to Yugoslavia on the eve of the Australian Open. But Mulligan said
there was no one within TA who understood the mentality of European people.
"I think there is a problem with Tennis Australia," said Mulligan, whose
Italian-based company promotes Mark Philippoussis as its top male tennis
personality and Dokic among its top women players.
"Tell me the person in Tennis Australia who has lived in Europe and who has
an ethnic background? There is nobody.
"The excuse is that the kids are born here and they can relate, but the parents
weren't born here and they have to be able to relate as well.
"We are multicultural now and Tennis Australia has to catch up with the times.
"They must have someone with an ethnic background on the board and if they
don't it is a disgrace for tennis in Australia."
A cursory glance at the 13-person TA board and eight-person player
development board reveals that, in terms of ethnic diversity, they bear little
resemblance to the new crop of largely central European immigrants filling
Australia's top junior ranks.
But TA president Geoff Pollard said addressing the imbalance was not among
its priorities.
"You don't have to be ethnic to have an understanding and empathy to ethnic
differences in Australia," Pollard said.
"That is the important thing that I, the board and the player development board
should have.
"It would be wonderful to do that, but you have always got a limited budget and
the priorities we have are participation, the women's game and facilities."
It is only two years ago that the board elected a female member, its first since
1902.
Mulligan had his own difficulties with the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia,
the forerunner to TA, as a player in 1964.
He was one of several elite players banned from Davis Cup for disregarding a
board restriction on players travelling overseas during the Australian summer.
Mulligan has since lived in Italy for 15 years and the United States for 20 but
still retains his Australian citizenship.
While Mulligan said he didn't want to be personally critical of Pollard, he
expressed amazement that no-one within TA had attempted to contact Dokic
within a week of her arriving in Melbourne.
It was only through the WTA that TA learned of Dokic's intent to no longer play
as an Australian.
Pollard said he wrote to the Dokics before the start of the Australian summer
to arrange a meeting, but they failed to respond.
Mulligan does not consider it a coincidence that the two players who have had
widely documented difficulties with Tennis Australia, Dokic and Mark
Philippoussis over Davis Cup availability, come from European families.
While Andrew Ilie proudly brandished the Australian flag yesterday after his
second-round defeat of talented Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero, a few years
ago he toyed with the idea of playing Davis Cup for Romania after a dispute
with TA.
Mulligan said the lack of ethnic representation within Tennis Australia would
not be tolerated in the United States, whose tennis players are as culturally
diverse as Australia's.
"If you had this in America and you didn't have a black person on the board you
would be called a racist organisation," Mulligan said.
"I'm not saying Tennis Australia is racist, but it has got to try to resolve the
problem."