Quote:
Originally Posted by kiki
...Brian Fairlie and Russell Simpson were pretty competitive at the DC.
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Not sure what ever became of him after the early 90s but Fairlie was one of the most talented coaches you could ever encounter. He was a tennis genius and ahead of his time. He was approached on a couple of occasions by top players from Europe for short "fix-up" coaching stints. I think he coached Goran Ivanisevic's sister or cousin at some point when she was a promising up-n-comer.
On coaching merit he should have been the main coach for the development programme in NZ but he was not a popularist sort of person - he called things how he saw them and this ruffled too many feathers, especially those of the parents of a few top juniors whose parents had close ties to the the administrators. They just wanted coaches who would tell them how amazing their kids were when they won local tournaments - small-town syndrome.