Agree completely. To be honest I think that when Craig Tiley and Co. changed their approach to junior development their best case scenario for now was 1 and possibly 2 genuine top 20 prospects.
What they've got is that plus plenty of "older" blokes either in the top 100 or not far from it that also need support. Then you have kids like Omar Jasika who at 17 was one win away from qualifying for a Slam. Juggling all that is not going to be easy. Keeping guys like Roche around in some capacity is a good idea.
I have to say I have concern for what supposedly is the current system. The juniors are hand picked from results and put with plenty of coaches which all have different ideas and interpretations. In the past 1 on 1 friend and coach has proved to be more successful than the current put all the eggs in one basket with a handful of coaches to prime them up. Top players have shown this as well and having this long time friend coach creates a consistency in their tennis character that only is of benefit.
Trying to do everything here in Oz is not really working as they miss out on the clay training that is prevalent all over Europe. This new step of putting in a handful of clay courts at some strategic locations is limiting the scope of talent that could be available outside the earlier shining and chosen ones.
In reality TA should put a limit on Plexi Cushion expenses (cost is 3:1 of others) and encourage syn clay with some cheaper but faster hard courts than Plexi. This would increase Australias chances of encouraging under-developed talent by reaching out to more rather than limiting their choices of young players.
What they have done for older blokes is commendable but players like Matsosevic should have put his savings or got a leg up into improving his game by training overseas in Spain for at least 2 years. Marinko lacks a tennis mind and although he trains as hard as many top players, he lacks patience and wit. Clay teaches you to be cunning and persistent rather than unloading to his own death as he often does. Its too late for him so whatever he can achieve now is a bonus. Ducky should be in Spain though and so should my choice of best hopeful Oz player John Millman who really deserves better for his ability, raw fighting spirit and pushing Fed and Murray in the last few years & some very good wins at Brisbane.
For example look at Murray, Raonic and others that have trained for quite some time in Spain and open their minds up to a new way of life, language and thinking living & training only in Oz is not going to provide.
Kyrgios and Kokkinakis, Tomic are products of Australian Tennis thanks mainly to Hewitt's Heroics. The swagger is not Hewitts but the playing up to an Aussie Crowd is still a Hewitt trademark that surely encouraged thousands of young juniors in Australia to be confident and never given in. Hewitt needs more rewards for what he has achieved in Australia and hopefully that is the top job at training whoever he says deserves a go. I would like to see Darren Cahill work with Hewitt as a team again but that is another matter.
I think the best move for Nick was going back to Canberra and linking with his childhood coach Todd Larkham. Larkham has been a Tennis Australia appointed National Academy coach for nearly 10 years and has coached Nick for most of his life. So he's part of the establishment but has a unique relationship with Nick. Currently you've got plenty of well credentialed people giving Nick advice through the media (most of it probably on the mark!) but I think they need to channel it all through Larkham. Will it be enough to keep him focussed and on the right track? Hopefully yes, but from what I can see there is no other better option out there.
Nick and Todd have a relationship that is essentially the 1 on 1 I was talking about and referred by other Autralian pros. However its time for Nick to train overseas and use Australian training as a stepping stone as he wont be able to cut it in the future much like Tomic has experienced.
Tomic and Kyrgios are 2 of the best talents from Australia but I dont see them going further than journeymen unless they can instill sacrifice and hard work on the clay where proper carving is made for all the top players of today. Having this sacrifice as Murray called it is what round up a player to have the best of both worlds for todays prominently demanding baseline game.
TA needs to construct some connections with Spanish Academies before its too late for the current gen or face what is happening to players from America, England and Australia etc.
Having someone like Hewitt available at TA is long overdue but also time to hire someone like Emilio Sanchez, Rosset or Carlos Rodríguez on temporary stints for their insight and experience into more European regiments and ideas.
Rosset could help the bigger kids like Tomic, Kyrgios and Kokkinakis into perhaps avoiding the pitfalls the big man faced with his 2 metre body and better implement their serves and aggression into todays mainly baseline game.
Dismissing what other current successful tennis countries like Spain, Swiss and even
