McNamara Is Ready For An Assignment

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 19th December 2013

McNamara Is Ready For An Assignment

epa03066482 Novak Djokovic of Serbia bounces the ball as he prepares to serve to Santiago Giraldo of Colombia, in their second round match at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 19 January 2012. EPA/BARBARA WALTON |

Peter McNamara, half of one of Australia’s great doubles teams and now a respected coach as well as Mansour Bahrami’s ‘straight man’ on the ATP Champions Tour, will have his patience tested over Christmas as he waits for confirmation of a new role with Tennis Australia.

Both Australian Davis Cup captain Pat Rafter and the team’s coach Joshua Eagle are determined that the 58 year-old McNamara, born in Melbourne but currently based in Germany, becomes part of the Tennis Australia team as soon as possible. However the delay in appointing delay a new high performance director has stalled the process.

McNamara has proved his coaching worth with Mark Philippoussis and, during his spell with the Mouratoglou Academy, Grigor Dimitrov. He coached Australian Matthew Ebden for a year, in which time the 26 year-old’s ranking improved from 153rd to 68th position.

Finances dictated the October split; Tennis Australia only provided Ebden with $Aus75,000 to cover all expenses and although life on the Challenger circuit was successful, it wasn’t productive enough in terms of cash to pay McNamara who believes Ebden could easily progress to become Australia’s leading player next year. He is currently only just behind the trio of Bernard Tomic (ranked world no.51), Lleyton Hewitt (60) and Marinko Matosevic (61).

Eagle said: “’Sooner rather than later we absolutely hope to have Peter involved. He’s a great asset for Australian tennis. He’s been a top 10 player, he’s coached top-level players and had great success with Dimitrov, for example, and we see him as playing an important role in transitioning our juniors into top hundred players.”

One sticking point might be McNamara’s concern about over-investment on Australia’s two highly talented teenagers Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis.

“Maybe we’re looking to the next generation to come through, but one thing we have to be careful about is not putting all our eggs in one basket and just looking to this next generation to be the savior for Australian tennis,” said McNamara. “You need the other guys to pull them along. These boys (Kyrgios, 18, and Kokkinakis, 17) are fantastic, they play fantastic tennis, but they’re yet to prove themselves.”

Topics: 10sballs, Atp, Bernard Tomic, GRIGOR DIMITROV, Joshua Eagle, Lleyton Hewitt, Mark Philippoussis, Matthew Ebden, Pat Rafter, Peter Mcnamara, Sports, Tennis, Tennis News