{"id":534601,"date":"2026-03-12T02:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/534601\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T02:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T02:44:09","slug":"tennis-australia-urged-to-split-ceo-and-australian-open-roles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/534601\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis Australia urged to split CEO and Australian Open roles"},"content":{"rendered":"

McNamee nominated his former AO deputy, Peter Johnston \u2013 who ran the WTA\u2019s 250 tournament of the year in Hong Kong in 2024 and 2025 \u2013 as the ideal man to be Tiley\u2019s replacement as tournament director.<\/p>\n

This masthead has confirmed that Johnston would be interested in the position.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/p>\n

Paul McNamee (second from left) has strong views on how Tennis Australia should replace Craig Tiley.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Stephen Farrow would be an internal candidate as tournament director if TA opted to split the roles, but his contention, in part, depends on how his performance running the fledgling United Cup is viewed.<\/p>\n

McNamee also endorsed Ash Barty\u2019s ex-coach Jason Stoltenberg and Darren Cahill \u2013 who co-coaches Jannik Sinner<\/a>, but considered stepping down at the end of last year \u2013 as top head of tennis candidates.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

Cahill will travel overseas less this season at his request, but it is unknown whether he would put his hand up for such a role at TA if it was created.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have anyone on the men\u2019s side [aged] under 25 in the top 200,\u201d McNamee said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to get that, but who is going to take over from Alex de Minaur? He\u2019s going to be around for a while \u2013 but he\u2019s 27. That\u2019s why it\u2019s not an unreasonable proposition to say there will be a focus on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiley transformed Melbourne\u2019s grand slam into one of the world\u2019s biggest events<\/a>, with record crowds again this past January, but won\u2019t be the US Open\u2019s tournament director in his new post as CEO for American tennis. Former doubles specialist Eric Butorac will continue in that role.<\/p>\n

McNamee hopes that TA takes a similar path with the Australian Open in the post-Tiley era.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a difficult position to fill. The thing is that the CEO will, by necessity, be a businessman focusing on the business of the Australian Open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost a half-a-billion-dollar business, so, of course, you need someone who\u2019s going to focus on that because the business of the Australian Open is too big. We\u2019ve created a monster there, in the most positive way.\u201d<\/p>\n

McNamee said another consideration was the grassroots level and addressing participation threats to tennis, including pickleball and padel, and how to maintain players well beyond the Hot Shots introductory program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McNamee nominated his former AO deputy, Peter Johnston \u2013 who ran the WTA\u2019s 250 tournament of the year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-534601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}