{"id":721319,"date":"2026-07-31T17:31:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/721319\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T17:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:31:13","slug":"pat-rafter-why-arent-we-producing-players-like-spain-i-dont-know-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/721319\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Rafter: \u2018Why aren\u2019t we producing players like Spain? I don\u2019t know\u2019 | Tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pat Rafter is Australian sporting royalty. A man whose genuine friendliness still radiates into mid-life and whose looks once made him an underwear model, with a tennis career that took him to No 1 in the world.<\/p>\n

He is the kind of person anyone would want on their team, so it is no surprise to see him named as a member of the Aussie Crocs. They are the national squad of tennis-adjacent pursuit padel \u2013 a kind of miniature form of the game \u2013 and are due to compete in an exhibition at the Sydney Opera House starting 15 August.<\/p>\n

Rafter may officially be a Padel Australia ambassador, but the 53-year-old is adamant his position as a Croc is fully deserved, and reflects his status in a sport which is growing even if it remains very much still amateur.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do train pretty hard,\u201d the two-time US Open tennis champion says. \u201cThe body doesn\u2019t allow me to do any more than a certain amount, but it\u2019s a lot more than the other guys who are working, and doing all that sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rafter has become a big advocate of padel. Photograph: Dylan Burns\/Tennis Australia<\/p>\n

A typical day at home in Byron Bay involves 40 minutes of stretching and strength training \u201cso I can just walk and get moving\u201d, Rafters says. Most days he will get 90 minutes or more on the padel court, along with the odd beach session playing a rugby-variant with mates, and ending with a gym session, sauna and an ice bath. \u201cThat\u2019s for wellbeing as well, and I enjoy doing those types of things, but it also incorporates the health that I need to be on the padel court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tennis Australia has adopted padel, alongside the similar mini-tennis variant pickleball, as it looks to build a broader family of racket sports. Rafter is its biggest advocate, but he retains a presence in traditional tennis as vice captain at the Laver Cup, scheduled for next month in London.<\/p>\n

There he will catch up with current Australian No 1 Alex De Minaur as part of the Rest of the World team. The 27-year-old reached the top five last month, becoming the first Australian man to do so in 17 years.<\/p>\n

Yet De Minaur has been unable to break through to a grand slam semi-final, having lost in the quarters now seven times. \u201cThat\u2019s not where he wants to be,\u201d Rafters says. \u201cHe\u2019s been so good and so solid for so long, but he wants to be better than good. He\u2019ll be the first to admit it, he wants to go deep into these events, he wants to win a grand slam.\u201d<\/p>\n

A major title might have eluded him so far, but De Minaur is Australian tennis\u2019 shining light in 2026. Indeed, he has carried the torch in the post-Ash Barty era through the flashes of promise of others like Nick Kyrgios. The rankings halfway through the year highlight an outlook not altogether flattering for the Australian game.<\/p>\n

Alex de Minaur returns to Cruz Hewitt at the Mubadala DC Open this week. Photograph: Emilee Chinn\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

No Australian woman is in the top 50, with naturalised Russian Daria Kasatkina the highest ranked as she looks to put a stuttering, injury-hampered year behind her. Young trio Maya Joint, Talia Gibson and Emerson Jones have shown promise but are yet to cement themselves as grand slam second-weekers.<\/p>\n

On the men\u2019s side, James Duckworth at 83 is the next highest after De Minaur, as recent top 40 players like Alexei Popyrin and Jordan Thompson have slipped. Rafter, like Australian tennis fans, wonders where the next grand slam champion will come from. \u201cAustralia does have opportunities and we do have great programs and systems in place to produce players. Why aren\u2019t we producing players like Spain? I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suspects the isolation of Australia is an impediment to development, leaving Australian teens behind overseas peers in development. But he also recognises there is no single answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can put all these narratives together, but what is the correct answer? I think in the past, we\u2019ve always produced players, and I always think that at some stage we\u2019re going to produce them again. It\u2019s just been a bit lean in terms of grand slam winners, but it\u2019s been lucky that we\u2019ve always had someone to cheer for.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This week saw a significant moment in Australian men\u2019s tennis, when De Minaur met Cruz Hewitt in the second round in Washington. The latter\u2019s father was the last Australian man to win a slam, at the 2002 US Open.<\/p>\n

Chip off the old block. Cruz Hewitt celebrates a point against Alex de Minaur in Washington this week. Photograph: Marcin Cholewinski\/ZUMA Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Hewitt Jr became the first Australian to reach the boys final at Wimbledon this year since De Minaur, and is one of the best prospects in the country, fresh off winning his first ATP tour match.<\/p>\n

While he may celebrate like his father, hand cocked back towards his nose, he is regarded as a player who \u2013 rather than the defensively nimble Hewitt, or De Minaur \u2013 likes to take the initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s 17, the next three or four years is going to be interesting to see how he develops,\u201d Rafter says. \u201cI don\u2019t really know how good he\u2019s going to become yet. He\u2019s definitely a player. How good he gets, we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his promise, Hewitt proved no match for the man 10 years his senior. Yet it was a contest marked with goodwill. \u201cIt was a pretty special moment to be part of, and one I\u2019m grateful for,\u201d De Minaur said afterwards, reflecting on a relationship that \u2013 through Hewitt Sr\u2019s prominent role in Australian tennis \u2013 goes back a decade.<\/p>\n

At the end of the 61-minute encounter, De Minaur wished Hewitt luck for not only the next match, but the next decade, in acknowledgement the teenager is just scratching the surface of his potential.<\/p>\n

Whatever the fate of Hewitt, Rafter can relate in his own sport of padel, introduced to him by a neighbour in 2023. \u201cIs it a good idea for my body? Probably not, but I just figure I\u2019ll go hard while I can,\u201d he says. \u201cAt my level, where I\u2019m at right now, I am scratching the surface at how to get better and go past the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pat Rafter is Australian sporting royalty. A man whose genuine friendliness still radiates into mid-life and whose looks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-721319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}