The young and the restless, changes in junior tennis John Newcombe says Pat Rafter was a great athlete rather than an exceptional tennis player in his early days. When the Australian junior nationals launch the annual December Showdown championship at Melbourne Park this weekend, the low-profile nature of the 14-and-under event will contrast with the hot-topic reality of an issue that for several months has been churning behind the scenes. Even if tennis parents can be as hard to please as they are to admire, the late-notice axing of qualifying rounds in the 12-and-under and 14-and-under age groups has been savagely and widely condemned. "This has many parents upset," says experienced local coach Glenn Busby, also the reigning over-55s world champion, who claims he "100 per cent" supports Tennis Australia's intentions, but not its execution. A comparison in AFL terms of what has happened would be that the rules have been set out at the start of the season and with a few weeks to go, the bottom few clubs in the eight and teams vying for the final eight are told they won't be able to get in as we are changing the rules - and this is done without consultation with the club, coach and players. If this is the direction for the future, then, fine, however perhaps this could have started next year so everyone was on the same playing field. I know we want the best players playing in our best tournaments and not just the players who can afford to travel and pick up cheap points to get better rankings. Former Davis Cup player Richard Fromberg, now a private coach, agrees that the result of a flawed system is that the rich go further, while the poor stay home. "I just think that the points-based system has to be strongly reviewed," says Fromberg. Not enough kids are getting the opportunity for this coming tournament, and the rankings are completely false, because the points-based system is encouraging kids to travel to remote places, and it's favouring the kids that are financially well-off that can afford to do so. The back story is this: amid some - disputed- claims of a lack of consultation, Tennis Australia announced a revamp of its junior competitions in September, with the noble aim of addressing what former tournaments and competitions manager Alistair Macdonald claims can be the prohibitive cost of travel, and the related habit of "points chasing" that advantages those with the resources to do so. One result: at the December Showdown, the 12s and 14s age-group fields - but not the 16s and 18s, despite the strength of a pyramid being its base - will contain the 16 top-ranked players, plus 16 selected wildcards, six of the latter coming from Asia and New Zealand. One issue: some of those who have earned direct entry to the 14s event have apparently done so with the aid of points earned while skipping school to play in senior Australian Money Tournaments, in whose favour the system is widely agreed to be skewed. More broadly, there are concerns that, without the carrot of access to top competition, talented youngsters will be lost from a sport that hardly boasts an embarrassment of champions at the top level. The last top-20 players Victoria produced are now playing in veterans' events (Mark Philippoussis) and coaching the Fed Cup team (Nicole Bradtke). "It really has left a very bad taste not only in coaches' mouths, but I've got families now who are questioning whether they should be pursuing tennis as fervently as they have, and investing in their children's tennis," says Peter Lumsden, the former coach of mature-aged Wimbledon doubles champion Stephen Huss, now running a private academy, Discovery Tennis. They've said to themselves 'well, if we're not good enough to make it at 12 and 13, what's the point?' But there's no evidence to suggest that you should be making the call at 12 and 13. We're not saying open up the nationals to the top 500 kids, but just making sure that the top 64 children from around the country have something to shoot for each year to be part of that showdown opportunity. The players at that level are very good at netball, very good at swimming, they're very good at football, very good at soccer, and decisions like this can make people choose another sport over tennis because they think 'well, I'm not good enough'. More cynically, critics ask, what if a [fictional] young invitee Chris Lewis from Wellington shows some special ability? Will they soon become Chris Lewis from Brighton? Are the wildcards granted to Asia-Pacific guests - many of whom are expected to be out of their depth - actually something more? That's one unhappy view. Another, less critical, is that international competition is good for both the visitors and those Australians who usually only play against each other, and that it also makes sense to identify and elevate one pinnacle event above the others, then upgrade tournaments on the rung below to create a secondary tier of state championships. It is too easy, say some, to throw all the stones at the system; head office, typically, is an easy target. Macdonald, now the chief executive of Tennis NSW, is adamant there is absolutely no "poaching" element involved, claiming "it's more about building our relationships and having the best competition," with China, for example, making noises about returning the favour. Nor, he insists, is there any hidden exclusivity agenda, with the new system designed to allow players to qualify at the pointy end if they are good enough. The official line to one parent, in an email seen by Fairfax Media, is that "the reduction in draw size for the Australian championships in December is to ensure only the best players compete in this elite event. The Australian Championships should not be viewed as a participation event. Which is all very well at the older age levels, when some natural filtering and sorting has already taken place, but not at the stage when encouragement and inclusiveness are paramount, and unidentified talent can more easily fall through the cracks. Former great John Newcombe uses the Pat Rafter analogy - describing the dual grand slam champion as a great athlete rather than an exceptional tennis player in his early days - in urging officials to cast the net as widely as possible. "You've got to encourage those kids," says the seven-time grand slam singles champion. There might be a kid there that could have played in the qualifying, but now he can't - he might have only been playing tennis for a year, but he might be a great little athlete, and you want to give him a taste of it. In two years' time he could be the best kid, so that's the danger. And the other thing is you find that a lot of the best kids at 11 and 12 years of age are probably the ones who've been hitting millions of tennis balls since they were six, so the ones that have only got keenly interested in tennis at 10 years of age haven't caught up to them yet. They're the ones you don't want to shut out, especially when we're competing with other sports. Macdonald admits there is no "silver-bullet" solution, and that the jury is still out on what is the right mix of wildcards, and other "magic numbers," but is confident that will evolve soon enough. "We don't profess to have all the answers," says Macdonald, while stressing that the initial goal of the restructure is to change both the message - that tennis has to be an expensive sport - and behaviour. Still, the opposed are in unison on one thing: the belief that too many aspiring Pats and Sams have been denied the chance to test themselves at the top level. If there is to be a 32-player draw at the 12s level, for example, at least one state association has joined parents and coaches in lobbying for a substantial qualifying draw, of as many as 128, to give talent alone the opportunity to win through, whatever the circumstances/dollars/geography. That, indeed, is being "seriously considered" for 2014, but too late for this year. Newcombe, meanwhile, advocates a separate tournament in early 2014 involving only those denied a chance this time, to also allow talent scouts to see what might have been missed. Maybe you could do it over a weekend in February - say 'OK, we think we've made a mistake, but to fix the mistake, this is what we're doing', so that may be a way to appease everyone and keep everyone on side. You don't need the coaches upset, because they're the ones at the coalface. Fromberg believes reinstating qualifying is essential, as a minimum step, but also that an overhaul of the system to make only points earned at state titles relevant to nationals entry would help to realign the goal posts and retain some of those disillusioned youngsters who may otherwise be lost. For although tennis is, at its core, an individual pursuit, there is also mighty strength in numbers, and no one is arguing that this sport needs as many as it can get.