In the fourth in this series of pieces on South African sports administrators who have succeeded abroad, Dylan Rogers profiles Craig Tiley, the Chief Executive Officer of Tennis Australia and the Tournament Director of the Australian Open.
ITF Chief Operating Officer Kelly Fairweather isn’t the only South African making waves in international tennis administration.
In fact, he and Craig Tiley have much in common.
Born within a year of each other, both studied at Stellenbosch University in the 1980s, where they either overlapped or just missed each other, with Tiley wrapping up his Maties stint in 1983 and Fairweather going on to obtain a Master’s degree in Human Movements there in 1989.
Tiley would go on to move to the United States in 1986 to enroll in the Professional Tennis Management program at Tyler Junior College in Texas, and finished his studies at the University of Texas at Tyler in the late-1980s, where he earned his own Master’s degree in Kinesiology.
Interestingly, the paths of the two Maties graduates have crossed once again, as both now hold senior roles in international tennis. That’s after both made the transition from sports coaching, with Tiley’s first high-profile gig coming in 1992/1993, when he was appointed head tennis coach at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
That was to prove a successful partnership, with Tiley remaining in the role through to 2005, during which time he led the Illinois men’s team to victory in the ITA National Team Indoor Championships in 2003 and 2004, and reached the championship match three other times in 1998, 1999, and 2002. Tiley also led Illinois to a 32–0 record and a NCAA Men’s Tennis Championship in 2003, to go with two ‘National Coach of the Year’ awards he picked up along the way.
During his time at Illinois, Tiley coached a number of future professionals, but is probably best remembered for recruiting fellow South African and future two-time Grand Slam finalist Kevin Anderson to the university’s tennis programme, whilst he would also go on to coach Wayne Ferreira, who before the emergence of Anderson was the flag bearer for the men’s game in South Africa.
Tiley, though, arguably only came to the attention of the broader South African sporting public in 1998, when he was appointed Davis Cup captain – a position he would hold for three years.
But, according to experienced South African tennis journalist Sy Lerman, Tiley’s relationship with South African tennis authorities soured and came to an end when the organisation failed to heed his advice regarding taking the game in the country forward, whilst he was in charge of the Davis Cup team.
“Tiley’s blueprint to revive South African tennis to the halcyon levels of the 1960s and 1970s was rejected as ‘too ambitious’ and not financially viable by the South African Tennis Association in 2003,” wrote Lerman in the Mail&Guardian. “It resulted in him stepping down from his position as the country’s Davis Cup captain and pursuing his career in the United States initially, and then in Australia.”
South Africa’s loss would be Australia’s gain, with Tiley leaving Illinois in 2005 to accept a position with Tennis Australia to serve as their Director of Player Development. In 2006 he was named Director of the Australian Open, in addition to his prior duties. After Tennis Australia’s CEO stepped down in 2013, Tiley was named as the successor.
As CEO, Tiley is responsible for all aspects of the sport of tennis in Australia and manages a team of over 300 staff during the year, with a temporary staff of 4,500 during the Australian Open.
But he, like every other sports administrator around the world, has had his work cut out for him over the past 18 months, due to the impact of Covid-19.
One of the first major international sporting occasions to open its doors at the height of the pandemic, February’s Australian Open provided key lessons for event organisers everywhere, and Tiley was front and centre of that, although it did take its toll on him – to the extent that he sent his wife and kids away from the family home.
Firstly, after the tournament’s start was delayed by three weeks to 8 February, there was the small matter of overcoming the sizeable logistical challenge of ensuring all stakeholders, not least the players, could attend the event. All told, more than 1,000 players, coaches and officials were flown in on 17 charter flights from 62 countries for eight tournaments – the Australian Open, plus seven lead-in events – over a period of seven weeks.
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During the Australian Open itself, on-site attendance at Melbourne Park was capped at 30,000 fans per day, around half the number typically expected in a normal year. Yet a ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown in the state of Victoria from 12 February meant the event had to be held behind closed doors for five straight days, prompting the organisers to issue more than 100,000 ticket refunds.
Naturally, the unprecedented scale and sheer fluidity of the situation required all hands on deck, forcing Tennis Australia’s staff and an additional tournament-time workforce running into the thousands to labour round the clock just to keep the show on the road.
“Interestingly, now I look back, it feels like a bit of a blur, to tell you the honest truth, because it was so intense for such a long period of time with so little sleep,” said Tiley, speaking to sportspromedia.com. “After the event we gave everyone a forced two weeks of paid leave. For many, two weeks may not have been enough because it was so intense. On a day-to-day basis, it was up early in the morning and to bed late at night, often the next morning as well, just working through issues management.”
Tiley himself faced a fierce backlash, including criticism on social media and even direct verbal abuse. On one side sat a group of VIPs – the players and their entourages, as well as tournament partners – who had to be taken care of diligently, while on the other resided a local community whose freedoms remained curtailed and within which there were more than a few who believed the event should not be taking place at all.
At the time, anti-lockdown protests were being staged directly outside Melbourne Park. Many pointed out that while the world’s elite tennis players were being welcomed with open arms, thousands of Australian citizens remained stranded overseas due to travel restrictions. Further exacerbating matters was the fact that around 170 players had been forced to undergo mandatory 14-day quarantine hotel stays at Tennis Australia’s expense, after several positive Covid-19 cases were discovered among passengers arriving on chartered flights.
From a financial perspective, according to sportspromedia.com, staging this year’s event left Tennis Australia in a dire, if not perilous position. Its pre-tournament cash reserves of AUS$80 million were entirely depleted due to the considerable expense of covering travel and accommodation costs for players, while a concessional loan from the Victorian state government, which could reportedly total AUS$60 million, now sits as debt on the organisation’s books.
That being said, somehow Tiley and his team pulled off the 2021 Australian Open, although he admits that for weeks on end he only slept a few hours a night.
Now, as some sort of twisted reward, he and his team get to do it all again, with the proposed 2022 Australian Open just months away and not short of controversy, itself.
There’s already disagreement on the issue of whether or not players who are not vaccinated will get special dispensation for the tournament.
A leaked email from the WTA, which governs the global women’s game, suggested that players who were not inoculated against the coronavirus would be able to take part, as long as they completed 14 days’ quarantine.
But Victoria state Premier Daniel Andrews quickly ruled that out.
“We are locking people who are unvaccinated out of pubs, cafes, restaurants and the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) and all sorts of other events,” he said. “We’re not going to be applying for an exemption. Therefore, the issue is basically resolved.”
Australia’s federal government controls the country’s border and issues visas. But during the pandemic, state governments have run quarantine facilities and imposed vaccine mandates, making it unclear who will get the final say on the Australian Open rules.
Nine-time Australian Open champion Djokovic is one of many players who have refused to share their vaccination status, casting doubt over whether he will defend his title at Melbourne Park in January.
So, Tiley has his hands full. It’s probably good, then, that throughout this year he’s remained philosophical.
“The next challenge requires another level of creative thinking,” he said, when speaking to safetyculture.com. “Covid-19 may be a disruptor, but provides an opportunity to accelerate growth. Risk-taking is redefined with more variables to consider. There is now, more than ever, a need to communicate a clear path to success and build confidence in an exciting future.”
Dylan Rogers
