The politics of tennis make headlines about as often as, well, an Australian winning Wimbledon. But The Age has been running hard with the battle for the presidency of Tennis Australia between the incumbent, Geoff Pollard and challenger Paul McNamee.

The presidency of TA is actually a full-time position and from 1989 until 2005, Pollard was the all-powerful head of tennis in this country. But following a searching review of the sport, it was decided that TA needed a chief executive as well as a president and Steve Wood, a one-time promising Australian player with a strong background in IT, was headhunted back from the US to assume that position.

It was at about this time that McNamee's reign as the general manager and tournament director of the Australian Open was coming to an end. In his time at the helm, McNamee repositioned the tournament as the "Grand Slam of the Asia-Pacific" and lifted its status to become much more an equal partner with the other Grand Slam tournaments. Under his watch, Melbourne Park was redeveloped, night tennis boomed and tennis pretty much took over the nation for the last two weeks of January.

So successful has the Australian Open become that it largely underpins the finances of the sport in Australia. But those in the tennis industry - but not in the employ of TA - will tell you that while the Open has never been stronger, the Australian tennis itself is in a parlous state, with large question marks hovering over player development, participation and finances.

Australia has long been eliminated from the World Group of the Davis Cup and a look at the rankings, with just two Australian men (Lleyton Hewitt and Peter Luczak) and two Australian women (Samantha Stosur and Jelena Dokic) in the respective top 100s, those with concerns would appear to be correct.

McNamee shook the Australian Open to its foundations and it emerged bigger and better. He hasn't outlined his vision for the sport in public just yet and probably doesn't need to given that the presidency is not decided by popular vote but by state delegates behind closed doors.

But he has picked up an interesting and surprising supporter - Lleyton Hewitt - who has written an article on his official website advocating change and supporting McNamee.

The argument for change at the top of TA appear to be sound, although McNamee's elevation to the presidency would likely lead to more sweeping changes within an organisation that has reportedly experienced a huge turnover of staff over the last two years.

Our prediction? Some sort of succession plan in which Pollard gets to leave on his own terms (such as presiding over one last Australian Open) with McNamee then taking over and moving swiftly in a bid to restore tennis to its once exalted place in the Australian sporting landscape.