Australia's last men's Grand Slam champion came back in 2002, when Lleyton Hewitt famously dismantled David Nalbandian in straight sets at Wimbledon.
More than two decades on, that triumph now marks the beginning of a long, steady decline in Australian men's tennis.
Since Hewitt's breakthrough, Australian men's tennis has failed to produce a new generation of genuine slam contenders. This drought now looks less like bad luck and more like the product of underfunded development and a cultural shift.
All of this comes despite hosting a Grand Slam, the availability of elite training facilities and a large population.
Over the past two decades, tennis has quietly become one of the most financially excluding sports in the country, with the eye-watering costs making it near impossible for a lot of its elite level talent to compete regularly on the international stage.
Players from wealthy families are often the only athletes that can sustain competing on the international circuit. Families and athletes are expected to fund travel, accommodation, coaching, tournament fees, equipment and physio. But if an international breakthrough doesn't come before the funds run out, it's career over.
Admittedly Australia's geographic location does make it hard. European juniors can often travel short distances to compete against international competition for all important ranking points.
Speaking to the Australian Financial Review last year, managing director of elite academy at Voyager Tennis Ryan Henry says parents are generally spending around $40,000 a year in the hope their child will become a future champion. For a lot of families, this is virtually impossible to fund.
Matthew Teivans, founder of Adelaide Tennis Academy, told the Australian Financial Review that players can access private funding to sustain a push for international success, but he doesn't encourage it as it can present issues down the track.
“Management companies and investors may offer to put money into a child's career if they can see a potential return. These offers are out there and exist, but they generally cost a percentage of the child's future earnings," Teivans said.
Alongside the financial problem, another glaring issue in Australian men's tennis is the culture. Tennis Australia would have been licking their lips when 18-year-old Bernard Tomic made a scintillating run to the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 2011.
They would've had even more joy two years later when Nick Kyrgios faced off against Thanasi Kokkinakis in the Junior Boys Final at the Australian Open.
It appeared Australia was primed for a golden run at Grand Slam level. But it wasn't to be, with a decade of elite junior talent failing to amount into any sort of Grand Slam relevance.
With the rare combination of natural ball-striking and deft touch, former junior prodigies Kyrgios and Tomic have unfortunately become renowned for their lack of discipline and on-court antics. Australian tennis fans have been left wondering what could've been.
Kyrgios was once arguably the brightest junior talent Australian tennis had ever seen, with his raw ability seeing him produce headline wins over Nadal, Federer and Djokovic. But his natural brilliance allowed him to take short-cuts along the way, normalising under-preparation and the idea that natural ability prevails over discipline.
For a development system already dealing with a lack of funding and depth, the message he sent has been damaging.
Furthermore, hosting the Australian Open has only helped mask issues existing in our development pathways.
Wildcards and home-court opportunities have created an illusion that our pathways are good enough. Each January, there a series of feel-good stories coming out of the Australian Open as local players record their first Grand Slam win, or make a daring push early into the second week of the tournament. Headlines are frequent and the public rally behind the players.
There is no doubt that this offers significant benefit for the players and their families, but the tennis season runs twelve months a year, and it's certainly a lot more difficult to make a living when wildcards aren't on offer and there is no hometown support.
If Tennis Australia are serious about producing men's Grand Slam contenders again, junior development can no longer be treated as a private investment, it must be treated as a national investment.
That means subsidising elite junior travel, coaching and international tournament travel, and establishing a high-performance pathway that emphasises discipline and professionalism. It must promote selecting players based on potential, we can no longer have our elite talent forced out of the game because their families can't afford to keep them on tour.
Tennis Australia need to look to the European countries and their systems.
For example, Italy offers blueprint of what a successful development system actually looks like. The system is built around accessibility rather than a single national academy. Its decentralised nature allows talented juniors to train close to home and maintain family support, while still competing at a high level.
When players graduate from juniors, they are presented with the second-highest number of lower-tier professional tournaments in the world behind only the United States. This system allows Italian players to save both time and money, and develops junior talent through sustained match exposure rather than being filtered out by travel costs.
The result has been a golden generation, led by the likes of Jannik Sinner and Jasmine Paolini.
Australia has lost a generation of men's Grand Slam contenders through underinvestment, poor culture and a pathway that filters talent by wealth rather instead of potential.
Until that changes, the wait for our next Lleyton Hewitt will only keep getting longer.
