Tennis New Zealand has changed its high performance set up following the departure of Christophe Lambert.

Lambert quit as Tennis NZ’s high performance director earlier this month, to become the full-time coach for Canada’s Bianca Andreescu.

Tennis NZ CEO Julie Paterson said they have decided to split Lambert’s job in two and return to having a national coach.

“We have been looking at the role over the last six to eight months, even before Christophe resigned, because the brief of what’s required between being a high performance director and a lead coach is just too broad,” Paterson said.

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“The requirements of high performance directors have changed over the years and they’re now quite processed, policy and procedure driven and to have someone that has the skill set of that, as well as being the lead coach, is really challenging.

“Christophe spent a significant amount of time offshore this year and had to try to lead a team in New Zealand when he’s coaching oversees, as well as focussing on policies and processes, with the things we have to do now with High Performance Sport NZ that we didn’t have to do two years ago.

“So we’ve separated the roles out and we’re going to have a role that focusses on being the head of high performance, who’ll lead the delivery of the objectives as set by the board, then we are also advertising for a national coach.”

The new national coach will predominantly work with players aged 16 and under, although they will be required to help out in other areas when needed.

Tennis NZ is open to applications from overseas for the national coach and the reality is there are only a handful of people in New Zealand who’d be up to the job.

But one issue whoever gets the high performance or national coach’s jobs will be to get the support from the regions.

Lambert and his two predecessors, Simon Rea and Marcel Vos all struggled to get support from around the country and left feeling unhappy.

Tennis NZ’s player development philosophies won’t change when the current vacancies are filled, but Paterson hopes that the communication with the tennis community improves.

“The challenge we face is that there are a lot of opinions about how to get the best outcomes in high performance and performance development,” Paterson said.

“It creates a lot of passionate discussion that varies from one end of the spectrum to the other.

“The challenge is ensuring the discussions we have are open, transparent and respectful.

“That would be my goal, I don’t expect to get everybody on board, I don’t expect to get everyone to agree, but what we all continue to aim for is being able to have open and transparent conversations with people.

“Also being clear about what we’re doing it and why we’re doing it and ensuring we’ve got good processes in place that make everyone understand.

“We think we can do a better job in communicating and often we come across parents who aren’t clear about the athlete development criteria for example.

“We know the information is on the website, but maybe people need to get that information in a different way.”