MELBOURNE, Australia -- It has been 39 years since Chris O'Neill won the Australian Open. No other Grand Slam nation has experienced nearly as long a title drought from a hometown player.
Australians have won just five of 80 Grand Slam titles played since the start of 1997. That's a far cry from the heady days of the 1950s and 1960s, when the country dominated the sport worldwide.
Samantha Stosur, at the 2011 US Open, was the most recent Australian champion, but in Nick Kyrgios, the Aussies might just have a man capable of doing what O'Neill, Lleyton Hewitt and Pat Rafter couldn't do: pick up the title at Melbourne Park.
For all Kyrgios' unique talent, it was a 2005 decision by Tennis Australia, which administers the sport in the country, to invest heavily in clay courts that might play a part in the nation's general resurgence. A series of "Italian clay" courts have been rolled out across the country in academies, while clubs are incentivized to lay new courts.
Former doubles world No. 1 Todd Woodbridge ran the men's development program between until 2009 and 2013, working with Kyrgios and many of the other young Australians who are starting to come through.
"Our surfaces in Australia were all fast, [including] synthetic grass, which came in just as I was an early teen," said Woodbridge, now a spokesman for Tennis Australia.
"So my game developed all around that -- a big, flat, hard forehand, a slice backhand. For our modern player coming through, it was crucial to be able to learn to be an offensive and defensive player, and [clay] is the only surface to do that."
Ten Australian men and seven women began the Australian Open, and though 10 of the 17 needed wild cards, the majority have much more rounded game styles than was the case in the past.
"That's because they're the ones who have been part of the program that has been built over the past seven, eight years," Woodbridge said. "I think you can see that that's working. That was part of it: to change the surfaces in Australia, give the kids the game so that they could play on all surfaces and also allow them to be injury-free."
Woodbridge said another reason for the switch to clay was the realization of how many of the top juniors were suffering from stress fractures and joint injuries from playing too much on hard courts.
Machary Reid, formerly the country's high-performance manager and now Tennis Australia's innovation catalyst, was responsible for a lot of the research behind the change. He believes the move has been a success.
"I think so, from a movement point of view in particular," he said. "With the increase of clay-court tennis [around the world], it only made sense to follow that through, from a performance perspective, but also from an injury perspective because hard courts are particularly difficult on the joints.
"Then you've got the tactical component, by virtue of the game being slowed down, and cognitively, the demands are higher, so you need to think about what you want to do and don't want to do. And from a stroke production point of view, you need to generate more speed on the ball.
"Then lastly, from a movement point of view, you need to be far more balanced so you can go about getting around the court. That then places you in a much better position to transfer to hard courts."
The change received the blessing of Australian tennis legend Rod Laver, who won the season Grand Slam in 1962 and 1969.
"Clay courts round you off as a tennis player," Laver said in an interview Monday at Melbourne Park.
"We had a real void there for quite a while. We had Lleyton Hewitt. He was pretty much on his own, with [Mark] Philippoussis and [Pat] Rafter before that.
"So we had some guys who really made it, but just in this last 10 years, someone like Kyrgios has come through. Guys are taller, with a bigger game, and they can make their mark. I think [clay] has probably helped."
Between 1961 and 1970, Australian men won at least one of Wimbledon, the US Open and the French Open, while Margaret Court, who won the season Slam in 1970, still holds the all-time record with 24 Grand Slam titles.
For now, the Australians would settle for one, but a bold decision 12 years ago might have put them on the right track for more.