An Australian coach who reported the unsportsmanlike conduct and jealousy of some players in the Vietnamese national tennis team has told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that he chose to speak straightforwardly with a single target: helping improve the team.

After leading the Vietnamese team to compete at the 2015 Davis Cup in Malaysia late last month, Aussie coach Matthaw Barry Kavanagh has recently sent a report on the misconduct of the players to the Vietnam Tennis Federation (VTF) and the General Department of Sports.

The report has sparked a heated debate among relevant people.

Kavanagh directly pointed out in his four-page report the names of some players who he said are lazy or jealous, or have displayed unsporting behavior toward their teammates.

Submitting a report on this to sports authorities in Vietnam is necessary, the coach said.

“I love working as the coach of the Vietnamese national tennis team,” he added. “I respect those who have worked with me.”

He was initially impressed by the performance of some players but there were problems with their professional moral conduct, Kavanagh said.

“That’s why those Vietnamese players have no ranking in the world. They haven’t made efforts to improve themselves,” he complained.

He added that he did not want to hurt Hoang Thien and what he wrote in the report was aimed at helping him improve himself.

Hoang Thien is a good tennis player and he did not deserve to be criticized, the coach said, advising that he will achieve more success if he makes some changes. 

Kavanagh added that he really respects Do Minh Quan and Lam Quang Tri but it was just difficult to understand them when they refused to play some matches at his request.

He said that he had told VTF general secretary Nguyen Quoc Ky that Vietnam needs those players willing to train and play with 110 percent of their strength.

The Australian coach underlined that all he did was just for the development of Vietnamese tennis.

The General Department of Sports and the VTF have asked players of the team to submit reports about their competition at the Davis Cup in Malaysia and their explanations about the report of the Aussie coach.

In the report, the Australian man said that Hoang Thien, a tennis ace of Vietnam, intentionally made wrong passes during training sessions with Ly Hoang Nam, another ace, to ‘constrain’ him.

He also accused Do Minh Quan, another player, of protesting his decision to replace Lam Quang Tri with Pham Minh Tuan. The change was finally not made due to deadline problems.

Quan and Tri had a factionalist spirit, incited others to defy the coach, and undermined the efforts of other players during training, according to the coach.