Tennis greats will gather at Kooyong on Sunday to shine the light on mental health at the inaugural "Remembering Todd Reid" charity event. Four years after Reid lost his battle with depression, his family remain heartbroken about the lack of support the former Wimbledon junior champion received after injury and illness curtailed his career. After sharing the court with Roger Federer as a teenage boy wonder in the Australian Open third round in 2004, Reid was struck down with glandular fever - and was never seen again on the big stage. "I never got over what happened to me when I was 19," Reid told AAP the week before he was found dead, aged 34, near his home in Sydney in October, 2018. The great Rafael Nadal was in the draw when Reid won the boys' title at the All England Club in 2002, hours before Lleyton Hewitt claimed the men's trophy in a golden Aussie double. Reid and Hewitt, along with Todd Woodbridge and Wayne Arthurs, successfully teamed up for Australia in Davis Cup two years later against Morocco in a tie in Perth. But the highs of playing Federer, beating the likes of Bernard Tomic, John Millman and French Open champion Gaston Gaudio preceded the lowest of lows of being mostly forgotten about when forced off the ATP Tour. Now Reid's sister Renee, with the help of the CorriLee Foundation Tennis Charity, IC Australia and the Black Dog Institute, are intent on raising awareness around the importance of professional athletes receiving adequate support to transition into everyday life post-retirement. Especially those forced into premature retirement. "We need to be having conversations about it - raising awareness and the money to try to help people that are suffering," Renee told AAP. "Todd was sent home from Melbourne with an ankle injury and glandular fever and not supported at all. The tennis world for the most part disappeared. "Maybe they didn't know what to do. What I do know is that there is a level of guilt from a number of people that I have spoken to who didn't realise just how bad it was. "It's confronting - yes. It tears pieces off me to talk about it but the feedback that I get from doing it puts those pieces back together, where people comment that what I have said is powerful. "And that I am still doing something for Toddy, even though we weren't actually able to save him, and keeping his memory alive." Despite many of Australia's contemporary stars gathering in Melbourne for the Newcombe Medal on Monday night, organisers of "Remembering Todd Reid" were unable to lure any of today's stars to Sunday's event. But two-time Australian Davis Cup champion and former captain Wally Masur, fellow great John Alexander, Scott Draper and Nicole Pratt are among those who will hit the famed grass courts of Kooyong before celebrating Reid at the charity dinner on Sunday night. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636 Australian Associated Press
