Djokovic attacks 'spoiled' Brits.

James · Satellite level

Djokovic attacks 'spoiled' Brits.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Master Djokovic should go mind his own brothers who apparently are more talented than him but don't win anything.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

I don't think it's fair of him (or anyone else saying the same thing) to tarr every British player (except his mate Andy Murray) with the same 'spoilt' brush. How does he know their attitudes? Does he even know their names? For all he knows, all our players are fighting at their full potential.

I know, that's not the case, and I think what he says may be part of the problem for some of our players but it's by no means the whole story. We have a problem in Britain of attracting young people to play tennis as their first sport, until we can solve that we aren't going to get more players in the top level of the game. And if that's the case then failing to offer the best facilities is hardly going to move anyone away from persuing football or some other sport.

Of course, that's all just my opinion, I know nothing really.

mjd · Challenger qualifying

'What a plonker!'

Surprising how quickly you can go off people!

I wonder how much he knows about British grassroots tennis? Lots of people (even including Tim last year) make a lot of assumtpions, mostly incorrect.

Not many British players have a father who can build a couple of tenis courts outside their shop so they can practice at any time to start their tennis career. They most probably struggle to pay for time at the local clubs and gyms despite the grand new tennis centre at Roehampton.

As for Andy not being spoilt, most young Brits would be hard pushed to afford a weeks holiday in Spain let alone reside there at a tennis training centre.

jazar · Junior player

i think djokovic is right. the majority of juniors in this country take completely the wrong attitude, but its not just them, its their parents and coaches as well. i firmly believe that if a british player is going to be successful they need to get out of britain as soon as possible and train abroad

mjd · Challenger qualifying

jazar wrote:

i think djokovic is right. the majority of juniors in this country take completely the wrong attitude, but its not just them, its their parents and coaches as well. i firmly believe that if a british player is going to be successful they need to get out of britain as soon as possible and train abroad

Very true Jazar, however, the young kids with real talent most likely cannot do that, and people who say they should go to Monte Carlo, Spain or Florida etc live in cloud-cucko land. The ones who can afford to do so (with one notable exception of course) will most probably never make it anyway, one hit the headlines last week, another was playing in Brazil, but good luck to them, I envy them. Just ask some of the keen players who post here why they don't/didn't go abroad and get training.
Until LTA and councils give open access to ALL kids with talent of whatever background, as they are promising to do, and not just a select few, things will never change in British Tennis. It's really got to start at local level, as with soccer and rugby, etc - not at 'glossy' Roehampton.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

disnt fitz post here recntly about the extra jobs he has to do to ba able to afford to play his tennis?

DUSTY DICK · Club Coach

I think Djokovic is wrong. It can be so hard for kids in this country for the average parents to afford the fees for them. When you look at Henman and Murray thay both seem to have come from a priveliged background. Jo Durie a few years ago spoke about how a group of boys/girls could wander on to the park with just a football and throw down their jumpers to make goalposts and off they could go. She said tennis needed to be made that easy. Round my way in Notts most courts are wrecked and overgrown and so are not fit to play on. if other countries can produce players then why can't we. Enough money is poured into the game here and still we can't do it. Without spoiling the players something must be going wrong with how the money is spent. Maybe i'm talking rubbish and have got it wrong but i have been a huge tennis fan now since the early eighties and the lack of British success has been spoken about every year since. So maybe our players don't want it enough. It is puzzling and so far no one seems to have the magic answer to put it right. These types of comments from people like Djokovic will keep on coming until we can get 3/4 men and women in the top 100 and competing on the main tour week in week out.

jazar · Junior player

mjd wrote:

Very true Jazar, however, the young kids with real talent most likely cannot do that, and people who say they should go to Monte Carlo, Spain or Florida etc live in cloud-cucko land. The ones who can afford to do so (with one notable exception of course) will most probably never make it anyway, one hit the headlines last week, another was playing in Brazil, but good luck to them, I envy them. Just ask some of the keen players who post here why they don't/didn't go abroad and get training.
Until LTA and councils give open access to ALL kids with talent of whatever background, as they are promising to do, and not just a select few, things will never change in British Tennis. It's really got to start at local level, as with soccer and rugby, etc - not at 'glossy' Roehampton.

i accept that few parents have the money to send their kids off to some foreign academy. but the lta should look at these foreign academies and take on board what they are doing. i think one of the major differences between and academy in england and one in say america is the amount of fitness work they do. in an english academy, or at least the ones i have experience of, fitness work is limited to about a half hour of lame, barely useful crap before starting to play. in america they have full fitness regimens. another point is that foreign academies emphasise more of a self-reliance and are more disciplined, which helps put 'spoilt' kids in line

Salmon · Tennis legend

The more the players leave the country, the better it is. If you stay in Britain, you'll only have a top 30 Juniors ranking to boast of unless you are exceptionally strong mentally.

But I see no reason to blame the players for that. They work as hard as players from other countries, I'm sure. I won't deny that a few have their problems, but we are talking of 14, 15, 16, 17 or 18 year olds. Isn't that the case everywhere?

And this latest fad about how Serbians like Djokovic and Ivanovic had to face hardships like playing tennis in a swimming pool or a tin roof or somewhere weird like that and that made them top players is nonsense. They're where they are because they're very talented and they had good people taking care of them.

-- Edited by Greenleaf at 16:51, 2008-04-28

Andymonium · Satellite level

prick

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

Nobody likes to be criticicised, but let us look at the facts:British Tennis is relatively well funded - not at the level of funding in Spain or France, but we have loads more cash than Serbia or Croatia, and look what thay manage to achieve. When did the LTA last produce a top 100 player? Was it Martin Lee who briefly broke into the top 100 several years ago?

I think we are a nation of Wimbledon fans, not tennis lovers. This might possibly change if we ever do get a Wimbledon Champion. Look at the change Becker's success brought to German tennis. But in the UK, I bet he would have ended up playing football.

Instead of putting all our eggs into the Roehampton basket, we should have spent money on regional centres and made funding available for kids the best kids to spend time at Sanchez Casal academy in Barcelona. That is a competitive cauldron, everybody around you is desperate to be better than you are, and if they are not, they fall away very fast. if you can hack it there, maybe, just maybe you have what it takes to make it on the world scence. In the UK, if you train at Roehampton, you've made it, job done. Time to relax...

Compare also what we achieve in England with what is achieved in Scotland with a fraction of the population and a tiny fraction of the cash.

It is very easy to criticise though. There are three organisations that I would hate to work for because I can't see any way out of the decline: The Post Office (recalcitrant workforce, Email and Internet is soooo much better) Jessops the camera retailer (They used to make good money selling film and processing them, the digital age has killed all that) and the LTA.

Steve