I get the impression he doesn't look at it at all, but that's not really the point.

The point is that to whatever extent Tim's criticisms may be valid, someone in his position (whose views are obviously going to get reported extensively by the press) should be raising them with the players or their coaches face to face, not feeding the media negativity. How would you feel as a young player working hard and making significant progress (as Liam certainly appears to be) if all most of the casual British tennis fans knew about you was that Tim Henman had said you didn't look hungry enough?

to be fair Oli's probably making the right move getting away from the UK, lets list the home grown successes shall we:

It is a lot easier for a Briton to live in Mexico than for a Mexican to live in the UK. She would be an illegal immigrant here. Not exactly a secure position, and an easy target for an immigration officer looking to meet his quota without being accused of racism.

One of my friends is currently being investigated for his "suspicious" marriage to a middle class white Canadian, shortly before her work visa was due for renewal. She's an academic, the visa renewal would have been routine, and they've been dating for years, but not living together (because they are devout Christians, but apparently not co-habiting is now a red flag). Perhaps he should have married a Somali peasant if he wanted to be left alone by our inverted-racist state.

Golding's girlfriend is a tennis player, but she may be looking to continue her education, and England is not the ideal place for a Spanish speaker to do so. Her ranking may be higher than his, but she's a girl, and she isn't on a better track for her age them him, quite the opposite. Oliver is obviously not going down education-as-a-backup route at the moment.

So it's no surprise that Oliver preferred to move to Mexico. The climate allows year round training out of doors, and with luck the media will pay less of their corrosive form of attention to him. He did hint that the latter was one of his reasons for moving.


-- Edited by Osomec on Wednesday 23rd of March 2011 07:06:02 PM

If anyone is interested, Groupon have an offer for Times subscription. £7.80 for 3 months.

http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/national-deal/news-international/345031?nlp=&CID=UK_CRM_45_0_0_0&utm_source=Deal_general_newsletter&utm_medium=All_Cities&utm_content=Initial_Version&utm_campaign=Varies

Count Zero wrote:

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article on the BBC about a young potential star who is going to represent Oz after feeling let down by the LTA

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/13394586.stm

---

 

Clearly it is to a large extent a pretty one-sided article given there may be many elements we are not being aware of, but on the face of it there seems a large element of inflexibilty and indeed inattention from the LTA, best summed by the couple of parageraphs :

"Naiktha's case has shown us that some talents can fall off the radar," Mcloughlin added. "The LTA should be leaving no stone unturned to engage all foreign-based players and keep in regular contact.

"We need to adopt an umbrella approach - accept that many players will face different scenarios and make sure we are still covering them in one form or another."

The not letting her compete in British National Juniors because Rule blah-blah doesn't allow it if you have competed in another national championships in the prededing 12 months seems indicative.  She held ( indeed still holds ) a British passport and seemingly still wanted to play for GB, but not surprisingly played Australian Nationals as she was based there and allowed to.

And the you will pay for court time and assessment stuff when they are prepared to pay the cost of flying over etc first stopping a visit and then in a later visit apparently not really watching or assessing her much at all, does not look at all good.

PS :  I have copied this post across to the specific thread started about the LTA and Naiktha  :  http://61841.activeboard.com/t42888609/the-lta-and-naiktha-bains/ 

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 17th of May 2011 01:02:13 PM

If you've ever been shocked at the BBC getting tennis stuff wrong, you ain't seen nothing yet - this from the New York Times site:

http://nyti.ms/k3Xrux

In case they have corrected it by now, one of the BOTBers has preserved it for posterity at http://yfrog.com/hswc1moj

One might query the wisdom of allowing the proofreader for that article to be responsible for further tennis articles (unless he/she makes the acquaintance of the ATP website). But at least it provided lots of ha-haas for the cognoscenti!