Progress is being made by the LTA, says Roger Draper

steven · Tennis legend

RE: The Times and other media

Spectator · All-time great

A very random question. Reading OEM's tweets and then the official Roland Garros website. Is it Le Monf (as per OEM)? Or La Monf (as per Roland Garros)? Or both?

steven · Tennis legend

I originally thought it was "le Monf" given that he's male, but it's actually "la Monf" for some reason - that's what the French use and I even noticed it printed on his racket bag the other day.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Is he trying to tell us something

SMC1809 · All-time great

Another offer via Groupon for Times subscirption - £5.50 for 3 months if anyone's interested.

http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/national-deal/news-international/435513?nlp=&CID=UK_CRM_45_0_0_0&utm_source=Deal_general_newsletter&utm_medium=All_Cities&utm_content=Initial_Version&utm_campaign=Varies

Spectator · All-time great

BBC doing live blog of Ward/Querrey: is this the first time for a while they've done this for a non Murray/Henman/Rusedski men's match (other than Davis Cup)? Tonight's Evening Standard featured Ward, too.

-- Edited by Spectator on Thursday 9th of June 2011 07:40:15 PM

Armchair · County player

There's what may be an interesting podcast on the Guardian website today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/audio/2011/jun/15/focus-podcast-wimbledon-british-tennis.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Leon interview, after Andy who's next:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/13769319.stm

Shhh · Challenger level

I think thats a very good read from Leon Smith, actually reassuring hearing the method behind some of his decisions.

.........but why no Bloomfield in qualies!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

this bit stood out about wardy:

...He's got a coaching team in place that he found himself, and we support him with Team Aegon funding that offsets some of the costs.....

this indicates a different approach, a better one i think though. I'm pretty sure in the past the players weren't given such freedom on how to spend their funding. obviously there's a risk that the player could spend it badly, but i'm not sure that is any greater than the LTA spending it badly for them anyway, especially given their track record. At least if the player chooses their team they should get on with them. ok i am basing it on slim evidence but Ward's performances recently show a definate upturn, regardless of what happens in the match with Tipsy today and even in his 1st match at Wimby.

Maza1987 · Challenger level

Progress is being made by the LTA, says Roger Draper

http://sport.scotsman.com/tennis/Progress-is-being-made-by.6785839.jp

"One thing we can't do is put Ollie Golding, Liam Broady, George Morgan, Kyle Edmund and Pete Ashwell in a time machine. We know the best age for a tennis player is 28, those guys are just 17

Who is this Pete Ashwell he speaks of?

-- Edited by Maza1987 on Thursday 16th of June 2011 10:58:16 PM

Count Zero · Tennis legend

hmm so now 28 is the optimum age is it, so i wonder why they dropped Boggo when he was 25 then

indiana · Tennis legend

Grrr, every time I read anything that guy says he just annoys me.

Particularly his continual selective use of statistics, cottoning onto a few facts, changing time periods within same interviews, hoping folk won't notice the areas he doesn't mention etc. Yes. he'll say trot out the very good looking boy juniors we have ( and they do look good ! ), but what about the girls at the moment ? Where are the girl Direct Entrants at Roehampton ? Not there. Maybe balance things a bit by saying that's an area of concern, but he doesn't tend to do things like that. It's just look at the good things. He just really always comes over to me as some dodgy salesman.

Of course, while older than they used to make out previously at the LTA, 28 is not some magical optimum age. What it is is no doubt some average calculation that they or someone else has made. But individuals are so very different, and I might take more notice if he said that and put in context numbers rather than just be the ( random ) number generator that he so often seems. It's like he often quotes stats without really understanding their context or significance.

Anyway, accepting that players apparently peak much later than the LTA used to suggest and plan on, how does that tie in with that they accepted they basically had to pass over a pretty decent generation in the 1990 / 91 guys and look much more at the current juniors ? And of course, it dosn't tie in with the basic dropping of other pllayers like Boggo well under 28, but guess that's before the newer thoughts on older players ( when I am sure the actual range of top players ages and ages they peaked hadn't changed radically in the time ).

Never worry though, there will be a new three / five year target around the corner with new figures while you forget the figures of other targets in the past or in theory still running. They'll be a new stat of the day to be flung out there.

By the way how Roger Draper is at his job on a day to day basis I haven't a clue, but it just worries me that he is so PR orientated and pretty transparently bad at it if you even take a half a notice at what he is saying. Thing is much of the media gets that now too, which is partly why they the LTA gets the bad press Draper complains about. Folk don't like thinking someone is trying to pull the wool over their eyes, so end up making out that things are maybe worse than they really are. He doe shimself few favours.

Cheers guys, haven't had a Dodger rant for at least a month.

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 17th of June 2011 09:43:20 AM

LordBrownof · Futures level

A strategic plan isn't very strategic if you change some of the key components every 6 months. Draper demonstrates his severe inability to think longer term. His PR skills (or that of the team) are built around appeasing the public, short term.

Of course the public, media want immediate success but what the LTA should have been doing within the intervening years is challenging what success looks like. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have or aim for, players consistently within the top 50 but as a fan I want to see progress, people training hard and fulfilling their potential - like Bally. The problem is that the LTA haven't championed this as a big enough success.

I think Bally has made a significant contribution to the LTA's thinking. Both in terms of her coaching set up and the way the public view GB women's tennis. People don't mind so much that she's not top 10 when they consider her to be playing to her potential week in, week out.

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
It's like he often quotes stats without really understanding their context or significance.

True, though it's a charge that could be levelled at the vast majority of the population!