LTA Press Briefing. Sunday 8th March 11.15am

Drew · Mar 8, 2009

LTA Press Briefing. Sunday 8th March 11.15am

steven · Tennis legend

OEM's take on this http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article5870614.ece

steven · Tennis legend

... while Petch takes a more radical view, though the headline "Give Tim Henman a free hand to run British tennis" is more an attention grabber than an accurate reflection of what he says: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article5870613.ece

P.S. "Events and tournament spending is down £2 million on the previous year." won't come as much of a surprise to people here.

seagull · Hall of fame

"I speak to too many parents whose kids enter events only to have them cancelled because of a lack of entries."

Interesting comment - I was at an LTA 'mini-red' event yesterday with my son and they had to play 2 events as they had too many applicants! Matthew my son was in the top group of ten, 8 and under boys in Sussex and the standard was really good (and gave me some hope for future after watching DC!) On another set of courts they were playing an 'orange' event (next age group up) and again there were some exciting players there.

Compare this with a few years ago this level of organisation and competitiveness was not there and go back even further (when I was a boy!) we used to play with normal high bouncing balls on a full size court if we could find anywhere to play.

GB has taken far too long to catch up with other nations and there is still an elitist element to junior tennis (with no subsidized coaching on offer for kids with talent) but they do have the structure in place.

By the way Matthew had a hit with Martin Lee's Dad yesterday who is an LTA coach - really nice guy who gave a really incise feedback on his potential and weaknesses after a 10 minute session!

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Interesting bit there "...........Head of sports science, Ann Quinn, has been stranded in Australia since the Open in January unable to get her visa renewed ......" can they do the same to the Ozzies for Wimbledon I wonder? (...and the yanks and the Argies and the ......) biggrin

Drew · Mar 9, 2009

Team 'Aegon'

The Facts and Figures

36 of the top male and female players have yearly central contracts.
Does not include Andy Murray but he is part of the overall 'team'.

Juniors can expect £16k per year towards group coaching and £12k towards travelling.
Seniors can expect £24k per year towards group coaching and £12k towards travelling.
Seniors within the top 100 can expect £48k per year towards 1 to 1 coaching and £12k towards travelling.

There is slightly more girls & women than boys & men on contracts. There is no list as such but we know that juniors George Morgan, Laura Robson and Heather Watson have contracts.

Anne K is the only female to get 1 to 1 coaching within this scheme.

Coaches do not have to be NTC based LTA coaches. With Josh Goodall they would help fund his coaching costs directly with Sutton.

Each contracted player gets a tailored goal sheet with various markers and targets. Two annual 'ranking' & 'Goal' reviews along with 3 monthly fitness reviews.

Steve Martens "We are not there as social security"

Failure to meet targets can either result in :

A. No future contract / limit on current contract.
B. Reduced support for set time periods say 6 mths, 3 mths.

This scheme started at the start of this year. As far as the men are concerned the 9 that went to Saddlebrook with the LTA at the start of the year are all on contracts.

Each player has pre-arranged event time, Physical training blocks, mental training sessions and rest periods built into the contract.

Steve Martens again "There will be no more running around the world chasing points like before"

"Also each player is accountable....whether it is a better first serve %, weight loss target, endurance...these markers or goals are assessed at each review"

I will post the Roger Draper comments later. Steve Martens also had several things to say which I will get to.

seagull · Hall of fame

Steve Martens again "There will be no more running around the world chasing points like before"

Shame there are hardly any UK events to get points at then?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Yep - and with our challengers closer to France than the UK to boot!!!

perhaps they will look to implement more again next year, will help save on players travel budget too.

it could be interesting to see what % of world rankings points are made up from home nation events for the lower rankled players, say those outside the top 150.

steven · Tennis legend

Fascinating stuff, though it leaves more questions unanswered than it actually answers.

Drew wrote:
Steve Martens again "There will be no more running around the world chasing points like before"

What on earth does this mean, I wonder? That they're going to get help setting sensible schedules (would be good as long as it's help not compulsion) ... or that they've banned people from trying to identify weak events like the central African safari, etc (that would be bad) or that they're going to increase the number of Challengers and Futures in the UK (that would be brilliant, but there's a laughing pig floating past my window)?

steven · Tennis legend

From Anne's latest blog: http://www.tennishead.net/locker-room/Anne-Keothavong-Blog/2009/anne-keothavong-blog-california-dreaming/

"Off subject a little, I just want to make it clear that contrary to some media reports over the last couple of days, I do not receive £60,000 a year from the LTA and I havent signed any contracts to do with AEGON.

I receive help and advice from LTA employees for which Im very grateful and I get a bit of financial help towards my expenses but its not as much as people might think. I pay for a lot of things out of my own pocket and my career has never been fully funded by the LTA."

Make of that what you will ...

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i think maybe where some of the confusion comes in is the way that its reported by the press in that it can give the impression the players get £60k (or whatever) cashed into their personal account at the start of the year, to do with whatever they see fit. i am fairly sure that isn't the case, and in the £XXk the lta say a player is funded includes what they are paying the lta coaches to coach a player (so the player doesnt actually see that money), how much they think use of Roehampton 's facilities etc are worth.