thanks for the heads up. i like cash, i like rock bands so thats good, although he does go on a bit :)

i remember him commentating on boggo in the dc. he was far more +ive about alex than anyof the brits. i said afterwards alex should try and get in touch with him (no idea if he did) but its shocking to hear that draper isn't responding to offers from players such as these!

i think alex could be a much better vollyer than he is, really its probably his footwork that lets him down the most in that regard. also i dont think he has the full confidence in his volleys which is a shame as obvisuly he has good hands and touch so i'm sure he could improve.

The Standard published a follow-up article this evening on James Ward's visit to a school in North London (James's a name no doubt lost on the vast majority of Standard readers! ) which I seem to remember seeing publicised on the LTA site last week or the week before.  There's also a rebuttal of Pat Cash's allegations by none other than Mr Draper.  It doesn't appear to be on the Standard site, but as it's less than half the length of the original, I'm willing to transcribe it if anyone's that interested in reading what he had to say.

-- Edited by Stircrazy on Wednesday 18th of November 2009 11:20:17 PM

It really winds me up when Draper and other LTA people state the '350% increase in juniors competing' statistic. I don't know whether everyone knows how this statistic is judged but it is as follows. They measure it on how many kids are playing a minimum of 6 matches per year. Now 6 matches a year is not that many in my book, but even less still when you consider that the sample statistic is taken from mini tennis orange, and mini tennis orange matches consist of ONE game of first to 10 points. 

So the stat is basically how many kids are playing 6 games of first to 10 points per year, and apparently there is a 350% increase in this. So basically I was at a David Lloyds club this Saturday where they hold a match play every week. I watched 9 players all play their entire 12 months worth total allocation of matches in 1 hour!! These results are immediately sent off to the LTA who then record them for this statistic. It really does begger belief that the LTA keep on rolling out this stat rather than actually try and get more kids playing more ACTUAL tennis matches!

And on a side note, being the FIFTH most popular sport is not that big an achievement Roger!! Lets say we are behind football, cricket, rugby and golf, what other sport would we not expect to be ahead of??

-- Edited by CourtCrazy on Thursday 19th of November 2009 12:28:41 AM

This is true Steven. The people who keep harping on about it being a middle class sport are those that don't really have any involvement. Although there is undoubtably still work to be done, it's nowhere near as elitest as the media would have you believe. I coached at a club in A mining town for 10 years, the club was close to 3 large council estates and 90% of the players I coached lived on those estates. The same can be said of many areas around the country. The idea that that we have numerous Andy Murray's or Roger Federer's in schools and estates around the country and not getting the opportunity to play is a nonsense. This is one area where the LTA have been superb in the last 10 years.