LTA Blueprint 2010

wolf · Tennis legend

LTA Blueprint 2010

Osomec · Junior player

I expect we had six on the day that the chart was prepared, but we don't know when that was. Anyway, the real number is two. Pretending that a top hundred ranking in doubles is equal to a top hundred ranking in singles treats the audience with contempt and invites derision. I don't want our players to be "guided" into playing doubles so that Mark Draper can boast about hitting his performance targets.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, we were down to 6 top 100ers ( singles plus doubles ) for three weeks around early October when Jamie Murray was out of the top 100.

Yes, Osomec, this has come up here before how they create such as targets and presentations just talking about top 100 players and lumping singles and doubles players together. I think everyone here agrees that's pretty ridiculous.

I just get more and more fed up with Roger Draper and co ( it is Roger by the way, Roger the Dodger ) seem to tailor so much towards PR, PR, PR

My impression is that they are continually too interested in spending time on how they can make themselves and the LTA in general look good rather than just being single minded about improving British tennis.

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
Yes, we were down to 6 top 100ers ( singles plus doubles ) for three weeks around early October when Jamie Murray was out of the top 100.

Yes, Osomec, this has come up here before how they create such as targets and presentations just talking about top 100 players and lumping singles and doubles players together. I think everyone here agrees that's pretty ridiculous.

I just get more and more fed up with Roger Draper and co ( it is Roger by the way, Roger the Dodger ) seem to tailor so much towards PR, PR, PR

My impression is that they are continually too interested in spending time on how they can make themselves and the LTA in general look good rather than just being single minded about improving British tennis.

I know, this lumping singles and doubles top 100 places together is ridiculous. I could just about let them get away with counting top 50 (or even perhaps top 100) doubles as equivalent to top 250 singles, but even that is a stretch.

That's not to say I don't respect players who have decided that doubles is best for them - in particular, if a player has reached their mid-20s, almost certainly isn't going to make the top 100 in singles and is good at doubles (i.e. it has become clear that they have a choice between spending the rest of their tennis career on the Futures/Challenger circuits or possibly playing doubles on the main tour), they'd be silly not to switch to doubles.

I just wish not quite so many Brits did it and (particularly since doubles on the main tour is probably considerably more lucrative than singles at lower level events), I don't think the LTA should be funding it unless they are funding a lot more singles players than they actually are, let alone giving the impression that they think top 100 doubles and singles are equivalent.

As for Roger the Dodger and Co (maybe Osomec has been reading too much OEM and sees Draper as a 'mark'ed man wink

), their obsession with PR (to the extent of throwing players to the wolves if they think it might make them look better) is the worst thing about them. I'd have far more respect for them if they did what they thought was right, even if I didn't necessarily agree with what they thought was right.

The saddest thing about their obsession with pandering to the media is that it doesn't take the heat off them anyway - they only way they will ever manage to get the press off their backs is by doing the right things and staying the course until those things have the desired effect.

wolf · Tennis legend

I love doubles, but even I can see it should be treated apart from singles.

And using the top 100 benchmark for doubles is ridiculous. Being in ranked 80-100 will get you into very few ATP's and no Grand Slams because singles players can use their singles ranking, so top 80 is what you should be looking for.

wolf · Tennis legend

There's an interview with he Dodger - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/9291826.stm

A lot of it shows how clueless Overend is about tennis.

Osomec · Junior player

Whoops, Mark Draper is a man I worked with for several years in the 1990s. He had nothing to do with tennis. Apparently there was also a footballer of that name, and an air conditioning company in Florida.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

I have to admit the Mark Draper thing was confusing me, I wondered if it was some subtle insult that I was missing out on

i haven't bothered to read the whole thing - what was it about the website? they are making another new one aren't they?

are they also blurring the distinction between junior events, British tour events and 'proper' ITF/ATP/WTA events?

steven · Tennis legend

I wonder how much the LTA pay the BBC to send Overend along wink

- as the wolf says, he comes across as completely clueless, enabling Draper to bat away his questions very easily.

He could ask far more interesting questions if he did his research properly instead of just scratching at the surface.

philwrig · Hall of fame

You've got to remember Overend only covers the grand slams and DC primarily. How about if OEM got the opportunity to interview Roger ?

To me the LTA has had some successes but not enough to keep the critics away. I suspect we will need to see at least 6 top 100 singles players before Roger Draper's reign will be seen to be in anyway successful.