HossTheBoss wrote:

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Well done Dan ,differant class .
Wonder if the lta will give you a coach now.

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Why should the LTA provide a coach for someone whose problems are mostly of his own making, who hasn't had the ambition to travel overseas once in the past year (I don't count Dublin), who is so unprofessional that he repeatedly fails to enter tournaments and them turns up requesting a wild card (either for MD or qualies) and who also time and time again fails to find to the motivation to beat players that he should. If Dan can't find it in himself to maximise the potential why should the LTA throw more money at him?


At this point point regular forum members will probably have guessed that I am playing devil's advocate. What I would like to see happen is for Leon Smith, who obviously gets Dan's mentality, to sit down with him and discuss his future. Yes the LTA can provide a coach, yes they can give him MD wild cards for Queens, Eastbourne and Wimbledon, yes they can pay his travel expenses, but what they can't do is make Dan really want it, and I mean really want it. That means the willingness to go to some god forsaken place, staying in a crap hotel and playing in front of one man and dog and being willing to dig out a result when things aren't going well. 3,000 miles away from family and friends for weeks on end, no TV cameras, no reporters, no adulation, no glory, just beating a few journeyman with half his natural ability. If Dan is willing to do that then I hope the LTA do everything possible to help him, if he isn't they shouldn't give him a penny. So if I was Leon I would talk to him and be willing to back him to the hilt, but I would make it clear, the ball is his court, it is up to him. Time to make a choice Dan, as a brash teenager you said you would quit after about 5 years if you couldn't make something of yourself, so make it happen or don't, the choice is yours, but please stop teasing us with glimpses of what could be.