Just read this on the BBC..........who agrees / disagrees ?
Andy Murray has blamed the Lawn Tennis Association for hampering older brother Jamie's tennis career.
Murray, 18, teamed up with his brother for a doubles win on Sunday as Scotland beat England in the Aberdeen Cup.
"He was number two in the world when he was around the age of 13," the world number 65 said of his brother.
"Then he went down to an LTA school in Cambridge and they ruined him for a few years. It was their fault. But I really want him to come back and do well."
The LTA have reacted to Murray's criticism, with performance director David Felgate stressing that there was no uniform way of bringing on players.
Their input into Murray's career allowed him to develop his game in Spain, and Tim Henman's former coach believes the LTA are achieving success with their policy.
Felgate said: "The LTA recognises that different players react to different approaches which is why we have introduced choice and flexibility into our performance system and continue to support our best players wherever they want to train in Britain or beyond."
The England v Scotland team competition finished 4½-2½ at the weekend as the young Scot beat Greg Rusedski in the final singles match to seal victory for his side.
Earlier, the Murray brothers had beaten Rusedski and David Sherwood 6-3 2-6 10-5, the third set on a first-to-10 points system, in the doubles.
Jamie is 15 months older than Andy and, despite reaching the doubles semi-finals of the junior US Open with his brother in 2004, is currently at a career-high of 896th in the world.
"My brother is very talented," added Andy Murray.
"He is a good guy and he works very hard. He wants to be a tennis player and I think he has shown he has the talent."
None of the current top three British players - Tim Henman, Rusedski and Murray - came through the recognised LTA coaching ranks as youngsters.
Rusedski grew up in Canada and moved to Britain as a ready-made top-50 professional, while Henman also developed largely outside typical LTA coaching structures.
The younger Murray spent the formative stages of his career learning the ropes in Spain, albeit with the aid of LTA financial support. Rusedski was more diplomatic about the standard of the UK's coaching infrastructure, but also recognises the problems.
"Things are getting better but there is still a lot of room for improvement, that's for sure," said Rusedski.
"But it is also about finding those kids who have something different and finding parents who are really involved with the kids.
"Judy (Murray) is very involved with Andy's tennis and he is quite a fighter and a character. He is not your average young person.
"It is about finding the kids that are like that from a young age and whether they are in or out of the system, trying to find a way to develop them. There has to be a way to work it."
I think that team Murray should be focusing their attention on how they can develop Jamie as a player and get him to perform at the level he did over the weekend rather than blaming the LTA.
Jamie did go to Sanchez-Casal for a brief time but didn't enjoy it so returned to the UK. I think it is somewhat unfair to blame the LTA for his lack of progress though clearly their track record of producing top tennis players is non-existent.
Right now Jamie has talent, probably more than some players who get into the top 150 - just think back to a certain George Bastl that Andy faced both at Wimbledon and at Bangkok. Jamie needs to translate that talent into results, something that he hasn't really managed to date.
Since the Murray family now have the cash to fund Jamie's career and to get him a decent coach, it is up to them to make things happen. They can learn from Andy's career and apply it to Jamie's.
As for the LTA well they are an easy target. They haven't managed to do much right over the last decade or so despite the huge sum of money handed over by Wimbledon each year. We could blame them for everything and there would be a fair amount of truth to it.
Have the LTA helped Jamie's progress? - probably not.
But despite his age Jamie still has time to make an impact. If he is dedicated enough he could do well.
A verbal attack from Andy Murray clearly has the potential to be as devastating as one of his fiercely struck top-spin forehands. Yesterday the Scottish teenager accused the Lawn Tennis Association, the British game's ruling body, of "ruining" the development of his elder brother, Jamie.
While Andy broke into the world's top 100 players this season, his 19-year-old brother did not even register on the ranking computer at the start of the year, and only recently scuffled into the leading 1,000.
British tennis ranking
Jamie, 15 months older, is patently a gifted player, with no major technical weaknesses in his game, and it has been suggested that he has been held back by a lack of confidence in his abilities.
The younger Murray firmly believes that the LTA are to blame. "He was No 2 in the world when he was around the age of 12. Then he went down to an LTA school in Cambridge, and they ruined him. It was their fault. But I really want him to come back and do well," Andy Murray said of his brother.
Murray's comments would have caused much embarrassment and concern in Barons Court, the LTA headquarters, last night.
The LTA have been keen to promote Murray as a golden example of what they have achieved with their not-inconsiderable funding, though it might have been edging closer to the truth to have said that the player has spent a lengthy period of time outside the system, and is far from being a complete LTA product. Murray never likes anyone laying claim to him, and may have reacted accordingly.
Both boys have been guided in their careers by their mother, Judy, the former national coach of Scotland. But Andy elected to leave the LTA system when he was 15, deciding to base his training on the clay courts of Barcelona, at the Sanchez-Casal Academy. The LTA have provided around a third of the cost.
As with most aspects of tennis, timing is everything. Murray is tomorrow scheduled to be in a car park in Soho, central London, to launch an LTA scheme aimed at encouraging greater numbers of pre-teens and teenagers to play tennis. Any more of these off-message remarks from him in Soho and the LTA may be tempted to ask the invited DJs to put on a loud record and then turn the volume up a few more notches.
When Jamie left Scotland for Cambridge he was world-class for his age, often troubling the likes of Rafael Nadal and Richard Gasquet, and he was said to have been brimming with self-belief. But he did not enjoy the set-up at Cambridge, where the coaches made drastic technical changes to his major weapon, his forehand, and otherwise questioned his game. He became homesick and left after less than a year.
Jamie's short stay has continued to blight his career. When he returned north of the border, it took some months for him to even want to carry on playing, and when he did, he was still lacking the old confidence. Self-belief is the key on the tennis tour, the most unforgiving of places, and Jamie's confidence issues can almost certainly be traced back to East Anglia.
Jamie, who has a serve-and-volley style, admitted, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, that he does not share his brother's hyper-confidence. "We have very different personalities. I am more laid-back and don't always let on how much I want to succeed. But Andy is more open about what he wants to achieve.
''He is incredibly single-minded and likes to get his own way. Andy hates losing, but I probably find it much easier to accept defeat."
David Felgate, the LTA's director of performance, reacted to the comments by arguing that there was no uniform way of developing players. He also pointed to the LTA's financial contribution to the younger Murray's tennis education in Barcelona.
"The LTA recognises that different players react to different approaches, which is why we have introduced choice and flexibility into our performance system and continue to support our best players wherever they want to train - whether in Britain or beyond."
Times:
ANDY MURRAY will front the latest drive to get teenagers hooked on his sport tomorrow when he launches Raw Tennis in an NCP car park in London. He exposed a few nerves in the corridors of power yesterday with what was a damning one-sentence critique on failed mainstream coaching systems in Britain.
Murray’s anger that a Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) school in Cambridge "ruined my brother for a few years" struck at the heart of why he chose to hone the basics at a training camp in Barcelona. Jamie Murray, his elder brother by 15 months, left Scotland for East Anglia when he was 13 and, according to Andy, returned the worse for the experience.
There could be some anxious folk at the Lawn Tennis Writers’ Association dinner in London on Monday, when Murray Jr accepts the LTA Player of the Year Award, for he has given warning that he wants to say a few words. Not one to hide his light beneath a bushel, it may be as well that the LTA’s coaching hierarchy has chosen next week to take a group of "Performance Players" to La Manga for a training camp.
It should be added that the present performance staff were not responsible for the recruitment of coaches six years ago, but Murray made no bones about where the blame lies for the fact that his brother is a long way behind him in terms of technical development. "My brother is very talented," he said. "He was the No 2 junior in the world when he was 13, then he went down to an LTA school in Cambridge and they ruined him. It was their fault.
"I want him to come back and do well because he is a good guy who works very hard. I think he’s shown he has the talent."
Jamie is No 923 in the ATP world rankings to Andy’s No 65 and is being talked of as a Davis Cup player, especially because he and his brother form a left/right-handed partnership and have a tremendous desire to win for each other — as illustrated in the inaugural Aberdeen Cup at the weekend, when they teamed up to help Scotland to beat England.
But they are not alike as people. A ferocious spirit drives Andy on and has been the cornerstone of his astonishing rise through the rankings to the cusp of a place in the world’s top 50, which he may well reach within a month of the new year. Jamie is far more detached, a good deal more shy and those characteristics — as much as the oft-chronicled failings in coaching in Britain — will probably have contributed to his inability to achieve the strides made by his brother.
Rather than dwell on Jamie’s case, David Felgate, the LTA’s director of performance, offered the customary mantra. "We recognise that different players react to different approaches, which is why we’ve introduced flexibility into our performance system and support our best players wherever they want to train, be it in Britain or not," he said.
The problem is, armed with the evidence behind Andy’s rise, there may be more parents inclined to send their children abroad where, experience suggests, they will have a better chance of working in an appropriate climate, on the appropriate courts, with the appropriate coaches.
With ten years on tour representing Great Britain, Canadian-born Greg Rusedski has seen it all and has an opinion on most things. "There’s a lot of room for improvement [in coaching] here, that’s for sure," he said. "It’s about finding kids who have something different and parents who are really involved with them. Judy Murray is very involved with Andy’s tennis [Jamie’s, too] and he is a fighter. It is about finding kids that are like him from a young age and, whether inside the system or not, finding a way to develop them."
Thinking about this from the LTA's perspective, it must be really embarassing having spent all that money on the new coaching centre and one of their top players and a role model for the younger generation taking up tennis, is taking a swipe at their methods. They must be in a really hard situation as they can't publically slate Andy as that would make the situation worse and they've got to try and defend themselves. It's also embarrasing as they're trying to use Andy to show how well British tennis is doing at the moment !!
From a fan's point of view, it is entertaining and refreshing to have someone like Murray who is willing to speak his mind and isn't afraid of rocking the apple cart by doing so. He is so unpredictable with what he's going to say. However, I wonder how long it will be before someone from the LTA takes Murray to the side and tells him to tone these outbursts down. That will almost certainly happen at some point and then it will be interesting to see his Murray reacts. I suspect that he would not like that and it could well result in another public outburst slating the LTA.
On the question of whether Andy was right to blame the LTA, I don't think it's as black and white as Andy makes out. Jamie was offered the chance to train at the Sanchez-Casal academy which would have improved him hugely as a player and the experience of honing his game on clay as a serve-volleyer would have been invaluable as he would have been forced to have developed more power and variety on his serve and his baseline game would have improved and he would have developed more variety in attacking the net. Instead he went to Cambridge which turned out to be a total disaster. However, even if his forehand had been changed and he had lost confidence, the fact that he could not regain that confidence even after several years spent training back in Scotland shows that Jamie's mental strength is questionable and is something which will hold him back as a player. He reached the top 50 in juniors at U18 so he still had the making of a seriously good player. This has not been translated on the pro circuit. That's not the LTA's fault, all they can do is provide funding and training facilities. It's up to Jamie and his coach to get down to devising a better fitness routine, working more on his forehand and getting a better wrist snap on that serve. These are problems that Jamie has been limited by for a while and I'm no big fan of the LTA, but the blame lies with Jamie himself and his coach if he's been unable to correct them
I don't really see the point in Andy having a go at the LTA. They are such an easy target and everyone knows that their record of squandering the millions provided by Wimbledon over the years, is second to none. However, having a go at the LTA is not going to help Jamie improve that weak forehand or get some more power on his serve. Andy would be better advised to spend his energy on persuading his brother to hit the gym and pump some iron to get more muscle on that frame.
By the way, you can see how much research the Telegraph have put into their article. Alex Bogdanovic has been listed as the world no 72 and they have described Jamie Murray as a player with no obvious weaknesses !!
obviously andy wants his brother to succeed in tennis. but the problem is that jamie is even lankier than andy. also at 13, anyone can do well. jamie needs to improve really really well especially his serve and his forehand and his backhand needs to be stronger, if he wants to succeed in the singles. Gaining confidence from the aberdeen cup is good but he got make sure whether he has a realistic chance of say entering the top 300, if he does then major work needs to be done. it great for him to be a doubles player, you can tell he is more comfortable playing in them its a pity we havent got many establised doubles in which jamie is. he doesnt have to play singles because he got to, i think an article was written in the times saying many players struggle in singles therefore doubles is a step down to create income and playing tennis on a regular basis. so as long jamie's confident in doing what he got to do to be a top 300 single player then im all for it!!
The accusation that the LTA "coaches out" natural flair sounds only too probable, and is an attitude I feel only too common with some coaches who think only text-book strokes can possibly be the way to go.
However although Jamie Murray obviously has talent, I would question his temperament. He went to Spain but came home because he didn't like it there; he says himself he is more laid-back and ready to accept defeat than Andy - all this seems to me to argue a serious lack of drive. There are a lot of youngsters with talent but it takes more than just talent to succeed at a high level.
The thing is - people are questioning Jamie's temperament, but you have to remember what it was like yourself when you were 13/14 and if your confidence goes and you start to doubt yourself it can be almost impossible to get that back, regardless of how much talent you have. It is very easy to blame Jamie's mentality for him not progressing, but if you imagine going down somewhere, filled with confidence and knowing you were in the top range talent wise in your age group and then have someone pick your game apart, change the things that made you successful and generally make you miserable for a year, it's hard to get back. Everything always ends up getting linked back to that experience.
It's a bad day when the coaching is so bad that it makes the guy want to chuck the sport that he loves and was pretty good at.
The LTA are obviously improving now, but it's been a long time coming and for them getting £25million a year funding, for them to have such an abysmal record indicates that something is far wrong and to me, Andy's comments about them 'ruining' players rings pretty true. Lets face it - there is talent out there, but it's not coming through and there's someone to blame for that.
Very good points aria. I agree with you that the LTA have definately hindered Jamie's progress but not to the extent that they are fully responsible for Jamie not being a better standard player now. There have been 5 years since those events and Jamie and his coach have not put in the required work and fitness training to make him 400-500 places higher than he is now. Jamie also did make a poor decision a couple of years ago when instead of following Andy's example of trying his luck in futures and satellites and getting an experience of playing against adult pros [Andy won futures at 16], as well as playing junior events, Jamie decided to mainly concentrate on the juniors. This made it more difficult for him in breaking onto the main tour this year.
Jamie's view on this [Telegraph]
At the centre of a controversy caused by his younger brother's anger-fuelled remarks, Jamie Murray last night gave his own version of events and appeared to confirm the claim that his career had suffered long-term harm because of the Lawn Tennis Association. Jamie recalled "the bad experiences and the unhappiness" during his stay at an LTA boarding school.
Andy Murray had said that Jamie's development was "ruined" by the LTA school in Cambridge. Jamie left Scotland at the age of 12, when he had been world-class for his age, to study and train in Cambridge. But he lasted less than a year, feeling homesick and more than a little bewildered, and there is every reason to suppose that the knock-back for his confidence in East Anglia has so far prevented him from making the most of his talents. Only recently did he make it on to the ranking computer's world top 1,000.
"It was a really bad experience in Cambridge. I was very unhappy," Jamie said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. "I was one of the best in the world for my age group when I arrived there, playing against the likes of Rafael Nadal and Richard Gasquet, but I lost so much ground to the other players. I had been ahead of a lot of other players, but I suddenly found them catching up with me. My time at Cambridge was a nightmare, and set me back in my career."
Jamie, who will be 20 in February, said that he lost his love for the sport in Cambridge. "I was on top of the world and so full of life when I arrived at the LTA school in Cambridge. I was 12, and when you're that age, you think everything is going to work out and that everything is going to be easy. But it didn't work out the way I thought it was going to. What happened in Cambridge had a long-term impact on my confidence and what I thought about my tennis. I started to question myself," he said.
"I could have stayed in Cambridge for years, but I was only there for a few months, and when I came home to Scotland I was so unhappy that I didn't want to play tennis anymore. I seem to remember that I didn't pick up a racket again for more than three months, and ended up playing some golf and a few other sports instead. And though I did play tennis again after that time away, I wasn't enjoying my tennis at all for a few years after being at Cambridge."
Jamie never took to the coaching set-up. He remembered that the LTA coaches re-worked his forehand, a major weapon which was transformed into "a nightmare" stroke. "The coaches didn't just make me change my forehand grip, but the whole shape of the shot - there were a lot of technical changes. I went along with it as I thought that they knew best, but I lost all confidence in it. It probably went from my best shot to being my worst. My forehand became a total nightmare," he said.
Outburst and outrage is not Jamie's style. He is not a teenager driven by resentment or ill-feeling, and he is not the sort of angry young man who might be tempted to bash someone over the head with a tennis racket comic-strip style, leaving it dangling around their neck as a reminder. Jamie would not use a verb such as "ruin". But it was obvious enough last night that his time at Cambridge still irks him.
"I was very angry for a few years afterwards but I think almost all that anger has gone by now. It's only in the last couple of years that things have started to work out for me, and I am starting to feel confident about my tennis. And I know that with my game, wanting to get in behind my shots to attack the net and play a volley, it will probably take longer for me to develop than it would have done if I was just a baseliner," he said.
The indications last night were that Andy was still planning to appear in a car park in Soho, central London, at today's promotion for an LTA scheme to encourage greater numbers of young people to start swinging rackets at a tennis ball.
"I think Andy is probably angrier than I am about what happened," Jamie said. "But Andy tends to say what he thinks, and that's why he said what he said. I suppose that it's nice to have had my younger brother sticking up for me in public."
Reading Jamie's version of events it is clear that the LTA did a lot of damage to his career and set him back several years.
But from just a brief viewing it is obvious that Jamie has more to his game than the likes of Alan Mackin, David Sherwood and some of the other brits in the 200-350 zone.
I think the following schedule might still be possible for a player like Jamie. Ok his chances of matching the likes of Nadal and Gasquet have gone, and looking at his physique I doubt he could be top 50 just yet anyway, but a decent career is still a possibility.
year 1) - start getting results in futures/satellites
year 2) - start winning futures on a regular basis
year 3) - start competing on the Challenger circuit
I think Jamie, in particular, has hit on a problem that is pandemic in junior coaching that I have seen in this country. Although it is a sweeping generalisation, and I know not all coaches follow this line, too many of them have the attitude that "it's my way or not at all." To my mind, if a young player has a technique that is working for them, and it is not textbook, then a good coach should look not to disassemble it but, if it needs it, encourage marginal changes to make the stroke more secure.
Sounds simple? Yes it is. So why do I continually see coaches following the disassemble path? Diversity in technique is healthy. A lot of players on the professional tour have their own "unique" shots or technique on certain shots.
i agree with your comments. i think that players such as baltacha, jamie and possibly boggo need proper coaches who are familiar with the game and knows what technical problems that needs to be adjusted before they know that they can compete at the highest level. Look at baltacha, she may have alan as her mentor/coach and jo durie as a coach, but they are not really pushing her into the qualifying tournaments in WTA that actually test her ability as well as the fact as that most players in general need to have the right mentality to succeed in the game.
Having read both Andy and Jamie's accounts, it does seem clear to me that the LTA must be held mostly responsible for holding back Jamie.
I definately agree with Dashers' comments as I have experienced something quite similar regarding coaches trying to changea player's technique. I used to play with a one-handed backhand which was my best shot as I generated a lot of power off it and it was a real weapon. I was invited to join a squad at an LTA performance centre for training the stars of the future and the coaches there insisted that I changed to a double-handed backhand as they said that youngsters couldn't develop enough control with a one - hander. I tried the double hander but didn't like it but the coaches insisted that I stuck with it and became quite vindictive when I refused. I eventually changed to a double-handed but left the squad after 18 months and my backhand wasn't the same force - not enough power and too erratic. I tried to change back to a one-hander but my technique had been thrown completely and it didn't work. As with Jamie's forehand, my backhand went from my best shot to my worst.
I agree with VSandhi, regarding Jones and Durie. Durie can't spend enough time with Elena due to commentating commitments and Jones' influence has been severly restricted after a serious stroke. Elena has not chosen the right tournaments to enter throughout the year. She's done well recently but in the WTA tour 3 event when Keothavong and Borwell qualified where was Elena ? That was a perfect opportunity to gain some big points as it was a weak field but she didn't enter. After the Aussie Open when on top form, she only played 4 events between Jan and May. She had an injury which put her out of action for a fortnight but there were loads of WTA qualies she should have played and missed out on. She lost form and confidence during the clay-court season and at Wimbledon we saw her at her worst.
With Boggo, I think he's now got the right coach to guid him. Mike Raphael plans Boggo's tournaments well - mixing in challengers with ATP qualies and working Alex hard. He's very self-critical and makes loads of notes during Alex's matches even when he's winning comfortably - on how to improve. During Southampton last week, Alex was apparently complaining about being tired but Raphael was insisting that he gave his all in matches and that there were important points to be gained in these weeks.
