A quick query, more than anything.

I was just looking at the GB v US men's tennis rankings. Quite interesting: if you look at the number of young (1990 up) players within the top 500 (allowing leeway to 510, to get in one or two who are "on the line"), GB actually looks quite good ... 7 players to the US's 11. 

But as people on this board often comment, as you start to go up the rankings, the British players drop out pretty early. 

Lots of theories on this, but here's a question looking at one potential factor. Looking at the people at the top of the US list, one of the really striking things is their relationship to Andy Roddick. Whatever people may think of Roddick's behaviour on the court, he seems to have been a tremendous friend and mentor to the other US players. I did a quick Google search based on the vague memory of interviews with various young American prospects who cited him as someone who's inspired them by showing how hard you have to work to succeed. It immediately turns up that  Mardy Fish lived with his family; Harrison cites him as a mentor; when he beat Jack Sock at the US Open, he invited Sock to come and train with him for a while in Austin; he and Fish mentored Querrey ... etc

Clearly Greg Rusedski is trying to take on something of this role at present, and he appears to be doing a good job. But he's not an active player, and he's not able to invite the young ones into his own high-pressure training situation. Hence a question: has Mr Murray ever invited any of the young ones to join him in training, even for a brief period? And might there be the possibility that he would do so with some of the group that Rusedski is mentoring? Might it make a difference? 

Thanks, all .... including Ratty! For the record, I preferred the comments to the smileys. One can disagree with the comments; the smileys are simply patronising.

And, while I'd agree that my presentation wasn't such as to inspire confidence, I do disagree with the comments. One can argue about the level of causation (and question whether there were those Roddick helped who didn't succeed, etc, etc) but (a) on the US side, I'm not prepared to disregard the US players' own view that Roddick has been a factor in their success and (b) on the GB side, I asked the question because the thing that the US players in question often credit Roddick with giving them is the thing that people so often have implied that our young players lack.

Over the years, both Mr Murray and Mr Henman have criticised the young GB players' work ethic. So have many people on this board. I don't know enough to know how fair that assessment is. But if what you are trying to do is improve the work ethic, so that those who have a fair measure of talent can actually progress in using it, then I rather suspect that putting them in a situation where (a) they see that work ethic in practice and (b) they either participate in the level of work involved or are forced to fall short of the mark in front of someone they respect might just be useful.

Looking more generally, while this is gut instinct and not logic, I'd be quite surprised if there weren't some positive impact from being around the best players. Mr Murray clearly felt this to be the case, if the stories of his decision to go to Spain are correct. (And yes, I'm aware that's a single anecdote.)

That said, the assessment that the work ethic is a primary obstacle may well be incorrect, especially for the latest crop of young players. And there may be arguments against the "proximity effect"  As I said, mine was a question ... not a statement.