Hmm, I have real concerns about the profile of particularly the GB men top players in a few years, particularly once the 89/ 90 born group move on, before some would wish to or not.

Oh yes, that 89/90 generation, hyped and then considered a failure as a crop ( infamously by Roger Draper ) when they rather plateaued before many really pushing on again as 23 and 24 yos, as of course is not that unusual. They currently represent a high proportion of the best GB players. As Dave Sammel indicates - another group considered not good enough, next ! I wonder how many more years most will give it. And in spite of all evidence that 'policy" seems to be being intensified.

That possible top GB men profile I worry about :

Kyle Edmund, Liam Broady - progressing up the top 100, great, that's what we're about, then err...Cameron Norrie,, naa, bit old, his time has passed, then err... err...

Never mind, I am sure there will then be some great looking 14 and 15 year olds on the scene, let's throw all pur resources behind them.

PS : unfortunately, however it sounds that is not just meant as a piss take, but reflecting my uninformed concerns, but various ones seemingly similar to more informed folk much closer to the action.

Comments like this from Oliver Golding don't really add to the players' cause:


oliver golding @oli_golding · 11h 11 hours ago

Tennis is a brutal sport. Players need all the help and support they can get. Money is an advantage we have over other countries, use it!


Brett and Downey must be smiling . . .

The farce here is that while cutting back funding in some vital area's the LTA continue to fund players who don't actually need the money! Andy Murray earns millions every year and the LTA continue to contribute towards the payment of his entourage, Laura Robson has earned a huge amount of money through her career (although mainly through sponsorships) and is still heavily funded as is Heather Watson ! It could be argued that all three of these are self sufficient but for some reason the LTA like to give them more even money ? 

It really is a thankless task, being a leader of the LTA.

Your job is to grow British "market share", being the percentage of top 100 players. You have a lot less money than your competitors (France, Germany, Spain, etc), but everybody thinks that you have pots of it ("they get all the profits from Wimbledon, you know ...). You have a much smaller pool of talent than them too, because in the UK tennis is for posh folk, and in career terms cricket is a better choice.

To make things even more complicated, you're now looking at a nearly 20-year lead-in time, from "planting" the talented young 8-10 year old, to "harvesting" a 27-year old entering the top 100. This makes it impossible to measure the success of differing methods of selection, training and motivation.

And how on earth do you allocate your limited funds - do you spend that spare £2 million building a new indoor tennis centre in Tower Hamlets, with the idea of growing the talent pool and a possible long-term pay-off? Or do you spend it hiring 20 top coaches with the short-term benefit of extracting maximum performance from the players you've already got?

And to top it all off, lots of noisy people have opinions - which is usually that you're a complete waste of space.

Anyway, good luck to Downey and Brett. I've no idea whether their plans will work - probably not, because when David takes on Goliath, Goliath usually wins.

(Oh, and yes I know that everyone's entitled to express their opinion ... healthy debate ... democracy ... yadda yadda ...)

Interesting to hear alternative views. Some very reasonable points even if it is clearly debatable how limited the limited resources are compared to other countries.

Pity about the old boring stuff towards the end, the opinion on opinions, but hey...

And if Ratty properly read most of the posts, he would see quite a lot of stuff about probably some decent ideas there. There has been a consistent main issue of real concern though, with articulate reasons why it is a concern, the seeming you're totally in the LTA system or you're on your own pal stuff. I would be interested to see any case as to this seeming absolute stark choice approach being a good idea as distinct to retaining more flexibility.

Of course, we need many more coaches at all levels, that has been brought up many times in the past on this forum so unsurprisingly has been welcomed. Again here, the big issue of concern has been such a coupling of the current player arrangements ( and possible future arrangements ) with the coach development, what I have called the guinea pigging. To me, you can certainly develop coaches while leaving some ( but maybe less ) flexibility for players with maybe less ( but still some ) LTA support for other approaches.

Anyway, moving on from these untackled points, of course the LTA have a very difficult task with limited resources. To build that inner city tennis centre or focus yet further on more coaches, to invest in 10 yos against 24 yos, these are tough choices. But few suggest otherwise and the ongoing debates re best use of resources I find interesting and often quite illuminating.

paulisi wrote:

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Another player to do herself no favours is Tara Moore.She has moaned about the bonus fund cuts despite earning $68k in prize money this year.

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Yes Absolutely. She was one of my 'very talented, well-funded and (so far) hugely under-preforming' players' (see above) who have a tendency to constantly gripe about the lack of support they get . . .