Challengers are run under ATP rules and regulations. There is no involvement of the ITF beyond a member body (national federation) signing off documents. Whether that body, the LTA, would or not give formal approval because of contractual obligations to a third party is a moot point. In my view, the LTA would be mad to spurn a private initiative to launch a Challenger simply because of some prior contractual obligation to Aegon.

At the moment, here in the UK the situation is way, way over-institutionalised. Everything, Wimbledon apart, is run by the LTA and the competition structure is accordingly weak. By contrast, go to a country with a basically bankrupt federation like Italy say, (Panatta ate all their money up!) and you get a ton of challengers (and ITF futures too).

It's trite perhaps, to suggest we still have a federation run by old school types when the game basically has gone professional. But that is exactly what it seems, rather akin to the RFU when Will Carling hastened the demise of the '57 Old Farts' who were strangling development of modern, professional rugby. A 'You can't do this' or 'You can't do that' attitude still seem to be the order of the day when it comes to tennis.

You can do whatever you want in life, tennis included, and an existing contractual obligation (if it exists) can present no bar if it's a reasonable, right and positive thing to do. More Challengers is one obvious area of progression for GB tennis. Plus a lot more thinking 'outside the box'.