Dan Cox

indiana · Tennis legend

RE: Dan Cox

emma · Strong Club Player

ok, so have only just started reading on the funding so apologies - link

www.lta.org.uk/players-parents/Performance-players/Player-funding/Bonus-Scheme/

is it correct that the lta are saying that if you are over 18 and enter and win rounds in a 10k or 15k tournament you wont get funding from the tbs?

it sounds a bit ageist to me ! are they allowed to do this ?

Ratty · County player

The Optimist wrote:
You have to apply as an individual direct to the charity- there are forms on the website. It doesn't take nominations from LTA or Wimbie. Haven't looked at the website for a while, but there used to be a fair mix of grantees. Not sure how big the grants are though.

In the year to 31 March 2013 Tennis First made 44 grants, totalling £121,600.

wimdledont · Challenger level

On the women's side, the total that the LTA are due to pay out in bonuses so far in 2015 is a whopping £500 to Naomi Broady for reaching the SF of Glasgow. Luckily for them, Naomi will have nothing to do with them, so they will pay out nothing.

So, with over a tenth of the year gone by, the LTA should have spent over 10% of its annual budget of £69M - about £7M.

This seems to be broken down as follows:

Players : £0
Blazers: £7,000,000

Exactly as intended?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Not defending them (!) but they will also have spent out on Kyle and Liam and Heather and other 'funded' players (who exactly, though, it would be nice to know). Also, the elite kids.

wimdledont · Challenger level

Double-checking, I find that Eden Silva is also entitled to £250 for making the SF of Sharm Jan 19. Otherwise, I can see nothing.

indiana · Tennis legend

Well, the young guys aren't exactly threatening to eat too much into the kitty. No current GB junior boys have a single ranking point and the current 18 yos don't appear about to go storming through futures draws.

Some slightly older players, who could probably do with more help and incentive, seem to be rather treading water. There seemed much more energy in and around the top 500 and below just a year ago.

sherbert · Lower Club Player

After spending hours and hours doing Neil's tax return for last year - he spent over £23,000 on travel in a year - and that was with only 1 trip out of Europe. It was also with a lot of time spent bargain hunting for deals. Don't know if this is useful information?!

emma · Strong Club Player

yes CD, it is good that the top juniors have received funding help in the past.

as everyone is aware (perhaps except me up to now), it appears that the 'late developers' are the ones who will suffer from being thrown out of the safety net. not everyone is going to reach the top but others can reach their potential if they're given the support they need - there's no need for elitism is there, surely there's enough money around. Victor Estrella Burgos (if he was a Brit), James Ward and other Brits would not be where they are now under the present LTA financial regime and that would have been a shame.

my own daughter was labelled special needs because she couldn't read or write when she was 7 (although she was extremely creative) was at the bottom of her class and and got 15 mins a week extra help! her dad paid for private tuition for a year + she had a male teacher who turned the whole class around. so even though she was a 'late developer' it didn't stop her recently gaining a degree in English Literature and now being in a very good job in the arts world.

so if its about the 'late developers' as they have been labelled, then yes its something I feel strongly about.

indiana · Tennis legend

Thanks, sherbert.

So, another figure in the £20K to £25K bracket. That seems to be a very consistent figure coming up.

Dan Cox's figures may have seemed high, well still do rather. But he has certainly had a more widespread schedule than these other examples, certainly suggesting he could easily get to over £30K anyway quite reasonably with very little at all in the way of extravagence.

Actually, sherbert, is that just travel or travel and accomodation or what ?

sherbert · Lower Club Player

That's a near enough complete figure of travel and accommodation. That would be as low as you could manage it though - so £30k plus is probably reasonable, especially with a lot of trips outside of Europe. A lot of places such as Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia - you can't make it much cheaper as you end up paying out if you don't stay at the official hotel with the tournament. This is actually becoming more common - which will certainly add to the costs.

A131 · Intermediate Club Player

LordBrownof wrote:
Surely the issue here isn't Dan inidividually, what car he drives, how much money his parents have - that's all a distraction.

Here's the rub for me - and this isn't so much of an opinion but more an observation- no one, not the number 26 or the number 426 has a given right to earn money playing tennis. These things are dictated to a large degree by the popularity of the sport (and thus, sponsorship, TV rights etc). All this chat about Nadal and co doing more for the lowly ranked players is, in my view, rubbish. No one is paying to watch Jesse Huta Gulang play. They're paying to watch the big guys. It's trickle down economics, right?

So the issue isn't whether you should make money being the 430th best tennis player in the world (the football analogy is, again, frankly rubbish), it's about whether the system, here being the LTA, is providing enough structural support for players with the most potential to reach a point where they can make a living based on the current popularity of the game, where the trickle down trickles out (at present that's about 150?) and whether that system has enough flexiblity in it to recognise the ever changing demographics of that top 150 (age, injury etc).

So this isn't about what car Dan drives (such tone deafness, in my view) but about whether Dan (or whoever) is good enough, and within a reasonable age, condition etc, to make the top 150. And if he is, then what do we need to change in the system to make that a viable option?

So here's a challenge - what three things would you implement at the LTA that would give those financially struggling but with the potential to make, say, top 150, the chance to do so?

As another poster has already commented LordB - a good post and I agree with more or less everything you say particularly about the football analogy where you could also say in response to Dan that there are a lot of players even in the top 200, 100 even that nobody knows about - but that is dictated by the popularity of the sport as you quite rightly point out.

As to your last point/challenge I can't come up with three things that the LTA could implement but if Dan feels adamant that a coach would benefit him - which seems reasonable - could the LTA not fund one for him for say a trial period of 3 months - 6 months perhaps? Then review it after that period. What do you and others think?

emma · Strong Club Player

as the sun drops down Venus appears shining brightly. can people see this

it actually goes darker 15 minutes later down here than up north.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

emma wrote:

as the sun drops down Venus appears shining brightly. can people see this

it actually goes darker 15 minutes later down here than up north.

Where did you mean to post this, Emma? I don't think it has anything to do with Dan Cox!

EddietheEagle · County player

emma wrote:

Victor Estrella Burgos (if he was a Brit), . . . . . . . .would not be where they are now under the present LTA financial regime and that would have been a shame.

Sad to say perhaps, but I reckon it a hundred times more likely that his late career surge has more to do with 'supplements' than support from the Dominican Republic tennis federation.