Michael Downey - The four year plan for British Tennis

philwrig · Hall of fame

RE: Michael Downey - The four year plan for British Tennis

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Coup Droit wrote:
baxi2 wrote:
The LTA claim the credit for all our top players - Murray,Watson,Robson and continue to fund them to keep them "onside" ! Surely it should be these guys that are outspoken of our flailing system but they are kept quiet with the cash !
How incredible is it that these players earning millions still get funded ie coaches or fitness trainers paid for and yet the LTA cut funding for the players on the lower tier who desperately need money for coaching/travel etc !!!

I think you've got a good point. I also think it very much applies to the previous generation - Anne K, Jamie Baker etc. - people who benefited tremendously from the old system and wouldn't have got a look in in the new system (and are now part of the very system itself).
However, the system may well change. So this new 'tough love' may be a short-lived policy. .... or not.....
As to the current players, I don't believe that Andy gets any direct funding (as indeed he shouldn't).
For the girls, it seems very strange to me that the LTA have nixed the very thing that was good for them and that was not expensive (as in it's more expensive having it sit there doing nothing) and that's the NTC.
Most of the men who trained there have affiliations with other clubs, and may well (possibly) be better off at those clubs, with a good club structure. (Kyle always seemed rather to plough his own furrow so will probably be fine)
But, from what I saw and understood, Heather and Laura and Joko very much used the NTC as their base - they don't have any other base or club. I know that obviosuly they still can use the facilities but that's completely different from using it as a club or base. Being on tour is a pretty lonely thing - you need to be able to come back and do training blocks with friends, hitting partners, coaches, youngsters, in short, a proper group atmosphere of friendly faces. So now the girls are pretty much forced to move their base overseas, it seems to me, and so the younger/other GB players lose the benefits of being with the leading players and you lose all the knock-on positive effects. The NTC has to be sorted out and made to pay its way.

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Wednesday 15th of April 2015 07:54:10 AM

Very few of the girls who trained at the NTC found it a supportive base, in the sense you are describing CD. Whilst they may have had access to our top coaches and facilities, it was a place where the women felt judged rather than supported and I think by the end only Katie B and Tara trained there regularly (not sure about Jo). I think when the project was commissioned, a vibrant hub full of British players was envisaged offering the sort of team GB atmosphere you describe but it never really happened and after a few months had a training atmosphere somewhat resembling a morgue.

baxi2 · Lower Club Player

philwrig wrote:
I'm pretty certain Andy didn't receive any further funding after the Gilbert signing.
As for Laura, that's a tricky one, she's not yet a fixture in the top 30 ( far from it sadly at the moment). To give you the best chance of success you need a full team ( which includes a fitness trainer). Tomljanovic converted to Ozzie to get more support and she was already top 50 with more potential.

You're mistaken Phil, the LTA paid for his physio guy and fitness trainers for a long while after Brad G and they pay for Matt Little now !

philwrig · Hall of fame

baxi2 wrote:
philwrig wrote:
I'm pretty certain Andy didn't receive any further funding after the Gilbert signing.
As for Laura, that's a tricky one, she's not yet a fixture in the top 30 ( far from it sadly at the moment). To give you the best chance of success you need a full team ( which includes a fitness trainer). Tomljanovic converted to Ozzie to get more support and she was already top 50 with more potential.
You're mistaken Phil, the LTA paid for his physio guy and fitness trainers for a long while after Brad G and they pay for Matt Little now !

Ok that does seem a bit OTT.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

I thought Matt Little (and formerly Jez Green) were employed part-time by the LTA and part-time by Andy? Not that the LTA paid for them in their entirety. The fact that Jez Green has transferred entirely to Berdych seems to support this - I doubt if the LTA are paying for him to help Berdy. I certainly hope not!

wimdledont · Challenger level

Again, I think it's all about where the power lies. And money is power.

Give the control of their own budget to the player. Then, if the NTC gives them good value for money, the NTC gets their custom.

Laura, Andy, Heather, and now Katie S, are all in a separate section because they achieved so much as juniors to give them the sponsorship bucks to make their own decisions; while feeling fully personally in control.

The LTA is a world leader, on the female side, in producing/coaching Juniors. Consistently a dozen in tne top 250. Good, little girls. Good coaching.

But good little girls don't beat Serena. To make it on the tour, they need to be able to hire and fire, for a start.

Ultimately 'British Tennis' only improves dependent on the person currently on court facing some dreadful forringer. For, that, you don't want the girl who has been trained by Bob Brett; you want Bob Brett's boss - the girl who is hiring Bob as her servant, if you like. God knows, poor Tara, for example, does need a bit of help in the service dept...

Power to the Players! (It won't happen)

philwrig · Hall of fame

Madeline wrote:
I thought Matt Little (and formerly Jez Green) were employed part-time by the LTA and part-time by Andy? Not that the LTA paid for them in their entirety. The fact that Jez Green has transferred entirely to Berdych seems to support this - I doubt if the LTA are paying for him to help Berdy. I certainly hope not!

That would make more sense to me.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thoroughly agree with the point re coaches made above.

Remember Heather's comments last Wimbly time, when the NTC news came out. She was polite but pretty to the point, saying that it's all very well to criticise the players for not being dedicated and hard-working (and she said certain ones might well be guilty of that a bit) but that coaches were equally implicated and that she had certainly seen many practice sessions at the NTC where the coach was on his phone, or larking about, or everything was way too laid back.

Performance bonuses for coaches make absolute sense, based on percentage rankings increases, or whatever.

wimdledont · Challenger level

I've had an even better idea.

What Downey should do is sack everybody who works for the LTA, saving perhaps a penny in every £100, to pay the cleaners.

Then take the £40M Wimbledon profits, split it between men and women players half each, as follows...

The UK top 10 get £1M each p.a. = £10M

Ranks 11-30 get 500k p.a. = £10M

This might not be very popular with UKIP, due to immigration problems, etc; but it needn't necessarily worry UK tennis coaches, who have suddenly acquired some extremely rich potential clients. Jamie Baker, Ollie Goulding de-retire - heck, Eugenie finds she has a British granny, twice removed - Anne Keothavong finds that playing while pregnant... okay, sorry.

It's an absurd suggestion.

But less absurd than the current situation...

Here, an LTA job description, for a very junior marketing position...

jobs.lta.org.uk/templates/LTA/jobdetail_143.aspx

... which pays £24k p.a.

Here, an ideal candidate, who has currently earned less than 1/5 of that wage, in ITF prize money, pro-rata in 2015...

www.wtatennis.com/players/player/12344/title/naomi-cavaday

Why is the LTA offering an opportunity for a 500% pay increase to one of our top 10 players, on condition that she STOPS playing pro tennis?

indiana · Tennis legend

It does emphasise how easily the LTA could afford to assist our pro players mych mire.

Any talk of suffering UK Sport funding cuts and having other priorities pales into insignificance when you see just how putting a small percentage of their large income towards funding and / or subsidising many of these aspiring players past junior ages.

Tge PTA us still comparatively wealthy, can afford to still do so many other things ( and maybe tighren up a but in places ) while mire helping our pris.

All these cuts to funding and bonuses and more are not born of necessity, they genuinely seem born of choice, to make things more difficult than they could be, as if 'tough love' is some sort of proven general policy.

Could help, won't help. And , unless changed, much of a generation could fail to be what they mught of been. Crazy !!

indiana · Tennis legend

Woops, on my mobile ( so can't retrospectively edit ) and accidentally sent before I'd sorted quite a number of typos.

Hey, most of the right letters are in the right places :)