Coup Droit wrote:

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Well, the Director of Development has stepped down.

www.itftennis.com/news/220376.aspx

Don't know much about the guy but remember seeing him in the Irish newspapers once/a couple of time - never much impressed by him......

And, after 24 years, the results are hardly in his favour....

Good luck to the new person

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 A bit harsh......a lot of his work has been about growing the sport in new geographical area such as Asia, Africa and the Middle East and I think over the last 24 years he's had a lot of success in that regard.

I'm getting more and more in favour of the stance and objectives of the LTA on a day by day basis.

The more I hear the more the attitude comes across is that they were funded why wasn't my child...

I don't see this attitude in many other sports and I agree that the way to stop it is to stop all funding except for the identified elite or those talents struggling through hardship.

Athletics for example announces elite level funding and development funding annually and has an appeals process for anyone who thinks they have been treated unfairly. They have the same fixed income, which they can spend as suits them - warm weather training, overseas events. I just don't understand why the LTA keeps this secret.

If the LTA came out with a clear and concise plan then I don't think we would see all these issues

My suggestion would be the following:

Seniors - anyone who earns over $100K a season should be self funded, but have access to NTC and facilities when required
anyone ranked 250-800 should have access to some travel subsidies for overseas tournaments up to a fixed amount maybe 5k
anyone transitioning from juniors to seniors, college to seniors or recovering from long term injury should have access to start up funds

Juniors - anyone who makes direct entry in main draw GS, grade A or grade 1 tournaments should have costs covered by LTA for expenses and a travelling coach
- some travel allowances should be made for players making grade 2 main draw - i.e 4 tournaments a year
- elite players within their age group should get funded for coaching and tournament travel - U12/14/16/18 no more than 4 players per age group except in an exceptional year.

NTC - happy that the previous regime has been pulled, but in need of regular use and could be hired out for a private coaching group. (JTC are already at Northwood and Chiswick and if they are ready to expand again could set up a S London base)

I think the push to play players earlier in higher age groups is excellent and seems to be working and developing their game a bit earlier.

Domestic ITF scheduling seems to be an issue, but again is it correct to put on domestic tournaments so part time players can just turn up with little interest in playing full time on the tour.
There needs to be a proper mentoring scheme to help players transition on the tour - I've heard this issue several times with Izzy Wallace using this as a reason for defecting back to Aus.

We need a proper high quantity base of players from minis to vets playing regularly. So you need proper set ups, sufficient tournaments and sufficient facilities to play all year round(stop this mentality about tennis only played from May to August) . For instance if you live in Inverness you have to travel over 100 miles to find an indoor court.
The other thing we are missing is parks tennis and decent high level coaching at a cheaper cost to reduce the high cost levels and make it more accessible to all.

The other main issue to address is the conflict of interest within the tennis in the UK between the LTA, the counties and the private clubs (this is a big problem across all sports)

A lot of this is already being addressed, but it will take a long time for things to kick in and people to forget about the past.

Bob in Spain wrote:

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For those players transitioning from Juniors to Seniors, I still think that the performance bonus scheme was an excellent idea as it rewarded results and did not discriminate between the "in-crowd" and those outside that "inner circle". In the grand scheme of things, it cost the LTA peanuts.

I really hope the LTA look at re-instigating that, or something similar.

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 My understanding, flawed as it may be, was that the performance bonus scheme was only open to those not receiving LTA funding. I.E. It excluded the in-crowd and those who might go to college schemes, which is most of them.

What might be good is a bit of transparency, given that there is more in the public domain about GCHQ than the LTA.

A list of goals and how they are measured. A set of accounts showing who gets the money and why. How performance is measured.

Not holding my breath

Has Gary been drinking ?