UltimateSlabbaFan wrote:

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Judy Murray writes: From the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2006/04/12/stjudy12.xml&sSheet=/sport/2006/04/12/ixtenn.html All of the tickets made available to the general public for last weekend's Davis Cup match against Serbia and Montenegro in Glasgow were sold within hours of going on sale last December. That should have been enough to alert the sport's governing body north of the border, Tennis Scotland, that an unprecedented boom in Scottish tennis was under way and that the teenage role model that is my son, Andy Murray, would present considerable marketing and development opportunities. Nine months have passed since Wimbledon, where Andy played his first grand slam event, and the profile of tennis in Scotland has never been higher. And yet, Tennis Scotland, who are responsible for administering the sport, seem reluctant to take advantage of the free publicity and the chance to drive the sport forward, and instead appear content to sit back and hope for the best. Like many Scottish governing bodies it is, unfortunately, run by a well-intentioned board of volunteers and a small staff who lack the ambition, business acumen and experience to deliver sport professionally. Tennis may be the fourth biggest sport in the world but in Scotland it ranks a lowly 17th. To dramatically improve that position, things need to change. Tennis has to be accessible and affordable but it also has to be attractive and exciting if it is to compete with other sports in attracting and retaining players. There has to be a sound strategy and strong people in place to secure the investment in facilities, coaches, competitions, development programmes and advertising campaigns. I spent the best part of 10 years as national coach for Scotland and opted not to renew my contract in January last year, frustrated and disillusioned at the board's lack of vision for developing the game. English cricket is a tremendous example of how a sport turned around in the public's perception through smart marketing, colourful role models and consumer friendly televised competition. Tennis in Scotland is overdue a similar facelift. If I compare it with golf, I realise it is a long way behind in terms of accessibility. Almost every Scottish town has a golf course complete with clubhouse, resident pro and usually a catering manager. Currently only 27,000 of Scotland's five million population are affiliated to the 203 tennis clubs. Most of these are located in prime residential areas with no room to expand and have three or four artificial grass courts (the worst possible training surface but the most conducive to the Scottish elements) and clubhouses which are locked during the day. Scotland have just 798 outdoor courts and 89 indoor courts - 52 of which belong to the commercial sector and only 30 of which are available to the public at the five Indoor Tennis Initiative centres in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling. Given the vagaries of the Scottish weather, 30 covered courts for the entire country falls far short of what is required to really make the game accessible on a year round basis and if tennis is ever to shrug off its elite image and reach out to the masses, it has to be affordable too. There are huge pockets of the country with no indoor facilities and without coaches, so if the next Andy Murray were to be unearthed in Inverness or Dumfries, for example, he would be unlikely to fulfil his potential without relocating or investing in a helicopter. We were fortunate to live five miles from Stirling University where the first Scottish ITI opened in 1994. If we hadn't been so lucky, I am pretty sure that Andy would have turned his attention to football. Scotland has much the same geographical mass as England, which has around 1,700 indoor courts and more than 2,000 clubs. It is listed as the third largest 'county' in LTA terms behind Surrey and Middlesex. Perhaps it is time for the LTA to use some of their 284 staff to help them capitalise on the Murray Factor. Or perhaps a larger percentage of the Wimbledon profits, which are around £30 million a year? Despite these limitations, the Scots players have been punching above their weight for a few years now. Three players have played in the Davis Cup - Miles Maclagan, Alan Mackin and Andy, while a further three have been attached to the squad as hitting partners - David Brewer, Jamie Baker and Colin Fleming. And in the women's game, Elena Baltacha has been the British No 1 and threatened to break into the world's top 100 before illness curbed her progress. Next month, after eight years of campaigning, a new national centre will open in Stirling housing two indoor hard courts, two outdoor clay courts and offices. It is a far cry from the LTA's £40m state-ofthe-art complex due to open in Roehampton. The Davis Cup may have been held in Glasgow last weekend, but tennis remains a minority sport in Scotland. Board members at Tennis Scotland, take note.

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