Could it be advantage Great Britain?

Rafael Nadal celebrates victory in the men's singles final against Novak Djokovic during day 16 of the French Open. (Credit Getty Images)

As Euro 2012 dominates the media’s sporting agenda, one could assume England’s impending debacle at the competition is soon approaching. As other sports currently lie in the shadows of European football, history was made on 11 June, as Rafael Nadal became the only man ever to win seven French Open titles. What was most concerning though, was the same issue which has echoed through British tennis for decades, being the perpetual absence of Britons winning at the top tier of world tennis.
As another Wimbledon Championship looms, there no doubt that soon after the back pages of the national press will be saturated with depressing depictions of the state of tennis, as another Briton fails to do what is needed once again. Every year foreign talents, male or female, take to the world famous courts of SW19 and one of them is fortunate enough to leave with one of the coveted tournament trophies. It is normally at this time in the summer which prompts a bout of soul searching among British tennis fans and the governing body.
All year round the sport’s top board, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), and over the last few seasons especially, have come under fierce scrutiny due to their failure to meet targets. The criticism has been hurled towards a somewhat beleaguered Chief Executive, Rodger Draper. Even the country’s longstanding number one, Andy Murray, has also often struggled to bite his lip when talking about the subject.
The LTA have most certainly been trying to eradicate the continuous drought in success for British tennis, since they installed their 10 year Blueprint Plan in 2006. After Draper left his previous post as CEO of Sport England he took on the same role at the LTA and instantly outlined four areas where the sport needed to improve. The main one was to increase participation of the sport at all ages, then to improve the performance standards of aspiring players, to raise the standards of the major events like Wimbledon, The AEGON Championships and The Masters and to maintain the upkeep of tennis services provided around the country. However, six years into the plan the LTA faced a damaging setback. After a spending review by Sport England they decided to reduce its funding to the LTA by £530,000 earlier this year. Their Active People Survey showed that the average number of adults playing tennis at least once a week declined from 487,500 in 2007-08 to 375,800 in mid-December of 2011. That’s a decrease of 25%. Surely, where the LTA’s most imperative goal – to increase participation of the sport is clearly not working, then one would assume the accessibility to tennis is being somewhat hindered. Our European neighbours France have 8000 indoor courts and we have just 1500. Clearly we have gone wrong somewhere.
With the steady decline in participation and a lacklustre performance in producing world class winning players, the impending shadow of failure still hangs over the LTA’s Blueprint Plan. It can be assured that the significance of Fred Perry’s Wimbledon title will once again torment the minds of many British tennis fans after this year’s tournament. Although, it isn’t all doom and gloom for the Brits, a golden generation of talented players are soon to be unleashed onto the world circuit. And before you go to re-read that statement in disbelief, I will bombard you with some enlightening facts. According to the International Tennis Federations junior rankings, Great Britain has 23 boys in the top 300 in the world, that’s more than Spain, France, Germany, Russia and the USA. Whilst the girls are also on target with 6 in the top 300, but still are heavily overshadowed by the likes of Romania and Czech Republic.
Young talents like Clay Crawford, Joshua Ward-Hibbert, Kyle Edmond and Luke Bambridge can be the people to change the depressing trend of British tennis and if given the appropriate support. They are different from previous juniors we have had before, because now there is considerable depth to the talent pool and their hunger and desire has been illustrated by their compelling victories across the junior international circuit.
Unlike before Great Britain is now setting the standard among junior tennis, players are being produced due to the LTA’s lavish spending which it awards it’s ‘golden generation’ of talent. However, the LTA must be careful not to mollycoddle them with unnecessary financial aid, as they have done historically. Where their European counterparts are staying in dingy hostels whilst competing in ITF’s, they attain a roar hunger and gutsy passion, possibly mounted from their ambition to free their family from poor living environments back home. Whereas our affluent Brits are still being put up in plush hotels with a masseur on demand, I fear these juniors could get caught up in a whirlwind of comfort. But it is for certain the potential is there and for the first time there is lots of it. The governing body has to be strategic, cautious and they must spend their money wisely so British players can retain shear desire, hunger and aggression when competing in the hostile environments of the tennis world, and may be – just may be, soon Fred Perry and Virginia Wade may not be the only Britons to win a grand slam…but let’s not hold our breath.

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• rob_rouge

  England’s “impending debacle at the competition is soon approaching.” If it’s impending, so it would be.

• DancingMice

  Warbeck, secondpen in the shootout vs Spain in quarters. Will ruin poor bloke’s career.

• Matt_CC13

  While I agree with the thrust of your argument I think you are doing our golfers a great disservice: currently the top three in the world rankings are British

• dronc

  Perhaps the reason that France have a zillion courts for every one of ours is that they really like tennis and we’re just not that bothered. We don’t have to be y’know. I wonder if the Dutch press has so many articles bemoaning the lack of cricket facilities and relating it to their national side’s lack of success. We piss all over the USA at darts and snooker, but I doubt that the New York Post is awash with discussion over it.

• dronc

  Perhaps the fact that France have a zillion tennis courts to every one of ours can be explained by them really liking tennis and us simply not being that fussed? We don’t have to be y’know.

  As a nation we’re miles better than the USA at darts and snooker but they seem able to cope with this. Similarly the Dutch media isn’t full of stories bemoaning the lack of cricket facilities and feeling bad about themselves over their national side’s lack of success.

• dronc

  Err we do have world champion boxers and athletes who are no 1. Also, in terms of giving British tennis in general too hard a time, the comparison should be between the Davis Cup Team and the National football teams. I’m struggling to think of many sports in which we have as so few individuals ranked in the top 100.

• http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002512053375 Lobma Thundrup

  It’s a pity this article is so badly laid out. I gave up trying to read it after a couple of paragraphs. Why is it all so squashed together? Does the author talk like this as well?

  I like to read this newspaper but I just wish it would allow more paragraphs and allow space between them

• Guest

  Very poorly written, for example:
  “…one could assume England’s impending debacle at the competition is soon approaching.”
  Impending means ‘to be about to happen’, i.e. soon. This renders his statement tautological as any event that is impending is, by definition, about to happen soon.

  This sloppy sentence structure apart, I disagree with the author’s assertion that England’s exit from the competition will be a fiasco. They have acquitted themselves admirably in the two matches they’ve played so far in this competition and I see no reason, therefore, that their exit from the Euro 2012 competition will be sudden and ignominious as the author asserts.

• Davespark30

  I have to admit I agree with the author. It has been one of the most invested in sports in the UK to date and we have nothing to show for it, apart from another middle class jumped up tennis player – Murray. However, I wish the article was more evenly spread out, for example, paragraphs. Nevertheless, a really interesting read.