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Good overend sorry overview of the situation!

It's not that we have any less talent than other countries it's just that somewhere along the line, it just gets lost to the game or is never developed correctly.

Additionally, we reward young players too early and before they are really successful. Of course they need the right resources, support etc but it seems a lot of them get treated like champagne charlie's well before they've got to the level to merit such status.

As for the LTA, what is the percentage of salaries to turnover - would be interesting to learn.

At the overend of the day, we should be getting behind our British stars to acheive their goals!

Good blog, but highlights the problem thats been around (it seems like!) forever between the central system and regional centres.

Have you read Ollie Williams recent blog about where the recent success in britains gymnasts has come from? They seem to have developed a model that works by supporting individual coaches within the "national" framework.

This might be a good model for the future of LTA.........

It's good to see coaches going overend above the call of duty...

Tennis is still miles away from getting young kids to play.

My son is 9 and plays football for his local team it costs £40 a year in subs all the coaches work for free and local professional clubs regularly run free coaching sessions and scout the kids.

He also swims for our local club again all the coaches work for nothing this costs £120 a year as you have to pay for pool time.

He also plays cricket in the summer for the local team, again coaches all work for nothing and the subs for the season are £25.

Now the local tennis coach came into his school ran a course you describe and invited him to the local tennis club for a taster session.
This has led to him taking a 6 week course which costs £60 to pay the coach!

Until tennis gets kids in at a much lower cost it will exclude the majority of kids in this country. Tennis coaches like local football coaches, cricket coaches and swimming coaches, all trained to at least level 1 qualification, need to work for the love of teaching the game and not see it as a lucrative second income stream.

I think Andy Murray once said that a fair few British Tennis players just don't put enough effort or hours in to become leaders in the sport. By the looks of it you have to somewhat agree with him. Maybe players are rewarded too much, too young. Maybe this leaves them thinking it will all be a doddle once they get to professional status. Or maybe kids these days have bad hand-eye coordination!

Green shoots - again??? We should have a rainforest by now!

My son picked up his first racket aged 4, and learns technique aged 5, (not just hitting), arm out, sideways on, etc. If he hits the ball, great. All this interspersed with games and fun. Maybe it's the wrong focus in the UK? My son looks like Rafa, style-wise but doesn't always hit the ball. Food for thought?

The problem with British tennis seems to me relatively easy to understand.

Firstly, it is most definitely NOT about elitism or opportunity to play. Yes both are problems at tennis clubs, but few sports are more elitist than golf and we turn out more than our fair share of great golfers.

The issues are to do with HOW we coach and what happens to decent players: both the fault of the LTA.

When someone goes to a tennis club they may get any standard of coaching. In my experience there are a handful of very good coaches and many, many very poor ones. They are coaching the wrong shots the wrong way and don't understand the modern game well enough themselves to pass it on to newcomers. Such coaches are created through LTA courses it would be reasonable to ask how many are turned away because they are lacking? Golf pros all reach a specific standard and the fundamentals of the game are well understood: not so tennis. Mini-tennis compounds the problem because it encourages non-tennis shots to keep the ball in play on a court that is too small for all but the truly gifted to hit proper tennis shots in. Quite why the LTA has persisted with this scheme is a mystery that can probably only be explained by the fact that the people within the organisation generate their income from Wimbledon, not creating successful tennis players.

To compound these problems, should a good coach develop a good player, he will be taken away from them: funding goes into LTA squads (not the parents) who are coached by people who have played the system well, rather than demonstrated an ability to develop young players.

An overhaul is long overdue. I had high hopes for Roger Draper, but he has failed to tackle the fundamental issues.

Recently I received an invitation to take part in a survey on British Tennis: if they have reached the point of asking the tennis playing masses for input they really are desperate.

The Solution?
In the absence of effective leadership a radical figure needs to be placed at the top of the LTA who doesn't need the job but wants to do it. David Lloyd seems to have all the credentials. I expect he won't be asked.

whiteyork gets it spot on.
Add to that the fact that coaches will home in on him because he's prepared to pay whether his kid is any good or not. And worse they will ignore a child with potential if the parents are not able or wont pay £25 per hour for 1 to 1 coaching.
Then those that get past that end up in some kind of "talent spotting" session at age 7, 8 or 9. (If your older forget it).And by the age of 10 you've got rid of just about everybody.

I agree with Whiteyork , and in addition to his comments to give the premier tennis post to a player of no notable international success is not typical when compared to other major sports.
The majority of sports at the highest level have a talisman ex-player at the helm with other experienced staff members who compliment the boss.
Tennis in the UK does not attract such a person or team of ex-pros.
Extrapolating on Whiteyorks comments, the standard smoke screen from the LTA and LTA supporters is that once a talent is recognised they make every effort to procure that talent.
What they do not say is that by the time they manage to spot a potential talent they have already lost 95% of the talent available.
The 95% lost are the boys/girls who do not have the economic backup to get anywhere near the coached abilty required to be taken under the wing of the LTA or an agency of the LTA.
Generally from my experience there is little altruism in the sport and in fairness to tennis it is not alone in this.
What I do not enjoy is the bi-annual LTA spin talking about what they hope to achieve in the future, a spin that has all the ingredients of the past 40 or more years and we all know how successful they have been over this period.

My opinion to get a better standard of tennis in this country is participation.
Nothing new here you say, but my idea is maybe you could have two types of participation. Currently in the UK there are good programmes generating good players mostly from middle class backgrounds. The current players (apart from one) are not world class or world beaters as Davis Cup record shows, but nevertheless they are very skillful good players.
There could be another type of participation however. One that is all about competition to attract children to tennis. A non-elite system with an attitude "that you are only as good as your last win". This type of participation would attract players who are attracted to tennis because they like to experience the game of tennis to compete, to fight and win whatever your background or financial means.
To me the first type of participation is easy and done quite well, when the All England Club and Wimbledon bring in record profits year in year out, but the second type is difficult for the LTA when you get all that money every year. It may even be impossible for the governing body because how do you make a non elite competitve tennis culture in this country when you know each year there is all that money coming in!
Anyway to build on the very good comments of Whiteyork and Barry-1966, my suggestion is that since Fred Perry's day, the "wrong" kind of kid in UK are playing and competing in performance level tennis. I call them the "racket bag" kids. The family of a racket bag kid might even pay a small fortune emulating a young professional tennis player. That family buys equipment, travels to tournaments sometimes abroad and has their child coached....sometimes 10 hours a week at £20 per hour. Bear in mind it might take a kid ten years at this cost to get really good! Besides the money, the issue here for me is that how do you know at 10years old that these children are tough enough for professional tennis? This player will probably have had a nice journey through life, is a very good player and probably quite priveleged with nice experiences who has seen some nice parts of the world!
If the LTA attracted children that were fascinated and thrived on the competitive nature of tennis, let's call this type of tennis, "boxing without the gloves on"-whereby you are only as good as your last win, then you would attract some tough, mean kids to compete with other kids wanting to be the best and UK would be at the forefront of world tennis.
World tennis and professional tennis is no picnic and anyway would you want your 10 year old child to make a career of it???. That is not a parent's decision anyway is it, unless the parent was a pro tennis player???
Think about it, if you were a smart 10 year old making a career choice with your parents about pro sports, compare tennis to professional football, For ten years Mr Rooney plays a maximum of 2 90 minute games a week for 45 weeks a year, usually on weekend afternoon or a mid week evening with countrywide or european travel possible and with his teammates. Topflight pro tennis is relentless by comparison, if you don't compete you don't win and get paid, if you do win, you keep playing in the tournament the next day and the day after until you loose. And all this as a sole trader!
Pro football is probably a smarter choice.....as an example, at this year's Aussie Open, Andy Murray played 7 matches over two weeks, and i guess he played over 20 hours were he alone fought to survive, sometimes playing after midnight and all this 12000 miles from home...and sadly he only got the runner's up cheque. That guy and all the top tennis pro guys are unique and maybe not quite right!
I reckon they are not made by a system, they make their own system by competing and winning their own way.
Of course they are physically and mentally tough and fight to win the mini battles faced in a tennis match with no time limit each time you play. But these same players were kids too and were attracted to tennis and the fighting qualities the game and the unique scoring brought to their lives. The racket bag was nice for them but it does not bring you the satisfaction!!!
Finally anyway my big point, my match point in fact.....
By greater participation, every child experiences and learns their own way to play tennis. This is their journey. Their tennis level will be as good as the competition or threat on the other side of the net to them. The greater the number of tough mean players competing and posing a threat to them winning, the better they must play and the more they must fight.
This is the "fun" of the journey and maybe an outcome of greater participation!

For the above poster...if you go to any Grade 3,Grade 2 or Grade 1 Junior tournament in this country-you will see the most competive kids in the world-the "mean"kids you talk about.There is no shortage of them.James Ward did not come from a posh background and still has the same problem the talented top 100 juniors face-How to pay for it all?There are very few spoiled rich kids out there at the top level...funding can not get you to the top but lack of access to affordable training and facilities can make the journey to the top excruciatingly difficult....

There are of course many problems with british tennis and british sport in general.
Since '97 and the "New Labour" government came to power increases in sports participation and elite sport have been encouraged more than ever before.
However after personally going through the LTA as a player i have found it incredibly hard to achieve my potential due to the lack of LTA schemes held all around the country. Apart from government schemes such as "TOP SPORT" and "SPORT STARS" i would never have competed in tennis if it wasn't for having a natural talent that was encouraged by my parents. Schemes from the LTA have not even reached my area of the country. In the end i had to rely on being sent to a private boarding school renowned for its tennis programme to achieve close to
my potential at all and from there a scholarship in the USA beckoned. The intensity, player management and the use of achieving elitism through education in the USA could not be further from the message that the LTA send young players today in Britain.
Our problem is not that players are being rewarded too early it is that there are not enough of the right initiatives sent forward by the LTA to increase mass participation. (The government not helping by taking £55 million out of mass participation and putting that money into elitism for the 2012 Olympics). By increasing mass participation there is more chance that more players will pursue tennis on a competitive level.
Also in Britain we have 2 centres that have the status that warrants the LTA's attention (Roehampton and Bath.)In countries such as America and Australia they have centres all over the countries. In the states every division 1 university is used to train and develop tennis players to reaching their potential.
In conclusion, before the LTA start to look around and realise that the other systems that other countries are using work there will never be any improvement. Especially with the stubbornness of holding onto traditions that hold the sport back in time instead of bringing tennis in this country into the 21st century.

I would like to pick up on the point from Jonathan's blog about increasing grass roots participation as this is an area close to my own heart. The Tennis Foundation's schools initiative sounds a surprisingly good idea as it is based around empowering school teachers to be able to introduce shildren to tennis is the school environment. This gets round the affordability obstacle of having to pay coaches to do it.

To me the coaching structure in this country combined with the lack of local facilities outside of clubs is the biggest obstacle. Nearly all qualified coaches coach for a living and so want paying for everything they do. Furthermore they will invariably try to prevent volunteer coaches becoming involved in the club structure because they narrow-mindedly perceive this as a threat to their income.

Contrast this to mass participation sports such as football and rugby where grass roots coaching is often provided for children by volunteer coaches who are welcomed within the club structure. In football and rugby the paid career coaches also exist but they work higher up the structure. Tennis has too many third rate career coaches making clubs into closed shops where volunteer coaches cannot operate. It would be much better to have a smaller number of much higher quality career coaches and a larger number of trained volunteers who can do the grass roots work and make tennis affordable and accessible to all.

To make tennis affordable and accessible I think the structure has to change to grab control of grass roots tennis back from the career coaches. The Tennis Foundation schools initiative and Tennis for Free (which provides FREE coaching on public courts) are the sort of thing we need.

For the sake of completeness I will make a comment about golf which is often cited as a reason why paid coaches at all levels and a members club structure can work. First of all golf is an expensive and exclusive sport in all countries so all competing nations are owrking within the same structure. Secondly there seems to be a willingness amongst golf pros to coach talented youngsters for free. This is something I do not see in tennis.

If you read this Jonathan I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the background to it with you as I think you could help to champion a cause here for the good of British tennis.

It’s facile to compare Football & rugby coaching systems with tennis because their club structures are inherently different. The reason tennis clubs have full or part time paid coaches is that coaching is seen by clubs as service that is offered to members to enhance their enjoyment of playing at the club.
There is a call for tennis coaching in groups or individually from dawn til dusk & clubs rightly feel they need to satisfy this demand. Wilsonhyperhammer conjures up an image of volunteer tennis coaches chomping at the bit to avail themselves for free lessons? I’m not sure where all these people would come from? In my experience there are a small number of people out there who offer their services for free. They tend to be retired or semi retired with good intentions but lacking (not surprisingly) in content & delivery. You might have had personal experience of volunteers being prevented from becoming involved but as a ‘career’ coach of 30 years + I have never encountered it. I would jump at the chance of free help!
Are these volunteer coaches going to get up @ 6.15am three mornings a week to teach an accountant who earns £80,000 p/a for free? I think not. Clubs want & need coaches to be available to teach members. It adds value to the membership experience so it’s incumbent upon clubs to support the coach’s efforts to make a decent living. This invariably involves running (profitable) groups at Mini & Junior levels.
The money made from these groups enables coaches to go into schools for free to promote the game & their programme. In addition coaches spend a lot of time, much of it unpaid, organising tournaments, watching their players at tournaments, running club nights, talking to parents, dealing with emails/phone calls, attending club/LTA/local authority/school meetings etc. It also allows me to give free &/or subsidised lessons to my performance players. This work has a massive impact on attracting & retaining young players. Much of this work is subsidised by the revenue generated by coaching children.
If you took away the right to teach & earn money from these groups coaches couldn’t earn a living. Coaching infrastructures would collapse, inevitably leading to fewer children (& adults) playing.
My son goes to a football club, where the coaching is free & I’m really impressed with the quality & dedication of some of the coaches there. It costs £40.00 a year so understand the point you’re making but you’re not comparing like with like. These coaches turn up on a Saturday morning, do an hour & go home. Some will organise matches & do some admin but in my experience nearly all these volunteers have a vested interest, i.e. their child attends the sessions. There is nothing wrong with that but understandably, their commitment is only as strong as their child’s interest in attending.
Tennis clubs need continuity, commitment & quality. Volunteers can, in theory provide all three but rarely do. So how does tennis become less expensive to learn? Well by definition it doesn’t need to get any cheaper in the areas where it’s already thriving. Middle class parents can afford to pay for tennis lessons.
If accessible, affordable tennis coaching in the less well of areas of the country is the key to British success at international level tennis why aren’t the LTA doing something about it? Well they have but only on a small scale with limited success. The LTA is one of the richest NGBs in the world. They have the resources to make tennis attractive, inexpensive & accessible to the millions who don’t live in traditional tennis areas. It’s they’re attitude & philosophy that needs to change, not the coach’s.

Following on from eastweaste comments whilst I appreciate that coaches have to make a living and agree that the LTA have to make efforts to get more involved in making coaching available to all, problem lies in the way the LTA governs clubs. In my experience, a club is affiliated to the LTA to get the "benefits" of insurance, competitive match play, and the possible support either financial or otherwise. To get this you have to pay large sums of money, and meet criteria to be able to get any assistance such as Clubmark. To get this you have to have a LTA coach and if you have a LTA coach they want exclusive rights. So the only coaching is expensive. This excludes children who are unable to afford it and those perhaps who are starting out not knowing if they are suited to tennis. Volunteers are available if they ae able to make a contribution but in a lot of cases they give up due to the attitude of our governing body.
Grass roots tennis is played at clubs where the LTA are quite happy to take their money but are not willing to support as their facilities are not to the standard of an elite club.

I think grass roots tennis is the problem. I have a friend whose young son was very good at tennis and he joined the local tennis club to improve. The fees were quite expensive but even on juniors nights the adults would come along to play and the juniors would NOT get a look in. This says something about the structure even at grass roots it is not policed properly. Eventually the parents gave up paying for him to belong to the club because he wasn't able to play even on the designated evening for juniors! This young man has now gone on to be a fitness coach with a University Degree and travels all over the world. Just one example of an opportunity missed!