£25m Shopping List for Britishtennis....to be spent by the LTA !

Drew · Sep 16, 2008

£25m Shopping List for Britishtennis....to be spent by the LTA !

The Hoose · Satellite level

6. Free Wimbledon and Davis Cup tickets, plus a Muzza Bear, to all serious* britishtennis.net contributors

*serious is defined as having made 500 or more posts by the time the sponsorship deal was announced.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i dont think murray at the uso was the clincher, there is no way you'd put togther a deal like that between then and now, but i think he run at wimby helped a lot.
perhaos the uso helped seal the finlaisites.
i belive the compnay have a strongish scottish connection which no doubt was part of the reason they were keen to be linked.

James · Satellite level

Can't we make it 490 posts?

I think money should be ploughed into grass roots tennis, ensuring public parks with free tennis courts begin to re-appear around the country. Also clubs should be given funding to construct covered courts [with indoor hard, acrylic or clay/shale] , rather than the all weather carpet that is currently spoiling the games of the upcoming tennis generation. Clubs should also be encouraged to keep any existing outdoor shale, hard courts - perhaps a grant to partially/fully cover maintenance could resolve this.

Point '3' is also a definite, the LTA must realise that not everyone can afford to travel abroad more than once or twice a year [e.g Fitzy] and that Spain's governing body can't be wrong - you don't produce that number of top 100 players through mistakes.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i always belived that the cutting back of evenst was cost cutting, spun to look like tough love.

trying to jump on and follow the serb bandwagon, is one thing, but i am not sure you can on them really. Belgrade is a very drepressed city, realisitcialy going backwards compared to some of its neighbours. the condtions here and there just do not compare.

How does the german system work (i went for them as opposed to the french where tennis seems to have a higher priority and spain). perhaps we should look at them, they have 6 top 100 players, thats what you need. you cant make murrays or novaks or fed's or nadal's they just happen, yes you need to give them the right frame work to work within. they also have another 11 top 200 players the 2 more in the top 250, so thats nearly 20 top 250 players. and they have around 100 ranked players, so thats about double what we have.

if we could get our sytem on their lines then we would have a better chnace.
i also agree that the funding needs to be looked at, especially for overseas travel, espcialy if they are cutting bacvk on the home events, they seem to be doing their best to kill off the younger prospects.

steven · Tennis legend

Drew wrote:
So the LTA have somehow managed to convince someone to give them £25 in sponsorship from 2009 to 2013.

Bah, I'd have given them £ 25 in sponsorship for the naming rights to Queen's. I doubt it's going to get Fitzy even once over the English Channel though ...

More seriously ...

> 1. Fund all travel for our guys and girls ranked between 100 and 750. If we want our guys and girls to taste the 'tough world game' then give them a hand.

> 3. Increase the number of Futures and Challengers within the UK. Lets offer as many points as possible to our GB players and make sure we keep the WC's British.

One or both of those, plus making it easier for kids to start playing ought to be the priorities, I think.

Plus clone Greg Rusedski a few times (ok, that is a VERY scary thought lol) so that he can work with all the good young prospects if the article in this month's British Tennis is at all accurate!

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

I agree mostly with all Drew's points except #4.

Drew · Sep 16, 2008

Madeline wrote:

I agree mostly with all Drew's points except #4.

So you spotted the only point made in jest....you just cant pull the wool over your eyes eh Mad !!!

steven · Tennis legend

* hurriedly cancels the call for men in white coats to come and take Drew away * - for a moment, I thought you were serious!

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Is it right to call someone currently ranked 162 in the world and who has been as high as 108 'distinctly average'? - Jonathan Overend, R5 live, according to the BBC website. Maybe he doesn't justify a coach as expensive as Brad Gilbert but Boggo should be given more credit than that, I feel.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

It certainly is a totally unnecessary comment, especially coming against a player who in a few days will be stepping out to represent his country cause every single other person who plays tennis in this country, bar 1, is worse!!

I wonder if alex will ever become aware of the comment and should Overend want an interview alex should decline. I hope he doesnt tho as its not exactly what he wants to be reading/hearing in the run up to the dc.

I think it also shows the general negativity that still seems to surround the sport unless you are a murray

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

With £25 million at their disposal, the LTA really need to do something with this to produce some results, as with this amount of money, there is a lot they can do to improve the state of British Tennis.

1) Make it easier for kids to play tennis - be it subsidising tennis centre so it's affordable to learn how to play, building more tennis courts, repairing the state of many of the current courts - unless you have decent facilities to learn how to play tennis and give the next generation a chance to succeed, there's no point spending it on the current level of players.

2) Create a funding system based on how many ranking points you have - the more ranking points (up to a certain point, maybe top 100), you get a certain amount of funds which will be given to you to help with travel - it gives you an incentive to work harder in the UK events to get a ranking point to enable you to recieve funding to travel abroad - if players can afford to go abroad more often, they can get better results, and spend their own money on other things like more training

3) Make the public care about british tennis, other than Wimbledon - the average person wouldn't know the british number 2 at mens or womens level, and most wouldn't know the womens number 1

4) Get a website for challengers and futures - have at the very least live scoring for challengers and futures, and maybe live streams as well - do it on a test basis for an event to see what the reception to it is, and then go full time if it is worth it

5) Increase the number of events in the UK - it's a proven fact that players do better in their own country, so have a few more events, especially challengers - surely 10 challengers a year would be an acceptable amount - Nottingham, Manchester, and maybe Surbiton on the grass, one in Wales, Scotland and Jersey, Sunderland, Nottinhgham indoors, and then 2 others on a rolling basis

I'm sure there's other things that I've forgotten that they should do as well, but some of the above would be a start