British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

A couple of  general questions, are Iain Bates and Jeremy Bates related and what exactly does Iain Bates do?

the addict wrote:

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No they are not related. Google tells me the following:-

Jeremy Bates serves as an LTA National Coach and performance mentor working out of the National Tennis Centre in London, focusing on elite junior and professional players.

Iain Bates serves as the Head of Women's Tennis at the British Lawn Tennis Association (LTA). Appointed to the position in February 2013, he oversees the strategic development, elite performance, and growth of the women's game across the United Kingdom.

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 Both are, of course, related to the famous actor Alan Bates, I believe he was the father to both of them, as well as the creator of the famous character in the Captain Pugwash series. 

Andy Parker wrote:

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It's remarkable to see all the top 4 seeds in the semi-finals and I can't wait to see what happens.

I agree Indiana with you that for Hannah and Mika to progress needs them to have top coaches and good people around them, but with Mimi still progressing and Alicia and Sofia having excellent seasons and threatening to really break through, I don't feel it is that shallow in terms of the depth of our younger players in women's tennis. Looking at the last 50 years or so, we seldom have that many top 100 players at the same time.

Tennis is much more competitive globally, with each year, players from a more diverse set of nations coming through. Lots of the old guard, including France, Spain, Italy and Australia are producing less top players than they used to I think (not that I have stats on this), but when I think back to the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's, those countries always seemed to have a steady stream of top players coming through, and now it is much less in numbers and quality, I think.

It is though frustrating to see Emma, Sonay, Jodie and Katie S hampered by injuries, and were each of these to have had injury free careers, we might well be having easily the most successful era in GB modern tennis - as it is, with Katie B and Emma currently in the top 100, Fran and Harriet around that mark, and Sonay and Katie S in the top 200, I don't think even among our senior players, things are that bad. Chuck in our next batch of good youngsters all knocking on the door to the big time, and my glass is still half full at least.

-- Edited by Andy Parker on Thursday 10th of September 2026 12:45:34 AM

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 Thanks Andy for your further post. Tbf actually at the top level, as I have highlighted before myself -  having 4 in the top 100 as we have quite often had in the last couple of years, is unprecedented this century ( apart from one week in 2012 of Heather. Anne K,  Laura, and Elena B ). And we could clearly be there again pretty soon, injuries permitting.

It is really the depth and numbers supporting this that I have often bemoaned with a slight feeling that maybe we have lucked out a bit that, from so relatively few top 500ers, so many have actually beeen top 100ers. Kind of thinking that the guys have neen hitting it with numbers from which now Arthur and Toby have emerged as top 100ers with hopefully more to follow, while our women haven't really hit it with numbers and quite a few have err emerged.

The college route for helping give us top ranked women I have been sceptical of, but again tbf we indeed have Alicia and now Sofia ( and having a great couple of weeks ) having very impressive first years on tour.

Depth down the rankings, and that changing any time soon, is indeed still very questionable IMO, but there is still quite a lot of good. Maybe I should question a little my own half empty glass.