Listen to a discussion with Annabel Croft, Mark Pugash and Jonathan Overend about the current state of British Tennis on Radio 5 Live.

Listen to the full conversation at RADIO 5 Live Studio

Part1

Part 2

Times Online wrote an article based on David's view which you can read here or clicking on the image below

You can read below in detail David's proposal for improving British Tennis

MCTA would like to open a debate on driving forward the popularity of the sport. We have often read about the problems in British tennis, but apart from modifications of traditional methods, a truly alternative solution is surely a way forward. Tennis is a great sport and success in Britain is more people playing socially and competitively.

Is it time for the LTA to transform itself into a massive stimulus for British tennis rather than its current form of governing body?  

Imagine the competition to produce British champions if the rewards were exciting? £10-15 million of the money per annum released from Wimbledon to the LTA could be part of a bonus structure that would attract the best coaches from around the world to invest their time in British players. For example Nick Bollettieris would be motivated to sponsor a promising player if the reward for winning junior Wimbledon was a large sum. Exciting projects would blossom and corporate sponsorship and investment would flow into the game. Here is an outline of how this simple structure could change tennis in Britain forever, a system based on results rather than subjective judgements.

The challenge and incentive to an organisation or coach to invest in a potential Grand Slam winner or Olympic tennis gold medallist would be enormous if the rewards to the organisation or coach that financed and facilitated the champion were substantial.  

It is essential to stimulate schools, parks, clubs and Academies to elevate their programmes through results rather than politics.
Competitive Structure for schools through tournaments and leagues

* Schools would take tennis seriously and offer scholarships if for example £100,000 were offered to the British Schools League Champion.
* Increase prize money for British money tournaments to substantial amounts to create a competitive environment.
* More local tournaments countrywide with incentives at all levels to stimulate competition and help compete with other sports and grow the numbers.
* Competition is the lifeblood of sport and retaining participation.

Club/Park Structure and Senior National Leagues

We have no meaningful league in the manner of German Bundesliga or other European Premier Leagues. This can easily change if a good level of prize money was injected into the National League just as there is money throughout the football league. Clubs and parks would really focus on performance of teams if winning the top division brought for example £100K, with money allocated to each position. Lower division winners and places would also earn prize money for the club. British tennis should be based around clubs and parks. Currently smaller clubs have little chance of becoming “hotbeds” for seniors or juniors and generating excellent income for themselves by running good teams and small quality programmes. Boutique clubs could develop specialising to maximise their reward income.

Junior National League

Again offer substantial money to winning clubs or park teams.  Every team that enters should have the incentive to finish higher. The above would naturally stimulate clubs and parks to have good coaching programmes and grow their own talent.

Junior Tennis: Substantial money should be on offer to clubs, park programmes, academies and coaches of successful juniors based purely on winning results. Players winning junior titles would earn clubs or academies large sums to plough back into their programmes so world class coaches and players would be attracted to the most successful organisations.

The above figures are examples but they must be substantial enough to attract coaches and clubs to base their programmes on income generated by success.

Simplified structure: The LTA would decide the size and direction of bonuses. The LTA would continue the role of encouraging and growing current grass root programmes, partnerships for new Indoor facilities, running the Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Tournaments, club services and a reduced National Training Dept. If the LTA shift the current paradigm to inspire the world into working for British success in tennis it could pioneer the way to a new vision.  

British tennis could benefit by millions directly invested by the LTA and investors who for the first time will have a tangible way of evaluating the possible returns.  

The above structure solves many of the current problems readily admitted by the LTA which are:

Responsibility: This structure would force the game to grow up. Players and parents would need to decide which programmes to sign up to and diligently fact find before signing any contracts. Clubs, coaches, academies etc would have to present themselves professionally if they were to attract the best players and an LTA commissioner could arbitrate the sport. The pro rata paying of bonuses would still allow the freedom of movement for juniors.

Funding: National Training constantly face the problems of trying to decide who and how much to give different players. Ultimately much of the decision making is subjective leading to accusations of favouritism and lack of vision. Historically the LTA have spent large amounts of money on lost causes. This undermines morale and cultivates cynicism.

Investment: Not enough public or private money flows into the sport. There is no way for investors at present to evaluate a concrete return, so investment is limited to philanthropic motives rather than business models. The LTA with its ability to offer add on benefits monopolise most of the major sponsorship in tennis.

Coach Career Paths: Many talented coaches turn away from performance because the bottom line is that the LTA with its fantastic facilities and its high profile workforce often prises players into well supported High Performance Clubs or to Roehampton. The issue is that the LTA inadvertently judges which players and coaches are capable. Coaches will give up a weekend of coaching to go watch his best players if there is a chance of earning money if the player succeeds in that tournament. This will ease the travel commitments and costs for parents.

First class coaches achieving success with players ought to be well rewarded for their efforts and they in turn will remain motivated and are likely to reinvest in more players to back their own expertise.


Media: A transparent system like the one presented is easy for all to understand and totally fair for any player, organization, academy, parent, single coach, foreign academy etc to shoot for the stars with British players. The media could and would no longer view the LTA responsible for producing players but rather as the catalyst which is surely a healthy role.