Bob Brett – the Australian coach who guided Boris Becker to the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open titles – might not be the man to revive British tennis after all, it seems.
A board meeting of the Lawn Tennis Association next month will hear what Brett’s mentor, the chief executive Michael Downey, has to say about the coach’s efforts over the past year, having brought him to London as performance director from the relative comfort of his San Remo Academy.
Brett is on a break there until 27 April and is still pencilled in to be with young British hopefuls at the qualification tournament at the French Open, which starts late next month.
The source of the discontent seems vague but plainly Brett is not having the impact here that he had when he and Downey worked together at Tennis Canada, now a steadily burgeoning force on the ATP and WTA tours.
Downey, a transplanted Canadian enjoying the considerable challenge of making British tennis respectable below the heady achievements of Andy Murray, will present his high-performance strategy to the board on 6 May, and his verdict on Brett should be decisive.
“Change is inevitable but nothing is a done deal at the moment,” an LTA source said on Tuesday.
