A facility that is supposed to be turning out players capable of capturing a nation’s imagination when they don their Wimbledon gear is in danger of turning into a white elephant. After ending Great Britain’s 79-year wait for the Davis Cup, Andy Murray revealed that he discovered a ghost town when he visited the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton a couple of months ago, and his verbal volley has pushed the Lawn Tennis Association into a vulnerable position in the court of public opinion.
There were repercussions when Michael Downey, the LTA’s chief executive, and Bob Brett, the former head of player development, decided to stop using the NTC. Oliver Golding, a former No2 in the junior world rankings, won the US Open boys’ singles title in 2011 and took the experienced Igor Andreev to four sets in the first round at Wimbledon in 2012, but the 22-year-old stepped away from the Tour after he was no longer able to train at Roehampton.
As Judy Murray has pointed out, the LTA could have spent £1m apiece on 40 different tennis centres across the country rather than splurge the whole lot on a single site in south-west London. The decision by Downey’s predecessor, Robert Draper, to build the NTC in 2007 was unpopular at the time and it looks even more foolish now.
Golding had followed in Murray’s footsteps when he triumphed at Flushing Meadows. Not every precocious youngster goes on to greatness, but Golding is not the only British player who has turned away from tennis. George Morgan, Ashley Hewitt and Jack Carpenter do not feature in the ATP rankings. Morgan lost to Golding in the US Open boys’ semi-final four years ago.
Perhaps they were not cut out for elite sport, but it is impossible to be proud of a system that struggles to inspire young people. Murray’s brilliance masks structural flaws.
Kyle Edmund, 20, has a wicked forehand and he should have a respectable career. James Ward, the same age as Murray at 28, is No156 in the world. Murray aside, only one British male is in the top 100: the Slovenia-born Aljaz Bedene, ranked 45th.
Johanna Konta and Heather Watson offer hope in the women’s game, while Laura Robson has the weapons if she can recover her fitness. Katie Swan reached the final of the Australian Open girls’ singles in January and the 16-year-old is promising. Yet there is a concerning talent drain on both sides. There was no male representative in the US Open boys’ singles this year and Swan is the only girl who stands out at the moment.
The LTA shares Murray’s frustration, while it hopes the new head of player development, Peter Keen, can spark an improvement. That remains to be seen, but Baroness Billingham, the Labour peer, is cautiously optimistic that Downey can be a force for good. She laid the blame at the feet of the government for cutting sport in state schools.
Billingham argues that it enhances the image of tennis as a sport for a privileged few when it is so hard for children to get into it, while earlier this year Downey admitted that participation is down. He wants to revive park tennis.
“Frankly there is no grassroots tennis because there’s no grassroots tennis in state schools,” Billingham told the Guardian. “It’s very expensive and the consequence of that is that tennis is played only by a minority. That feeds into the general public’s view that tennis is a middle-class sport. It’s not. I’ve come from that sort of background and that’s why I’m so cross that we’re not looking after the kids that need to be looked after.
“The LTA are looking to improve sports offers in parks. Tony Hawks [the comedian] runs Tennis For Free. These are the sort of initiatives the government should be getting behind. That’s where the last administration went wrong. It wasn’t looking at grassroots sport or putting money behind initiatives like Tony Hawks’s.”
