Falling over in sympathy ?

Well, thats that for another year at SW19, all British qualifiers are out in the men's dept at the 1st and 2nd hurdle.

We have Murray and two wild cards, Edmund and Ward. the Ladies are faring better as usual, putting up a fight dare I say it, but there it is in black and white, another disastrous green year for the male counterparts.

Is this the Roehampton affect, the place where British talent gets buried under years of Red tape and Oxford blue.....aren't we supposed to be feasting on the investment of millions and the very best coaching that the LTA could offer ? seems like a few morsels are left after a certain Draper and his cronies finished off the pudding with a lovely bonus for doing absolutely nothing. we're all in the wrong business for sure.

Why don't we spend those millions sending our lot to Spain to over-winter there and reap the rewards of coaches who know how to....well....coach. didnt do Murray any harm and they could learn Spanish too, so they can understand words like Basura, Inútil and Residuos del espacio, which is how I would describe Drapers Paper, the crack covering he employs so well.


Bah humbug, can't wait for Xmas.

We need to realise, that we will never get sufficient numbers playing Tennis simply because we have way too many other sports of 'interest'

The only ones that do are (in a lot of cases) those pushed by their parents and hence don't have the drive and determination that, say, a Chris Boardman or (don't laugh) a Wayne Rooney - people who have a bit of 'nice nastiness' in them, which we all need to maximise our goals

Sadly the British mentality is to er on the side of caution, so doing what the Spanish parents do with their kids - would be cited as bullying over here!!

The way to do it, would be to put it on the school currculum - but that will never happen

We've been moaning about this ever since I first started been an avid fan in 1976 and nothing has changed!!

Some truth there Banbro, but working within a primary school right now, tennis is coached to a small group of 8-10 kids aged around 6/7/8. You can't get much more grass roots than that, except they have no grass to play on.

Having watched a few sessions, they're not interested in learning just hitting the ball as hard as they can as far as they can, which for their age is natural. The coaches are from Surbiton Lawn Tennis club and teach in the hall in winter. They do do an older group session in the early evening and again half are not interested, a couple seem to be bothered, and two are pretty good at it and look keen.

Overall, I'd say they have probably cornered the market in hidden tennis talent at my school. Even if they made the other 400 kids play, I reckon the old plastic ball would get the vote, as it does every single playtime, with tennis racquets being used as assault weapons or launch devices for stones.

Its in their natural mind set to play group games, tennis is not, there are very few kids playing a game on their own, a few yes, but generally, they migrate to other more interesting stuff going on elsewhere. Tennis as a sport is not popular and I can't see it ever being so in school.

Like you say, other sports are prevalent and not only cheap but easily accessible down the park or back garden. I wonder if this kind of view is the underlying reason why so many people who do take up tennis for a career, don't seem to be able to take it to the high level that is required because it has never seemed to be an attractive sport for the masses and somehow doesn't require the intensity that we see in other professional sportsmen and women who have taken up more socially acceptable sports that are mostly played in groups/teams.

I still think that with the right support and structure in place, those who do take up tennis, should be able to realise their potential and not feel a little embarrassed by their tag as a tennis player, and feel proud of what they can achieve. How you do that ? I don't know, but Murray winning Wimbledon may suddenly project the sport into a new era of interest and desire.

I have completely different takes to this. Kids actually love tennis because to begin with they love whacking a ball with a bat, it's quite instinctive in my opinion. After all look at one of the reasons the Nintendo Wii did so well...kids all over the world were playing virtual tennis in their living rooms with a remote controller with Wii Sports, the game the console shipped with. Nintendo chose tennis to ship with because kids love it.

We have loads of kids playing tennis at a high level from 7 upwards. There are loads of events around each county or region every weekend, it's extremely structured in that there are 3 different levels of league tables...county, region, national. As each child gets better they compete at tournaments that reflect those levels. For each mini-tennis age group through to 10U, 12U, 14U, etc, and for each county there are around 50 boys per strata on the league tables...which means loads of kids are travelling 20-50 miles to tournaments of a decent level each weekend, then as they get better its further afield.

For example, I just picked a random age group and county...take a look how many boys are competing for points each week: http://www.lta.org.uk/players-parents/Competition-Leaderboards-Search/?run=1-UNA0H2&board=1-UNA0LU&county=Hertfordshire&group=1-UNA0LY

So that's say 50 x 10 year olds per county all being coached 2-3 times a week in 1on1 and group sessions where they get camaraderie with their peers and form long term friendships. Multiple those 50 x 10yo's across say 30 counties and that's 1,500 boys at that age group...and 1,500 x 8yo's and 1,500 x 9yo's. That is a load of boys and the same applies to girls, although a little bit less I'd say.

I see some tremendous 9-10yo boys play...you'd be amazed at their level already. So we have 1000s of skilled kids playing from 7-12 yo say...the problem is we don't nurture them through to international level. We are not short of "basic material"...kids love tennis when shown it and stick at it...but they get to 11-12 and suddenly the commitment needs to go up, that's the danger time, that's when the system doesn't nurture them through and many get lost to other sports or just drop out.

However, I'm confident in 5-10 years time the UK will be in a much stronger position than it is now because trust me there are 1000s of great kids playing the game as we speak and the LTA come what may will improve the nurturing process.

Thats great news Lydian, although I was more talking about how primary schools have equipment, but dont have the space to provide a court for them to play on. The playground is one huge soup of activity and football takes centre stage, along with skipping, hoops and kids just mucking about, so its near impossible to organise anything remotely like a tennis game. I think thats why not many kids join up for the tennis coaching after school clubs.