bright young tennis talents

hello im fernando

1st time ive traveled on to the tennis board. big fan of marcos baghdatis

anyway the reason i came to ask is who is this future of tennis?
who should i be looking out for?

cos you seem to hit 28-30ish and you seem to start going downhill.

also what is with the news people calling andy murray British no.1, it's not like we have any decent male stars currently.

Hey fernando how about the last line of your post in English

my bad have a tendency to miss words out sometimes.

"it's not like we have any decent male stars currently"

Perhaps you would like to tell us who they are?

Fernando, I think Raonic with his big serve and forehand is a future star of the game although he hasn't been able to translate his game well during this clay court season, which isn't surprising. Ryan Harrison the teenager looks like the next big thing from the USA, like every American player has a good serve and a good forehand but looks more well rounded and varied than the Roddicks and Querrey's of the world. People have been waiting for Gregor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Bernard Tomic to make a big impact as they have all the talent, but unfortunately they haven't really made much of bang on the main tour. So far the generation of 22-18 years old coming up in the game have been a bit disappointing especially when compared to the guys that came before them (Nadal, Murray, Berdych, Novak, and JMDP)

fernando wrote:also what is with the news people calling andy murray British no.1, it's not like we have any decent male stars currently.

The performances of Golding, Broady and Morgan in the last couple of ITF events have offered little in the way of optimism for the future.

Priesty, I have always wondered why it is that Britain doesn't produce better talent since it is the cradle of the game and the LTA spends loads of money. People always say that is because football attracts the better athletes, but people play football in Spain to, and in fact much better than in britain so that can't be the reason. Plus if you take the population of Britain it has to be at least double that of Spain's.

There are many reasons people think we haven't got anything in the top 50 apart from Murray and the LTA seem to be top of the list.

But it has been thrashed about on 606 that maybe there are circumstances beyond our control.

Weather, although Spain has its fair deal of bad weather, they have historically better weather for more of the year, same in the USA and Australia.

Facilities are not as rife because of our winter spells, outdoor courts are deserted at this time and Bubble courts or indoor facilities are thin on the ground as compared to our European counterparts.

Advertising the sport is negligible, shop windows displays, newspaper ads don't really do tennis any justice, unlike other sports like football etc who manage to promote their game more widely and more attractively.

Accessibility to tennis, again the weather does not allow all year round participation, but when the weather is fine, there are not enough courts in public parks to give people the chance to take part.

Equipment can be expensive to the un-initiated as can court costs in some areas. This can lead to kids feeling that tennis is for the toffs, but at least Murray is bringing a sense of achievement from not so rich a background.

In the end, it all comes down to the LTA to provide youngsters especially, with the facilities, the equipment and the basic coaching to give them a chance to take tennis to the next level from their park play.

Its not all one sided, the LTA have done something about it, providing equipment to schools, pouring money into projects and connecting schools to clubs, but IMO, not enough is being done either updating/maintaining present courts, building new ones and making the equipment cheap enough for someone to pick up a racquet and balls and play a game down at their local park for a reasonable fee.

Why they can not work in tandem with local councils and clubs to help promote and provide tennis courts to the masses, given the amount of money they are investing elsewhere and the huge amount of money that is given to them for the purpose of producing another three Murrays is difficult to understand.

What the problem is, is hard to pin down, but until we give our kids the chance to try and play tennis, how will we ever know how many potential top players we have just waiting in the wings ?

Golding looks like a bright talent. His mum has a court in their back garden and she was helping other young players develop their game as she isn't keen on the way the LTA develop their youngsters and the council are forcing her to remove the court which is lunacy.

On the womens side it looks good with Laura Robson and Heather Watson.

It would have been only 20 years ago or maybe more, when the council then would probably have asked her to open it up to the public.

i hate all this red tape and H&S rubbish, its driving this country into the ground.

So much officialdom, not enough common sense.

But it looks like the LTA have managed to label themselves a bunch of idiots when it comes to tennis coaching.

It is utter nonsense Jubbahey as I understand it Golding's mum is good at coaching, so I have no idea what is going to happen there. LTA should fund her if she is helping develop youngsters.

legendkillar wrote:It is utter nonsense Jubbahey as I understand it Golding's mum is good at coaching, so I have no idea what is going to happen there. LTA should fund her if she is helping develop youngsters.

The LTA wouldn't fund anything that conflicts with their own concerns. The monetary juggernaut makes no stops at Sensible City.

TennisUK might though, but it would still have to get through the council bureaucracy and that would take so long, her kid would be hitting shots off a zimmer frame rather than a tennis one.

Just out of interest, how much does it cost to play a public tennis court these days? (not that there are many left, but I know there are some)

I used to play in local leagues (mostly the big firms in the area, BMW, Hewlett-Packard etc) and some of them used public court. This was 10-15 years ago but I seem to remember it was only about £5 per hour for a court

I am fortunate as I have 2 courts down the road from me that the council can't be bothered to charge for. I take my nephews down there as they are keen tennis players.

Most courts charge between £8-£20 per hour

As far as I know, hiring a court in SW London/Surrey area is £10 per hour + hire of racquets/balls. some courts are in good condition, these are charged for. there is one that is so run down it is a dog loo ATM and of course, you aint charged for playing tennis on that one.

For me, its too expensive for a kid to go down there 3/4 times a week, I c an see the councils point that the courts must generate enough money to pay for maintenance etc, but kids should be able to play for free, maybe pay for the hire of equipment but not anything else. If its not viable, its not supported, and there doesn't seem to be any incentives for them to go out and seek an investment partnership with local businesses or groups like TennisUK.

Its the old " if you build it, they will come" scenario, but councils can't see further than their noses.