British Tennis - The only way is Tim

This week has been the best week in British tennis for a long time. Results have been brilliant. Murray safely through in Queens, James Ward having the tournament of his life putting out 2 players in the top 20, Ollie Golding putting on a good display in his debut at Queens and Heather Watson having good results in Birmingham. There is hope for British tennis. Watson and Robson have time ahead of them to take British womens tennis forward with Baltacha and Keothavong fighting them for the British no.1.

Question now is where can the mens tennis go in Britain? James Ward sad as it is will be playing catch up with after this event. His hard work will start after Wimbledon. At 24 how far can he go? Look at Jurgen Melzer and Mardy Fish as examples of players that broke into the top 10 in their late twenties. I am not getting carried away with James's performances this week, but I am thinking that James could be a top 100 player by the time he reaches 28. He knows he will have to put in the hard work to achieve that and the best example that hard work can pay off is Andy Murray. I would like to see Ward use this experience for the better and take his game to the next level and maximise his potential. It will take time, It isn't going to be quick and I am hoping he can make headways in the right direction.

Britains young talent in Oliver Golding and George Morgan at 17 and 18 respectfully need to go down the Tim Henman route for success that Britain and the LTA crave. Tim Henman was 21 before he broke into the top 100 and that was after turning pro at 18. Henman reached his first Grand Slam Quarter Finals at the age of 23. I think the LTA and public would be silly to deem them failures should they not show dramatic improvement in their first year as pro's like Murray did. I do hope they come through the qualifiers and make the Wimbledon main draws. I would like for them to go down the Tim Henman route and take it slow. The smaller the pressure, the easier it will be for them to progress without the weight of expectation.

I really hope they find the correct formula.

Andrew Castles comments on James Wards success so far at Queens have " been great, the best results so far in his career" but let's not get carried away will he be a regular contender for future ATP events, Castles doesn't think so and I tend to agree with him.

Prove us wrong James!

Well done James-- so your 24 yrs old... well now there is really an OLD MAN ... late developer James... get and show them ... what the dickens does Andrew Castle know any how.

Castles is an expert on this Haddie and he should know.

He never made it either

Well if there is one thing he is good at SL is strictly come dancing and a great advert for hair lacquer

I don't think Andrew Castle minded failing as GMTV is what he is more remembered for

If Wards surprise escalation up the ranking ladder will show anything, it is that we need thinking coaches as well as fitness and gameplay trainers.

Murray has had to learn the hard way to punch through the confidence barrier and had to go the Spain way to achieve the basis for a good enough game to get him to a few slam finals.

James went the same route and is now cutting some good corners, lets hope its not too much too quick, but at 24 and out the top 200, I can understand his Need for Speed.

To be honest if Ward for example could become a top 100 player and basically stay there, then that would be fine. What i personally don't like to see is players having a good run getting to top 100 or top 50 and then plummeting again. If he could qualify and simply get to the second rounds reasonably often then youre looking at a top 100 player if not better. Clearly behind the serve this guy has not got much to do damage with. I was surprised by how old he was, because he is not carrying much muscle on his body even though he does have a large frame - thats not going to cut it these days. Lets hope the physical trainer can sort him out there as well as in the head.

In some respects you only have Tim as a true top tennis player from the LTA set-up. Murray and Greg honed their games abroad from an early age.

The fact the LTA is not producing at least a steady stream of top 100 players is frankly embarassing for the money Wimbledon creates and the wide club network we have. Seems to be too much complacency to me and not enough pushing kids hard enough from 13-14 onwards...Tim was actually a pretty decent player from 18-19 onwards but it seems more by luck, or rather he made it through despite the LTA system not because of it.

It was great to see Ward's run to the semis at Queen's,but the proof of the pudding will come in the next 6 to 12 months IMO.We've seen a lot of false dawns before in British tennis during the grass season, mainly because home support and the surface has helped our players along.Where they start to struggle is when they go and play lesser tournaments abroad, especially on slower surfaces. That has tended to prove their undoing because they've had to play a lot more baseline rallies and their deficiencies in this area have been exposed.Ward's serve helped him along quite a lot at Queen's - but let's hope there's enough in the rest of his game to continue his march up the rankings.

I think with Ward the LTA have let him down big time. I am coming from the coaching perspective when the LTA had Brad Gilbert on their books and he was coaching Murray. When Murray parted company with Gilbert in 2007 and they got Gilbert to spend more time with a declining Bogdanovic and not with Ward who at the time would've been 19-20. If Ward does go on to improve his ranking even more, it should be a reflection of Ward's inner ambition than the work of the LTA.