Why has British tennis consistently failed to produce talent in depth for so long?

Question

It's embarrassing. We have the best tournament in the world, but year after year all our hopes for a British win are carried by one guy who's never going to win in a million years.

Nadal and Murray are roughly the same age, so unless Nadal is too injured to play one year, I can't see how Murray can possibly win Wimbledon.

Why haven't we got more players in the top 100?

Answer 1

Probably because like the Greater Manchester Councils back in the 1980s 'competitive sports' were banned!  Everyone had to be a winner, indeed this mind set still exists in some schools.  I had to laugh when in 2000 and something Manchester was host for the Commonwealth Games - what bigots!

If parents don't have money to fund their off-springs sporting activities and training don't expect to have any help or facilities at a price ordinary folk can afford.  Nottingham City Council once sponsored Torville & Dean and look what they achieved.

Very little money is  spent on providing sporting venues in the UK for young people to develop their natural sporting talents.  Decent running tracks, swimming pools, tennis courts, badminton courts, and rowing [etc] facilities are few and far between.  

We wouldn't have half as many 'loose end' youngsters bored out of their minds after school if there were plenty of sporting activities for them to give them the experience of personal effort, achievement  and praise.

OK - we now have a National Tennis Centre at Roehampton [London area] - fat lot of good that is to youngsters on our island in North Wales!!  The chances of our Council doing anything are nil!

On a small Greek island my grandchildren had free tennis coaching from a French professional [for age 4 - 10] paid for by the Mayor's Office.  They showed real talent but now they live here there is nothing, not even a coach we could pay to train them.  That little island has also produced top dinghy sailors and windsurfers thanks to the Mayor's Office.  Some will be in the Olympics this year!

Answer 2

no idea.. they do not have the skill set in the country... they have the ambition but perhaps just not enough natural skill set.. perhaps its not meant to be...

Answer 3

i think the US Open is a better tournament for both players and spectators.

brits, largely, don't have the interest necessary to develop junior talent. they don't have a USTA sanctioning junior tournaments every weekend like we do, say, in California.

Answer 4

The same reason as we have very few outstanding sportsment in most fields - we don't put the money and resources in from an early age

Answer 5

Has there ever been any really good British player?

Answer 6

Most of the guys are into footfall. That's where the money and the crowds seem to be. So tennis, with all its grandeur and history, tends to become a display ground for Russian, Swiss and Spanish talent. Would like to see an Englishman (or lady) make it up there, though.

Answer 7

i think poorer countries, want it more, and people here are more spoilt

just a theory  tho.

Answer 8

Because until recently there have been no decent training facilites in britain and no talent centres. We now have Roehampton (National Tennis centre) and it will be interesting to see if this produces more top players.

Answer 9

Because the LTA rewards failure.  It finances and props up players who are just not good enough!

However watch out for Laura Robson.

ps

Alex Bogdanovich complained when he lost his LTA funding (£60,000 per annum) having reached the dizzy heights of 500 in the world.  He is now 232 and incredibly is Britain's No 2 player.

Answer 10

British sport is grossly underfunded in general - The UK has no coverage of any sport other than football, and that's where all the money goes. We have several World champions in sports that don't receive the hype - Our last World Rally Champion died tragically of a brain haemmorage & it didn't warrant a mention on the news (Richard Burns, if anyone cares). Britain has dominated snooker World snooker for years.

Tennis suffers from snobbery: It's run by the corrupt LTA, which favours wealthy people from 'nice' families, but won't fund any talent from elsewhere.

It has just been announced that Junior Football League tables have been banned, so as not to put pressure on children, so I wouldn't expect any British nation to produce any decent footballing talent over the next few years.

The PC brigade in this country mean that all competitive sport from school level is now seen as unsavoury, I doubt that Britain will win much in the next few olymic games, and you can forget tennis altogether.

Answer 11

u probably need to train ur players harder!

Answer 12

Life is a cycle... just wait until all the others have faded... and probably a new born baby now somewhere in the nursery of a London hospital can grow up to be a multiple Wimbledon champion in the future... might even break records... just be patient please...

Answer 13

I would say it has to do with how important tennis really is to the people of Britain. When you put football, cricket, and even rugby, up against tennis, it just seems that there is more interest and financial assistance being put into those other sports rather than tennis itself. It's that simple!!!

Also you have to understand that to the average young English boy or girl, they don't really see tennis as a long-term future for them. The same thing is currently happening in the United States. If the Williams sisters, Roddick and Blake were to retire or be injured, there isn't anyone left to carry the torch so to speak. It's because the young up and coming players aren't giving their entire lives to the sport the way some of the former champions of the sport once did when they were young.

Most young people interested in tennis are lacking the financial resources they need to become a world champion at a young age and because of this higher education seems like an alternative for them. They forgo their tennis careers and head off the college, hoping to find a way of continuing their tennis lives through that route. However its difficult to balance academics and try to improve your game when you are in college. Tennis is an all year long sport, so there really isn't any time left to do other things. You have to be committed to it 24/7.