WTF - Henman To Return At The AEGON Masters Tennis In London

[MisterGregory42]

Yes. I am retarded.

I thought this was a return to the ATP tour.

Yeah, you and me both.

[VillaJ100]

Whats sad is that if he did return, he'd soon be Britains number two.

[Moralspain]

I´m sure british tennis will be at the top again soon, it's just having a run of bad luck.

[Mike Rotchtickles]

Will be at the top of what?
Things look extremely bleak with not much of a better outlook for the future.
This can't be put down to just a run of bad fortune. The people that have been in the recent past and those that are running the show now, have made a mess of things.

Probably the british guys on this forum might know more about the details, but it doesn't look like it's a money problem. I mean I think I heard £43m a year as the British tennis budget.
More likely, as I remember reading it somewhere, is that it's a case of the LTA themselves being the problem in that their system alienates coaches at the grass roots level, while they chuck good money at kids who just don't have the heart.
There's kids from Europe and elsewhere who are just hungrier for it. And the Brits just don't match their work ethic on and off the court, so they fall short.

But definately the problem isn't one of just bad fortune.

[VillaJ100]

Trouble is, tennis is still an elitst sport. Local councils think that for such a large space to be taken up by a court where a maximum of only 4 people can play, for the space of 3 courts they could have a football pitch and get 22 people plus subs playing. Football has pretty much destroyed every other sport's grass roots in this country, it dominates EVERYTHING. As how many boys at school have played football, the number will be about 99%. ask how many played tennis, the number will be 10% or less, and of those 10% only 1% had access to any sort of decent coaching if they were any good. Thus, tennis courts in this country are mainly private, thus expensive, thus meaning only the kids from the upper echelons of society get a chance to play. Listen to heather watson, she hardly speaks with a 'working class' accent. Ditto tim henman, and all the random jamie wards and colin flemings et al who's dads are all rich and 'old boys' from eton or oxford or some crap. ok not andy murray but he's hardly from a poor background.

The closest i can think of is dan evans whos from birmingham, like me. He speaks with a brummie accent (USA people think ozzy without brain damage) and is a member at the edgbaston priory club by my university, he plays for them i think, and the club holds a minor warm up tournament for women before wimbledon.

However, the priory clubs yearly membership to the tennis facilities and gym is over £750, not exactly cheap.

Its not so much the facilities though, we have a fair amount of courts and places to play. Its the fact that tennis isn't a pick up and play sport like badminton, you need to learn and be taught how to play, and it just isn't done in schools. You need private lessons which are idk, £50 a hour? quite a lot for you to pay for your 6 year old. Luckily my dad taught me

[Vieira151]

Colin Fleming didnt come from London. He started playing at Linlithgow in Scotland, and ive played there a few times
Yeah, i agree with Villa, only the rich people or upper class people get to recieve teh best coaching ,and as they are already pretty rich, they have no drive(see Gulbis )
There just isnt enought people playing tennis in scotland(not sure bout england) at a young age to find any potentioal talent.

[Mike Rotchtickles]

@ VillaJ100,
all good points those you make.

Anyway, what if I was to say to you that tennis is no more expensive than let's say boxing, if you discount the training fees. The difference is that the people involved in coaching kids soccer and boxing are doing it for nothing whilst those coaching tennis are charging a rate that makes it almost exclusively a middle class sport. This is done deliberately because a lot of mediocre talents make a very healthy living out of it and opening up to too many people would threaten those mediocrities (and their successors) livelihoods.

Is that theory too far fetched?

[VillaJ100]

Hmm i wouldn't think so, sounds about right, especially with these "tennis pro" coaches. You see adverts to 'contact your local pro'. WTF does this mean? does this mean they had a solid career on the ATP tour (not challengers etc) for 10+ years (i think not) or they had a couple of matches in Manchester on the satellite tour at age 15 then give up. That sounds about right to me.

It also a failure to mave with the times from a tennis standpoint too. Henman went to Reeds school, and they taught him serve and volley tennis. Chris eaton went to reeds school, and they taught him the same, however while i'd love nothing more than a successful SV'er to get to the top of the game again, when you slow down the grass at wimbledon (even though henman and rusedski are SV'ers) and continue to teach serve and volley, that doesnt really make a lot of sense. the LTA is bloated and as you mentioned earlier spends fortunes on lame players. Evans is our player with the most talent but if he ever breaks the top 150 and stops there i'll be very surprised, he's nearly twenty as i think is about 275 in the world. I remember him playing malisse at queens when he was 18 and losing easily, and malisse hadn't played for ages, and the bbc was asking him his opinions on the future of british tennis, and malisse was like "but, this guy has no weapons" lol.

This culture of giving our farce players wildcards into wimbledon and queens has to stop too. I'm not sure how much prize money you get for losing in the 1st round of queens and wimbledon singles and doubles, its probably £6000 for queens singles, £1000 for doubles, and wimbledon 1st round loss probably about £10,500 for singles and £3000 for doubles, maybe £1000 for mixed doubles, all totalled thats £22,500 earnt in two tournaments, not counting any other odd bits of prize money you've managed to scrape together over the year which might bump it up to £30-35,000 which isn't exactly a bad job doing something you love and not being very good at it, especially as thats all earnings and the LTA fund all your coaching and travel expenses.

No wonder they are lazy.