What can be done to boost British tennis?

This debate is now closed.

Despite Great Britain's defeat of Thailand in the recent Davis Cup qualifier, the future for the game is far from rosy according to the LTA performance director Hagelauer.

The Frenchman claims that a combination of the non-competitive nature of most club tennis, a lack of interest from youngsters and chronic underinvestment have left British tennis in serious trouble.

Hagelauer advocates the foundation of a tennis academy system, fundamental changes in club culture, more government funding for the game and initiatives to get more children involved at grass roots level.

What changes would you make to British tennis?

I would suggest looking abroad for second generation British who can play for Great Britain. Tennis is not elitist in a lot of other countries but unfortunately it is here. Rusedski has proved his worth - let's try this for others.
Sarah Grobler, England

Having played tennis myself it is not an easy game to learn and play. It is expensive and not really suitable for our moody climate. We want more champions, but champions are freaks and cannot be produced to order. We say cannot win Wimbledon, but when did England last win the football, cricket or rugby World Cups? The only sport that we punch above our weight in is athletics - and this is because it features urban talent that trains hard and has the burning desire to win.
Peter Hayes, England

Tennis' problem is exactly the same as cricket's. It's not nearly accessible enough for youngsters. Is it any wonder when kids have to pay to join tennis clubs that the sport is seen as elitist? Football's simplicity will always produce a certain amount of talent because it's played on the streets of Britain. You only have to look at the ladies game to see what can be achieved when the sport is opened up.

The Williams sister came from the ghetto. If we are to produce a Wimbledon champion, we cannot afford to restrict the game to middle-class kids who give the sport up before they attend university or lack the competitive edge that comes from struggling to achieve anything in life.
Graham, UK

What's wrong with tennis? Look at David and Kerry's comments below. How can we hope to find a wealth of talented players when 80% of the country is alienated as we riffraff eat sandwiches?

I love tennis and football and all other sports. I have a great respect for anyone who tries to harbour the weight of expectation that this country places upon its sporting stars. Maybe when the narrow-minded upper-class elite join the rest of us riffraff, we may start to unearth the talent in this country's population.
Paul Banks, England

Simple. Not many in this country are interested in tennis. Get over it. Give me Rugby Union any day, at least we are good at it. On the contrary to what people may think on this page, England have a better team than Australia, who we have beaten on the last two occasions.
Matthew, England

It all comes down to facilities and philosophy of sport. It has been suggested that Australia's success is due to money. That has helped but it also the grassroots participation. I live in a country town of 10,000. We have a 50m Olympic swimming pool, 13 cricket ovals, six hockey ovals, six lawn tennis courts and 10 Aussie Rules grounds and an indoor basketball stadium. If you can play it makes a difference and broadens the pool of future champions
Peter, Australia

They need to build more indoor courts. Having lived a year in Australia, there was barely one day where the weather wasn't perfect for youngsters to go out and spend a whole day playing tennis. We're lucky if we get 20 days a year in England. Thus, Australian children have 15 times as many days they can dedicate to outdoor sport than us. Our lazy culture doesn't help either. Something is woefully wrong when we frequently have juniors in the world's top 10 but then disappear without trace.
Mark, England

I used to play semi-professional tennis in my youth but unfortunately due to the lack of money invested in my club I was forced to quit playing along with many of the other girls I used to play with. To be honest I can't see this changing. There are many fine women tennis players but without the investment, there will be no future.
Natalie Jessup, UK

If I had money to spend promoting sport in this country I wouldn't waste any of it on tennis. Take away Wimbledon fortnight (which usually has no British presence after day two) and the occasional jingoism of a Davis Cup tie and you're left with a sport that next to no-one in this country cares about.
Dougal McKinnon, UK

Finding the next Tim Henman is exactly what we want to avoid. We don't need more players choking and throwing it away on the big stage.
Shaun, UK

In England we have a nasty habit of doing everything in a traditional way, so we never improve. We are no worse off than we have ever been it just looks that way because every other country in the world (except maybe Thailand) don't have stupid traditions and have progressed beyond our abilities.

It seems to me that the structure of every game in certain countries are continually looked at and made more efficient. Australia are a perfect example. They have the world's best rugby and cricket teams, some of the best swimmers and the number one men's tennis player. By 2010 they will probably have won the football World Cup. I reckon if any British sport is to improve, not just tennis, we need to look at how the Aussies do things and get rid of the old farts that run the LTA.
Neil, England

Wimbledon is part of the social and cultural fabric of the nation. Standards would slip if lower class people, with their beer and sandwiches culture, intrude into the mannered grace that imbues the British character and summertime. Come on Tiger Tim, show them what for!
Kerry, London, England

Britain shouldn't be looking for the next Tim Henman. We should be looking for better players who can win Grand Slam events.
Ed, UK

I play a great deal of tennis in my local club (Ballyhalbert Tennis Academy) and we have fewer members each year. However, we do consider ourselves to be very lucky to have these facilities at all as neighbouring hamlets have nothing - not even outdoor courts - to play on. I believe the secret to making tennis popular is to make courts readily available to everyone all over the country. With more courts and better facilities a boom in the sport is bound to happen.
Niall Clegg, Ballyhalbert, Portaferry

So many anti-tennis comments on this board from those who either don't know the game, or don't understand it. Yes, tennis is seen as elitist, it is seen as snobby, but that's fine - it keeps the riffraff who follow football out.

Tennis should be taught in school as a sport, and there should be more government support for local clubs to encourage and train talented youngsters. Other countries with much smaller populations can produce talented players, and not just in tennis, but across all sports.

The UK doesn't have a decent attitude towards sport, pure and simple. But let's face it, the sports which do get the money, attention, and support, haven't exactly done much for the country over the years.
David, Scotland

All tennis promotion seems to be via clubs - but since when did any club produce a champion, or show any interest in youth? Remember that Tim had his own court and Greg learnt the game overseas.

Take my children, when my daughter was young she had some tennis lessons in a group, but this gradually faded as facilities (even in leafy North Herts) were almost impossible to find and playing outdoor in January isn't much fun. She now plays netball and cricket.

We did wonder if my six-year-old son might like to try the game - but there is absolutely nothing available. It's not taught in any schools - primary or secondary. The local clubs are totally uninterested in children. The nearby public courts have now disappeared due to (and unsurprising) lack of use or interest. So he is now playing rugby and cricket and will probably never pick up a racket or step onto a court.

The fault lies at the door of the LTA. It's all well and good to blame a lack of government support, but rugby and cricket and football and netball get no such support either - but they are doing rather well.
John Birch, England

I am into tennis but here it is extremely difficult to play regularly without paying extortionate amounts, or travelling far. Tennis in this country is too elitist, and under-funded. Unless more courts are built for cheaper, no one will be encouraged to play, and Britain will never have more than a couple of good players
Dave, Foreigner in UK

Most of the blame should lie at the feet of clubs. They are more concerned with exclusion rather than inclusion. If only a small minority have access to courts then the chance of developing champions is small... it's that simple.
Giles, UK

Britain needs to decide whether her taxpayers have sufficient spare cash and the enthusiasm to finance and enthusiastically embrace professional sports, including tennis. The present system - or lack of it - of elitist amateur clubs launching players into a fiercely competitive international arena just doesn't produce players of sufficiently high quality to be consistently successful.
Chris B, England

Well, well, well, we've heard all this before. I teach and play the game here in Spain, and I am not saying that all is perfect here, but even club matches at veteran level are all singles matches, the doubles is for fun.

The coaching system is so different here but someone in the UK must know that. You can't blame the weather either; there are many parts of Spain where it is worse than in the UK. And you now have all these wonderful indoor centres that were supposed to encourage the development of junior tennis.

But what in real terms have they done for tennis in the UK, from opening up a market for those people who can afford to pay? And sorry that doesn't help the kids down the road. What is the answer?

One thing I will say, there are some very good coaches in the UK, and these people are not being used. Instead we have a group of people controlling the teaching side, who are totally out of touch. And the long-term effect even shows up here, where the number of youngsters who come on holiday for tennis lessons has dropped considerably. No one wants to play any more, and it's such a shame, as it is a great game.
John, Spain

The problem with tennis in this country is that it is viewed, quite rightly as a minority sport. Therefore it will never, and should not, attract central government funding. The interest simply isn't there to begin with.

But if the LTA were really serious about turning tennis into a mass participation sport (which I doubt), their first act should be to dig up the grass at Wimbledon to produce a credible tournament, not a date for the social and corporate calendar.
David, England

It really doesn't matter how much you put into a sport to try to train champions of the future. At the end of the day you need to have a natural talent and a desire to take part in the sport to get to the top.

If you look at tennis in particular, there are a very limited number of events involving a very limited number of people from all countries around the world. What's the point in trying to become part of that elite in the first place? It's just far too much effort for so little opportunity.

If you're a natural then it should be picked up at school or local clubs and taken from there. If (and it's a big if) you really want to waste your life in this way. Come on, there are so many other things to do!
Richard Phillips, London UK

The change has to start at school. I remember my tennis lessons where I would have to share a court with six other people playing over a net that was down by my ankles. For any kid that had the slightest interest, this was really off putting.

Schools (or the LTA) should invest in getting professional coaches in to teach after school for pupils that really want to learn how to play well.

Public access to courts is also pathetic. When you do find courts they are poorly maintained and sometimes unusable. The state of public courts where I live are so bad that I had to join a tennis club just to gain access to courts that were level!
Sham, UK

In Britain there are no public tennis courts that are any good. So where do we play? I'm not paying hundreds of pounds just to play tennis. The sport is a friendly sport but "snobs" have taken over the game and they think that just because we don't have millions in our bank account that we aren't allowed to play tennis! It's a disgrace. I want this to be heard by people on the website to see if any other teenagers feel the same.
Darren Astley, Wales

The National Academy at Roehampton is a step in the right direction. The City tennis clubs in London and Liverpool have proved successful, encouraging children to take up the game. Wimbledon makes a massive profit every year, but still Martin Lee is the 'best of the rest,' all the promise of Lee Childs seems to have subsided and what has happened to Alex Bogdanovic results since his fine display at the National Championships last year?

A few years ago Mark Petchey said he wasn't offered a coaching role by the LTA, having retired. He then went on to coach European players to the top 100.

Apart from Henman, Britain has produced average players, surely these players, could help or mentor the younger British talent into not falling into the kind of traps they did, when they started. We're years behind France, Sweden and Spain for example in youth player development.

Why does Britain only have grass court tournaments in the summer? Why not run clay tournaments prior to the French Open too? Maybe the LTA bigwigs should be paid on commission of players reaching the top 150, then they may start to act.
James Buddell, France

Tennis is dead. It's not cool so nobody wants to do it. If our professionals were any good, or actually English, then people might take it seriously, but at the moment most kids want to be a DJ rather than the next English tennis pro to lose another game.
Jeff, England

The only way forward is to ban doubles for all league and representative tennis i.e. inter-county matches. County weekends are all doubles, players are not picked on singles ability. This is not the way to produce top 100 singles players.
Steve Dobbins, UK

Tennis is still too elitist! It'll sound like sour grapes I know, but when I was younger I was a reasonable player but I couldn't afford to be coached. I reached a certain level and then gave up tennis and turned to football instead. I don't know how good I might have been but how many other people does this apply to? It's not inconceivable that one of them could have been a Wimbledon champion.
Brownie, UK