BBC Sport Online investigates.

Academy action

A national tennis centre is planned in south-west London and should open in 2006.

"We will now have a world class centre comparable to leading tennis nations," says LTA performance director Patrice Hagelauer.

"It will offer the kind of facilities that our players and coaches deserve and is vital to the future of tennis in Britain.

"We have also reorganised our academy network so that we have four academies instead of seven."

The four academies, which will look after promising teenagers between 14 and 16 years of age, will be based at Welwyn, Loughborough, Bath and Leeds.

Better coaching

"Working with kids as young as nine is a completely different job to social coaching with adults," says Hagelauer.

"We've hired some very good coaches like Carl Maes (former coach of Kim Clijsters), and our intermediate teams are set up.

"Identifying talent is just one aspect. Then it is hard work, strength, speed and power.

"The key is how the players will develop, technically, physically and mentally - and this is where coaching comes in.

"Only one out of four players in the juniors top 50 make it to the senior top 100."

Get kids playing

The LTA has several initiatives aimed at getting more children involved in tennis at a young age.

They believe that the key age for kids to take up the game is between four and nine.

Mini-tennis clubs are being set up to meet that need, while the Robinsons JNR Tennis programme is aimed at keeping children aged between nine and 12 in the game.

The Players of the Future plan supports talented 11 to 17-year-olds by providing coaching, training facilities and medical back-up.

"In two years we have developed more than 550 Mini-tennis clubs - and that means 33,000 kids are now involved," says Hagelauer.

"This is the base we need. We are aiming to get 50,000 kids on board. If you don't have that base, you will not have champions at the top."

A better club structure

"We are working to identify the best clubs in the country, the ones which have good junior programmes," says Hagelauer.

"At the moment we have about 100 clubs with good junior programmes. We would like to have 400.

"It took us 15 months to get those 100 clubs, so it will take us five years to find the ideal number.

"If we get 400, I see no reason why we cannot have four or five players in the world's top 100."