By Piers Newbery BBC Sport at Wimbledon

Roger Draper became chief executive at the LTA on 3 April

It's a cold, wet Monday at the end of June so it should be no surprise that the All England Club is shrouded in gloom.

The start of Wimbledon heralds Britain's annual two-week love affair with tennis and, usually, a raft of negative stories about the game in this country.

With no British man seeded for the first time in a decade, and no British woman in the world's top 100, 2006 looks set to follow a familiar pattern.

BBC Sport caught up with new LTA chief executive Roger Draper, the man charged with turning around British tennis, on the opening day at Wimbledon.

What makes you optimistic about the potential of tennis in the UK?

British tennis is full of opportunity. Tennis is one of the only sports - along with rugby, cricket and football - that can capture the British imagination on a large scale.

The LTA get blamed for lots of things but you can't blame us for the weather Roger Draper, LTA chief executive

We're a passionate sporting nation and a passionate tennis nation, and we've got to start winning a few more events - hopefully in the future some Davis Cups, Federation Cups and Grand Slams.

Undoubtedly in this country we've got the talent. We don't have a problem getting kids into the sport, but one of the areas we've got to address is keeping them in the sport.

There are lots of barriers, particularly to parents, around travel and cost. Part of my job is to remove the excuses British tennis has got to not perform.

Is Wimbledon a blessing or a curse to the British game?

We need to educate the public at large that tennis takes place over 52 weeks of the year, not just the Wimbledon fortnight.

British hopes look like being pinned on Andy Murray in the near future

Wimbledon is the best thing we've got, but it's also the worst thing as most people judge the success of British tennis on whether we win Wimbledon.

It does annoy me sometimes when people say 'when are Tim and Greg going to make it?'

We've won 30 tour events over the last decade, Tim's been to four Wimbledon semis, the French Open semi, the US Open semi; Andy Murray's rocketed from 440 to the top 50.

On one level we're quite successful in one of the toughest sports in the world to get to the very top. What we've got to do is build on that and clearly Wimbledon gives us a good spotlight.

At the moment there don't appear to be any youngsters ready to join Andy Murray at the top of the game - is there any reason for optimism there?

On the girls' side we've got a really good crop of 10, 11 and 12-year-olds.

The Wren sisters are coming through and there's a lot of focus on those two to do well, but there's a whole batch of them.

What we've got to do is provide them with the best coaching and support services to give them the opportunity to succeed at the highest level.

Andy Murray is about to be thrown into the Wimbledon circus for the first time as an established top-50 player, do you have any worries for him?

Andy's learning all the time but he's a professional and he realises that it's probably going to be three or four years before we see him performing at his best.

He's still learning about being a top-50 player and obviously he's got some work to do physically as well.

While he wears his heart on his sleeve, he's pretty level-headed and he knows where he is.

And on a positive note, presumably matches like Rusedski v Safin and, potentially, Henman v Federer are what tennis needs in a World Cup-obsessed country?

These are fantastic matches. We send all our best wishes to the England football team because we want them to be successful, but our job is to make tennis successful.

With Tim, Greg and Andy we've got three players who are right up there among the very best in the world and have got every chance of success both this year and over the next few years.

Finally, the weather... what are the LTA going to do about it?

The LTA get blamed for lots of things but you can't blame us for the weather.

The problem when it rains is that everybody gets talking and there's the usual negativity and criticism.

One of the things we've got to change is getting everybody feeling positive about British tennis.