British tennis continues its slip into obscurity after last weekend's events.
Britain suffered embarrassing 3-2 defeat at the hands of a Lithuania; who had only one player with a top 500 ATP ranking.
Britain now face a relegation match against Turkey in June a loss would see them fall into Europe/Africa group 4 the bottom tier of the Davis Cup competition.
Nations competing in this bottom tier of International competition include: Armenia and San Marino.
The important questions are why has Britain's standing in men's tennis been allowed to reach this low? And who is responsible?
Former Davis cup captain, David Lloyd has placed the blame at the doorstep of the head of the Lawn Tennis Association, Roger Draper.
Draper has been in charge of Lawn Tennis Association who have the responsibility to ensure Britain produce top-class tennis players.
Lloyd argues under Draper this has not happened: 'Where are the male players the LTA has actually produced? Zero'.
Whilst Britain possess a world-class tennis player and likely future Grand Slam champion in Andy Murray Lloyd believes the LTA are not responsible for his development. 'Murray didn't come through the system his Mum was brave enough to take him out of it'. Murray left Britain as a teenager to further develop as a player and therefore was not trained under the LTA.
Lloyd was also critical of Draper for defending Murray's decision to not play in Britain's Davis Cup tie against Lithuania.
The Scot decided to rule himself out of selection last weekend's Davis Cup fixture suggesting the tie would be a good opportunity for young players to gain Davis Cup experience; the decision back-fired as Britain lost the tie. Lloyd said: 'Roger is wrong endorsing the fact Andy shouldn't have played. That was a bad call'.
Whilst Lloyd's attack on Draper may be biased as his brother John is Britain's current Davis Cup captain and is also under-fire as under his stewardship Britain have gone five ties without a win which is the worst they have performed for 110 years. He certainly brings up some interesting points. Men's tennis is going through a vintage patch Federer and Nadal's Wimbledon final in 2008 may well be the greatest game of tennis the world has ever seen. Federer is also one of the greatest players ever to play the game and an opportunity to watch a sporting legend before he is past his prime has kept. British interest in tennis is also at a high some of Andy Murray's recent Wimbledon matches have pulled in over ten million viewers.
With the current popularity of tennis the LTA should be doing more to ensure people are playing what I consider to be a brilliant game.
With the LTA's budget being so high (it was reported that last year that they had a budget of £59.7 million). I don't see why the LTA cannot do more to try and offer tennis for free to the British public; the government is offered a huge budget to try and improve the standard of tennis surely if less courts were privatised more people would play the sport.
Whilst I don't ever see tennis becoming Britain's main sport or replacing the passion people have for football and both types of rugby in some areas of the UK; I believe tennis should be more accessible to everyone and not a sport you often need membership to play on a proper court. Football will often be the sport young people look to play when they have free time as you can have a kick about anywhere whilst when people may fancy a game of tennis the costs to become a member of a tennis club will often put people off. The failure of the LTA to increase participation at grass roots level is my main issue with Draper's leadership.
Draper has also failed to embrace campaigns suggesting and promoting the idea of 'tennis for free; Tony Hawk (a comedian and author and not the famous skateboarder) has a campaign called 'tennis for free' and has felt Draper has not been cooperative with him. Hawks claimed that in a 2008 meeting with Draper the LTA boss ended the meeting abruptly telling Hawks 'get out of my office now'.
Whilst Draper's failures at grassroots level infuriate me; I feel he has been no more successful in dealing with current British professionals. Draper appointed the well-respected American coach Brad Gilbert in 2006 in attempt to offer Andy Murray the World-class coach he needed to pursue Grand Slams, this deal proved unsuccessful as Murray did not enjoy working with Gilbert and the two split after 16 months. Whilst Gilbert helped Murray secure a top ten ATP World ranking for the first time it is under current coach, Miles Maclagan that the British number 1 has looked most happy reaching a career high ranking of World number 2 and reaching two Grand Slam finals.
Gilbert's other work with the LTA proved unsuccessful he worked with the talented yet mentally frail Alex Bogdanovic but couldn't inspire the Briton to break the top 100 in the ATP rankings or finally win a first round match at Wimbledon.
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