Weakest era for British Men players

Obviously AM aside but it seems a very strange thing to say, and a ridiculous position for British Men’s tennis to be in, but surely this is the weakest ever era for British Men’s tennis with very little likelihood of things improving?.

Evans, at no.2 might just get into the top 200 at some point but below him you have Ward who appears to be on the slippery slope, then some bloke who was an Aussie a few weeks ago (the Tebbit test of who he’s rooting (no pun intended) for in the Ashes would be interesting), then Boggo followed by two players that have given the game up.

A little bit of daylight might just appear in the gloom after that with 3 early – mid-twenties players in the 300’s then the big hope Edmund nicely placed just outside the 400 but. Presumably, still playing juniors. Golding and Burton appear to have drifted

Outside of Murray, it is a complete and utter shambles ! Even at that Murray learned the ropes abroad in Continental Europe.

In fairness here in Ireland, our very own Conor Niland did really well considering the limited resources at his disposal. He was consistently ranked ahead of all UK players outside of Murray. I think Niland reached 119 which is a great achievement, he also qualified for both Wimbledon and the US Open without wild cards.

I always felt so sorry for him that wimbledon gave all these wildcards year after year to the same British players who were ranked way behind Niland and got knocked out in 1st round every time!! I think bogdanovic got about 7 or 8 wild cards and never won a match. I know Niland is Irish but seems like such a shame he had to come through qualifying while the others got freebie access.

Sorenson also did great for us, reaching 3rd round of Oz Open before losing to Isner

How is there not one decent player in the UK with such a comparatively large population and so much funding?? really is shocking. When you think of the amount of players coming through in Eastern europe all the time

In E Europe they have this idea that you get yourself out of bad situations and into better ones.

In Britain we ask 'shouldn't the government be doing more to help people'.

It matters.

Starting with the decline of Federer and Nadal as of this time, yes... it's one of the weakest.  But blame homogenisation. The fact is, spending time in the gym, and pushing balls back, is now more important than actual ability. And yes, I know this was about British, but it's across the board.

Federer is a pusher, a counter puncher and a moon baller, its all there on Utube.

Pusher extraordinaire... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igicoafWhT0
Counter Puncher......... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tg_gdTp_Gg
Moon baller................ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqgTVttYTNs

I’m sure the points you’re making are valid jubbaisle, however, Federer is neither weak nor (sadly) British.

I would, however, be interested in your views on the current state of British Men’s tennis excluding Andy Murray who appears to have got the hang of the game now

Bradman

Unfortunately your interesting thread and question has got caught up in an argument from elsewhere.

A few thoughts:

1 - We do have some talent coming through from the Juniors. Edmund and Golding have both shown promise that they can become at least top 100-type players.

2 - There is some talent in the players in their mid 20s, but some (Evans having admitted as much about himself) have not worked hard enough to maximise their technical skills. Now, how much of this comes down to simple motivation and how much to young players being given too cushy a ride with LTA funding is something that only an insider would really be able to answer.

3 - The LTA funding of players, which is strongly focussed on the top end of the game, has definitely not been a roaring success on the men's side, although has been beneficial in the last couple of years in the development of Watson and Robson. The point is that by narrowly focussing on the most promising handful of players from about 13 or 14 years old, you have a high risk strategy that can both have late developers slip through the net and spend a lo of money developing someone who falls by the wayside though injury or a lack of love for the life of a pro tennis player (the travelling and living out of a suitcase for 10 months a year is not for everyone, even if the rewards for success can be great).

4 - Not sure how true this actually is, but there is still a perception with the way that the LTA operates that there is an element of 'does your face fit?'

Think you have a point, Bradman. South Africa probably put the equivalent of £100, 000 into tennis in the last three or four years. We have two men and women in the top 200. Its amazing that Britain has dwarfed us in spending and yet, despite having a home Slam, we aren't too far behind. If you think it's expensive to involve your kids in tennis, imagine being in the toe-end of the world, needing to enter your kids into European tournaments. Considering that, yeah British tennis is grossly underperforming

When are people going to get it? It's got nothing to do with funding and everything to do with hunger.

Feeding something doesn't make it hungry.

So bogbrush are you suggesting (in, if I may say, a somewhat taciturn way) that life is too easy for British players ie they are too well provided for by the LTA? If so, would the LTA taking say a third of their earnings heighten their desire or hunger. That would give them an incentive wouldn’t it?

I think it’s a little simplistic to suggest that it’s purely desire or hunger that makes the difference between a Murray and say a Jamie Baker. I have great admiration for Baker inasmuch as he made the best of his talents and appeared to be ‘hungry’ for success but lacked the talent, skill and body to be top 100.

I’d have to be inside the LTA to know just what sort of services / support / funding they give to the players but I see it as essentially a man-management scenario and maybe differ from player to player depending on each player’s ability / willingness to make their own arrangements or to be clearer in their path to the top. From everything I’ve read about Murray the one thing that comes through very clearly is his clarity of vision of how he was going to make it; I don’t doubt the same can be said for Djoko, Fed and Rafa.

No, I think the population as a whole are trained to expect someone else to be accountable for their success. That reduces the pool of people available to become great achievers.

This is being countered by the investment in training elite athletes.

If there was an aspirational culture throughout the country there'd be a huge pool, and with elite support there'd be top twenty players in abundance.

The issue is a national one, not tennis.

My take is that it cultural.

BB's view has some merit. If a child is athletically gifted, do we, as a country, have a culture where aspiration is linked to hard work? We can't dismiss an entire generation but I do sense that very often fame is aspired to for its own sake rather than as a product of achievement. And often working hard to better one's self is seen as "uncool".

I think the above may also account for some of the decline in the number of American players breaking through too.

The other cultural hindrance is that even if there is an athletically gifted kid with a work ethic and supportive parents, will they be drawn to tennis? Culturally the big sports in this country are football, rugby and cricket.

Broadly speaking, my view is not so much that the system is flawed but that kids who could make it are not finding their way to tennis in the first place.

I think the idea that the UK is the only country that fund their tennis players is a bit silly.

It's one of the few players that DIRECTLY funds its players from a fund, but most other countries have ways and means to ensure their players don't miss out.