In an attempt to readdress this issue and increase participation especially amongst the young in Britain the LTA is spending more than £750,000 a year on Mini-Tennis initiatives (22% of the 3.3million budget). Currently this has produced 568 accredited mini tennis clubs and centres, trained 1200 coaches and encouraged 48,000 young people to play mini tennis (LTA², 2002).
In a survey conducted by the LTA (LTA 2003) it was discovered that 4-11 year olds tennis participation had increase from 6-7% in 1998-2001 to 12% in 2002, possibly indicating the success of the Mini-Tennis initiatives. However, the 12-17 age group has seen a decrease in participation from 18%-22% in 1999-2000 to only 14% in 2001-2002, and also in the 18-24 age group from 12% in 1997, 1998 and 2000 to 8-9% in 2002. In an overall calculation, despite the positive increase in under 11 year olds participation, the direction of the participation trend is downwards. The realisation that the problem lay in the dropout rate during the transition of juniors to senior clubs has led to spending to remedy the effect thought the partnership of Robinson’s in a junior tennis programme which encourages clubs to provide quality tennis programmes for young players between 9 and 14. One of the problems that is faced in this area is that although money is directed towards it, the money does little to break down the barriers and culture of many adult clubs, their traditional nature and attitudes to junior filtration into them.
To add to this predicament tennis has lost ground in terms of players first or equal favourite sport from 54% players in 1999 to 41% in 2002, tennis players report on average to participate in more that three other sports in addition to tennis.
The LTA allocated 33% of its budget in 2002 towards facility development. Providing the provision for people to play tennis is an essential ingredient if the LTA desires more people to participate. Yet, figure 4 demonstrates that we are second, only to Germany in comparison to the actual number of tennis courts we have in this country, despite our relative disadvantage in land area. The leads you to question the reasoning behind the LTA’s allocation of 33% of its budget to this area. It could be argued that we lack in the number of indoor courts we possess especially with our less than favourable climatic variations. We currently only have one indoor court per 58,000 population, in France that figure is 1 per 14,000, and in Sweden it is 9000 (Rowbottom, 2002). It was noted by the LTA development officer, Roger Draper that “although thirty million pounds might sound a lot, but it costs around £1million just to build a four court indoor court.” However, progress has been made on this front with the construction of a 1000 indoor courts in the last decade (Jago 2002).
Development of Quality players
On a performance perspective, the LTA stated some £7.3m has been spent on delivering the LTA Performance programme. This is set to provide financial support to more than 600 talented youngsters aged 8 to 21 years old. (LTA¹, 2002)
The performance programme is constituted of six stages. Initially beginning with Mini-tennis (4 – 8 year olds), then progressing to Club Futures (8 – 10year olds), County Futures (11-13 year olds) , National Futures(11 – 13 year old), Academies and Intermediates (14 -22 year olds) and Seniors. The development of such a structure has mainly down to the former French performance director of the LTA, Patrice Hagelauer, and his knowledge and implementation of the French development system.
Originally seven Tennis Academy centres were proposed but due to the lack of junior talent coming through this was rationalised to four centres namely Bath, Leeds, Loughborough, and Welwyn Garden city. The Loughborough academy alone is costing the LTA £2m. In addition to this a £30m (Harris, 2001) National Centre is in the pipeline and is due to be built at Roehampton and subject to planning process should be ready by 2006. This is set to consist of 6 indoor, 4 grass, 6 hard and 6 clay courts, gymnasium, player and coach support services, accommodation and medical centre. The LTA is likely to meet the majority of costs for the centre although The All England Lawn Tennis Ground plc are lending a proportion of building costs.
This development has been met with mixed reactions Mark Petchey Sky TV presenter commented “Once again the LTA have their priorities wrong. Unless good youngsters are coming through, the National centre will be a white elephant. Indeed it has been further commented that the belief that there is a misconception that we have talented youngsters (Bob Brett) in the last 10 years there has only been 2 juniors in the International Tennis Federation’s top 50.
One of the key suggestions causing the lack of talented juniors is the quality of coaches in Britain. On 2002 spending figures only 3% of the budget was allocated to coach education. There are currently 2,100 LTA licensed coaches working in clubs in the UK (Jago, 2002). Although that may sound substantial when this figure is put along side the total number of registered player (116,588) it amounts to one coach for every 55 players. The comparison of this to the French’s excess of 4000 licensed coaches clearly illustrates we have some catching up to go (Jago, 2002).
The LTA aims to initially identify talent through the nation’s club system. Yet the current established club structure is will behind that of France and Germany. (Figure 5) France has some 9,200 clubs compared to the 2,400 on Britain (Fordyce, 2002). In addition most of the clubs in France have five courts and a clubhouse. Around 8000 of them were built and maintained by cities and local authorities, each one costs £500,000. The idea of which would be a dream to the LTA and leave them with a substantially greater proportion of finance to invest in more for coaches, development programmes and competition structures (Jago, 2002)
The culture of British tennis clubs may also be to blame. Tennis clubs in Britain might be a pleasant place for an adult to play a few sets on a Sunday afternoon - but they do little to help the country produce future champions. The former performance director Patrice Hagelauer, stated "The culture is one of leisure and social tennis - which is great, if you also have junior tennis and competitive tennis, but at a lot of clubs, that is not there" (Fordyce, 2002).
However, the key to developing successful players may not lie in the relatively expensive problems of increasing the number of clubs, courts and coaches but may be more with how we deal with potential talent and develop it.
The LTA currently relies on talent selection, which is a process of differentiating between those young performers who are already in the sport in order to provide those with the greatest potential with opportunities for advanced level training, support and competition. However, there are a number of disadvantages with this method. Initially it relies on juniors to be playing the game and it has been shown that we currently fall behind in this area. Also, individuals usually compete with others in a similar age group and the most talented from that age group stand out. Selection of success at this young age may not be a direct indicator of potential due to the fact that it fails to take into account the varying maturation levels evident in individuals of the same age that actually dictates there power and strength due to their greater size evidently providing an advantage to those who have had a faster maturity rate. This may go some way in explaining why those talented at that young age and are selected to be developed fail to continue through and emerge and successful players on the senior circuit.
It is obvious that this current method which the LTA employs doesn’t seem to working very well. Our only two players in the top 100 have been described as an ‘accident and a foreigner’ (Roberts, 2002). Tim Henman’s talent was tutored in a privately-run development scheme, and Greg Rusedski, was developed in the Canadian tennis system.
Around the world other countries seem to have realised more efficient way of finding talented individuals. Much of the sporting success of Australia has been down to the realisation back in 1988 by the Australian Institute of Sport and particularly Dr Allan Hahn that it is no longer possible to have a reliance on club systems to deliver talent at an elite level. He stated that “to continue to be internationally competitive, we must actively seek to unearth the talent”. Talent searches initially implemented in rowing spread to a wide variety of sports, and following the announcement in 1994 of Australia to host the Sydney Olympics back in 2000 their in Federal Government allocated $500,000 a year for two years for national talent identification. The success of many Australian athletes at these games demonstrated the significance of such a programme (AIS, 2003). Subsequently in 2002, the tennis specific talent search was implemented namely the Targeted Athlete Project (TAP). The program is individually designed to each player in the scheme to make them a better player. Each player is assessed upon joining TAP and areas of weakness identified. Funds are then allocated to addressing these problems (Tennis Australia, 2003)
This programme aims to support 30 of Australia’s best boys and 30 of there most talented girls. Current members of the programme range from the ages of 11 to the oldest, 22-year-old Evie Dominikovi. With this system in place, Australia, who currently possesses the world’s number one in the male game, Lleyton Hewitt, will no doubt create many more players of international calibre.
The adoption of such a scheme may make considerable financial sense for the LTA. Through the development of a screening process that identifies key multivariate constituents of a successful elite player more appropriate funding can be targeted at a limited number of individuals who it is known that they possess the right psychological, physiological, skill/decision making and even sociological aptitudes necessary for success. A system implemented in schools would not just limit the search to those who are currently active in tennis.
This would eliminates both the players’ frustration of continued participation in a sport that they are not physiologically suited to and will prevent wasting finances on developing a talent that never had the potential to make it to the top, thus allowing the LTA to get the most out of its limited resources.
Can we develop talent and increase participation numbers simultaneously?
The LTA may have set itself an impossible task of increasing player numbers and developing better quality players with the current finances. In an attempt to achieve both finances are spread too thinly and neither is achieved successfully. It is evident that these two aims may not be as mutually supportive as the LTA consider them to be. Indeed it has long been stated the key to possessing high numbers of elite sports players from a nation is to have a broad base of participation and the broader the base the increase in likely hood and probability there is of finding quality players.
There are several critical flaws in this assumption and there are anomalies in statistics that prove so. Figure 6 demonstrates the weak relationship between these two variables and an increase in players is by no means a necessary pre-requisite for developing large numbers of elite performances. This is clearly highlighted in the case of Russia which has double the amount of tennis players Britain has in the top 100 yet has a 1/18th of the amount of total registered players (ETA 2000).
Indeed although increasing the number of players may not have a direct effect on the number of elite players, the concentration of efforts in talent identification and development which will produce a greater number of elite players may have a combined effect in inspiring more players to take up the game; increasing the sports national profile and subsequent possibility of an increase in the sports allocation of financial assistance from national sources which would assist in broadening participation.
Conclusion
Wimbledon remains the predominant financer of the LTA, bringing in a guaranteed £26 million each year. Despite this affluence, many LTA members advocate that there isn’t the finance to gain ground and contend with the major tennis nations. The former LTA performance director is quoted as saying “We would need 10 Wimbledon’s to do all the things that need to be done.” (Bierley, 2002).
This essay has highlighted that the above statement may be correct, but through a better prioritisation of aims British tennis may face a better future. The £30 million a year may not be enough to catch up with and develop an extensive tennis structure that is possessed by the French. However it seems the French road to success may not be the only one. Although, the creation of a vast tennis supportive structure throughout the country, creating many centres and clubs, training coaches and providing many opportunities to spot talent at an early age and nurture it through the competition system may be the ideal and equitable method of success seen in France and Spain. This road to success doesn’t come cheap and have often been funded through private and national government funding where local authorities are willing to develop quality sport facilities around the nation and continually provide financial support in maintenance, these sources of funding are currently not forth coming in Britain.
Alternatively it has been shown that if adequate talent selection as opposed to identification procedures are employed it is possible to produce talented individuals and produce elite performers without the extensive facility structure. To achieve such an aim would involve a shift in spending away traditional pathways and establishing a national system of talent selection.
It is not surprising the LTA has chosen to jointly develop the number and quality of players in its current fashion but although an adequate development system seems to be in place, the years of national under funding of tennis have set us far behind in the race to produce many elite players and continual reliance on the Wimbledon championships to provide the majority of our income will only augment this fact.
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