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in place in Britain he would be a much better player ! The same could be said of many players in the top 100 in the world and the same could be said of virtually all the players at the International Masters of the Nike Junior Tour which is the worlds biggest tournament for Juniors at U12 and U14 level presumably if they had all been trained in Britain they would be better players than they are!  No extreme grips, playing close to the baseline and taking the ball on the rise, getting to the net to use those well honed volleys !

The mini-tennis competitive structure being forced on everyone involved in tennis is totally unproven. In our own research we discussed the new competitive framework with 100 full-time professional coaches only 2% of these coaches believe the new framework is a good plan this means that based on this research 98% of coaches are working within a system they do not believe in.

The system is apparently based on scientific proof but then again scientifically a bee cannot fly as its wings are small for the size and weight of its body so although science is useful it cannot be used as the measuring stick for the success of the programme. So where else can we look for proof of its success, well as already mentioned we have been asked to look at countries such as Belgium, Holland and Canada but based on this the success is limited to say the least and certainly less successful than Britain. So the new system is actually a theory, based on perception, a point of view and a vision of the future and on the experience of countries less successful than ourselves. As we know in coaching we cannot predict the future of tennis in terms of technical or tactical development. This is created and developed by the players themselves, we as coaches take our lessons from them, analysing the best players in the world, taking the common denominators and then introducing them into our teaching. I have yet to meet a coach that have been able to develop a stroke or a tactic before it has been seen in the professional game, yet this is exactly what the LTA are trying to do. They are predicting that to be a world class player in the future you have to be an all court player with good volleys that can take the ball early on the rise and play on the baseline. This is what would be considered to be good hard court tennis but we also know this style of play does not work on clay courts on which many of the world ranked tournaments are played on. We also know that a well trained clay court player stereotypically with an extreme grip playing behind the baseline finds it far easier to adjust their game to play on hard courts and even grass (just ask Borg or Nadal) than a hard court trained player finds the adjustment to clay (ask Sampras, Henman etc..)

So rather than follow the trends of tennis as they are today, rather than follow the systems of countries that have consistently produced world class players, rather than allow coaches, players and parents to make decisions about tournament entries the LTA have decided that the rest of the world has got it wrong and that they are right and to produce the next British champion all we have to do is do as we are told ! I know that we will only truly be able to judge this in time but looking on what has happened in the past and what is happening in the present it is difficult to believe that the LTA can predict the future better than anyone else in world tennis.