Andy Murray is a three-time Grand Slam, two-time Olympic Gold medal, Davis Cup and an ATP Tour Finals winner and also a former world number one amongst many other successes.
The 33-year-old is one of the biggest names in tennis and British sport. But besides Murray, there have not been any other British players competing for titles at the top of the game.
In doubles, Andy’s brother Jamie, Joe Salisbury and Heather Watson have all won Grand Slam titles recently but in singles no British player has come close to matching Murray.
Now, Murray is ranked 119 in the world rankings after many injury problems that have left him close to retirement. Dan Evans, Cameron Norrie and Kyle Edmund are the only British players ranked in the top 100 of the men’s game. In the women’s only Johanna Konta and Watson are amongst the top 100.
Why so few players?
There are many reasons for this but perhaps one is a lack of accessibility. Tennis, unlike football, can’t be played so easily. You need balls, courts, nets and rackets – more facilities and equipment are needed to play. This is why the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), the organisation in charge of British tennis, is so keen to get more people participating in the sport.
The LTA released a mission called ‘Vision 2019-2023’ in which key points are made to attract younger players and have a player pathway that, ‘is designed to find and nurture the next generation of champions, with a particular focus on enabling young players to break into the top 100, win medals and inspire the tennis fan audience’.
They also mention wanting more fans engaged by 2023. What won’t help is London losing the ATP Finals tournament normally held in the O2 Arena, East London to Turin, Italy. The event has been in the capital for 11 years and is one of the biggest tournaments on the tennis calendar attracting thousands of fans.
Learning from Italy
Not having such an event on the doorstep of many Londoners won’t aid the LTA’s aim to increase participation and get more elite British tennis players. If the LTA want to look at a nation doing well it’s Italy.
Not only is the ATP Finals heading there, they also already have nine players ranked in the top 100 in men’s tennis, including Jannik Sinner and Lorenzo Musetti – both aged 19. They are expected to dominate tennis in the years to come.
A reason why the Italians have so many successful players may be because they host so many ATP Challenger Tour events in Italy.
Challenger Tour Events
A Challenger Tour event is the second highest tier of tennis behind the ATP Tour, in football terms; it’s the Championship level of tennis. Most players in these competitions rank between 100-500 in the world.
Looking back to the 2019 tennis calendar, the last normal tennis year before the pandemic we can see Italy hosted 18 Challenger Tour tournaments while the UK hosted only four.
Italy doesn’t have the extra income generated from hosting a Grand Slam but still puts on these lesser-ranked tournaments regularly. As a result, upcoming Italian players don’t have to travel so much. This saves them lots of money that they can then invest in their performance. Finances are often tough for players on the Challenger Tour, as they have to travel the world to play but have limited budgets compared to the world’s top players.
Therefore the Italian players can gain more experience and can play more matches helping them climb up the rankings since their expenses are lower. Not forgetting the benefits of a home crowd and that wildcard places are often given to home players.
This is a reason why there are so many good Italian players at the moment.
LTA Have the Money
Looking at Wimbledon’s 2019 financial statement it shows the tournament had a surplus of £45 million in budget. An agreement has been made until 2053 to pay the LTA 90% of their annual surplus.
With this amount of money simply being unspent, it is time to see the LTA invest more into grassroots tennis and host more Challenger Tour events to help make Britain a tennis superpower. The finances show the LTA can do this.
UEL Tennis team player, James Markiewicz, who has competed at international level before, said, “I believe the LTA does a lot of really good work with their budget like working to build more indoor courts or providing people with free to use tennis facilities.
“I’m just hoping that we could learn from Italy and provide more opportunities to compete which should be achievable when you have that kind of financial power. It’s a shame that for a lot of British players the only way to break into the world rankings is by travelling a lot.”
More needs to be done to help unearth the next Andy Murray and assist talented British players break into international level competitions.
The University of East London have one of the best tennis team’s in the UK, with the men’s and women’s first teams recently getting promoted to top division. These players need more help with breaking into professional sport or becoming excellent coaches.
