Dan Bloxham Talks The Future of British Tennis

Dan Bloxham Talks The Future of British Tennis - page 2

4 months ago 08th Jul 10:26

I think we all feel that the one thing that we need to do is make sure that more kids play and that it’s maybe not the same the same type of kids that played historically, which would have been from a middle class background, we need to access a greater number of kids playing.

And from that, if you access more kids, you are going to get one of two that are unbelievable and catching up with Andy (Murray). But if we pick from a small amount of kids each time it’s going to be very difficult for us to compete with countries that are picking from double or treble the amount of kids.

- Do you think that this is the problem there is still very much a class stigma with tennis, even now? It’s not an easy sport to access so do you think that this is the driving force behind why we haven’t been successful as we could have?

Yeah I think it certainly has been perceived as a middle class sport for a lot of years so the average person doesn’t think about playing tennis. Certainly to play to a level it’s not exceptionally expensive anymore the raquets are abut £25 so staring off isn’t that expensive. But like most sports to stronger and really develop it’s still quite expensive and that is something that needs to address.

But the key thing for us is to go into schools and get all the kids playing so they realise that it is a sport they can play and not it’s just for someone on TV or it’s out of their reach but it’s something that have access to in their lifestyle.

I have just done a DVD with the LTA and we have taught the teachers how to play tennis and the DVD pretty much teaches five weeks of tennis for all primary school aged kids, that’s going ot to 2,500 this year. The teachers get trained in how to use the DVD and get given equipment if they go on the course so it’s really a big step and positive step from the LTA and I’m really pleased to be involved in that.

- How much do you think that this criticism was justified? Is it fair to judge our players on Wimbledon alone, just one tournament?

No it’s not. But I think the thing with tennis is it really is a world wide sport; soccer and tennis are worldwide cricket and rugby are not played in a much depth in other countries. Tennis is one of few sports that every country probably plays so to be right up there with those guys is unbelievably tough, and for some countries it’s their main sport.

The French don’t even have a cricket team they don’t play it they don’t even bother, American is another one that doesn’t even both with cricket. Tennis is a global sports so it’s much harder to make an inroad into that whereas maybe rugby or cricket maybe you only have twenty five countries of twenty countries that actually play so you are obviously going to be in the top twenty countries before you even start so it’s tough for tennis.

The women have done a lot better this year they have got some good players, Anne Keothavong has been inside the top fifty, so they have made big inroads. The men are working hard as well so I think that they are actually playing pretty good.

Unfotunately they had really tough draws I think they all had seeds, three of the guys that the boys played made the quarters, so that’s going to be a pretty tough win to turn that around so they did have tough draws and I know that it’s a bit of an excuse but nevertheless they didn’t have anyone where they had a good chance all they matches they played were pretty steep.

- So now what needs to be done to push British tennis forward?

I think we have got Tim and Andy and we have got to use those guys. Schools is definitely the way to go to get kids involved, at Wimbledon we work with the kids that are three and four years of age, so we are working with a whole new generation of kids and trying to get them involved with tennis from the beginning before they have met soccer or other sports. So we are trying to make the very first sporting experience that they have is going to be tennis.

- Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe has questioned funding into the sport but surely a cut isn’t the answer?

No I think it’s not a good idea to cut sport at all. But what we have to do is to improve the opportunity for kids and justify the money.

- So what is your opinion of British tennis and what is it’s future?

I think it’s great it is the most fantastic sport, and we have the world’s most famous tournament, so I can only see it being a positive really. I’m involved in so I’m enthused as I have loved playing tennis my whole life and I can’t speak more highly about and tennis in Britain is world famous.