Parliamentary enquiry follows humiliation

Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe has urged British tennis not to go to "war with itself" as the fall-out continues from last weekend's Davis Cup defeat in Lithuania.

John Lloyd's team face relegation to the lowest division of the Davis Cup following a 3-2 defeat to a lowly-ranked Lithuanian side, their fifth successive defeat.

The humiliating loss led for many including former captain David Lloyd to call for the departure of Lawn Tennis Association chief executive Roger Draper while Sutcliffe has brokered a meeting between the LTA and the Parliamentary All-Party Tennis Group, which is to hold evidence sessions to look into the direction British tennis is taking from the grassroots up with the help of more than £26 million of public funding from Sport England.

"What I want the LTA to do with the All-Party Group is work together," Sutcliffe said during a visit to the Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler.

"There clearly are critics out there who've got a view that things aren't going well. Well, this is an opportunity for the LTA to set out its stall, for the All-Party Group to interview those people with an alternative or opposing point of view and then for a positive result to come out from that to go back to the LTA and say where potential gaps may be.

"But it has to be in a consensual way. What I don't want is the sport being at war with itself. We've got to try and make sure that they work together for the best interests of the sport."

Sutcliffe refused to single out Draper for the blame despite the LTA chief executive bearing the brunt of the criticism.

"I think that's unfair," he said. "At the end of the day, Roger is one man in a board and he has to work within the sport. So my view is that he should, as he said he would do, work with the All-Party Group and I hope we get the right answers.

"I think that what we want to see is a growing developments of the grassroots game to ensure that it's available to anybody that wants to play, whether that's in school, in communities, and from that that we widen the talent pool.

"It's a great sport but there's also a competitive view from right around the sport, so this is an opportunity to get things off their chest but do it in a positive way for the sport so the sport grows.

"Obviously (grassroots development) helps onto the elite level and clearly nobody's happy, not even Roger, about where we are in terms of the men's Davis Cup team.

"But I'm sure this process will help because people are pulling together for the right results."