LTA submits to scrutiny

Has there been a change of heart at the LTA? Have the Wimbledon results - barring Murray - finally made an impression? Surely, despite all the denials following the first two days of The Championships, has the current hierarchy realised that their approach might be off course? Henry Wancke reports. Picture UK Sports.

It would seem to be the case, for the LTA have turned to UK Sports to help them out, as confirmed at a briefing by UK Sport's Mission 2012 earlier this week.

It would seem that Roehampton have asked for tennis to be ‘scrutinised' by UK Sport to become the 28^th sport to submit itself to this process in an attempt to boost its chances of success at the forthcoming 2012 Olympics.

While we have no comment from the LTA, the current chief executive of UK Sport, John Steele, described the scrutiny process as being ".. about everyone being open and honest about where they think they are, what challenges need to be satisfied which is why tennis have asked to be in the Mission 2012 process."

How they can help, I don't know except to state the obvious which in itself would be interesting if ever made public.

The facts do paint a sorry picture when you realise that there has been no male British champion at a grand slam event since Fred Perry in 1936 (US Open). The picture on the ladies' side is a bit better with Virginia Wade's 1977 victory at Wimbledon.

We have a had a few misses over the past few decades with Greg Rusedski and Andy Murray making finals but the bottom line is that we have had no champions where it matters. Not only that but we are languishing in the bottom echelons of the Davis Cup and Fed Cup.

In Olympic terms Tim Henman and Neil Broad's silver success at the 1996 Atlanta is our only ‘recent' success; prior to that and bearing in mind that tennis was not a full Olympic sport between 1922 and 1988, our last gold medals were secured at Antwerp in 1920 when Oswald Turnbull and Max Woosnam claimed the men's doubles and Kathleen McKane and Winifred McNair the women's doubles.

For the last British singles gold we have to go even further back, to the indoor event in Stockholm (1912) won by Edith Hannam.

So what does the ‘scrutiny' involve.

That is not clear but it results in UK Sports highlighting, via a traffic light system, whether the respective sports are meeting their targets. Those that are, are given a green light, while those that are not are classified amber or red depending on how serious the challenges the respective organisations are facing.

UK Sport's director of performance Peter Keen, said: "What the LTA have seen in this process is an ability to take what perhaps for them is a blurry picture of where they're at and take it apart into those 30 different pieces and have a serious look at what seems to be working and what isn't.

"And with our support, having the experience of looking at all the other sports in this way for more than three years now, we're able to encourage them to think, 'You may think that's where it needs to be but actually it could be a hell of a lot different'.

"It's early days but I think when they first saw the tool - the process that comes with this - and we impacted with them, their eyes lit up, because they could see a way of rationalising their thinking and their planning."

Anything that helps the LTA get on track can't be ignored and if this ‘scrutiny' can do that, then it will be very worthwhile.

The only thing is, will the LTA actually listen.