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British LTA Failed to Reach its Targets

The much criticized reign of Roger Draper as chief executive of the cash-rich but far from successful Lawn Tennis Association has suffered another massive knock with the revelation the governing body has failed to meet any of its own targets.

Draper, who took control four and a half years ago with a confident insistence that he was the man to finally turn British tennis around, and has signed off the spending of hundred of millions of money bequeathed to the LTA by both the All England Club and the British Government.

Now Draper has been forced to admit the failings of his regime when obligated to address the LTA Council with a “State of British tennis” address.

The most apparent failing is the dearth of British players in the respective top 100’s on the men’s and women’s tour. Draper prophesied by now there would be at least four British men figuring in the ATP World Tour’s top 100 and the same of the WTA Tour. Instead there is just Andy Murray and Elena Baltacha.

“Despite many encouraging performances in recent months [Murray contesting January’s Australian Open final and more recently Baltacha reaching the top 50 for the first time] we are unlikely to hit our target of eight players in the top 100,” admitted Draper, who initially put great faith in paying top dollar for a list of big name coaches such as Paul Annacone, Brad Gilbert, Carl Maes and Peter Lundgren. “Whilst we are on track for our doubles target, we only have two players in the top 100 singles, not helped by Anne Keothavong’s long-term injury.

Draper also said Britain would by now be a fixture in the Davis Cup’s World Group. Instead they only avoided relegation to the depth of Euro/Africa Zone Group Three by beating Turkey at Eastbourne.

Earlier this year Britain lost to a team of teenagers in Lithuania, prompting Captain John Lloyd to resign.  “The Davis Cup performance against Turkey was encouraging and we need to begin the long way back to higher groups,” continued Draper.

Another of the LTA’s wishes was that the average ranking of Britain’s leading five men would be 160, but this week it is 204, and they also did not come close to reaching the target for the women’s game either, which was that the leading five British players would have an average ranking of 113. This week, that average is 151.

Draper added: “We have also revised our year-end target for the number of people aged 16+ playing weekly. For the period from the end of September until mid-December, we have revised the target to 530,000, which represents a growth of 37,000 compared with the same period in 2009, which is what we need to achieve each year to reach our target of 150,000 more people playing weekly over the four-year plan period.”

Most worrying for Draper is the fact 16 year-old Liam Broady, probably Britain’s most promising junior player, currently ranked the 35 ^th best under 18 player in the world and winner of the Wimbledon junior doubles titles this year, is not available to represent his country in any LTA backed team. Broady’s father Simon is so disgusted by the Draper regime he will not allow his son to be selected while the current management team is in place.