Category: the Rant Board
Now, i have no patience with the fools who say that British tennis is improving, no patience at all! Only a few days ago these crettins whose grip on reality has to be questioned were congratulating Helena baltacha, the number 1 female British tennis-player, for making it throug three rounds of qualifying and into the main draw for the australian open. Okay, but she was the only one! what's more, yes we did have two men in the men's tournament, but who were they? that's right, Tim Henman and gregg Rusedski, both knocking on heaven's door in terms of their tennis careers! and to cap it all, each player has been unceremoniously dumped out of the tournament during the first week. Now, these fools at the Lawn tennis association might see this ineptitude as some sort of a triumph, but I don't! On che contrary, i see it as very depressing. It doesn't surprise me that the LTA see it as some sort of progress - they'd put an optimistic face on things if our only entrant to a tennis tournament was blind and only had one arm - but why do all the journalists swallow it? Why don't they treat this as the flop that every tennis tournament always is for Britain? why do they still talk about Tim Henman as the British future, when the chap's the wrong side of thirty? All right, I know that Andrew Murray, seventeen, has just won a junior tournament, but shouldn't he be playing in the senior tournaments at his age? No wonder we don't improve! The tennis commentators and dorrespondents in the media fail to ask these questions, and as a consequence the LTA continues in its laisser-faire, financially motivated approach, instead of making courts available for young kids to play on, and not allowing kids to play unless they've got £20 in their pockets. In a couple of years time, my fear is that there'll be nobody even getting as far as the first round of the Australian open, let alone the third, and how shocking that wuold be when the likes of Australia, America, france, Spain and even croatia manage to get at least half a dozen players into the tournament, quite a few of whom progress.
Gosh LL, such criticism! You'd better hope these poor sods don't come upon the zone and find your posts!~!! Anyway, it's too bad you've got those unsatisfactory players in teh UKland. Not fun!!! Caitlin
On the contrary, Caitlin, I would love it if someone from the LTA came on here and read this topic and realised how pissed off we all really are. People blame it on the climate, but the climate over here is no worse than that of france and a lot better than that of croatia; people blame it on children having the choice of doing so many other sports, but again that's the same the world over and other sports don't suffer. There really must be something wrong: the LTA produces world-class junior players, we know that much, but where do they all go when it comes to the senior tour? Why do we lose all but the worst of them? The answer is that the LTA doesn't encourage kids to play enough. All right, tennis clubs do not receive funding from the LTA if they don't admit junior members, but the problem with tennis clubs in this country is that some of them are cynical, meaning that they admit junior members just to get the money, but then say that junior members may only play between 9.30 and 11.30 AM on a Saturday morning, reserving the rest of the day for the fifty-somethings who treat tennis more as a social outing. What the bloody good is a tennis court at 9.30 AM in the middle of winter, covered in frost? What the bloody hell is the point of limiting kids to two hours a week? Not all clubs do this, but a great deal charge children to play tennis even if all the courts are empty. There's no point there really isn't, and that's why after tim Henman retires, the next best british player will be blasted Alex Bogdanovich or Jamy Delgardo or some nobody like that. And as for Helena Baltacha, Well I ought to say well done to her for getting that far after her ill health and everything, but is British tennis so shambolic that there can't be another world-class lady taking the pressure off her shoulders? God help us.
So E-Mail them and tell them to join this site and look you up LL. Heheh. Caitlin
ROLL ON THE F1 SEASON!..I seem to recall a wheelchair tennis player doing very well in the Paralympics..he was quraplegic! Now that's what i call a real showing up
Who gives a f**k about tennis anyway? It's expensive, eliteist, classist and inaccessable to the average Joe or Jo. Membership of clubs is hideously expensive, and the "Old boys'" network is rife. Apart from when Wimbledon's on telly, most people couldn't give a fig! Henman has had a personality transplant, and Rosedsky is Canadian, no wonder there are no roll models for aspiring players. Tennis? bo****ks!!
Well Eadle I appreciate the fact that you might not like tennis, but some people do, you know. Besides, my cousin was an LTA junior, and his father's a removal man and his mother is unemployed....so this nonsense about class, elitism and the like is wrong wrong wrong, at least at the junior end of things. I agree with you about expense, that is a very good point which you make and you couldn't be more right about the tennis clubs being concerned far more about their older members. I also think that generally, the profile of tennis outside Wimbledon is appalling and that is partly down to the LTA. You can make all of these points without referring to the rather spurious claims based along the lines of class and elitism, which wouldn't look out of place in the first paragraph of a communist party's manifesto.
Im yself have never really played tennis. It doesn't really sound like a very accessible game, it's all about hand-eye coordination isn't it, pretty much? But I respect that some people like it lol. Caitlin
Jus because you have an exception, it doesn't mean it's nonsense! what a facile argument!
And your point is Lawford? you're just reasserting the same point, but adding labels!
there he goes again calling me Lawford. That's the sort of surname a tennis-player would have, a british Tennis-player that is. Facile argument? Au contraire, my friend. I leave out the labels of class and elitism which I have demonstrated to be somewhat inappropriate. a lot of my cousin's friends play tennis at the Sutton tennis school, which is one of the LTA's designated high performance centres, and their parents have perfectly ordinary jobs, or perhaps no jobs at all. Classist and elitist are words deployed by those who have a victim complex about their status, so they really aren't worthy of your argument which we both know makes a good deal more sense than that.
I'll call you Lawford until you get my name right!
ohh I say! Now children play nicely or the very polite umpire will smack your wrist and you dont want that do you
Go blackies! Those girls do good!
not when a Russian Teenager knocks her for 6 and breaks her service twice..go Anna!.
Go blackies? Are their names too difficult for our Blindguy to spell? If my suspicions about his being a young offender are correct, of course, we must forgive him and treat him kindly and subject him to a detention and training order for a period not exceeding two years in the youth court, or three years in the crown court. this revision is really bearing some fruit after all I never thought I'd remember that! Anyway, back to the tennis: my point was demonstrated by the fact that Australia have some great stars still in the tournaments for men ald women. Moreover, that Maria sharapova is only 18 or thereabouts. aT that age, our british girls are still playing junior wimbledon! something wrong there as far as I'm concerned, something very wrong.
That's because she has a great deal of baggage. She is Russian, and their cultural differencis are enormous.
You're right, their cultural differences are enormous....and so are their resources, so is cheir climate. So picking on one comparator will not entirely make the point. even if it did, my friend, it wouldn't explain the disparity between ourselves and the french, the germans, the USA, Australia and Switzerland in producing tennis stars. why do they produce so many when we are a one-man show?
I agree, the difference is, in all those other coutries Tennis is a popular out door game, we neither have the climate or the resouces. Blame it on God and the government!