WIMBLEDON — It is instructive that there was a genuine air of deflated expectations when a couple of early defeats for Brits on Tuesday at Wimbledon shattered the chance of an all-time record.
After seven home victories broke the record for an opening day, a repeat performance would have been made it the best ever first-round performance by home players.
Alas, only Jack Draper, Dan Evans and Jack Pinnington-Jones won to make it an “underwhelming” 10 round one victories – still the joint-best tally this century.
But you only have to track back to 2007 to find just two British players winning in the first round, and both Katie O’Brien and Tim Henman, playing his last Wimbledon, lost their next match.
And we have the nerve to complain about “only” 10 getting through.
So what has turned Wimbledon from an annual celebration of British sporting mediocrity to a Union Flag-fuelled frenzy of plucky underdog victories?
The obvious answer is Andy Murray. When he finally won Wimbledon in 2013 he was the only British man in the top 200. There were only two fellow countryman (James Ward and Kyle Edmund) in the entire draw, meaning that Murray was the sole inspiration for a tennis boom.
But it wasn’t a coincidence. While Murray did not really base himself in Britain to train until 2015, once he did, he had a tangible impact on the development of players around him – and not just by almost single-handedly winning the Davis Cup.
“Andy has been a beacon of what it takes to play at the elite level and has been excellent in sharing his time, advice and example to the emerging players,” Michael Bourne, the LTA’s performance director, says.
“Seeing someone be successful at the highest level and getting to witness the work they do to get there cannot be underestimated.”
Murray has now retired but his legacy is significant (Photo: PA)There are countless stories of players benefitting from a hit, a tip or a quiet word from Murray, who in particular took now British No 1 Draper under his wing.
The same goes for Murray’s coaching team; Davis Cup captain Leon Smith and men’s national coach Mark Hilton have both been on tour with the former world No 1 before returning back to the UK with a broader knowledge base from which to work.
There have been appointments trying to harness tour experience too, like Mark Taylor, who became the LTA’s head of performance science and medicine, after previous working as fitness coach to world No 1 Ash Barty.
The ‘golden’ centre of excellence
Murray and Draper would regularly hit together, initially at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton. Built in 2007, the NTC was award the international Gold Standard in 2021, one of only six national facilities in the world to do so, and has become the training base for the majority of Britain’s professional players.
“It’s tougher to get a court [these days], that’s for sure!” says Heather Watson, 33, who was often one of just one or two British women in the upper echelons of the game in her early career.
“We’re always battling over courts. We’re not short of people to hit with, which is great.
“When you have so many good players and you’re in an environment with a really good work ethic, it just breeds more better players, breeds more competition.
“I’ve always said, when training at a base like NTC, you need to let as many people in, create more competition.
“Naturally if you see somebody lifting heavy in the gym, you want to lift heavy too. You see people focused and doing those little things, you do it too.”
Bourne, who worked for UK Sport and English cricket before moving to tennis, believes the focus on competition, with 36 internationally ranked tournaments in Britain every year as well as Wimbledon, has played a key role in driving tennis forward.
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“Over the past 10 years one thing that has had a significant impact is a consistent commitment to a strategy of player development that, critically, includes a focus on competition as part of that strategy,” Bourne adds.
“A good example of what the LTA are doing to help players develop is our domestic Performance Competitions Calendar providing more opportunities to play at home all year round and for players to improve their rankings.”
Cutting down on travel also reduces the financial burden on players in their early professional development, and Johannus Monday, Arthur Fery and George Loffhagen all helped make their case for a Wimbledon wildcard with titles won on home soil.
A Texas finishing school
Of all the possible explanations for Britain’s remarkable explosion of strength in depth, it is hard to believe that one originates a couple of miles from downtown Fort Worth, Texas.
Texas Christian University (TCU) has become a hotbed of British talent, with state-of-the-art facilities for training and weekly national competition that, most acknowledge, is played at a level close to many international tournaments.
Cam Norrie, Jacob Fearnley and Jack Pinnington-Jones have all represented TCU with aplomb, while Arthur Fery, Oliver Tarvet, Paul Jubb, Henry Patten, Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski have all been to the United States.
As many as 35 British players across all draws have links to US unversities, and it makes sense to do so: the Americans have 33 men and women ranked 100 in the world or better in singles. They must be doing something right.
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