You may say that sounds unambitious but I am not in a position where I am dreaming

“You may say that sounds unambitious, but I am not in a position where I am dreaming.”. “This year I want to get two more players in the top 100,” he said. An Academy system on French lines is being established, with four bases at Bath, Loughborough, Welwyn and Leeds, and the LTA will seek over the next three years to accredit 500 of its 2,500 registered clubs within the programme.In terms of short-term improvement in ?te performance, however, his caution perhaps outweighs his optimism. In France that figure is 14,000, and in Sweden, which also has a thriving Academy system to spot and encourage young talent, it is 9,000.As the LTA works on lobbying for Lottery funding in the long term, however, Hagelauer is cautiously optimistic about prospects over the next five years.

This is the heart of the problem.”That problem is reflected in simple statistics In Britain, there is one indoor court per 58,000 population. But that is peanuts compared with the millions of pounds you have to pay for building indoor facilities and all the infrastructure we need.”Britain is competing against countries where sport is nearly nationalised. We are talking about billions of pounds.”People look at our sport and they see we get £30m every year from Wimbledon and they think we are a rich sport. Around 8,000 of them are built and maintained by cities and local authorities, and each one costs £500,000.

Sport is now considered a way to have integration of minorities, less people in hospital, less violence on the streets.”Most clubs in France have five courts and a clubhouse, and there are 9,200 of them. We are not competing in the same league.”At the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, France’s results were a disaster They had no medals So the Government decided to support sport in France. “France, like many European countries, gets unbelievable support from the government, cities and local authorities. In years gone by, seeing British players on clay has been like watching Bambi on ice.”Henman’s achievement this month in reaching the semi-finals on the clay of the Monte Carlo tournament will have done nothing to discourage the youngsters now finding their feet on the surface, although Bates stresses that their work prepares them not just for clay court matches, but improves their general game.All the youthful confidence in the world, however, cannot obscure the central problem facing British tennis, one which Hagelauer made starkly clear as he compared the system he left to the one he is now seeking to galvanise.”We have to understand where we are,” he said.