It's not Lloyd's fault. The Murray's don't want to play, it's their fault. Why isn't Andy speaking to Greg? Andy doesn't get along with his brother, Greg, who else?

The Murrays basically ARE the British DC team. The problem is that the LTA pours TONS of money into british tennis and they only have 1 family to show for their efforts.

Maybe they need to get Judy Murray as coach.

cherylmurray: the Murray family is NOT the product of the LTA. Probably why they are successful! All LTA money goes on the South of England and nice middle class kids. Andy went to Barcelona when he was 15, he was so fed up. All LTA did was pay for Brad Gilbert to coach Andy which was a disaster. In fact, I've read, don't know if it's true, that Jamie was a more promising junior and the LTS WRECKED his game by interfering too much.
pennster: Andy gets along fine with Jamie and if you had heard Rusetski commentating at Wimbledon you wouldn't want him "yapping" endlessly in your ear either.
sukhumvit: Judy and Andy are planning to set up a tennis school in Scotland, bet that produces some stars.

John Lloyd's brother, David Lloyd has put himself forward for the job of rejuvenating british tennis. yesterday big debate on why is it that we (the UK) have THE most prestigious tournament in the world (wimbledon), costing 41 million pounds and yet cannot produce ONE decent tennis player. Andy Murray is NOT part of the "british tennis system", he was taken out of "the" system at 14 years by mum, who at one time apparently used to play, so Andy is used to a completely different system abroad, which raises its young players to be successful. We have all the facilities here in UK, more indoor hard courts to train on, yet still cannot produce. John Lloyd was a scapegoat, "made" to resign, it should have been the head of the LTA that was "sacked".

Actually Cheryl the Murray's didn't even come up through the LTA, Andy went to Spain at the age of 15 to train, before that he was trained by his Mum. I think Jamie has been dropped from the team.

They can't put the blame on John Lloyd, he didn't have the material to work with. Other Captains have had good players like Bates, Ruzedski, Henman just off the top of my head, what has Lloyd got, apart from Andy, players outside the top 200 for the most part.

There are just not enough accessible courts all over the country for many people to take up tennis and evolve naturally, and I don't think many British children have the dedication and will that tennis demands of a good player, young children see people who are good at nothing become millionaires overnight simply because they took part in a reality show, or had their 'assets' enhanced by silicone implants, that they feel that is the way forward.

Because tennis is an individul sport, it is down to the individual to do what it takes to make it, football being a team sport, players with talent can grow within the team.

I think Ruzedski should give the Captaincy a wide berth, he won't do any better than Lloyd if he is working with the same material.

I am aware of where Andy trained. I'm also aware that the LTA for several years paid for Murray's coaching (thus the dumping of money). I wasn't implying that Andy came up through LTA, only that the LTA has dumped money into his "success".

cheryl, I see.

actually, when you think about it, it's almost WORSE that he didn't come up through LTA, because it means that whatever they're doing to promote tennis talent isn't working.

It occurs to me that the weather in the UK isn't particularly conducive to growing good tennis players. Maybe they should set up shop someplace...you know....sunny.

Cheryl, that's the point I was trying to make, that whatever they are doing now is not working, because it's not for the lack of money, and you are so right that the weather is another factor. The other day they showed a training session with loads of children, and the trainers as well as the children all had their coats and gloves on.

France has a similar weather to the UK and they have managed to be successful in having a load of players in the top 100, so they need to go and see how it's done in France. It's such a shame, because tennis was invented by the Brits. The other thing is, Australia hasn't got an issue with the weather, and they are struggling. It really comes down to dedication, more children with A.Murray's drive, and unfortunately most children want the quick easy way to the top. They also did a survey once to find out why girls won't go into sport, and the general idea was that they don't want to look sporty.

Hey, why dedicate yourself to sporting achievement when you can become an overnight celeb on reality TV? They even ply you with free booze and everything. It's great! We can leave it to all those silly foreigners to take up sports while we superior, oh-so-evolved anglophones get ourselves a PR agency and keep them on speed-dial.

We know better how to get ahead in life. Who needs the LTA? Not Andy, not Tim, notoriously not Greg who got his funding in Canada and then jumped ship in the mid-90s.