LTA Struggles To Find Right Candidate

Written by: Staff on 10th July 2013

LTA Struggles To Find Right Candidate |

As British tennis basks in the glow of Andy Murray’s Wimbledon triumph, the Lawn Tennis Association is still struggling to find the right candidate to maximize the increased public interest and succeed Roger Draper who will shortly step down as chief executive.

The LTA were hoping to name Draper’s successor by the end of Wimbledon but it now seems the search is nowhere near completion. Now independent chairman David Gregson appears to be facing possibility of the post remaining vacant after Draper is finally due to clear his desk in September.

Whoever takes charge will oversee responsibility for developing new tennis talent in Britain and ensuring the success of the sport at grassroots level. Last year the LTA received £37,753,390 ($56.25m) as the surplus from last year’s Wimbledon Championships although that figure is expected to be severely reduced this year.

Two well-known tennis names were invited to apply for the post but are understood to have failed to pass the first round of interviewing. Neither David Lloyd, the former Davis Cup player and captain who as businessman made a multi-million fortune from setting up a chain of tennis/health clubs, or Chris Kermode, the tournament director of the Aegon Championships at Queen’s Club and tournament manager of the hugely successful Barclays ATP World Tour finals at the London 02 Arena, were deemed as suitable candidates.

Gregson, a senior partner in a leading private equity firm and a leading member of the team charged with making the most of the London Olympic legacy, was appointed by the LTA board at the start of the year to dispel the image of a faltering and much criticized association paying exorbitant salaries and bonuses to under-achieving executives.

This week Gregson said it was “very difficult to be precise” about when a successor to Draper as CEO would be appointed.

Meanwhile the LTA’s staunchest critic, Baroness Angela Billingham, chairwoman of the All-Party Parliamentary Tennis Group and the Opposition spokeswoman on Culture, Media and Sport in the House of Lords, said: “Surely the LTA has learnt its lesson from the amount of criticism it has received from all quarters, which cannot be dismissed as a coincidence.

“The LTA is a very wealthy organisation, thanks to the success of the Wimbledon Championships and its funding from Sport England, and to be putting the emphasis on someone good at raising money seems to me not to be putting the cart before the horse but a few miles ahead of it. We need ideas and ideals, and a deep understanding of the sport and how it can evolve.”

Meanwhile Draper maintained the general state of British tennis is good and perfectly geared to make the most of increased interest following Murray victory, regardless of the fact that the most recent figures showed a 15% drop in national participation.

“The general state of readiness is good,” added Draper. “I couldn’t guarantee hand on heart that every court in every town and every coach at every club will be world class but we think we have most of the areas covered.

“We haven’t just woken up to discover we have a Wimbledon champion. We have been planning for this for a long time. It’s part of a long-term vision to grow the numbers of people playing the sport and to try and bring through more world class talent.

“Our juniors are getting better all the time, Laura Robson has just become number 27 in the world, the first British woman in the top 30 for years and I am optimistic that we will see more men coming through at the top.

“On the participation side, we now have 21,000 courts available across the country and we are doing a much better job now than when I came into the job of directing people who want to play the sport towards available facilities and coaching.”

And he concluded that the general criticism of the LTA is unfair. “People have a pretty bad perception of the state of British tennis,” said Draper. “But the reality is very different.”

©Daily Tennis News Wire

Topics: Chris Kermode, David Gregson, Lawn Tennis Association, Lta, Roger Draper, Sports, Tennis News, Wimbledon Champioships

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10sBalls_com says:

July 10, 2013 at 8:14 am

LTA Struggles To Find Right Candidate – http://t.co/6drrXKa8Io @BritishTennis @Wimbledon #tennis #LTA @BleacherReport
JakeDixonnn says:

July 10, 2013 at 8:35 am

RT @10sBalls_com: LTA Struggles To Find Right Candidate – http://t.co/6drrXKa8Io @BritishTennis @Wimbledon #tennis #LTA @BleacherReport
10sBalls.com says:

July 10, 2013 at 8:39 am

LTA Struggles To Find Right Candidate – https://archive.10sballs.com/?p=91251