'We aren't the perpetual losers anymore', a Briton proclaimed seeing Andy Murray lift the Wimbledon trophy. It wasn't just Murray who had won that day. It was a triumph for the entire British nation after 77 years of dismay. But, does it make a difference to the British tennis scene?
According to Telford tennis coach, Neil Devereux, Andy Murray 's victory would lift the overall profile of tennis in United Kingdom. He asserted that this one win will inspire future generations to come. On the same page as him, the Lawn Tennis Association hopes that it would actually turn around a fall in the number of adults playing the sport.
In April 2012, Sport England announced a £530,000 funding cut to tennis due to a near 25% drop in the number of adults playing the sport since 2008. Andy's Olympic win immediately increased the participation by 4000 in the space of the same weekend. And the LTA hopes that this home victory would rake in even larger numbers.
To complement this surge in tennis participation, David Lloyd, billed as the UK's largest tennis operator, had announced that it would extend its offer of giving anyone who wanted to try the sport, a free tennis day pass until the end of July. On the similar lines, Virgin Active, who signed up Laura Robson as one of its ambassadors earlier this year, had already made a similar declaration for a scheme. Thus encouraging people from all levels to try the sport.
It's not just quantity but also quality that LTA hopes to improve post Wimbledon 2013. It is on the park courts up and down the country, on school playgrounds and on indoor mini tennis courts that the groundwork will be laid to inspire and engage future champions. From there, good coaching, talent ID and development frameworks can develop those with aptitude and harden their attitude.
Severe critics point out that Murray can't be counted as one of the successes of LTA, since most of his early coaching took place in Spain and he was honed into a Grand Slam winner by Ivan Lendl. So they feel that Murray will obviously have a positive effect on young minds but Rafael Nadal is likely to be just as inspirational in that sense.
Needless to say, an obvious wave of change can be seen flowing through England. Gavin Sutcliffe, tennis development manager for Yorkshire at the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), feels that this win is massive because it gives us a player at the very pinnacle of the game. 'To have a Grand Slam champion, an Olympic champion and now a Wimbledon champion is fantastic and it makes it easier at the grass root level because it gives budding young players someone to look up to.' he adds.
Though we have a wide array of expert opinions on this matter, but there's one thing on which everybody agrees unequivocally. And that is that this is a moment which the tennis associations in UK should seize and try to bring a nation wide change.
According to Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, this can be done by making the private sector work with government to open up more access to courts and encourage participation. He points out that all British tennis stars will then have an advantage of guidance and a sound support structure to go with natural ability. All young people should have the same opportunities to realise their talents.
In response to the heightened expectations, LTA is unquestionably ramping up their contact with their field teams, with their partners out in the tennis landscape, to make sure that they don't lose this opportunity. But again experts warned something more than temporary offers were needed to sustain any impetus gained from Murray's win.
Another suggestion is for clubs to be forced to create a partnership with schools in exchange for their allocation of Wimbledon tickets. However, the overall figure of 424,300 was still nowhere near the 450,000 target set by Sport England, who withheld £10.3 million of the LTA's funding in December after slamming its participation plan.
There's no doubt that, with Andy's success, tennis is in the spotlight in UK more than ever, but it is up to them to work to take this golden opportunity and help unearth many more Murrays.
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