Serving up success

British tennis has been in the doldrums for decades with no one able to get to the bottom of why there is such a severe dearth of talented players. Charged with solving this conundrum is the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA). We hear from CEO Roger Draper on how he is raising investment in the sport, getting kids to pick up a racket and endeavouring to deliver that elusive British Grand Slam champion.

“This year alone we've delivered 60,000 rackets into primary schools and 120,000 tennis balls”
-Roger Draper

Give us a flavour of what the LTA is doing to nurture and develop new tennis players so that British tennis doesn't just rely on an Andy Murray [Britain's top pro] coming along once every decade or so?

Roger Draper. Three-and-a-half years ago a new team came into the LTA to start a transformation process across British tennis. When leading the sport you've obviously got two main aims: to get more people playing, better quality coaching, more competition; and raising the sport's media profile. So we put in a big change process across the way the performance side of tennis was run - the national tennis centre, a new sports science team, better strength and conditioning, better sports medicine, sports nutrition and a network of high-performance centres around the country.

In the long-term, we have put in place a network of talent scouts around the country so that we have a good tennis programme for players aged six, seven, eight, nine and 10. We are focusing on all ages and levels - from Andy Murray at the top end to ensure he gets all the support he needs, right down the bottom to make sure that in 10 year's time there's not one Andy Murray but seven or eight. We are also making sure that the clubs offer a welcoming and more fun environment. The social side's important, especially for the girls, too. We are also developing programmes in local schools and parks and clubs that are linked to the health agenda. One of our big programmes is  'cardio tennis' - a mix of social tennis, fun, and aerobic fitness. And that's certainly helping us in terms of not just getting more girls into the sport but also keeping them in the sport, and we're doing a lot of work particularly with the Football Foundation, who've done a really good job in terms of girls in soccer. The girls' landscape has changed, its not just netball and hockey being played and tennis is well placed to attract and retain more girls in the sport. But you do have to offer bespoke coaching, competitions and structures to keep them in the sport.

How have how you modernised the LTA to bring the organisation into the 21st century and what needed rectifying when you first arrived?

RD. When we launched the blueprint for tennis at the back of 2006 we identified a number of key areas that we needed to change and transform, both at the local level in terms of getting more people playing, and at the top end in terms of performance. But our starting point in terms of modernisation was putting the governing body on the business footing. So the LTA and British tennis changed a lot of the ways of working. I always say in sport these days it's a bit like moving it from a kind of old amateur village fete type approach to more like running a Footsie 250 business.

Whilst the turnover in the LTA is UK£55 million, the British tennis economy is a UK£1.37 billion economy. We brought in some new, independent, non-executive directors, like Val Gooding, who was then Chief Executive of Bupa and on the board at Sainsbury's. And at all levels of the sport, we've brought on people who are not just passionate about sport, but also have got strong commercial and business expertise, and that's certainly helped myself as Chief Executive and the rest of the executive team drive forward these changes. So getting the business on a proper business footing has been the biggest change because sport today is big business.

Could you then explain about some of the key commercial backing that you secured and how you achieved it?

RD. We looked across our sponsorship portfolio and realised that it wasn't really delivering maximum value for tennis. So we literally spent a year unravelling the existing commercial programmes and contracts that were in place, and started from scratch. And we decided the new pyramid approach, so we went out and looked for a lead partner and four supporting partners. We were delighted because within three months of going back to market, we secured Aegon as the lead partner for British tennis over a five-year period. Aegon has been a tremendous partner because while they get exposure from the top end of the sport, such as the Aegon Championships at Queens and the Aegon International at Eastbourne, they're also investing in our schools programme, parks program and team tennis program as well. Underpinning this, we have also brought on new partners such as Highland Spring, BNP Paribas, Nike and Intercontinental Hotel Group. We've had a successful period and I think that's given everyone real confidence that we've got such great partners onboard.

What makes the sport attractive for sponsors and potential partners?

RD. What was interesting for us when we started the commercial programme was that everyone said it was about sponsoring the big events, the sexy side of the game. But the big appeal for most of our commercial partners the broad appeal of tennis. We have 27 million people who follow tennis in the UK, which I think is second only behind football, and we reach more women than any other sport. We roughly have a 50/50 male/female split and we have half a million adults playing ever week, a million adults playing every month, four million people playing every year. We also have a top events portfolio including the Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals at the 02 [Arena], which gave us another hook in the winter and helps us change the perceptions that tennis is just a summer sport. We sold 270,000 tickets for that event and it was a different crowd from your traditional tennis crowd. So we are broadening the appeal of the sport - not just for the players and the coaches and the people involved in tennis - but more importantly our 'non-customers' and the fans who follow tennis on a regular basis.       

You mentioned the APT World Tour Finals in London last November. How would you rate this event and what does it mean for tennis in Britain?

RD. Like I said, we are changing perceptions that tennis is a summer sport. We are very fortunate that very fortunate in that we've got the Wimbledon championships, which is the biggest tennis tournament in the world. But bringing the World Tour Finals to the 02 meant that outside of the [Grand] Slams, we probably have the next biggest tennis event. And it was a very different event. It was more sort of 'cluby', cool event and we had a very different sort of event crowd to what you would get at some of our traditional events.

I think that all the hard work that we've been putting in for our schools programme was evident when you looked around the crowd because there were young kids with their mums and dads, which is a good reflection on the state of our sport. And also we have fantastic role models there because men's tennis is particular is so exciting at the moment. Apart from Andy Murray, there was Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nikolay Davydenko. There's some real rivalry between the players and people related to that event. We are very pleased that the ATP has decided to bring that event here for another four years - taking us through to 2013.

How do plan to use this event as a springboard for boosting the sport's popularity?

RD. People say sports like football are widely available in schools and tennis isn't, but this isn't the case. It is widely available because 79 percent of schools offer tennis at the primary school level. So we are dispeling some of the myths and tackling some of the barriers to entering tennis as well as working closely with our tennis foundation who are delivering the Aegon schools programme.

This year alone we've delivered 60,000 rackets into primary schools and 120,000 tennis balls. We're supporting the teachers to deliver tennis in the curriculum and in after school clubs, and making sure there's a sustainable link with the local clubs as well. And we are keeping those kids playing 52 weeks a year and they are beginning to relate to the role models in the sport. This it is a top-down, bottom-up approach, and we always said the transformation of tennis was a 10-year process - we're four years in as we speak. It's a question of long-term thinking and short-term action because we really believe that we are going be a successful sport and we are going to transform the sport. But, as I say, it all comes down to the way we lead the sport and the way we run the business of sport.

And can Andy Murray win Wimbledon this year?

RD. Absolutely. He's been to the final of the US Open, he's been to the final at the Australia Open, the quarter-finals in the French Open and the semi-finals of Wimbledon last year. So he's one of the top players in the world and this is an exciting time for British tennis, with our women players too. However, it's not just about Andy Murray; its about making sure that we bring the next generation through because we've got an exciting crop of young juniors, both male and female.