Fergie can find the next Murray
SIR Alex Ferguson could be invited to play a role in producing the next Andy Murray. Simon Timson, the new performance director of the Lawn Tennis Association, is ready to look outside the sport to find new expertise which will help Britain’s best tennis coaches and bolster what is still a flimsy pipeline of elite players.
And, in Timson’s view, the ideal person for that task would be the former Manchester United manager — who is a regular at Wimbledon and a devotee of his fellow Scot Murray.
A non-tennis specialist, Timson believes that the UK’s coaches — who are becoming an increasingly effective presence on the men’s and women’s tours — could certainly benefit by listening to those with experience beyond their own confines.
‘Whether it’s the likes of Andrew Strauss (England cricket team director) or Sir Alex Ferguson, whoever they want to learn from,’ he said.
‘Who do they look up to and respect and see deal with the challenges they face on a regular basis? Get them in, give them the support to discuss things with them and learn from them.
‘I do think that most highperformance environments and cultures, both within sport and other sectors like business, music or whatever it happens to be, share certain characteristics.
‘It’s quite a lonely place on tour. Sometimes you’re on tour on your own with a player, you absorb everything from that player. You’ve got to help them and support them through their highs and lows throughout the year.’
As the Great Britain team last night opened their Davis Cup first-round match against Canada, Timson was looking on at his first representative match since arriving in November from the same job at UK Sport.
He has inherited a recently improved situation when it comes to the elite level of the game, with the improvement in Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund meaning Leon Smith’s team can still be competitive even without a resting Murray.
However, there is still chronically little strength in depth beyond the handful in or around the world’s top 50, while the junior cupboard has looked worryingly bare for the past four years or so.
Timson, whose background was originally in winter sports, is looking at how to improve British tennis’s poor record in both finding the most athletically talented youngsters and then nurturing them properly.
‘There are so many options and we’ve got to get really good at attracting the most athletically gifted kids to choose the game, and when we do attract them we’ve got to have a really good performance pathway to persuade them to pursue tennis.
‘A key part of my job is to drive up the delivery of standards so that we can get to the position where our talent pipeline is comparable to British cycling or sailing or, dare I say it, football which, in a lot of ways, does a decent job.
‘I can’t see why, given time, we can’t build a hugely respected pathway that, hopefully, eight-plus years down the line, makes the creation of champions at all levels of the game inevitable.’
Timson has begun by taking a deep look at what is required and being in the world’s top 32 is the benchmark.
‘If you look at what you need to be in the main draw for most WTA events through the year you need to probably go deep in a couple of tournaments per year, reach the third round of a Slam and win the first round every week,’ he said. ‘How do you develop that? You have to start breaking it down.’
“You’ve got to support and help players”