Lawn Tennis
Association
Challenges The Future
“Looking
ahead,
our
biggest
challenge continues to be attracting and
retaining more players – especially in the
context of rising obesity and inactivity
levels. The weather is still a barrier to
playing tennis in the United Kingdom.
In the UK only 7% of all courts have a
cover, compared to countries such as the
Netherlands and France where over 20%
of courts are covered.
Equally
people
are
utilising
technology more than ever as part of
their everyday lives; sport needs to
better move into this space enabling
people to find more opportunities to
play and to book their courts online
using smart phones and digital devices
as they would their shopping or buying
a cinema ticket.” “The future for tennis and other
sports is to continue being relevant and
accessible to people in their everyday
lives. Tennis is affordable sport and
it’s important we keep promoting just
how accessible it is for anyone. Many
park courts are open for free play and
allow you to borrow rackets, whilst the
average club membership in the North is
less than £1 per week for a junior and £2
per week for an adult.
Tennis participation has managed
to stay buoyant in a competitive market
place in recent years with 10% of the
population being inspired to pick up
a racket each year. We have had such
a rich period of time in our sport with
unprecedented success through Andy
Murray, Jonny Marray, Alfie Hewett,
Jamie Murray and Jordanne Whiley
winning Wimbledon and Grand Slams,
with the pinnacle being Team GB taking
home the Davis Cup.
We now have to support the
development of a new generation
of tennis players and to do so we’ve
launched a new High Performance
strategy this year. Success on court
keeps the visibility of the sport high
and will continue to encourage more
people to access the many facilities and
opportunities that are available.”
If you’d like to find out more about
British Tennis and how you can get on
court, coach, watch or volunteer this
year, visit www.lta.org.uk
Images courtesy of British Tennis
www.sportip.biz
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