An interview with: Roger Draper

Roger Draper must have one of the least enviable jobs in British sport. Chief Executive of the Lawn Tennis Association, the governing body for British tennis, his is the door at which the complaints inevitably mount after another Wimbledon without home success, or a humiliating Davis Cup loss. The past year has featured both; Andy Murray was half of the British men’s contingent at the 2010 Championships, falling in the last four, while all six Britons in the women’s draw made first round exits. In the Davis Cup, a summer whitewash of Turkey was needed to prevent relegation to the competition’s basement tier, after an embarrassing 3-2 loss to Lithuania in March which led to the resignation of then captain John Lloyd.
The retaliation was quick in coming, with calls from prominent figures in the game for Draper to resign or be removed; much voiced was the criticism that large amounts of money had been spent for little in the way of results. ‘Where are the male players that the LTA has actually produced? Zero.’ So argued David Lloyd, a former Davis Cup captain and widely mooted in the past for the position Draper now inhabits. The man himself espouses a longer view, arguing that ‘we are currently four years into a ten-year programme’ and ‘the structures are in place for long-term success.’ Although he readily admits that ‘we need to improve the elite end of the men’s game’, Draper also cautions that ‘the process is about patience’, with one key necessity ‘improving the accessibility of the sport at grass roots level’. He points to the varying schools programmes the LTA has overseen, and that 79% of schools now offer tennis, while also highlighting that ‘more than half of the LTA’s annual expenditure goes into grass roots tennis.’


Brave talk about vision, structure and the longer-term cannot obscure, however, the currently parlous state of British tennis at the top level. Andy Murray, who did much of his early training independently of the LTA, stands a beacon at No.4 in the men’s world rankings, while the eye has to travel down to No.190 to find the next British man, Alex Bogdanovic. On the women’s side, Elena Baltacha, the world No.59, is likewise a lone wolf in the top 100. While the chorus clamours for results and jabs its finger at the bottom line, Draper serenely retorts that ‘we are putting in place a long term structure for success at the elite level and investing in facilities and improving the accessibility of the sport.’ Asked whether the LTA’s financial investment in tennis represents value for money, he responds that ‘growing the game, increasing participation with both juniors and adults and giving more people access to the sport is the return on investment.’ Time will be the judge on this particular argument, and despite his voluble critics, Draper has had his initial contract extended until 2013.
One of the great problems facing British tennis seems to be misplaced expectation. The presence of one of the four annual grand-slams in a country which has not produced a single’s champion since 1977 creates an annual frenzy out of proportion with normal levels of interest, which is quick to die down when the show takes to the road again. Draper refuses to be drawn on the issue of public expectation – ‘not a question for us to answer’ – but does express his frustration on some popular views of the sport: ‘one of the main problems currently is communicating the real story of British tennis, getting beyond the old misconceptions of elitism and demonstrating that tennis is a sport for all.’ The issue of elitism is a potent one; it is often suggested that the cost of hiring courts and coaches is prohibitively high for many families, and Draper concedes that ‘like most sports, it is expensive to play at an elite level.’ In turn, he draws attention to the support structures in place to ameliorate this, funded by the LTA and its sponsors.
Some will complain that the LTA do not do enough; while others, notably Tim Henman, have argued that the responsibility lies with the individual players, and that an entitlement culture is damaging the British game. The criticisms are many and varied, in content and origin, but they mostly find their way back to the same man. While, as he points out, ‘British tennis is about far more than just the LTA’, the organisation is a convenient lightning-rod for critics, and Draper and his organisation will continue to take punishment while British success remains an anomaly.

7:00 PM, 04/11/2010