Asking the right questions

I have just heard David Lloyd speaking on the radio about the sacking of his brother as coach of the woeful British Tennis Team, explaining that it wasn’t (all) his brother’s fault but the fact that the LTA has the wrong system.

It made me think about the importance of asking the right question when trying to find a strategy for success.

His argument went something like, Andy Murray is the only decent British men’s tennis player at the moment and that the LTA system didn’t produce him, so there’s something wrong with the system.

True that this is a very poor indictment of the system but it suggests that the question that will lead to a solution is ‘what is the right system’?

But this logic perhaps misses the point, because it presupposes one important thing; namely that other top men’s tennis players are produced as a result of a nationally funded system.

Before John Lloyd’s question is asked perhaps a better question would be to ask whether top men’s tennis players around the world are produced by a national system?

I suspect not.

Having lived in Spain (currently number one 1 think) and LatAm, I have a sense that tennis is a rich kids sport and that private sports clubs provide the tennis stars of the future.

So the right question is, out of the top 500 men’s tennis players in the world how many were produced as a result of a national system? If true, can we suppose that the others therefore came from a private tennis club and had family support? Politically tricky to use government funding in this way, but if we want success ….

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