LTA hoping for net gain on Britain’s club courts

Lawn Tennis Association chief executive Roger Draper hopes Andy Murray’s historic success in the US Open can help reverse a fall in the number of adults playing the sport.

The LTA had their funding cut by Sport England in April due to disappointing participation figures.

Murray’s Olympic triumph sparked an increase in club membership and Draper is banking on his US Open victory – the first British male grand slam singles champion for 76 years – having a similar effect.

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Draper said: “When Andy won the Olympics, 4,000 new members signed up in the space of a week. The message we are getting is that there has been an upturn in people wanting to get involved.

“We had a drop-off in adult participation and then a bit of a bounce back and we know we still have a lot to do, particularly on the adult side of things.

“Certainly Andy’s success keeps people talking about tennis and the big job now is to convert them from armchair followers into real tennis players.”

Draper said there were 23,000 courts in Britain and the LTA was working on “dispelling the myth” that tennis was an expensive, middle class sport.

“It’s not expensive to play at local level,” he added.

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In April, Sport England announced a £530,000 funding cut to tennis due to an almost 25 per cent drop in the number of adults playing the sport since 2008. The LTA’s funding award for 2009 to 2013 stands at £24.5m.

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