I have never claimed to be a tennis buff.

But it’s safe to assume that losing to Lithuania is the equivalent of being beaten by the Isle of Man at football.

Now I see that failure to get past that other tennis superpower Turkey in a dunce’s play-off will dump Great Britain in the bottom tier of the competition, alongside the likes of Andorra, Albania and Armenia.

But let’s keep throwing our money away in the search for another Andy Murray or Tim Henman.

Murray, incidentally, was no success story from our own production line. He relocated to Barcelona at an early age to hone his court skills.

The simple fact is that not enough of us play the game. We haven’t got enough public courts; we’re simply not bothered.

For most of the population, tennis lasts two weeks a year at Wimbledon watching a Swiss and an American clean up.

Should we be that surprised then to get beaten by three Baltic teenagers?