Child tennis players are 'not pollution'

The LTA's director of performance Patrice Hagelauer says clubs should not look at children like they are "pollution".

Speaking at a Yorkshire National Futures roadshow at Leeds Metropolitan Uni-versity, the Frenchman said: "The strength of a country is the strength of its clubs.

"I am asking clubs to provide better under-ten players. Adults are happy playing with their friends, but adults should look to give the children court time.

"At some clubs children are looked at like they are pollution. And I will have failed if I cannot convince clubs that giving children more court time isn't the way forwards."

Added Hagelauer: "At most clubs, everything is mixed, and you have the children who are leisure orientated mixing with talented children.

"But these children who are more talented and very competitive are not interested in the same thing, and if the club doesn't provide what they expect, then they will leave and look for a more competitive sport.

"This is why we have introduced the Club Performance Programme. The idea is to have at club level a Futures player or performance players who are more talented, more committed, or who are dreaming of becoming tennis players.

"As soon as you have 20 or 50 players, you find ten per cent of these children are different, more talented, and need to be treated in a different way to the others.

"The whole thing about these Performance Clubs is to make sure they make the selection at a young age between those who are leisure orientated and those who are talented.

"The need is to identify talent at seven or eight years old, and then support these children with the best possible coaching.

"This is the only way forward. At the moment we are looking at 60 or 70 clubs being accredited LTA Performance Clubs, and next year we hope to have 150, and the following year 400 to 500. If this happens there is no reason why we can't produce top-100 players regularly."