When Wimbledon comes knocking around, the same time every year, you can rest assured on a couple of things happening during the opening couple of days of the tournament.
Normally, the rain is somewhere to be found but, ironically in the first year that the roof has been in place on centre court, that so far hasn't been the case; you can also be sure that with the sun out there will be a few more people playing on local tennis courts up and down the country as tennis fever grips the nation, and the one you can always, always, bank on is Alex Bogdanovic being knocked out in the 1st round of the tournament, along with the majority of the British contingent, like he has done for the last eight years in a row.
'Bogo', as he is known in tennis circles, isn't an isolated case however, and the first two days of the 2009 version of Wimbledon was a case study which has caused much debate in the British tennis fraternity, from Paul Annacone, former coach of Tim Henman and head coach at the LTA, all the way through to the current British number one, Andy Murray, who hasn't mixed his words when talking about the lack of depth in the British game.
Over the opening Monday and Tuesday of the Championships there were only two victorious Brit's in the first round of the men's and women's singles draw; Murray beating American Robert Kendrick in four sets, and Elena Baltacha, the British number two female, beating Ukraine's Alona Bondarenko in three.
Bogdanovic was joined out the door by Dan Evans, Josh Goodall, James Ward, Anne Keothavong, Katie O'Brien, Laura Robson, Melanie South and Georgie Stoop make up the list of British losers on the opening two days of the tournament, and with the exception of Keothavong, the British number one female, and Robson, who was making her grand slam debut at the age of 15, all had been given wild cards into the event because they hadnt deserved it through their ranking or through merit.
Many in the game feel that the Lawn Tennis Association and the All England Club are too lenient and easy going when it comes to the handing out wild cards and funding to the lowly ranked British players, and this certainly isn't the first time that this topic of conversation has come up.
A couple of years ago Tim Henman was more than vocal with his views on the state of the British game and what the LTA and AELTC need to do to improve the game in this country.
Andy Murray followed in Henman's footsteps yesterday saying that, 'the depth needs to get way better' and that its 'not acceptable', but saying that, 'its not picking out any of the players in particular, because I watched some of them play and some of them played well, but they aren't at the same level as some of the guys and they don't play at this level too often because their not ranked that high'.
In fairness, the draw could not have been much worse for the British wild cards this year, especially for the likes of Georgie Stoop and Dan Evans, who were drawn against the women's and men's 7th seeds, Vera Zvonareva and Fernando Verdasco respectively, but if this was just a one off year then it would have been forgotten about, but the failings of the Brit's at the showcase event of the British tennis calender has been an annual occurrence; thank god we still have the likes of Andy Murray, and previously Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski to show that all is not lost, on the men's side at least.
There have been a few suggestions made as to what can be done to help the plight of the British wild card.
Henman has weighed in again following this years debacle saying that wild cards should be 'given to the young and up and coming players, we don't want to see them being given out to the same people again and again' and that the LTA needs to 'make it (getting a wild card) harder so that British players are earning that right, not feeling an entitlement to get that wild card if their top three or four in the country'.
One suggestion that has come from the former coach of Andy Murray, Mark Petchey, is that the LTA should act as a 'bank' that invests money in British players, with the expectation of getting it back, which Annacone said had been a suggestion that had been discussed a number of times.
In all, Annacone said to the BBC that the target is to have four British players inside the world's top 100 of the men's and women's game each by 2012. Is this too much to ask, or the least that we can expect after year after year of false dawns, that has only been saved by the few.
The noises coming out the LTA are good, ask anyone who is involved, from the people behind the scenes to the names and faces that we all know, they will tell you that the signs are good for the future, but ultimately it will be the results, not the promise that will be the deciding factor in this argument.
After this years Wimbledon the microscope is well and truly pinned on the men and women in charge of churning out more top British tennis players in the future, and hopefully the increased media coverage and discussions that have raged following this poor showing will force the LTA and AELTC's hand into seriously rethinking their wild card policy, and the way in which the try and get these players through and into the big time.
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