British tennis told to drive up numbers or lose funding

“The mission they’ve recently created and the level of engagement from David Gregson and the board is very impressive,” said Smith.

“It is certainly more impressive than I’ve ever seen before in tennis. What I’ve seen since December has been a dedicated and concerted effort to fix the problem.”

Although the number of people playing tennis is 0.95% up on April 2012 – many other sports were down – that is still a drop of 7% compared to the inaugural figures from 2006, external and 23% below 2009., external

“They’re not the only sport in this position,” Smith added. “Growing participation in sport is not as simple as money in, people out.

“I don’t dismiss the LTA’s efforts as missing an open goal, but what they’ve done hasn’t worked thus far, which is why we’re building a new plan. If they can’t, I’ll find somebody who will.”

Former British number one Tim Henman agrees with Smith that the LTA has so far failed to deliver when it comes to developing the game at grassroots level.

Despite the success of Andy Murray, the rise of Laura Robson and Heather Watson, plus various doubles and junior triumphs, Britain has only one man and two women ranked in the world’s top 100.

“If you look at Spain and France, their base of the pyramid is vast compared to the British system,” Henman told the Mail on Sunday., external “They have so many kids playing,

“You need massive investment at the bottom and strong leadership from the top. I left the junior game in 1992 and if you think about the hundreds of millions invested since then, it’s frightening.”

Should the LTA satisfy Sport England’s requests, the ring-fenced £10.3m will arrive.

“We’ve used what we’ve learned from other sports about how to grow participation and we’re trying to help the LTA learn how that might be done,” said Smith. “We’re hopeful they can get there.

“The alternative – and one that is not our preferred solution – is we find a different way of investing in tennis.

“Our priority is to look after, nurture, develop and grow the number of people playing the sport. If we think we can’t do that through the national governing body, we will find another way of doing it.”