Ball in Chancellor’s court as LTA waits on support for covered courts project
While grass court season unfolds, Britain’s tennis chiefs at the LTA have another project on their hands: unlocking government funding to build the covered courts the country lacks.
As the eyes of the tennis world turn towards London, hopes are understandably high for the home contingent at Queen’s Club and Wimbledon. Jack Draper has broken into the top five of the men’s world rankings, while both Katie Boulter and Emma Raducanu will have ambitions of going deep at the All England Club.
Off the court, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is also buoyant. The expansion of the HSBC Championships to include a women’s tournament has given the event at Queen’s an even more prominent footprint and, along with several new partnerships, is expected to boost commercial revenue to record levels this year.
There is one pressing concern for British tennis, however, which has moved Draper and Boulter to write to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and could have major repercussions for the prospect of the next generation matching – and perhaps exceeding – their achievements: the shortage of covered tennis courts across the country.
The LTA wants to build 40 community tennis, padel and multi-sport hubs by 2029 but has called for help in funding the £75m project from the government, just as the previous administration subsidised a recent project to resurface 3,000 park tennis courts. It is expected to get an answer on Wednesday when Chancellor Rachel Reeves reveals the Spending Review.
“This is an area of our business that our chief executive [Scott Lloyd] and others have focused a lot on recently,” LTA managing director of commercial and operations Chris Pollard told City AM. “You go back three or so years to where we got the investments, £20m from government plus the LTA Tennis Foundation’s £11m, to resurface all of our park courts.
“What was written in that letter [from Draper, Boulter, Alfie Hewett, Gordon Reid and Lucy Shuker] was the shortage by comparison to some of our European peers, whether that’s France or Germany, of covered courts. So clearly that is our ambition, to enable that and unlock that.
“We do need government support with that, and we all know that there is financial uncertainty within government currently, but we’re just going to keep as much pressure on as we can to try and unlock that government funding, allied to our own funding, that will continue to ensure transformational growth to tennis participation in Britain.”
Record number of children playing tennis
The Park Tennis Project has already delivered returns, according to the LTA’s figures. A record 1.6m children are now playing monthly, up 11 per cent year on year and with growth particularly strong among girls. The number of adults in Britain playing monthly is at 3.6m, with 5.8m picking up a racquet at least once a year.
The LTA and its associated foundation has opened 100 new covered and floodlit courts in a bid to boost participation during the dark winters and 150 days of rain each year. Britain still lags far behind its peers, however. France has five times as many such facilities and Germany three times as many.
Its call for funding is not the only one from sport in Reeves’s in-tray – UK athletics chiefs last week went cap in hand asking Downing Street to underwrite a bid to host the 2029 World Championships in London. And that’s before considering the demands from more essential public services.
“Too many places around the country still do not have access to high quality community sports facilities,” the British players wrote in their letter to No10. “A new national network of community accessible covered tennis, padel and multi-sport hubs would support year-round play, and grow participation, particularly among underserved communities and disabled people.
“We are concerned that as things stand, the government may not continue to invest into tennis facilities. This would be disappointing, given tennis in Britain has made huge strides forward in recent years, with growth in participation and success on the international stage.
“We therefore ask that you continue to invest into facilities, to ensure that every community across our nation has the opportunity to pick up a racket and get active year-round, and to support the next generation of British players.” The ball, then, is firmly in the Chancellor’s court.