Tennis: Stop handing out Brit wildcards

After eight British players from the 10 entered failed to reach the second round at Wimbledon, it's time to stop giving these losers wildcards.

The whole lot of them are an embarrassment, none more so than Alex Bogdanovic, who has now lost eight out of eight first-round ties at SW19. Not far behind is Anne Keothavong, who reached the top 50 this year, but then surrendered meekly to Patricia Mayr (ranked 29 places below her) before crying in her press conference.

Good grief. If this is the fragile mental state of our number one female tennis player, what hope is there for the rest? Not much, is the answer.

Katie O'Brien and Georgie Stoop both crumbled when the pressure was on at the end of the third sets of their respective matches while Melanie South lost two narrow sets. Thank goodness for Elena Baltacha, who turned in an impressive winnning performance against Alona Bondarenko. And there's always Laura Robson, who is surely a star in the making, unless her peers' loser mentality wears off on her.

It's no better in the men's section, save for Andy Murray. Dan Evans and James Ward were hammered, unsurprisingly by Nikolay Davydenko and Fernando Verdasco respectively, but Josh Goodall blew his big chance to beat Michael Llodra.

When you think that each first round loser gets £10,750, the performances of these Brits is more scandalous than the MPs filing dodgy expense claims. It's daylight robbery, especially as players with some pedigree such as Xavier Malisse, Diminik Hrbaty and Karol Beck are forced to battle through qualifying.

Unless these Brit flops can get up the rankings and qualify for Wimbledon by right, they should not be allowed the privilege of stepping onto the hallowed turf.

What do you think of Britain's shocking tennis results at Wimbledon? Send in your thoughts below

Comments

[mikeo]

I'm afraid a lot of the failures in sport are to do with the country we live in. Lack of facilities, lack of funding in the early years of a career and idiot schools who still believe "the taking part" and not the "winning" is what counts!

Also to blame are the government of the day. Ministers are very quick to accept the free tickets to sporting events but not so quick in helping promoting and nurturing the talent we most certainly have in this country.

Tennis is in a very bad way and until the LTA get their act together it will not change.

[Truth]

At the end of the day, I would rather have the third best play in the world who has a realistic chance of winning Grand Slams than have a clutch of players in the top 100 that have no chance of ever winning Wimbledon. Only one person can win and Murray has as good a chance as anyone else.

The women's side of things are improving and is certainly a lot better than five years ago so there has been progress. We had about five players lose in deciding sets this year and some against tough opponents (Stoop up against the world number 7). And we do have a special player in Laura Robson.

[john b]

in my opinion the lack of talent over the last 50 years and more so in the modern game is the lack of indoor courts in this country. i live in scotland, weather is pants and the only indoor facility (for the whole of scotland) is at stirling uni which is ok if you live locally but is not suitable for many,many, many people. another gripe is murrays mum, she is in a position now to influence politicians for funding or fianance her own grass roots projects bringing tennis to the working class (because this is where you'll find the talent with guts and balls)..and what does she do.. opens an acadamy which is going to cost applicants £30000 a year to attend. talk about cashing in and looking after your own interests! bloody infuriating! this country is far too elitist. this is why kids and parents buy a football and go to the park. heard sue barker, john lloyd and tim henman say in one breath that more money has to go into the grass roots level then in the next breath say 'having said that, facilities in the south of england are pretty good and there's a fantastic new state of the art facility just built in london'. thats part of the problem sue,the people with the financial clout (lta, government, etc) think britain is a country that exists from london- southwards! hopefully this will sink in one day. it's quite funny that a scotsman is britains finest modern day player, wimbledon and lta are bloody hating it. personally i'm loving it.

[buzzinator]

still, Laura Robson, she is intense, i watched her play.
she is for denfinate a future star and im sure shes not too dissapointed to have gone out in the first round, she is 15 and gave a top 40 seed a run for her money.

And lets be honest most people just go along with whats been said, for example if murray went out next round everyone would be saying ohh hes rubbish!
but then at the next grand slam if he got to the final everyone would be, maginficent murray!

just try and have your own opinion, mine is that whatever he does in this tournament he is a great player and its only a matter of time until his first grand slam XD

[LJK]

All our sports men and women choke when it counts, not just in Tennis. The amount of people I hear moaning about Andy Murray's arrogance. If a few more of our sports men and women over the years had had as much as Andy instead of being so nice then we'd have had far more world beaters. We are all far too pompus when it comes to our sports men and women. Far too nice, FAR TOO ENGLISH................

[tabitha]

When I was teaching a few years ago, schools were encouraged by the powers that be to stop 'old fashioned' type competitive sports' days and introduce a kind where everyone was successful! This was to prevent the poor little darlings having to cope with failure! This 'success for everybody society' where if you fail it is not your fault and success is expected without any effort,is the real culprit behind our lack of sporting prowess. Children are too protected from failure because they don't like it, and don't learn to cope with the difficulties in life as a whole. Life isn't always fair! You just have to get on with it!

[Sian]

What an offensive article. We should support the British players at Wimbledon not abuse them.

[Lee]

Baltacha British?

The wildcard system is most definitely flawed. Let the top players in the world play, after all it is a Grand Slam event.
It seems the WC system is there to provide the top seeds with a bit of a warm-up before the nitty gritty of week 2.
Robson was disappointing as other nations have had young prodigies (Hingis) but perhaps when her exams are out of the way she will progress rapidly.

[steve]

The problem is of course is that the game in this country is class riddled, and the limp wristed non achieving players have no guts for the fight.
Andy Murray is only British when he wins, but a Scot when he loses.

[Karl]

No mental strength, perhaps because these lot come from a background where failure won't really matter; they'll still be comfortably off.
Doing away with pay for 1st round defeats isn't the answer, but instead let's not applaud 'gallant losers' and kid on that they're still young and improving - a lot of this bunch are 23+ and should be in their prime. The only ones who can still be classed as 'prospects learning their trade' are Ward and Laura Robson.
As far as the women are concerned, they're all like Hantuchova - got the shots, but are fragile in the mind. Is it a coincidence that the head of women's tennis at the LTA is Hantuchova's former (long-time) coach?

[keith edwards]

Yep...they are all pathetic
except Andy of course.
Have you ever tried finding a
half-decent tennis court in
this country? Try finding a
tennis coach (don`t laugh)
both the court & coach are
laughable though the coach
will charge you plenty.
Finding a speed camera is o.k.

[Paul]

i,d like to see english, scottish , welsh , n/irish nationality represented. Not british.
So then we could say "Englishman , Tim Henman is a waste of space", or "scotsman , Andy Murray, was excellent."
I'm English and would not be rooting for Andy Murray , as he is Scottish.
Greg Rusedski, for example. When he won a match, he was British. When he failed , he was Canadian.. what !!!
And to get to the real point, there should not be any appearance money involved. Everyone who never made last years quarter finals should qualify. Money for the last sixteen only. Then they'll have to up their game.
Really rubbish anyway us "brits".

[Andy, Somerset]

It is a sad reflection of the nanny society we live in where our children have been taught, by the most corrupt government we have ever known, that competition is degrading to those who are not good at sport. Life is very competative if you want to succeed, but then again you can always sit on your backsides and do nothing and then us foolish tax payers can foot the bill, and the doo gooders will feel better.
Britain has imploaded into a weak society that does not reward endeavour or the competative edge, so lets not moan about thing's let's just accept it, thats what they want.
Then people wont ask difficult question's like "how much do you claim for your 2nd house".. Seriously, although our government will deny this, our youth sport is 1n an appalling state, I have been a youth cricket coach for 15 years and unless your parents have the money to fund you, your children get nowhere, hence the state of sport in the UK, and surely parents who have made money will most certainly have had to be competative, funny old world.

[John]

Its the same with tennis, cricket, golf etc. only those who know someone or is rich go forward. the best cant afford the time to progress and there in no gov. help like australia

[Manny]

Up and coming players Jenny. Don't make me laugh. Some of these players are in their mid-20s when a lot of players are already past their prime. I reckon move on to the next breed and give up on this bunch of jokers.

[Jenny, Benfleet]

Why do so many jump on the bandwagon with this great need to criticise our up & coming players?
We should build their confidence not batter them into submission before they even get started!!

[Simon, Worcester]

You can't legislate for the luck of the draw in some cases (Bogdanovic/Ward), but Keothavong was hopeless and O'Brien and Goodall just bottled it. Murray papers over the cracks in British tennis