Andy Murray has reacted to the news that the Lawn Tennis Association have appointed Scott Lloyd as their new chief executive.
“He is someone that’s been working in tennis, and I definitely think that can help, the sport, bringing in lots of people from different sports – each time you bring someone new in it takes seven or eight months to start to understand the sport better, to speak to everyone and it feels like wasted time. Lots of new people have come in, changed things, and then things change again.”
“The National Tennis Centre stopped getting used, and that was a huge part of the previous regime. There’s been a lot of turnover of staff, people leaving, cuts getting made to performance. Now Scott Lloyd is coming in. I don’t know what his vision will be but things will likely change again. Since I have come through, no-one has been in that position for a long period. It’s important that he and his core team ideally can stay there for eight to ten years so we can actually see what their ideas or philosophy is and see if it works.”
Lloyd is the son of David, a former Davis Cup Captain, and has a background in British tennis himself. Lloyd’s predecessors Roger Draper and Michael Downey were both heavily criticised. Draper was lambasted for spending large portions of LTA funding on high-profile coaches Paul Annacone and Brad Gilbert.
Downey was successful in producing Canada’s tennis stars Milos Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard. Downey has failed to take advantage of Murray’s grand slam triumphs, and will move back to Canada for personal reasons after less than four years in the job.
