Andy Murray hopeful new LTA chief will put end to 'wasted time'

It is only cautious optimism at this stage, but Andy Murray hopes that the appointment of Scott Lloyd as the new Lawn Tennis Association chief executive will end the “wasted time” and policy U-turns that have bedevilled the British game.

Murray is no great admirer of recent LTA regimes. The morning after Great Britain’s historic Davis Cup victory in 2015, he explained that he had little interest in spending time with outgoing chief executive Michael Downey because “nothing ever gets done”.

But while Murray never bonded with Downey, he does at least know Lloyd - whose father David has also been critical of the LTA in the past - on a handshake and “Hello” basis, having met him at various tournaments over the years. And this is the great advantage that Lloyd will have over both Downey and Roger Draper, the last two incumbents. He may only be 41 years old, but he is a British tennis lifer.

“He is someone that’s been working in tennis, and I definitely think that can help,” Murray said yesterday, while attending a launch event in east London for sponsors Jaguar.

“With the amount of changes that we’ve had at the top of 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,” Murray added. “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.”

Although Lloyd’s appointment was announced on Tuesday, he will not take up the position until January – another inconvenient delay after the recruitment process started all the way back in January. Still, the former British No. 1 Tim Henman said yesterday that the next six months will provide Lloyd with a chance to weigh up his options.

“I think this time gives Scott a good chance to understand exactly what’s entailed,” said Henman. “Look at the LTA and how effectively it invests its money - the return it gets on its investment has been very debatable. Scott is someone who’s very bright, who has got good business IQ, and I would have thought that’s what it needs. I’ve known him since he was nine, and for the first time I can remember, we have got someone who has an inherent knowledge of tennis.”

Having spent the last decade running David Lloyd Clubs – a chain that manages 1000 tennis courts across the country – Lloyd is well placed to continue the participation drive that has turned a 13 per cent annual decline in the number of regular players into a six per cent rise, according to LTA figures.

But the importing of non-tennis people into the performance department continues. The former bobsledder Simon Timson, who heads the department, is understood to have three names on his shortlist for the upcoming “head of coaching education” role. Not one of them has a background in tennis.

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