BENGALURU: At the start of the 2017 Australian Open, if anybody had said that World No. 1 Andy Murray wouldn’t be the British tennis player who would go the farthest in the tournament, they might have been scoffed at.
But may be not Dan Bloxham, the head coach at the All-England Club, who delivers the Wimbledon Junior Tennis Initiative, the biggest tennis outreach programme in the United Kingdom.
The Brit, who was at the KSLTA courts here as part of the Road to Wimbledon programme, felt that with Dan Evans making the fourth round along with Murray and Johanna Konta losing only to Serena Williams in the quarterfinals, it showed British tennis was better than ever before.
“Obviously, no one expected Andy to lose early,” Bloxham said “But we have improved. I think we had one or two good players along with Tim [Henman].
“But when the rest of the world went ahead properly, we kind of got expecting, because of our heritage, we should be the best. A little bit like India and all the Davis Cup history I would say. If you don’t invest in time and structure, you get left behind.”
Bloxham credited Murray for this shift.
“Andy has shown what you can do. Andy at 10 or 11 was good but you didn’t watch him and go ‘My god, that’s World No. 1.’ I think Jamie (Andy’s brother) was ranked higher. But Andy has done everything right and the younger players can see the results. He is such a good role model.”
“As a junior Dan Evans was one of the best in the world,” he added. “But he just didn’t do enough. Now he has raised his standards. He just thought 'Andy does all these things to get better and how many do i do?' If Andy does 10, he probably did four or five.”
India’s Yuki Bhambri, who was ranked No. 1 in juniors, could very well get inspired by such a story Bloxham felt.
“There is no doubt about his [Bhambri’s] talent. You don’t win a junior Grand Slam by luck. Probably it’s just about focus and environment. May be spend time with a top sportsman like [Virat] Kohli, to learn how to be emotionally strong and work on consistency.”
