Liam Broady shows flaw in LTA plans by revealing he will not play new hard-court Challengers
Liam Broady, the British No 4, highlighted a potential flaw in the Lawn Tennis Association’s latest plans on Friday, when he revealed that he won’t be playing the new hard-court Challengers because of a scheduling clash.
Having reached the second round of an ATP Masters event for the first time at the Miami Open, Broady’s ranking will climb somewhere close to the 150-mark – a career high – despite his 6-3, 6-2 defeat at the hands of world No 27 Filip Krajinovic.
He is thus exactly the sort of person the LTA would have been thinking of when they announced the two new events – which will be held in Glasgow from April 28 and in Loughborough from May 19.
But Broady told reporters on Friday: “I’m not going to play the British Challengers. I’d love to but the timing is tough because I will be doing six or seven weeks on the clay before the French Open.
“A lot of the players have wanted more Challengers for years,” Broady added. “I don’t know what the reasoning is, I’ve never really asked. The timing’s a shame but there are younger guys who will get the chance, and then I’ll come back for the grass-court Challengers [which are held in Surbiton, Nottingham and Ilkley in June].”
When the announcement of these events was made a fortnight ago, Andy Murray was listed as one possible entrant, depending on how smoothly he makes the transition from the gym to the court after January’s hip surgery. But the players that form the bulk of a Challenger field are not former grand-slam champions or Olympic gold medallists.
When the LTA’s director of events, Ollie Scadgell, was asked about the timing, he replied: “Some of our British players will probably not choose to play qualifying [at the French Open, which clashes directly with the Loughborough tournament]. If they're on the margins. Challenger tournaments at $100,000 level on hard courts actually provide a decent transition opportunity from clay to grass.
“I know that Leon [Smith, the LTA’s head of men’s tennis] has been speaking to all relevant players around these two tournaments to understand what their current schedules are looking like,” added Scadgell, “and I know he's had some very positive responses.”
In fact, Broady would have been more likely to stay in the UK for those weeks if it were not for the unexpectedly competitive clay-court performance that he delivered against Albert Ramos-Vinolas – the world No 22 – in the recent Davis Cup match in Marbella. To extend a former French Open quarter-finalist well past the two-hour mark in a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 defeat was an encouraging effort.
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“It gives me a lot of confidence to go out and compete on the clay,” Broady said, “whereas maybe before Marbella I would have thought of going to Korea for the hard-court challengers and just playing two weeks before the French on the clay.”
After a week of rest, he plans to meet up with fellow Davis Cup players Kyle Edmund and Cameron Norrie for a clay-court training block at the National Tennis Centre in south-west London.
Meanwhile, the LTA have announced a selected shortlist of tennis centres that have applied for the new National Academy role. They are Loughborough, Bath, Stirling, Culford and Bisham Abbey. One or perhaps two centres will be chosen to implement the new programme, which will charge parents of children aged 14 and over no more than £5,000 per annum while delivering a detailed programme of coaching, fitness training and physiotherapy worth around £35,000.
