a day ago
The British kids coached for Wimbledon — in 6 years' time
It's 9am on a sunny Sunday and, while most children are watching cartoons or heading to the beach, in a south London suburb a group of under-tens is doing fierce battle.
'Keep believing!' one dad shouts from a line of parents barely managing to sit still on plastic chairs, their eyes fixed on their budding tennis stars. 'Come on!' someone's mother yells. Outside, a small boy holding a large racket is being given a whispered lecture about 'staying focused'.
On court, the kids are just as serious. 'Let's go!' screams a girl in plaits as she sends a winner sailing past her opponent. There's a lot of grand slam-style grunting as balls are hit with all the aggression (quite a lot, as it turns out) that pre-teens can muster.
Welcome to mini Wimbledon. Well, the All England Lawn Tennis Club's 22-acre community centre in Raynes Park — a stone's throw from SW19 — which provides world-class facilities to help Britain's junior talent grow into the next Andy Murray.
Actually, forget Murray. These youngsters are more interested in being the next Emma Raducanu, who won the 2021 US Open aged 18, or Jack Draper, 23, the world No 4. The latter is an ambassador for the charity Tennis First, which has put on today's tournament and offers grants to talented juniors it feels could break into the world's Top 250. Over the past two decades, it has funded more than 300 Brits — including Draper, Raducanu, Katie Boulter, Jacob Fearnley and Harriet Dart.
So is it easy to spot grand slam potential? And what does it take to raise the next Jack or Emma?
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'You can tell at such a young age,' says Abbie Probert, 36, a former junior player and the director of Tennis First. 'Everyone can hit forehands and backhands but there's something that sets them apart, whether it's reading the game tactically or being mentally strong.
'The parents will always be competitive, because they want their child to succeed. I can understand that perception of the pushy parent; they want to encourage them and they don't always know the best way to do that. But if they want it more than the child, it's never going to work. It has to come from the kids or it's game over.'
And all that enthusiasm comes with a time limit. To make the Top 250, Probert explains, you need to be on track — with a fully rounded game — by the age of ten. Yes, you read that correctly.
'The kids are like mini pros now,' she says. 'They do warm-ups and match analysis. They have an entourage: tennis coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, psychologists. They're nine and looking at what they eat and how they sleep. They're building a social media following. The tennis player is being shaped.'
Looking at the procession of determined youngsters here, racket bags slung over their shoulders, striding to their next match as though it's on Centre Court, it seems hard to disagree.
'I want to play grand slams and be world No 1,' ten-year-old Joshua Lotsu says confidently. If he could win one grand slam? 'Wimbledon,' he says, looking at me as though that's the most obvious thing in the world.
'Well, someone has to,' his father, Lebene, chimes in.
Joshua first picked up a racket aged four, during lockdown, when his dad started hitting a softball with him in the family sitting room in nearby Surbiton.
'Straight away he had a knack,' says Lebene, an accountant. After some parental pushing, the head coach at their local (oversubscribed) tennis club gave Joshua a trial. He aced it and got a place on its training programme, aged just five. 'That came as a shock,' Lebene admits. 'That he could have his own coach so young.'
Tennis now plays a huge part in family life. Joshua is a pupil at Ewell Castle in Surrey (£5,700 a term), which has a tennis academy attached. He plays for the county and, in February, represented Great Britain during a junior Davis Cup-style event in Nottingham, where his dad wasn't allowed to watch — parents presumably being a fist-pumping distraction.
He does 13 hours of tennis a week, mostly at school where 'he'll miss certain lessons, like art, but none of the essential ones', Lebene says. And he already has a team, including his club coach, school coach and a strength coach. 'He tore his calf muscle last year and was out for three months, so it's critical that he strengthens his body,' Lebene says.
Or as Joshua sees it, 'I like tennis because it's fun, I get to play with my friends and it gives me energy.'
Two or three weekends a month, his parents (mum Annabel works for a charity) drive him around the country to tournaments, although they flew to Scotland. For the past two summer holidays the family — including his older sister, who attends the Brit performing arts school — decamped to Barcelona's elite Emilio Sánchez Academy, where Andy Murray trained from the age of 15.
'He plays with the top kids in Britain a lot, so you're thinking, 'Who's the best player in Europe that he can hit with?' ' Lebene says. 'We don't come from a tennis background and we're learning as we go along. I didn't appreciate the amount of time, money and dedication that would be required.'
Being from a 'tennis family' can certainly help. Judy Murray is a former junior player turned coach, as is Jack Draper's mother, Nicky, while his father, Roger, ran the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) from 2006 to 2013.
Not to mention that most of the top British players are from middle-class backgrounds. It might be easier to start playing tennis these days, but high-quality coaching and the ability to travel, especially overseas, don't come cheap, and can make the difference to whether your child succeeds.
It takes, Probert estimates, 'pretty much another full-time income to be one of the best. It's a never-ending bill for these parents. Realistically, they're spending at least £30,000 a year.'
A quick shopping list: one-to-one lessons, three or four times a week, cost between £35 and £100. Group sessions are £10-£20 a go. Physio can be £50-£100. Quality rackets are about £100 and most kids have two. You might need white kit for a tournament one week, black the next. And consider the rapidity with which adolescents grow out of trainers, with different pairs required for grass, clay and hard courts.
Then there's travel, hotels, food and tournament entry fees. Little wonder the LTA has estimated it costs £250,000 to develop a player from 5 until 18.
Ironically, the more you spend, the more affordable it can become, as brands begin to notice budding talent. Joshua gets rackets and kit from Wilson. Sisters Lainee, 12, and Nolwaine Ngassam, 9, are sponsored by Head.
The sisters are coached in Ashtead, Surrey, by their dad, Cedric. An enthusiastic amateur, he works in finance and introduced his eldest daughter to his favourite sport aged three. 'As soon as I could walk, I wanted to follow Daddy,' Lainee says. 'Then I wanted to follow as well,' Nolwaine adds.
Comparisons to the Williams sisters are perhaps inevitable. Venus first picked up a racket aged four, with Serena keen to copy her sibling. Their gruelling 6am sessions — with their coach-dad, Richard — became as legendary as their rivalry.
Nolwaine is often practising by 7am. She trains five times a week for up to two hours at a time — dedication that's made her under-nine girls' champion for Surrey and ranked in the Top 2 for her age.
Having been spotted by scouts, Lainee has spent the past two years on the LTA Pathway, which helps to subsidise promising players. It means that she trains six times a week, usually after finishing her homework, plus strength and conditioning sessions — a must since she's recently shot up by several inches.
Before joining the pathway, Lainee took a couple of months away from tennis to think about whether she wanted to commit. 'I missed it,' she says. 'It was good to have holidays and stop for a bit, but I was happy when I started again.'
'And now she doesn't want to stop any more,' her mum, Lembe, says.
Theirs is a carefully constructed family schedule, planned four months in advance, so the girls, who often want to play in tournaments at opposite ends of the country, can do as much as possible.
'It's like a miniature professional timetable, which is the right thing to do because Lainee is already 12,' Lembe says. 'If you look at British players like Hannah [Klugman, 16] and Mika [Stojsavljevic, last year's US Open junior champion at 15], how old are they? She's not too far from them.' (Klugman and Stojsavljevic have been given wild cards to play in the main draw at Wimbledon this year.)
They don't have plans to train abroad, as Lembe explains. 'Tennis is still a bit elitist. You can have talent, but if you're not supported financially, it's really difficult. Having their dad as their coach helps.'
Being mini pros also means having a nutrition plan. 'We don't go crazy because they're still children,' Lembe says. 'But I remember going to a county cup and this dad walked in with chocolate doughnuts. Nolwaine was asking, 'I can't eat that?' And I said, 'If you want to perform well, you can't. Sorry.' '
The sisters are, Lainee says, 'very competitive, but only when we play each other'.
'Family can be supportive but sometimes I get stressed,' Nolwaine says. 'I put pressure on myself to win when they watch me.'
'I always tell my girls, I am not raising tennis players,' Lembe says. 'If we set the goal of them becoming professional we put added pressure on them, whereas if they're enjoying it, they will progress in the right direction.'
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Except, here's the harsh truth: you have to be prepared to lose week in, week out. Winning is rare in a sport where only one person lifts the trophy. For every player who makes it, hundreds won't. And only a handful of the elite get anywhere near grand slam prize money — £2.7 million for last year's Wimbledon singles winners.
'To make a living, you need to be in the world's Top 100,' Probert says. 'There are a lot of players in the Top 250 who are struggling. When you're younger, the financial pressure is your parents'. But when you're paying your own bills and the only way to relieve the burden is to win, that's a lot of pressure.'
Tennis First has handed out grants of up to £10,000 to about 350 juniors, but just 20 have made it into the Top 250. 'It isn't a huge number,' Probert concedes. 'But British tennis is in a strong position now, with great role models. More players are coming through.'
One of those is Liv Zingg from Barnes in southwest London — although she's speaking to me from Nairobi, where she's just triumphed in an International Tennis Federation tournament.
The 14-year-old, who started playing with friends, aged 5, in a Notting Hill park, has recently taken a big step on the path to going pro: leaving home.
She and her mother, Nicole, a former figure skater and until recently Liv's fitness coach, first moved to Mallorca, where Liv had a scholarship at the Rafa Nadal Academy. Now they're at the Francesca Schiavone training facility in northern Italy, which her family is paying for with the help of Tennis First (academies can cost £40,000-£60,000 a year).
Liv's days are carefully structured. 'I do three hours of tennis and three hours of fitness. On Wednesdays, a physio comes. And we always break from 12-2pm — the Italians like their lunch.'
She is 'happy', but there are sacrifices that come with not living a regular teenage life — leaving friends behind, being home schooled, only seeing her dad and sister during holidays or if she has a tournament in the UK. 'I started doing trips at 12 and I had trouble with staying away from home. I was crying. I was kind of bullied at one stage too. But I've got used to it,' she says.
In September she's going to join the acclaimed National Tennis Academy in Loughborough, with a fully funded package including schooling, meals, accommodation, travel and coaching. It will mean living by herself for the first time and sharing dorms with her peers (ie the competition).
'I'll be able to go home every weekend and it's only two hours away, so I think I'll be OK,' she says.
Her commitment is, at least, paying off. Liv is ranked third in Europe for her age, plays for Britain and has been invited to take part in the prestigious under-14s tournament at Wimbledon during the championships. Oh, and she signed with talent agency IMG at the age of 12; that's 6 years earlier than Jack Draper.
On Instagram she's known as 'Super Liv' and has 4,000 followers. One recent post read, 'You accept it. Cry it out if you need to, then force a smile. You move on. Be relentless. Adapt and grow. Work harder. Work smarter.'
Although, Liv says, 'I've never posted anything myself; that's all my mum.'
Her dream? 'To become world No 1 and hold the record for winning the most grand slams. That would be cool.'
'That ambition,' Probert says, 'combined with hard work, is what it takes to become the next Jack or Emma.'
Which is why I don't bat an eyelid when Nolwaine says, softly but surely, 'I'd like to win Wimbledon.' Or when her sister turns to me and smiles. 'Me too.'
