“The grand slam tournament nations, those who enjoy staggering profits from the success of their championships, have most to gain and, similarly, to lose from the desire to produce a champion. The sport had become increasingly global and the more the countries that host the ‘majors’ spend trying to find the player who might save their collective reputation, the more the rest of the tennis world argue that profits from these failures ought to be more evenly spread. In the past ten years, the LTA [British Lawn Tennis Association] has benefited to the tune of over a quarter of a billion pounds from the surplus from the Wimbledon championships and at the end of 2012 – a year in which they invested £73.2 million to ‘grow and sustain’ the sport – Britain had one male player in the world’s top 200. It is a national scandal.”
