And Why Does That Matter?

No, this is the new definition of 'not welcome', no-one's actively blocking them... 

“Tennis,” a head coach from a prestigious club in Surrey casually remarked to me, “will never have a Marcus Rashford.”

The throwaway comment was made at a sparsely attended coaching forum on diversity in tennis in 2022. Less than six months later, I was at Surrey’s under-9 girls’ county cup with nine-year-old Sabein Weldegebriel, whose mother is from Ethiopia. I coach her in a park next to a south London council estate. Sabein’s success at getting to county level should give me hope that the head coach was wrong, but having been in this sport for 20 years, it is hard for me not to agree with him.

Perhaps instead of asking yourself 'Is he right or wrong?' you should maybe ask yourself 'Why should the colour of a person's skin matter more than whether or not they are a good player?' Chris...

Because the costs of becoming a professional tennis player are prohibitive to most kids, and the tennis establishment does very little to nurture talent in the way sports like football do.

Is this something charity could do instead? Yes, Reader, it is...and it's doing that.  

Sabein has had 100 hours of unpaid lessons with me over the past 12 months. We spotted her talent straight away when she came to G Tennis (grassroots tennis) about four years ago. A local charity that supports single parents, the Cheer Trust paid for initial group sessions, but the rest G Tennis has provided for free.

So what's the beef, Chris?