Hi, I'm John McEnore and you're listening to the tennis podcast. Hi, my name is Grigor Dmitro

for you listening to tennis podcast. Hi, I'm Matt Belander and you're listening to the tennis podcast.

Well, hello and welcome to the tennis podcast. We record this episode a few days before you are hearing it because we find ourselves

Catherine Whitaker and myself

inside the headquarters of British tennis, the Law and Tennis Association at the National Tennis Centre. Catherine, these are

very nice surroundings, lots of tennis courts, unfortunately being splattered by rain at the moment, so you and I can't have that rematch that I've been after for such a long time.

You're never going to have that, David. That's all I've got on you at the moment. That one victory, because it's not going very well, predictions wise, is it?

No, just to bring you up to date, although we still have a few days until you hear this, I'm currently, I think, 14-7 ahead, is it?

8, that extra point is very important. 14-8, you are. But you know, it can all change. It can all change. If I correctly predict one match, including the set score and the game score, that's

that's five points right there. So, you know, just watch your back. Yeah, that's lightly.

We are here because we have a very special guest here on the tennis podcast this week. It is a man who's been placed in charge of British tennis, Mr. Michael Danny.

Hello, sir. Good morning, David and Catherine, looking forward to being here today.

It's great to see you. You've been in position now for just over a year, started in January last year. How are you finding it so far?

It's been great, actually. I think I've been here long enough that I understand how to get into the building in which way to go, and I have a fairly good understanding of tennis in this country, but there's still a lot to learn, actually.

And we are here to talk about, hey, what you have learned, and be what your plans are for the future because you've just revealed your strategy for the next four years.

We have, David, we've we spent about the last four or five months actually working on a long-term strategy. This is something that every business needs, and we want to take our time, and I actually asked the board if we could start it in this summer because I wanted the first six months to really get my knowledge base up, but it's been a very, very productive approach, and we feel very good about the strategy moving forward.

And what are the main priorities?

Well, it starts with participation, and it ends with participation. So, as you probably know, we have a new mission, which is to get more people playing tennis more often.

And unfortunately, our sport is not growing. We're seeing an ongoing decline in monthly and weekly players. That's something that we have to work with our partners to reverse, so that the strategy is really rooted in reversing,

or first of all, stemming that decline, reversing it, and getting growth in participation.

And your background is that you've obviously worked together the major sports teams and businesses, and you spent nine years at tennis Canada. I imagine with a similar kind of mission statement.

Very much so, actually, like, you know, the federation of tennis, whether it's in Great Britain or Canada or the U.S., or Australia, fundamentally we're all facing the same issues, is how we get our sports growing.

...