Tennis / Wimbledon '93: Hero's broadside at LTA's 'kick in teeth'

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

THERE was a downside to Chris Bailey's performance on the Centre Court yesterday when he revealed that he had been informed by Lawn Tennis Association officials on the previous day that they would no longer finance his travelling coach, the New Zealander Nick Carr, to the tune of dollars 1,000 (pounds 660) a week.

'They make pounds 14m a year out of Wimbledon and I've been told to find private sponsorship,' Bailey said. 'That's a kick in the teeth for me after this performance.' Carr has been working with him for the past nine months and Bailey said: 'I desperately need to keep working with him. He has done so much in changing my game and my fitness.'

Bailey said he had been told last week that the funding would stop and a second appeal on the eve of yesterday's second-round match fell on deaf ears. 'It's up to them to come to me now,' he said. 'I am not going to go grovelling to them.'

Bailey sympathised with the plight of Billy Knight, the head of the LTA's training department, saying: 'He's doing a good job, but he simply has not got the funds available from the governing body.'