Say the name “Alex Bogdanovic” in British tennis circles and what you get in return is a communal shaking of heads, shrugging of shoulders and exaggerated sighs.
Until yesterday, Bogdanovic has rarely said anything worth printing, but he came out swinging when the subject of his place in the system was raised at another domestic tournament that he departed without troubling the scorers.
What sparked the 26-year-old left-hander into a vitriolic attack against the LTA was the fact that he has been dropped from its matrix funding group for 2010 and, having made it plain that he did not want to play in the Davis Cup tie against Turkey next month, he was told his punishment would be to forfeit any wild-card privileges this summer.
Some might say that it is about time. Bogdanovic’s shortcomings were once more crystallised at the AEGON Championships at Queen’s Club, West London, when he ought to have seen that Grigor Dimitrov, the 19-year-old Bulgarian, was as tight as a drum on the verge of a first-round victory but mistrusted his own talents and lost 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. It is the story of his career.Many more coaches than Tito Vasquez, Peter Lundgren and Brad Gilbert (he was Bogdanovic’s companion for a brief period after parting with Andy Murray, but uniquely ran out of things to say) have sought and failed to work out why this man of such intrinsic gifts cannot summon the power to use them.
That he has earned $620,000 (about £430,000) in prize money owes much to funding that allowed him to travel extensively and the feather-bedding effect of eight wild cards into Wimbledon, on which the return has been eight first-round defeats.
When Bogdanovic told Leon Smith, the new Davis Cup captain, that he preferred to work on his own game and not be considered for the Europe/Africa Zone group II tie, the LTA’s hackles were raised. The decision to slash Bogdanovic’s funding was made as the domestic game’s governing body said it was resolving to make every effort to keep players in the game longer by making up shortfalls in any money they might earn. How much more of a mixed message could it send?
“The reason Steve Martens [the LTA player director] gave for cutting my funding is that I wasn’t working hard enough through the year, my intensity wasn’t enough and that is just so disrespectful and very untrue,” Bogdanovic said. “He only saw me play twice the whole year and he shouldn’t put my efforts down.
“I’m out there giving it my best shot to break into the top 100 [he is No 166 and has never been higher than No 108] and if it was easy, everyone would be as good as Andy Murray is. I found out they didn’t believe in me any more, so the only thing I can do is go out there and try to improve.”
Murray once felt that Bogdanovic was his natural singles companion in the Davis Cup, but his own presence against Turkey is not certain. The paradox is that Judy, his mother — who was courtside to watch the defending champion’s 7-6, 6-3 victory over Iván Navarro, of Spain, yesterday — is working as part of the team, giving a tactical insight into the opposition, pinpointing patterns of play and strengths and weaknesses that she will package on a DVD for team meetings.
Judy was instrumental in providing such information when her sons, Andy and Jamie, were in their developmental stage and says that tactical analysis is what she loves to do.
It would have been fun had she had a word with Andy yesterday before he played Navarro, who consistently made life uncomfortable for the No 3 seed for long spells.
Indeed, Murray, sporting a colourful support around his right knee, had to fight off two set points in the first set tie-break before securing a third-round place against Mardy Fish, the American, or Santiago Giraldo, from Colombia.
Source:The Times
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