Murray calls for British tennis funding crackdown

Andy Murray has urged British tennis chiefs to slash the amount of funding given to players to let more of them earn their own money. Murray, Britain's best male player in some 70 years, is now third in the world rankings and last week saw an 18-match unbeaten run end with defeat by Tomas Berdych in the quarter-finals of the Paris Masters. The Scot, speaking ahead of the start of the ATP World Tour finals in London on Sunday, cited the example of tennis powerhouse Spain as one Britain ought to follow in its quest for success. Murray, who joined a tennis academy in Spain at the age of 15, told the Daily Mail: "Do you know that in Spain, at 18, your funding stops? "From there, you get nothing that you cannot earn for yourself. We're funding guys to (the age of) 27, 28 -- while in the most successful tennis nation in the world you're basically on your own. Maybe there's something in that. "When I went to Spain, from the best players to the worst players we were all taught the same way, all given the same drills," the 24-year-old added. "They had a structure and they stuck to it. "Go to our national centre and you've got 10 different nationalities all coaching a different way. If we don't get the results straight away, we panic and change direction. "There is no confidence in our technique, no sense of sticking to an idea, no identity, no consistency in the way we teach tennis, so naturally there is no British style." Despite Britain's governing Lawn Tennis Association receiving millions of pounds each year from the profits of the Wimbledon Championships, no British man has won a Grand Slam singles title since Fred Perry in 1936.