It was always odds-on that Andy Murray would be operating as an army of one on behalf of British tennis before the end of the first week at Wimbledon, so there was more than a hint of reflex ritual in the lamentations and condemnations evoked when the country’s cadre of frailer hopes in the championships were almost instantly mown down. In keeping with a media tradition that has easily survived decades of exposure to failure on a similar scale, most of the wounded were made to feel they were being bandaged with barbed wire. Perhaps they preferred the rough, accusatory treatment to the obvious alternative, which was a sympathy based on nothing more heart-warming than recognition that mediocrity isn’t a crime.

Naturally, not all the losers were savaged. Belief in 15-year-old Laura Robson’s promise could hardly be diluted by the quick demise of the attempt to make her remarkable precocity count at the senior level, Josh Goodall was rightly given credit for taking the experienced Frenchman Michael Llodra to five sets and Elena Baltacha’s distinction of being the only Briton other than Murray to progress beyond the first round kept journalistic claws partially sheathed when she succumbed tamely on Thursday to a younger Belgian she had twice previously beaten. But the fact that the campaign to improve Britain’s overall standing in international tennis has been backed by tens of millions of pounds of public money was enough to ensure that the Wimbledon slaughter would be regarded as a case of paying a fancy new price for the same old cannon fodder.

The knowledge that the foundations of Murray’s emergence as the best British player since Fred Perry was master of the courts in the 1930s were laid by prolonged nurturing in Barcelona deepens resentment of the Lawn Tennis Association’s inadequate endeavours to provide him with compatriots in the upper echelons of the game. And faith in the LTA’s perspectives was scarcely reinforced by the reaction of the men’s head coach, Paul Annacone, to his proteges’ performances in the first-round action in SW19. Annacone has coached Pete Sampras, so there can be no scepticism about his credentials, but it was hard to relate to jargon-blurred comments such as the assertion that he and his players had experienced a tough couple of days “mostly from result orientation rather than process orientation”.

Maintaining allegiance to the man singled out for the newspapers’ most lacerating attacks, Annacone insisted Alex Bogdanovic was an immense talent who profoundly impressed everybody who watched him in practice. Just how much is lost in translation to tournament play is, of course, conveyed by Bogdanovic’s record of having squandered the allocation of eight successive wild-card entries at Wimbledon by consistently losing to his first opponent. There would appear to be a problem with commitment, drive and nerve orientation. If persevering with Bogdanovic suggests a lack of rigour in the filtering mechanism for separating the genuine prospects from the ersatz, the growing clamour of criticism surrounding the LTA’s policy for player development targets a more fundamental flaw. Almost everywhere outside the organisation there is disillusionment with the strategy of concentrating financial support on a so-called elite group of performers in preference to giving priority to the popularising of their sport among young people hitherto unreached by it. Their concept is seriously undermined by the question of how special their chosen few are likely to be when drawn from such a restricted volume of possibles.

Judy Murray, Andy’s mother, pointed out in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph that France has 10 times as many tennis players as Britain has. Her son towers above the best the French can offer but that no more invalidates the relevance of numbers than does the evidence for recognising a Swiss as the greatest player in history.

Nobody can foresee when or where individuals capable of developing the astonishing amalgam of athleticism, technique, dedication and competitive mental strength of a Roger Federer or a Rafael Nadal — or, for that matter, an Andy Murray — will occur but, glorious exceptions notwithstanding, the bigger the human catchment pool the better the chances of discovering such a phenomenon. The argument for striving to open up tennis to a much broader swathe of this country’s population, for steering substantial funds towards making thousands of additional public courts available (and keeping them serviceable) and into encouraging sustained involvement with the game in schools nationwide, is surely more persuasive than the LTA’s current discredited approach.

“Anyone for tennis?” may never become a frequent cry on the kind of council estate that produced Wayne Rooney but it’s reasonable to believe the social boundaries of the sport could, with the expenditure of sufficient effort and money, be healthily extended. The general benefits of doing so would clearly be vast even if they didn’t include providing us with another player as exceptional as Murray. However, the search for future champions would certainly be invested with more rational optimism than is justified now. And if Murray’s career evolves as expected, its impact in converting youthful imaginations to the attractions of tennis could be considerable. That’s a pleasant thought but hardly one my countryman would be likely to appreciate. As he immerses himself in the immediacy of dealing with the men trying to block his path to what is widely seen as a predestined confrontation with the great Federer in a Centre Court final, all the lad from Dunblane needs is blithe chatter about evangelical duties up ahead. But somehow I don’t think he’ll notice it.

Luck wasn’t with Lions

Whatever conclusions emerge from the welter of technical analysis to which the second Test of the Lions’ series with South Africa will be subjected, having witnessed the match on television thousands of miles away left me unable to entertain any view other than that all the heroic commitment and resilience of the Springboks wouldn’t have produced victory had their opponents not been profoundly reduced by injuries to vital players. Perhaps it was the innate graciousness of rugby men that caused so many of the commenting experts from these islands to concentrate on the immensity of the credit due to the Springboks for achieving a dramatic comeback after falling behind significantly. This football man felt he had a licence to say the Lions were unlucky.

Trier Tevez got too big for his boots

If, as is confidently predicted, Manchester City clinch the acquisition of Carlos Tevez from Manchester United this week, relief and satisfaction won’t be confined to Eastlands. Some of us will hope that a weight of tedium is being lifted off our spirits. Ever since he made it plain that his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson had been fractured beyond repair, Tevez has revealed an eagerness to provide periodic elaborations on the circumstances of his departure from Old Trafford.

Through the first couple of instalments, the subjective commentaries were interesting enough, and certainly nobody could object to the Argentina forward’s desire to have his say (Sir Alex, after all, is both skilled and practised at putting across his version of events). But as Tevez has continued to hark back to what he considers his ill-treatment at United, his communiqués have become tiresomely repetitive. His talent, apparently, was grossly disrespected, he was unjustly obliged to spend too much time on the bench, Ferguson’s signing of Dimitar Berbatov represented some kind of betrayal.

The impression created by all that is of a player whose sense of how much he could demand of his club, of how influential his complaints might be, may have been distorted by a keen awareness of his extreme popularity among United supporters. Undoubtedly the fans were captivated by his fierce competitive zeal and his ability on occasion to turn a match through the forcefulness of his presence. But it’s always a mistake for a footballer to exaggerate the relevance of the fans’ assessment of his worth.

Manchester City are poised to acquire a valuable player and we should all wish both the club and Tevez a successful alliance. My extra reason for doing so concerns a time when an American heavyweight fighter reckoned to be more dangerous on the street than in the ring was causing a noisy, alarming scene. At the height of his tirade, a friend of mine called out: “Put the gloves on him — that usually quietens him down.” Put the boots on, Carlos.