A significant constituent in the LTA’s planned overhaul of the competitive structure of junior tennis in Britain has been ridiculed as a baseless theory and the association “has decided the rest of the world has got it wrong, that they are right and, to produce the next champion, all the sport has to do is do as it is told”.

The charge comes from the European Registry of Tennis Professionals (RPT Europe), which represents 1,300 coaches in Britain (about 20 per cent of the total) and has raised doubts about the concept of mini-tennis and the National Competition Framework with its orange, red, green and yellow balls and multi-sized courts, which is regarded by the LTA’s hierarchy as vital in the development of players between the ages of 6 and 12.

Responding to last week’s article in The Times headlined “Why does more money mean less talent?”, Adrian Rattenbury, the RPT Europe director, says that the handing of the annual surplus from Wimbledon to the LTA — the 2007 sum was £25 million — “allows them to do anything they want, whether it be right or wrong, whether anyone agrees with it or not and whether we want it or not”.

Specifically, he argues that minitennis, highly thought of by Steve Martens, the LTA’s head of technical support and a Belgian, is not all that it is cracked up to be.

“How we decide if a system is working or not surely has to be based on results,” Rattenbury said. “In a recent conversation with a coach from Belgium, he explained how the competitive structure introduced now for mini-tennis in Britain has been a great success in Belgium over the past six to seven years. So if a child took up tennis in Belgium at 7 they would have had the advantage of being a part of the system for seven years and would now be 14 years old — obviously a nine-year-old then would be 16 now.

“In the current Tennis Europe rankings for these age groups, Britain has 55 boys and girls with an under-14 European Tennis Association ranking and 37 with an under-16 ranking, whereas Belgium has 26 at under-14 and 20 at under-16. Holland, which has also used the system, has a total of 22 players with ETA rankings at under-14 and under-16. Britain has 92 players with ETA rankings, which is 50 per cent more than Belgium and 76 per cent more than Holland.

“How can we seriously be expected to follow the lead of the LTA, whose plans are based on countries that have less success than we do? Why has the LTA decided not to introduce systems and coaching methodologies from countries that have produced players?

“In all the reports, nowhere do we see mention of the Spanish system or the Argentinian system. If we look at how tennis is introduced and taught in these countries, maybe this is why we are not using them as models.

“In these countries there is no mini-tennis. They do not have three different kinds of balls and play on three different-size courts, they do not have tournaments for mini-tennis and they certainly do not have a competitive structure which dictates which ball you are allowed to play and on which court you are allowed to play depending on your age.”

In defence of the programme, Martens insisted that the LTA remains in a transitional stage “where everything is still possible”, but that a governing body needs to have a vision for the future. “The main thing is to get more juniors competing and more on track and, as a result, we would like more players to reach the top 100 in time, but the third will be heavily influenced by getting the first two right,” he said.

“We speak to a lot of people, we are extremely inclusive and we have had good feedback from quite a number of people about mini-tennis. It is much about play and stay, so that kids are not only drawn to play tennis but stay with it. When you ask 100 people their opinions, they may all slightly differ, but we have to come forward with the vision.”