Perhaps it was the shorts that ended around the knees, the left-handed grip, the practice points that had to be struck just right, the focus, or just the sparkle in the eye. So soon after the Wimbledon final that took the world by storm it was clear that certain British children were not afraid to express that little bit of Rafael Nadal in all of them.

Youssef Hassan is 12, he watched the final through tear-stained eyes with Sherif, his eight-year-old brother, and his parents at home in Wokingham, Berkshire, and the days since have been filled with an urgency to play that cannot be underestimated. When Roger Federer faced Nadal six days ago and played a five-set singles final of dignity and excellence, it touched people from all walks of life, whether in the flower of youth or whose athletic heyday had passed. Such resonance has to be tapped into.

Take Hassan, of Egyptian parents, for instance. When a 12-year-old says “tennis has offered my life a real purpose because I know what it means to keep improving in everything I do; Rafa has given me that attitude to never give up”, it speaks not just of Nadal's impact but also the quality of young people here entranced by his virtues and that of the sport in which he is such a champion.

The task for all in tennis, and especially the LTA, is to let these youngsters' dreams flourish and not crush their optimism with strictures and structures that have blighted Britain's progress for years.

There is a self-confidence born of imagination and desire in Youssef - who will spend at least six hours a day during his summer holidays at the Esporta Rackets Club in Bracknell under the guidance of Andy Barclay, a Pied Piper figure for many of Berkshire's wannabes - you can only marvel at. There must be more like him, in every corner of Britain, little Nadals eager to flex their mini biceps, yet Barclay worries that 12-year-olds who are deemed not to have “made it”, in governing body terms, are forgotten, ignored, frustrated and eventually go off to try something else.

Hassan talks of players of his age who “can get the ball back in court but are not technically correct, and the national coaches only ever look at wins instead of those with more potential who play the game properly”.

Here is a boy beyond his years. What he has learnt most from watching Nadal, not only on television but in person the day before his quarter-final against Andy Murray, when he stopped and chatted to the Esporta Junior squad was “how important the warm-up is, the stretching, the preparation and that every ball means something”.

Hassan spent the February half-term at the Juan Carlos Ferrero academy in Alicante, Spain, and says that he learnt more about what it takes to be a professional player in those seven days than he could in the “green ball, orange ball”, ratings, age-group obsessed doctrines of the LTA. The national competition framework stipulates a certain colour of ball and court size for different age groups.

Sue Mappin has been a tireless champion of the sport for years, as player, Wightman Cup captain, hand on the tiller of the Cliff Richard Foundation and now as executive director of the Tennis Foundation, Britain's foremost tennis charity, leading the drive to develop and grow quality opportunities for all communities. One of the prime tasks is to convince local authorities - Mappin met Barnet Council officials yesterday - to open their courts for free, of which only 2,800 of 10,000 local authorities with courts do.

Tennis for Free was the brainchild of Tony Hawks, the comedian who fought a long, lone battle for recognition and finds himself and his many talents taken seriously by the powers that be. The community drive has become so intense that Max Clifford Associates Ltd, the company run by the leading publicist, are targeted to become part of the publicity drive.

“We need someone who knows the lifestyle media, who knows the television celebrities who have a love of tennis and give the sport some real dynamism, rather than just be a sound-bite during Wimbledon,” Mappin said. “I'm sure people will see what we are trying to do. Max plays the sport and we are keen to have his company involved for a short period of time so there is an understanding that this is different from anything we have done in the past.” The great strength of tennis is that Max Clifford can play it and so can Youssef Hassan.

This has been a week to cherish in many ways. Of course, there were rough patches - Dan Smethurst and Dan Evans, the British juniors, were suspended, have had their funding withdrawn by the LTA and deserve all the opprobrium that has gone their way.

Tennis demands self-discipline, self-control and professionalism. While the British pair were enjoying themselves too much in the early hours at a party in Wimbledon Village before a boys' doubles match at the All England Championships, Nadal was less than half a mile away, tucked up in bed. Who is the Wimbledon champion and who will probably never come close?