In these crippling days of credit crunches, financial tailspins and investment bank collapses, the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is ready to buck the trend spectacularly today when it announces a multilayered mega-deal for British tennis to the tune of £30 million.

The LTA is delivering on its promise to sign up a “lead partner” when many across the sporting panoply doubted that it could be done. Armed with the rise of Andy Murray to No 4 in the world, the universal popularity of Wimbledon, the cachet of the Queen’s Club grass-court tournament (from which Artois, its sponsor for 30 years, withdrew this summer) and the potential of 14-year-old Laura Robson, the LTA has found a company that is willing not only to share but to invest heavily in the sport’s future.

It is understood that the company involved — whose identity will be revealed at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, southwest London today — is a European financial institution and that its investment amounts to the best part of £30 million over four years, a sum worth about the same as the recent annual surpluses the LTA receives from its partnership with Wimbledon. The 2007 surplus was £25.1 million.

One company being mentioned in tennis circles last night was AEGON, one of the world’s leading life insurance and pension groups, which has strong links with Scotland, having taken control of Scottish Equitable, a respected name in UK insurance, ten years ago, before relaunching in 2006 as AEGON Scottish Equitable. If the rumours turn out to be true, the Murray clan would relish their impact on the sport.

Whoever is the sugar daddy, the announcement marks a red-letter day for the governing body and especially Roger Draper, its chief executive, who determined from April 2006, when he took the reins from John Crowther, that he wanted to secure the LTA’s financial future without the reliance on its handout from the All England Club.

Having secured this handsome deal, it appears likely that Draper’s contract, which is due for renewal at the end of this year, will be enhanced.

Announcing that it was seeking a “one size fits all” partner, the LTA said: “The commercial programme has been designed so that they [the company] will be able to participate as the principal sponsor across a range of core properties”.

Those include the the Artois Championships, the ATP Nottingham Open, WTA Eastbourne International Women’s Open, WTA Birmingham, the Great Britain Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams, Challenger and Futures tournaments and a wide spectrum below that.

It added that “all this will lead to unprecedented growth in interest, participation, competitive results and brand impact. Tennis in Britain is changing.”