LTA to build £39m national centre

British tennis leapt aboard the builders' bandwagon yesterday, announcing plans for a £39m National Tennis Centre to be constructed at the Bank of England sports grounds in Roehampton, little more than a lob away from Wimbledon.

Plans for a National Tennis Centre came at the end of an eventful week in the sports industry, with confirmation of a new £757m Wembley Stadium and a £4m National Cricket Academy at Loughborough University. After waiting ages for progress, three projects arrived at the same time.

The National Tennis Centre, scheduled to open in 2006, will be funded by the Lawn Tennis Association and the All England Lawn Tennis Ground plc. Profits from the annual Wimbledon Championships are passed on to the LTA for the development of the sport in this country.

Although the pre-tax surplus from this summer's tournament has yet to be announced, the amount has exceeded £30m each year since 1997. The All England Club relies chiefly on the sale of debentures to finance capital expenditure on the Wimbledon grounds.

Tim Phillips, the All England Club's chairman, said yesterday: "Wimbledon is delighted to be able to support the LTA and welcomes this important step towards the establishment of a world-class facility that will benefit British tennis for years to come."

A new hub for tennis coaching cannot come soon enough. Tim Henman, who last weekend almost single-handedly kept Britain in the World Group of the Davis Cup in their play-off against Thailand, reiterated that "we need a whole bunch of guys coming through" – not to mention some women to revive the dormant female side of the game in the country.

Patrice Hagelauer, the LTA's performance director, who played a key role in the development of France's productive tennis programme and the national tennis centre at Roland Garros in Paris, has campaigned to increase tennis participation for youngsters at club level as an essential first step. A National Tennis Centre is integral to his plans.

"This decision underlines the commitment being made to tennis in Great Britain," Hagelauer said. "We will now have a world-class centre comparable to leading tennis nations. This Centre will offer the kind of facilities that our players and coaches deserve and is vital to the future of tennis in Britain."

Hagelauer, who, as a coach, guided Yannick Noah to the 1983 French Open title and also influenced the careers of Henri Leconte and Guy Forget, is keen to replicate the atmosphere of the centre in Paris, where promising youngsters would train alongside champions.

The Centre will have six indoor courts, four grass courts, six concrete courts and six clay courts, a gym, player and coach support services, accommodation and a medical centre.

It will also provide a new headquarters for the LTA, which intends to move lock, stock and the odd smoking barrel from its current home in the grounds of Queen's Club, West Kensington.

Queen's, which has 4,000 members, is owned by the LTA, who said yesterday that the move to Roehampton would not effect Queen's or impinge on its running of the pre-Wimbledon Stella Artois Grass Court Championships. Malcolm Gracie, the LTA president, who has seen overseen several initiatives during his term of office, which ends this year, described the building of the Centre as "fantastic news for British tennis." He added: "It is a vital step in our drive towards encouraging more players and better players in Britain."