Success is relative

17-year-old Alex Bogdanovic enhanced his reputation

BBC Sport Online's Mark Jolly reflects on why British tennis fans should not get hung-up on the country's lack of real tennis talent.

Alex Bogdanovic, Anne Keothavong and Elena Baltacha have been hailed as the future of British tennis.

Everyone is asking how far can they actually go?

But Tim Henman aside, it's been a long time since Britain has produced a world-class tennis player.

And however talented Britain's trio of teenagers are, the harsh truth is that in world terms, other players of a similar age have already achieved more.

The women in the world's top 20 have had a very different life to me

Hannah Collin
British champion

Keothavong and Baltacha have both just turned 18, and are ranked 307 and 232 in the world.

Bogdanovic, 17, is ranked 1068, although he still plays in the juniors.

Good prospects, maybe. But at the top of the game there are seven girls aged 18 or under in the top 60.

There are plenty of reasons for this.

One of them must be that the commitment needed to get to the top would be seen as unhealthy in Britain.

Certainly in the women's game, those who get to the top have been dedicated to it from a very early age.

Richard Williams wanted his daughters Venus and Serena to be tennis players before they were even born.

In some countries, children are taken out of school and practice six or seven hours a day from the age of eight.

Those that succeed experience little other than tennis in their childhoods and the ones that fall by the wayside are quickly forgotten.

Compare it with British junior champion Annabel Blow, aged 18.

Keothavong is happy with her progress

She passed her A-levels, an A and two Bs, in the summer and is going to give tennis a couple of years before thinking about studying medicine.

She said: "I thought it was important to get an education so I could fall back on that if the tennis does not work out."

Most British parents would prefer her route - but Blow is ranked only 508 in the world.

Keothavong said: "I would have loved to have been in the top 10 by the age of 18, like Jelena Dokic. But in other ways I prefer the life I have had."

Hannah Collin, 19, who won the women's national title at Bolton, echoed the sentiments.

She said: "The women in the world's top 20 have had a very different life to me.

"They never went to school and never did anything but tennis from the age of six or seven.

"I never did that. But I am happy to have done it the way I did. I feel I have a better life.

"Maybe it will just take longer for me to come through."

The situation is not quite so extreme on the men's side, although a "normal" upbringing is still unusual.

But British champion Lee Childs said: "If you live and breathe tennis day in day out and do nothing else, you just burn out and fry.

"If you cannot let your hair down for five minutes, it would be like being a robot.

"I'm as committed to the game as anyone else, but there is a time and place for letting your hair down."