The LTA has published its new inclusion strategy, and promised to hold itself to account “for constant and consistent progress towards our aim of a sport that reflects our communities”.

The national governing body for tennis in the UK wants to embed a culture of everyday inclusion within all aspects of the sport, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that people playing, working and volunteering in, and watching tennis reflect the diversity of the nation’s communities.

The strategy sets out five key areas of work with 25 commitments to drive change, underpinned by 46 priority actions that the governing body says will help make the ambition of the strategy a reality. Commitments include actively seeking out the views of under-represented groups and targeting those groups through specific programmes; ensuring better championing for and understanding of inclusion at tennis venues, and targeted actions to improve diversity amongst players, coaches, volunteers, officials and colleagues.

The new inclusion strategy forms part of the LTA’s overall vision to open tennis up that was put in place in 2019. It has been developed from a starting point of listening to lived experiences with input from a diverse range of people.

Rachel Baillache, LTA Board Inclusion & Diversity Champion, said: “The actions we have put in place as part of our vision of tennis opened up over the past few years are already beginning to impact diversity in our sport positively.

“But we know there is much more to do, and this strategy sets out how we will go about driving the change that is needed across the whole of tennis. It is about long-term, cultural change, and we will not be satisfied until we have achieved that.

“We will hold ourselves to account for constant and consistent progress towards our aim of a sport that reflects our communities, and the Board is looking forward to being able to report against this in the coming years.”

To read the full strategy, visit lta.org.uk/inclusion.