AS KYLE EDMUND’S coach Fidde Rosengren noted, it’s been a life-changing fortnight for the 23-year-old.
But producing more players like Edmund is a longer-term challenge for British tennis.
Although the word is that Edmund will recover from his semi-final injury to lead the GB team against Spain in the Davis Cup next week, the tie in Marbella will once more underline the nation’s lack of strength in depth.
World No1 Rafael Nadal declared himself unavailable before his own injury, but Spanish captain Sergi Bruguera has still been able to pick five players from inside the world’s top 40 and leave out two more from the top 100.
Without the injured Andy Murray, new world No26 Edmund is British skipper Leon Smith’s only option of that calibre.
Britain’s second singles player will be world No114 Cameron Norrie or No171 Liam Broady.
Neither has ever won a Tour-level match on clay, which makes inflicting a first home defeat on Spain since 1999 seem highly unlikely.
In the short to medium term, Smith hopes Edmund’s breakthrough will inspire others.
Smith said: “At the end of the day, we are where we are with depth. This can hopefully help those guys as well.
“I genuinely believe Liam can be a top 100 player. Cam’s very close to it.
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“I genuinely believe Jay Clarke will be a top 100 player as well.
“We don’t have huge numbers so we need to help and support these guys as much as we can, which is why we support those three.
“We’ve given each of them a large amount of money, cash funding, to go and get coaching teams around them and help with their travel expenses.”
Smith also hopes to bring former British No2 Dan Evans back into the fold when his 12-month ban for testing positive for cocaine expires in April.
The Davis Cup captain said: “I care about Dan a lot, I’m very open with that.
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“I hope he can come back. I don’t know if he will or not because that’s going to be down to him.
“I said it when the whole thing happened, if he is ready to commit and come back then we will look to help him how we can within what’s possible and what’s right.
“It has to be if he wants to do it and it sounds like he is.
“But he is a person that always needs help and I hope he’s really open to it because I want to help him.”
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Edmund aside, there have been mixed messages from Melbourne.
Jo Konta’s second-round defeat means she will drop to world No11 in Monday’s rankings. Heather Watson will be No75, with Naomi Broady (No118) and Katie Boulter (No196) the only other two Brits in the top 200.
British juniors George Loffhagen, Jack Draper, Gemma Heath and Ali Collins all lost in the first round of the singles.
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But Aidan McHugh’s run to the semi-final – the first British boy to manage that at a Slam since Edmund at Wimbledon 2013 – was some welcome good news from the generation behind Edmund.
In the longer term, the Lawn Tennis Association is banking on its new Performance Pathway to produce more and better players.
Performance director Simon Timson, whose reign in the same role at UK Sport included overseeing Team GB’s best-ever Olympic performance at Rio 2016, has spent more than a year pulling together the strategy, which will go live later this year.
With new LTA chief executive Scott Lloyd having started work this month, Edmund’s success should give everyone involved a boost.
Smith said: “You have to be honest, we still need some more players, don’t we? That’s obvious.
“That’s why we’ve had Simon Timson. That’s why Scott Lloyd’s here now. That’s why we have the new performance strategy.
“That’s why there needs to be, no matter what, an extended run at the new strategy. It has to stick for 10 years.
“There’s never going to be a perfect model, but something needed to be done and I think the strategy is really well thought through. It’s robust, it’s ambitious.”
It needs to be, if more Brits are to follow in the footsteps of Murray, Konta and now, Edmund.
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