Famed American coach Nick Bollettieri believes diverting youngsters to tennis from other sports could be the key to improving British fortunes.

Home hopes have come under the annual Wimbledon scrutiny, and the results have not made for pretty reading.

Only Andy Murray, Laura Robson and Heather Watson qualified for the tournament by right, with seven further British players receiving wild cards.

Murray and Robson were victorious, the latter particularly impressively against tenth seed Maria Kirilenko, but the other eight managed only two sets between them.

One tournament does not tell the whole story, even if that is sometimes how it is made to appear.

But the results certainly show up a lack of depth at the top of the game in Britain.

It is not a new problem and, despite the tens of millions of pounds invested annually by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), progress has been slow in some areas and in others non-existent.

The LTA is also under pressure from Sport England over participation figures, which have been dropping for the last four years, although the latest figures showed a slight improvement.

Bollettieri has been responsible for a string of top players emerging via his academy in Florida, which he set up in 1978, including the likes of Monica Seles, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier and Maria Sharapova.

The 81-year-old believes the performances of Murray, Robson and Watson in particular will inspire youngsters, but warned more needs to be done.

Watson spends much of her time training at the Bollettieri academy, as she has for much of the formative stage in her career.

Bollettieri said: “With Murray, Robson, Heather Watson, they’ve created success, so that will get more people playing the game.

“What you need now is for sponsors to start helping some of the boys and girls that don’t have money that have ability.

“You’ve got to get to the kids that want to be special.

“We’ve got to start getting the kids away from your football and your rugby and that cricket game, whatever that is, we’ve got to start diverting some of them to playing tennis.

“Tennis is a very expensive sport and a lot of them don’t have the money to do that. We have to start diverting these kids at 10,11, 12 and 13 and teach them techniques that will enable them to play the entire game rather than just parts of the game.”

Critics of the LTA argue it has fostered a culture of entitlement by funding players from a young age, but Bollettieri believes that is essential and the key to success is about having enough players to push each other on.

Not that there are any guarantees.

“Normally speaking, the more you have doing anything, your chances increase,” said Bollettieri. “But today we’re playing against the whole world.

“When I started the academy, in the 80s and 90s, there were basically six or eight countries. Also Britain has a word called education, and you’re the same as America, the kids have got to go to school.

“I would steer a lot of these kids to go to college for a few years, nothing wrong with that. They can come to the US, play for a good college, you get to play pro events and the team pays for those things.

“But normally speaking, I believe you have to divert the athletes and pay for them when they’re 10, 11, 12. People may not agree with me, but that’s what I did.

“I gave out scholarships and I got the best players, and when you put the best players together in one place, they push each other to be better players.”

The often-criticised LTA chief executive Roger Draper will stand down in September, with his successor yet to be announced, but Bollettieri believes the former Sport England head leaves the sport in a better position.

Bollettieri said: “Roger has come through with some darn good juniors and he’s certainly helped Laura and Heather.

“Critics are always there. What they should do is examine their own selves.

“It takes time.”