Murray takes shot at LTA for 'ruining' his brother

The increasing disquiet between Andy Murray and his family and the Lawn Tennis Association was made public yesterday. Murray, the 18-year-old British No 3 whose world ranking has soared from 450 to 65 in his first year on the ATP Tour, claimed that the national governing body had "ruined" the early years of his older brother Jamie's career.

Jamie Murray, Andy's senior by 15 months, was one of the sport's leading juniors and was once considered to have greater potential than his brother. Jamie is now ranked 34th in Britain and 896th in the world. "My brother is very talented," Andy Murray said. "He was No 2 in in the world when he was around the age of 13, and then he went down to an LTA school in Cambridge and they ruined him for a few years. It was their fault."

The LTA performance director David Felgate stressed that there could be no uniform way of bringing on players.

"The LTA recognises that different players react to different approaches, which is why we have introduced choice and flexibility into our performance system and continue to support our best players wherever they want to train in Britain or beyond," Felgate said.