LTA agrees plans for streamlining organisation

The dust of ages began to be swept away at the Lawn Tennis Association yesterday after approval was given to plans to streamline the management structure of the governing body.

"The executive will be allowed to get on with their job and be accountable," said Charles Trippe, the LTA's president, after a meeting at the All England Club, where the LTA council voted in favour of changes that will remove a whole tier of committees beneath the council and the main board. "The decision was virtually unanimous," Trippe added. "There were just a couple of a abstentions."

Sport England will welcome a restructuring of the LTA's decision-making process in answer to the Minister for Sport's call for national governing bodies to challenge themselves over the way the are run. The result could be additional Government funding for British tennis.

The size of the main board will be reduced by six to 12 members, and for the first time two board members will be appointed from outside the LTA. "There will be no change to what the LTA council does," Trippe said, "in approving major strategy and budgeting and approving appointments to the main board."

There will be two scrutinising boards - one dealing with the performance side of the game and the other with grass roots issues - whose purpose is to advise the executive but not to make decisions.

* Tim Henman has been seeded ninth for next week's French Open. The Wimbledon champion Roger Federer is the No 1 seed, ahead of Andy Roddick.