Blood From a Stone

...and then there's the other big story out of the weekend, which is that Great Britain was defeated by Lithuania in the playoffs way down the scale. This pretty much ensures that ol' GB will fall even farther down in those subsidiary groups.

This, at the outset, seems quite unusual, on account of Britain having a top ten player. But I think this goes to show that one man does not a team make. If Andy Murray does not play, well, Britain are rightly where they are. They have a few subsidiary players, but no one marvellous. They belong with the Lithuanias of the world. That is where they are at, talent-wise, at the moment.

Which is why I find it so perverse that people are out for blood.

I mean, sure it sucks for British tennis that Britain is losing. But that is just the way it goes. There is just not the talent in Britain at the moment to be a gun Davis Cup nation. If you want to look at something, look at the way you're grooming your juniors. Look at your talent scouting processes. But firing the coach or a whole bunch of people is not magically going to make the team you have play better. There is no quick fix.

There is no short term solution to a lack of immediate talent. The only thing you can do is look at how you are finding and developing talent. We see the same thing in Australia - this is why there is so much pressure on the shoulders of Bernard Tomic. We want there to be someone awesome, and we want them now.

But the reality is that sometimes your stable is full of awesome players, and sometimes all the talent was born into another country. And you can fire as many people as you want - it's not going to fix anything. You cannot get blood from a stone.