Pushy parents produce the Gauffs and Riskes of this world. Where are Britain's?

A revealing interview with America's other Wimbledon sensation, Alison Riske, showed exactly why British tennis is lagging behind many other countries when it comes to producing the next generation of top players.

The BBC's Richie Persaud asked Riske about her father's past as a secret service officer and an FBI investigator and the pair joked about him being a bit like the Robert De Niro character in the Meet the Fockers franchise of movies. But Riske went on to say that because her father's job had allowed him to retire early it had also given him the chance to school his daughter as a tennis player from an early age.

'This is what Britain lacks – pushy parents. Obviously Andy Murray is one of the exceptions that prove the rule. He has been Britain's only world class male tennis player in the last two decades. But part of the credit has to go to his mother, Judy, a tennis coach who pushed both her sons to reach their potential in the sport from an early age.'

She said she hated tennis at first, especially having to practise it all the time from such an early age, but then added that she grew to love the sport and if her dad hadn't pushed her she would never have played at Wimbledon Centre Court against one of the game's greats like Serena Williams.

This is what Britain lacks – pushy parents. Obviously Andy Murray is one of the exceptions that prove the rule. He has been Britain's only world class male tennis player in the last two decades. But part of the credit has to go to his mother, Judy, a tennis coach who pushed both her sons, Andy and Jamie, to reach their potential in the sport from an early age. As part of his odyssey towards being a Grand Slam winner he moved to Barcelona at the age of just 15. How many other British sportspeople would have such dedication, and such support from their parents, to take such a step?

Britian's only quarter-finalist at Wimbledon in the singles' events, Johanna Konta, lived in Australia until she was 14, joining a tennis academy in Sydney aged just 8, before she too trained in Barcelona for a while before joining her parents, who had moved conveniently to Eastbourne, in the UK.

The most famous examples of tennis players starting in the sport at an early age are the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena. Their father, Richard, was famous for getting a tennis racket into his daughters' hands when they were aged just three. He then pushed them towards a career in tennis knowing it was a potential path to fame and riches.

Coco Gauff, the real sensation of this year's Wimbledon, is only 15 years old. Gauff began playing tennis aged six and won her first tournament at the age of eight. In a sport like tennis, which relies on hand-eye coordination, picking up a tennis racket at such a young age clearly has its benefits. Reinforcing good habits clearly helps when these players grow older.

Rafael Nadal was famously coached by his uncle, Toni, from the age of 3.

The problem in Britain is that despite the many well-intentioned initiatives introduced by the Lawn Tennis Association the game is set up to be played as a social pastime by adults. If your formative years as a tennis player are in your 20s then it is already too late to make it as a player.

Joining a tennis club is an expensive pastime and a sign of your social standing. Adults will take up the sport as a way of networking as they make their way up the career ladder. And few parents make the effort to walk down to the recreational tennis courts in the local park to coach their child in the sport. Those free-to-use tennis courts often stand empty and are usually in a pretty poor state. It's more likely dog walkers will use them to exercise their dogs on rather than would-be tennis champions and their parents.

In Britain people laugh at parents who are too serious about their children's sporting ambitions. Just think of the competitive dad character in Little Britain. But at the end of the day if your child shows any indication of having serious sporting talent it is doing them a disservice if you don't nudge them a little bit in the right direction. They should think of structuring their child's introduction to tennis or any other sport as being like encouraging them to read or to play a musical instrument.