It also houses the administration of the LTA, which was previously based at the Queen's Club in West Kensington.

The National Tennis Centre was built in response to a 1999 review by the LTA of the reasons for its sustained failure to produce world class tennis players (the only British players of either sex to make the world top fifty in the 1990s were Tim Henman, who did not come up through the LTA system, and Greg Rusedski, who learned to play in Canada).

The south-west London location was chosen because it is close to the All England Club, home of the Wimbledon Championships, and many leading British players live in the area.

[4] The Centre has been criticised for not producing world class tennis players and financial waste.

Under the new model overseen by the LTA's chief executive, Michael Downey, the NTC was to remain the administrative headquarters of the organisation, but the elite players were only to use the 22 courts for occasional training camps.