LTA chief in the dark on Gilbert no-show

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The American, who has earned £1.4million from the Lawn Tennis Association over the past two years, courted controversy when he decided to leave the All England Club after Andy Murray's victory over Fabrice Santoro.

Eaton, from Surrey, was still an hour away from completing his sensational straight-sets win over Boris Pashanski.

LTA chief executive Draper announced yesterday that Gilbert will be leaving his part-time role at the end of his contract but would continue to work for the next three months.

He said: "I don't know why Brad wasn't at the match because he is always very supportive and around for the other British players. It was just one of those things and there were a lot of people there supporting Chris."

Gilbert told Standard Sport last night he was still "hopeful" of being involved with the LTA - who originally hired him to coach Andy Murray - but Draper confirmed this would not be happening.

Gilbert and Murray split last year, leaving the LTA with no option but to pass the American on to Alex Bogdanovic, who has subsequently dropped to No242 in the world.

Despite helping Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi become world No1 and Grand Slam champions, Gilbert's magic has not worked on Bogdanovic.

Draper added: "The likelihood is that Brad will move on when the 20 weeks he is contracted to work with us runs out. He was brought in to primarily work with Andy Murray and wants to work with top players and I sure he wants to get to what he does best. That's the situation. We are both anticipating he will move on after September.

"In the early part it was all about Andy, who wanted a world class coach to help him become a top 10 player and winner of major events. You could argue in rankings terms, the time he had with Brad went well and then it was time to move on, which left us with the question of what to do with Brad for the rest of his contract.

"There is a chance Brad could work with Chris Eaton but there is a limit to the impact he could make. Just having him around with the players at the National Tennis Centre with the juniors have benefited them greatly."