The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) has announced its new tennis leadership team, aiming to deliver the next generation of elite stars.

The appointments include Paul Annacone – the highly-rated American coach who worked with Tim Henman and Pete Sampras – although Annacone will work only 20 weeks a year as head coach, rather than take up the full-time role of head of men's tennis, which will instead be filled by Paul Hutchins.

Annacone was the prime candidate for the position, which carried the job description that the successful applicant would ideally have success of coaching a Grand Slam champion or top 10 player.

While Annacone fitted this brief, family issues prevented him from relocating to London permanently, hence Hutchins' appointment.

Although the decision might appear on the surface to be a climb down from the LTA, which had set its sights very high during the recruitment process, it is hoped that Annacone will be allowed to have a focus on playing matters, rather than administration.

Carl Maes will be the head of women's tennis, following a highly successful partnership with Kim Clijsters, and work with promoting a flow of other top Belgian players. Nigel Sears will work under Maes as head coach. The pair will have their work cut out, with the highest ranked British woman, Anne Keothavong, currently standing at 144 in the world.

Another Belgian, Steven Martens, will become head of technical support, and wlll take responsibility for the high performance centres, talent identification and technical support for coaches and players.

Caroline Blincoe will take up the role of head of county and club relations, and will manage the delivery of community tennis and the national facilities and club programmes.

It is at the grassroots end that the greatest challenges will be faced however, with major reconstruction work needed. Roger Draper, the chief executive of the LTA said: "We asked for world class and that is what we have. The real job starts now for the team.

"Our new ‘winning’ vision will only be achieved if we all pull together and make sure we bring about real change across British tennis. I am very much looking forward to welcoming them all to the LTA.

“The next part of the British tennis jigsaw is to develop a joined-up approach to community tennis. I hope that we will be in a position to announce the new community approach over the coming months.”