THERE is a long-standing joke among tennis fans that goes something like this. 'What do you call a female British player at the second week of Wimbledon?' 'Lost'.

Hardly the most original of wisecracks but one that seems to neatly sum up the dearth of top-class British talent within the upper echelons of the women's game.

While Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski have been regular winners at Wimbledon in the last ten years, it is now more than two decades since a British woman made the world's top ten.

Jane O'Donoghue, ranked 232 in the world, was the only homegrown star to make it through the first round of this year's women's singles competition but, later today, Britain's women will finally have their moment on centre court.

True, the eight players displaying their talents in front of a capacity crowd are just promising youngsters plucked from the Lawn Tennis Association's National Futures Squad.

But maybe, just maybe, they can buck recent trends and go on to play on the show court for real in four or five years time. One of them is already planning for such eventualities.

Abi Curry, from Carlton, near Stockton, played in a similar demonstration match two years ago after first picking up a tennis racket at the age of six.

Since then, the 13-year-old has been crowned National Junior Champion at the Telegraph Center Parcs Grand Prix and won international tournaments in France and Belgium.

She is understandably thrilled at the prospect of another outing at Wimbledon but, displaying the kind of ambition and drive she will need to succeed at the highest level, insists that is far from the extent of her ambitions.

"It's always exciting to get the chance to play at Wimbledon," said Curry, who will defend her national title at Sherwood Forest later this summer. "It's great to think you're playing on the same court as so many great players of the past.

"I've done it before so I know what to expect a bit more this time but it will still be something special.

"Things like that are great but winning my age group competitions are more important. They'll decide how far I go in the future, not a ten-minute knock-about at Wimbledon."

Junior successes will undoubtedly play a part in determining how her career progresses but the extent of her ambition is likely to be more important.

Skill is not enough to turn a promising youngster into an accomplished adult - in the world of modern tennis sacrifice is every bit as significant.

Next September, Curry will leave her family behind and embark on a new life at the LTA's National Tennis Academy in Loughborough.

According to the LTA, the facility, which was opened in March 2003, "focuses on exceeding international standards of excellence and providing the very best support structure to produce players to compete on the world stage".

The governing body hope their £2m investment in the Academy will help usher in a new golden era of British tennis and Curry, despite having to sever her ties with her native North-East, is hoping to be at the vanguard of that change.

"I've been happy with the way my career has progressed here at Middlesbrough," she explained. "But there's only so far I can go there and it's time I made a change. I'll be going to the national Academy in September and staying there full-time.

"It's a big move but it's one I have to make if I'm going to take my career up to the next level.

"Obviously I've thought long and hard about it and spoken to my parents but the decision's been totally left to me. It's something I really want to do.

"At the moment, I'm having to combine my school work with my tennis. My school (Red House) have been brilliant with me - they let me do half-days and give me time off for some of my competitions.

"But I don't really get the best of either world. My tennis is suffering because I can't play as much as I'd like to and my school work is suffering because I spend so much time travelling around from one place to the other. Hopefully, being at the Academy full-time will solve all of that."

While the LTA claim to be developing a training system that will help British players compete at the highest level, other countries continue to blaze a trail.

The US Academy system continues to be the envy of the rest of the world, with youngsters flocking from far and wide to immerse themselves in a culture aimed at making the best and breaking the rest.

The world-famous Nick Bolletieri Academy cherry-picks the best youngsters from all seven continents - reigning Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova travelled there from Siberia at the age of just 13 - with a steady stream of Brits also crossing the Atlantic in search of success.

Nunthorpe-born Sarah Borwell, who lost in the first round of this year's Wimbledon on Monday, re-located to Houston to combine a university degree with a tennis scholarship at the age of 18.

Curry has already trained her sights on the United States, admitting that the English system still lags some way behind its American equivalent.

"The next step after the Academy will be to go abroad," she said. "You can try to make it from England but it's a lot harder to do.

"You don't get to train on different surfaces and the facilities and coaching aren't really at the same level as somewhere like the United States.

"That's where I want to go if I can. When I'm 16 or 17, I'd like to leave and go full-time in a tennis Academy in the States.

"Somewhere like the Nick Bolletieri Academy would be great because you only have to look at the names that have come out of there to realise how good it must be.

"I know it'll be tough. It'll be hard to get on to - you have to go over for a trial and prove you're good enough - it'll be expensive, and it'll be hard work. But it'll be worth it if it helps me turn professional."

The ambition is there to go with the skill but, in recent times, Britain has had an unhappy knack of turning potential stars into perennial under-achievers.

Can Curry buck the trend?

She certainly thinks so and, given the obstacles that will undoubtedly lie ahead, that could well be half the battle.

Officially, today's "ten-minute knockabout" is the warm-up to the rest of the day's action. In time, it could prove to be the prelude to something far longer-lasting.