The worrying prospect of Britain returning to a status of national tennis shame has topped a list of concerns in the results of an online poll issued to England, Wales and Northern Ireland today, further fuelling the debate surrounding Scottish independence.

‘Potential economic instability and the loss of oil revenue for the rest of the UK are very valid concerns, but the fact that we could yet again become the laughing stock of world tennis is just too much’, said Birmingham resident Nigel Coleman. ‘Plus if Murray leaves, they’ll have nothing to affectionately name that bit of grass outside Centre Court. It’ll just have to be called ‘that bit of grass outside Centre Court’. Hasn’t really got the same ring to it.’

With many fearing the possibility of Tim Henman’s parents having to return to SW19, plans are currently in-place to find somebody of UK origin, however distant, and who has a history of using a tennis racquet for more practical purposes than just swatting flies in their living room whilst watching Wimbledon on the telly. Many tennis fans have claimed that this will take ‘decades to achieve’.

‘Does this mean that Rusedski is going to try and play tennis again?’ Asked sports fan Emma Harris after reading through Salmond’s proposals. ‘Please don’t make me watch another miserable montage of Greg’s brief weekend at Wimbledon. I imagine it’s difficult to make somebody in a Union Jack poncho eating strawberries cry uncontrollably, but Greg always managed it’.

Although September’s historic referendum has divided opinion since Scottish first minister Alex Salmond first proposed the plans, the horrifying possibility of British tennis returning to a state of bleak mediocrity has, according to poll results, been the cause of a mass hysteria. Wimbledon MP Stephen Hammond claims to have been ‘inundated’ with correspondence from concerned constituents. ‘Normally I get the occasional letter from people begging me to do something about Cliff Richard, but this year I’ve received at least thirty demanding that I plead with Andy Murray to stay in the UK’.

He continued: ‘Rather than coaxing Tim Henman out of retirement, is it not possible for a separate country to be created that only Andy Murray inhabits, and then allow it to join the United Kingdom? This way we won’t technically have to live with him, but could claim him to be “one of us”, should he win anything shiny. Who knows; we’re keeping all options open’.

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