• Top Tens: Stars who fizzled out

Tales of unfulfilled potential

Audley Harrison is flat on his back © Getty Images

Enlarge

Ever since Laura Robson burst onto the scene, winning the Wimbledon girls' title as a 14-year-old in July 2008, she has been hailed as the next big thing for British tennis. Her performance in the Hopman Cup, where she beat world No.26 Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez suggests there is no danger of her fading away, but on the eve of her 16th birthday, we look back at other talented youngsters who never lived up to their potential.

Audley Harrison (Boxing)
When Harrison won the superheavyweight boxing gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and turned professional soon after, many considered him almost certain to go on to be a leading heavyweight. An autobiography before he had even fought professionally was a worry, and a £1 million ten-fight deal with the BBC soon came under fire because of his lumbering and unconvincing performances. There were plenty of wins but too many defeats and the world title shot never came. "As an articulate/intelligent/engaging heavyweight champion, Harrison really would have had the whole world of sport at his feet," wrote John Inverdale. "There was just nothing in his fists."

Sonny Pike (Football)
Pike was considered so good that he was signed by Ajax at the age of seven and was regularly wheeled out on TV as the next footballing genius. As the media hype built he was even compared with Diego Maradona. But the reality was different, and as he grew older it became clear he was nothing out of the ordinary. Family problems also hit him hard, and after brief spells with a string of non-league sides he drifted out of the game and was last heard of studying at Dundee University.

James Lofthouse (Rugby)
It was said that at 17 Jonny Wilkinson dreamed of being the next James Lofthouse. After impressing at fly-half for England Under-16s, keeping Wilkinson out of the starting XV, he captained the U-18s on an unbeaten tour of Australia and was tipped by almost everyone as England's captain-in-waiting. But the pressure told and by his own admission he found club rugby physically much more demanding than expected. That, as well as a shoulder injury, led to him retiring at 20. He returned to university and now works as a banker in the City.

Wesley Graves (Formula One)
Like Lewis Hamilton, Graves lived and breathed cars from his time as a toddler, racing karts as a four-year-old and signing for McLaren before he reached his teens. But he found the cars he was asked to drive not to his liking, and while Hamilton was fast-tracked, Graves was released. He never raced again and without his one love to fall back on, his life went off the rails and he has never held down a regular job. "They say [Hamilton is] worth this much money," he told the Guardian. "It does my head in. I hate it. It was like I was on the way, and it's took away from you." And of Formula One? "I don't like watching it. It does my head in. I don't like looking at him, really."

It was often head-in-hands stuff for Martin Lee © Getty Images

Enlarge

Martin Lee (Tennis)
In 1995 Lee reached No. 1 in the World Junior Rankings and a year later won the Boys' Doubles at Wimbledon. But from there his career never got out of first gear, struggling with a succession of injuries. His career high ranking was No. 94 in 2002 which gave Britain three players in the top 100 for the first time since the late 1970s - he was British No. 3 behind Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski. But soon after he underwent knee surgery and in 2006 he quit at the age of 28.

Stanley Matthews (Tennis)
Well, Stanley Matthews Junior to be accurate. In 1962 he became the last British male player to win junior Wimbledon but the stigma of having such a famous father inevitably dogged him. "Even though it wasn't football, it was a lot of pressure to live up to the name of Matthews," he admitted. Nevertheless, he was briefly tipped as the next Fred Perry but the highs were few and far between. He played once for Great Britain in the Davis Cup but retired when 27. He now manages a tennis complex in the USA, a country that suits him as there is "no name recognition".

Lee Newman (Horse racing)
The son of a man whose own aspirations of being a jockey were curtailed by an inability to make the weight, Newman took to horses from the off and by 2000 he was apprentice jockey of the year after riding a post-war record 87 winners in the season. A car crash the following year left him with a broken ankle, but when he tried to return he found the weight he had gained impossible to shed and so the rides dried up. "Trying to keep the weight off was affecting my state of mind, getting me depressed," he told the Guardian. "Eventually I had to say I couldn't take it any more." He now works for Tote Investments in Barbados.

Mark Lewis-Francis (Athletics)
Once described by Donovan Bailey, the former 100 metres world record-holder, as "the most phenomenal talent" he had ever seen, by the age of 21 Lewis-Francis was the No. 1 100m runner in Britain. Although he failed to make the final of the event at the 2004 Athens Olympics, he was part of the 4x100m team which won gold. But thereafter his career went off the rails, hampered by injuries and a reluctance to head to the USA to further his career - he cited homesickness. He was also not helped by being found guilty of taking cannabis in 2005, being stripped of his European 60m indoor silver medal as a result.

Cherno Samba (Football)
Gambian born but raised in Watford, Samba played at every age group of England up to Under-20s. He signed schoolboy terms with Millwall, and the club were so confident in his abilities they rejected a £1.5 million offer from Liverpool in 2003 before he had played a senior game. However, he languished in the reserves until his contract expired and then moved to a succession of clubs, his longest association being at Plymouth where he played 13 matches. From there he went to Finland before returning to the UK in 2009 where he was again given trials by a number of clubs. Despite his lack of professional success, he nevertheless made his debut for Gambia in 2008.

Dudley Owen-Thomas (Cricket)
Owen-Thomas shone as a schoolboy batsman and then for Cambridge University, signing off with a hundred in the 1971 Varsity match and then helping Surrey win the Championship later that summer. In 1972, his first full county season, he scored three hundreds and narrowly missed out on 1,000 runs, but that was still enough to win him the Young Cricketer of the Year award. But his form fell away markedly - only one more hundred came in the next three summers and by the end of 1975, aged only 27, he had drifted out of the game.

Martin Williamson is managing editor of ESPN Digital Media in Europe, the Middle East and Africa

© ESPN EMEA LTD