Hitting Back (2 page)

'What's Andy doing playing in Spain and not in British
Futures events?' he asked her. 'He should be back here,
competing at home. It shows fear that he's leaving his country.
He will lose locker-room respect if he goes on avoiding British
players.'

My mum told him that she just wanted me to be happy and
that I was doing very well in Spain. It didn't seem as though he
was very impressed.

'I do know the men's tour,' he said, implying that she didn't.
'I used to coach Stefan Edberg.' Then he walked off.

I don't know what he thought when his player and I were
drawn against each other in the second round at Wimbledon
but word reached us that people in Stepanek's camp were
saying things like: 'This kid's got nothing to beat us with. He
can't hurt us.' I didn't need the incentive to win at Wimbledon.
I'm competitive about absolutely everything. I really wanted to
win this next match.

Meanwhile, things were getting seriously weird. People came
to watch my practice sessions, which I had never experienced
before. I was signing autographs and when I walked into the
press conference room for the first time after the Bastl match
there were more people in there than had ever stood round the
court to watch my matches.

Press conferences aren't easy. I was quite shy when I was
younger and all of a sudden I was being asked to be quite open
with strangers who were firing questions at me – and not just
about tennis either.

I was asked about my girlfriend. I didn't even have a
girlfriend any more. I'd gone out with a German girl in Spain
but that was all over now. Yet – this is how crazy it was – two
journalists and a photographer flew over to Barcelona and
offered her money to do an interview and take pictures. (She
took the money but she didn't say anything bad.) I couldn't
believe it. This whole Wimbledon thing was amazing. I'd never
experienced anything like it and I never expected anything like
it. How could I? I'm ranked 300 in the world and there are
photographers following me around. It wasn't right.

So with all that going on, I had to try and concentrate for the
Stepanek match that I really, really wanted to win. It was the
one I was most nervous for. When I woke up that morning I
couldn't believe it. I had a raging temperature, and was
sweating buckets. My mum called Jean-Pierre Bruyere, my
physio, and asked what she should do. He suggested a cool
bath at some awful temperature so she rushed out to buy a
thermometer. I took the bath and sat around with some cold
towels on my forehead, drinking lots of water. I managed to
practise for a bit with Mark Petchey, the former British player
who was helping me on a part-time basis, and by the time my
match was called, I was feeling OK. The next day some of the
papers blamed it on a dodgy curry, a pretty wild guess of theirs
because I hadn't even had a curry.

The match was taking place on Court One, the court shaped
like a bullring that you reach by walking along this underground
tunnel that seems to go on for miles. It was quiet and
intimidating down there. All you've got for company are two
security guards and your opponent. When that opponent is
someone like Stepanek, seeded 14th, with loads of experience
and coached by the coach of a Wimbledon champion, it was
enough to make anyone nervous. I'd never been on Court One
in my life, not even to practise, and now I was, officially, the
lowest-ranked player left in the tournament.

We walked and walked. It felt like forever. The butterflies
were going and when we finally arrived in the open, I looked
around me and the court felt huge. Then the crowd saw me and
gave me such a big cheer that the butterflies began to subside
and it settled me down a little bit. I looked up at the players'
box to see my mum, my brother and Petch, and that settled me
down even more. I don't find the support of a crowd intimidating.
I like it. It was nice to know they were on my side. They
obviously wanted me to win but didn't really expect me to.

The match started and my nerves seemed to melt away. I was
ahead all the time. I broke his serve early in every set and he
broke me once during the whole match. It really couldn't have
gone any more smoothly. I returned well and countered
everything he tried. He probably didn't expect me to play as
well as I did and at 6–4 6–4 5–3 I had two match points.

The first one he saved with an unbelievably hard diving
volley which I hit long because I wasn't expecting it. He saved
the next one with a really good pick-up which hit the net and
just dropped over on to my side. He walked up and kissed the
net and then walked back to the baseline, pointing to his head
like I was choking or getting nervous or something.

I didn't know what to do. I had no experience of tennis at
that level and wasn't sure whether players were supposed to
behave like that, but in the next game at 30–all I hit a forehand
that just touched the top of the net and dropped over. I ran up
to kiss the net. Doing the same thing back to him was my way
of letting him know that I may be younger but I wouldn't be
intimidated.

Winning that match was pretty special. He was the highest-ranked
player I'd ever beaten by a pretty long way and when I
walked into the press interview room later it was absolutely
packed. I was asked about the gamesmanship. I said he was
trying to put me off, but in the end he was the one looking silly
because he'd lost to an 18-year-old ranked 317 in the world.
That got a bit of a laugh.

Later, Petch told me that he shook hands with Tony Pickard
in the players' box at the end of the match and said: 'Tough
luck.' Pickard just said: 'That was a terrible match. Both of
them played badly. It was embarrassing. I can't believe that
was on Court One.'

Mark just said: 'I suppose Andy did what he had to do to
win,' and left it at that. I didn't get upset; I found it quite
funny. This kind of backbiting was typical of British tennis at
the time. I'd grown used to some players and coaches not
wanting me to win because I was doing well, this was just an
extension of the same thing. I knew what he had said to my
mum and I thought it was very rude. It was basically someone
who thought he knew better trying to tell Mum what she
should be doing. I don't mind people offering advice, but only
when you ask for it.

I woke up early the next morning, really excited to see what
was being said about me. Obviously being in the papers at that
time was pretty cool. I was on the back pages of all of them.
However, the thing I found most weird then was the live TV
interview, because you couldn't pause to think. There was no
room for error. The BBC reporter Gary Richardson was
coming round almost every morning to talk to me. We didn't
know how to say 'no' in those days. It was irritating the first
time it happened because my mum hadn't told me she had
agreed I'd do it and I got woken up really early. She'll tell you
that I never like getting up in the morning. I'm always at my
grumpiest then (although I'm absolutely nothing compared to
Jamie). It is not my favourite time of day.

It wasn't all bad. We were staying in the basement of this
house in the village and a BBC crew wanted to film me
coming upstairs from my flat, and the cameraman taking the
shot was walking backwards when he tripped and fell over
and smacked his head on the ground. Understandably he then
completely snapped at the guy who was supposed to be
guiding him. I didn't laugh out loud at the time – I waited ten
seconds until I was in the car taking me to the courts. It was
awesome. Right up there with one of the funniest things I've
seen.

I'd made the third round of Wimbledon. I'd gone from a
Court Two nobody to a Court One winner. Next stop the
Centre Court against David Nalbandian, a player so famous
in Cordoba he had a bus stop and hot-dog stand named after
him – but that wasn't his real claim to fame. He was a brutal
player, one who could run all day, and a hero in his home
country for making the Wimbledon final three years ago
against Lleyton Hewitt. He had lost, but he was a huge
opponent for me.

I couldn't wait to play him. It was one of the biggest matches
of my life and I thought I had a chance.

The morning of the match I was fine. I've always been good
at killing time. I just went down to the courts and practised in
my 'Ronaldinho' shirt, a souvenir from my time in Barcelona.
I could pretend and say it was just like any other practice,
but I'd be lying. There were people and cameras everywhere.
Tim Henman had been knocked out in the second round to
Dmitry Tursunov, 8–6 in the fifth set, and I was the last Brit
left in the tournament.

I didn't feel as nervous as for the Stepanek match, but I
think, subconsciously, I was. I just didn't want to understand
the situation I was in. Maybe I was trying to blank it. I went
to the toilet a lot of times before the match and my legs were
heavy, all signs of nerves that I was desperate to ignore.

I've talked about boxing. I love the sport and I really do
compare tennis with it sometimes. It's about performing well in
front of a big crowd with one man out to stop you. You've got
two competitors. You have to beat the other one. You have to
come up with a game plan. You've got to know his weakness,
your weaknesses. Tennis is hard on the mind as well as the legs.
You can go from feeling really comfortable and confident to
seeing it all slip away. You've got to be mentally strong. When
it starts to go wrong, you have to make sure you don't get
angry, don't get annoyed. Actually, now I come to think of it,
it's fine to get angry and annoyed. Just don't let it affect your
game.

I have had my moments of madness on court. I know that
everyone's seen me on TV roaring with frustration or getting
pumped up. It's just the way I am. I got defaulted once when I
was twelve at the Scottish Junior Championships at
Craiglockhart. I was playing one of my brother's best friends
and in a moment of frustration I flung my racket towards the
chair. It went underneath the fence and just seemed to keep
going forever. The assistant referee defaulted me and I had to
trudge off the court to pick up my racket. Afterwards I ran off
to my mum. I was really upset and wanted her support but she
was just annoyed. I thought that was a bit unfair, considering
her history. Mum got defaulted when she was a junior and my
gran was so disgusted she drove home without her. My mum
had to call one of my gran's friends to come and pick her up.
So it's definitely there in the family, the fury, but you've got to
keep it under control.

Getting ready for the match, I just tried to stay focused.
Tactics, stretching, warm-up, I'd done everything I could to
prepare. I wanted to walk out on court with no excuses. If I
won I won, if I didn't I had done everything I possibly could to
win.

The thing I find most amazing about the whole Centre Court
experience is not the stadium, not the crowd but the actual
court. It's perfect. The grass is so well cut; the lines are so
perfectly drawn. After years and years of junior tournaments,
and playing on surfaces like car parks, the courts at
Wimbledon are incredible.

The only thing about the court that isn't so good – and I'm
not joking – is the bottom of the umpire's chair. You might say
I'm nit-picking, but the wheels are black and it looks really
ugly in comparison to the rest of the court. The chair is green.
The grass, obviously, is green. I don't understand the wheels
being black when everything else is perfect.

The main difference though between the Centre Court at
Wimbledon and the main stadium court anywhere else in the
world is the quietness. You hear the ball being hit so clearly. It
sounds so clean. At the US Open, people in the crowd are
talking, shouting, arguing, eating. At Wimbledon, if someone
opened a packet of crisps at the back, you'd hear it all over
the court. It's
that
quiet. It's so silent it's almost intimidating,
especially when you know they're all watching you.

Tennis is one of probably only two sports – golf is the other
one – where the players get pretty wound up over noise. I
actually don't mind that much. I think players need to get on
with it more. Obviously, I don't like it when you're reaching up
for a lob and then you hear the clicks of thirty cameras as
you're about to hit your overhead, but I don't mind when the
crowd shouts out between points. It adds to the atmosphere.

I don't think quiet was the right word that afternoon when I
finally stepped on the Centre Court. I don't know exactly how
loud it was because I still had my iPod on, but it was loud
enough. Luckily, I didn't have to stop and bow to the royal
box because they had stopped all that by then. That's a good
thing, because I wouldn't have known what to do. I'd never
done it before and I'd never met royalty. Well, I'd met the
Duchess of Gloucester once, I think, but I didn't have to bow
then either.

I walked to the umpire's chair, put down that ridiculously
heavy drinks bag and prepared to play the match. It was great
that my dad had come down from Scotland to watch me in
person, among all the other people supporting me.

What happened next was nearly unbelievable. The
atmosphere was fantastic and I won the really long first set in
the tie-break. The second set was the best set of tennis I'd
played all year and I found myself leading 7–6 6–1. I had loads
of chances in the third set but that was when the momentum
started to change a little bit. We were playing points of a really
high intensity. I had game points in the first three games but
suddenly found myself 0–3 down. That's when I decided to
give Nalbandian the set. People might not have realised at the
time, but it seemed like a good idea to start fresh in the fourth.
The trouble is I'd never played a four-set, let alone five-set,
game in my life except in the Davis Cup doubles. In the singles,
never.