Hitting Back (7 page)

But, in general, we didn't commit any arrestable offences.
Although I don't know for sure whether you can get arrested
for dropping wet paper towels in Spain.

As for Spanish, the language, I didn't learn much. I only
picked up little bits and pieces. The Academy was so
international that all the coaches spoke English. I wasn't forced
to use Spanish and that is the one regret I have from my time
there – not learning to speak the language fluently. It is a shame
because Mum is great at languages, having studied French,
German and Latin. I should have tried to learn but I didn't.

I loved life in Spain. For a Scot, I didn't even suffer from
sunburn. My nose got burnt but the rest of me was OK. Much
more importantly, I made friends that I still have to this day,
like Danny and a Peruvian guy called Carlos Mier who I didn't
speak to for a year because he is the shyest person I've ever met
and doesn't speak unless you speak to him first.

We got to know each other better when we all went on tour
to South America at the beginning of 2003. It was five weeks
in conditions I'd never faced before, moving from Colombia to
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. It was so good for me
because I'd spent ten days over Christmas training indoors in
freezing Scottish weather only to fly to Colombia to play
doubles and singles in 30-degree heat on clay courts. It taught
me about the quick adjustments you need to make on the
tennis tour.

I'd never played for such a long stretch before and some of
the places were an eye-opener in terms of the poverty. It made
us realise how lucky we were to be getting everything paid for.
We also came to realise we were really naïve and had a lot to
learn about travelling.

An American guy came up to us in Colombia. He seemed
really friendly and asked us if we were tourists. We told him we
were here to play tennis. 'Oh, that's great,' he said. 'I came over
a week ago to play golf, but the guerrillas came and stole all
my stuff, including my watch and my wallet.' He came out
with this story and then asked us for money. He said he just
needed enough for a place to stay that night. We said: 'No,
sorry,' but some of us were feeling bad. We didn't really know
what to make of it.

A couple of days later, this guy is in the lobby of our hotel
and caught trying to steal the bags of some of the players who
had just arrived. It made us realise we had to be careful. Most
of us came back with our bags only three-quarters full after
people had helped themselves to our clothes and other stuff.
We were just fair game. It was a fun trip, I enjoyed it, but I
realised I had to look out for myself.

On court, I did a reasonable job. In Colombia I won the
tournament, the Pony Malta Cup, without dropping a set. I
reached the third round in Ecuador. I was a quarter-finalist in
Peru, semi-finalist in Bolivia and quarter-finalist again in
Paraguay. I was pretty sure I was making progress, but whether
it was far or fast enough, I didn't really know.

Danny and I then hooked up in the doubles and went on our
successful run at a string of tournaments in Italy. We won three
or four titles, I won a singles. I reached round three of the
French Open Juniors, losing in straight sets to Marcos
Baghdatis, who was two years older than me and looked like a
full-grown man with a beard. At Wimbledon I did badly, losing
in the first round, but from there I won the Canadian Open
Juniors against a string of older opponents, beating the
Romanian Florin Mergea, the Wimbledon junior champion,
6–2 6–1 in the final. I was almost in the World Junior Top-10.

Naturally, it couldn't last. In my short career so far, the one
thing you can say is that it is an absolute roller coaster ride. Up,
down, good, bad, great, terrible. At least I've never wanted to
get off, though in 2003, aged 16, I was close.

I said to the Academy physiotherapist one day that my knee
was hurting me. He said: 'It's probably growing pains. It's just
playing a lot of tennis on hard surfaces. Take a little bit of time
off and make sure you ice it.' So I would do that, it would be
OK and then it would come back. Worse than before.

I went to see the physio again. 'Try to keep everything loose
and ice it,' he said. In other words: 'Yes, I know it's sore but
it's not too bad.' I'm telling Leon, my coach: 'It's bad, it's
hurting me,' but he's listening to me and listening to the physio
as well, and eventually accepts that it's just growing pains.

So I carried on playing. I faced Baghdatis again at a
tournament in Luxembourg, and lost a 3-hour match 7–6 6–7
7–5. My knee was incredibly sore afterwards but ten days later
I turned up for a Spanish Futures event, the type of tournament
where juniors come up against seniors who have already
played on the tour. In other words: it's tough. My first match
was against a 30-year-old professional who'd played at
Wimbledon, Emilio Benfele Alvarez, and it was a really good
win for me. I woke up the next day and I couldn't walk. My
coach said: 'It's not too bad,' so I went on court, lost 6–0 6–0
and didn't play another match for seven months. That was
probably the worst time of my life. I was young. I was doing
well. I was enjoying playing. In juniors I was competitive with
the top guys two years older than me. I was pretty much in the
world top-10, and, suddenly, all gone.

It seems ridiculous now that I didn't retire from that last
match, but at the time I was sixteen and when I said it was
sore, no one was believing me. I didn't have the confidence to
go against them. Maybe it was growing pains, but I didn't
think so. I went to see a physio, then a doctor and they both
said the same: 'It's inflamed, just rest it. It will calm down.'

I was back home in Scotland by now and after a little while
I tried to play again. It was hopeless. I remember that a newspaper
photographer came to take a picture of me and Jamie
and a couple of other guys on a court. He asked us to squat for
the picture. I tried but my knee said 'No'. I wasn't even close
to being able to do it. I was in agony, and this was ten days
before I was supposed to be going to the Australian Open
Juniors.

In the end, after more doctors, more physios, more opinions,
I was desperate. The first time they said they couldn't find
anything wrong I was fine. The next time, I was upset. The
third time, after I had had a scan and an X-ray, I was crying.
The fourth time, I was completely dejected. I was angry and
feeling so sorry for myself, but when you are that age you can't
turn round to the doctor and say: 'What the hell are you
talking about?' I'd do that now. I'd demand answers to
questions and not go away until I had them.

'You're fine' is one of the hardest things to hear when you
know you're not and the thing you love most has been taken
away from you. All you're getting told by the experts is: 'Just
come back in three or four weeks.' I felt they weren't taking me
seriously. I was thinking: 'This is my career. You're not giving
enough time to me to understand the problem.'

Eventually, I was told I had a bipartite patella, a pretty
common condition that affects about seven in every 100
people. It means that your kneecap is not fully formed, with
fibres and tissues making a kind of canal down the middle
where everyone else has bone. My kneecap was basically on
fire. That is not a technical description but that is exactly how
it felt. Surgery wasn't an option as I was still growing, so I just
had to be patient and do the rehab.

I went to the gym every single day and did upper body
weights. I was miserable. It was horrible. I tried playing tennis,
just going on court and hitting balls sitting in a wheelchair or
standing on one leg, but it wasn't the same. When you sit in a
chair, it feels so strange. Everything seems much bigger and the
net feels ridiculously high.

It reminded me of a wheelchair player I'd met in Tarbes as a
junior who had the hardest handshake I've ever felt in my life.
That was just him saying hello. I thought: 'Wow. My hand is
completely crushed.' It hurt like hell. Now I know why they
have to be so strong. Having tried and abysmally failed to do
what those guys do every day I have so much respect for them.

The injury seemed to go on and on. My mum has described
the time as 'hell for everyone', but the knee finally responded
to rest. By the following summer I was ready to play again,
nervously, as a wild card on the grass at Surbiton. It was a nice
easy warm-up for Wimbledon – I wish. In fact, I was playing
Jimmy Wang, a 20-year-old former junior world number one,
ranked about 200 on the senior tour. Within minutes I was two
breaks up, leading 3–0 in the first set. I'm thinking 'Wow, I
wasn't expecting that.' Then at 3–1 I slipped on the grass and
hurt my hip. Game over.

I don't even want to think about how disgusted I was, but
there are only two options: give up or keep going. I kept going,
not least because I met a man who proved to be really good for
me. Mum found this French physio, Jean-Pierre Bruyere,
working part-time for the LTA, and I don't know how he was
able to get me fit enough to play Roehampton, a tournament
for juniors running up to the first week of Wimbledon, but he
did. In ten days I was on court again, winning 6–1 6–1. In fact,
I won my first three matches really, really easily and reached
the final. There, I admit, I faced an obstacle in the shape of
Gael Monfils, my long-time friend and rival, who was runaway
world number one junior. He had already won the Australian
and French Opens that year, and this was his warm-up for an
assault on Wimbledon. I lost 7–5 6–4, having served for the
first set. Normally I'd be furious with myself, but this time I
was happy. I was so relieved, after all I'd been through, that
I hadn't completely lost my game.

I owe a great deal to Jean-Pierre. He was one of the most
caring people I'd ever met. After all those physios and doctors
telling me: Don't worry about it, just growing pains, come
back in three weeks, at last here was someone who believed
me. He always told me: 'Don't let anyone mess with you. Take
care of yourself. I want you to achieve your dreams. I don't
want anyone to stop you by pushing you too hard when you're
too young. It's your body, your life. If you're hurt – regardless
of what anyone says – don't play.' You can see that I've carried
that advice with me ever since. He was often pretty dramatic
about things, but then he's French. I was fine about that. I
understood him and knew he would occasionally go over the
top in his analysis. If I said my back was hurting, he would say:
'OK, let's get an MRI scan. 'Many physios would say: 'It's fine,
don't worry.' Jean Pierre would say: 'Maybe it's the start of a
stress fracture. Let's be sure.' I was certainly grateful to be in
good hands and he has helped me through many other injuries
since.

I reached the third round of Wimbledon Juniors, losing to
Woong-Sun Jun of Korea. I didn't play particularly well, but
my body was still hurting from my efforts the week before after
a seven-month lay-off. I'd lost strength and coordination, but
slowly I could feel my game rebuilding again.

Maybe not so slowly. I took off with Leon to play four
Futures tournaments, three in Spain and one in Italy. Basically
I was a 17-year-old taking on the men. I won the first, made
the semis of the second, the second round of the third and
that's when I stopped working with Leon, my coach since I was
eleven.

I can't remember what the row was about, but it was
certainly something silly. I was at that age when I was starting
to grow up and I didn't want to be treated like a kid. I was
rebelling against being told what to do. We'd been together so
long that Leon, though not quite a father-figure, had obviously
been telling me off since I was a child. I respected him. He was
a good friend and very caring, but maybe I was at the stage
where I was starting to become a bit more independent which
led to arguments.

Leon went home and Mum came to Italy instead. Somehow
I managed to win the tournament, despite being 2–5 in the final
set of one match and 3–5 down in the next. I was pleased. It
gave me confidence, and I needed that badly. After the longest
and most miserable lay-off of my life, I was setting off for the
US Open Juniors – with no coach.

New York is unbelievable. I enjoy it. I love it. The noise, the
pace, the energy, the size of it. I love the people. New Yorkers
are perceived as arrogant and loud, but I think they're just
being friendly. We were staying at the Grand Hyatt Hotel right
above Central Station and the minute I walked in the lobby I
was amazed by how enormous it was. There was a shop where
you could get bagels and the people at reception were so great.
Sometimes I had to get up and go out at 5am, and everyone in
the hotel seemed upbeat even at that time in the morning. If
you get up at 5am in Britain and go into a garage or something,
everyone's miserable, but they seem happy to see you over
there. It's been my favourite tournament ever since.

My room was huge. It had a massive bed, loads of pillows,
a big TV with thirty channels. This was paradise. At
Wimbledon, they put the juniors up in little rooms with one
bed and one desk, miles away from the courts. There was
absolutely no comparison. The US Open made the juniors feel
they were part of the main tournament and I loved that most
of all.

When I went to Flushing Meadows where the tournament is
played, about a half-hour bus ride from the city, I just thought:
'Wow.' It was a completely different atmosphere to anything
I'd ever experienced. There is no way that Wimbledon would
let juniors mix with the stars, but in New York we were
allowed in the main lounge area. Everywhere I looked there
seemed to be one of the best players in the world. I met
Guillermo Coria who was one of my favourite players at the
time. I saw the Ryder Cup golfer Sergio Garcia on the putting
machine. The fact they even have a putting machine in the
lounge is fantastic. I beat Tim Henman on that, much to his
annoyance, because he is a pretty low handicap golfer.