Hitting Back (10 page)

I really enjoyed that tournament, but after the quarter-finals
Mark had to leave me to go to a wedding back in Britain. I was
there on my own and feeling devastated. I suppose I was still
quite young to be by myself abroad trying to organise everything,
including courts, practice, flights and hotels. I lost 6–7 in
the final set of the semi-final ($2,920) and then I had to fly six
hours on my own to New York.

Mark joined me again and we went to Binghampton, about
a three-hour drive north of Manhattan, which was probably
one of the worst tournaments I have ever played. The courts
are like the ones you would find in a public park. The referee's
office was a Portakabin. There was no food and you couldn't
shower unless you were willing to use the facility in a caravan.

I must admit I do remember having a laugh when we got
there, mainly because I was – I still am – pretty immature for
my age. When Mark was driving the car, I used to honk the
horn when we came to a standstill. He used to (kind of) laugh
about it as well. But on the way to Binghampton, we found
ourselves in a pretty rough place near a trailer park. I couldn't
resist. I honked the horn for a pretty long time and Mark hit
me and yelled: 'Don't do that. You could get us both killed.' It
was the first time he'd told me off for being an idiot. I found
it quite funny, but it was also rather awkward. He was like a
father figure to me, but also a friend, and it was sometimes
difficult to know how to behave with one another. Obviously
it didn't upset me too much because I won Binghampton
($7,200) and then set off south to Cincinnati, another ATP
event that had given me a wild card.

All this criss-crossing America was tiring but I was enjoying
it too. I was getting stronger and fitter all the time, but the
improvements went beyond physical. I had a moment on a tiny
little propeller plane to Cincinnati after Binghampton that I
will always remember as it suddenly occurred to me how close
I was to the World Top-100, having played six weeks over
there and risen to a ranking of about 130. 'I'm so close now,'
I thought. 'I've got a really good chance of doing it.'

It was realising a dream. I wasn't there yet, but I knew it was
going to happen soon. Small planes like that are not normally
the most comfortable experience, but it didn't even register. I
was thinking about what I'd put into my career, the sacrifices
I'd made and that's when I realised it was starting to pay off.
I'm not a crier, but I was quite emotional on that plane. When
you put four or five years of your life into something at that
age, it is a big deal. Only as recently as April I'd been playing
rubbish and not enjoying it. This was August and it had all
started to click. I sat there feeling really satisfied. Mark was
sleeping opposite me – there was only one seat on each side of
the aisle. I didn't wake him up. It was a moment for me alone.

Cincinnati might have brought me back to earth, but instead
I had another amazing experience. I won a first round against
Taylor Dent (who must have been pretty sick of me by then
because I'd won our match at Queen's only two months
before) and then faced the highest-ranked player I'd so far
come up against, the fantastically talented Marat Safin, who
had won the Australian Open that year.

I hardly believed I was on the court with him. This was the
first grand slam champion I had ever played and I had a huge
amount of respect for him. Taking him to three sets was a
pretty good effort in the circumstances. The final score was 6–4
1–6 6–1. My shoulder hurt, but my confidence wasn't dented
at all.

By now I'd played seven weeks in a row and if the All
England Club had been willing to negotiate a main-draw wild
card for me at the US Open by swapping one for Wimbledon
the following year, I could have avoided playing in the
qualifiers for the main draw. But they weren't. I was tired and
annoyed. All the other grand slams offer a few wild cards into
their own tournament to get their own country's best players
into the others' – it is like a deal that suits everyone – but
Wimbledon refused, so I had to play three matches of
qualifying. Tired and cross or not, I qualified.

My first-round match against the Romanian Andrei Pavel
remains one of the most satisfying victories of my life.
Remember that when I left Britain there were people telling me
I wasn't fit enough, wasn't strong enough and I wouldn't last a
five-set match. This grand slam challenge was a five-set match,
against a player who was 31 years old with loads of experience
and I was just coming off a run of seven straight tournaments
with a sore shoulder. What happened next made the front
pages – but not in a good way.

In the middle of the match I drank too much of my energy
drink in one go and threw up all over the court. Twice. I don't
mind drama in my matches but this was over the top. At first,
I just felt I was going to burp but somehow that turned into me
being sick all over Pavel's bag. (We had a bit of a joke about it
afterwards. At least, I did.) I sat down and when I went to
stand up again, the same thing happened. The crowd were
groaning, especially the second time. I think it's quite funny but
I've never wanted to see any of the videos.

It was one of those matches that, for a lot of reasons, I will
never, ever forget. I don't know how long I was on court. The
official statistics say 192 minutes, but they must be wrong. It
felt nearer five hours to me. I had agreed with my critics who
said I needed to get stronger and here was the proof I was
going in the right direction. I won 6–3 3–6 3–6 6–1 6–4 and I
was
so
pleased. It was a huge match for me.

At the moment of victory, there had been so many things
going through my head. I was thinking about what some
British coaches had said to Mark when they found out he was
going to work with me: 'You're not going to coach him are
you? Be careful. He's pretty weak.' It had been so long since
Britain had produced someone with a chance of being a decent
player, not counting Tim, and yet here they were still being
negative even though they didn't know me, they hadn't seen me
practise, didn't know the sacrifices I had made and how hard
I'd worked in Spain.

There was the usual British atmosphere of bitching behind
people's backs. The coaches blaming the players, the players
blaming the coaches. It could be a terrible atmosphere. I admit
I'm making a generalisation, but it seemed to me that the
majority of players and coaches were like that in Britain
around that time. The match against Pavel was my vindication.

At the end, I just put my finger to my lips and went:
'Ssssshhhh!' That was my way of saying, 'OK, you can all stop
now. I'm not in bad shape for my age. I can get way better as
a tennis player. Just give me some time.' I didn't have a career-threatening
problem. I was young. That's all. I kept the
thought to myself. I didn't even say anything controversial in
the post-match press conference. I didn't have to say it out
loud. There was just a feeling of inner warmth and satisfaction.

Tennis doesn't let you sit around feeling warm for very long.
I lost another five-setter in the next round against Arnaud
Clement in four hours and two minutes and an attack of cramp
ended the tournament for me. That brought another volley of
criticism about my fitness. I didn't let it undermine my
confidence. Within a month, I was playing Roger Federer.

I was called up for the Davis Cup tie in Switzerland, only my
second appearance since my debut against Israel in March,
when David Sherwood and I played out of our skins to beat
Erlich and Ram, their top-10 doubles partnership, in four sets.
That had easily been the highlight of my tennis career to that
point – maybe it was the trigger to everything that happened
next – and it had led us here, to Geneva, to come face-to-face
with the greatest player in the world who had just won the US
Open.

I was excited but also a little confused when Jeremy Bates,
the Davis Cup captain, decided not to play Greg Rusedski on
day one. I don't know why he put Alan Mackin, then ranked
262 in the world, up against Federer, and I suppose it wasn't a
surprise that he was beaten 6–0 6–0 6–2. In the next rubber I
played Stanislas Wawrinka with the full intention of beating
him, even though he was in the World Top-60. That plan went
wrong when I was 1–5 down in the first set. I won the next set
in a tiebreak, but lost the decider 6–4.

At least I had the honour of playing Federer in the doubles.
That is not overstating how it felt to me, even though Greg and
I lost in four sets. After the match I actually told Roger it was
'an honour' to play him and he told the press later that he
reckoned he would have some battles with me in the future. He
just didn't know how soon.

We both flew out of Geneva together for the next ATP
tournament in Bangkok. Other than that, our situations were
not quite identical. He was already a grand slam champion six
times over. I arrived in Thailand ranked 109 in the world,
having never proceeded beyond the third round of any ATP
tour event. What happened next remains very special to me. I
would call it the most significant moment of my year. Even
better than reaching the third round of Wimbledon, this was
the time and place that I finally achieved my main ambition to
break into the world top-100. I won a £400 bet too – a few of
us had agreed that we each had to give £100 to the player who
made the top-100 first – but the money was secondary to the
feeling.

To reach the landmark I had to beat the Swede Robin
Soderling, and he is one of the best indoor players in the world.
We don't get on either. He doesn't like me and I don't talk to
him much. So there was quite a bit of tension in the match and
although I won in straight sets, both of them went to a tiebreak.
When it was over my feeling of relief and happiness was
amazing. I sent Mum a text just saying: 'I did it.'

From there the week just kept getting better. In the next
round I beat Robby Ginepri and then I faced Paradorn
Srichaphan, ranked 57th at the time, in the semi-finals. He is
absolutely massive in Thailand, one of the most famous people
in his country, second only to the king, I'm told, and travels on
a diplomatic passport. Being British, I know I have a partisan
crowd on my side, but Paradorn has about four billion Asians
on his.

I lost the first-set tie-break and started smashing my racket.
This probably was not a good sign, but I decided to be more
aggressive in the second set and Paradorn seemed to tire. To
the huge disappointment of the crowd, I came back to take the
match in three sets and so take my first crack at Roger Federer
in a singles match that also happened to be my first ATP final.

I'd played him in singles before . . . but only on my tennis
computer game. When I actually stood on the court with him
and started warming up, I felt a little bit strange. It just didn't
feel normal. I don't really know how to explain it. I stood there
on the same court as Roger Federer and it was almost as
though I was looking down on myself from above. It didn't
actually feel as though I was on the court. It was something I
had imagined so many times in my head that I wasn't sure
whether it was real or not. It was like being parachuted into a
scene you've imagined a hundred times before. You're
obviously there, but you don't feel like it. That is probably why
I can't really remember much about the match. As I've told
you, I can remember pretty much every point of every match I
play, I know my stats, but I can hardly remember a single point
of this one. I wasn't really focused on what I was doing. It just
didn't feel like reality.

This shouldn't make me sound like a complete freak. Quite
a few players have told me that when they played Pete Sampras
or Andre Agassi for the first time, it was a little bit weird. The
stars are so famous, their mannerisms are so recognisable, that
it hardly makes sense to be playing them. Obviously Federer
didn't have too many mannerisms. He doesn't need them. He
just walks backwards and forwards across the back of the
court and looks really relaxed. But it was still a cool experience
to me and will always remain pretty special.

I lost the match 6–3 7–5, having gone down 3–0 at the start
of the match. In the second set I had some chances. Yeah, I got
beaten in straight sets but I didn't feel I was completely
outplayed. It was a learning experience, making the world
number one do some running left and right. I wasn't blown
away. It gave me some confidence.

We did the trophy ceremony together and while the press
were taking pictures we had a little chat. He is a really nice guy.
I was pretty relaxed by now. I no longer felt as if I was a
character in my own video game. I'd taken eight games off
Federer and lived with him for a while. I was in the World
Top-100. I was on my way.

Unfortunately, I was on my way to an industrial estate in
Belgium as well. My reward for reaching the final in Bangkok
was a night flight out of Thailand to London followed by three
and a half hours on a Eurostar train to a Challenger in Mons.
It was as far removed from the bright lights as you could be,
but I had committed to play and there was no question of
pulling out. That triggers an automatic fine. So I hauled myself
through three rounds, before having to retire midway through
the match against Xavier Malisse with a hamstring injury.

The year could have ended there and still been outrageously
good. I'd made all the progress I'd asked of myself, but there
was one more surprise. I was in Switzerland for the ATP event
in Basle. Federer had pulled out and the tournament offered me
a wild card, not perhaps as a direct replacement, but, whatever
the reason, I was glad to be there. They invited me to join the
draw, when the player match-ups are pulled out of a hat. One
of my favourite players, Guillermo Coria, had been invited too
and I was joking with him that it was a total certainty that I
would play Tim Henman in the first round. Sure enough, the
tournament director drew Tim's name out of the hat and then
said to me 'Who do you think will play him?' There was a long
pause. The name came out. Of course, it was me.