Hitting Back (24 page)

I don't really agree with people changing nationalities, unless
they have a mother or father in that country or a long residence
there, but I think the issue arose because my British teammate,
Alex Bogdanovic, who moved here when he was about eight,
was also Serbian. He didn't get a British passport till he was
thirteen. Maybe they thought they could do something similar
with Djokovic, but, for whatever reason, it didn't happen.
Imagine if it did. Britain would have had its first male grand
slam champion in seventy-two years when Djokovic won the
Australian Open in 2008, even though he was born in Belgrade
and lived in Monte Carlo.

Believe it or not, I have had some really happy times in the
Davis Cup. My favourite was my debut when David Sherwood
and I came together to play one of the best doubles teams in the
world, Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, in front of a noisy
partisan crowd in Israel. I was seventeen at the time, it was my
first major exposure to tennis at senior level and we could
hardly have been greater underdogs: two young Brits with no
form on the tour and hardly any experience.

When I look back I realise it was the only Davis Cup match
I've ever played when there has been very little pressure. I had
been playing horrendously beforehand in Futures and
Challengers, but I walked on the court and my tennis was
literally awesome for the whole match.

It was the same for my partner, a tremendous athlete and the
son of two Olympic medallists. Dave's dad, John Sherwood
won the bronze medal behind David Hemery in the 400m
hurdles in Mexico, and his mum, Sheila, won the silver medal
in the long jump. That was some pedigree.

Neither of us had ever played Davis Cup before, we didn't
even know each other at the start of the week and neither of us
was expecting to play, but Bogdanovic had lost badly in the first
singles and the team captain just said: 'Are you guys up for
playing?' We said: 'Sure'. This was during the period that Tim
Henman had decided to give the Davis Cup a break for a couple
of years, and so the choices were more limited than usual.

The crowd were incredibly noisy. I had been used to playing
tournaments where even if there were people watching, they
weren't usually bothered who wins. This time there were 6,000
people all cheering against us, except my dad, my mum, and
my mum's friend Laura who had come with her.

I remember this particularly because there had been a
cocktail party for the British tennis team when we arrived.
Laura was introduced to Greg Rusedski at some point during
the evening and then she seemed to disappear. It was only later,
when there was a lull in the conversation, that you could hear
a woman's voice in the corridor outside the room, absolutely
shouting down the phone to her husband: 'You'll never guess,
I've just met Greg Rusedski!' I suppose all of us were pretty
new to this world.

Dave and I didn't need five sets to win our match. Neither of
us were intimidated. On the first point I hit a backhand return
winner and pretty much everything I did after that just clicked.
I was loving it. The home team were defeated 6–4 7–6 2–6 7–6
and when we finished I was so excited I threw my racket up in
the air – but then I didn't know where to run or what to do. It
is probably the most excited I have ever been in my life after a
match. The video is hysterical. I just ran in a circle like a
headless chicken. I hugged Jeremy. I hugged David. We
celebrated as if we had won the whole tie instead of just the
doubles. It was so, so special and that night Jeremy asked me
if I would play the fifth and deciding rubber if Laura's friend
Greg didn't win the fourth match. But he did and so I didn't
have to play.

The night after the match I didn't really sleep, partly from
adrenaline and mainly because Dave phoned me every half
hour because he was watching Sky News repeat the highlights
in their bulletins. He kept calling me from his room, shouting:
'Did you see that shot!' and I did because I was watching it too.

I look back on those days with great affection. That was the
start, when everyone was so positive, so upbeat. They were
also the days when you didn't know how to say no, when you
agreed to everything because you were so naïve.

I wish I could say that I played brilliantly afterwards but it
didn't happen. I went straight back to playing horrendously
again. Something had changed though. After that match, I
realised I could play at a high level after all. Even if it was just
doubles it had given me an extra boost of confidence which
may have made the difference when it came to my debut at
Queen's and Wimbledon the same year. Maybe everything
stemmed from that match.

I played with David again, at Wimbledon that year, but we
lost in the first round. We kept in touch for a year or so
afterwards and we still played some of the same tournaments.
Then he stopped tennis altogether. I don't know what went
wrong. He was probably one of the finest athletes British tennis
has produced in the last twenty years. He won a round in the
singles at that same Wimbledon, and then I think he went into
coaching. Maybe he found the grind of the smaller tournaments
a bit depressing after having a match like the one we had
had together in Israel.

So my Davis Cup experiences are far from miserable. In
many ways, that first one was inspiring. Even further back,
when I was invited to join the squad for a tie in Luxembourg
in April 2004 when I was sixteen and injured, it was pretty
cool. I was suffering from my bad knee but they invited me
along just to watch and learn. It was great to be helping on
court with Tim and Greg, both of them were really nice, but
the main reason I phoned my coach Leon was to gloat about
the fact I was staying in a five-star hotel with a room to myself.
Leon and I were used to junior competitions with five to a
room or bunk beds. I kept telling him about the DVD player.

However, you get over those days of being amazed by the
luxury. As my Davis Cup career went on, it wasn't so much
the flat-screen TV in the hotel that excited me as the chance
to play high-profile matches against decent teams in front of
passionate crowds. Whatever happened with Argentina, that
feeling hasn't changed. Tennis is about nothing if not playing,
winning matches and making your name in some of the biggest
arenas in the world. You get all that in Davis Cup.

I would never say I'm not going to play Davis Cup. I am not
going to pass up the opportunity to play huge matches for my
country. I'm not like that. I love it. I have only objected to the
tough timing of the ties. I don't know whether that is the fault
of the International Tennis Federation who oversee the Davis
Cup or the ATP that represents the players, but they are
obviously not working together as they could.

Not one of the players who skip Davis Cup regularly would
ever say they don't like the competition. They do, but its place
in the calendar makes it hard for the top players to make a
commitment to compete. If a few things were tweaked it would
be so much easier. I don't think giving ranking points for
playing in the Cup would help. It is a great competition as it is
– just change the dates.

It was a crazy time. Andy's life changed out of sight after Wimbledon
2005. For anybody aged eighteen to go through all that craziness in
such a short space of time was amazing, and for ten months of that
time I was riding shotgun as his coach. It was an unforgettable
experience for both of us, and despite the fact that it came to an end
(and I thumped him once in a car), I'm sure we'll be close friends for
the rest of our lives.

I'd been involved with him at arm's length before that famous
Wimbledon, while I was working for the Lawn Tennis Association. I
was well aware of him and his talent but I didn't know him on any
kind of intimate basis. I knew he'd split with his former coach, Pato
Alvarez, before the French Open, and someone came up with the
idea that I would hook up with him to help him through the grass-court
season – Queen's and Wimbledon. I assumed that is where our
association would begin and end. We had absolutely no way of
knowing what would happen next. The wins at Queen's, the cramps,
the fame, the five sets against a Wimbledon finalist – it was all
completely unpredictable.

His rise was phenomenal. Nothing short of it. To go from being
350 in the world to 50 in ten months was almost unbelievable. It
began with a bang at Queen's, where he won two matches and then
at Wimbledon, where he was two sets up against David Nalbandian
in the third round, the last Brit standing in the tournament. Within
seconds of every match ending, my mobile phone went into
meltdown. Probably the best thing that happened to us was being
able to go away on the road for ten weeks, to get out of Britain and
escape the publicity.

I never for one moment expected to be caught up in all this. I
had a good job with Sky Sports TV commentating on tennis. I was
just planning to leave the Federation, where I was manager of men's
national training, because I wasn't seeing eye-to-eye with the
performance director and Tim Henman's former coach, David
Felgate. Sky gave me a lot of freedom and I had a good life with
my wife and our two little girls after years of being on tour or
holding down two jobs at once. There was no way I could say to
my wife: 'Right, I'm volunteering to go away for ten weeks at a time
again.'

Well, there was one way. After his amazing success at Wimbledon,
Andy asked me if I would join him as his full-time coach. It was a
massive decision, as I already had an idea of what it would involve. I'd
spent two years coaching on the women's tour, with Sylvia Talaja of
Croatia and the Slovenian Tina Pisnik, when Sylvia went from about
90 in the world to 17, and Tina rose from 150 to 55. So, when Andy
asked if I would work with him as his coach, I knew – to a degree –
what I was taking on. As much as it was a fantastic opportunity –
which it was – it was also a huge commitment and meant walking
away from a solid job at Sky.

My wife was obviously a huge part of the decision. She had our
youngest girl when I was away for those two years with Sylvia and
Tina. It was tough on her, very difficult. But I was an ex-player with a
mediocre career having reached 80 in the world (although I beat the
former Wimbledon Champion Michael Stich in the first round of the
South African Open 1994) and I had to find something to do. If I was
going to be away again, with Andy this time, my wife had to buy into
it. She did. She was phenomenally supportive.

On the plane to the States, Andy and I must have been as
surprised as each other – it was definitely a shock to my system. A
week or so after Wimbledon, I found myself sharing a room with a
teenager eighteen years my junior. It was a culture shock, I can tell
you. There was a moment during that tournament week in Newport,
Rhode Island, when I asked myself: 'What's happened to your life that
you're suddenly back on the road with an 18-year-old instead of at
home with your family and a fantastic job with loads of freedom at
last?' But soon the answer became clear.

It may have been intense to share a room with this kid, but it was
also fun. Put it this way: it was never boring. The grass courts at
Newport were shocking and, Andy being Andy, he said so, which
didn't endear him to the tournament director who had given him a
wild card. But the amusements were great. We played basketball and
video games. I realised immediately just how competitive Andy was –
and always would be in everything he did.

It didn't matter what we played, he needed to win. There were no
two ways about it. He needed to win. If he lost, he was 'fine' but you
could see the disappointment. He tried to keep a lid on it, but I didn't
mind – it is being so fiercely competitive that makes him such a great
tennis player.

To quell my mounting sense of inadequacy, we started playing
backgammon. He hadn't played an awful lot at that stage and I was
winning a few games which he, in his inimitable way, put down to
pure luck. As time went by, I felt I should teach him some of the tricks
and patterns of the game, which I hadn't let him know at the start to
preserve my dignity. That was an obvious mistake. As with everything,
he started getting better and better, and then the matches were
dangerously competitive.

I never
let
him win at anything – he won anyway. In fact, the only
time I eased up on him and let him win deliberately was on one
occasion in South Africa, when we played a set of tennis and I sensed
he was struggling a little bit for various reasons. I had a feeling that if
I won the tie-break, it wouldn't be conducive to his mood. But on the
games front, I never let him win. As for video games, he was in a
different league to me. He bought me a Tiger Woods golf game and
remained forever frustrated by how useless I was.

On the road we did virtually everything together. We trained
together, ate together, shared rooms together. He had that ankle
injury which meant I had to make sure he used a wobble board every
day to strengthen the joint. I spent a lot of time throwing a ball to
him. I started picking up his likes and dislikes, including food. That was
pretty straightforward. He had pasta arrabiata or fillet steak and a
Sprite every night. America must have been struggling for cows by the
end of our trip.

Our next stop after Newport was Aptos in California, a smaller
Challenger event, where we stayed with a family. We stayed in one
of their spare rooms with a dart board, and played horseshoes with
our host in the back garden. I remember thinking how surreal this
was, chucking horseshoes around in a Californian yard a million miles
away from Wimbledon. It didn't seem like the same life. Once when
we went to a Mexican restaurant with the family, we were asked: 'Do
you know what Mexican food is?' Andy and I suppressed smiles and
resisted the urge to ask: 'What's a nacho?' We always had a rapport
in any funny situation.

That's how the bonding starts. I look back on that time and realise
that Aptos was important in many ways and especially because Andy
won the event. There was a lot of pressure on us both. Many people
felt I wasn't the right person for the job. I understood that. You've got
a kid clearly going places fast and he's decided to go with a former
player who didn't make it beyond 80 in the world. 'What does he
know?' and 'What the hell did he do?' were the questions being asked
of me. There was pressure on Andy to prove I was the right choice
for him at that stage of his career.

I also heard a lot of negative stuff about Andy and his attitude.
People from clothing companies said they didn't want to sponsor him
because he didn't hit the ball hard enough. Coaches said: 'He'll never
do anything. He's too soft'. Very few people were positive about
where he was going. I'd said to potential sponsors about eighteen
months before all this: 'You sign him up, he's going to be something
a bit special', but they just said: 'Nah, I don't see it.' There are a couple
of people out there, I'm sure, regretting their decisions now.

That's why that Aptos week was very important. Even the resident
racket stringer there said to me: 'Jeez, he's something else, isn't he?' I
said: 'Yeah, there's a bit of genius there.' He agreed. 'I've been saying
to everybody at the club: "Make sure you take a good look at him
this week because he won't be back".'

Incidentally, no one – journalist or sponsor or coach – has ever
come back and said to me: 'Sorry, we were wrong about Andy.' I was
absolutely vilified for my comment at Wimbledon that he could be
bigger than Wayne Rooney; I was crucified in the newspapers for
that. Of course, I know that football's a bigger sport but in terms of
individuals – if you look at the headlines Andy's generated in the last
three years – I think to some degree I've been vindicated. All I did
was go out there and try to emphasise how talented this kid could
be. And boom! I was knocked back straight away. I wasn't upset. I
thought: 'Ok, time will tell.' And it has.

The tournament after Aptos was a tour event in Indianapolis
where Andy lost in three sets to the American, Mardy Fish. He'd
been a break up in the final set but it was boiling hot and he was
shattered. It wasn't all bad: we had a decent, comfortable hotel now
we were on the main tour and, more important than that, we found
a Starbucks. That was one of our things. We'd drive miles to find
a Starbucks where Andy, without fail, would have a chocolate cream
Frappucino without the chips. We always got a funny look. '
Without
the chocolate chips?' This genuinely baffled the Americans. But Andy
is not someone you argue with. Sometimes we'd drive out of a town
for miles to find the Frappucino. It became a sort of ritual.

From Indianapolis we went to Canada, where my family joined us
for a holiday. I couldn't join them for an earlier trip to Disneyworld
because I was away with Andy and this was my attempt to make it
up to them. No Mickey Mouse but they had Andy to play with and,
as they loved him to bits, that was fine. They'd mess around together
and play card games and he was really good with them. We went on
bike rides round the lake and he would always do just enough to beat
me. It was never a leisurely cycle; it was always full-on or not at all.

By now, I was really getting to know Andy. As a person, he was
one of the most sensitive kids I knew. There are some very precious
moments we had together that will always remain private, but I can
tell you that the person I know is far removed from what people see
on the tennis court. The guy you see on court is a competitive animal,
but that isn't him. That is just his rage to be the best he can be.

He gained a reputation later for shouting at his coach, but he never
did that to me. Never ever. We had a chat about his behaviour once
at Indian Wells the following year, but I don't have any complaint
about the way he treated me. He vented his frustration, much of the
time, because he is a perfectionist. I could handle that. In fact, you
want
to see that in someone you're coaching. It's better than being
satisfied with being second best.

Vancouver was next and I had to fly back home for three days to
be at my best friend's wedding. Andy stayed on and reached the
quarter-finals and then we met up again in New York and took a hire
care to Binghampton, somewhere upstate that I would respectfully
describe as the back of beyond. This was a considerable change from
the tour events. It was stinking hot, we were in a public park, the
changing room was a caravan and there was nothing else but
the tennis going on. Plus, in the second round, he was six match
points down and out on his feet against a guy from India ranked 263.
But that animal within him would not give up. I still, to this day,
remember the backhand pass he hit to save one of those match
points. I just sat there staring, thinking: 'My god, how did you hit that?'
He came back and won the match and the tournament, earning
himself a wild card to Cincinnati.

Off court, life had been equally eventful – this was the time I hit
him. Luckily, we laugh about it now. The area around the tournament
was a little rough. One day we were driving through a street of
boarded up windows and came to a set of traffic lights. Andy leant
over and honked the horn. He is always trying to wind you up, that
is his modus operandi, but on this occasion I thought it was distinctly
unwise.

I said: 'Don't do that', because we were behind a beaten-up old
Cadillac at a set of traffic lights and it hadn't moved even though the
lights had gone green. He honked the horn again.

Now, maybe I'm slightly paranoid because once when I was staying
in Atlanta I'd been told about guys who travelled at night in their cars
looking for people to shoot or whatever, and I had a whole fear of
flashing lights and honking horns at unknown cars behaving strangely.
I said to Andy: 'Look, you don't know who's in that car. They might
jump out in a fit of road rage and smash our car up – or worse – us.'
He took absolutely no notice and honked the horn again.

I warned him in my sternest tone: 'I'm telling you now, just don't
do it.' He did it again and at that time, pushed beyond endurance, I
prodded him hard with an elbow. It's funny now but at the time I was
just desperate to protect British tennis's greatest asset from being
beaten up by a 7'6" giant. Can you imagine the headlines? Sometimes
he was just a kid having fun, and I had to find a balance between
having fun and making sure I discharged my responsibilities to him, his
family and world tennis. I may have been way too paranoid, but I was
trying to guide him through some of the perils of being on a
worldwide tour.

The episode did him no harm. The next thing you know, he's
playing Marat Safin, the world number four, in Cincinnati – and taking
him to three sets. He had moved up about two hundred places in the
rankings already, an incredible jump. I was amazed. But to Andy, it
wasn't a surprise at all. He always knew he was going to be good.
He wasn't scared. Not at all. He loved playing in front of a big
crowd. He was much more likely to struggle somewhere that had no
audience and no atmosphere.