Hitting Back (30 page)

There were, I admit, some differences between Federer and
me: he was ranked 1, I was ranked 11. He was six years older,
two inches shorter and had won over fifty tour titles to my five.
He had earned $38 million in prize money; I'd earned $2
million. But then look at the stats that matter: he'd won our
first match in straight sets in Bangkok 2005; I'd won the
second in straight sets in Cincinnati 2006. We were matched
one win each. As I said, I liked my chances.

I was right to like them. I played well and I was unlucky not
to win the first set, which went to a tie-break. Before the
match, Miles, Matt, my friend Carlos and I were playing
football tennis on a court to help me warm up. Some warm-up.
Miles and Matt ended up having an argument over a call and
were effing and blinding at each other. Even as I was trying to
get ready to play, they were still arguing. They didn't speak to
each other for the first five games of the match. They just sat
in the stands with their arms folded, not wanting to say anything.
I'm joking when I said it distracted me. Actually, it was
quite funny.

Federer hadn't lost a first-round match since a defeat to
Dominik Hrbaty in August 2004, but I served so well he didn't
have a break point on my serve the whole match. That
probably hadn't happened to him for two or three years.
Serving well was the key and I won 6–7 6–3 6–4. I must be one
of the few players on earth to have held a winning record (2–1)
against Federer in his prime.

Afterwards he had a few things to say about my style. He
said I would have to 'grind very hard for the next few years' if
I was going to keep playing that way. 'He tends to wait a lot
for the mistakes of the opponent. He stands way far behind the
baseline on the court and that means you've got to do a lot of
running . . . I don't think he's changed his game a whole lot
since I played him in the Bangkok final. Not that I'm disappointed
but I really would have thought he would have
changed it in some ways.'

I'll tell you what I thought about those comments: I wasn't
that bothered, for the simple reason that I'd won the match.
Also, I agreed with him. To play three or four metres behind
the baseline every match is a tough thing to do and you get
tired of running. But I don't do that every match, only in
certain matches. I do different things against different players.
If you go and watch my Australian Open match against
Nadal, I was playing pretty close to the baseline and taking
a lot of risks because I think that is the right way to play
him. I'm not going to play that sort of game against Federer,
who defends as well as he does. The result would suggest
I was right.

I was feeling so confident after the win that I thought I might
go all the way in the tournament. It wasn't to be, unfortunately.
Davydenko beat me in the quarter-final, a reversal of
our result in Doha. I wasn't too down. It had still been a good
week for me, and just to prove that I wasn't the only one
sometimes getting into trouble for firing coaches, Andy
Roddick came out and told everyone that he and Jimmy
Connors had parted company. It provided a little bit more
proof that player–coach relationships are tough to maintain
even when one of them is a tennis icon.

I always look forward to going to America. This time I had
even more reason. I'd played well in both US tournaments in
2007, I was going to go apartment-hunting in Miami, and I'd
be seeing Gran, Grandpa, Uncle Keith and his wife at the
Indian Wells tournament. Some people asked me if my family
were there on a peace-keeping mission because it was the first
time Jamie and I had met up since the Davis Cup row, but that
wasn't remotely true. My uncle is a golf pro in Texas and my
gran and grandpa, who hadn't seen him in two or three years,
decided to fly over for a visit. It is always good to see the
family. Gran bought me a tin of her customary shortbread and
I ate the lot.

Jamie and I had said hi to each other already. I wasn't really
bothered about the situation any more, and I didn't feel like we
needed to say anything to each other about it. I just wasn't very
happy about the way it had been reported. It went from being
a disagreement between Jamie and me to reports of us hating
each other and sparking a family feud. I can't believe he is such
a fan of
Hollyoaks
on TV, but apart from that we don't
disagree on too much.

It was a time for peace pacts all round. At the start of the
tournament, Federer told the press that he hadn't meant to
criticise me in Dubai. 'And if I was, it was at a very high level,
so I'm sure he knows that. All I said was that I thought he was
a more aggressive player and all he was doing was just keeping
the ball in play. He can do both. I know it and he knows it, so
I don't think we hate each other. We had a chat, so everything's
OK.' We had, and it was.

On the tennis front, I played some good tennis at Indian
Wells, but not consistently enough. I was erratic against
Karlovic in the second round when we split tie-break sets and
I won the decider 6–3. It was the same against Tommy Haas in
the third round. I played well but inconsistently and lost 3–6 in
the third.

In Miami two weeks later, I had a couple of jobs to do as
well as a tournament to play. I wanted to buy an ocean-front
apartment, and I'd looked at about sixty places since the
winter, but I had to put that on hold because of the mess in
the American banking system, Also, I owed it to the ATP to
make up with the Miami Dolphin cheerleaders. I'd missed an
autograph-signing session with them the year before because it
was raining and I'd gone back to my hotel instead and got a
telling-off.

I realise that it may sound a little weird. Perhaps not many
guys would miss a date with the Miami Dolphin cheerleaders
because of rain, but it's not quite as miserable as it sounds.
Practice courts are hard to come by in the rain, and I'd gone
back to my hotel to use the courts there. It was a case of work
before pleasure. That was my excuse, anyway.

So I kept my appointment this year and, to be honest, I don't
know what's so special about cheerleaders. I signed stuff for
kids, had some pictures taken and it was actually pretty
awkward. I had to stand with a bunch of cheerleaders in front
of a massive group of photographers telling me to strike a pose.
That was not – for me – that much fun. I don't think Kim was
that happy about it either.

But there was worse to follow. I had a really tough and ugly
match against Ancic in the second round (the first round was
a bye) and lost 2–6 6–2 6–7. I had two match points to
win it and let them slip. That was the first time in my career
that had ever happened to me, so I was pretty disappointed.

I was unbelievably flat, even in the first set I won. I tried to
get myself going by losing my temper but it only worked to
some extent. One of the papers said I was tearing at my shirt
like the Incredible Hulk, which wasn't entirely the effect I was
hoping for. I was trying to get pumped up. It's an old trick I
learned from Tim Henman. Once in a Davis Cup tie against
Jurgen Melzer of Austria, he lost the first set 0–6, and I saw
him getting angry and pumped up. I thought: 'This is weird.
What's Tim doing? It's not like him.' After the match I asked
him what was going on out there. He said that sometimes you
just have to get some emotion in a match by getting mad at
yourself. He said you had to get really ticked off by something,
either a line call or the umpire, and then it might fire up your
game.

I thought I'd try it. I managed to turn the match around in
my favour and I had those two match points, but I just didn't
quite finish it off. I was criticised afterwards for playing too
many drop shots but I thought that was blown out of
proportion. It used to be something I did all the time – way too
much, in fact – but I was barely hitting them now. Some people
don't know what tactics are. I'd used them well in Marseilles
against him; the strategy just didn't work so well this time.

I wanted to say to people: 'Look, I had two match points
against the guy. If I was playing way too many drop shots, I
wouldn't be having match points against someone of Ancic's
calibre. The tactics were right, I just didn't play that well.'
People that don't understand tennis are obviously going to
think those drop shots cost me. They don't remember that at
6–4 in the tie-break Ancic used the drop shot successfully
against me.

So, the drop shots were not the reason that I lost; I just
served badly. I served like I had when I was eighteen years old:
inconsistently and with insufficient power. It was only one
match but just because my ranking drops, everyone says:
'Wow! Disaster.' But in the long run, it didn't make much
difference. I went down to 20 in the rankings but I was coming
into a period when I wasn't defending any ranking points
because of my wrist injury the year before. I was looking to the
future. If I don't improve on my ranking of 20 in the summer
of 2008, that will be a terrible effort. If I'm in the top-10 by the
US Open in August, I'll be happy with that.

By now, I had an idea how 'Team Murray' was going and I
was happy, but not everyone was convinced. A national
newspaper ran a story that wildly exaggerated how many
people were on my team. Fair enough, I had a coach (so do
most top players), a fitness trainer (so do most top players) and
a physio (so do most top players). But the paper was including
my agent, Patricio, my former coach when I was 11, and my
brother, who last time I looked was a doubles player himself.
It was ridiculous. I admit it may have been going over the top
to take two fitness trainers to Australia. But at the big
tournaments, I think it's nice to be surrounded by the people
who have worked so hard with you. If I was to do well at grand
slam, I thought it was the right thing to do.

After four months, I could tell that Miles and I were going to
get along. He is a good person to practise with. We were
similar off the court as well, pretty relaxed. I wasn't
immediately as close to him as I had been to Mark Petchey, but
it always takes a bit of time to get to know someone. The most
important thing for me is to have someone who is similar in age
and pumped to be playing in major tournaments. He is
obviously excited to be on the tour but he doesn't have the sort
of personality that makes him panic. He is pretty calm and
relaxed and not so busy doing other things that he forgets the
reason we're there. He is very different from Brad.

Miles has had his doubters. People said that because he had
only reached the World Top-200 in his playing days, he didn't
have the experience to guide me. That's how I know they don't
understand tennis or sport. Jose Mourinho might be considered
the best football manager in the world, but he was no Pele. In
other words, just because you weren't a great player doesn't
mean you can't be a great coach.

I think it's the players who had to work hard and weren't as
talented as others who make the best coaches – they study tennis
all the more because it doesn't come naturally. I think you
should have played the game, but not necessarily to a top-10
ranking. Brad Gilbert is a very good coach, but he hasn't worked
with someone ranked 300 and brought them into the top-40 in
the space of eighteen months, whereas Mark Petchey has. But
every coach has their own expertise, and some coaches suit
certain players and not others. Think of Steve McClaren, the
former England manager. Some people had a go at him when he
managed England, but he did a great job with Middlesbrough.

I've worked with Mum, Leon, Pato, Mark, Brad and Miles
and every one of them sees the game differently. The most
important thing is that they understand the person they are
coaching. If I'm going through a tough time, I'll phone my
mum because she knows what I like to hear and what I don't
like to hear. It is that kind of understanding that matters as
much as forehands and backhands. Obviously I'm a very good
player. I've been up there at number eight in the world, but
there are still things I need to learn.

I tell Miles what I want to do and how long I want to
practise, then he sets up the drills and we work on things. I
study tennis: I watch a lot of matches and I know what I'm
doing wrong. I don't just practise things I'm good at. For
example, I want to play better on clay, so I brought in Alex
Corretja to help me during the clay-court season. The Spanish
former Davis Cup player has a great track record. He was
twice runner-up at Roland Garros, as well as number two in
the world and I just think it makes sense to call in the
specialists to do a specific job.

This causes people to accuse me of being confused. I am not
confused. I'm travelling with a fitness trainer to get me in
better shape when I'm on the tour. What's wrong with that? I
think it's a wise investment. I'm travelling with a physio
because everyone's been complaining that I'm so injury-prone
and this is a great way to iron out the niggles before they have
a chance to develop into something more serious. What's
wrong with that?

I was watching tennis on TV when the commentator
mentioned that Djokovic was working with Mark Woodford,
the prolific doubles champion, on his volleys. 'Great appointment,'
said the TV analyst. 'It's something he really needs to
improve.' If I employ someone to work on my volleys, or my
clay-court game, then all of a sudden I'm described as
confused. When we played in Monte Carlo, Djokovic had his
family with him, his fitness trainer and his coach. Federer in
Dubai had two coaches in his box, Jose Higueras, the Spaniard
who used to coach Jim Courier, Michael Chang and Pete
Sampras, among many others and the Swiss Davis Cup
captain. So I'm not the only one; it is the way tennis is going.
These people have the expertise. I don't know why you
wouldn't want to work with them on a temporary basis.