Hitting Back (32 page)

I think I'm quite bright when it comes to tennis but there is
no argument that some people are much intelligent more than
me. Kim Sears, my girlfriend, is one of them. I am always
saying I don't know what she's doing with me. I met her for the
first time at the US Open in 2005 when Mark Petchey introduced
us. He knew Kim's father, Nigel, who coached Daniela
Hantuchova for a few years on the women's tour and we've
pretty much been together ever since. I'm lucky. I know she
isn't with me because I'm in the spotlight. When we met, I was
still playing qualifiers. She also understands the life of a tennis
player because her dad is so closely involved with the sport.

I reckon it works as well as it does because we don't see each
other all the time. She's away at university studying English
and I'm away on tour, so when we get together we've always
got stuff to talk about and the relationship always seems a bit
fresher. She doesn't want to follow me around on the tour. She
wants to have her own career, not just pose in
Hello
magazine.

Obviously, I'm not much help with her English course –
having read only a bit of The Rock's autobiography and a
couple of Harry Potter books – but when she did drama I used
to help her with her lines. I had to try and speak a bit of
Shakespeare –
Measure for Measure
, she said it was – but I had
no idea what I was talking about.

She is probably my first serious girlfriend and I know that
many guys who play professional sport would prefer to go out
with a thousand girls rather than just the one. But I think that's
the easy option. And you end up having to go to clubs and bars
to meet girls, and I'm really not interested in that whole scene.

Kim and I have been together a long time now, but we're still
young. We've decided it's best to wait until she finishes her
degree and then see what she wants to do. If she decides to go to
Australia or somewhere, it's not going to work. But right now
it's working really well and I hope it will do so for longer. I want
the relationship to work. A happy family means a lot to me.

I accept that I see things differently from a lot of people my
age. It isn't that I have anything against people who want to go
drinking and find as many girls as they can – I know that's
what most guys of my age do. I don't disagree with it, but it
doesn't interest me that much. I don't know whether that's
because I've got an older head on my shoulders or because I'm
lucky enough to have Kim, but the last thing I'd want to do is
go out looking for women.

I know a lot of people in their thirties who just can't get out
of the habit. They say: 'I wanna settle down, I wanna settle
down,' but they're still going to bars. It's tough to snap out of
it. I'd hate to get to that age and think: 'Oh, I screwed up the
only girl I ever really liked because I wanted to go and be with
six or seven other girls.' I think you'd look back and regret it.

Maybe it is boring. This might be a boring way of looking at
things. But, in the long run, I think I'm going to be much
happier. And, anyway, the
last
thing I feel like doing when I
come home from running ten 400m races is going out to a club,
listening to unbelievably loud music, with a wall of smoke in
my face on the way in and out, and people throwing up on me.
That's not really my idea of relaxing.

I have quite a few pet irritations, but the worst by a long way
is snoring. I absolutely hate it and I think it's totally
unacceptable. I've never snored and I've always hated it when
people around me do. In my life, I've had to share so many
rooms and planes with other people, and if you are stuck there
with someone who snores, it's a race to get to sleep before they
do. Then you don't fall asleep because you're trying too hard
and you end up being awake all night.

This is one of the things Matt Little and I argue about (one
of many, many things). He says: 'I don't care if I snore.' And I
say: 'Well, you should care because the people you're sleeping
with can't sleep.' Then he says: 'How am I supposed to know
when I'm snoring if I'm asleep?' And I say: 'You shouldn't lie
on your back in bed. That's why people snore.'

We're always having arguments. We had an awful one the
other day because he's a very average driver and we were
driving into a tennis club with a narrow entrance road. He was
looking way off to the right, while another car was coming
head-on. 'Watch out,' I shouted. He just missed the car, we
went off the road a little bit and he then said to me: 'Stop
having a go at me when you haven't even got your licence.'

I said: 'Just because you haven't got your licence, doesn't
mean you're a bad driver. I would rather be in a car with Lewis
Hamilton before he passed his test than be in the car with you.'

'No way, they haven't got the experience.'

'Not the point. They know how to control a car.'

'No, no, no . . .' And so it goes on. Naturally, we then had
to consult all the people around us for their opinion and then
everyone was arguing. I think most of the time Matt does it just
to wind everyone up. He takes what you say and then argues
the exact opposite, whether he believes it or not. I accused him
of that once and he denied it, but then I realised we were now
having arguments about our arguments. It's funny. He does it
most of the time to create a laugh, and he's loads of fun to have
around. To have someone like that travelling with you is so
good for morale.

But just to finish the argument, I have actually been in a car
with an F1 driver and I can promise you that Nick Heidfeld,
who drives for the BMW Sauber team, is a better driver than
Matt Little. Driving with Nick was one of the scariest things
I've ever done. We didn't have any helmets on and it was just
a regular car he was driving round a track. But the speed was
incredible. We were coming up to a corner, and I was thinking:
'Slow down . . . slow down', only there wasn't much slowing
down going on – he decided to skid the car and it glided round
the corner instead. It was not that comfortable.

I am not scared by much, as a rule. I'm not a huge fan of
flying, but bugs, heights and, obviously, snakes don't bother
me. I am not claustrophobic but I do hate not being able to
move my arms and legs. I used to hate it when everyone
jumped on top of me when I scored a goal in football.

I think it stems from the time I was swimming in a pool
after some junior tennis tournament and a couple of older
boys decided it would be really funny to dunk my head
underwater. They did it for way too long and I couldn't
move. I started to panic a little bit because I couldn't breathe.
Normally kids do this kind of thing but it never lasts longer
than five or ten seconds. This felt like 30–40 seconds. Since
then I've hated not being in control of my limbs. Control is
one of my themes, I know. I like being in control of my life,
that's for sure.

In some ways, I'm quite sensible by nature. I remember at the
Sanchez-Casal Academy when the ice cream machine wasn't
properly locked and loads of the guys nicked all the boxes of
ice cream to hide in the fridges and freezers that some of them
had in their rooms. But it was a totally stupid idea because
there was no way they could fit them all in. Then they decided
to hide all the extra cartons in their ceilings – they had those
temporary slabs you could move – and they forgot about them
so the ice cream melted and it was disgusting. As if the adults
wouldn't realise that the twenty kids living five feet away from
the broken machine were the ones responsible! But just before
I sound too good to be true, I had better confess that the main
reason I didn't steal the fruit pastille lollies I loved was nothing
to do with morality: I didn't have a fridge.

Another thing I ought to do is apologise to Arantxa, the poor
woman who was supposed to look after our corridor at the
Academy. Carlos and I must have driven her mad playing Pro
Evolution Soccer in his room on my PlayStation until two,
three, four in the morning. Her room was at least 50 metres
away, but we made so much noise when one of us scored a goal
or missed an easy chance that we would disturb her sleep. As
soon as we heard her footsteps down the wooden corridor,
we'd switch off the screen, turn out the lights and I'd hide
under Carlos's bed or in the wardrobe. She'd come in and find
all mysteriously quiet and then go off again.

I'll never forget the night we heard those footsteps coming
again. Usual ploy: screen off, lights outs, and me under the bed.

She just opened the door, took the PlayStation, and left the
room without a word. I had to admire her. She didn't give it
back to us for quite a while either.

Contrary to my image, I do have a sense of humour.
The
Office
is one of my favourite comedies and David Brent is
simply the funniest character ever invented. It is so, so funny
how much of an idiot that guy is. Sometimes I meet people who
remind me a little bit of him and then I push them to try and
say David Brent-ish things without them realising what I'm
doing.

But I think the most amazing piece of television I've ever seen
was the Christmas Special edition of
Extras
when Ricky
Gervais has that famous rant about reality TV. His character is
appearing on an episode of
Big Brother
and he suddenly bursts
out with:

'And fuck you the makers of this show as well . . . No, the
Victorian freak show never went away. Now it's called
Big
Brother
or
American Idol
where in the preliminary rounds
we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at . . . And
fuck you for watching this at home. Shame on you. And
shame on me . . .'

I watched it and I thought 'Wow.' That speech says everything
I feel about the celebrity culture and why I never, ever
want to be a celebrity. Maybe people think it's boring that I
just want to be normal when I'm off the tennis court, but I
don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Tennis is what I do for a few hours a day. The rest of the
day, when I'm not playing tennis, I'm not in front of cameras
and the only people around me are my friends and family. I'm
pretty sure that if I changed and became this moody git that I'm
supposed to be, the friends I've had since I was fifteen years old
wouldn't be around any more.

It is true that I'm richer than I was at fifteen, but the last
thing I've ever thought about on a tennis court is money. You
get nervous about winning a tournament; you don't get
nervous about winning the $100,000 prize. Money is not the
most important thing to me, but I don't want to sound
ungrateful. I do feel I am lucky to have done sufficiently well
in my sport that I could buy my penthouse apartment with a
roof garden in Wandsworth, and think about buying one in
Miami too. One day I think I'd like a house in Surrey but I am
not so sure about taking off to live in tax exile somewhere,
because the money that you gain might be offset by the amount
of time you miss with family and friends.

I've been asked in press conferences if I'm 'tight' because I'm
Scottish. It makes me furious because it is obviously some sort
of stereotyping. I answer back: 'I'm not going to say anything
about the Scots being stereotypically mean. I'm surprised
you're even allowed to ask that. If I said something negative
about the English, I'd be absolutely slammed for it and you're
sitting here in a press conference saying I am tight because I'm
Scottish.' I'm never very happy about that.

And, no, I don't think I'm mean. I really enjoy buying
presents, even makeup, but I draw the line at underwear. No
chance. On myself, I haven't spent shocking sums of money but
that's because I don't need anything. In America last
December, I did buy a Mercedes sports car for Kim as a
surprise Christmas present then promptly ruined the surprise.

You know how it is when you wake up after dreaming and
your thoughts are still all jumbled up. I opened my eyes one
morning while we were staying at Nick Bollettieri's academy in
Florida and the first thing I said was:

'Do you like your Mercedes?'

She was saying: 'What?! What are you talking about?' To
make it worse, I was still so dozy, I mentioned it again on the
way to breakfast. I think maybe the complications of buying a
car in a foreign country were preying on my mind and I just
couldn't keep my mouth shut. Perhaps that, in some ways, is
the story of my life.

Yes, I do get annoyed on court. Yes, I have done and said
things I shouldn't – I am not disputing that at all, and I want
to get rid of that behaviour. But many of the best players in the
world in all the big sports have the same sort of hate-to-lose
mentality as me and it does take them a while to get out of it.
Federer is a perfect example. He was swearing and smashing
rackets when he was a teenager. Even Tiger Woods is sometimes
done a favour by the television companies when they
turn their cameras away as he rants about a bad shot. Perhaps
that is all it takes: just be as good as Tiger Woods and then
everyone wants to keep you happy.

There are ways of getting around the problem of swearing
out loud. After a long rally, you can use any word you like at
the top of your voice when the crowd is applauding and
cheering. I've just got to learn not to do it when I'm standing
next to a microphone. Anyway, I don't think I've ever met
anybody who doesn't swear about something, even if it's just
dropping a glass. OK, maybe my gran doesn't – I'll have to ask
my mum (who does).

When I first started on the tour, I had no idea about all the
things that go with playing sport at the highest level. As you
start to understand it a bit more, you try to protect yourself,
and so your true personality doesn't come across any more. At
that amazing first Wimbledon, I was described as 'a breath of
fresh air' and they said how great it was to see such emotion
on the court. That all changed pretty quickly and soon I was
portrayed as a brat with appalling manners.