Making Australian Open would be a Grand start to year
AS a lad who grew up in Stockport scouring the M.E.N. for the latest news of Manchester City (in the days before we were Manchester’s premier club!) it is amazing for me to get a chance to write a little about my life as a Tennis pro in this paper.
I hope my columns will give you a sense of what it is like to be performing in one of the world’s most global sports.
I am a Stockport lad, brought up in Heaton Chapel, who has had the opportunity to travel to dozens of countries, to cities I’d never heard of, to play a sport I love. I am so grateful for that opportunity.
As we approach the end of the season, I am at my highest ranking ever (around 125) and probably need to get to around 110 in order to qualify automatically for next year’s first Grand Slam in Australia.
I will probably need to win one of the next two tournaments to reach that sort of position, but, having won a Grand Slam match at Wimbledon this year and qualified at Roland Garros last year, I want to add the Aussie Open to my list.
Tennis players spend a huge amount of time on planes, in hotel rooms and on tennis courts in draughty halls, knowing that in every tournament we play, half of us will be going home after the first match.
I am glad to say I have won more than I’ve lost this year, including winning my first Challenger tournament having lost seven times in finals.
It was like climbing Everest for me when I saw my volley land in and realised I’d won that tournament in Switzerland last month.
I had a rest after that as I had been struggling with a slight ab strain, and then when I came back I didn’t play as well as I had been doing.
I lost a close game in Antwerp that I should have won, and had a stinker on a slow court in Brest in France – many people might be surprised to know that some hard courts can be very different to others.
I went to Bergamo in Italy last week on another slow court and beat a massive Croat called Danilo Petrovic (he’s 6ft 8ins) in a pretty poor match.
I then beat an experienced
Ukrainian, Ilya Marchenko, before going out to a guy called Cem Ilkelm who I’ve beaten before and to be honest I felt pretty down.
My coach, Dave Sammel, came out to Bratislava to join me this week at the Bratislava Challenge, and he reminded me of a few lessons I’ve learnt before.
I also got a huge boost watching the Manchester derby on my phone in my Bratislava hotel!
When you are away a lot, following the Football is a great escape, although with some dodgy internet stream sometimes it can be a trial.
This was a great sporting weekend, watching City win the derby, Chelsea draw, Liverpool lose and then winning myself on Monday.
I played Marchenko again. He beat Andy Murray in Italy in February, so he can be dangerous, but having beaten him in a close game on slow courts last week, I beat him pretty comfortably on faster courts in Slovakia this week.
Instantly, I played on these courts I had a sneaky feeling that I might do okay, although my run ended in the second round yesterday when I lost to Maximilian Marterer. Next stop now for me is Helsinki next week.
I am also grateful to my clothing sponsor Bidi Badu and to Dunlop whose racquets I use, for their support this year.
Having the right kit and equipment makes a huge difference and these guys are real pros who look after me so well.