Jonathan Millmow
BELINDA CORDWELL swings an axe more than a tennis racket these days. There is wood to be cut, not to mention mulch to spread on the 25 acre lifestyle block in Greytown which she shares with her husband, three children, two dogs and some sheep.
Cordwell is 48. She looks like she could still play three good sets but points to a dicky right foot, ‘‘too many cortisones’’.
Still, she walks her children to the bus stop most mornings and collects them in the afternoon. That is 8km a day for her and the dogs, and half that for the kids.
Till 2007 Cordwell lived in Karori, she basically always had, apart from her decade-long professional tennis career.
‘‘Six years ago there was a horrible southerly in Wellington and there was a feature in the newspaper about property and I saw this house.
‘‘We then looked on the computer and had a look at it and it went from there. We weren’t restless, but I felt there was something out there that would suit us.’’
Cordwell’s husband is Collier Isaacs, chief executive officer of Farm IQ in Wellington. They have three children, 15-year-old Rosie at Kuranui College, and Henry, 10, and Will, 8, at Greytown School.
We should not forget how good Cordwell was at tennis. She reached No 17 in the world in 1989 and made the semifinals of the Australian Open that same year where she lost in three sets to Helena Sukova.
‘‘The plan was to win the first set because she was a confidence player,’’ Cordwell said.
‘‘We got to a tiebreaker and then there was a 21-gun salute in the background and I found myself counting them all.’’
Belinda Cordwell
Cordwell lost the tiebreaker, took the second set then went down 6-2 in the third.
‘‘I was really pleased I got into the top 20 in the world.
‘‘I was on my way to the top 10, but would my life be any different now? No, it wouldn’t.’’
Cordwell is a good listener. She is unassuming, has a good perspective on life and wants her children to have good values rather than be a successful sportsperson.
‘‘My tennis career doesn’t enter my world these days.
‘‘It is something I did a long time ago. It’s actually not that important. There is so much more to life.
‘‘The bit that is important is the lesson that you end up passing on to your kids. That is a cool thing to bring.
‘‘I’m big on the off the ball learning. Learning to lose and win graciously. Learning all those values that sport can give you.’’
Cordwell didn’t play for pleasure. Her parents John and Janet told her she needed University Entrance before she could pursue her tennis dream and she did at Erskine College, and by 16 was on her way to junior Wimbledon.
She travelled the world or ‘‘chased the sun’’ as she refers to it. She turned pro in 1982 and retired in 1992, having won prizemoney of $376,284.
She never played Steffi Graf but ‘‘there was no doubt who would’ve won’’. She pushed Martina Navratilova close in a two-set loss. She beat Arantxa Sanchez Vicario ‘‘but she was only 12’’.
Foot and back injuries cut short Cordwell’s career.
Of course she was crestfallen and tried remedies and comebacks, but eventually she realised the ship had sailed.
There were regrets, but they are long gone.
‘‘I wanted to find out how good I could be but I wasn’t able to do that.
‘‘But my [late] father used to say ‘you are dealt a hand of cards and you have play those cards’.’’
The next couple of years are always challenging for a sportsperson, as they adjust to normal life. Cordwell was no exception.
She did TV work and wrote tennis columns but that was only seasonal. She remembers working at the call centre at The Samaritans and similar grounding jobs at Birthright and The Salvation Army.
‘‘I spent a year doing anything anyone asked me do. I was 26, I was glad I did it.’’
These days, Cordwell has four strings to her bow.
Her family, beavering around the lifestyle block which contains a tennis court, helping in the community and coaching. She is on Greytown School’s board of trustees and is treasurer for the Greytown Junior Football club.
In her typical understated way she is building a tennis culture in the Wairarapa. She ‘‘begged, borrowed and stole’’ 18 rackets to run lunchtime tennis. She does private coaching on the side, under the banner ‘BC Tennis’. ‘‘We love it here,’’ she said. ‘‘The first day we were here a pine tree blew over and blocked the road and I thought ‘what have we done’.
‘‘It’s only an hour and 10 [minutes] to Wellington but it’s very different.’’