BRILLIANT BROADY
Naomi win is ‘no thanks to the LTA’
BRITAIN’S Naomi Broady was once styled by the Lawn Tennis Association as the ‘bad girl’ of British tennis and was made persona non grata by the governing body.
They stripped away her funding and removed all their support because of a single photograph she posted on social media after a night out aged 17.
Yesterday, seven years and a succession of career-threatening struggles later, Broady became the unlikely home heroine in SW19, recovering from a set down and what seemed like a match- ending injury to seal the biggest win of her career.
Toasting her 2-6, 7-6, 6-0 victory over Hungary’s world No 94 Timea Babos, the 24-year-old from Stockport said her win should count as a win for Britain — but definitely not for the LTA.
And she blasted: ‘I’ll laugh in someone’s face if they try and say it was them.’
She also revealed that just a year ago she was so downhearted about the struggle to make ends meet, she was on the verge of quitting, and had even started researching how to become an au pair instead.
The rewards for victory yesterday will be considerable, including a secondround match against the former world No 1 Caroline Wozniacki, and a guaranteed payday of £43,000 at least, even if Broady falls at the next hurdle.
‘It’s been tough,’ she said. ‘I don’t n’t have any money for myself. You u have to put all of your money back into your tennis. But then your hard work pays off and you’ve only got yourself to thank for it. It’s really satisfying. So I’m really proud of myself.’
Broady’s world f ell apart, professionally, when she went for or a night out with friends in 2007 and nd posed for what became an infamous mous picture of herself in a mini-dress, l eaning up against a condom machine in a nightclub toilet.
The snap was posted on Bebo, Broady thinking it was an innocent memento of a fun night with mates. But when it became public knowledge all hell broke lose, with the LTA cutting her adrift in a way that jeopardised her future.
‘I still to this day don’t particularly see what was the big deal,’ she said last night. ‘I wasn’t doing drugs. I wasn’t paral ytic drunk on the floor. It was just a stupid, jokey pose that looked horrible.’
She added that does not expect the LTA to attempt to take any credit for her achievement.
‘I don’t think they’ll try that. I think it’s pretty clear I’ve been the only person at every practice session for the past few years. I’ve not had any coach there, not from the federation or anywhere else.’
Asked if she is bothered about being known in some quarters as the ‘ bad girl’ of tennis, Broady laughed and said: ‘I quite like it because I’m really boring. So I quite like that people are intrigued by my naughty side which doesn’t exist. That’s great.’
Broady, ranked No 164 in the world, was a set down and serving to win the second- set tiebreak when she slipped and fell heavily, sustaining a hand i njury that threatened her participation.
The trainer was called and Broady sat grimacing in pain for more than five minutes as her hand was strapped. ‘Before I went on court, I sort of prayed to come off court healthy and without regrets,’ she said. ‘After the first set I had a lot of regrets. Then I fell twice in the second. I was a bit worried about what was happening with my hand.’
Remarkably, she restarted brilliantly and continued in the same vein, blitzing Babos 6- 0 in the third.
Confirming this was the best win of her life, Broady said: ‘Oh, definitely. I just won a match at Wimbledon finally. [Everything that has happened] makes you fight harder on court because if you don’t fight and win, then you can’t afford the next tournament.’
Only one other British woman was in action, and Johanna Konta, the first to play, was also the first Briton to be knocked out. The 23year-old Australian-born player, of Hungarian heritage and British since 2012, lost in three sets to China’s Shuai Peng, and then admitted nerves had hindered her.
‘In the first set she handled the occasion much better than I did,’ said Konta. ‘I was playing with a little nerves, a lot of tension, I felt. Obviously when you play like that, you can’t play at your best level.’