Last Christmas we sent cards to each other, saying it would be the first of many. I loved her so much
Elena Baltacha’s widower Nino Severino on carrying on his wife’s work after her heartbreaking death
IT was only when she became s eri ously ill t hat Nino Severino fully understood the suddenly trivial business of how his wife played tennis. How she battled so tenaciously from the baseline, overcame a debilitating liver condition to carve out a successful career, and how she repeatedly came back from other injuries. And how, despite a deeply competitive natural instinct, she would always think of others when away from the court.
Elena Baltacha always fought until the last point and when she succumbed in her biggest fight of all in May at the age of 30, it was among the saddest stories from this or any other year.
‘Looking back it all slots into place now,’ says Severino. ‘I could never figure out how she could be so brave and determined as a player and then I saw it so clearly when she was ill.
‘You remember how she was on the court? In the tough times of her life she fought like that as well.
‘All athletes have to deal with injuries and niggles, but when she had a week when she was feeling like an ordinary athlete, that was a luxury. She had problems with her back over a long period but by the end it was the liver that was affecting her.
‘But she was so brave she never wanted to let on how she was feeling. She was such a fighter, that’s a big reason why I loved her so much.’
Severino — who was to become her coach, confidant and, eventually, husband — is sitting in a meeting room above where 30 local children have turned up for an early afternoon session at the Elena Baltacha Academy of Tennis, on the outskirts of Ipswich.
WHEN we meet it happens to be their first wedding anniversary and, instead of celebrating, he is reflecting on a life cut tragically short. It has not been an easy day, although no day has been easy for him since the former British No 1 died on May 4 after battling liver cancer.
But downstairs in the gym her legacy lives on, in the form of the children enjoying the simple pleasure of hitting foam balls across low nets at each other, learning the game at which the Scot excelled.
At times during our conversation Severino finds it difficult to talk about the past 18 months. A few of us used to jokingly speculate on whether this former karate and kickboxing champion was the hardest man in tennis, but he admits to having been laid low with grief.
The evidently raw emotions are such that he is approaching Christmas with s ome trepidation. Only in the past month has he felt able to take his old driving r oute on weekly trips to London because it brings back memories of past journeys wi t h Elena, as well as considerable angst. He works every day to keep his mind occupied.
‘When we got married it was a wonderful day (December 8 last year),’ he recalls.
‘We thought about a honeymoon but we had travelled so much together that we really wanted just to spend it at home. All we did was have one lovely day in London, doing the London Eye, going to a nice restaurant and visiting a jazz club. ‘Actually, on our first full day of married life we ended up spending the evening coaching!
‘At Christmas we sent cards to each other, both saying this would be the first o f many happy Christmases together. ‘She had a bad cough for a few months and was in some pain, but then she was used to that. We had l ots of tests done but nothing showed up.
‘ I t was only when we got to mid- January that she felt in so much pain she needed to go to hospital and t hat was where we f ound out. She got the worst type of liver cancer you can get, one t hat normally only af f ects t hose aged over 50.
‘It is hard to think now that she had it when she was playing some of those tough matches in the last phase of her career last year, like her close one against Maria Kirilenko at Eastbourne.
‘In the last match she played (against Michelle Larcher de Brito i n the final round of the 2013 US Open qualifying), I was sitting watching with Jeremy Bates saying, “There’s something not quite right here”. She had this big dip in the match towards the end.’
In the early months of this year, few people knew the full extent of her condition. It says something about how she was regarded that the news of her passing was shattering to people all over the world.
Now, t hanks l argely to t he fundraising efforts of the tennis community, from Andy Murray downwards, t he academy is thriving and the sport is reaching into constituencies which often prove resistant to its charms.
Typically of Baltacha, as grounded a person as you could meet, she wanted the focus to be on coaching those from less privileged backgrounds when she and Severino founded the academy and that is where it remains today.
‘Everything that Bal put in place we have carried on with,’ says Severino. ‘We have a large schools network we built up over four years and take a roadshow into schools that would not normally have much focus on tennis.
‘Tennis can be a bit narrow in its scope and seen as a bit middle class, so it’s important to get to those areas where people aren’t so fortunate.’
He is i mmensely grateful to Ipswich School, which provides them with a base as part of its commitment to the wider community, and to his coaching colleague Jamie Friend, who has held the whole thing together over this traumatic year.
Severino and Baltacha first met when he worked as a specialist in movement, fitness and diet at the academy where she was based in Hazelwood, north London.
Their rapport grew and it was after a particularly disappointing defeat at the 2008 US Open qualifying event that she decided to commit to the kind of programme he thought she needed.
FOLLOWING a promising start to her career that saw her, still a teenager, beat the seeded South African Amanda Coetzer at Wimbledon — and the discovery of the liver condition that constantly needed managing — her progress had stalled.
‘It was not really happening for her,’ recalls Severino. ‘She was down around 170th in the rankings and knew she had to try something different. Her back was bad and she was actually t hinking about retiring, but I said I thought there was still more left in her.
‘We’d started off originally by talking a lot about nutrition. She i nvited me t o watch her at Wimbledon and she started to train with me. She had lived here already when s he was very y o ung ( Baltacha’s father, Sergei, had become one of British football’s first imports and played for Ipswich as well St Johnstone).
‘I remembered reading in the local paper about this little Russian kid aged about nine who was doing well at tennis. Life’s strange, I was in my mid- 20s and could never have known that later in life I would end up marrying her. I started working full time with her and she trusted what I was saying.
‘I didn’t claim to be a pure tennis coach then, although I have subsequently learned a hell of a lot on the job. My background is more in the overall f i tness side of things, getting the whole set-up right — growing up I had never hit a backhand or a forehand.
‘When we were together she didn’t really have a pure tennis coach, although there was input from people l i ke Nigel Sears, Judy Murray and, i n the l ast eight months, Louis Cayer.
‘ She had relatively little technical coaching yet she still made it into the top 50 within a couple of years. I sometimes wonder what she could have done with a more technical coach and without a buggered liver.
‘She would never let me tell you guys what she was going through all the time and she didn’t want to tell you herself. Sometimes I didn’t dare look at her in the morning, but I could tell how her body was by how she walked to the bathroom when she got up.
‘She was incredibly brave about it all, an exceptional individual.’
Baltacha achieved her dream of playing in the 2012 Olympics (it was especially important as her mother Olga, a pentathlete, had once come close but missed out on the experience) but then needed foot surgery.
She subsequently decided to give it one last go after a long layoff and, remarkably in hindsight, her results included winning a 2013 summer grass-court event in Nottingham.
Nobody knew, however, that her previously manageable l i ver
problems would take a more sinister turn following that last match at Flushing Meadows in September. ‘It was when we got back to England that she told me she did not feel able to train twice a day so with the academy going, that seemed like a good time to stop. After the diagnosis I was with her all day every day, except for maybe six times I went out for 45 minutes to check on the academy. She was incredible to the end, always thinking about other people — “Don’t tell them something because they’ll be upset”. She was always worrying about others.’
Now Severino is determined to honour her memory, as are regularly visiting high-profile coaches like Sears, Judy Murray and Baltacha’s former rival Anne Keothavong. At the academy they take players of all abilities, but have already unearthed some with potential.
For example, Justice Hall from the Nacton area of Ipswich, who has quickly gone on to become nationally ranked No 3 in her age group.
‘Justice is an example of someone who would probably not otherwise have been exposed to tennis. We have expanded a l ot since we started and have more plans to do so,’ says Severino.
It is a romantic notion — the Baltacha Academy coming up with someone who could follow in her footsteps and one day light up the lawns of the All England Club — but perhaps it is one that misses the point.
‘It’s a nice idea, something like producing a Wimbledon champion in her memory, but to be honest Bally never thought like that and it’s a bit of a cliche.
‘For her it was about helping kids build character through the game, giving them the opportunity to play a fantastic sport that they might not otherwise have played. That’s how she thought about it, giving the chance to others.’