Pair go flat out for victory
COLIN Fleming eased into the third round of the men’s doubles with Jonny Marray last night, then revealed his old partner Ross Hutchins is rooting for them and has rented them a flat for the fortnight.
Fleming teamed up with last year’s winner Marray after Hutchins was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma late last year and the No 9-seeded pair continued their effective partnership with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) victory over Frantisek Cermak and Michal Mertinak, of the Czech Republic and Slovakia respectively.
“Ross is making a great recovery which is great to see and he’s been very supportive of me and Jonny,” said Fleming last night. “He bought a flat in Wimbledon town so Jonny and I are renting it off him – mate’s rates.
“He’s chuffed to bits we won and it’s nice to keep Jonny’s run going at Wimbledon. Jonny is one half of the defending champion pair, so he’s obviously a top-class grass-court doubles player.
“So I’ve got a great partner and if I can focus and play well then hopefully as a team we’ll have a chance of progressing.”
While Fleming and Marray go on to a tough-looking encounter against No 6 seeds Robert Lindstedt and Daniel Nestor, there was no such luck for Jamie Murray and his Australian partner John Peers.
They lost their firstround encounter 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 14-12.
As afternoon drew into evening, the highly-rated Anna Brogan of Glasgow was in action on Court No 11 in the girls’ singles but went down 6-3, 6-4 to Hsu Ching-Wen, the No 8 seed from Taiwan.
JAMIE Baker spent a career scrapping away stoically against the odds. Yesterday was simply the day he gave up fighting. The Glaswegian has endured no shortage of difficulties in his 26 years, not least in 2008 when he contracted a rare blood disorder known as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura ( ITP) and spent three days in intensive care in a Florida hospital.
Even this year, after battling a wrist injury, his mother had to persuade him just to carry on into the grass-court season. But what has really driven this young man to despair is the hidden, unremitting grind of life as a tennis player outwith the top echelons:
Nobody’s tried to change my mind – I don’t know how to take that
a whistlestop tour of backwaters such as Guadalajara, Bucharest and Istanbul, picking up pay cheques which hardly cover travelling expenses – putting more into the sport than you are getting out.
Twelve months ago, on the back of a couple of training blocks with childhood friend Andy Murray, Baker had risen to a career-high ranking of 185 and was giving Andy Roddick a run for his money at Wimbledon on Court No 1. Even this year, after qualifying for the Australian Open, he had won seven of his eight grasscourt matches, but failed to receive a wild card for Wimbledon as his ranking had fallen to 333. That was why, at 11.15am yesterday, he walked into an interview room at the All England Club and tearfully announced his retirement with immediate effect.
“It is very difficult – I’m not going to lie,” Baker said. “I feel like I am making the right decision, but I’ve got a huge amount of sadness about the things that I’m not going to experience any more – getting up, putting in an honest day’s training and working my hardest to get better. I guess for me the price of living the all-encompassing life of the tennis player is probably a little bit too high now. I’d be lying if I said that if I was making £100,000 a year profit we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of people and nobody has tried to change my mind – I don’t know how I should take that! It takes a lot of guts and intelligence to know when enough is enough.”
Although Baker does not have the same potent physical weapons that have carried Murray to world No 2, the question of exactly how far his potential could have taken him has become hypothetical. “Just because Andy or someone else is of a higher level and a higher standard doesn’t mean he’s putting more into it than someone who is ranked 250,” Baker said. “He might be, but there is no guarantee he is.
“Andy Murray is a scary tennis player. I watched him yesterday and thought, ‘how do you ever get that good?’. There’s more than luck to it, but in terms of my career path and the way I was progressing in 2008 before my setback I probably will forever ask myself the question, ‘if that hadn’t happened where might I have been?’. I guess we’ll never know now.”
Baker’s immediate future lies in writing a best man’s speech for his brother’s wedding in Tuscany. Further off is putting his savings into finding a job which gives a better return for his effort – perhaps more akin to his brother’s work at the Morgan Stanley finance house.
“Being a Scot I have been quite sensible,” he said. “I have invested a lot of money into my tennis over the years, as well as having huge support from the LTA. I am in a position where I have got a little bit of savings, a cushion where I am not walking out of here on Monday morning thinking: ‘ Where am I getting my next £100?’.
“I sit and watch my brother trade for Morgan Stanley and make a lot more money than me. I watch the news, I read stuff about the economy and how tough it is to get a job and those types of things, so I am under no illusions as to how difficult it is going to be. But if I apply myself into that area the same way as I have to my tennis career, I think I will be OK.
“I am already eating horribly. It’s funny, I walked into the supermarket the other day and for the first time in my life I didn’t shut off sections of shelves.”