At the age of 18, having been playing tennis every day for the past ten years, I stood in the hallway of double-mortgaged 39 Himley Green, Linslade, Leighton Buzzard, with my mother Maria, a night nurse, and younger sister Penny, also a junior tennis player. We were looking upstairs at the doorway of the room where my father Jeremy gave private tuition, as he received a telephone call from the manager of the Leighton Buzzard NatWest Bank. It was bad news. Dad was told not to write anymore cheques. It was the end of our tennis careers.
It all started, on a family camping holiday to the Sussex coast. Aunty Jenny had invited us to see our cousin Tarquin play in the U18 National Lawn Tennis Championships, in Eastbourne. As we walked into the grounds, the first thing we noticed, was a poster which read, “Anyone for Tennis?”
Wandering around the grass courts, watching the players, I had an inner sense, I could play better than them. I had seldom held a tennis racket. But that was about to change.
Back at my cousin’s hotel was a short tennis court. It’s like tennis, played with a sponge ball. Rallying with Tarquin was exhilarating. Afterwards, my heart was racing. From that moment, at the age of 9, I knew what I wanted to be; a top international tennis player.