CONTENTS
1 Title Page
2 BRITAIN NEEDS A HERO
3 SPORTING PEDIGREE
4 A STAR IN TRAINING
5 JUNIOR GLORY
6 SUCCESS ON THE CIRCUIT
7 WE LOVE YOU, LAURA
8 POST-WIMBLEDON
9 SEEDED
10 GROWING PAINS
11 SCHOOL VS TENNIS
12 NEW YORK, NEW YORK
13 DIAMONDS ON TICK
14 BABY STEPS
15 LAURA’S IN VOGUE
16 PUPPIES AND PUPPY FAT
17 ALL CHANGE
18 ANNUS HORRIBILIS
19 THE ITF GRIND
20 RAINBOWS AND RIGHTS
21 FED CUP DEBUT
22 EXPEDITIONS FOR EXPERIENCE
23 COUNTDOWN TO 2012
24 LAURA BECOMES AN OLYMPIAN
25 RETIRING CLIJSTERS
26 ASIA – GANGNAM STYLE
27 BLAZING AHEAD
28 CLASH OF THE TITANS
29 WIMBLEDON GLORY FOR BRITAIN
30 SEEDED AT A GRAND SLAM
31 MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
32 Plates
33 About the Author
34 Copyright
As the world counted down to Wimbledon in the summer of 2008, British sports fans found themselves struggling to muster up their usual exuberant enthusiasm.
It had been a dismal year for the country. The global financial collapse had begun, sparking well-founded fears of the biggest recession in recent history. Closer to home, record-high numbers of teenager-against-teenager murders in London had depressed the nation. The usual joy, inspiration and national pride that stemmed from our country’s sporting achievements had been dampened by sweeping disappointments in the worlds of football, rugby, cricket and tennis, and it had been many years since the nation had idolised a Bobby Moore, Sebastian Coe or Virginia Wade.
It must have been difficult to imagine when Britain would next find something over which to come together in celebration – something to proudly recall in years to come.
There was talk everywhere from pubs to parliament that Britain badly needed some new sporting superstars, to inspire and enthuse the next generation of athletic heroes and to act as role models for teenagers all over the country.
As testament to this line of thinking, new initiatives to help focus disadvantaged youths through sports clubs were sprouting up all over the country, citing benefits that included healthier, safer and stronger communities, and exciting career prospects in the world of sport.
But, while other nations were determinedly battling it out in the European Championships, members of the England football team were instead spotted relaxing on sun loungers, enjoying an extended summer holiday. They’d failed to even qualify for the prestigious tournament, having been embarrassingly knocked out by Croatia in the qualifiers. It was the first time the England team hadn’t competed since 1984.
England’s rugby players had been disgraced both on and off the pitch during a disastrous tour of New Zealand – where lurid tales of all-night drinking, casual sex and even a rape allegation against four of the players had overshadowed the overseas test series. Despite the fact that in the end no charges were brought against any of the players, the team had returned to the UK with a shadow over their reputation that was hard to shake off.
At The Oval, England’s cricketers had been well and truly shamed by their incomprehensible defeat at the hands of a New Zealand team whose player base would scarcely have supported an English county side. It was their tenth one-day international against the resourceful and plucky Kiwis that year, and their eighth loss – a totally unacceptable underachievement that was marked by persistently lacklustre performances.
In tennis, British legend Tim Henman had repeatedly raised and dashed the hopes of a nation longing for a home-grown Wimbledon champion. A year previously, he had finally retired and vanished from the country’s dreams of sporting glory, leaving all of Britain’s heroic tennis hopes pinned on a solitary young Scot by the name of Andy Murray.
It was an intense amount of pressure to be heaped on one person and it didn’t look like it would be relieved any time soon – because the wave of tennis juniors being coached to take their place beside young Andy weren’t inspiring much confidence at all. Despite the money being thrown at the sport by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), the British youngsters being groomed for future sporting glory were being heavily criticised for demonstrating lacklustre performance in both focus and fight.
In an interview with the Daily Mail in January, after one young British hopeful was scratched from the Australian Open Boys’ Event for persistent ill-discipline, one top British coach had admitted: ‘It is often said that British juniors are lazy, ill-disciplined and lack fight on court – that’s the reputation they’ve got unfortunately.’ These were damning words, from a woman who knew what she was talking about – Judy Murray, tennis coach and mother of the then British No. 1s in both singles and doubles: Andy and Jamie Murray.
‘We have to find a way to make them hungrier, set goals for them and then help them achieve them,’ she added.
One of those goals, albeit long term, was the London 2012 Olympics, which, at that point, was four years away. It would be the ultimate opportunity to show off the country’s wide variety of exciting talent, on the world’s biggest sporting stage.
However, the overriding feeling among the general population was that Great Britain wasn’t ready, and instead was just setting itself up for yet more disappointment and possibly even humiliation – this time on its own turf.
Morale was low in the sporting world.
The great British spirit was flagging.
But then, on a windswept bank in Roehampton, three days before the start of Wimbledon, a glimmer of hope shone out from among the young players battling it out on court. A relatively unknown 14-year-old was contesting the girls’ final of the main junior Wimbledon warm-up event, against America’s No. 2 ranked junior, Melanie Oudin.
She was a left-handed player, known in tennis circles as a ‘lefty’, with a surprisingly dominant serve. The new girl on the tennis block was giving the highly rated Oudin a tough time on the court – and in the process she was raising the eyebrows of the watching tennis world’s cognoscenti.
The young player quickly took the first set against the top seed American, and for the rest of the game the small crowd gathered at the minor event watched her every stroke and volley with growing interest. Although she eventually lost to Oudin, those in the know walked away from the court convinced they had witnessed the tender beginnings of the next big British tennis starlet.