The Big Andy Murray Interview

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Well, hello and welcome to the Tennis Podcast, a very special tennis podcast today. What do tennis podcasters do in the off-season? I hear you wonder. Well, they come to the Roehampton Club and they interview one of the sports. Great. I am Catherine Whittaker. I am, of course, joined by Matt Roberts and David Law. And we are thrilled today to be joined by Sir Andy Murray. Andy, it's great to have you.

Thanks for having me. Thanks for squeezing us into your golf schedule. It's all right. Do you miss seeing tennis media on a weekly basis? It's okay to stay known? No. Well, interestingly, I actually... Since I finished, I like bumping into the media and chatting to them. It's changed. When I was playing, it was something that I think tennis... Because we do so many interviews and...

It feels to me like so many of the same interviews that it just, over time, it can at times become a little bit tedious, whereas now I do less interviews, I don't see the media as much, and then... like genuinely interested to one speak to the media but also like it's fun like I don't I don't mind it

It's just, I think when you play like 80 matches a year for 10 years and you get interviewed before every match and after every single match, and it's always similar sort of questions, it's not so interesting. We're happy to be a novelty for you today. Retirement looks like it's suiting you well, 18 months in. How's life? It's good, yeah. I mean, I was genuinely unsure of what it was going to be like. I didn't know whether I would enjoy it, whether I would miss tennis.

You know, like how it would fill my days and stuff. So before it came, I was a bit nervous about it. I know that it was the right decision to stop when I did. I don't regret. when I retired from tennis, but, yeah, it's been brilliant. You know, I've loved being a dad. Being at home with the kids is brilliant. I get to do everything with them, and that's...

I'm in a very fortunate position to be able to do that. Yesterday, it's 10 o'clock on a Monday morning and I got to go and watch my daughter's hockey competition for three hours. pissing rain but it was you know it was brilliant i loved getting to do that sort of stuff and you know i missed a lot of those things when i was playing tennis and um yeah i've been really in really enjoying that has it taken you

any time to get used to it because i'm thinking that a year ago it's it's just about the anniversary of when we all heard mouth agape that you were going to start working with novak yeah and I just wonder if we'd have asked you the question a year ago or just before that announcement, how's retirement treating you, whether your answer might have felt a bit different.

No, I was loving it at the time when I spoke to him. I'd just finished playing. I'd had a round of golf. I was in the car on the way home when I spoke to him about the possibility of coaching. It was totally unexpected at the time. And it was not something that I was sort of, I wasn't missing the sport in a way where I was like, oh, you know, I'm desperate to start coaching and get on the road again.

So, yeah, no, I was still really enjoying myself and was really happy being away from the sport. I hadn't been watching much tennis. I hadn't hit tennis balls since I finished. So, yeah, I was, you know, I was in a good place, but it was also an opportunity where, one, I felt like I would always want to coach at some stage, something that I would probably enjoy doing.

And one that if I didn't take it, I might look back on it and be like, you know, that would have been really interesting. I could have learned a lot or, you know, potentially regretted it. So I was very lucky that my wife agreed to. you know, let me go and do it for a period. And yeah. How do you look back on it now? The coaching? Yeah. And the kind of baptism of fire. element like that's not easing yourself into being a potentially being a coach is it that's like going in at the deep end yeah

Well, yeah, it is. I mean, you're obviously working with, he's not just one of the best tennis players, one of the best athletes of all time. So my expectation was that it was going to be extremely challenging. You know, Novak, like myself, is a challenging character in terms of the way he goes about his tennis is extremely demanding. And, you know, I fully expected that.

And yeah, look, I look back on it and I'm like, I'm glad that I did it. You know, it's an amazing experience that I've had. You know, I've learned a bit, obviously didn't last that long. But, yeah, like I put everything into it that I had. I tried my hardest to help him, you know, certainly initially. It was going well. It was unfortunate what happened in Australia with the injury. I watched him play in that tournament. Ridiculous tennis, in my opinion. I saw him play some amazing tennis there.

Speaking to his team about that, it was just so, so good, so impressive what he's doing. And then after the injury, it was certainly a difficult few months for him, but also I think for the team and all of us. I was disappointed, probably didn't get the results I would have liked for him, but I learned a lot.

I learned a lot about what coaching is. And like you said, because it was you throwing yourself in at the deep end, it's like you find out a lot about yourself and some of your strengths, some of your weaknesses as a coach and things that maybe you need to work on yourself.

Um, but yeah, I was like fully invested. I was like, I'd committed to a skiing holiday before I took the job and I explained that to him, but I was sitting there like it. 11 o'clock at night watching videos of his matches over in australia like editing videos to send to him and like try i tried my hardest to you know to help and um

Made some good relationships along the way as well with his team. I stay in touch with quite a few of the team members as well, which was good. I'm glad I did it, but disappointed the results weren't.

as I would have liked. What was it like literally being on the court at the Australian Open when they had that innovation this year of coaches sitting really courtside? What was that experience like? Was it sort of even more... Feeling like your eyes are on you in a way? To be honest, I wasn't bothered by that, like the cameras and stuff being there. It's just not a good place to watch tennis from.

You know, like, I don't understand why, like, coaches should be sitting, in my opinion, and the team should be sitting in the best seats in the house, I feel. Because you want to be able to watch the match properly. And sometimes, like a lot of the tournaments, they get put in positions where they can't see properly the umpire's chairs in the way.

And I feel like the team should be sitting like directly behind the court so they get proper view of the match and see what's going on. So from a communication perspective, it was good because you were right there and you're obviously allowed to. chat to the player so I really like that about it but just in terms of like watching a tennis match from there it's actually it's not that easy to see from that low down so yes

Good being close to the court, but the position of the seats were not to my liking. What was it like to witness the stress of somebody in the moment of a tennis match in the way that... You have been on a million different occasions. What was it like to be on the receiving end of that and kind of witness it from the outside and absorb it? Yeah, what was that experience like?

So I actually didn't find the matches that stressful. Once the matches started to build up to the matches, I found really quite stressful. Because, yes, when you're on the... When you're sitting there on the side, you can obviously help and give comment on what you're seeing or what the player maybe needs to do differently during the match. But actually the build-up is where the coach has to...

There's lots of things that you need to do and making sure that everything is done correctly. So making sure that the rackets are right, that the practice court is booked and the practice partner is appropriate. The videos around the match are done. Were you the one going in and booking the practice courts? Were you that hands-on doing...

All of that stuff. Yeah, so I did all of that stuff, which I viewed that as being my job. It wasn't like Novak said, please be the one getting my rackets and stuff. I wanted to do those things because... like you're then in control of it so at the end like if you mess up the rackets like that's you know that's on you um so you know i'd have my list of things that you know i had to do um before the matches and

you know, make sure they're done right. And, you know, then you have to obviously go over the strategy and the... you know like the videos that you put together Novak had an analyst as well who he was working with that helped with with a lot of that stuff as well and he was you know he was brilliant he's still working with him now a guy called Boris who

It helps him on the coaching side a bit as well. He was also helping with that, but we spent a lot of time working on those things before the match because that's something Novak wanted. and making sure the videos and stuff were done well. So we spent a lot of time on that. You know, and they were all of the things that go into... And then, obviously, sometimes before matches, like...

You know, the player needs like a bit of encouragement or like a bit of motivation or something as well. And trying to make sure you find the right words or the right moments to do those things, I think, you know, are important. Do you do good pep talk? You'd have to ask Novak. I don't know. I don't know whether I did. David's our pep talk guy. Oh, really? Yeah. Did you have one this morning? Yeah. We're here, aren't we? We're here.

I'm just a general hype guy. I don't know, what was your approach? No, I think it's important for a coach to bring a good energy, I think, so that... You don't want, like, on an important day that your team comes out and is, like, super, like, flat. But also, like, nervous energy is not also what a player, in my opinion, what a player needs before they walk on to play.

you know, semi-final, final of a Grand Slam, you need to, you know, bring an energy, like, I don't know, like a bit of confidence as well, you know. So the player feels like you believe in them, I think. So, you know, whether or not I did that well or not, I don't know. I would have to, you know, Novak would have to answer that.

But I'm aware from a psychological perspective how important those things are. So it's something that I would, like if I ever coached again, like I would work on and try and do a better job of it. You'd obviously...

played Novak so many times and sort of observed his career kind of from the outside when you got like inside the camp was there anything about the way he operated that surprised you at all or sort of that you thought, wow, I didn't know that you did it like that? No, I wouldn't say so because I've, you know, like you said, I've played against them a lot. I've also...

I practiced with him quite a lot, particularly in our younger years. I've been in the gym with him lots at tournaments and things. One of the things that I really liked about his training... his physical trainer at the time, Gigi, who was working with him in the off-season that I really liked, was that he... Always had him in different training environments. So one day he'd be in the swimming pool. The next day he would be running on the beach. Then he would be...

you know, going out on the bike. Next, they'd be playing basketball. That was something that was very different to how I trained. A lot of mine was like, you know, get on a VersaClimber or get on a Wattbike and you're sort of staring at the walls and it's, you know, it's not that stimulating an environment. I liked the hard work and I enjoyed doing that, but that was something that probably from seeing Novak, I really liked that about his training.

I certainly didn't do it myself. I thought that was really good. Actually, I think it's a funny story anyway, but on the first day that I started working with him, I turned up. to the training camp and we did the practice session, which his team were all kind of laughing at me because whilst Novak was warming up, I was out on the court.

practicing my feeding like warming up my feeding which they were like I've never seen anyone do that before and I was like well as a player I used to hate it when the coach fed poorly and You know, I had like a basket of balls working on my feeding. So they all found that quite amusing. I was doing that. But then after the tennis session, his physical trainer was like, oh, Novak's going for like a long sort of slow run in the park later. Like, would you mind joining him?

And I was like, oh, my God. I didn't run since I was about 25. Like, on the court I did, but I never ran as part of my training. And I was like, it was my first day on the job. Like, I can't say, no, I'm not doing this. I was like, yeah, yeah, no, no worries. I'll do that. Bearing in mind, I also hadn't been staying in great shape since I finished. I mean, I'd been training a bit, but not loads.

I told him that, I've not trained much, and he was like, it's fine, it's going to be a gentle run. So anyway, I went, and it was like, I think it was about 50 minutes he was running for. It was in a park, and he was kind of up. Quite a few hills in there. Very slow pace. But after about four or five minutes, my left calf cramped. And I was like, oh, no.

But I can't say anything like this is embarrassing, you know, like after four or five minutes. And anyway, I finished, I completed the 50 minutes. I was in so much pain. And anyway, when I finished, I said to his team, I was like, guys, you need to help me out here. Like, I've been running for 45 minutes, my left calf cramped whilst I was there. And I was just like, I couldn't, I felt like I couldn't stop.

You know, like I didn't want to show to him like, oh, my God, you know, there's someone I've been competing against for such a long time. And after five minutes, you know, he's struggling training with me. So I did tough it out, but it's pretty embarrassing. embarrassing moment for me. Maybe he was testing you.

That run should not have been a test. It was so slow. We would have all been able to complete it. I don't know what happened if it was just because I hadn't run for a long time or if I was dehydrated or nerves or whatever, but yeah.

It was so slow and it was embarrassing. You mentioned that some of the incredible tennis he played at that tournament, the Australian Open, and... I mean, our minds all go back to the match he played against Alcaraz. So I know he's somebody you have talked about loving watching as a player and he's a great watch. What was it like trying to... I guess, prepare for him, given everything he brings to the table? So, like, honestly, that preparation was done well ahead of time.

And that was something that, you know, I worked on in the off season with more with his his analyst. But, you know, we worked on the on the core in terms of like. patterns of play that felt like he would work well for him against guys like Alcaraz and guys like Sinner who they're the players that most likely he was going to have to beat if he wanted to win another.

another major that was that was my opinion so a lot of that work in terms of the preparation of the like the analysis of that match had been done throughout the off season and tennis in my opinion you have to do that and I

I don't think enough people do because, you know, it's one of the things that's really hard about tennis is you never know exactly who you're going to play. You know, you finish a match on Wednesday, you've got... you know a day to get ready for the next one there's not lots of time to and in that time you obviously you've got to sleep you've got to do your training and you know prepare there's not lots of time to get ready for the opponents

So we tried to do as much of that work in the off-season as possible so that we weren't scrambling around before the match with Alcaraz. How are we going to play against this guy? Can we get some videos put together to show Novak? You know, that sort of stuff. So a lot of that was kind of done ahead of time, to be honest. Are you proud of that? Like coaching Novak to beat Carlos?

Yeah, I mean, that wasn't me that won that match. Novak won that match and he could win that match whether I'm sitting there or not. But I did the best I can to help him in that match. And I feel like... The thing that's hard with tennis is that I think the strategy to play against him is a bit complicated.

Because we'd spent a lot of time on it, I felt like it was quite clear as to how he needed to play. But there's a difference between seeing a strategy and actually going out on the court and executing it as well as he did.

And my opinion is that there's very few people in the world that can do that. So you could give... a guy ranked 50 in the world, the best strategy you want to play against Alcaraz, but he's still probably going to win that match, whereas Novak is that good that he is able to execute a strategy perfectly because he is so good. So, yeah, I felt like the strategy for the match was a good one, but he played a ridiculous tennis match as well. And that's why he won the match.

How does the feeling of coaching somebody to a big victory like that, emotionally, how does that compare to actually being the one to do the stuff on the court? It's different. I mean, I was really, really happy for him and super happy for his team. But yeah.

I definitely, like, after the match and stuff, it was, like, hard to sleep still. Like, I was still, like, buzzing from the match and everything. And it was so good to watch that, like, you know, I loved it. I loved being... part of that match and being you know courtside and stuff it was it was awesome but i would say winning as as a player being the one on the court is still you know would be a greater a greater feeling but

It was still really, really special. And kind of picking up on that, I remember in the final few years of your playing days, you would talk about how you'd spoken to... ex-pros and they would say like kind of nothing nothing does replace the feeling of playing competing winning how have have you found that in retirement like not having that in your life and finding other sources of joy, I suppose. And was that at all part of the motivation to get into coaching, like chasing that feeling at all?

No, I don't think so. I don't feel like I've had to replace it. I don't miss it. I think golf helps with the sort of... like having a routine of like something that I'm trying to practice and get better at so I really like that part of tennis and I love sort of waking up in the morning and

you know going to the gym to try and get stronger or more flexible or fitter and getting on the court and practicing things like I enjoyed that right up until the end like I was always trying to find ways to get better and I really enjoyed that so You know, the competition is hard, though, as well. Like, it's not... I wouldn't say that, like, I don't miss, like... standing on the baseline to serve like on the first point of a match at Wimbledon like I'm not winning Wimbledon like yes like

I would love to feel that one more time, but getting to that point is really difficult. It's really hard, and I did that for a long time, and I really don't miss that. I dedicated a lot of my life to it. I'm glad that I did it. I'm proud of what I achieved, but I don't, I don't know. I don't feel like I'm trying to fill that void. And yeah, and if I felt like coaching was going to do that. I don't think that it did. I enjoyed it in a different way to how I enjoyed competing.

playing tenors. Just picking up on that I remember you saying that a few times sort of speaking to you towards the end of your career citing the ex-pros you'd spoken to that had said nothing will ever replace it you know hang on to this as long as you can. How that obviously hearing that obviously really stuck with you at the time how do you look back on that advice and that mindset now like you said at the start you'd been quite fearful of retirement or certainly apprehensive like

Do you think maybe you were too afraid of it? Well, possibly, yeah. I mean, I don't know, possibly, but I also think that... But the reason I feel like I do now is because I gave everything that I had to the sport. I don't look back with any regret. I couldn't... Well, there's things I would do differently if I could have another go at it, but...

I feel like I gave everything like physically to the sport. Like, you know, there's certainly, like I said, things I would have done differently. But like mentally, like I was fully invested in my tennis. I gave my best. effort to or what i thought was my my best so i don't like yeah i think i finished it at the right time i had no i had nothing more to give and i'm sure there's some athletes that finish their careers and look back and are like

oh my God, I totally blew that. I should have done this differently. I should have worked harder. I should have done... And I don't have that feeling. So yes, it's possible that I was maybe too fearful of retirement, but also... i'd stopped four years before and when i had the hip problem maybe i would have been like i would have liked to have seen like what i could have done with you know with a metal hip and you know maybe would have had some regrets and wanted to go back and

you know, compete again. But I don't, I have none of those feelings. What are the things you would have done differently? I would have probably trained slightly differently. I would have taken more. breaks. Certainly would have done that. I would have enjoyed the successes more. So I would have for sure taken like, I don't know. Like an example I use quite a lot would be, so when I won the Olympics in London, I flew the next day to Canada to play Masters Series there. Terrible decision.

You know, I played my first match. My body was in bits. It was on a different surface. Got nothing out of doing that. And actually... why I didn't stay and celebrate with, you know, that is the best week that I had on the tennis court. And the way that I celebrated that was getting on a flight the following day to go to Canada to, you know, to play over there and like stuff like that.

I did the same thing after Rio. I got on a flight that night. I flew with Nadal to Cincinnati and went and played there. Stuff like that, I would definitely have done differently. Was that because the number one, specifically with the Rio example, you were chasing the number one? number one at that time right yeah there's yeah so part of it was that but I was still miles away from being number one at that stage like I still had to win what was like almost

almost every match from that point through to the end of the year. And I was sitting in my hotel room every single day with my team during that Cincinnati tournament. I was like, I don't want to play. So I'm so tired. I just don't want to play. And that's where there was always a conflict with me that I was kind of, as I tell my team, I don't want to play. And then it was getting closer and closer to the start time of the match. And I was like, I've got to play.

You know, but I'd be telling them like the whole day, like I'm not playing, like I'm going to pull out. I really wasn't that bothered about the tournament. Like I just won the Olympics. I was like so happy. I think I won Wimbledon that year as well. I was in a good place. I didn't need to play in Cincinnati, but it was like that wanting to compete that I...

You know, I was always drawn to that and sometimes I find it hard to say no to that opportunity. And yeah, I wish like that week, for example, like I shouldn't have played in Cincinnati, but I did and got to the final. You know, my team would say like every day they were like, I was pulling out. I was like, I'm not playing. I'd wake up every morning. I was like, I'm not playing today. I don't want to play. So. You always had a good hype man at that time.

No, they didn't want me to play either. You know, and maybe, you know, that's something that, you know, at times as well, like, certainly in my career I would have done differently, but also, like... If I was coaching a player in that situation, I would 100%, I would stop them from playing. I would pull them out of the event and stop them competing and be like, look, enjoy yourself.

We got the US Open in a couple of weeks. Don't go out and party for 10 days, but let's take a moment to appreciate what it is that you've achieved and worked for and let's reset and compete.

in a couple of weeks. Do you think that decision to play Cincinnati had any effect on the US Open to come? Kind of when I think of your career, I, you know, in maybe certain... matches or tournaments that got away. Obviously that 2016 US Open, I know Nishikori's a great player, you can lose to Nishikori, but... You were in such good form that year and won so many of the other big events, Wimbledon, Olympics, Tour Finals. Do you think just...

Like, was there some burnout or fatigue that you were feeling at that time? Well, I think one of the things that was starting to happen at that stage and it started kind of end of 2015 was that... So this is now, that US Open, so it was, I don't know, like nine months from when my hit was completely done. And by that stage, my hit was pretty bad.

And I struggled a lot that year in long matches, in five-set matches. And by the end of those matches, I was really struggling, particularly with my serve. It became an issue. And if you look at my results from being two sets to one up in slams throughout my career up till that point, it was rarely lost from that position. And then in those next sort of few months, it happened multiple times.

I could lose those matches anyway, it's possible. But I know in myself that physically I couldn't serve properly and my hip was hurting badly in those longer matches. And yeah, it's possible that if I played less tennis and... Cincinnati that my hip would have been feeling slightly better at the US Open, but I don't think so. My hip was already on its way to being finished.

I lost multiple matches. The match against Nishikori, I lost from two sets to one up. Del Potro, two sets to one up at Davis Cup. Warrinka, two sets to one up at French Open. That was when my hit eventually was done. Yeah, I think it was more likely because of that. With the...

The relentlessness of it all, the fact that you're not able really structurally the way the tennis season is set up to celebrate these things unless you make this decision, I'm not going to play, or a coach says, don't play, is... Is that something that you see as a problem for the tour in a way, in the way it's structured? I mean, we were talking to Jack Draper a couple of weeks ago who was concerned about the...

The Length and Masters Series 1000 events, for instance, the fact that they're all a couple of weeks long now and the feeling that you can't take breaks. You feel like you've got to be out there and you burn out. Do you think that that is... actually something that maybe structurally should change? Yeah, so the thing is, and I think that, again, it's a regret of mine, obviously...

As a player, a lot of players just follow what the schedule says you have to do. And Novak's a good example of that this year, where he hasn't done that. And at times, Federer didn't do that. you are allowed to miss tournaments. Obviously, there is certain penalties in place for that. So, yeah, there's a bit of a balance to it, and that's where...

Since these longer Masters series came in, I was sitting on the ATB Player Council when this got voted for to change the Masters series to longer events, and I was completely against. that change because, one, I liked the Masters Series, how they were. I thought they were great events. And my feeling was just that it's not... Yes, the feeling from the ATP at the time was that there would be less injuries because you would have more time to recover between matches.

My feeling was that if you put two-week tournaments on, there's less time for players to actually recover as well. And I think part of the issue now is where I don't... I don't think there's anything that suggests that players are getting injured more than before. I think there's always been injuries and I don't think there's evidence to back that up.

But I do think players are more tired and I think mentally are more fatigued than they were before because they're spending more days away and more days on the road. When you're more fatigued, you're more sensitive to pain and discomfort. And I think that my feeling is that that is what players are feeling now.

being away and being on the road for longer than you used to be, rather than, you know, the matches are, like, physically... Players are obviously hitting the ball harder and stuff, but, you know, the matches... I don't think they're so much more demanding than they were 10, 15 years ago, but it's the amount of time that players are away on the road that's actually an issue.

We all listened to the podcast you did with Romesh, which was great. But one of the... There was obviously lots of fun stuff in it, but one of the, like... profound lines that really really got me was you saying that you you're proud of your career now but you weren't when you were in it like is that I felt quite sad hearing that that sort of

in the moment you couldn't feel couldn't feel proud like how I don't know is that is do you wish you could have been proud at the time or do you think that feeling of always wanting more was what enabled you to achieve what you did Yeah, so like part of probably that is, you know, maybe helped me become more successful because I was always like striving for more. But at the same time.

I spent my whole career, you know, sort of getting compared to, your results are getting compared to Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic and Nadal. So, and these are the people that I was competing against and trying to get. become as good as or better than so when you're looking at them and you're seeing that they've won 10 grand slams 15 grand slams 20 grand slams The achievements when you're just in the middle of that, you know, seem like insignificant almost. Which.

Literally within probably a week to 10 days of retiring, my perspective completely changed on my own career. Like at times, you know, when I was in the middle of it. You know, like number three in the world or four in the world, and it's rubbish. Or, you know, you get to the final of the Australian Open for the fifth time, and it's a terrible result. And, you know...

The media will also help you feel that way at times as well. You know, like, and sport is difficult in that sense, is that you have a great achievement and you're made to feel like it is a failure.

um as well and you know the athletes obviously because we're competitive and want to win we feel that too but when you know going to a press conference afterwards and it's like you know the the mood is so like disappointing and stuff you know you will feel it um you know feel it more so yeah when you're in the thick of it and it's your job and everything like

you know disappointed when I didn't win um majors you put so much into it that it you know you feel a bit like you failed but when I finished my career and I like I went and watched my daughter running a cross-country race and she finished like seventh and I was like oh my god that's unbelievable like it's so good so like as a parent like i'm like that's amazing like finishing seventh out of 100 kids in like the local school area

But when I was playing tennis, like we finished second in one of the biggest competitions and you're like, this is just a disaster. It's just not an ideal way to look at things. It's hard to get much. happiness and pleasure out of the sport when that is the mindset. I think a lot of athletes suffer from it. One of the things that struck us last night when we were looking at your head-to-heads against...

Novak and Roger and Rafa, your three big contemporaries and rivals, is just how many times you did beat them. You beat them a lot. I mean, is that something that in hindsight, given... what we know of them now, how, how incredible their careers have been, that that must give you some, some pleasure in hindsight. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like when I watch myself play now, which is rare. Like, you know, the odd thing pops up on, you know, my Instagram feed or whatever. And yeah, light.

you know, I like watching myself play now. Like when I was playing, it was like so judgmental of like everything. It's like, oh, you know, the ball toss is wrong. Oh God, that foreign is so bad or whatever. Whereas now, like I watch it and I'm like, wow, like. Yeah, like it was good. Like I could play pretty well. But certainly didn't always feel like that when I was, you know, in the middle, in the middle of my career. I think you posted the highlights of your...

Australian Open semi-final against Federer in 2013 the other day, and you were like, you know, we were pretty good. And that match always sticks in my mind. I think Simon Wiggs of The Telegraph.

called it kind of a five-set thrashing. Like, you were so good in that match and Federer was fighting hard and extended it to five. Like, can you just talk a little bit about your rivalry with Roger specifically? Something that I... realised is you won six of your first eight meetings against Federer, like right in Federer's prime. Kind of what was it about that matchup that you sort of took to?

early on there that you were having so much success against him do you think um yeah so i i watched him like loads when i was growing up um and i used to I took notes from watching matches with him on Sky. I had an injury when I was... 15 I think it was I didn't play for like six months and I you know I really enjoyed watching him like I loved watching him play but I also like I felt like I knew

Again, from a strategical point of view, I felt like I knew how to play against him, but certainly was never always going to execute it well because of how good he is. But I had a clear idea of how it was that I wanted to play against him. That certainly helped me early on when I competed against him. The match-up was not a great match-up for me. I still lost more than I won against him.

Yeah, it was a good match. I had chances to win when I played against them. Obviously, in the Grand Slams, I certainly didn't do as well. And I think part of that was... Yes, his game, but also like the psychological impact of him having won multiple majors, me never having won one and that, you know, the nerves that...

I would feel going into those matches and the pressure that would feel. Obviously, he would have felt that too. He would have felt the pressure and I'm not saying that I would. But I think if I played him the first time when we... in slams when neither of us had won one I probably would have felt a bit different going on the court whereas you know he had this aura about him and you know was always sort of described as you know he's the best tennis player of all time that to overcome him is

It's challenging in the biggest matches, but the match-up itself, I felt like I matched up quite well. Is there anything strategically or tactically you could just... led us in on what for you it meant to play Roger and beat him? I get on very well with Roger. No. So, yeah, it meant, well, obviously, yeah, it meant a lot for me to win against him because he was someone I watched as a kid. Like, I loved his game, you know, but I, yeah, I felt like...

You know, his backhand was a side that people would say like, oh, his backhand was like weak. But I mean, in relation to what? His backhand would still have been one of the best backhands in the world, but in relation to his forehand, it was clear that that was the side that you could maybe attack, and my backhand cross-court was one of my best shots, and I also...

He used to like playing this sort of high forehand down the line that was sort of slow. That for him, I think, I'd be interested to actually know, and I've never asked him about it, but... I didn't always hit it, like, super deep. It was, like, kind of, like, high but short in the box. And for a one-hander, it's difficult. You need to make a decision, like, early, like, what do I do with this bowl? Do I step into the court and try and take it early or...

You know, they have to either like retreat and go back behind the baseline or, you know, am I going to slice this ball? And that I felt like that shot gave him. some trouble, particularly early on when we played. Obviously, he figured that out the more I played against him. But there was a few things in the match-up that I felt like I could... And I think just because I've watched hours of him play, like...

Initially, reading his game, a lot of that had been done before I went on the court with him the first few times. Hello folks, this edition of the Tennis Podcast is brought to you by Aura Frames, and look, if you're like me, you're perhaps not the world's most confident gift giver. I second-guess myself, I procrastinate, and I end up doing it all last minute. Well, Aura Frames could well be the solution that you're looking for, just like me. A cool gift that feels really personal.

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What was it like being part of Rafa's retirement ceremony at Roland Garros last year? Yeah, it was amazing. And I think he obviously deserved that. to be really touched by the whole thing. I thought the... Is it the footprint that's on the court? Yeah. Yeah, like, I thought that was really cool.

And yeah, he seemed to love it, which I think is what the most important thing is. Obviously, it's nice if it makes everyone that's watching it feel emotional and they enjoy it, but Rafa seemed to really... really love it so it was um yeah it was great I enjoyed and you know it was actually like beforehand was also nice as well because I don't think Rafa didn't know that we were all going to go um and we were sitting in like uh

like a room just with Roger for the most part and his agent just chatting about tennis and our matches and what the game's like now and things like that, which was fun too. Did things like that, or maybe specifically that event, that help you feel like proud to have been, you were talking about sort of feeling of inadequacy because your career achievements were compared to those.

other three but I guess the other side of that coin is you you were a part of that big four like one of the most incredible institutions that tennis has ever seen like did a moment like that in Paris last year help you feel proud of being part of that yeah I mean look I I'm fully aware like where I sit in the pegging order there like I know that what all of those guys have gone on to achieve is

far superior to anything that i did on you know on the tennis court um but uh you know also there was a period like in the middle part of my career where most major events, whether that was the Slams, Masters Series, Olympics, Davis Cup, that one of those four players was winning, now granted. most of the time it was then but it wasn't always um and yeah like I was proud to have been part of that period and

Again, I'm fully aware that what they've achieved is incredible and I think it's amazing what they've done. But yeah, there was a period in the middle part where I was... was competing against them for the biggest tournaments most weeks. And I didn't ask to go to Rafa's ceremony. He'd asked for me to go. So I went.

because he asked me to go so when people say to me like oh well you know what you know what's he doing there what you know why is he there I was like well I didn't invite myself to go on how did it feel to be asked how did In that moment. I was like, yeah, great. Like, you know, I'd absolutely be there if that's what he wanted. If he said no or when Novak finishes, he doesn't want me to go there. And that's fine as well. Like, but it's not me like.

forcing my way into that situation like unwanted so yeah did you get one of the t-shirts I don't think I did get one of the t-shirts actually. They're going big money on eBay. I heard about that. Yeah, I heard they were going for big money. Have you kept yours or are you? I gave it to my mum. Did you? And she put it on eBay. She actually wore it to the Rafa Nadal Academy that she did this year. And she was gutted that no one...

No one noticed it and said, oh, were you at the retirement ceremony? Because she had a little story to tell, but no, no one noticed. She was a bit annoyed about that. Just on Rafa, actually, while we're talking about him, obviously... I feel like the thing that gets talked about the most with Nadal is obviously his incredible record on clay. Something that I'd be interested to hear from you about was what it was like facing him on grass. Because...

You had some Wimbledon quarterfinals and semifinals against him. What was the challenge of facing that? Because I think people forget he reached five Wimbledon finals in a row in terms of when he was playing the event. Early in his career, he maybe took some losses. later in his career that were surprising, but he was so good on grass quite early. I'm just wondering what was the specific challenge for you? What did he do so well on that surface that people maybe don't always think about?

Well, I would say that probably he served differently on grass than how he did on a clay court, for example. That was my feeling anyway. Sometimes I played and practiced against him on clay and it seemed like at times the only focus was to get the first serve in and play the point from there. So you didn't really have a chance to... like attack his second serve, whereas I played and practiced with him quite a lot on grass. And on grass, this is just how it felt to me as a player. I don't know.

this is actually the reality. I can't remember looking at the stats and all that to back it up, but he felt like he served faster, tried to serve more aces, tried to get more free points on his first serve. And then... On the second serve, I felt like he also upped his speed at times on the grass court, and because of the nature of the surface, his second serve became a little bit harder to return, and he would serve.

quite a lot to me on a grass court like into my forehand body so whereas on a clay court that doesn't because of the way the ball reacts off the court the spin wouldn't really cause too much issue the serve would maybe come with a little bit more like slow down off the court and a bit of like topspin or kick whereas on a grass court that wouldn't happen and it would sort of slide through and come into my body and that was I found returning against him significantly harder on a grass court than

um then on the clay and then from the back of the court like his forearm was great on every surface um i think that really sort of let him down I mean at times like if you played very fast into that side you could get a shorter ball for sure but in offensive positions his forehand was brutal on a grass court as well and then I mean, he showed it off on a clay court as well, but probably more so on a grass court. He finished up at the net really well.

Very solid volleys, good hands. He was quick at the net, anticipates well at the net, and he was able to use those skills more on a grass court than maybe he did on the clay.

Yeah, there was a few things that he did differently on the surfaces, but they would be a couple. Well, one of the things looking at the head-to-heads that you had against the three of them and things we've heard all four of you talk about is... the work you were putting in, constantly trying to, well, make incremental improvements or adjustments.

As Matt was saying, he won six of your first eight against Federer. And then at the end of his career, or the end of the rivalry rather, when you're still kind of at your peak, he starts to win a lot in a row. And we've seen that. with adjustments the two of them, the three of them have made against each other. Can you remember...

Federer may be bringing something a little different towards the end of that rivalry. Can you remember any changes that you made against any of the other three that really made things improve for you during the rivalries? I would say that Federer, over the years, got progressively more offensive, particularly with his court position. You know, my second serve was average at best. And I would say that as I played against him more, like he was...

More offensive on second serve return, tried to get on his forehand more when I was hitting second serves. Whereas at the beginning, he would often stand on the baseline. And if I served his back, he would just chip it back and start the rally. Whereas towards the end, he was making more of an effort to get on his forehand and really like attack immediately in the rallies. So when I was serving, that was something he definitely did differently.

I would say, again, like his core position that I think got tighter to the baseline as his career went on. He always was pretty offensive, but I would say more so. If you watch him from like... 2003-4 towards the end, you can notice a difference there. And then, yeah, like with Novak... It was a difficult match for me because very similar game styles, but everything was just a little bit better.

I would say that the only area where I was probably stronger was at the net. But then it's hard to sort of exploit. It's not like he's good at the net. like terrible net player but how do you make that work in your advantage like if i'm If I want to bring him up to the net, it's not that. It's not an easy thing to do. You can at times, but you can't spend every point hitting drop shots or hitting short balls to try and get him to come forward. So it was...

It wasn't really that easy for me. The one advantage that I had, I couldn't use in every single point. One of the things that when I was working with... Ivan Lendl and you know we had lots and lots of information data particularly in the matchup with Novak and one of the things which There was a big difference. So when I would hit a slice backhand to Novak and when I got it to his backhand, most of the time he would come back with a slice. And his slice is...

Sort of quite slow, whereas someone like Federer really knifes a slice. It was like a strength of his. Novak wouldn't miss many, but it was a slower ball. And when I got on my forehand after that shot, so when he sliced and I was the one to get on my forehand, the percentage of points I won got was significantly higher. So that was something towards the end when I played against him that I focused on a lot.

So when I would bring the slice into the rally, immediately trying to get on my forehand as much as possible. And that seemed to help a bit against him. And then Rafa, I don't remember playing him loads towards the end.

really felt like like a long time since i played him i can't really remember exactly uh from a strategical sort of perspective but There was always things you were trying to adjust and learn from the previous match, but the thing that's hard, and with great players like those guys, is that they're also looking at those matches as well that you've just played, and are like, well, which things work?

which things would I do differently next time? And they're not showing up on the court with exactly the same game plan every single time. So you're always trying to make adjustments, but you have to be mindful in the match that... you know things things change and that that for me is one of the hardest things about tennis and what I loved before the sort of pre-coaching era was that like on-court coaching was that you

You as the player had to decide, like, when do I decide that this strategy is not working? You know, is this like six games into the match? Do you wait a set to see if it's working? Is it, you know? Did you have any examples of that in a match against one of those where, oh my word, they're doing something different to what I expected or this is just not working and you change? I mean, off the top of my head, I can't think of a specific match.

yes like playing against them there would be you know when you play against them like as many times you go on the court and things are not happening as you want or expect and it's trying to calculate like whether is is this not working because I'm just not executing it properly or well enough or is it because they're doing something differently or does this just not work like I thought it was going to and it is not

And these are things that you have to work out when you're on the court. I thought Rafa probably was probably the strongest at that, I would say. You know, he did always get a little bit of additional help from Tony on the side. But I think he was brilliant at that. making the adjustments during matches and constantly changing his return position or starting to use a slice more or changing the heights of the ball and things.

I would say that he was very, very good at that. I always think of the 2022 Australian Open final. It's like the ultimate example of Rafa doing that. You're big into data. As a player and a coach, it sounds like. Do you think tennis makes enough of data? Tennis is probably quite far behind other sports in that sense. In a lot of the team sports, they've been using wearable technology for, well, certainly the last decade, but probably longer, whereas it's only been allowed since last year.

on the ATP tour. So up until recently, players haven't known what's my heart rate doing in a five-set match and what's the load on my body. All of those sorts of things. I mean, you could get estimates or guesstimates, but nothing exact. So I think that certainly is something that should help the sport, like help players and teams understand. how they should be training more effectively, which would then hopefully reduce injury risk and things like that. And then...

Data has been around for a while, but it's only recently been, sorry, like statistics and stuff for matches. It's been around a while, but it's only really become like... available to all the players fairly recently in the last few years, whereas beforehand you had a lot of the top players paying companies to provide their data on their matches, which...

you know, was an advantage for sure. Whereas now a lot of that data is available to all of the players on one platform. So I could log on and see Alcaraz's last 80 hard court matches. look at his serving patterns and things like that but again that's also challenging because well you know players change like and from week to week sometimes and it's knowing how to present that data like in the correct way to your player and lots of the I would say sort of older generation of coaches

probably didn't have that when they were playing themselves and then didn't have it during their coaching career. So I don't think some of them are reluctant to use it as well. And some people think it's just overkill and there's too much. and too much data and there's not enough sort of feel for how someone should, you know, should play against an Alcaraz or whoever. So it's...

It's hard. And then that comes down to the player, I think, and what does the player actually want rather than the coach just going, I'm very analytical, I love data, so I'm just going to throw all of it at this player when actually something like an Alcaraz. Plays a lot on instinct, I think, and probably don't want to overcomplicate things for him. Did you see the picture he posted last week of him watching the Davis Cup? The picture of his living room?

with all his trophies chaotically cascaded around his living room. Oh, really? He's got like his Wimbledon trophy. At the back, on the top shelf. On an Ikea bookshelf and sort of the Cincinnati. ceramic, it's chaos. You need to get a proper... Very endearing chaos. Where are all your trophies? So when we moved house, my wife... made like a trophy cabinet. Like it's downstairs out of the way, but yeah, there's one in there. Must be pretty big. Yeah.

Yeah, it is pretty big, yeah. It's a decent size. Yeah, but actually, I mean, I'm fine with them obviously being in there, but I don't go and... I don't go and look at them daily and I'm like, it's not something I think about loads. One of the Olympic golds is at the Wimbledon Museum. It was, yeah. I actually got it back last week. Yeah, it had been in there for, I think, about a year. But yeah, I got it back recently.

Are the Olympic medals in the trophy cabinet as well? Olympic medals, yeah, they're in there. Do you ever wear them? Do you ever wear them? My kids wear them, my kids sometimes. And I was quite precious about them at the beginning. No, whatever. Scratch them up and stuff. Keeps them up. One of them wanted to take one of them into school. I don't know what it was. They were doing some...

That would be a pretty good show in school, wouldn't it? Yeah, we're like, no, that's a bit much to send them in with one of them. So we gave them like the... my Beijing Olympics participation medal instead, which they were happy with. Have you got all your Olympic pins still? I've still got all of them, yeah. I've kept all of them. They'll be worth something on eBay as well.

Yeah, maybe, yeah. I mean, that was something that at the time, I absolutely loved doing it every single Olympics, whereas now I'm a bit like, did I spend a bit too much time walking around the village? stopping like at different tables in the restaurant just like oh that guy's from Eritrea like that's a rare pin like I'll go over and ask him if he's got one and they're just like did anybody ever refuse I'm like

Okay. Did anyone ever refuse to give you a pin? Yeah, I mean, you get rejected all of the time. All the time. Right, okay. Like, it's a proper game, like, you know. What, people want to stop you having them so they can beat you? Yeah. And also like, you know, they obviously want pins in exchange for you giving, you know, some people don't care. They just want to get rid of them so that they, when people show up and they're like, oh, do you have any pins? They're like, no, I don't have any. Yeah.

But yeah, it's a bit of a game and I got really quite into it. And I got most of the, I'd say most of the tennis team were not into it to the same level as me, but I got...

quite a few of them on board, I think. Andy Murray in competitive shock. Yeah. You mentioned earlier on that you voted against that decision to extend the Masters 1000s. Now that you're out of it all, you can look on from the side, what would you do with tennis? I mean, if you could start again, is there a change above all other that you'd love to see? tours the circuit the sport make um yeah that well there's there's quite a few things like there's a few things i would probably

Yeah, that would probably change. You know, at that time as well, there was also, there was exemptions at the Masters Series level. You could get up to three exemptions and they were quite hard to like achieve. One of them was like... you had to be i think you were it was it was an age related one so i think it was over 30 but it could have been more like 32 or something but you had to be like over 30 you could get

you were allowed to miss one and not get penalised. There was a match-related one, so if you played over, again, I'm going to get this wrong, but it was, let's say, 600 matches, you were exempt. And then there was one that was like a certain amount of years of service on the tour. So let's say it was like 12 years of service. So you could, in theory, mess up to three master series and not get penalised.

And that was one of the other things that when this vote was taking place was that the Masters series were like, well, we want to put up all of this prize money. We want more days.

we want to get rid of the exemptions which again I was totally I was against that because I just think it's like players get older like you you need to prioritize like certain tournaments and obviously your body has wear and tear on it and you need to make decisions like at times like well I'd like to play this tournament but you know the right thing for me is to skip events. And also, and I believe this used to be the case, but if not, it should be, is that, like, let's say you missed...

with one of those exemptions, let's say I missed the Paris Masters one year, well then you can't miss that same Masters series the following season. And I think that that's something that, I think they should bring the exemptions back. for players so then at some stage you're allowed to miss events but also bring back the because then the tournaments are not going to be like well I don't want that because then Alcaraz could just miss

you know, whichever Masters series he doesn't like for the rest of his career without any penalties. And I think that's also where... And I know a lot of people wouldn't like it because it would mess with records and things like that. I don't know if there's a way around it, but having a two-year ranking system would allow players to feel less pressure.

to have to compete every single week for ranking points and worry about losing their ranking if they get an injury for three or four months. That's something that... i think could could help but i don't know how that would work with you know with with like the record books you know That's a challenge if you go down to your ranking system. And yeah, there's loads of other things that I would want to change. How protective do you feel of best of five in men's?

Like, is protecting the existence of best of five in men's tennis in Grand Slams, is that a red line that you wouldn't cross? Or do you think that kind of everything needs to be on the table? Because it would solve a lot of... a lot of problems getting rid of best of five or having some sort of system where it's best of three for men and women in the first week of slams, best of five, second week of slams. It would even up the formats across men's and women's tennis.

protect bodies like they bid a lot of advantages to it but it's obviously something that for good reason people within the sport are fiercely protective of because there's you know a lot of a lot of highs and this year You've got the example of the French Open final where it's pretty hard to campaign for getting rid of best of five when you've just had that match that wouldn't have existed without it. Yeah, and I think that for me, best of five was...

was great for better players. The longer the matches go on, more chances for you to come back and figure out and work things out. So as a player, I loved it. As a fan, I personally, I would not sit and watch a best of five-set match now because it's too long. I have a family, got other things to do. I wouldn't.

I wouldn't watch, but tennis fans seem to enjoy best of five formats. But I think what it comes back to is what is actually the problem with tennis? What is it that everyone wants to change? Like, what is so bad about it? Like, it's hard. Like, people, not everyone, like, agrees on what the issues actually are. And, like, some people, like...

Players will always complain. I did when I was a player. A lot of the things that the players are complaining about now, they were complaints 20 years ago, whether it's prize money related. too many tournaments, schedule's wrong. You know, the players will always complain about stuff, probably. But I think... for things to change like probably the players need to be very clear about what it is that like what it what do you actually want

what are actually the problems and does everyone actually agree on them? Because sometimes you might hear players say, oh, there's too many tournaments, play too much. Generally, it's the top players that will say that. Players ranked 70 in the world maybe doesn't want less tournaments. They maybe want as many tournaments as possible to earn money.

you know more ranking points or opportunities for ranking points and things whereas you know the top 10 players in the world like generally they they feel like they want to play less which is understandable. They play more matches and stuff. But then, yeah, they also, they want to play exhibitions as well. And, you know, it's like, oh, there's too many tournaments.

The mixed doubles at the US Open, that's a new event. We all want to play in that. This is an amazing idea. We all want to play more tennis because we're getting paid lots of money to do it and we're getting appearance fees to play. But then lots and lots of other tennis players, particularly doubles players, were hating that idea. But the top players loved it. So there's always, like... It's hard to get all of the players to always agree on things. There's too many tournaments.

We're going to put a new master's here in Saudi Arabia. There's going to be lots and lots of money. Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. We all want to play in that event. That's really good. So it's hard to know exactly what. what it is that, what all the tournaments won, what the Grand Slams won, what the players won, and to come to some sort of agreement. It's very difficult. Would you have wanted to play in that?

You famously turned down a big offer from Saudi. Yeah, so I think where it becomes difficult is that there's obviously exhibitions and players choosing to go and play there for money.

tour that you're playing as part of making decisions about where they're going to host an event and if they're going to play put a Masters series on and it's a mandatory event that players have to go and play, well then I'm going to play there because the ATP are putting an event on there and it's part of my tour and I'm going to go and compete there because that's...

how I earn my living, whereas an exhibition is a decision that a player is taking. Like, I want to go and play in this event. I want to earn lots of money. I was offered to play in an exhibition in Saudi Arabia multiple times. said no that I wasn't going to do that but then yeah we also play in lots of countries around the world that have maybe questionable

You know, human rights, you know, records. And we went and played in those countries, you know, particularly when it was part of like our tour. And that was not considered a problem. So, yes.

It's challenging. You know, it's challenging for the sport to get everything right and to keep everybody happy. But I do think there is things that, like, one of the things that players complain about... all of the time is they say, I was one of them as well. I'm not saying that it's just players of today. Like, you know, players 20 years ago complained about it and stuff. It was like the tennis balls.

you know it's like oh tennis balls are changing every week tennis balls are so heavy is what you hear all the time and the tennis players are not tennis balls are not more heavy than than they used to be like there is a a limit that they have to sit between, which has been the same for over 20 years. Tennis balls are not heavier than they used to be, but the game has changed, I would say, and players are hitting the ball harder for sure.

the courts have become like grainier and slower generally. And the balls, because of that, like, because I think because the player is hitting the ball harder. grainier courts, slower courts, sandy courts. Is it the balls? It always sounds funny talking about this, but the balls fluff up more. you know, then they're less aerodynamic, they become slower. So they're not actually heavier, they're just slower tennis balls. And I feel like if that is the case, that...

What the tourists could do is just easily, like, why don't you change bowls after five and seven games instead of seven and nine games? Like, if that is an issue for the players or... Why don't you start the match with nine balls instead of six balls? Yes, there's probably a cost that comes with that, but...

If that is something that all of the players have an issue with, then why could they not do that? And also, if they're worried about the balls changing every week, well, couldn't the Tours create their own tennis ball? And then whoever is, whether it's, I don't know, Wilson, Head, Yonex, like if they want to sponsor the ball for the event, just...

sponsor it and print the Yonex logo on it or the Wilson logo or whatever. And the players then have got the same ball for a whole season or a whole string of events, like on the hard courts or clay. You don't hear the complaints about them changing ball. The players will probably still find a way to complain about it. But if they were the same every week, then you can eliminate that. quite quickly, I would think. I don't know if that's something that the manufacturers want, but...

I don't think it's good for manufacturers to create a ball and then the players to be just saying, oh, this ball's terrible, posting pictures of it, like, oh, look at the difference from one game to the next. These balls are awful. So I don't see why that couldn't.

couldn't work. Was being on the player council frustrating from all these points of view? Sort of lack of unity of feeling and cohesion and sort of... cohesion of agendas and aims. Yeah, I hated it. And I went back to do it a second time because I'd been asked to do it and I didn't enjoy it the first time. I did it again, but I didn't enjoy it because sometimes you would be sitting in meetings the day before a Masters series for three or four hours.

It didn't feel like much was getting done. Tennis players, obviously we understand our sport, but also we're not intelligent people, most of us, or well-educated. either so you get like 10 of us in a room like talking about stuff that we don't really know that much about um you know like from a business perspective um

And yeah, at times it was just like lots of players having conversations to the person next to them and actually nothing really gets done. And then at times I remember going into meetings with the slams with... with Roger, Rafa and Novak about prize money. I can't remember exactly what year it was, but anyway, we went to quite a lot of these meetings and spoke to all of the slams, you know, individually before.

these slams took place, which is obviously a time where, you know, you want to be concentrating and focusing on your tennis and preparing and stuff, but, you know, did it because it felt like it was the right thing to do. And then the slams... At the end of that year, they increased their prize money. And I remember it was like Australia announced when we were there, I think, that they were going to increase their prize money or whatever. And then...

The first player that I saw, I'm not going to name his name, went up to him and was like, he'd been complaining and was so vocal about the prize money slams. I was like... I was like, they did it. We went and spoke to them, they did it. They've upped the prize money by however much it was. And he was like, yeah, but it's not enough. And I'm like... God. You know, like, so...

I don't know exactly what it is that the players won. Yes, the players, I feel, should probably get paid more at the Grand Slams. I think if they really want to change it, they need to be very clear about what it is that they actually want. And I think the tour could be... The ideal thing, I think, would be if the Australian Open was two weeks later. But then it makes sense to do it like that because the players then get a longer off-season.

time to rest and then actually build up and prepare but then um but then the Australian Open don't want to move because it's then not in the kids summer holidays so they're back at school and they're worried about like attendance and things like that um so yeah i i don't know there's just there's always there's always um yeah there's always problems Yeah, that just about sums it up. Okay, only ten more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first...

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Should we finish with some more stuff about you? Some lighter stuff. I'm curious, what's like the most normal thing that you've gotten to do and gotten to enjoy that you didn't used to get to do? I wouldn't describe it as a normal thing to do. We're lucky that we're able to do it, but skiing. Like, I've absolutely loved doing that. I never skied in my life. Had always wanted to. Like, I love the snow. Is that because of risk of injury? Yeah, I mean, I think contractually there's a few issues.

around getting injured doing extreme sports. It invalidates health insurance, I'm sure. Yeah, so I think you need to be a bit careful about doing it. I know some players, you know... I think Sinner and Novak's a very good skier as well. So, yeah, I know that lots of players do it, but I never skied as a kid. I'd always wanted to ski, but it was... Pretty much everyone I know that has skied has injured themselves skiing. My best friend who went skiing with, Ross Hutchins.

who's now got a big job at the itf as well so a lot of these issues we're discussing he'll be uh he'll be responsible for um no but yeah like he fractured his eye socket when we went last time um Yeah, so lots of people that I know that ski have had bad injuries. Have you been okay so far? Skiing? OK in terms of no injuries. OK in terms of my level of skiing, no. It's pretty ropey, but I've loved doing that.

like a new thing that I've got to experience since I finished, which I've done with my friends and family that, you know, kids are learning to ski and yeah, like amazing. It's an amazing thing to get to do, great skill to have and brilliant holiday. I've seen you advertising potatoes. Yes.

Now that you've got this time on your hands, apart from the golf, have you got a specialist go-to family meal that you prep? Do you like time in the kitchen? Apart from the potatoes. What's your favourite type of potato? If you could only have one type of potato. Sorry to hijack your question, just to stay on potatoes for another moment. Mashed jacket, dauphinoise. I mean...

I like a thick cut chip. Oh, you don't. No, I'm a skinny fry person. Well, skinny is more unhealthy. Yeah, but it's about vinegar absorption. Vinegar on chips. Vinegar on everything that can go on, yeah. Ketchup or brown sauce for me. So you're telling me you hand make chips? No. Okay. No, no. No, okay. No, I don't hand make them. Sorry, back to David's question. My cooking, I don't cook. I'm a terrible cook. I'm glad I hijacked the question. I used to cook more.

So we get these, like, sort of, they're not ready meals, but from Mindful Chef. Oh, yes. Yeah. So I would do them. But there's obviously a recipe that you follow and all of the ingredients are there so you don't mess up the amount of stuff. There's a lot of hand-holding. Yeah, but the problem for me is that... I will follow the instruction down to a T. And if something is not going quite right, I had no idea how to make adjustments. So like if I was making like a sauce that needed to be thicker.

And the 20 minutes was up or however long it was meant to be. It was like panic, panic stations. So I didn't know how to react to issues in the kitchen. And then we ended up having a terrible meal when I was doing that. So then I retired from cooking as well as tennis. Yeah, I was all right because I was just cooking for myself. If it was a disaster, it's less of a doubt. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but when you're trying to feed a family, it's a bit of pressure. Yeah, kids aren't always that...

Forgiving? Yeah, forgiving. If you get a meal wrong or something's not quite right, particularly my four-year-old, she'll let you know. If they enjoyed having you around more. I think so. Did it take some getting used to? For me? For the family, because I'm guessing they had a routine. Yeah, I mean, particularly my eldest daughter. The rest of them not so much because...

Yes, I was still playing at the end, but there was also quite a few periods where I was at home a lot through the injuries and things. So I wasn't on the road quite as much. Whereas with my eldest daughter, like... it was, I think, quite like a big change for her, like a big adjustment. And like, you know, she was finding it hard, like if I had to be the one to take her to school or to pick her up and take her to...

a club or being around her friends and things like that. And that's something that she certainly was finding difficult. And if I was getting any attention when I was with her, she really struggled with that. And it was only last week when I picked her up from netball. And it was the first time she actually walked next to me back to the car.

yeah, I said to her, I was like, you know that, that's the first time you've ever, and she sort of smiled at me, and I think now it's a bit less embarrassed by me. For now. For now, yeah. I mean, I'm sure in a few years that's, you know, that's coming. But yeah, like this morning, like my son's got into board games. Like I already had, they were up at 5.45.

That's every morning two of them get up at that time. I was playing Monopoly at 6am this morning with a six-year-old. That'll get the competitive juices flowing. Yeah, so yesterday... It's quite a long time to play a game of Monopoly. My parents had to ban Monopoly in my house because it caused so many arguments to me and my brother. Yeah, so I taught him how to play Monopoly a few days ago.

And then I played with him yesterday. I played two games with him and he won the first game and then the second game. He was in a good position and he'd got it in his head that it was just me and him playing that he wanted to put hotels on Mayfair and Park Lane. This was Monopoly Sterling edition, by the way, which... It's Stirling Castle and somewhere else in Stirling. So he decided he wanted to put hotels on the two blue ones. He only had Mayfair.

So I was explaining to him, like, you need to land on this one first. You've got three of this, the red ones. You should probably think about putting the houses and stuff on there first. And he was like, no, I'm going to save my money. I want to land on this one. And I was like, yeah, but you may never land one. Anyway, I had the purple ones and the orange ones, or the pink.

ones and the orange ones and had a few like three houses on the pink ones he was in a great position he had lots of money landed on the pink ones got whatever it was 400 500 quid And then I used that money to put, like, a hotel on the orange ones. And then on his next role, he landed on the hotel, killed him off. Took him down. Bottom lip. Went. Gone. And I'm like...

That's an important life lesson. Yeah, like you need to do it. Like you need to learn. But I'm like, now I have to deal with like a meltdown over a game of Monopoly that I've been playing for the last two hours. Anyway. That's what I do know. I can tell, yeah. Yeah. I heard you say on Romesh's podcast you've got ambitions to be a caddy. Is that right?

I mean, I would like to do it, but it was like in a certain context. Becoming a caddy full time is not something I would do, but I was like, as like a dream job, like for me now, like if you could say, oh. It's a realistic thing. It's possible. I couldn't say, oh, I want to win the Masters in golf, but saying, oh, I could become a caddy.

Imagine caddying for Rory McIlroy or Robert McIntyre in the last group of a major. That would be a cool thing to do for someone who loves golf, but I have no plans to actually... become a professional caddy and do the job full time there's a lot of a lot of work and travel involved and you know these guys are bloody good as well like they spend years like understanding like that

and they're all, most of them, very, very good golfers as well. So, I mean, it's something you could probably do for a week. Like some, you know, players have, you know, their partners with them on the bag and stuff. They're not all amazing golfers. My golf coach's wife is his caddy. Really? Mm-hmm. And I think Lee Westwood's wife as well. They remain married, yeah. Are you up for offering some...

Some golf tips or assessments. Yeah. As a final thing, we have... I haven't asked about the traitors yet, David. Well, that is true. We have a one-minute video of Matt and my swing, and we're curious to know what you think. Have a look. This is Indian Wells, a couple of years ago. Right. So, I mean, even before you started... Oh, no.

I mean, that looks to me like you're literally like, I mean, it's okay. It looks like quite a lot of your weight is on your heels. It's actually quite useful. Already. Where should it be? Well, I think more, slightly more towards the mid front of the foot, I would say. Do you play a lot of golf? What do you think? See, it always makes me laugh when amateurs do this sort of thing because you sort of...

You might know that you do it. You did, like, a little sort of... A little wiggle. A little wiggle. Yeah, Matt does that. Like, that's going to help. No, but I do it as well. Like, you know, we go through this, like, routine. and then hit the ball like 20 yards in front of us. And it's just, yeah, it's funny. So you've got a little wiggle going. That was his first shot of the round. That was his first shot of the round. I mean, I was barely off the plane, to be honest.

You did the wiggle twice there. Three, three, four. So I'd try and get rid of that. Okay. Right. Wow. You hit a bird there, it looks like. That's good. I assume you weren't trying to do that. There's more coming, isn't there? Do you come on straight after this? Nice shoes. Thank you. Okay. Oops. Wow. I mean, those hands are literally in between your legs, which is... Incredible. You do have some... Oh my lord. You do have some serious height.

which makes it tricky. I mean, I'm assuming they're rental clubs as well. Yeah, I mean... So this is where it ended up. Yeah, I mean... Did you enjoy your round? I mean, there's not loads I can say about that. I feel worse about it now. It got better. So your advice to David is be less tall and your advice to Matt is get rid of the wiggle.

Yeah, I think weight probably slightly further forwards. I mean, the four wiggles before... Cut those out. Yeah, I think it's like fine... You've got to hit a good shot. Yeah, fine if you're going to hit... a decent shot but if you spend that much time preparing to hit the ball that badly I think the people that you're playing with are like oh my god like this is his third tee shot first to have gone in the water and he's wiggling let's just try and

to get the swing going, I think. Noted. But yeah, I think it looked like you needed maybe some longer clubs, potentially. They looked a little bit small. Okay. And then I'll be fine. Yeah. Can I ask one last question? Have you been asked to go on Celebrity Traitors? No, but it's funny because a lot of people have asked me that and apparently there'd been like some articles saying that I, one that I was going to go on the first season and then...

that I'd been asked to go on the next season. Neither of them are true. I haven't watched it. Would you take the call? No. Do you watch Traitors? I watched one of the first... seasons of traitors with the, like... Civilians. Civilians. Yeah, the civilians. um but yeah all of my friends have been talking about the celebrity one i haven't i've not watched any of it my wife was totally anti the the civilian one which i was actually quite enjoying but then yeah celebrity one i've not

I haven't watched yet. I'm sorry to disappoint. You could just be being a great traitor and, you know, maybe it gets announced next week. We'll cross our fingers. Andy, thank you so much for your time. It's been great. You know you've reached peak couple energy when your undies match. MeUndiesMatchMe has you both covered, literally, in super soft, ultra-modal undies, socks, PJs, and loungewear. Festive prints.

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