May 7, 2025 • 55 mins
Liam Broady returns to the Functional Tennis Podcast to reflect on the highs, lows, and lessons of his 11-year pro journey. From dealing with a concussion just before Wimbledon to learning how to separate self-worth from rankings, Liam opens up on the mental battles that come with life on tour. He also shares what a conversation with Pep Guardiola taught him, and why sacrifices though tough are worth it in the long run.
🗣️ 3 Key Quotes:
1. “You’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices that people don’t see.”
2. “You have to learn not to tie your self-worth to your ranking.”
3. “You don’t get to the top without a few scars.”
✅ 5 Takeaway Points:
• Mental resilience is just as important as physical fitness
• Sacrifices are part of long-term success
• Separating identity from results is crucial for mental health
• Injuries can strike at the worst times, even when you’re ready
• Lessons from other sports (like football) can fuel growth in tennis
This podcast is sponsored by ASICS. ASICS is a Japanese company founded in 1949 to give more people the opportunity to experience how sports and movement can have a positive impact on mental well-being.
To learn more about ASICS visit their website here: https://www.asics.com/nl/en-nl/sports/tennis/
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Instagram: Instagram.com/FunctionalTennis
YouTube: Functional Tennis Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:24):
Welcome to the FunctionalTennis Podcast, brought to you by
my favorite tennis shoecompany, asics, and I'm your host,
Fabio Molly, where I bring youinsights and lessons from players,
coaches, parents and expertswho are ingrained in the world of
high level tennis.
Today I chat with British proLiam Brody.
When he first came on thepodcast, his goal was to break into
the top 100 and he did it.
(00:45):
Since then, it's been a wild ride.
In this episode, Liam opens upabout the highs and lows of tour
life.
Winning matches at Wimbledon,dealing with injuries and a concussion,
the pressure of rankings andhow lifestyle choice have shaped
his game.
He also shares thoughts ondoping, role models, and the memorable
chat with Pep Guardiola.
Liam is one of my favoriteguests to speak with and I guarantee
(01:07):
you'll enjoy this one.
Liam, welcome back to theFunctional Tennis Podcast.
How are you?
I'm good, thank you.
I'm good.
How are you?
Good, yeah.
You were last on here in 2021,October, I think you just won a challenger
and Beal at the time, you werelooking to break into the top hundred,
which you did a couple ofyears later, which was amaz.
And your ranking was there andnow it's gone the other way.
(01:30):
So, interested to find outwhat's been going on and any new
lessons you've learned in thepast four years and while you're
still playing tennis or whatkeeps you going, because it can't
be easy on the grind thereweek in, week out and dealing with
all sorts of things.
So, yeah, how are you, firstof all?
Yeah, I'm doing well.
I'm doing well, as you said.
Obviously it's been an up anddown few years.
It's kind of cool to be comingback on.
(01:51):
Like you said that I had thatdream of making the top hundred.
I'd won my first challenger title.
I remember at the time thatwas such a huge moment for me.
But, yeah, especially nowbeing on the other side having my
ranking drop again.
It's quite funny to be back onhere again with all of the lessons
I've learned over those lastfour years.
So basically you're in thesame position, but you're a lot more
intelligent now.
(02:11):
Or wise.
Yeah, we'll say wise, not intelligent.
Breaking into the top hundred.
Do you remember the match, the moment?
Yeah, I do.
It was I was in Saint Tropez challenger.
I think it's 125 challenger,not obviously last year, the year
before.
(02:31):
And I'd basically played like6, 7, 8 challenges in a row and I'd
had Some really consistent runs.
I think I've made three orfour semifinals in three or four
weeks.
I made last round qualities ofUS Open.
I went straight to Francestraight after.
I didn't take a break to goand play in.
In Europe on the challengertour there.
And then the same thing again,made semifinals in that first week
(02:54):
in France.
And I remember it got to thestage where, like, for four or five
weeks in a row, I was tophundred on the live rankings at the
start of the week.
And then this is howcompetitive tennis is as well.
Right.
Especially at that sort of ranking.
I'd be top hundred at thestart of the week, and by the end
of the week, I'd have madesemis of a challenger and I'd be
103.
And it happened for like fouror five weeks in a row.
(03:16):
Me and my brother were reallylaughing about it.
And then the final week.
And actually, the funny thingwas I was going to take a week or
a couple of weeks break afterSaint Tropez, because I think I'd
basically been on the road for.
For three months or so and.
And not taking a break foreight or nine weeks.
So we kind of said, look, thisis the last opportunity.
If it happens, it happens.
If not, it doesn't.
(03:37):
Again, same thing started theweek live ranking top 100.
I won my first round.
I was outside the top hundred,won the second round.
And then I think I had to winthe quarterfinals to.
It was guaranteed.
Then I had to win myquarterfinals match.
I was playing Arthur Cazal.
Okay.
Which obviously is not easy in France.
(04:01):
Yeah, I think.
I mean, I had a really tough draw.
I think I beat Lucas Kleinthere, beat Cazale.
Who else did I beat?
There were a couple toughmatches, actually.
And then I lost Celestian inthe final, who's a good player, too.
But I beat Kazal basically to.
To make top hundred.
And actually, it was a shamebecause I was a set and a breakup
and he.
He got injured, so he had to retire.
(04:21):
Oh, look, I'm sure you take that.
Anyway.
Come on.
I'll tell you what, I wasalmost like that kid the other day
that went crazy when Chapaval,the German kid.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
You know, it was his first eight.
He's only.
He's only gone 17.
First ATP win.
You can see the bill.
This amazing.
But then he's like, okay, letme bring that right back.
(04:42):
And he got it.
He got slaughtered online likethe, you know, kids don't need to
be.
He's only a kid, like.
And he Got absolutely slaughtered.
I think stuff like that, itmakes headlines though.
That's almost like the mostimportant thing, right?
I think a lot of peoplenowadays are probably a little bit
too robotic.
You know, I see a lot ofpeople complain that a lot of the
top players, their interviewsare always the same, the answers
(05:03):
are always the same.
So I think it's nice to see alittle bit of a difference sometimes.
Yeah, no, look, I definitely.
You need that.
He got a lot of press overthat and I actually like, he's practiced
with the saber.
So for me, as a couple ofsaber videos and practice, like,
great, great time to introducethis video.
So.
But he's a good kid and I'msure he won't next time.
(05:24):
He'd be a bit more relaxed.
So is it top hundred?
Is it like 100 or 99?
If you got the top 100 in theworld, would that count in your books?
Or do you have to hit the 99or does it really matter?
You know what, A lot of usBrits have had this argument so many
times and I think nobodyreally agrees.
I mean, I know I was alwaystold that you had to be double figures,
(05:45):
right?
And that 100 didn't countbecause it was triple figures.
And I think on the ACPwebsite, I think the first page of
the rankings only goes to 99.
So I think we always said, oh,you have to be on the first, first
page to be classed as the top hundred.
And well, I snuck in at 93, so.
So I, I got, I got a bit of away in there.
(06:05):
Anyway.
That was what, 2023.
We're like two years since then.
How's everything been?
Yeah, so, you know, I finished 2023.
I think I just dropped outsidetop 100.
I think I was like 102 or 103at the time.
And then I went to Hong Kongfor the warm up for Australian Open
(06:26):
and I picked up an injury onmy ankle in my preseason.
But it's a difficult one withplayers because sometimes it's hard
to differentiate as to whetheryou've got a niggle or an injury.
And obviously the older youget, the more, you know, I'm never
playing injury, sorry.
I'm never playing pain free anymore.
You know, that's.
I think that's the same formost players.
(06:47):
And unfortunately, you know,this one just kept developing, kept
developing.
I'd take a couple days off, itwould be a bit better, you know,
then it would be back by theend of the week, take a couple days
off.
So I went to Hong Kong.
It felt pretty awful after theflight, but then, you know, started
to play really well.
So I, I qualified there.
I think I'd be, you know, aguy 70 in the world.
(07:09):
I'll be a couple guys around 150.
So I was playing really welland then played Rublev second round,
had set points against him,lost in straights.
But during that match I gotthe physio on and I became pretty
aware that I wouldn't be ableto continue with the pain that I
was in.
I knew then I had a prettygood feeling that it was a bone injury,
(07:32):
which obviously is probablyone of the, the ones that you want
the least as a player.
You know, obviously if it'sbone or ligament or something like
that, then, then it can be apretty long time out.
So I, I still wanted to play Australia.
So I said to my coach, I'mgoing to take three days off.
I don't, in hindsight that wasprobably the worst idea ever.
I said, oh, I'm gonna takethree days off, let's go to Australia
(07:54):
and you know, I'll playwithout any practice if I have to.
Flew to Australia, decided toget a scan there and saw the physio
and she basically said if youkeep playing on this then your ankle's
gonna break.
And you know, that kind of.
And I kind of was like, youknow, how long is that out?
And she said, well, you know,in that area of the ankle it's quite
(08:17):
a tricky place and loadbearing joints are really tricky
to heal anyway.
So if you say, you know, itcould be six months, nine months,
you just don't know.
So that kind of put the brakeson really quickly and I, you know,
kind of scared me a littlebit, which is probably what I needed
to stop me playing.
So I, I stopped there and evenstill I tried to come back too soon
(08:38):
after, you know, five or sixweeks because that was the thing.
After Hong Kong, I was back inthe top hundred again.
Yeah, and, and I had aChallenger 100 and a Challenger 100
final.
So a win and a final to comeoff in that six week period.
So I thought if, if I don'tplay, I'm going to be Back to square
one.
I'm going to be, you know, 160.
(08:59):
And I've worked my whole lifeto get to the top hundred and I really
need to take advantage now.
So I try.
Worst decision probably of my career.
I tried to come back afterfive or six weeks, made it so much
worse.
I went to Delray Beach, Iplayed hijakata in three sets, which,
as you can imagine, there wasa lot of movement on the hard there.
I was supposed to play Cabo,didn't play because of the injury.
(09:21):
Went to Acapulco, played lesthe end again.
Just.
I.
I don't know how I even playedthose events looking back.
I then went to Indian Wells.
I beat PMAN's first roundqualifying, got smoked by Saboth
Wild.
But after each match, youknow, I was having to take a couple
days off because the pain wastoo much.
And then.
And are you knocking back thepainkillers as well?
(09:43):
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Well, because I couldn't sleep otherwise.
And then.
And then I went to Phoenix,that, you know, the 175 challenger
there.
I played qualifying, I wonaround, and then I think I lost to
Walton in three sets.
And during that match, Iturned to my coach and I said, I
can't keep doing this.
I said, I'm going home, like,because we were still going to go
and play Miami, obviously, right?
(10:05):
Everybody wants to play Miami.
It's a big tournament.
And I turned to my coach, Isaid, I can't do this.
I'm not coming back to thecourt until.
Until I'm fit or.
Or I'm.
I'm just not going to come back.
It's too much, you know.
And unfortunately, after that,I was out till Wimbledon, and then
I got the infamous knock onthe head.
I got a concussion.
We.
(10:26):
What happened there a week outfrom when I was supposed to start
competing, I was like, okay,my ankle's feeling good.
Banged my head off the roof of my.
Of my car, the.
Off the trunk of my car, Ishould say, and somehow got a moderate
concussion.
I was like, it was a bizarre experience.
(10:47):
The concussion was actuallyscarier than the ankle because I've
never had a brain injurybefore, right.
And you start to lose yourmarbles a little bit, your emotions
go funny, you slur yourspeech, you can't read.
You get really weird symptomsin it.
What happened?
Were you just on a step orsomething and the boot was open and
you went into it or.
(11:07):
So did you know, like, on the,on the electric trunks, you can,
like, pause them part way.
Yeah.
And I was parked in, like,again, like, what are the chances
on this?
I was saying it afterwards.
Like, if I hadn't parked inthat specific space, I would have
just let the trunk open allthe way.
I parked in a space where Ihad, like, a low light, low, low
hanging pipe.
Paused it halfway.
(11:28):
All the tennis balls fell out.
Fell out my, My trunk as youKnow, obviously classic tennis player.
And I've gone, oh, no.
I was really stressed at the time.
I was managing a load of stuff.
I got.
Oh, my gosh, like, bent down.
I'm trying to pick up allthese 30 tennis balls, put them back
in the box, and I've juststood back up without thinking about
it and cracked the back of myhead off the corner of the trunk.
(11:49):
And I was stood in the carpark for, like, 15 minutes just staring
at the wall and.
But I didn't realize it at the time.
It was the strangest thing, Ithink, because it obviously just
knocked the sense out of me.
And funnily enough, NathaBaines, her dad, she's a female British
tennis player, her dad cameover, and I think he thought I was
(12:10):
trying to figure out the payas you go on the.
He thought I was trying tofigure out the parking machine.
I hope he listens to this.
I think he thought I wastrying to figure out how to pay.
And he came over and he went,oh, it's pay with his pay when you
leave, by the way.
And I was like.
I was like, what?
What?
You know, oh, right, okay.
Yes.
I think if he hadn't comeover, I'd have probably been there
(12:31):
for about half an hour.
But then, weirdly enough, Ileft, had the weekend off.
I was fine.
I didn't really have any symptoms.
Returned to full training onthe Monday, because I thought at
the time.
I thought, do I.
I was a bit, like, grumpy overthe weekend, but, you know, nothing
too severe.
Nothing out of the.
Not new.
(12:51):
And then I.
I resumed training on the Monday.
I was practicing with a guycalled Stu Parker on the grass.
And I'll never forget it.
I'm having a great session.
45 minutes into the session, Iran for a drop shot.
And, you know, you'll know ifyou've ever had a migraine when you're.
When your eyes go a bit funnyand you get black spots in your vision,
and I'm looking down thecourt, you know, we have a long point.
(13:12):
I think it's to do with your heart.
Your heart rate, if it getstoo high.
And I looked down the court, Icouldn't see the other end of the
court.
And, you know, I didn't haveany symptoms at the time, but, you
know, as someone who does getmigraines, I thought, here we go.
I've got a big one on the way.
And I said, look, I'm gonnahave to go.
Go off the court.
Like, you know, I'm so sorry.
(13:33):
Blah, Blah, blah, went and sat down.
And that's when my speechstarted going.
My.
My reading.
It was just the strangest, strangest.
Do you think you're having aheart attack or did you quickly place
it back to I don't know.
It's a funny one because, youknow, when you watch sport and you
see the football players orthe rugby players and the, you know,
(13:54):
they have a concussion, butthey won't come off the pitch.
They refuse to.
When you have the concussion,it's really bizarre.
You get quite.
Because it messes with the.
The part of your brain thatcontrols your emotions.
You get quite defensive andalmost like, touchy about, oh, no,
I don't have a migraine.
I don't.
I don't have.
And I was the same.
And then luckily enough, thelta, they do like a concussion baseline
(14:19):
test every year that you haveto pass to get the medical done.
So I basically was strong armto come into the NTC the following
day and obviously failed theconcussion test miserably.
Yeah.
And then that's what Iobviously was told.
It's not mild.
It's a moderate concussion.
And I was like, oh, right.
And she's like, yeah, likeyour emotions can go a bit funny.
(14:42):
I was like, oh, yeah, okay.
And I was thinking I was in myroom crying for three hours on my
own yesterday for no reasonthat would make sense now because
I'm, you know, I'm not a typeof person to cry anyway.
But it.
It just sends you just loopy.
It's bizarre.
So how many weeks did theyrecommend you not play?
So I couldn't pick up a racketfor, I think it was 13 or 14 days,
(15:06):
which obviously, you know,after that, I had four or five days
to prepare for Eastbourne andthen played Nishioko, probably one
of the guys you don't want toplay when you've hardly hit a ball
and you're recovering from abrain injury and then lost to Botek
at Wimbledon again, which is areally tough draw.
(15:27):
Are you points to defender as well?
Did you.
Did you do.
Yeah, yeah.
So I made.
I made third round of Wimbledon.
So that was another 90 points.
So by this point, I'd lost,you know, probably 75 of my ranking
points.
That's.
And you're just like, thisyear is killing me.
You know, you go from such ahigh in.
In 2023.
(15:49):
Was it or 2022 or 2023.
It was the end of 23 and.
The start of 23 is such a high.
You be Casper.
You be Casper Rude In Wimbledon?
Yeah.
Just.
I'm going all over the place here.
But what was it like, firstround Wimbledon?
Yeah.
Playing Casper Rude, I think.
Was that first round or second round?
I think I beat Les Dien.
Okay.
(16:09):
Second.
And.
And then.
Well, you don't know.
If you don't know, I'm in trouble.
So it must have been like itwas a childhood dream.
Yeah.
I've played.
Do you know what?
I've played on Central Courtfor many or a few times over the
years, and I've played on one.
You know, I've been privilegedenough to have that honor on both
courts, but I'd never had theprivilege to win on it.
(16:33):
And that always has stuck withme because I had a big thing from
my junior career that I onlyever made it to the number two in
the world in my junior career.
And I was setting a breakup inthe finals of junior Wimbledon on
court one.
Who's that against?
Against Luke Savile.
Yes.
Yeah, I think we talked aboutit before.
Yeah, yeah.
(16:53):
And we were both playing forthe number one spot.
Sadly, I lost there.
So to win on center court inthe manner that I did against, obviously
a player rank 4 in the world,it felt like it put a lot of the
demons, you know, and badvoices in my head to rest after.
After almost well over a decade.
Yeah, no, I'm sure, sure it does.
(17:15):
Like, it must.
Like, we often talk about.
We play.
We don't start talking enoughabout it.
When you might have playedsome juniors and where you played
them, then the senior career,and the commentators say, oh, they've
played each other once on theATP tour, it's 10 to Seville, but
you're like, we played 10juniors and that guy beat me every
time.
You know, there's a lot thathistory still goes on.
Do you know what that I havewon against Luca Pui, the French
(17:37):
player.
We've been playing againsteach other since we were about 11
years old, and I've neverbeaten the damn guy.
And across every age group, I.
I don't know how, because as ajunior, I was always one of the best,
but he was always better than me.
And I guess that kind of makessense as to how he turned out.
(17:58):
I mean, he was number eight inthe world and one of the best players
on the planet.
But he beat me in Saint Tropezlast year.
And I think our pro.
Our pro head to head, like yousaid, was like loving, like, oh,
and one or something.
I was thinking, I played thisguy about 25 times.
It's 250 here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you're probably like, evenif he's not playing well, I know
(18:19):
his rankings being down, buthe's still.
He's so streaky, like, hot.
You still have that baggage inyou that the guy just knows how to
play it.
100.
I think that's why I thinksometimes it can be beneficial to
have had a stellar junior career.
Obviously, there are playerslike a Sinner or an Alcaraz who just
completely leapfrog the junior game.
(18:40):
I think it happens a lot morein the women's game.
I think, you know, you get alot of players sort of 14 or 15 years
old that are already competing on.
Well, I guess Coco Galf is aprime example.
Right.
She was 14 and.
Yeah.
Did she beat Venus atWimbledon 14 or something stupid
like that?
I think.
Can't remember.
I don't want to say, becauseI'd be wrong.
Yeah, yeah.
But.
But, you know, in the women'sgame, it's more common, whereas obviously
(19:04):
in the men's that, like yousaid, you get a lot of players that
almost develop towards the endof their junior career or, you know,
into their first couple ofyears as a pro.
Yeah.
No, I think maybe Alcarazplayed 14th, then he went straight
to Futures.
I'm sure Sinner probablydidn't even play 14.
He probably just sweat.
He just showed up at someFutures event.
But it's even funny.
(19:24):
Dimitrov said it.
I'm not sure where he said it,but he's like all the.
It's a bit similar, butdifferent to what we're talking about,
where he, you know, he's somuch baggage against the top players.
He's beaten by him so much time.
So every time he goes out andplays with them, he knows they've
beaten them.
It's a struggle for him.
But the new guys come alongwho, you know, the men.
Six of the world, Artiffe.
They've never played the.
(19:45):
The older, better guys, andthey can seem to, you know, there's
no baggage there.
They've no fear, and they cango out and get the wins like it.
So mental.
It's unbelievable.
Yeah, that's.
I actually didn't hear that.
That's an interesting pointfrom Gregor.
I'm sure it does.
You know, he's probably playedNovak 40 times in his career and,
you know, also played Novak athis peak, so, I mean, there's some
(20:07):
scar tissue there because, Imean, he was just invincible at one
point.
But I don't know.
I would say that, you know,for A few years now, they've been
talking about the next gen andhow these players, you know, haven't
been coming through and.
And they probably should be.
I know Novak mentioned acouple times, right, he was saying,
we're the next gen still, youknow, where are the next gen?
(20:28):
But these younger kids,they've obviously come through watching.
So, I mean, you know, Alcross,to be fair, at 14 years old, he might.
He might have been too youngto be watching tennis.
That's a tough one to say.
True.
But look, he's.
He's just got the expressticket, the Concorde flight to the
top of the game.
But look, yeah, you're notgoing to get there if you're not
(20:50):
good enough, so.
No, of course not.
I mean, I mean, what he didwhen he came on tour, he was.
He was levels above thechallenger, the challenger tour.
I mean, he.
I think the first time I sawhim play was a challenger in Trieste
and he.
I think he.
I think he might have lost toMusetti in the semis or the final.
And Musetti was about 15 yearsold or 16, and Alcaraz was still
(21:15):
14.
And I was watching the matchand obviously I was like, 140 in
the world, 150 in the world.
10 years.
Yeah.
And I lost in thequarterfinals and I was watching
this match and I was thinking,holy shit, why the fuck am I playing
tennis?
I'm sorry for the language,but there.
Must be a point where you'resaying I'm never going to be able
to.
Well, I won't.
(21:35):
Sorry.
It thinks I'm never going tobe able to beat this guy.
Obviously you will get achance, but you're like, why bother?
Oh, I mean, I mean, it was the same.
When I watched Sinner for thefirst time, I actually put a tweet
out saying this Guy's futuretop 20.
In the end it was.
It was pretty.
It was a safe bet to make.
But I remember watching him inLexington Challenger, and I had never
(21:56):
seen anyone hit the ball like him.
He hit it.
I mean, as you know, he does now.
But as.
As a kid, you're watching himhit the ball and it was so natural
and I just.
The sound off the strings, Ithought, I've never seen at such
a clean ball strike.
And he was such a skinny kid as.
Well, you know, it's kind oflike where's.
It defied the laws of physics.
It was like, where's the powercoming from?
(22:16):
He still is quite skinny.
Like, he paints the legs like,you know, but you don't need muscle
to.
You know, it's leverage andtechnique and all sorts.
So it was about muscle.
They'd be all.
Be massive lads.
That's true.
But so.
So getting back to.
Yeah, Wimbledon, obviously.
Concussion.
Did you play Wimbledon?
(22:37):
Sorry.
Now.
I.
I did.
Oh, you did.
Sorry.
You said you lost.
I lost in four, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So the rest of the year, then.
Like, that's 20.
Did it come together?
Injury?
What happened?
Not really.
So.
So I went to America to playsome of the challenges I didn't get
(22:58):
into a couple of the weeks,and then I injured my elbow, and
I had to go and get a scan.
I was supposed to play Boo YunChakotay in Lincoln, Nebraska, in
the challenger.
Their first round, which, Imean, maybe it wouldn't have gone
how I wanted it to anyway, butmy elbow was.
I had a bad elbow issue, so Ihad to go and get a scan, and it
(23:21):
turned out that I'd partiallytorn a ligament in my elbow, so I
had to take some time off forthat one.
And then, I mean, but by theend of this, you know, it was back
to square one.
I mean, I tried to go to Asiaat the end of last year because I
thought, oh, you know, it'llbe an opportunity to get into some
challenger matches.
(23:41):
Went to Asia, got into one ofthe qualifying, won a round of qualifying.
Obviously, no confidence bythis point, not playing well, and
then didn't get into the finalweeks with my ranking, so went to
Japan for one week in the endand had to come home.
And, you know, so it is.
I've almost been starting offwhat feels like almost unranked at
(24:05):
this point.
Yeah, you're back at ground zero.
Like, you're just starting onthe tour again.
And how's the body right now?
Yeah, right now it's the bestit's been for 12 months, thankfully,
which is, for me, the mostimportant thing.
I mean, you know, I'm managingthe elbow issue all the time.
If the symptoms get too bad,then the doctor told me I'd have
to get an operation.
(24:26):
They said that it's not gonnaget worse.
The symptoms will be there.
So it's just something thatI'm gonna have to manage now, and
I'm getting better at doing that.
I mean, there was a tournamentearlier in the year that I couldn't
play because of my elbowbothering me.
But right now, I'm feeling thebest I've felt since.
Since the whole fiasco.
(24:47):
And you guys being theplayers, moan a lot about the balls
lately.
I'm not sure what you've putout there, but, you know, it's talked
about all the time, different balls.
And what's has.
One is the balls been part ofyour injury?
Do you think that's a reason?
And two, is.
What's your opinion on theball situation?
Yeah, I do think it would be alot easier for everybody involved
(25:09):
if there was one standardizedball for the tour.
But I mean, I guess the otherproblem is we've got four Slams,
an ATP Tour and an ITF Tour,and really the Challenger tour is
kind of separate as well.
So which ball is standardized?
I'm not sure.
You know, I'm not sure theSlams would use an ATP standardized
balls.
Well, I'm telling you, they.
(25:29):
They wouldn't.
And I'm not sure the ITF woulduse the ATP standardized ball either,
so.
So I'm not sure it's evergoing to happen, to be honest.
Yeah, it's a messy ice.
Last week I saw, I think itwas Holger Rune and Holger Rune and
Sarah Praxson, they're hitting balls.
And first of all, I saw, I sawDimitrov practice.
He was like, man, this ball'sa bit too heavy.
(25:50):
He said it just stayed on hisracket too long.
He wasn't getting enough from it.
And then I went over and Zerapracticing with Holgaroon, and Zerif
just stopped the practice.
He goes, wait, stop.
Show me that ball.
He goes, this is not the ball.
And Holger's like, I got themfrom tournament desk.
And he goes, notice adifferent ball.
And it turns out one had alogo, one didn't.
But he know, you know, henoticed that.
(26:11):
He knew.
And he goes, look, get rid ofthose balls here.
We can't be practicing with those.
So it's kind of was justinteresting to hear the players talk
about and how quick they pickup on things and little things.
But it's definitely from the outside.
I hear more of, you know, allour injuries are because of this,
but I don't know.
Yeah, so, I mean, look,players, we would pick up on an extra
(26:32):
gram on the racket, you know,so if there's an extra half a gram
on the ball, you bet they'regoing to notice.
If there's, you know, 20% moreball fur or if it's a different type
of material used, they'regoing to notice that as well.
I think.
I think it's probably.
It's the development of thetechnology in the sport.
The tennis rackets are morepowerful than ever.
(26:52):
The balls are probably Slower.
The courts have got slower tokind of counteract that.
So I think I.
I saw a video on YouTube.
Somebody did a video of, like,the 2000 Wimbledon final compared
to the 2024 Wimbledon final.
And the speed of the ball offeach player's racket, obviously,
(27:15):
in 2024 was much quickercomparatively, but the actual time
of the rally shots betweenballs was exactly the same.
Oh, wow.
So court and ball slow.
Everything's been slowed down.
Slow mo.
There's more power and morespeed and more strength in the sport,
but everything's been sloweddown to keep it the same, if that
makes sense.
(27:35):
Yeah, no, that makes total sense.
It'd be interesting to see ifeverything played true to their speed.
Like, grass was rocket quick.
You'd probably love.
You'd be like, need more grasscourts and, you know, and whatever.
The clay court was much slower.
Hate that.
And then the other two, more balanced.
But the rankings would bequite different, I reckon.
I do wish that they would do that.
(27:56):
I mean, that's why it was soimpressive when Borg won the Channel
Slam, Right?
Because back then, the clayand the grass, they were two completely
different surfaces.
Is that what you call theChannel Slam?
Well, that's.
That's what I call it.
Anyway.
Okay.
It's good.
I was like.
For a sec, I was, like,agreeing, which is like, what the
hell is that?
Like.
That'S what I call it.
Anyway, when he won it, Imean, it was like the grass was ice
(28:20):
and the clay was obviously aclay court.
Whereas now I do think thatthe grass has got a lot slower.
It is noticeably faster thanthe other surfaces still.
But it's kind of led to thedeath of the serv.
Volley.
Right.
And the chip and charge and the.
You know, would.
Would.
Would Johnny McEnroe havesurvived in this era?
I don't know.
(28:41):
I mean, because the way thathe played, you know, it was the slice
and the game and, you know,keeping people out of sorts.
You can't really do that anymore.
But like you say, would JohnnyMax survive today?
But would Rafa survived ongrass in the 70s?
No, I don't.
You may say he would have adapted.
None of them would havesurvived against Johnny Mack back
(29:02):
then.
No.
So there you go.
So it's like times for different.
You know, Johnny Mack adjustedthat game.
That was his time.
Now the game's different, but.
Oh, over this period, sinceyou've last been on the show, how
old are you now?
I'm 31 now.
Okay, 31.
And tell me I'm jumping allover the place.
But do you feel when you comeoff to practice court now, the body
(29:23):
feels good, you're like, okay,I survived today.
Is there a bit of that feeling?
Not really.
I mean, it's a funny one.
You know, last year itdefinitely was like that.
I mean, because last year I'vecome off the court and you know,
that's the other thing.
I've probably torn my lowerability four or five times across
my career as well.
So that's like a, like a wetpaper towel at this point.
(29:46):
So, so that, you know,returning to match fitness was really
difficult because if I steppedup the serve too much at once, then
my ab would tear.
So, so there was a stage ofthat last year where it was like,
is everything okay?
Let's see how we feel in the morning.
My wrists are feeling likethey're falling off my abs, you know,
(30:06):
Is that dons?
Is that the start of an ab tear?
Like, whereas now, you know,like I said, this is the best I've
felt strong in a long time.
Yeah.
What lessons have you learned?
Like, if there's one thingyou've learned over the past three
or four years from the ups anddowns, I think I might know what
it is, but I'm going to letyou say it first.
I'm just guessing, but what is the.
One thing I'm not sure you'llhave to tell me.
(30:28):
Because to be honest, I feelexactly the same now as I did when
I had a higher ranking.
I think that's one thing I hadto learn over my career, is to separate
myself and my self worth andmy value as a person from my ranking.
Because when I was younger Ifound it really difficult.
You know, it would make mefeel like I'm a bad person and I'm
(30:49):
a failure because I'm not ashighly ranked as I wanted to be.
And to be honest, in my heartof hearts, I still believe I, you
know, I'm a better player thanI was last year.
So in, in that sense that'sprobably, you know, why I'm still
playing.
But the lessons I've learned,I would probably say I think one
(31:12):
of the biggest ones for methat kind of led to my charge the
top hundred would have been tolearn to prioritize my game development
over the results.
So win or lose, I think it'salways a bad thing to be results
orientated.
I found that worked well for me.
Obviously everyone's different.
(31:33):
As long as I came off thecourt able to say that's what's going
to take me to the Next level.
Playing that way, then I was happy.
And that mentality reallyenabled me in.
In sticky situations and tightmoments to really breathe and release
and aim to play the right way.
That got me there eventually.
(31:54):
But how hard is it when you'retight in a match and you want to
revert to type?
You're like, no, no, I got tostick with this, you know, with the
vision.
And it must be so easy to pullback and do what you've always done,
which, you know, won't get youto where you want to be.
So is that something you dealwith in the middle of March, saying,
no, Liam, you got to stick tothe vision here?
Yeah.
To be honest with me, it wasprobably trial and error.
(32:16):
I wish I could have learned todo that a lot younger.
But by the time I got to 28 or29, it was kind of, you know, I knew
that that old way wasn'tworking, and it was never going to
work.
I mean, I had Andy sit medown, you know, which was probably
some of the best advice anyoneever gave me.
And he kind of said, look, youknow, you're never gonna make it
if you don't go for it, so whynot risk it and see if you could
(32:41):
go in for it?
And that.
And that kind of was like.
I was like, yeah, that's.
That's a really logical way oflooking at.
That's a good point.
And that.
And that helped me a lot as well.
Yeah, you're playing it safe.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's the thing about thetop players and top level tennis.
You know that they do play alot of percentage tennis with their
(33:03):
shot selections and theirpatterns, but they are going after
the ball, and if there's aball there to take on that, they
take it on.
They all have ways to hurt you.
That's how you get to the top hundred.
You don't just get there byplaying it safe and making the court.
You probably can get too closeto it by playing it safe, and then
you need the weapons and.
Yeah, well, I was.
I was.
(33:23):
I was 120, between 115 and 140for five or six years.
Okay, so that's a long what.
That's a long time.
What keeps you going?
Like, obviously, you know, you're.
You're in that place whichmany players.
We're just speaking about someIrish players, Sam Barry, James McGee,
Conor Knight, they all got tothat ranking, and for whatever reason,
(33:44):
injuries or they weren'tprepared to stick it out a bit longer
and see if they could breakthrough but you're still there.
You broke through, andobviously you've gone the other way,
but you're going back up now.
Why do you still play tennis?
A few reasons.
I believe I can break through again.
I think I can get higher thanI did before.
(34:04):
I just need the opportunities,and it's difficult because obviously
I'm probably going to have toplay a year of futures now to be
able to compete at the challenges.
I believe that if I could playat the challenges right now, I'd
compete pretty well.
So that's one of the reasons,because I believe I've still got
plenty left to give in the sport.
(34:24):
I think one of the bigmotivations for me is to show other
players that it can be done,and there's a certain way that you
should go about it and acertain work ethic and a philosophy
that I want to have otheryounger players look at me and say,
okay, that's how you'resupposed to do it.
Because there were times whenI was younger that there weren't
(34:47):
many, should we say, positiveinfluences in.
In British tennis that were.
You had a couple, you had a few.
Yeah.
I mean, obviously, Andy livedin Miami when I was younger, so,
you know, the younger guysnever really saw Andy, but a lot
of the guys older than metended to go out a lot, not take
(35:08):
their tennis too seriously,and that was kind of what my role
models were.
So I kind of had to learn tofigure it out for myself.
Whereas a big thing that Itried to do is sort of show myself
in a way that I would havewanted to see a player when I was
younger.
Did you ever get sucked intothat going out?
(35:28):
And was there part of yourcareer where you did a bit too much
of that?
Yeah, probably for five or six years.
Okay.
I think it was at the end of2018 that I stopped sort of doing
that and decided I needed totake my tennis a bit more seriously.
And, you know, that that's agreat regret of mine that, you know,
that could have been anotherfour or five years that I was figuring
(35:49):
my game out.
And, you know, I could have been.
Could have had the experienceI have now at 26 or 27.
And obviously the experienceI'm gonna have when I'm 35, I could
have had now, which obviouslywould be a lot more helpful.
But, you know, everyone's different.
Like I said, I didn't havereally many people saying, no, this
(36:10):
isn't how you do this.
This isn't.
You know, you need to do this.
This will affect you poorly.
You Know, like, I was, I wasstill kind of from that era when
sports.
Yeah.
And sports science was kind ofstarting to come in when I was younger,
it kind of wasn't nutrition,kind of was.
Kind of wasn't.
(36:30):
And like, you say, like, Imean, that was just a thing people
did.
Like, I remember there wereplayers on tour that would be going
out two or three times a weekand getting absolutely hammered,
whereas now that, that's not a thing.
People don't do that.
Yeah, you would have heard a lot.
Even on Futures Tour wherethey lose, they're straight out a
night or two next week.
Lose, you're losing every week.
Like, so you're out once ortwice every.
(36:51):
It's critty.
And then these things costmoney as well.
So you're blowing money on.
You're not sleeping, chance ofpicking up injuries.
There's so much negative about it.
Yeah, exactly.
And one thing I learned aboutthe drinking as well, which, again,
I learned through experiencerather than somebody telling me was,
I remember I'd be doing atraining block and I would go out
(37:13):
on the Friday, obviously, I'dget back at 3, 4am and I've, I'd
be recovering the Saturday andthe Sunday, rather than from the
trading block.
I'd be recovering from thenight out.
And then it would take.
And then Monday, Tuesday, Iwould still be, you know, at practice,
kind of like, I'm still a bit tired.
And then it would be sort ofThursday and I'd be like, okay, I
(37:35):
feel like myself again now.
And then I'm.
I'm out again on Friday.
So it's like.
So after, so after a year ofthat, I was kind of like, I'm only
really getting a day, a day oftraining a week in a sense, because
I'm still recovering, eventhough I'm.
Yeah.
So I, I, I'm somebody who'slearned from their own experiences,
I guess, the hard way.
(37:56):
But you probably won't listento anybody.
Well, it took a while.
Probably.
It took wise words from Andyand I'm not sure exactly.
Yeah, I listened.
I listened to the world number one.
Did he not tell you, Wimbledon champion?
Did he not tell you you shouldquit at some stage?
Did he not say.
Was that.
Was there some.
Never.
No, no.
I think in a joke.
No.
I don't know how I talk.
(38:16):
No, no, not even as a joke.
I mean, you know, he's, he's,you're completely right.
We do have that relationship.
And he, and he's always been,you know, very harsh with his, with
his with his humor, but that'sjust who he is.
That's a very Scottish senseof humor as well, I think.
But, you know, he.
He always kind of had a beliefin my game that I probably didn't
(38:42):
see from other people.
I kind of felt like he couldsee that there was the potential
to be top hundred.
I mean, he told me that Iwould get to 90 in the world probably
two or three years before Idid, which is a pretty good guess
so far.
Yeah.
What else has he said now?
Do you still speak to him?
You still on the.
I speak to him a little bit.
(39:02):
I think he's a bit busy, isn'the, with his golf and his family
life and.
And with Novak.
But I get the odd messagesometimes laughing at my odd Instagram
post and.
Nice, nice.
You're quite.
You're quite outspoken.
You say what you feel and doyou feel more tennis players should
be like that?
I know we talked about itearlier a little bit, but there's
(39:24):
no personalities.
But do you think tennisplayers are afraid to say stuff like
they're worried about sponsors?
What do people think andwhat's your opinion?
Yeah, I 100 think that.
I think that's the modern ageof sportsmen and athletes.
Right.
You have to be sellable and,you know, having strong political
(39:45):
opinions or philosophical, youknow, ideas about things don't necessarily
cater to a wider audience.
If you look at, you know, aRoger and a Rafa, they never put
a toe out of line on any subject.
They did that so well acrosstheir career.
And, you know, lo and behold,they were probably the two most successful
tennis players in history ofthe sport, financially as well as
(40:08):
on the court.
Oh, I mean, you know, whatRoger did off the court was incredible.
Whereas, you know, Novak,somebody who is perhaps spoken out
a little bit more as hasprobably not had the same level of
financial gain off the courtas they have.
But then it gets.
It just gets stage where what,you know, you don't need all this.
Well, you know, when you getto their level of money, whether
(40:29):
you've 100, 200 or a billion,I'm sure life is still good.
And does it really make a difference?
I don't.
I don't.
I know they're competitivepeople and they want.
They want to be the best.
They want more money as well.
But I'm sure it doesn't bother Novak.
Yeah, I agree with that.
But it's so tough, you know,as a tennis player, because you have
(40:49):
to be aware every time youever do an interview, anything you
say could Be misconstrued.
It's such a poison chalice.
You know, you kind of have tofind the balance of being your honest
self without, you know, sayingsomething that.
That can be taken the wrongway or, you know, even if you miss
(41:10):
word a sentence and it comesup and, you know, so you have to
be hyper aware at all times of.
Of what you're doing and whatyou're saying.
So I.
I do understand why it getslike that, but I do think it's sometimes
to the detriment of the sport.
I think you look at NickKyrgios, you know, if.
If Nick wasn't the characterhe is, I don't think he'd be half
as famous or draw half as manycrowds as he does.
(41:31):
You know, it's Nick's aboveand beyond everything else.
It's Nick's personality thatdraws people in.
Yeah.
And look, some brands actuallywant that as well.
So, you know, they all don'twant the clean person.
Some want somebody's a bit more.
I think now only his revenuefrom brand deals will tell us really
what goes on there.
But no, and probably when thisepisode goes out, sinners coming
(41:55):
back on court.
I know.
I don't think you're happyabout Sinner, about the whole doping
thing.
Do you think he should havegot a.
Do you think he's innocent or guilty?
First of all.
It'S so difficult.
We have no way of knowing.
But the thing that, I mean, Iactually got a phone call from another
(42:16):
player to talk me through thefacts around the case.
And because when I first sawthe case, I thought, this is complete
bogus.
Like, this makes no sense.
You know, if you.
If you use your logic and youlook at this case, there are too
many things that you say,would that happen in a normal situation
(42:37):
like that?
That's the thing.
I understand how it works withthe law and, you know, with lawyers
and stuff.
I get that.
But as a normal person, yousit down, you look at it and you
go, there's a few too manycoincidences here.
And there are somesimilarities with other cases in
the past when it's come outthat the player was doping.
But having said that, I spoketo another player who was very well
(42:59):
informed on the subject, andhe kind of walked me through the
different.
The rules, you know, the rulebook, the laws around it, how basically
the reason why he got foundnot guilty.
And I don't think that he wasdoing it.
I do think that it was a caseof, you know, what's the word for
(43:20):
it?
Accidental contamination.
Okay.
So, so I do think that thatwas the case.
The thing that really upset methe most was that there were players
who I know, players who I'mfriends with, who I respect as athletes
and as, as people who gotpunished far beyond what Jannik ever
has.
(43:40):
You know, one and a half, twoyears there was a player, a South
American player who was on a,a temporary back ban.
The same thing again, a contamination.
So he, he got found innocent,but got a lengthier ban because he
played a level of professionalfootball in South America whilst
(44:01):
he was supposed to be on the ban.
And I'm talking, you know,Sunday league football mess.
Yeah, you know, so there'splayers like this getting punished
and, you know, again, MikhailImma got a year and a half ban.
There were no drugs in his system.
He got found to, to, you know,he missed his third test.
But let me tell you, that isso easy to do.
I saw Tenacity Coconakistalking about it last year.
(44:24):
I'm still on the dopingwhereabouts testing.
Now I'm ranked 700 in the world.
But last year I missed two.
I'd missed three tests, butthe first one was from the year before.
Then one time, me and mygirlfriend, because my brother does
my, my whereabouts for me, mygirlfriend had come back from a long
(44:47):
trip and I said, oh, let'sjust go and get a nice hotel tonight.
Let's go for a nice evening.
And it was at 4 o'clock in theevening, so I forgot to tell my brother,
lo and behold, the guy turnsup that one day.
I mean, it's crazy how oftenit happens.
And then it would have beenthe third missed test.
And I thought, oh my God, I'mabout to get banned for a year and
a half for missing three tests.
But it turned out the firsttest was outside of the 12 months.
(45:10):
So trust me, it is so easy tomiss three tests.
I'm sure many of our listenersdon't know, but how does this whereabouts
work?
Do you have to give like 12months notice of your whereabouts?
Did you update it every weekor every month or every day?
How exactly does it work?
In a minute?
Yeah, so you have to do it quarterly.
(45:30):
You have to update quarterlyyour whereabouts every day where
you're going to be sleeping.
If you're going to be flyingovernight, then you have to, you
know, put somethingspecifically in for that.
You have to put where you'regoing to be training, if you're going
to be playing tournaments.
You have to say whether it'sgoing to be a competition or training
or if you've got a week off,you can change it, you know, like
(45:52):
the day before, but you haveto do every single day of the year
an account for where you'regoing to be and then give a window
that they can come and visitin that.
In that time.
So you can't be really ran,you know, you can't.
If you're most random person,you're sort of.
You're gonna get caught out,which a.
Lot of us are, of course.
You know, like, I mean, a lotof athletes tend to.
Tend to have a mild dose of adhd.
(46:13):
Yeah.
So it's.
It doesn't.
It doesn't do well to do thatsort of stuff.
Could.
It could be a case.
Liam, we just got entry.
We got a wild card into, Idon't know, into Monica, wherever,
like, let's get in the plane.
And you forget to fill it outbecause there's so many other things
going on and, well, so your.
Your brother looks after it.
You're completely right.
That's.
(46:33):
That's what's so difficultabout it, is that the tennis player's
schedule, as you have justsaid, it can change from hour to
hour, never mind week to weekor day to day.
I mean, sometimes you don'tknow where you're going until.
I mean, my girlfriend, classiccase, she flew to a tournament on
Monday but didn't know whereshe was going to play on the Sunday
(46:54):
she was waiting to see whatthe cuts were.
So it is so difficult to do.
And that's what happened with Nikel.
It was his agent that wasdoing the whereabouts for him.
And they put that he was inthe official hotel.
And sometimes these eventshave two official hotels and Mikel
was in the second officialhotel, not the first.
And that's how he got bannedfor a year and a half from the sport.
(47:16):
And he was 45 in the world.
So that's what really upsets me.
People like Mikel get punishedfor that.
But then, you know, and again,it's not.
It's not Janik.
But then how people then get aban like that when they have substances
in their system?
(47:37):
It just doesn't morally sitright with me.
I think one, the moral storyis it helps when you have money you
can pay the best liars to.
Exactly.
His liars were better than theother liars.
But that's what frustrates meas well, because philosophically
speaking, that's what I loveabout the sport of tennis is that,
you know, we're all equal.
You know, you can't.
(47:57):
It's not like football.
Janik can't go out and say,oh, I like Alcaraz's forehand.
I'm going to buy that for £25 million.
In tennis, if you're the besttennis player, you're the best tennis
player.
And the money comes the cream.
I always say the cream alwaysrises to the top in tennis.
The rankings never lie.
But that's why it'sfrustrating with this stuff, because
whoever has the best lawyergets the, gets the least ban, which
(48:19):
just doesn't sit right with me.
And speaking of football, PepGuardiola, you met him, do you have
any advice for you?
Not particularly, no.
I mean, I quite.
We had quite a lengthyconversation, a 10 or 15 minute conversation,
and I just liked, you know,picking his brain a little bit about,
because I've obviously beenobsessed with him for many years
and, you know, I read a couplebooks about him and stuff and I was
(48:41):
just really interested to getan insight into, like, mentality
and obviously as a big cityfan, getting insight into the squad
at the time.
And, you know, I asked him ifhe liked tennis and, you know, it
was interesting.
He said that he loves tennis.
He said he loves that tennisplayers in the tightest moments rise
to the challenge.
(49:02):
Which I think he was maybesaying that it's not as often that
that happens in football,which was, which was a funny thing
to think because obviously Ithink sometimes we take it for granted
how often we see, you know,sometimes the best tennis of the
match at the tightest times.
You know, we all do it.
We'll switch on at 6 all inthe third because we're all like,
oh, you know, I want to see that.
Or, you know, six all, firstset breaker, like you're five all.
(49:24):
Like, let's see that.
Whereas obviously in othersports sometimes the, the standard
sort of regresses, whereas intennis it improves.
So, yeah, it was cool to speak to.
Well, you can see how that happens.
Six all.
Both people are turned on.
So it takes the best of youropponent to bring out the best in
you and you bring out the bestof them.
And.
Yeah, and so any one bit ofadvice did you pick up from that
(49:47):
we were sharing to tennis players?
He didn't, he didn't actuallygive me any advice personally, but,
you know, he was, he wasprobably one of the nicest people
I've ever spoken to.
And, you know, my biggesttakeaway from that was that his gift
to me was, was to give me 10or 15 minutes of his time.
(50:07):
As, you know, I'm probably, Ican't say I'm one of his biggest
fans, but I'm definitely up there.
10 or 15 minutes of his timewithout, you know, he didn't.
He wasn't on his phone.
Just, you know, he turned meaway from the cameras, had a really
personal, private conversationwith me.
And, yeah, that.
That was probably the bestgift he could have given me.
Nice.
Tough year this year.
(50:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's been.
It's been a tough 12 months.
Yeah.
Like, did you give him somebad luck when you met him?
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe he gave it to me.
I don't know.
Yeah.
A couple more questions that.
So if you're 18 again, Liam,what's the one piece of advice you'd
give yourself that you'velearned in the past 14 years?
(50:51):
I.
I think I would try to put across.
If you make the sacrifices,even when you don't believe does
make a difference in the longrun, and it will make a difference.
(51:11):
Do you need people around you,though, that believe in you?
I don't know.
It's a tough one because Ifeel like there were many times across
my career where I felt nobodybelieved in me.
I think for me, one thing I'venoticed a lot that makes a big difference
(51:32):
to players is having a strongfoundation at home.
You know, we see it now allthe time in the boxes of the WTA
and ATP players.
They often have parents in the box.
Rafa Nadal had Uncle Tony.
I think that's a big one.
But, yeah, I think it took mea long time to.
(51:52):
It's almost like a leap offaith that I'm talking about that
for a long time, I was rankednot where I wanted to be.
So I wasn't willing to makesacrifices, not go on that night
out, not go and meet thatfriend, not, you know, change my
diet, not play thosetournaments because I wanted to be
a normal kid.
Whereas, you know, once I kindof decided to at least try, that
(52:19):
snowballed.
And I think.
And I think that's the big onewas when I finally decided to stop
going out.
I.
I kind of said, okay, let's.
Let's give it 12 months now,because I wasn't happy.
I wasn't happy doing that.
And.
And I knew that I was wastingmy talent.
I kind of decided at the startof the year, I lost to Ivashka in
Australian Open Qualys, and Ilost, like, three in love.
(52:41):
I got absolutely trounced.
And I called my coach and Isaid, look, I don't even want to
talk about the match.
I said, what I want to do ismake a promise to you and to myself
that for this next 12 months,I'm going to make every decision
I possibly can to be the bestplayer I can be.
And I said, I don't even wantto worry about results for the next
12 months.
Let's see where my ranking isand then we can go from there.
(53:01):
And that kind of has just beenthe case ever since.
Good.
No, it's good advice.
The commitment.
And lastly.
So you like Ireland?
I love Ireland, yeah.
And you did mention you'regonna have to play a few futures
this year.
You're gonna come over hereand play the futures.
I'm not sure if the ass.
If the.
The legendary astro in Irelandwould suit me too much.
(53:23):
But you know what I would love?
I would love to come toIreland to playing event one day.
A bit of chip and charge in here.
This may be the only time youactually get to play it this year
because you're back on the ATPnext year, you know, so you.
I don't.
I can't see us having even achallenger here anytime soon.
So a bit of chipping andcharge and I think you'd cause a
bit of trouble.
Yeah, I think for me, I mean,that's the one place to test the
(53:46):
commitment is Dublin.
I mean, the Guinness is.
The Guinness is too good.
I mean, you know, I went atthe end of last year with my girlfriend.
I'm.
It was a shame we only got togo for a couple of days and we were
both sick, but we absolutelyfell in love with the city.
The people were amazing.
I love the energy about theplace and I think it's a beautiful
(54:09):
area as well with the riverflowing through it.
I think we'll go back and tryand spend more time there next time.
I mean, I didn't realize howexpensive the taxis were there, though.
Everything's expensive here.
Never mind.
Just.
Jack Draper likes it over hereas well.
He's had a few sessions withSimon Carr.
He was probably not allowedover this year because he's on his,
(54:30):
you know, now.
He's a, you know, he's an idol.
He's an inspiration now, so.
But he seems to like it aswell, so it's good to.
It's good to have.
And then Evans doing a bit oftraining over here, so.
Yeah, so.
So, I mean, pretty much allthe Brits that go over love Dublin.
I think a lot of us wouldprobably train there if there was
a base for us.
Wait till the functionaltennis base goes live.
(54:53):
I'll give you a base you cancome train a mice.
There we go.
Couple indoor courts at a gymand we'll be set.
Yeah, that's it.
Win, win for everybody.
Yeah, but no, that's good.
So look, I hope to see youover here at some stage and if I
see in a pub, I will have todrag you out though.
Let me finish my Guinnessfirst though.
Thank you very much, Liam.
(55:15):
No, thank you, man, Iappreciate it.
Welcome to the FunctionalTennis Podcast, brought to you by
my favorite tennis shoecompany, asics, and I'm your host,
Fabio Molly, where I bring youinsights and lessons from players,
coaches, parents and expertswho are ingrained in the world of
high level tennis.
Today I chat with British proLiam Brody.
When he first came on thepodcast, his goal was to break into
the top 100 and he did it.
(00:45):
Since then, it's been a wild ride.
In this episode, Liam opens upabout the highs and lows of tour
life.
Winning matches at Wimbledon,dealing with injuries and a concussion,
the pressure of rankings andhow lifestyle choice have shaped
his game.
He also shares thoughts ondoping, role models, and the memorable
chat with Pep Guardiola.
Liam is one of my favoriteguests to speak with and I guarantee
(01:07):
you'll enjoy this one.
Liam, welcome back to theFunctional Tennis Podcast.
How are you?
I'm good, thank you.
I'm good.
How are you?
Good, yeah.
You were last on here in 2021,October, I think you just won a challenger
and Beal at the time, you werelooking to break into the top hundred,
which you did a couple ofyears later, which was amaz.
And your ranking was there andnow it's gone the other way.
(01:30):
So, interested to find outwhat's been going on and any new
lessons you've learned in thepast four years and while you're
still playing tennis or whatkeeps you going, because it can't
be easy on the grind thereweek in, week out and dealing with
all sorts of things.
So, yeah, how are you, firstof all?
Yeah, I'm doing well.
I'm doing well, as you said.
Obviously it's been an up anddown few years.
It's kind of cool to be comingback on.
(01:51):
Like you said that I had thatdream of making the top hundred.
I'd won my first challenger title.
I remember at the time thatwas such a huge moment for me.
But, yeah, especially nowbeing on the other side having my
ranking drop again.
It's quite funny to be back onhere again with all of the lessons
I've learned over those lastfour years.
So basically you're in thesame position, but you're a lot more
intelligent now.
(02:11):
Or wise.
Yeah, we'll say wise, not intelligent.
Breaking into the top hundred.
Do you remember the match, the moment?
Yeah, I do.
It was I was in Saint Tropez challenger.
I think it's 125 challenger,not obviously last year, the year
before.
(02:31):
And I'd basically played like6, 7, 8 challenges in a row and I'd
had Some really consistent runs.
I think I've made three orfour semifinals in three or four
weeks.
I made last round qualities ofUS Open.
I went straight to Francestraight after.
I didn't take a break to goand play in.
In Europe on the challengertour there.
And then the same thing again,made semifinals in that first week
(02:54):
in France.
And I remember it got to thestage where, like, for four or five
weeks in a row, I was tophundred on the live rankings at the
start of the week.
And then this is howcompetitive tennis is as well.
Right.
Especially at that sort of ranking.
I'd be top hundred at thestart of the week, and by the end
of the week, I'd have madesemis of a challenger and I'd be
103.
And it happened for like fouror five weeks in a row.
(03:16):
Me and my brother were reallylaughing about it.
And then the final week.
And actually, the funny thingwas I was going to take a week or
a couple of weeks break afterSaint Tropez, because I think I'd
basically been on the road for.
For three months or so and.
And not taking a break foreight or nine weeks.
So we kind of said, look, thisis the last opportunity.
If it happens, it happens.
If not, it doesn't.
(03:37):
Again, same thing started theweek live ranking top 100.
I won my first round.
I was outside the top hundred,won the second round.
And then I think I had to winthe quarterfinals to.
It was guaranteed.
Then I had to win myquarterfinals match.
I was playing Arthur Cazal.
Okay.
Which obviously is not easy in France.
(04:01):
Yeah, I think.
I mean, I had a really tough draw.
I think I beat Lucas Kleinthere, beat Cazale.
Who else did I beat?
There were a couple toughmatches, actually.
And then I lost Celestian inthe final, who's a good player, too.
But I beat Kazal basically to.
To make top hundred.
And actually, it was a shamebecause I was a set and a breakup
and he.
He got injured, so he had to retire.
(04:21):
Oh, look, I'm sure you take that.
Anyway.
Come on.
I'll tell you what, I wasalmost like that kid the other day
that went crazy when Chapaval,the German kid.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
You know, it was his first eight.
He's only.
He's only gone 17.
First ATP win.
You can see the bill.
This amazing.
But then he's like, okay, letme bring that right back.
(04:42):
And he got it.
He got slaughtered online likethe, you know, kids don't need to
be.
He's only a kid, like.
And he Got absolutely slaughtered.
I think stuff like that, itmakes headlines though.
That's almost like the mostimportant thing, right?
I think a lot of peoplenowadays are probably a little bit
too robotic.
You know, I see a lot ofpeople complain that a lot of the
top players, their interviewsare always the same, the answers
(05:03):
are always the same.
So I think it's nice to see alittle bit of a difference sometimes.
Yeah, no, look, I definitely.
You need that.
He got a lot of press overthat and I actually like, he's practiced
with the saber.
So for me, as a couple ofsaber videos and practice, like,
great, great time to introducethis video.
So.
But he's a good kid and I'msure he won't next time.
(05:24):
He'd be a bit more relaxed.
So is it top hundred?
Is it like 100 or 99?
If you got the top 100 in theworld, would that count in your books?
Or do you have to hit the 99or does it really matter?
You know what, A lot of usBrits have had this argument so many
times and I think nobodyreally agrees.
I mean, I know I was alwaystold that you had to be double figures,
(05:45):
right?
And that 100 didn't countbecause it was triple figures.
And I think on the ACPwebsite, I think the first page of
the rankings only goes to 99.
So I think we always said, oh,you have to be on the first, first
page to be classed as the top hundred.
And well, I snuck in at 93, so.
So I, I got, I got a bit of away in there.
(06:05):
Anyway.
That was what, 2023.
We're like two years since then.
How's everything been?
Yeah, so, you know, I finished 2023.
I think I just dropped outsidetop 100.
I think I was like 102 or 103at the time.
And then I went to Hong Kongfor the warm up for Australian Open
(06:26):
and I picked up an injury onmy ankle in my preseason.
But it's a difficult one withplayers because sometimes it's hard
to differentiate as to whetheryou've got a niggle or an injury.
And obviously the older youget, the more, you know, I'm never
playing injury, sorry.
I'm never playing pain free anymore.
You know, that's.
I think that's the same formost players.
(06:47):
And unfortunately, you know,this one just kept developing, kept
developing.
I'd take a couple days off, itwould be a bit better, you know,
then it would be back by theend of the week, take a couple days
off.
So I went to Hong Kong.
It felt pretty awful after theflight, but then, you know, started
to play really well.
So I, I qualified there.
I think I'd be, you know, aguy 70 in the world.
(07:09):
I'll be a couple guys around 150.
So I was playing really welland then played Rublev second round,
had set points against him,lost in straights.
But during that match I gotthe physio on and I became pretty
aware that I wouldn't be ableto continue with the pain that I
was in.
I knew then I had a prettygood feeling that it was a bone injury,
(07:32):
which obviously is probablyone of the, the ones that you want
the least as a player.
You know, obviously if it'sbone or ligament or something like
that, then, then it can be apretty long time out.
So I, I still wanted to play Australia.
So I said to my coach, I'mgoing to take three days off.
I don't, in hindsight that wasprobably the worst idea ever.
I said, oh, I'm gonna takethree days off, let's go to Australia
(07:54):
and you know, I'll playwithout any practice if I have to.
Flew to Australia, decided toget a scan there and saw the physio
and she basically said if youkeep playing on this then your ankle's
gonna break.
And you know, that kind of.
And I kind of was like, youknow, how long is that out?
And she said, well, you know,in that area of the ankle it's quite
(08:17):
a tricky place and loadbearing joints are really tricky
to heal anyway.
So if you say, you know, itcould be six months, nine months,
you just don't know.
So that kind of put the brakeson really quickly and I, you know,
kind of scared me a littlebit, which is probably what I needed
to stop me playing.
So I, I stopped there and evenstill I tried to come back too soon
(08:38):
after, you know, five or sixweeks because that was the thing.
After Hong Kong, I was back inthe top hundred again.
Yeah, and, and I had aChallenger 100 and a Challenger 100
final.
So a win and a final to comeoff in that six week period.
So I thought if, if I don'tplay, I'm going to be Back to square
one.
I'm going to be, you know, 160.
(08:59):
And I've worked my whole lifeto get to the top hundred and I really
need to take advantage now.
So I try.
Worst decision probably of my career.
I tried to come back afterfive or six weeks, made it so much
worse.
I went to Delray Beach, Iplayed hijakata in three sets, which,
as you can imagine, there wasa lot of movement on the hard there.
I was supposed to play Cabo,didn't play because of the injury.
(09:21):
Went to Acapulco, played lesthe end again.
Just.
I.
I don't know how I even playedthose events looking back.
I then went to Indian Wells.
I beat PMAN's first roundqualifying, got smoked by Saboth
Wild.
But after each match, youknow, I was having to take a couple
days off because the pain wastoo much.
And then.
And are you knocking back thepainkillers as well?
(09:43):
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Well, because I couldn't sleep otherwise.
And then.
And then I went to Phoenix,that, you know, the 175 challenger
there.
I played qualifying, I wonaround, and then I think I lost to
Walton in three sets.
And during that match, Iturned to my coach and I said, I
can't keep doing this.
I said, I'm going home, like,because we were still going to go
and play Miami, obviously, right?
(10:05):
Everybody wants to play Miami.
It's a big tournament.
And I turned to my coach, Isaid, I can't do this.
I'm not coming back to thecourt until.
Until I'm fit or.
Or I'm.
I'm just not going to come back.
It's too much, you know.
And unfortunately, after that,I was out till Wimbledon, and then
I got the infamous knock onthe head.
I got a concussion.
We.
(10:26):
What happened there a week outfrom when I was supposed to start
competing, I was like, okay,my ankle's feeling good.
Banged my head off the roof of my.
Of my car, the.
Off the trunk of my car, Ishould say, and somehow got a moderate
concussion.
I was like, it was a bizarre experience.
(10:47):
The concussion was actuallyscarier than the ankle because I've
never had a brain injurybefore, right.
And you start to lose yourmarbles a little bit, your emotions
go funny, you slur yourspeech, you can't read.
You get really weird symptomsin it.
What happened?
Were you just on a step orsomething and the boot was open and
you went into it or.
(11:07):
So did you know, like, on the,on the electric trunks, you can,
like, pause them part way.
Yeah.
And I was parked in, like,again, like, what are the chances
on this?
I was saying it afterwards.
Like, if I hadn't parked inthat specific space, I would have
just let the trunk open allthe way.
I parked in a space where Ihad, like, a low light, low, low
hanging pipe.
Paused it halfway.
(11:28):
All the tennis balls fell out.
Fell out my, My trunk as youKnow, obviously classic tennis player.
And I've gone, oh, no.
I was really stressed at the time.
I was managing a load of stuff.
I got.
Oh, my gosh, like, bent down.
I'm trying to pick up allthese 30 tennis balls, put them back
in the box, and I've juststood back up without thinking about
it and cracked the back of myhead off the corner of the trunk.
(11:49):
And I was stood in the carpark for, like, 15 minutes just staring
at the wall and.
But I didn't realize it at the time.
It was the strangest thing, Ithink, because it obviously just
knocked the sense out of me.
And funnily enough, NathaBaines, her dad, she's a female British
tennis player, her dad cameover, and I think he thought I was
(12:10):
trying to figure out the payas you go on the.
He thought I was trying tofigure out the parking machine.
I hope he listens to this.
I think he thought I wastrying to figure out how to pay.
And he came over and he went,oh, it's pay with his pay when you
leave, by the way.
And I was like.
I was like, what?
What?
You know, oh, right, okay.
Yes.
I think if he hadn't comeover, I'd have probably been there
(12:31):
for about half an hour.
But then, weirdly enough, Ileft, had the weekend off.
I was fine.
I didn't really have any symptoms.
Returned to full training onthe Monday, because I thought at
the time.
I thought, do I.
I was a bit, like, grumpy overthe weekend, but, you know, nothing
too severe.
Nothing out of the.
Not new.
(12:51):
And then I.
I resumed training on the Monday.
I was practicing with a guycalled Stu Parker on the grass.
And I'll never forget it.
I'm having a great session.
45 minutes into the session, Iran for a drop shot.
And, you know, you'll know ifyou've ever had a migraine when you're.
When your eyes go a bit funnyand you get black spots in your vision,
and I'm looking down thecourt, you know, we have a long point.
(13:12):
I think it's to do with your heart.
Your heart rate, if it getstoo high.
And I looked down the court, Icouldn't see the other end of the
court.
And, you know, I didn't haveany symptoms at the time, but, you
know, as someone who does getmigraines, I thought, here we go.
I've got a big one on the way.
And I said, look, I'm gonnahave to go.
Go off the court.
Like, you know, I'm so sorry.
(13:33):
Blah, Blah, blah, went and sat down.
And that's when my speechstarted going.
My.
My reading.
It was just the strangest, strangest.
Do you think you're having aheart attack or did you quickly place
it back to I don't know.
It's a funny one because, youknow, when you watch sport and you
see the football players orthe rugby players and the, you know,
(13:54):
they have a concussion, butthey won't come off the pitch.
They refuse to.
When you have the concussion,it's really bizarre.
You get quite.
Because it messes with the.
The part of your brain thatcontrols your emotions.
You get quite defensive andalmost like, touchy about, oh, no,
I don't have a migraine.
I don't.
I don't have.
And I was the same.
And then luckily enough, thelta, they do like a concussion baseline
(14:19):
test every year that you haveto pass to get the medical done.
So I basically was strong armto come into the NTC the following
day and obviously failed theconcussion test miserably.
Yeah.
And then that's what Iobviously was told.
It's not mild.
It's a moderate concussion.
And I was like, oh, right.
And she's like, yeah, likeyour emotions can go a bit funny.
(14:42):
I was like, oh, yeah, okay.
And I was thinking I was in myroom crying for three hours on my
own yesterday for no reasonthat would make sense now because
I'm, you know, I'm not a typeof person to cry anyway.
But it.
It just sends you just loopy.
It's bizarre.
So how many weeks did theyrecommend you not play?
So I couldn't pick up a racketfor, I think it was 13 or 14 days,
(15:06):
which obviously, you know,after that, I had four or five days
to prepare for Eastbourne andthen played Nishioko, probably one
of the guys you don't want toplay when you've hardly hit a ball
and you're recovering from abrain injury and then lost to Botek
at Wimbledon again, which is areally tough draw.
(15:27):
Are you points to defender as well?
Did you.
Did you do.
Yeah, yeah.
So I made.
I made third round of Wimbledon.
So that was another 90 points.
So by this point, I'd lost,you know, probably 75 of my ranking
points.
That's.
And you're just like, thisyear is killing me.
You know, you go from such ahigh in.
In 2023.
(15:49):
Was it or 2022 or 2023.
It was the end of 23 and.
The start of 23 is such a high.
You be Casper.
You be Casper Rude In Wimbledon?
Yeah.
Just.
I'm going all over the place here.
But what was it like, firstround Wimbledon?
Yeah.
Playing Casper Rude, I think.
Was that first round or second round?
I think I beat Les Dien.
Okay.
(16:09):
Second.
And.
And then.
Well, you don't know.
If you don't know, I'm in trouble.
So it must have been like itwas a childhood dream.
Yeah.
I've played.
Do you know what?
I've played on Central Courtfor many or a few times over the
years, and I've played on one.
You know, I've been privilegedenough to have that honor on both
courts, but I'd never had theprivilege to win on it.
(16:33):
And that always has stuck withme because I had a big thing from
my junior career that I onlyever made it to the number two in
the world in my junior career.
And I was setting a breakup inthe finals of junior Wimbledon on
court one.
Who's that against?
Against Luke Savile.
Yes.
Yeah, I think we talked aboutit before.
Yeah, yeah.
(16:53):
And we were both playing forthe number one spot.
Sadly, I lost there.
So to win on center court inthe manner that I did against, obviously
a player rank 4 in the world,it felt like it put a lot of the
demons, you know, and badvoices in my head to rest after.
After almost well over a decade.
Yeah, no, I'm sure, sure it does.
(17:15):
Like, it must.
Like, we often talk about.
We play.
We don't start talking enoughabout it.
When you might have playedsome juniors and where you played
them, then the senior career,and the commentators say, oh, they've
played each other once on theATP tour, it's 10 to Seville, but
you're like, we played 10juniors and that guy beat me every
time.
You know, there's a lot thathistory still goes on.
Do you know what that I havewon against Luca Pui, the French
(17:37):
player.
We've been playing againsteach other since we were about 11
years old, and I've neverbeaten the damn guy.
And across every age group, I.
I don't know how, because as ajunior, I was always one of the best,
but he was always better than me.
And I guess that kind of makessense as to how he turned out.
(17:58):
I mean, he was number eight inthe world and one of the best players
on the planet.
But he beat me in Saint Tropezlast year.
And I think our pro.
Our pro head to head, like yousaid, was like loving, like, oh,
and one or something.
I was thinking, I played thisguy about 25 times.
It's 250 here.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And you're probably like, evenif he's not playing well, I know
(18:19):
his rankings being down, buthe's still.
He's so streaky, like, hot.
You still have that baggage inyou that the guy just knows how to
play it.
100.
I think that's why I thinksometimes it can be beneficial to
have had a stellar junior career.
Obviously, there are playerslike a Sinner or an Alcaraz who just
completely leapfrog the junior game.
(18:40):
I think it happens a lot morein the women's game.
I think, you know, you get alot of players sort of 14 or 15 years
old that are already competing on.
Well, I guess Coco Galf is aprime example.
Right.
She was 14 and.
Yeah.
Did she beat Venus atWimbledon 14 or something stupid
like that?
I think.
Can't remember.
I don't want to say, becauseI'd be wrong.
Yeah, yeah.
But.
But, you know, in the women'sgame, it's more common, whereas obviously
(19:04):
in the men's that, like yousaid, you get a lot of players that
almost develop towards the endof their junior career or, you know,
into their first couple ofyears as a pro.
Yeah.
No, I think maybe Alcarazplayed 14th, then he went straight
to Futures.
I'm sure Sinner probablydidn't even play 14.
He probably just sweat.
He just showed up at someFutures event.
But it's even funny.
(19:24):
Dimitrov said it.
I'm not sure where he said it,but he's like all the.
It's a bit similar, butdifferent to what we're talking about,
where he, you know, he's somuch baggage against the top players.
He's beaten by him so much time.
So every time he goes out andplays with them, he knows they've
beaten them.
It's a struggle for him.
But the new guys come alongwho, you know, the men.
Six of the world, Artiffe.
They've never played the.
(19:45):
The older, better guys, andthey can seem to, you know, there's
no baggage there.
They've no fear, and they cango out and get the wins like it.
So mental.
It's unbelievable.
Yeah, that's.
I actually didn't hear that.
That's an interesting pointfrom Gregor.
I'm sure it does.
You know, he's probably playedNovak 40 times in his career and,
you know, also played Novak athis peak, so, I mean, there's some
(20:07):
scar tissue there because, Imean, he was just invincible at one
point.
But I don't know.
I would say that, you know,for A few years now, they've been
talking about the next gen andhow these players, you know, haven't
been coming through and.
And they probably should be.
I know Novak mentioned acouple times, right, he was saying,
we're the next gen still, youknow, where are the next gen?
(20:28):
But these younger kids,they've obviously come through watching.
So, I mean, you know, Alcross,to be fair, at 14 years old, he might.
He might have been too youngto be watching tennis.
That's a tough one to say.
True.
But look, he's.
He's just got the expressticket, the Concorde flight to the
top of the game.
But look, yeah, you're notgoing to get there if you're not
(20:50):
good enough, so.
No, of course not.
I mean, I mean, what he didwhen he came on tour, he was.
He was levels above thechallenger, the challenger tour.
I mean, he.
I think the first time I sawhim play was a challenger in Trieste
and he.
I think he.
I think he might have lost toMusetti in the semis or the final.
And Musetti was about 15 yearsold or 16, and Alcaraz was still
(21:15):
14.
And I was watching the matchand obviously I was like, 140 in
the world, 150 in the world.
10 years.
Yeah.
And I lost in thequarterfinals and I was watching
this match and I was thinking,holy shit, why the fuck am I playing
tennis?
I'm sorry for the language,but there.
Must be a point where you'resaying I'm never going to be able
to.
Well, I won't.
(21:35):
Sorry.
It thinks I'm never going tobe able to beat this guy.
Obviously you will get achance, but you're like, why bother?
Oh, I mean, I mean, it was the same.
When I watched Sinner for thefirst time, I actually put a tweet
out saying this Guy's futuretop 20.
In the end it was.
It was pretty.
It was a safe bet to make.
But I remember watching him inLexington Challenger, and I had never
(21:56):
seen anyone hit the ball like him.
He hit it.
I mean, as you know, he does now.
But as.
As a kid, you're watching himhit the ball and it was so natural
and I just.
The sound off the strings, Ithought, I've never seen at such
a clean ball strike.
And he was such a skinny kid as.
Well, you know, it's kind oflike where's.
It defied the laws of physics.
It was like, where's the powercoming from?
(22:16):
He still is quite skinny.
Like, he paints the legs like,you know, but you don't need muscle
to.
You know, it's leverage andtechnique and all sorts.
So it was about muscle.
They'd be all.
Be massive lads.
That's true.
But so.
So getting back to.
Yeah, Wimbledon, obviously.
Concussion.
Did you play Wimbledon?
(22:37):
Sorry.
Now.
I.
I did.
Oh, you did.
Sorry.
You said you lost.
I lost in four, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So the rest of the year, then.
Like, that's 20.
Did it come together?
Injury?
What happened?
Not really.
So.
So I went to America to playsome of the challenges I didn't get
(22:58):
into a couple of the weeks,and then I injured my elbow, and
I had to go and get a scan.
I was supposed to play Boo YunChakotay in Lincoln, Nebraska, in
the challenger.
Their first round, which, Imean, maybe it wouldn't have gone
how I wanted it to anyway, butmy elbow was.
I had a bad elbow issue, so Ihad to go and get a scan, and it
(23:21):
turned out that I'd partiallytorn a ligament in my elbow, so I
had to take some time off forthat one.
And then, I mean, but by theend of this, you know, it was back
to square one.
I mean, I tried to go to Asiaat the end of last year because I
thought, oh, you know, it'llbe an opportunity to get into some
challenger matches.
(23:41):
Went to Asia, got into one ofthe qualifying, won a round of qualifying.
Obviously, no confidence bythis point, not playing well, and
then didn't get into the finalweeks with my ranking, so went to
Japan for one week in the endand had to come home.
And, you know, so it is.
I've almost been starting offwhat feels like almost unranked at
(24:05):
this point.
Yeah, you're back at ground zero.
Like, you're just starting onthe tour again.
And how's the body right now?
Yeah, right now it's the bestit's been for 12 months, thankfully,
which is, for me, the mostimportant thing.
I mean, you know, I'm managingthe elbow issue all the time.
If the symptoms get too bad,then the doctor told me I'd have
to get an operation.
(24:26):
They said that it's not gonnaget worse.
The symptoms will be there.
So it's just something thatI'm gonna have to manage now, and
I'm getting better at doing that.
I mean, there was a tournamentearlier in the year that I couldn't
play because of my elbowbothering me.
But right now, I'm feeling thebest I've felt since.
Since the whole fiasco.
(24:47):
And you guys being theplayers, moan a lot about the balls
lately.
I'm not sure what you've putout there, but, you know, it's talked
about all the time, different balls.
And what's has.
One is the balls been part ofyour injury?
Do you think that's a reason?
And two, is.
What's your opinion on theball situation?
Yeah, I do think it would be alot easier for everybody involved
(25:09):
if there was one standardizedball for the tour.
But I mean, I guess the otherproblem is we've got four Slams,
an ATP Tour and an ITF Tour,and really the Challenger tour is
kind of separate as well.
So which ball is standardized?
I'm not sure.
You know, I'm not sure theSlams would use an ATP standardized
balls.
Well, I'm telling you, they.
(25:29):
They wouldn't.
And I'm not sure the ITF woulduse the ATP standardized ball either,
so.
So I'm not sure it's evergoing to happen, to be honest.
Yeah, it's a messy ice.
Last week I saw, I think itwas Holger Rune and Holger Rune and
Sarah Praxson, they're hitting balls.
And first of all, I saw, I sawDimitrov practice.
He was like, man, this ball'sa bit too heavy.
(25:50):
He said it just stayed on hisracket too long.
He wasn't getting enough from it.
And then I went over and Zerapracticing with Holgaroon, and Zerif
just stopped the practice.
He goes, wait, stop.
Show me that ball.
He goes, this is not the ball.
And Holger's like, I got themfrom tournament desk.
And he goes, notice adifferent ball.
And it turns out one had alogo, one didn't.
But he know, you know, henoticed that.
(26:11):
He knew.
And he goes, look, get rid ofthose balls here.
We can't be practicing with those.
So it's kind of was justinteresting to hear the players talk
about and how quick they pickup on things and little things.
But it's definitely from the outside.
I hear more of, you know, allour injuries are because of this,
but I don't know.
Yeah, so, I mean, look,players, we would pick up on an extra
(26:32):
gram on the racket, you know,so if there's an extra half a gram
on the ball, you bet they'regoing to notice.
If there's, you know, 20% moreball fur or if it's a different type
of material used, they'regoing to notice that as well.
I think.
I think it's probably.
It's the development of thetechnology in the sport.
The tennis rackets are morepowerful than ever.
(26:52):
The balls are probably Slower.
The courts have got slower tokind of counteract that.
So I think I.
I saw a video on YouTube.
Somebody did a video of, like,the 2000 Wimbledon final compared
to the 2024 Wimbledon final.
And the speed of the ball offeach player's racket, obviously,
(27:15):
in 2024 was much quickercomparatively, but the actual time
of the rally shots betweenballs was exactly the same.
Oh, wow.
So court and ball slow.
Everything's been slowed down.
Slow mo.
There's more power and morespeed and more strength in the sport,
but everything's been sloweddown to keep it the same, if that
makes sense.
(27:35):
Yeah, no, that makes total sense.
It'd be interesting to see ifeverything played true to their speed.
Like, grass was rocket quick.
You'd probably love.
You'd be like, need more grasscourts and, you know, and whatever.
The clay court was much slower.
Hate that.
And then the other two, more balanced.
But the rankings would bequite different, I reckon.
I do wish that they would do that.
(27:56):
I mean, that's why it was soimpressive when Borg won the Channel
Slam, Right?
Because back then, the clayand the grass, they were two completely
different surfaces.
Is that what you call theChannel Slam?
Well, that's.
That's what I call it.
Anyway.
Okay.
It's good.
I was like.
For a sec, I was, like,agreeing, which is like, what the
hell is that?
Like.
That'S what I call it.
Anyway, when he won it, Imean, it was like the grass was ice
(28:20):
and the clay was obviously aclay court.
Whereas now I do think thatthe grass has got a lot slower.
It is noticeably faster thanthe other surfaces still.
But it's kind of led to thedeath of the serv.
Volley.
Right.
And the chip and charge and the.
You know, would.
Would.
Would Johnny McEnroe havesurvived in this era?
I don't know.
(28:41):
I mean, because the way thathe played, you know, it was the slice
and the game and, you know,keeping people out of sorts.
You can't really do that anymore.
But like you say, would JohnnyMax survive today?
But would Rafa survived ongrass in the 70s?
No, I don't.
You may say he would have adapted.
None of them would havesurvived against Johnny Mack back
(29:02):
then.
No.
So there you go.
So it's like times for different.
You know, Johnny Mack adjustedthat game.
That was his time.
Now the game's different, but.
Oh, over this period, sinceyou've last been on the show, how
old are you now?
I'm 31 now.
Okay, 31.
And tell me I'm jumping allover the place.
But do you feel when you comeoff to practice court now, the body
(29:23):
feels good, you're like, okay,I survived today.
Is there a bit of that feeling?
Not really.
I mean, it's a funny one.
You know, last year itdefinitely was like that.
I mean, because last year I'vecome off the court and you know,
that's the other thing.
I've probably torn my lowerability four or five times across
my career as well.
So that's like a, like a wetpaper towel at this point.
(29:46):
So, so that, you know,returning to match fitness was really
difficult because if I steppedup the serve too much at once, then
my ab would tear.
So, so there was a stage ofthat last year where it was like,
is everything okay?
Let's see how we feel in the morning.
My wrists are feeling likethey're falling off my abs, you know,
(30:06):
Is that dons?
Is that the start of an ab tear?
Like, whereas now, you know,like I said, this is the best I've
felt strong in a long time.
Yeah.
What lessons have you learned?
Like, if there's one thingyou've learned over the past three
or four years from the ups anddowns, I think I might know what
it is, but I'm going to letyou say it first.
I'm just guessing, but what is the.
One thing I'm not sure you'llhave to tell me.
(30:28):
Because to be honest, I feelexactly the same now as I did when
I had a higher ranking.
I think that's one thing I hadto learn over my career, is to separate
myself and my self worth andmy value as a person from my ranking.
Because when I was younger Ifound it really difficult.
You know, it would make mefeel like I'm a bad person and I'm
(30:49):
a failure because I'm not ashighly ranked as I wanted to be.
And to be honest, in my heartof hearts, I still believe I, you
know, I'm a better player thanI was last year.
So in, in that sense that'sprobably, you know, why I'm still
playing.
But the lessons I've learned,I would probably say I think one
(31:12):
of the biggest ones for methat kind of led to my charge the
top hundred would have been tolearn to prioritize my game development
over the results.
So win or lose, I think it'salways a bad thing to be results
orientated.
I found that worked well for me.
Obviously everyone's different.
(31:33):
As long as I came off thecourt able to say that's what's going
to take me to the Next level.
Playing that way, then I was happy.
And that mentality reallyenabled me in.
In sticky situations and tightmoments to really breathe and release
and aim to play the right way.
That got me there eventually.
(31:54):
But how hard is it when you'retight in a match and you want to
revert to type?
You're like, no, no, I got tostick with this, you know, with the
vision.
And it must be so easy to pullback and do what you've always done,
which, you know, won't get youto where you want to be.
So is that something you dealwith in the middle of March, saying,
no, Liam, you got to stick tothe vision here?
Yeah.
To be honest with me, it wasprobably trial and error.
(32:16):
I wish I could have learned todo that a lot younger.
But by the time I got to 28 or29, it was kind of, you know, I knew
that that old way wasn'tworking, and it was never going to
work.
I mean, I had Andy sit medown, you know, which was probably
some of the best advice anyoneever gave me.
And he kind of said, look, youknow, you're never gonna make it
if you don't go for it, so whynot risk it and see if you could
(32:41):
go in for it?
And that.
And that kind of was like.
I was like, yeah, that's.
That's a really logical way oflooking at.
That's a good point.
And that.
And that helped me a lot as well.
Yeah, you're playing it safe.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's the thing about thetop players and top level tennis.
You know that they do play alot of percentage tennis with their
(33:03):
shot selections and theirpatterns, but they are going after
the ball, and if there's aball there to take on that, they
take it on.
They all have ways to hurt you.
That's how you get to the top hundred.
You don't just get there byplaying it safe and making the court.
You probably can get too closeto it by playing it safe, and then
you need the weapons and.
Yeah, well, I was.
I was.
(33:23):
I was 120, between 115 and 140for five or six years.
Okay, so that's a long what.
That's a long time.
What keeps you going?
Like, obviously, you know, you're.
You're in that place whichmany players.
We're just speaking about someIrish players, Sam Barry, James McGee,
Conor Knight, they all got tothat ranking, and for whatever reason,
(33:44):
injuries or they weren'tprepared to stick it out a bit longer
and see if they could breakthrough but you're still there.
You broke through, andobviously you've gone the other way,
but you're going back up now.
Why do you still play tennis?
A few reasons.
I believe I can break through again.
I think I can get higher thanI did before.
(34:04):
I just need the opportunities,and it's difficult because obviously
I'm probably going to have toplay a year of futures now to be
able to compete at the challenges.
I believe that if I could playat the challenges right now, I'd
compete pretty well.
So that's one of the reasons,because I believe I've still got
plenty left to give in the sport.
(34:24):
I think one of the bigmotivations for me is to show other
players that it can be done,and there's a certain way that you
should go about it and acertain work ethic and a philosophy
that I want to have otheryounger players look at me and say,
okay, that's how you'resupposed to do it.
Because there were times whenI was younger that there weren't
(34:47):
many, should we say, positiveinfluences in.
In British tennis that were.
You had a couple, you had a few.
Yeah.
I mean, obviously, Andy livedin Miami when I was younger, so,
you know, the younger guysnever really saw Andy, but a lot
of the guys older than metended to go out a lot, not take
(35:08):
their tennis too seriously,and that was kind of what my role
models were.
So I kind of had to learn tofigure it out for myself.
Whereas a big thing that Itried to do is sort of show myself
in a way that I would havewanted to see a player when I was
younger.
Did you ever get sucked intothat going out?
(35:28):
And was there part of yourcareer where you did a bit too much
of that?
Yeah, probably for five or six years.
Okay.
I think it was at the end of2018 that I stopped sort of doing
that and decided I needed totake my tennis a bit more seriously.
And, you know, that that's agreat regret of mine that, you know,
that could have been anotherfour or five years that I was figuring
(35:49):
my game out.
And, you know, I could have been.
Could have had the experienceI have now at 26 or 27.
And obviously the experienceI'm gonna have when I'm 35, I could
have had now, which obviouslywould be a lot more helpful.
But, you know, everyone's different.
Like I said, I didn't havereally many people saying, no, this
(36:10):
isn't how you do this.
This isn't.
You know, you need to do this.
This will affect you poorly.
You Know, like, I was, I wasstill kind of from that era when
sports.
Yeah.
And sports science was kind ofstarting to come in when I was younger,
it kind of wasn't nutrition,kind of was.
Kind of wasn't.
(36:30):
And like, you say, like, Imean, that was just a thing people
did.
Like, I remember there wereplayers on tour that would be going
out two or three times a weekand getting absolutely hammered,
whereas now that, that's not a thing.
People don't do that.
Yeah, you would have heard a lot.
Even on Futures Tour wherethey lose, they're straight out a
night or two next week.
Lose, you're losing every week.
Like, so you're out once ortwice every.
(36:51):
It's critty.
And then these things costmoney as well.
So you're blowing money on.
You're not sleeping, chance ofpicking up injuries.
There's so much negative about it.
Yeah, exactly.
And one thing I learned aboutthe drinking as well, which, again,
I learned through experiencerather than somebody telling me was,
I remember I'd be doing atraining block and I would go out
(37:13):
on the Friday, obviously, I'dget back at 3, 4am and I've, I'd
be recovering the Saturday andthe Sunday, rather than from the
trading block.
I'd be recovering from thenight out.
And then it would take.
And then Monday, Tuesday, Iwould still be, you know, at practice,
kind of like, I'm still a bit tired.
And then it would be sort ofThursday and I'd be like, okay, I
(37:35):
feel like myself again now.
And then I'm.
I'm out again on Friday.
So it's like.
So after, so after a year ofthat, I was kind of like, I'm only
really getting a day, a day oftraining a week in a sense, because
I'm still recovering, eventhough I'm.
Yeah.
So I, I, I'm somebody who'slearned from their own experiences,
I guess, the hard way.
(37:56):
But you probably won't listento anybody.
Well, it took a while.
Probably.
It took wise words from Andyand I'm not sure exactly.
Yeah, I listened.
I listened to the world number one.
Did he not tell you, Wimbledon champion?
Did he not tell you you shouldquit at some stage?
Did he not say.
Was that.
Was there some.
Never.
No, no.
I think in a joke.
No.
I don't know how I talk.
(38:16):
No, no, not even as a joke.
I mean, you know, he's, he's,you're completely right.
We do have that relationship.
And he, and he's always been,you know, very harsh with his, with
his with his humor, but that'sjust who he is.
That's a very Scottish senseof humor as well, I think.
But, you know, he.
He always kind of had a beliefin my game that I probably didn't
(38:42):
see from other people.
I kind of felt like he couldsee that there was the potential
to be top hundred.
I mean, he told me that Iwould get to 90 in the world probably
two or three years before Idid, which is a pretty good guess
so far.
Yeah.
What else has he said now?
Do you still speak to him?
You still on the.
I speak to him a little bit.
(39:02):
I think he's a bit busy, isn'the, with his golf and his family
life and.
And with Novak.
But I get the odd messagesometimes laughing at my odd Instagram
post and.
Nice, nice.
You're quite.
You're quite outspoken.
You say what you feel and doyou feel more tennis players should
be like that?
I know we talked about itearlier a little bit, but there's
(39:24):
no personalities.
But do you think tennisplayers are afraid to say stuff like
they're worried about sponsors?
What do people think andwhat's your opinion?
Yeah, I 100 think that.
I think that's the modern ageof sportsmen and athletes.
Right.
You have to be sellable and,you know, having strong political
(39:45):
opinions or philosophical, youknow, ideas about things don't necessarily
cater to a wider audience.
If you look at, you know, aRoger and a Rafa, they never put
a toe out of line on any subject.
They did that so well acrosstheir career.
And, you know, lo and behold,they were probably the two most successful
tennis players in history ofthe sport, financially as well as
(40:08):
on the court.
Oh, I mean, you know, whatRoger did off the court was incredible.
Whereas, you know, Novak,somebody who is perhaps spoken out
a little bit more as hasprobably not had the same level of
financial gain off the courtas they have.
But then it gets.
It just gets stage where what,you know, you don't need all this.
Well, you know, when you getto their level of money, whether
(40:29):
you've 100, 200 or a billion,I'm sure life is still good.
And does it really make a difference?
I don't.
I don't.
I know they're competitivepeople and they want.
They want to be the best.
They want more money as well.
But I'm sure it doesn't bother Novak.
Yeah, I agree with that.
But it's so tough, you know,as a tennis player, because you have
(40:49):
to be aware every time youever do an interview, anything you
say could Be misconstrued.
It's such a poison chalice.
You know, you kind of have tofind the balance of being your honest
self without, you know, sayingsomething that.
That can be taken the wrongway or, you know, even if you miss
(41:10):
word a sentence and it comesup and, you know, so you have to
be hyper aware at all times of.
Of what you're doing and whatyou're saying.
So I.
I do understand why it getslike that, but I do think it's sometimes
to the detriment of the sport.
I think you look at NickKyrgios, you know, if.
If Nick wasn't the characterhe is, I don't think he'd be half
as famous or draw half as manycrowds as he does.
(41:31):
You know, it's Nick's aboveand beyond everything else.
It's Nick's personality thatdraws people in.
Yeah.
And look, some brands actuallywant that as well.
So, you know, they all don'twant the clean person.
Some want somebody's a bit more.
I think now only his revenuefrom brand deals will tell us really
what goes on there.
But no, and probably when thisepisode goes out, sinners coming
(41:55):
back on court.
I know.
I don't think you're happyabout Sinner, about the whole doping
thing.
Do you think he should havegot a.
Do you think he's innocent or guilty?
First of all.
It'S so difficult.
We have no way of knowing.
But the thing that, I mean, Iactually got a phone call from another
(42:16):
player to talk me through thefacts around the case.
And because when I first sawthe case, I thought, this is complete
bogus.
Like, this makes no sense.
You know, if you.
If you use your logic and youlook at this case, there are too
many things that you say,would that happen in a normal situation
(42:37):
like that?
That's the thing.
I understand how it works withthe law and, you know, with lawyers
and stuff.
I get that.
But as a normal person, yousit down, you look at it and you
go, there's a few too manycoincidences here.
And there are somesimilarities with other cases in
the past when it's come outthat the player was doping.
But having said that, I spoketo another player who was very well
(42:59):
informed on the subject, andhe kind of walked me through the
different.
The rules, you know, the rulebook, the laws around it, how basically
the reason why he got foundnot guilty.
And I don't think that he wasdoing it.
I do think that it was a caseof, you know, what's the word for
(43:20):
it?
Accidental contamination.
Okay.
So, so I do think that thatwas the case.
The thing that really upset methe most was that there were players
who I know, players who I'mfriends with, who I respect as athletes
and as, as people who gotpunished far beyond what Jannik ever
has.
(43:40):
You know, one and a half, twoyears there was a player, a South
American player who was on a,a temporary back ban.
The same thing again, a contamination.
So he, he got found innocent,but got a lengthier ban because he
played a level of professionalfootball in South America whilst
(44:01):
he was supposed to be on the ban.
And I'm talking, you know,Sunday league football mess.
Yeah, you know, so there'splayers like this getting punished
and, you know, again, MikhailImma got a year and a half ban.
There were no drugs in his system.
He got found to, to, you know,he missed his third test.
But let me tell you, that isso easy to do.
I saw Tenacity Coconakistalking about it last year.
(44:24):
I'm still on the dopingwhereabouts testing.
Now I'm ranked 700 in the world.
But last year I missed two.
I'd missed three tests, butthe first one was from the year before.
Then one time, me and mygirlfriend, because my brother does
my, my whereabouts for me, mygirlfriend had come back from a long
(44:47):
trip and I said, oh, let'sjust go and get a nice hotel tonight.
Let's go for a nice evening.
And it was at 4 o'clock in theevening, so I forgot to tell my brother,
lo and behold, the guy turnsup that one day.
I mean, it's crazy how oftenit happens.
And then it would have beenthe third missed test.
And I thought, oh my God, I'mabout to get banned for a year and
a half for missing three tests.
But it turned out the firsttest was outside of the 12 months.
(45:10):
So trust me, it is so easy tomiss three tests.
I'm sure many of our listenersdon't know, but how does this whereabouts
work?
Do you have to give like 12months notice of your whereabouts?
Did you update it every weekor every month or every day?
How exactly does it work?
In a minute?
Yeah, so you have to do it quarterly.
(45:30):
You have to update quarterlyyour whereabouts every day where
you're going to be sleeping.
If you're going to be flyingovernight, then you have to, you
know, put somethingspecifically in for that.
You have to put where you'regoing to be training, if you're going
to be playing tournaments.
You have to say whether it'sgoing to be a competition or training
or if you've got a week off,you can change it, you know, like
(45:52):
the day before, but you haveto do every single day of the year
an account for where you'regoing to be and then give a window
that they can come and visitin that.
In that time.
So you can't be really ran,you know, you can't.
If you're most random person,you're sort of.
You're gonna get caught out,which a.
Lot of us are, of course.
You know, like, I mean, a lotof athletes tend to.
Tend to have a mild dose of adhd.
(46:13):
Yeah.
So it's.
It doesn't.
It doesn't do well to do thatsort of stuff.
Could.
It could be a case.
Liam, we just got entry.
We got a wild card into, Idon't know, into Monica, wherever,
like, let's get in the plane.
And you forget to fill it outbecause there's so many other things
going on and, well, so your.
Your brother looks after it.
You're completely right.
That's.
(46:33):
That's what's so difficultabout it, is that the tennis player's
schedule, as you have justsaid, it can change from hour to
hour, never mind week to weekor day to day.
I mean, sometimes you don'tknow where you're going until.
I mean, my girlfriend, classiccase, she flew to a tournament on
Monday but didn't know whereshe was going to play on the Sunday
(46:54):
she was waiting to see whatthe cuts were.
So it is so difficult to do.
And that's what happened with Nikel.
It was his agent that wasdoing the whereabouts for him.
And they put that he was inthe official hotel.
And sometimes these eventshave two official hotels and Mikel
was in the second officialhotel, not the first.
And that's how he got bannedfor a year and a half from the sport.
(47:16):
And he was 45 in the world.
So that's what really upsets me.
People like Mikel get punishedfor that.
But then, you know, and again,it's not.
It's not Janik.
But then how people then get aban like that when they have substances
in their system?
(47:37):
It just doesn't morally sitright with me.
I think one, the moral storyis it helps when you have money you
can pay the best liars to.
Exactly.
His liars were better than theother liars.
But that's what frustrates meas well, because philosophically
speaking, that's what I loveabout the sport of tennis is that,
you know, we're all equal.
You know, you can't.
(47:57):
It's not like football.
Janik can't go out and say,oh, I like Alcaraz's forehand.
I'm going to buy that for £25 million.
In tennis, if you're the besttennis player, you're the best tennis
player.
And the money comes the cream.
I always say the cream alwaysrises to the top in tennis.
The rankings never lie.
But that's why it'sfrustrating with this stuff, because
whoever has the best lawyergets the, gets the least ban, which
(48:19):
just doesn't sit right with me.
And speaking of football, PepGuardiola, you met him, do you have
any advice for you?
Not particularly, no.
I mean, I quite.
We had quite a lengthyconversation, a 10 or 15 minute conversation,
and I just liked, you know,picking his brain a little bit about,
because I've obviously beenobsessed with him for many years
and, you know, I read a couplebooks about him and stuff and I was
(48:41):
just really interested to getan insight into, like, mentality
and obviously as a big cityfan, getting insight into the squad
at the time.
And, you know, I asked him ifhe liked tennis and, you know, it
was interesting.
He said that he loves tennis.
He said he loves that tennisplayers in the tightest moments rise
to the challenge.
(49:02):
Which I think he was maybesaying that it's not as often that
that happens in football,which was, which was a funny thing
to think because obviously Ithink sometimes we take it for granted
how often we see, you know,sometimes the best tennis of the
match at the tightest times.
You know, we all do it.
We'll switch on at 6 all inthe third because we're all like,
oh, you know, I want to see that.
Or, you know, six all, firstset breaker, like you're five all.
(49:24):
Like, let's see that.
Whereas obviously in othersports sometimes the, the standard
sort of regresses, whereas intennis it improves.
So, yeah, it was cool to speak to.
Well, you can see how that happens.
Six all.
Both people are turned on.
So it takes the best of youropponent to bring out the best in
you and you bring out the bestof them.
And.
Yeah, and so any one bit ofadvice did you pick up from that
(49:47):
we were sharing to tennis players?
He didn't, he didn't actuallygive me any advice personally, but,
you know, he was, he wasprobably one of the nicest people
I've ever spoken to.
And, you know, my biggesttakeaway from that was that his gift
to me was, was to give me 10or 15 minutes of his time.
(50:07):
As, you know, I'm probably, Ican't say I'm one of his biggest
fans, but I'm definitely up there.
10 or 15 minutes of his timewithout, you know, he didn't.
He wasn't on his phone.
Just, you know, he turned meaway from the cameras, had a really
personal, private conversationwith me.
And, yeah, that.
That was probably the bestgift he could have given me.
Nice.
Tough year this year.
(50:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's been.
It's been a tough 12 months.
Yeah.
Like, did you give him somebad luck when you met him?
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe he gave it to me.
I don't know.
Yeah.
A couple more questions that.
So if you're 18 again, Liam,what's the one piece of advice you'd
give yourself that you'velearned in the past 14 years?
(50:51):
I.
I think I would try to put across.
If you make the sacrifices,even when you don't believe does
make a difference in the longrun, and it will make a difference.
(51:11):
Do you need people around you,though, that believe in you?
I don't know.
It's a tough one because Ifeel like there were many times across
my career where I felt nobodybelieved in me.
I think for me, one thing I'venoticed a lot that makes a big difference
(51:32):
to players is having a strongfoundation at home.
You know, we see it now allthe time in the boxes of the WTA
and ATP players.
They often have parents in the box.
Rafa Nadal had Uncle Tony.
I think that's a big one.
But, yeah, I think it took mea long time to.
(51:52):
It's almost like a leap offaith that I'm talking about that
for a long time, I was rankednot where I wanted to be.
So I wasn't willing to makesacrifices, not go on that night
out, not go and meet thatfriend, not, you know, change my
diet, not play thosetournaments because I wanted to be
a normal kid.
Whereas, you know, once I kindof decided to at least try, that
(52:19):
snowballed.
And I think.
And I think that's the big onewas when I finally decided to stop
going out.
I.
I kind of said, okay, let's.
Let's give it 12 months now,because I wasn't happy.
I wasn't happy doing that.
And.
And I knew that I was wastingmy talent.
I kind of decided at the startof the year, I lost to Ivashka in
Australian Open Qualys, and Ilost, like, three in love.
(52:41):
I got absolutely trounced.
And I called my coach and Isaid, look, I don't even want to
talk about the match.
I said, what I want to do ismake a promise to you and to myself
that for this next 12 months,I'm going to make every decision
I possibly can to be the bestplayer I can be.
And I said, I don't even wantto worry about results for the next
12 months.
Let's see where my ranking isand then we can go from there.
(53:01):
And that kind of has just beenthe case ever since.
Good.
No, it's good advice.
The commitment.
And lastly.
So you like Ireland?
I love Ireland, yeah.
And you did mention you'regonna have to play a few futures
this year.
You're gonna come over hereand play the futures.
I'm not sure if the ass.
If the.
The legendary astro in Irelandwould suit me too much.
(53:23):
But you know what I would love?
I would love to come toIreland to playing event one day.
A bit of chip and charge in here.
This may be the only time youactually get to play it this year
because you're back on the ATPnext year, you know, so you.
I don't.
I can't see us having even achallenger here anytime soon.
So a bit of chipping andcharge and I think you'd cause a
bit of trouble.
Yeah, I think for me, I mean,that's the one place to test the
(53:46):
commitment is Dublin.
I mean, the Guinness is.
The Guinness is too good.
I mean, you know, I went atthe end of last year with my girlfriend.
I'm.
It was a shame we only got togo for a couple of days and we were
both sick, but we absolutelyfell in love with the city.
The people were amazing.
I love the energy about theplace and I think it's a beautiful
(54:09):
area as well with the riverflowing through it.
I think we'll go back and tryand spend more time there next time.
I mean, I didn't realize howexpensive the taxis were there, though.
Everything's expensive here.
Never mind.
Just.
Jack Draper likes it over hereas well.
He's had a few sessions withSimon Carr.
He was probably not allowedover this year because he's on his,
(54:30):
you know, now.
He's a, you know, he's an idol.
He's an inspiration now, so.
But he seems to like it aswell, so it's good to.
It's good to have.
And then Evans doing a bit oftraining over here, so.
Yeah, so.
So, I mean, pretty much allthe Brits that go over love Dublin.
I think a lot of us wouldprobably train there if there was
a base for us.
Wait till the functionaltennis base goes live.
(54:53):
I'll give you a base you cancome train a mice.
There we go.
Couple indoor courts at a gymand we'll be set.
Yeah, that's it.
Win, win for everybody.
Yeah, but no, that's good.
So look, I hope to see youover here at some stage and if I
see in a pub, I will have todrag you out though.
Let me finish my Guinnessfirst though.
Thank you very much, Liam.
(55:15):
No, thank you, man, Iappreciate it.
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