I'm Too Busy TV - w/ guest John Lloyd - I'm Too Busy!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to I'm Too Busy, an interview based show hosted
by a talented makeup artist, Christina Black. Christina offers viewers
a unique blend of personal stories, inspiring journeys, and practical
beauty tips. Join the conversation as Christina features successful individuals
from various industries who share their insights on health, wellness,

(00:24):
makeup and the keys to their success.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So now please.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Welcome the host of I'm Too Busy, Christina Flack.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Welcome to I'm Too Busy TV. I'm your host, Christina Black,
and today we're diving into the extraordinary life of John Lloyd,
who stands as a towering figure in British tennis history.
A former British number one player, Grand Slam finalist and
champion in both Wimbledon and French Open mixed doubles, his
remarkable family story includes the unique achievement of three brothers

(00:58):
all competing in Wimbledon's singing in the same year. For
the past two decades, John has been the voice of
Tennis for BBC, bringing the sport to life with millions
of yours. His journey encompasses high profile marriage to tennis
legend Chris Evert and personal battle with cancer, all of
which he faced with candor and courage. He is also

(01:18):
the author of Dear John, And I'd like to welcome
my friend John Lloyd. Hi John, how are you good?

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Nice to see you.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
How you doing very good?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, it was a beautiful day here in South Florida,
so it was all nice. Can't complain February and eighty degrees.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
You can't beat that, you can't. And you got to
play your beloved golf, which I know you love so much.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, I'm not very good at it, but I love
having to go at it. What the heck?

Speaker 2 (01:46):
All good golfers say that they're not good at it,
just so you know. Yeah, So John, why don't you
tell us a little bit about your early days when
you were started playing tennis in you know, London and
against the garage wall in Essex.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Well, yes, we had my parents. We lived in a
very small, little little house about sixteen hundred square feet
and we had four kids with an outside bathroom. So
that was that was That was nice, especially in winter
sitting on that toilet seat in December. Oh my gosh.
But we had a family of tennis people which was great.

(02:26):
My brother David, who's six or seven years older than me.
He was already a good player by the time, you know,
he was twelve years old. He was ranked in the
top three or four in Britain. And so for me,
you know, it was something I wanted to try and copy,
and my younger brother, two years younger than me, wanted
to sort of copy meat. But we did spend a
lot of time, both of us playing hitting balls against

(02:48):
the coal shed out in our little, tiny little garden,
playing volleying games and imagining that we were playing at
women and against some of the great Australian players who
were my heroes in that time. And you know, we
had a very healthy lifestyle. We used to play tennis
at the weekend at our local club, which was a
family club, and you would spend all day down there.

(03:10):
My mother would make sandwiches and salads for us and
we would play tennis in the morning and play other
games football and other things, and then we'd play some
more tennis in the afternoon, have food there all day,
and then during the weekday we would try and play
after school. So it was a very sort of healthy
environment to live in. And of course I got plenty
of tennis, which was great.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Did your parents Were they really involved in the tennis
as well? Were they players?

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Well, my dad took up tennis very late, but fell
in love with the sport. He became a good play
he got to women and qualifying. Wow, yeah, we didn't
go past that. But then he went into coaching and
we were very fortunate to be coached by him because
he was you know, some of tennis parenting as you know,
you've seen it, you've been around it. You know, it

(03:57):
can be sometimes a little bit over the top with
the young the young kids. And my father I thought
had the sort of the perfect balance. He you know,
he worked, as you know, hard when we played, but
he also didn't put the pressure on us to feel
that we were sort of he was living through us

(04:17):
financially and whatever. And of course in those days when
I started playing, there was no real money in tennis.
I mean I certainly didn't start playing thinking, boy, if
you know, if I played well, I could become a millionaire,
because there wasn't a million dollars in tennis in those days.
I just wanted to be trying to be a Wimbledon champion.
And my father was a coach that got me to

(04:39):
a certain level, and then when I was sort of
fourteen or fifteen, he thought he had gone as far
as his knowledge could take me, and then he passed
me on to my mentor, John Barrett, who was a
former Davis Cup player. So my father had no ego.
He didn't want to sort of hang on and take
all the credit for coaching the three boys. Wanted to

(05:00):
do the best for our career, and so he had
no ego and pushed us on into other other coaches,
which was great. Really, it really helped us a lot.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
I was very generous of him, Yeah, very mature, right,
because exactly with a lot of tennis parents, that's not
the case.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
No, Well, there's so many of them. I feel so
sorry kids. Yeah, and they you know, some of them
they mean it. Some of them mean it in a
good way, but you know, they they'll give up their
lives to basically put all of their money in financing
into trying to get their son or daughter to become
professional players. The problem with that, the odds are so

(05:40):
so slim that that's going to happen. And how would
you like to feel if you're a ten eleven year
old and basically your parents you know that your parents
have mortgaged their house, you know, stopped having holidays, doing
everything just so that you can make it. I mean
it's admirable in some ways, but it also puts pressure
on the young kids, and it's it's not a good

(06:03):
way of doing it. And I've seen so many families
ruined by the pressure that they've put on their kids,
and then the kids rebelling and in the end they
don't have a relationship and their whole family has sort
of been destroyed by hitting a yellow tennis ball over
the net.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
It's so ridiculous, it is, and it's I mean there's
already enough pressure on them to compete, and then to
add that family pressure, it's it's really unfair and it's
so unhealthy. What was it like, What was it like
when all three Lloyd boys were playing at Wimbledon. That
must have been so exciting for your family.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Yeah, it was a special time for us to all
get in. It's never been done before and may never
happen again. Who knows. And see my father and my mother,
because they sacrifice so much for us, they never had
a holiday literally until we started making money and we

(06:59):
could send them to places because that they all the
money that they had. We would go off in the
summer and play small tournaments and stay in bed and
breakfast places. My mother would come with us and we'd
play these events and that was that was that was
all their sort of money that they'd save for holidays
and so on. And when we saw them at Wimbledon

(07:20):
and and you know, they turn up at the gates
there and walk in and see, you know, they're three
boys playing, I think we all felt like, at least
we're sort of putting a little bit back and that
you know, it's sort of been worth it for them,
and see their faces with us competing with something very special.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
What moments to find your journey to becoming British as
number one player?

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, I think it was I was fortunate that in
my era there are a lot of other good British
players that came up at the same time and so
we had a lot of competition around, which was great
for us. It was obviously a goal for me to
become British number one, you know, it was a big honor.
My work ethic wasn't as strong as I would as

(08:08):
it should have been, but I was fortunate that I
had a decent amount of talent that I could get
to a good level without maybe working as hard as
I would have liked to have done, or should have done,
should I say, But it was always a sport. It
was such a wonderful thing in our family, and I
think for me it was just a question of, you know,

(08:29):
trying to become that British number one, that was my
goal and then from there going further up the world rankings.
And and you know, what a wonderful life for me
to have been fortunate to have had to have played
in all these wonderful places and meet the most amazing
people that I've that I've managed to on my journey,
and it continues to this day still playing with people

(08:49):
that have achieved so much in the world of politics
or in business, and to be around those people and
have fun with them on the tennis court has been
I've been very fortunate.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
I heard on another podcast that you were on that
you were talking about the difference between a good player
and a great player or a legendary player. You mentioned
the difference. You were talking once about how Chris had
lost in a tournament and she was really foul on
the way home, and you thought, all right, let's go
on holiday and sit on a beach and relax. And
she's like, oh, hell no, we're gonna I'm gonna go

(09:25):
play until I, you know, beat that person again. And
so do you do you agree with that?

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah? I mean I think the champions there, there's something
they have, something special. People always ask me, you know,
have they worked on it or are they born with it?
And I think it's a combination of both. I think
that special that that hardness that they have, that will
to win. I'm not so sure you can teach that.

(09:53):
I think you can help it, but I think you're
born with that to a certain extent. And Chris and
many other champions that you and I have have been
around and know that they have that special thing where
they're willing to run through a brick wall, you know,
to get the results. And I remember a couple of stories,
the one that you just mentioned with Chris, but another
one slightly different but the same sort of thing. I

(10:15):
remember once with Jimmy Connors and we were playing an
event in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Indoor Event, which was a
big event in those days. In those days, they didn't
have the facilities that they have nowadays. In tournaments, and
we only had the one main court, so there was
no practice available. Matches were basically started at ten o'clock
in the day and then went on till two or

(10:36):
three o'clock in the morning, and I remember jim and
I both won our first round matches and then Jimmy said,
you know, tonight, we're going to do something different and
I said, what's that and he said, well, we're going
to wake up. You know, we were in different rooms obviously,
and we're going to go over to the spectrum where
we played, and we're going to play at three o'clock
in the morning for an hour.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
It's unbelievable looking at.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Him and saying, are you insane, I'm sleeping, what are
you talking about? No, no, no, no, we need to
get practice. And so I did it, and I remember
going to the to the indoor place, freezing cold, you know,
getting putting clothes on, and then for the first half
an hour I couldn't even see the boy. I was
in a coma. And then we finished for an hour
and Jimmy said, you realize what we've just done and

(11:21):
I said, yeah, I've missed a dave's sleep at night's sleep,
and he said, no, no, you're not getting the point.
We've we've got something psychological over the rest of the
players in the drawer because no one else has practiced
one on one like we have just done. And for
me it was like, Okay, great, Jimmy, but don't ask
me again. How about that? That's the sort of the

(11:44):
edge that he wanted to have over follow over his
fellow players, and that would never have I would just
never have even thought of something like that. And I'm
sure as hell didn't want to do it again either,
and I didn't.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Can you share with me your most memorable ground slam experiences.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Well, there was a number of I'd have to say
winning the first mixed doubles event at Wimwedon was my
most special and the reason, yes, it wasn't singles. And
I got to the finals of the Australian Open, which
you know was obviously a fabulous occasion for me. I
lost to my old buddy who passed away many years

(12:25):
ago now, vitas gerrolitis, right, such a tragic thing for him.
He was such a wonderful man and it happened way
too soon, but that was wonderful. But winning the mixed
doubles at wimwedon ay something special because obviously it was
in my home country. And I remember being presented with

(12:47):
the trophy in the raw box, which is what they
do for the mixed doubles, and I remember looking down
to the box where the players guests were, and I
remember looking at my parents and looking at their face
and were just in this blissful yeah. And again I
thought to myself, you know, all the sacrifice that they've made,

(13:08):
hopefully I've given them just a little bit back to see,
you know, their son holding a Wimbledon trophy. So for me,
I would have to put that down as my most
memorable of the Slams that I've played in oh I.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Can only imagine how proud they were. What was the
transition like from a player to Davis's coach and captain, Well.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
Big difference obviously playing that, you know, because tennis is
a selfish sport. I mean you you you prepare and
you do things for yourself to make sure you're in
the best best position to play well, and then all
of a sudden you're coaching players, and tennis players are
all different. You can't you can't treat them all the same.
They're all different. And you've got to try and sort

(13:49):
of make sure that the team has a good team spirit,
and you've you've got to be able to read the
players and know what works for some players. Some players
are better practice players than others. Some players you need
to talk to a lot before and MAT's other ones
you keep it, You keep it quiet and let them
do their own thing. It was different, sort of giving

(14:10):
a lot more than what you were used to when
as a tennis player you were used to receiving and
not giving. And when I was captain even more so.
Then you really had to deal with people and you
were the boss. You had to organize the practices, the food,
the hotels we stayed in, and again just knowing the

(14:31):
different egos for players and I had a few big
egos in some of my teams, and you had to
sort of try and manage it the best way possible
so that they would give their best performance on the court.
I loved the job. Gave me a lot of heartbreak
at times. We weren't very successful. Towards the end, we
started off well and I got a lot of stick

(14:52):
for it and all that stuff, but the bottom line
was I was extremely proud and for me to have
been the coach and Dave Cup captain of Great Britain
was to me two of the biggest honors I have
had in the sport.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
No, it's it's monstrous. What inspired your move into tennis commentary?

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Well, actually it was sort of it. It came really
by an accident in a lot of ways, because I
after I retired, I was lucky because I think a
lot of players, particularly the great players, that have certainly
made enough money where they don't have to do anything,
and I aways, I always hear to them even to
this day when when when they're getting close to retiring
or they even do, and they say, you know, I'm

(15:36):
I'm so happy now that I can just relax, no
more traveling, no more packing suitcases. I can relax and
sit on the beach and so on and so on.
But that lasts about six months, and then after that
it's like, holy cows, I'm used to this, the regimented lifestyle,
the practice, the getting up, the training, It becomes part

(15:57):
of your blood getting on a plane and you miss it. Well,
I was fortunate that when I stopped, I certainly, you know,
didn't have sort of enough money where I could just
sort of stop, and I didn't want to, and I
got into team tennis and various other things, so I
didn't go cold Turkey. And then all of a sudden commentating,
which was something I'd never really thought of. Just by chance,

(16:20):
my ex wife was very friendly with the HBO, the
producer of the HBO tennis events, and in those days,
HBO the two weeks of Wimbledon, and they did it
in a big way and they paid very well, and
Arthur Ash very sadly had passed away, and there was
this opening and my ex wife suggested that, you know,

(16:43):
I talked to the producer about possibly working. I'm British
and so on and so on and a reasonably big
name over there, and I thought, well, what the hell?
So I called him up and he said, yeah, let's
do a screen test and I said, well, what the
hell's that and he said, well, he said, well, you're
going to do a test where your commentate with one

(17:06):
of our commentators, which was Jim Lampley, who was Jim
Lampley who was a very famous boxing commentator but also
did Wimbledon for many years, and we'll put you in
a studio and your commentate on a recorded match but
we'll have the headphones in and we'll have all the
production team and it will be like you're actually doing
a live match. And I said, okay, let's give it

(17:28):
a go. And I did it. I tried it. We're
in the studio in Los Angeles and I had this
earpiece and I've got this producer telling me instructions in
my ear and while I'm commentating, I didn't know what
the hell was going on. So a couple of times
he would say, okay, John, at the next change over,
we're going over to court thirteen. And I would say, okay,

(17:48):
got it, and he said no, no, no, no, don't say that.
And I said, okay, no. He said, no, no, no, don't
say that. You're talking live to the TV. Don't say anything.
And I went like that with my thumb. He said, yes,
don't say a word because you're on you're you're talking,
you know, into the microphone, and people can to hear you.
That was took me a long time to get used

(18:09):
to that commentating while someone is shouting in my ear.
And the funny thing was at HBO because I'd never
worked for anywhere else, so I thought it was normal.
But some of the stuff that the directors were saying
to the staff. I mean they were using F bombs
and every swear word. Jerking. Imagine, I'm trying to commentate

(18:29):
and I've got my producer in my ear telling camera
the cameraman number five that he was effing up and
what that f is going on? Screaming at him while
i'ming and it's going on right, and I'm trying to
talk about someone's forehand down the line and someone screaming
in my ear about that they've messed up with a
camera angle. And it took me a while to get

(18:51):
used to that, but I but I did, and it
was a bit of a struggle. And then after a
few years I moved into the BBC and it was
so funny to see the difference between the crews, I mean,
the producer in my ear at the BBC. When someone
messed up, they would be it would be so much
like the old gentleman style of Britain, you know, the

(19:12):
guy would say, oh, cameraman number three, come on, I
told you that we need to move a little bit quicker.
Can you do a little bit better please? I would
expect you to do this and that no F bombs
no swear, was no screaming. It was like night and
day between the two productions, but I enjoyed them both,
but it was it was certainly a big change going
from being on the court to commentating. And I remember

(19:35):
Ross Greenberg was my producer and when he signed me
up for two years, he said, listen, John, you are
now a commentator. You're not a player, and you've got
to understand that the players. I know that you know
some of them, but you've got to be when you're
commentating on them. You can't do them any the favors.
You've got to be honest in your broadcasting. If you're

(19:58):
not honest in your broadcasting, then your commentary, your commentating
career will be very very quick, and it will be
over before you can save Boo. And I remember the
first year I commentated, I was doing a match and
it was between Boris Becker and someone and Boris, even
though I was younger than me, was a friend of
mine and I'd hit with him many for many years,

(20:20):
and he'd also loaned his house. He had a house
down in Palm Springs, so when I got married, he
allowed me to use the place for a week for
some of my out of town guests, so I was
pretty close with him, and I remember Boris during that
match took a bathroom break and went into the bathroom,
and then we got reports and it came back in
my earpiece that his coach had followed him into the

(20:43):
bathroom and was talking tactics to him, where you weren't
allowed to do that in those days. That was compelling taboo.
So the commentator asked me, you know, what do you
think should happen? And I said, well, to be honest,
he should really be defaulted in this match. Well, of
course I didn't sit too well with Boris when he
heard and all that sort of stuff, and he wasn't

(21:05):
too happy with me for a while. But that was
my job. That wasn't that I was out going out
there to barbecue a tennis player. But if a player
did something that wasn't right, behaved badly, or or was
playing badly, it was my job to say that on
the TV and not to soft soap it and let
them get away with it, because that was my job.

(21:26):
So it took a bit of a bit of time
for me to get used to doing that.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Was he defaulted from that match.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
He was not defaulted. He was okay, but he was well,
he was annoyed because you'd heard the what I had said.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Right, But what are you supposed to say? You're trying
to do your job. I mean, you're put in a
very awkward position.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Correct, But that was.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
A no win situation there, right.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
It really wasn't. But I had a two year contract
and they were paying me a lot of money, so
that was my job and I had to do I
had to do it. And you know, it's different when
you're on the other foot. When you're a player, you
don't like to hear criticism, but when you're a commentator,
you do have to do that sometimes. And I liken
it to the fact that for tennis players, you are

(22:09):
going to have bad days. You are going to have
days where you play badly or you choke. But it
will be like going to work in an office and
maybe you'd had a hangover and your and your boss
sees you, he's going to chew you out. Well, you
have to do the same thing when you're a commentator.
It's not nasty, but if someone is choking, you've got
to say that, or if they're mistaking it's not happening.

(22:30):
You can't pretend it's not happening. It doesn't work. The
common the public are not stupid. They see it and
if you kind of, you know, you try and smooth
it over by saying, oh, yeah, he's having a bad day,
or well he does it, he's not normally like this
or someone and sort of soft soaping it. They see
that and they know that you're not doing your job.
I think that's one of the reasons why John McEnroe
has always been so successful, because he says it the

(22:53):
way it is, and he's never worried about getting criticism
from anybody in the locker room. He tells it the
way it is, and I think that's why the public
have loved his commentating over the years.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
I was just going to ask you about John. So
doesn't he not wear an ear piece?

Speaker 3 (23:09):
He does not wear an earpiece? Yeah, and he Yeah.
I've worked with him quite a few times. There's some
good things and some bad things. Working with John. You're
on your toes with him all the time. Because, again
with the criticisms that I've said about what he'll say
to players, he'll also say to his fellow commentators if
he disagrees, and the problem with that is that if

(23:30):
he disagrees with you, he's got by far the biggest profile.
And it's very difficult to disagree with John McEnroe. And
if you say something I disagree with, he'll call you
out on air and say, no, no, you've got that wrong. Well,
he may actually have got it wrong with The trouble
is you can't go really up against him because he's
the man. You know, he's him, But he's a funny

(23:52):
guy and a lot of times when he goes off
on these tangents, I love listening to myself and I'm
commentating with him, so I just let him go and
I'm in the commentary booth. Sometimes I'll have a cup
of tea and I'll be eating a biscuit. He'll be
carrying on. And then sometimes my producer in my earpiece
will say, John, you know, we haven't heard from you
for about twenty minutes. Are you alive? And I'll say, yeah, yeah,

(24:14):
I am, but you know, but John's doing his thing,
and I just let him go. And then of course
we had a famous incident that was live and I
hope this is okay to say on.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Say whatever you can say. You can say.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Bad words okay, okay, Well, just like we were.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Talking if we were out of dinner together.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
Oh beautiful. I love that. Well. One time when I
was with Johnny Matt commentating and we were doing a
match live on the Center cord and it was a
semi finals of women between Tim Henman and Gore and
Ivanizovitch and Tim Hemman was up two sets to one
in this huge match, and then it rained. In those days,
of course, they didn't have the roof. So when that

(24:54):
happened and there was going to be a break for
twenty thirty minutes whatever, they would bring a camera into
the booth where we were sitting right on the court,
and they would face the camera at us, and Johnny
Mack and myself would have to look in the camera.
Sue Barker, who was our presenter, she'd be in the
studio and she'd be looking at us through a monitor,
but we weren't allowed to We weren't supposed to look
at her. We have to look in the camera. So

(25:16):
Sue Barker comes in and starts talking and says, you know,
I'm joined here by the two John's John Lloyd, John McEnroe. Well,
John Lloyd, what do you think Tim Herman has to
do to win this match when he comes back from
this this rain break. And I said, you know, blah
blah blah needs to come in more and work on whatever.
I can't remember what it was. And then he said

(25:38):
and then she said, well, Johnny Mack, what do you think?
And of course Johnny Mack doesn't have his earpiece, so
he just rattles on and he goes. He says, well, Sue,
and he forgot. What John didn't know at the time
was that there are different meanings for words in England
than there are in the States. And the word fanny
in England meets the front part of the woman and

(25:59):
not the back sigh. And he didn't know good enough,
and it's obviously a swear word in England. And so
he rattles on and he starts talking about the men
and the British men. He says, well, these British men
have got to come back from having a beer and
support Tim as loud as possible. He needs that crowd support.
And as for the women, the same thing. They've got

(26:20):
to come in and sit on their fans as quick
as possible.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Well, and he thought he was saying a better word.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Than he thought he was talking about their backsides, and
he didn't realize he was talking about the front part
of all. My god, and so my producer, Sue Barker,
and I've never seen her loss for words. Her face
was I looked up, her mouth was open, didn't know
what to say. And my producer was in my earpiece
and said, oh, my god, for God's sake, did he

(26:47):
just say, Fanny John, help him out. For Christ's sake,
help him out. So I sort of tapped Bac on
the shoulder and he's looking at me like kind of yeah,
And I look in the camera and I said, too,
he means their backsides and Max said yeah, I mean
their asses. Yeah. He still didn't get it, so we
had we had to tell him afterwards. So like Live

(27:10):
TV with Johnny Mack.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
That's intense. What other matches and that, you know, did
you commentate that were just so memorable to you?

Speaker 3 (27:19):
Oh my gosh, I've had so many. I mean, the
the the Federal and the Dole, the match when it
ended up in darkness basically was just you know, one
of the old timers. I mean obviously Andy Murray, you know,
winning Wimbledon and being there and there's so many. I've

(27:39):
commentated on the Davis Cup when we won the Davis
Cup for the first time for years, when we beat Belgium.
I was commentating on that match and to see the
faces and knowing that, you know, I was a part
of the team that got to the finals but didn't
win it, but to see their reaction and the British
public going bonkers, It's very difpent to put one match

(28:02):
in particular because I've had so many of them that
you know, have moved me in different ways, you know,
just to sad, just to see the brilliance of you know,
Roger Federer, who you know, he would win sometimes matches,
certainly when he was at his best, and he was
at his best for many years, but when he was
really at his best on grass, he was he would

(28:25):
pretty much demolish opponents in the first few rounds. And
I remember people would say to me, you know, don't
you get you know, sort of bored commentating on Federer
at the beginning, in the first few rounds when he's
winning six two six one six two six two six
two sixty three. And I said, nah, I said, I don't,
because I'm commentating on an artist, a complete artist, and

(28:47):
I know that in every match that he plays he's
going to hit four or five shots minimum that I
am just going to be spellbound that how can a
human being hit a ball like that with so much
grace and so much brilliance the imagination to even think

(29:07):
of a shot, let alone pull it off. For me,
he was just something special. Whenever I commentated on him,
I thought I was the luckiest person to just to
watch that brilliance. And I've seen many brilliant players in
women and the men, but for me, he was something

(29:27):
that it's difficult to describe. He was. He was the
Bearishna Cough of tennis. He was just graceful, of no effort,
of just doing things with the ball that I didn't
think were possible. I loved commentating on him, right.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
And that's the perfect way to describe it. The Barishnakov
of kinnis that's beautiful. What do you think has changed
from tennis broadcasting? How's it evolved over the past two decades?
What's changed?

Speaker 3 (29:56):
Well, I think it's become It depends on you're talking
about American style or British style. I mean the BBC
for an example, we're still told, very firmly at the
beginning that do not talk during points. It is a
complete tamboo. On the BBC, the viewers write in and

(30:18):
go ballistic, whereas an American TV people yap right through,
commentators yap through points. Whatever makes no difference, and it's
kind of, you know, verbal diarrhea in some ways. They
just never stop. I mean, but I think that's what
they're told to do, whereas on the BBC we're told

(30:38):
to pause, we're told to let the match breathe. Our
bosses are very happy sometimes you know, we won't commentate
for a three to four points, sometimes a game and
a half where we're just let the match breathe. And
especially if you're commentating on someone who's serving aces by
the dozen, it's like, why do you have to talk

(30:59):
about every single one of them? I mean, how many
times can you describe one hundred and thirty mile our
serve That was Britan, that was wonderful, that was stupendous,
that was in the end. You're just it's like, what's
the point. Just let the viewer see it. Let the
viewer make their own mind up whether they like that
or not. So I would say that in Britain, the

(31:20):
BBC hasn't changed that much. I would say that we
use obviously as the modern game we lose it. We
use a lot more statistics now, a lot more you know,
graphs are put up with things where the ball is
changing and where they're standing and all that stuff, whereas
in my day none of that stuff existed. We of course,
when I first started, we didn't have hawkeye, we didn't

(31:41):
have any of that stuff. So that's all changed. I
would say. In America the tennis, the commentators there are
how can I put it? They a lot of them
are brilliant at what they do, but it's very you know,
they're very book smart. But but they known percentages and

(32:03):
statistics and and this and that, and I think you
you have different audiences. I'll give an example when I
first started. Now times have change, but it's not that
much difference. But in the BBC when I first started, uh,
the late great Dan Maskell was still commentating. Now in
America they wouldn't know him, but he was the most

(32:23):
famous commentator and he had about five or six catchphrases
that he would use, and he really very rarely talked
about the real mechanical things about tennis, about grips and
so on and so on. He would just say he
had a beautiful voice. He would say these very short phrases,

(32:43):
like he would suddenly say there was a great winner
and he would say he'd go, oh, I say, I
see it, Oh I say. And I'm sure some people
were saying, well what.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Did you do?

Speaker 3 (32:56):
What did he say? And say, oh, I say, and
he'd say that was a peach of shot. And then
he would go ah and he've got like this. Well,
the housewives in Britain. Now, I know teams have changed,
but in those days they loved him. During those two
weeks of Wimbledham, they would all watch him. And Dann
Maskell told me one time, he said, look, you have

(33:16):
to know your audience, and your audience in Britain this
was those days. Things have changed, but it's still it's
still certainly not as sort of mechanical as what I
would say is in the States. He would say to
me that a lot of the viewers that are watching
don't even know how to score a tiebreaker. They only

(33:38):
watched tennis for these two weeks of the year. So
if you start talking about the pronation of a ball,
the grip changes, they won't know what the hell you're
talking about. So keep it simple. And I always learned
that obviously you had to evolve, but I've tried to
keep it very simple. I don't lecture. I just try
and just I try and talk about what I think

(34:01):
the player is thinking on the court, what is going
on in their mind. I don't talk so much about
grips and how they're doing this and how you know
the velocity of this and that and the percentages. I
try not. I try and keep it a little bit
more simple than that. I don't mean that because the viewers.
I'm dumbing down the viewers, but I think they they

(34:22):
less His best in Britain is in the States. It's
it's a it's a lot more, a lot more yabba
yaba yabah about everything, talk talk every single point.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Right. Do you think it's possible for two professional athletes
to have a blissful marriage while they're both playing.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Well, I would say it's difficult. I mean, obviously there
are people that succeeded, and I know we've got gal
Mont feast now and Sidelina that seemed to be very
happy and they seem to be combining it well, it's
not easy because, as I've said before, most sports, and

(35:00):
I think if you've got team games, it's different because
you know you've got you can rely on other people.
If you're having a bad day or your your child
has had a bad night sleeping or whatever, you can
maybe have a slight But tennis is a selfish sport
and it's an individual sport. And when when you play,
there are so many things, particularly now that goes into

(35:22):
making a player at his optimum level, and that's diet, sleep, stretching,
the physical stuff, knowing when to eat, when not to eat,
what to eat, what not to eat, you know, getting
enough sleep, going through matches, going through videos. It's night
and day. In comparison with my day, which was it

(35:45):
was just so much simpler. Now it's much more of
a business. And to have two people in the same
sport in some ways it's good because they understand what
you're thinking about. Whereas if you, as an example, are
either living or married to someone, whether it's whether the
player is a male player or the female, and you're

(36:06):
you're with someone who is a non player, maybe a
non athlete, a lot of times it takes them a
while to understand what their partner is feeling and when
to say the right things, and then what when not
to say the.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
Right thing, to say nothing, to say.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Nothing and leave them alone for certain times. That's not
that easy. So I would say there are benefits in
some ways to have a fellow professional, but they're also
the other ways where it's it's not easy to compete
when you're both competing in it's certainly in tennis, which
is such a tough sport.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Right, and you're also traveling in different places. You're not,
you're not you know, of course someone's in Japan and
someone's in New York. You know the challenge, all right.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
That's that's the obvious thing that I all forgot about.
It's the travel. Now. Obviously you've got the Grand Slams,
which are great when they're together, and you have the
Masters Series, but there are still a number of weeks
where you're traveling and going on the road without your
spouse and that's not easy.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
So what lessons did you learn from your interactions with
these big personalities like John McEnroe and our new president
Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Well, John McEnroe is I'm fascinated with him when I
talk to him because I've learned a lot from him commentating,
because I watch him and I see that he's like
he weaves the story. He sees things. He sees things
in rallies and points and games like ahead of time.

(37:41):
He knows what the person is thinking, and he's not
afraid to say it. And I've enjoyed my I don't
see him a lot, and I wouldn't say that we've
gone out to eat many times. But he's a very
smart guy and he has a lot of good stories,
and I think he's a fascinating human being. I think
he's a genius. I think he's the best commentator of

(38:02):
all time. And I do like being around him because
he's had a great autobiography as well, which was fascinating.
He's had a fascinating life and the way he's you
know that he's managed to reinvent himself so many times
and now to be such a superstar with his catch
phrases that he had in the old days. He's fascinating.

(38:25):
The President. I've known him for many, many years, and
he's an interesting character, to put it mildly, and I've
had some fun things with him. But a couple of
stories that I have with the president, which I think
there are stories that you can tell that I tell
when I do after dinner speaking, that you can tell

(38:47):
in an audience. Whether tell these stories whether you're a
fan of his or you despise him, and let's be honest,
the country is pretty split in that way. But a
couple of stories I remember this is just before he
became president. A while back. I wanted to be a

(39:09):
member of his golf club in West Palm Beach, which
is a magnificent golf club. But the price tag was
a little bit too out of my wheelhouse. And he'd
heard that I would like to become a member. So
he called me up and he said, John, I hee,
you would like to be a member of my golf course.
And I said, well, yes, Donald, of course I would,

(39:31):
but your price is a bit steep for me. So
he said, well, how about we make a deal and
I said, okay, or do you have in mind? He
said well, and I still to this day don't know
why he came up with his figure. It's still extraordinary,
but he said, I'll let you in for eleven thousand dollars. Now,
the price in those days was one hundred and fifty,
so I don't understand quite eleven thousand. Now he came
up with that figure. It's a sort of a random number,

(39:54):
but that sounded pretty good to me. And I said,
that sounds great. And then he said, but the other
favor I'd like to ask ask you at Mara Lago,
which is obviously where he lives. They've got four clay
courts there for red clay courtse we get. We get
a lot of kind of celebrities and very wealthy people
that come and play there. And I would like you

(40:16):
as part of the deal that if our director of tennis,
if there's a heavy hitter in town calls you up,
that you would go and play doubles. And I thought myself,
I do some real estate, so I'm thinking, yeah, i'd
like that anyway. What a great contact, and this is
a win win, right, I'll go and hit a few

(40:36):
balls and shake a few hands, tell a few stories,
and hopefully get some business out of it. Yes please,
And he said great. And he said, oh, by the way,
the tennis director, the coach, I've heard mixed feelings about him,
so I'd like you to kind of check him out
for me, and you tell me if you don't think
he's doing a good job, and then I'll fire him.
And I went, oh, okay, like I'm going to do that,

(40:59):
So of course I wouldn't do that. But anyway, so
I did the sort of thing, played with a few
celebrities and so on and so on, and then one
day I was there at the courts and Trump came
over because he knew that there were I was playing
with some very wealthy people, and he wanted to chat
to them and hopefully get them to join other clubs
or whatever. So he came over and he said, oh,
it's John telling you his stories. And they all said yeah, yeah,

(41:22):
And so anyway, they all left, and Trump stayed there
and was chatting with the tennis director, and then the
tennis director after he had left, came over to me.
And he's sort of a shy guy and small guy,
and he came up to me and he said, he said, John,
I just wanted to want you to know that I've
got your back. And I said, you've got my back?

(41:43):
What do you mean by that? And he said, well,
it wasn't the present time. And mister Trump said that
you had done a deal with him, obviously, and that
you've played here, and that you join his club, keeping
joining his club for a very good fee. And I
said yeah, and he said, well, he asked me if
I'd have been doing if I was doing a good job.
So I I got your I had your back, and

(42:03):
I told you did a great job. I said, oh,
that's funny. He said, I've actually got your back. And
he said, what do you mean. I said, well, he
told me that if you weren't doing a good job,
I would tell him and you would be fired. So
of course he went white as a sheet because he
could have lost his job. I would golds membership. But
what Trump did he played us both off against each other.

(42:24):
It's the art of the deal, whether you like it
or not. And then and then this was only a
few years back, three maybe three four years ago, No,
no less than that, because he was he was president
at the time. And I was over at his golf
club playing and I was having lunch and he was
sitting at the table and he called me over, so

(42:45):
I went, you know, chatting with him. I said, how
are you doing this president? He said great? And then
he said, he said, John, you know, how would you
like to possibly be the do some celebrity teaching at
mare Lago. I think he forgotten about the old days
kind of thing. And I said, yeah, I said that
sounds quite good. Well what do you have in mind?

(43:06):
He said, Well, he said, I think I could get you.
I think I could talk to the director and I
could get you five hundred bucks an hour and I'll
take two fifty. And I said, oh, okay. And I
thought at first he was joking, but he wasn't. He
was deadly serious. Oh my god, I think I can
get you five hundred and I'll take two fifty. And
I said okay. And again is the art of the deal.

(43:29):
He's making deals even though people would say, well, that's ridiculous,
such a small amount. Yeah, but that's how these guys
make them. He wasn't.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
That's why he has what he.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Has, right, but he has out of the deal.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah, Oh my god, that is too much. Yeah, how
did you get We're going to segue a tiny bit.
How did you I know you had some stomach issues
when you you know, for a lot of years and
wellness was a big thing, and it was that true
that you started taking probiotics and it really helped.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yes, Yeah, I had problems for a while. I mean
I think, you know, a lot of it was self
inflicted with you know, internalizing things and tensions. But funny enough,
my father he had the same sort of problems that
when you know, he had sort of stressful periods or whatever,
things would go to his stomach, and I seem to

(44:24):
seem to have got the same thing. Whether it's genetic
or not, I'm sure a lot of it was just
that was the way I dealt with stress, and it
caused me a lot of problems. And I got into
pro probiotics probiotics with the company, and I've forgotten the

(44:45):
company now, and I used them for years and they really,
it really seemed to help so much so that I
sort of gradually winned myself off. I don't know why,
because I think they were doing a great job. But
I've I think a lot of it is just like
and is now to to get rid of stress a
better And now.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
How do you do that?

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Well, I don't. I don't internalize things. Now, if there's
something that's bothering me, I get it out. I don't,
you know, because I was from sort of old school,
I guess where you don't cause problems and if someone
says something to you don't agree with or or you know,
or there's problems in your relationship. You know, you kind

(45:29):
of want to make it better. So you kind of
and someone has, you know, legitimately and quite rightly, so
maybe done something they shouldn't have done with you. Rather
than confront them, I always tend to be kind of
just massaged it over and let it just sort of
run through. But I would internalize it, and it would,

(45:51):
I think it would. It would sort of in the end,
would make me unhealthy. And now I don't do that now.
If I've got a problem with someone, whenever I get
it out and tell them, I mean right away, if
I think someone's done something to me, whether it's in
business or or on the court or something. I mean,
I had the other the other day in a you know,

(46:13):
in a pro am someone was not playing the pro
am properly and was hitting you know, every ball at
Miamateur rather than playing the pro am the proper way.
And I told, it's not the way. It's not the
way to do the pro am. The program is about
the ams, not the pros. Should neutralize each other and
let the ams fight it out. And you know, you

(46:36):
it's not the way to do it. And I got
it out and told it was before I would have
just let it go, but I would have been annoyed
about it for days that I didn't say.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Instead of now, And how did that person react to that?
When you said that he got it?

Speaker 3 (46:51):
Said, okay, I get it. Okay, I mean some people
quite quite frankly, some pros are terrible at pro ams.
They don't get it. They just hit the ball, you know,
and don't get that you're playing against amateurs that are
trying to have a good time.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Right, okay, not be humiliated by some bro. But just
like hitting them in the face, right, you.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Can put them in hospital. So so, well, what good
does that prove? I could do that with a lot
of people I play with, But you just don't do that,
you know.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Do you follow a special diet?

Speaker 3 (47:22):
Now? Well what I do? I tend to do now,
which happened in the last like nine months, and I've
lost probably fifteen to twenty pounds. I do and it's
not a big deal. I just do this sixteen seventeen.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Hour fast, the intermittent fasting.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Yeah, and it's made me and I don't do it
where I mean sometimes if you know, at the weekend,
you know, might go for a brunch and do it
just because we're up and right, do that. But generally speaking,
you know, I don't eat my first meal now till
one or two o'clock in the afternoon. And I always
follow that, which I think is a myth, because I'm

(48:06):
only looking at the myth from myself, the myth where
breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and
maybe it is for some people. And when I first
started doing it, I was thinking, oh my god, if
I'm playing tennis at ten or eleven without eating something,
especially in the Florida heat, I'm going to ben right,
I've passed out. Nonsense, Not for me.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
I have a lot of mind. I was doing it
as well, and a lot of it is we think
we need to eat, yes, so we like we tell
ourselves no, but I have to eat. I just that's
part of what I do every morning. And how am
I going to do? And it just takes some will
power and just getting your mind. You know, our minds
are so incredibly powerful and you can get them to
do what whatever we want it to do. It's just

(48:49):
we have to have that mindset.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
Right, absolutely right, I mean, listen, it is a mind thing.
And I'll be honest, there are some day, not every day,
but there are some days I'm damn hungry ten eleven
the cat and I'm on the court for two hours,
you know, running my backside off, and yeah, I'm hungry,
but it goes away. But my energy level is fabulous.
That's the thing. If I was tired on the court

(49:15):
and also hungry, then I'd be going, Okay, okay, this
is not working. You've got to have some eggs or
something in the morning. Now and again I will do,
but I would say five days out of the week,
maybe six, I don't eat until one or two o'clock
and then I only have two meals for the day.
And that's really helped me. And I've dropped fifteen to
twenty pounds just doing it pretty pretty religiously, to be

(49:35):
quite honest. So I don't eat as much meat as
I used to, you know, but I certainly still like
my desserts. And when I go to the movies, if
I can see the pup, well that's done. But sometimes
I'll sneak some raisinettes and if my girlfriend doesn't see
me and knock a few of those down. So yeah,

(49:58):
I'm not religious about diet or anything like that. I'll
still eat some good old sweets and stuff, but I
think just eating two meals there, and I exercise a lot,
you know. I'm on the court, not every day but
most days two hours a day, and it's hot, and
I run a lot in those two hours. I'm not
standing there feeding boards. My lessons are. My lessons are
playing lessons, so I'm running the whole time.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Well, that's what it is. Did you see that show
on Netflix about the Blue Zones? No, Oh, you should
watch it. It's really interesting and it's about there's these
certain blue zones all over the world that they have
more sedentarians, more people that have lived to be over
one hundred years old. And they did a study on
these people and they're like, why are you living so long?

(50:42):
You know, is it diet? Is it like genetics? What isn't?
But one woman had said she was Italian and she said,
it's my faith. And what it really was was she
would go to church every day and she'd walk up
this hill and you know, and so it goes right
to what you were saying about movement. It's just you know,
to have a healthy life. It's just a lot about

(51:03):
you know, moving and not being sedentary and you know,
eating clean and doing all these different things and having purpose,
you know, waking up with passion for life and you
know what you're doing and enjoying I think is super
important as well. So you're a cancer survivor, yes, and
so thank goodness. How long has that been that you've
been cancer free?

Speaker 3 (51:25):
I've been free now about seven years. I go every
now it's actually nine months, I go for a test
and I'm always a bit edgy for a couple of
days because they take a blood test and then you
come away and then they call you up and say
your cancer is undetectable, which is obviously, you.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Know, great, the best news ever.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
Right, Yeah, that was the best news. Yes, I was.
It's a funny thing with that sort of stuff. And
again it's so I don't know how much of that
is in your mind. But I always thought, and this
is going to sound strange and weird and probably, but
I always thought, you know, I heard of other friends

(52:07):
of mine and other people that have had cancer, and
some have died, and various cancers, and I always thought
that I was going to get it. At some stage,
because see, I'm a big believer in luck. I mean,
of course, you make your own luck in some ways.
I certainly believe that if you eat better and you
don't smoke and drink too much, you're going to have

(52:27):
a better chance of living. But I know people that
smoke forty cigarettes a day and they live to their ninety's.
Some of it's genetics and so on. But you know,
I remember thinking I have had such a lucky life
that sooner or later it has to turn the other way.
And so I wasn't that surprised when I got cancer.

(52:49):
I was surprised. I shouldn't say it, because I had
no symptoms. I had no symptoms with the prostate cancer, none,
and again luck, and I consider it luck. The luck
was that, well, this is going to sound a bit nasty,
but I don't mean it in that way. But I
was I'm not I'm not sure if I was actually divorced,

(53:11):
but getting divorced from my second wife, and I'd moved
to Florida, and I was not a great person in
going to the doctors for checkups because, to be quite honest,
other than two knee replacements and a hit which were
obviously tennis related. You know, I'm never sick touch wood,

(53:31):
you know, I mean, I just so I was not
religious about going for yearly checkups. Just I think, you
know what, I thought, if I feel bad, I'll go
never check up. And I came to Florida and I
had a couple of weeks where I wasn't doing anything.
I was just finding my fee and I thought, you
know what, I better get a doctor, a dentist, a
dermatologist and get rid of all that rubbish and you know,

(53:56):
get get all my checkups in one go and start
the ball rolling. So I did, and I went to
this doctor and nor the examination and then had a
blood test or whatever like they normally do. And literally
two nights later, I'm funny, I remember these things. I
was at an event and Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister,
was speaking. Oh wow, he was literally about to speak,

(54:17):
and I got a text and said call the doctor.
And it was about seven eight o'clock at night on
a Friday, and I'm thinking that's a bit strange. So
I called him up and he said, look, your PSA
level has jumped up big time. You need to see
urologists like now. I was like, whoa, and that's and
that's so if I In other words, I'm saying, if
I hadn't have gone in for that checkup, I would

(54:39):
not have caught it. What a blessing. And then the
other blessing is that in the last twenty years I've
been very active in playing in the Prostate Cancer Foundation
Michael Milkin, who has three events a year. We just
had one in Palm Beach, and we have one in
Indian Wells during the tournament, and then we have one
in the Hampton's before the US Open. And I've played

(55:00):
them for twenty years basically and done three. So I'm
part of the family. And as soon as I got
this diagnosis, I went straight to the top man there.
He made them. He took a look at my charts
and you know, did a second opinion, told me exactly
what I should do, and basically gave me five doctors
who I should go to for the surgery. And he said,

(55:23):
I'm not allowed to tell you who to go to,
but on the third or fourth one of the doctors,
he said, this guy, this doctor reminds me of Jimmy
Connors when he was at his best in his tenacity,
so I'm thinking to myself, well, you didn't say the
other guy reminded me of Federer or the other guy.
There was no other tennis analogies. So I'm figuring, Okay,
he's steering me this way. So I went to this

(55:45):
guy in Chicago, and I got very lucky. I you know,
I tell people, and it's not because you know that
I didn't think I got a good doctor. And I'm lucky,
being very very lucky. So I consider myself very very
fortunate to have well.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
So important, it's really important just telling people that to
go to the doctor, even though you're not feeling sick,
just go get a regular check up and get some
blood work done before it gets too out of hand.
That's when these things go totally why, because people wait
until something's really really wrong or they ignore it exactly.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
And with prostate cancer for men, it's even though this
is a weird thing to say, but it's the best
cancer to get in terms of surviving out of all
the cancers in men. The problem is there are side
effects that men don't like to talk about and don't
like to think about that could happen if things don't

(56:45):
go exactly right in the surgery and so, you know,
when it happened to me and stuff. After I you know,
I got diagnosed and had the recovery, they asked me
if I would go public with it over in England,
and I did, and you know, they had a definite
uptick in men going to get checked, which was great.

(57:09):
It's great, and actually it became a sort of an
amusing part. So I think it's sort of amusing. When
I got the came my sister, who Idore, is very,
very religious and she has a strong faith, which I
think is wonderful. I'm not that way, but I certainly

(57:31):
respect her. But she's always, in a nice way, tried
to sort of convert me. And she's always told me that,
you know, John, this is good for you if you
you know, I don't like to think of the consequences
that if you don't you know, have that faith, and
so on. As I get it, and you know, you're wonderful,
but it's not really for me. And she's always saying, yeah,

(57:52):
but things will happen if you don't please you know,
and all this, and she's always nice about it. But anyway,
at the milking of and in Indian worlds, this was
a year or two after the prostate cancer and I'd
done the public address for it. The head of the
founder he always gets up to make a speech when
we're at the sort of the event for all the sponsors,

(58:15):
and he got up to make the speech and he said, oh,
by the way, today I'm going to do something different.
I'm going to talk about prostate cancer and the things
that we're doing to help improve it. And I'm also
going to compare John Lloyd with Mother Teresa. I'm sitting
next to my daughter and my best friend and they're
looking at me, going, Dad, how is it? She said,

(58:38):
how is that possible? My friend said, hyeah, how is
that possible? And I said, I have no idea. All
I can imagine is she's going to say that Mother
Teresa's this wonderful person and Lloyd's a pervert. I don't
know what else he could say about me. I'm figuring
it's got to be one or the other. But he
was very nice. He didn't need to say. But he
got up and said, you know that I had gone
public with my diagnosis and a lot of people had

(59:02):
got check up, so he was exaggerating. Mother Teresa. There's
about nine miles away from that. But anyway, I immediately
the next day I called my sister up and I
said to my sister, and I'm just going to tell
you something I just last night got compared with Mother Teresa.
I said, I know you've always told me that I'm

(59:23):
likely to go down to the basement level when I
pass away. But I said, Mother Teresa, I've been compared.
Is there any chance I can at least make it
to the lobby level? And she said no, I'm afraid not. Okay,
got it.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
She wasn't buying that.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
She wasn't buying it.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
John, Where's your happy place?

Speaker 3 (59:42):
My happy place? I'm a happy guy. I'm happy right now.
I've got a wonderful partner, got wonderful kids, lovely grandchildren.
I mean, I don't consider it work when I'm doing them.

(01:00:03):
When I teach tennis some hours, I still go and
do some beautiful events, meet some lovely people, live in
a lovely place, got great friends. I'm unbelievably lucky. I'm
happy now as I've ever been in my life, and
consider myself very, very fortunate.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
How do you want people to remember you?

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Ah? Well, I would just say. He made me laugh.
He made me laugh. He made me laugh. I like
making people laugh, and you too.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
I think that's like the greatest thing is when someone
can make me laugh.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
It's yeah, I love that I do that and just
yeah in a good sense of hum and made me laugh.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Did you ever play against my husband?

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
You know what I did not? I did not know.
He was a hell of a player. Obviously he's younger
than me, and I never got to play. But you
know what, I have to be honest, we said I
may have done without knowing it because I am the
worst at remembering matches. And I don't mean that in
any disrespect to Ken No.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
No, I I mean there's so many.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
I mean, how can you there are so many players.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
If they were new and coming up, when he and
Goose were coming up, you might have played against them
in doubles or something.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
Yeah, I am so bad. It's actually quite embarrassing because
sometimes I had one I had one guy came up
to me. I'm not going to mention these names. I
don't want embarrass him. But he was a good player,
not a great player, but a good player. And he
was a friend of mine, and he asked me if
I played doubles with him, and I said, sure, you know,
for a few tournaments and I couldn't remember that we'd

(01:01:52):
even played. And we played like five tournaments and he
was not as good as me or whatever. And he
came up to me and he said, God, do you
remember when we played? And I said we did and
he said yeah. He said, we got to the finals
of LA We beat Smith and Lutz and we got
to the finals. And I said, sheeesh, I must have

(01:02:13):
been a hell of a player because you were ship
and he loved it. But I said that, you know,
and he had, I knew it had a good sense
of view. But but my point was I'd forgotten that and
we got to the finals of a tournament. I mean,
it's mortifying and it's not like memories, but just I
don't remember matches. I remember a few good ones and bad,

(01:02:33):
but very few. Maybe I did, Maybe I did play
against Ken, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Oh, that's great, John. I want to thank you so
much for being here today. This has been such a
thrill to chat with you. You're one of my favorite
ton of people. You're one of my favorite people. Oh
and I just want to thank you so much, and
I wish you nothing but love and late and happiness
and good health.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Of course, thank you anytime. I loved it. It was
really really fun seeing you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Thank you so much. I'm Christina Black and I'm too busy.
I'll see you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
This has been I'm Too Busy with host Christina Black.
Tune in each week as Christina approaches the concept of
success holistically, recognizing that achievement is not solely measured by
financial triumphs, but also by maintaining a healthy work life
balance and focusing on self care. Wednesdays, seven pm Eastern

(01:03:29):
on the Bold Brave TV Network, powered by B two Studios,

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I'm Too Busy TV - w/ guest John Lloyd

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}I'm Too Busy TV - w/ guest John Lloyd