Hitting Back by Andy Murray Page A

I'd
been given, like 'Don't chew gum!' because that had been
Wayne Rooney's problem the year before. I had to do this
speech in front of all the best sports people in Britain and I was
really young at the time. So I played it straight, no jokes, and
it went pretty well. Or so I'm told.
    Afterwards I met Chris Eubank who was wearing a top hat
and carrying a cane. Being a massive boxing fan, I was loving
that. I met Sir Clive Woodward. Kelly Holmes was there. I
remember laughing at Matt snapping everyone and anyone
with his throw-away camera! The best thing, though, was
being out of the toilet. It occurred to me that I was probably
the only winner there who had just been sprung from a toilet
but I didn't mention that at the time.
    Maybe that wasn't the ideal way to turn the year, but at least
I was now a tennis player ranked 411 in the world, with a
couple of sponsorship deals, thanks to the US Open Junior win,
and every intention of going up the rankings by a long way. I
actually said in an interview with the BBC that by the end of
2005 I wanted to be in the top-100. A few people said: 'He
should keep his mouth shut. He's got a long way to go.'
Perhaps that was a bit precocious. I wasn't the world's best
junior, I had never played in an ATP event, I had won four
Futures events (the lowest tier of senior tennis) but had not
even reached the quarter-finals of a Challenger (the next tier
up) since 2003. Put it this way, Roger Federer was not exactly
quaking at the thought of meeting me.
    I could not possibly have known that by the end of the year
I would play Federer in my first ATP event final, beat Tim
Henman in Switzerland, cause 'P-Andymonium' at Wimbledon
and become the youngest Briton ever to play in the Davis Cup.
I could not even have imagined that, because the start of 2005
was horrible.
    My coach, Pato Alvarez who worked at the Sanchez-Casal
Academy, had this plan. He was sure I could reach the World
Top-50 pretty quickly and he wanted me to play in the qualifying
events for a few Challengers in South America to get there.
He kept saying, 'You have to learn how to play at the next
level, the Futures level is very, very bad.' That meant winning
matches and I was losing them instead. I was playing badly. I
had a growth spurt which caused problems with my back. It
was a horrible run and I was losing early in loads of
tournaments. I struggled for two months, finding the step up to
Challengers, even qualifying for Challengers, really difficult.
    In the middle of this, I suddenly received a wild card for my
first full ATP event, the tournament in Barcelona. I think
Emilio Sanchez has contacts with the tournament and he
probably swung it for me. I should have been intimidated, yet
for some reason, I managed to feel quite confident. I don't
really understand why except it felt like playing on home
ground with all my friends from the Academy coming to
watch. Obviously I was really nervous, but I was able to practise
with the Spanish players, including Juan Carlos Ferrero,
who were already on the tour. It was the first time I had been
able to hit with players of that level for three or four days in a
row. Instead of making me more worried, it actually boosted
my confidence. This was my chance to play in front of a decent
crowd for a decent amount of money against decent opposition.
My first opponent was Jan Hernych, a 25-year-old
Czech player who was ranked 67 in the world. I suppose I
should have been intimidated, but my mum sent me a scouting
report the night before telling me how he played, and saying
that my gran was a better volleyer than him.
    I was so close to winning that match. I should have won. I
had chance after chance. I had something like 18 break points
but only converted about three. I was a break up in the third
set but eventually lost 3–6 6–4 6–4. Looking back, I think I
played pretty well, but at the time I was furious. I came off the
court snarling: 'That was a terrible, terrible performance from
me.' I