IT HAS TAKEN me a long time to want to tell my story, because for years I did not feel that it was entirely my story to tell: Jamie and Andy were still climbing the ladder of the tennis world, and I was trying to stay out of their limelight, to let them shine on their own terms, without a mum with her own story to tell.
These days, with them both settled and successful, having reached the top of their respective careers, the biggest challenges are working out when to seize those moments to just stop and enjoy things. Having a child who excels in something is the ‘dream problem’ for a parent, but it can also be overwhelming, isolating and challenging. People have said about me: ‘Oh, it’s okay for her, she’s a coach.’ But I wasn’t a coach when this all began. I was just a mum who liked playing tennis with her friends: it was my source of community, of solace, of fun, not my career. There have been many times when it has been a hard, lonely journey for me.
But the underlying critical factor, for all of us, has been that we love what we do. You simply could not do this job, in any capacity, if you didn’t. And such a huge part of loving your sport is the positive associations you make as a child, which is why I am so passionate now about getting young kids, especially girls, into the game. It’s mostly a solo sport, but all sport is really about people and relationships. You have to enjoy spending time with the people you train with, and who work and travel with you day in, day out. Winning alone is never enough.
What most people see when they watch a top player on the court is the performance. Nobody sees what goes into making that performance. It’s like seeing a finished film: the casting decisions, the script rewrites, the rehearsals, the green screen effects, they miss all of that. Just as you need a good director no matter how huge your budget, you need the emotional resilience to survive in tennis, because big shots alone will never be enough.
When I look at Jamie and Andy and their careers now, or when I look back at my own, I think of the story of the old Scottish king Robert the Bruce, and the spider. Defeated in battle so many times by the English in the fourteenth century that he has all but given up hope, Robert the Bruce lies down in his cave and sees a spider above him, trying to weave her web. Over and over, the spider tries to throw her thread from one edge of the cave wall to the other, but it’s just not working. Just as Robert the Bruce starts to feel a sense of kinship with the spider, she throws the thread again, and this time has success. Galvanised, Bruce tries again, too, and soon his battle – the Battle of Bannockburn – is won.
There are few competitors who embody the spirit of trying and trying again until they work out the route to success more than Jamie and Andy. At times, it was an almost impossible slog for all of us. But we are far more likely to keep trying if we enjoy the challenge. If there were any legacy I could leave beyond those boys, it would be to foster a love of tennis, sport and activity in as many of us as possible. Because we can all be the spider, if we are all given the opportunity to discover what we truly love, and believe it is worth fighting for.