I almost didn't make the 2004 Sports Personality of the Year show because I was stuck in a toilet. This is true. It was hardly the most glamorous start to my celebrity life. I was due to pick up the award for Young Personality of the Year – Wayne Rooney had won it the year before – and within about an hour of show starting I was stuck in a hotel bathroom behind a door that was completely jammed. My friend was trying to prise it open from the other side with a two-pence piece. He couldn't do it. He called reception and a guy came up with a wrench and he couldn't do it either. Obviously we were laughing at the start but gradually it didn't seem so funny.
On top of that, we were already late. I had been playing in a Futures event final in Spain that afternoon. Within seconds of the match finishing – I won – I had to rush for the airport with two huge bags and jumped on a plane. It was a tiny local airport in the north of Spain and the tournament director had to phone to ask them to hold the flight for me. I only just made it and when I got to Heathrow I somehow managed to come out of Terminal 1 instead of 2 where my mum and an old pal, Matt Brown, were waiting for me. By the time I found them and was escorted back into Terminal 2 by airport security to reclaim my bags, it was already 5pm and we had to be at the BBC Centre for 7pm. We took a cab to the hotel, grabbed something to eat and went up to the room to get ready.
I went for a quick shower, put my suit on – no cufflinks! Had to call down to the concierge and borrow a pair. Went back into the bathroom for a final brush of my teeth and couldn't get out! I was stuck in there for about twenty minutes, sweating buckets, before the guy from reception went away, came back with a knife and finally opened the door. I flew out, leapt in a cab and made it just in time.
It was pretty cool but also quite nerve-racking to receive my award from Boris Becker. I tried to remember all the advice 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 felt I'd let him off the hook, having twice been within a point of a 4–1 lead in the final set. I had expected to win. I didn't think he was anything special as a player, despite being seven years older than me and ranked over 300 places higher. I was totally frustrated.
Later, when I calmed down and looked back on that day, I could see that the match had helped me a good deal. I had played in an ATP tournament and I had not felt out of place. I knew from that moment on that I could definitely reach the World Top-100. That had been my dream. Now it was my goal.
But first I had to resolve an ongoing problem with Pato as my coach. It had degenerated into a difficult relationship. When I met him at the Academy, he struck me as a really friendly, nice guy. He used to bring us sliced oranges that we would eat by the side of the court while we were training. He was famous for having coached about forty guys who reached the top-50, including Ilie Nastase, and he is credited with being one of the main reasons behind the turn around in Spanish tennis in the last twenty years. They called him 'El Guru del Tenis'.
There is no doubt he was hugely knowledgeable and I know I learned loads from him, but by now he was a 69-year-old man and I was a 17-year-old boy and maybe the numbers just didn't add up. It was a bit like being with a grandparent. Also, I wasn't always travelling individually with him. Usually, I was with a small group of players – three or four of us would go to tournaments together – and I was at the stage where I felt I needed a little bit more individual coaching. I wasn't particularly happy. I seemed to need someone to pick me up more. And, I'd been in Spain going on for three years. The training was great, but it was becoming very repetitive. Barcelona had been good for me, but it was time to leave.
I looked at myself pretty ruthlessly. I basically had no variation in my game. I was playing the same way as all the other guys around my ranking. Yet I wasn't as fit, nor as experienced as them and, mentally, I wasn't as strong. I was losing a lot of matches. I needed a change and wanted to play my own game.
At first, the separation was uncomfortable. I remember spending my eighteenth birthday at a Challenger in Germany on my own. It was probably the first birthday in my life when I hadn't seen anyone from my family. I was struggling, but I didn't give up and it wasn't long before I managed to turn it around.
My mum came over to be with me when I played in the French Open Juniors in Paris, my first grand slam since becoming the US Junior Champion. I was ambitious for the tournament. I wanted to prove I could perform on clay as well as hard courts. I felt well and determined. Then I got food poisoning the night before the tournament started. I was running to the toilet every twenty minutes before my game against Piero Luisi of Venezuela in the first round but, fortunately, the problem eased and when I beat the highly-rated Argentinian Juan-Martin Del Potro in straight sets in the quarters, I felt pretty happy. I even gave a press conference afterwards and we had a laugh about a streak of blood on the court that I left from scraping my knuckles. I thought it added to the scene of battle.
If tennis teaches you anything, it is that your mood can change overnight. My semi-final was against Croatia's Marin Cilic, who went on to be the number two junior in the world, and suddenly everything was rubbish again. It had been raining and our match was switched to one of the smaller show courts where the wind was swirling and making it difficult to get into a rhythm. I was furious at blowing a lead to lose the first set and smashed a couple of rackets on the court. The frustration was getting to me so badly that at one point I just yelled: 'What are you doing, Andy?'
I tried not to make any excuses afterwards. I had been playing doubles with my friend Andrew Kennaugh late into the night before, which might have affected me, but I was still furious with myself. Then I tried to be more rational. Losing here was just giving me more time to get used to grass. I felt I could do well at Queen's, then Nottingham and maybe even at Wimbledon. It didn't daunt me. I don't know why I thought that. I just did.
I went into Queen's Club unknown, unseeded, and pretty anonymous except to my family and my dog. I came out of Wimbledon four weeks later and everyone seemed to know who I was. I felt exactly the same person, but the way I was treated was suddenly very different. Just to prove it, the ATP tournament at Newport, Rhode Island, offered me a wild card as a kick-start to my American hard-court tour. Of course, I said yes, and – not for the first time – I then found myself in trouble.
The tournament is really nice but the grass courts there are terrible. Everyone knows that. Unfortunately, not everyone says so in their press conference after the game. I did. I said they were the worst tennis courts I'd ever played on, which probably wasn't the most tactful thing to say after the tournament had been kind enough to give me a wild card. But, it was what I felt.
It was a fair indication of how much they cared about the surface when the tournament director and the players joined in a massive game of whiffleball, like baseball only with a lighter ball, on the courts during the player party. We were sliding into bases and everything. Can you imagine the groundsman at Wimbledon letting you do a thing like that? It was pretty funny, in a way.
Something always seems to happen to me at Newport. The following year, I received a point penalty for losing my temper during a match. That's the only point penalty I've ever had. Back in 2005, though, I scuffed my way into the second round and then came up against a Frenchman called Antony Dupuis who I should have beaten comfortably even though he was ranked 111. But it had rained. The courts were so soft and the bounces were so low, I couldn't find any rhythm. I was struggling big time and getting very frustrated. Having done quite well at Wimbledon this was ugly tennis.
My language was OK but I thumped a ball into the crowd and hit my racket into the court where it made a huge mark because the surface was so soft. Whenever the press compile lists of my 'bad moments', Newport 2005 and 2006 often get a mention. In 2007, I had to miss the tournament due to my wrist injury and I expect the organisers were really relieved.
That was just the beginning of the American adventure. I looked ahead at six more tournaments, plus the US Open where I would be playing the senior event for the first time. Mark Petchey and I were road buddies, now that he'd been confirmed as my coach. I hoped I could afford him. Money is not the reason you play tennis, but it certainly helped when my prize money began to outstrip my expenses for the first time. I used to be afraid of checking out of hotels in case my prize money didn't cover it. Budgets were really tight. At least eating cheap food wasn't a problem because I didn't know what expensive restaurant food tasted like. When I reached the semifinals of the French Open Juniors, it was mostly on a diet of baguettes and chocolate spread.
I don't know how many thousands of miles we did on our American tour, but the next stop was Aptos, California right across the country. Tony Pickard would have been pleased. At last I was back on the Challenger circuit. All the press had gone and now I was back playing again where I deserved to be in front of fifteen, maybe twenty, people. I wasn't even living in a hotel. Mark and I were staying with a family, and their dog, and we had one room, with a dartboard. We played a lot of darts that week.
I played quite a bit of tennis too, winning my first Challenger when I had never previously been beyond the quarter-finals. The prize money was over $10,000. That was a handy amount to put away. Next up was Indianapolis, a $500,000 ATP event that I entered with a wild card. I won a round there which did my confidence good (prize money $5,225) and then we went on to a little $75,000 tournament in Granby, Canada (where I won $1,460), followed by a flight across the continent to Vancouver for a $100,000 Challenger in one of the nicest cities I have ever been to.
I really enjoyed that tournament, but after the quarter-finals Mark had to leave me to go to a wedding back in Britain. I was there on my own and feeling devastated. I suppose I was still quite young to be by myself abroad trying to organise everything, including courts, practice, flights and hotels. I lost 6–7 in the final set of the semi-final ($2,920) and then I had to fly six hours on my own to New York.
Mark joined me again and we went to Binghampton, about a three-hour drive north of Manhattan, which was probably one of the worst tournaments I have ever played. The courts are like the ones you would find in a public park. The referee's office was a Portakabin. There was no food and you couldn't shower unless you were willing to use the facility in a caravan.
I must admit I do remember having a laugh when we got there, mainly because I was – I still am – pretty immature for my age. When Mark was driving the car, I used to honk the horn when we came to a standstill. He used to (kind of) laugh about it as well. But on the way to Binghampton, we found ourselves in a pretty rough place near a trailer park. I couldn't resist. I honked the horn for a pretty long time and Mark hit me and yelled: 'Don't do that. You could get us both killed.' It was the first time he'd told me off for being an idiot. I found it quite funny, but it was also rather awkward. He was like a father figure to me, but also a friend, and it was sometimes difficult to know how to behave with one another. Obviously it didn't upset me too much because I won Binghampton ($7,200) and then set off south to Cincinnati, another ATP event that had given me a wild card.
All this criss-crossing America was tiring but I was enjoying it too. I was getting stronger and fitter all the time, but the improvements went beyond physical. I had a moment on a tiny little propeller plane to Cincinnati after Binghampton that I will always remember as it suddenly occurred to me how close I was to the World Top-100, having played six weeks over there and risen to a ranking of about 130. 'I'm so close now,' I thought. 'I've got a really good chance of doing it.'
It was realising a dream. I wasn't there yet, but I knew it was going to happen soon. Small planes like that are not normally the most comfortable experience, but it didn't even register. I was thinking about what I'd put into my career, the sacrifices I'd made and that's when I realised it was starting to pay off. I'm not a crier, but I was quite emotional on that plane. When you put four or five years of your life into something at that age, it is a big deal. Only as recently as April I'd been playing rubbish and not enjoying it. This was August and it had all started to click. I sat there feeling really satisfied. Mark was sleeping opposite me – there was only one seat on each side of the aisle. I didn't wake him up. It was a moment for me alone.
Cincinnati might have brought me back to earth, but instead I had another amazing experience. I won a first round against Taylor Dent (who must have been pretty sick of me by then because I'd won our match at Queen's only two months before) and then faced the highest-ranked player I'd so far come up against, the fantastically talented Marat Safin, who had won the Australian Open that year.
I hardly believed I was on the court with him. This was the first grand slam champion I had ever played and I had a huge amount of respect for him. Taking him to three sets was a pretty good effort in the circumstances. The final score was 6–4 1–6 6–1. My shoulder hurt, but my confidence wasn't dented at all.
By now I'd played seven weeks in a row and if the All England Club had been willing to negotiate a main-draw wild card for me at the US Open by swapping one for Wimbledon the following year, I could have avoided playing in the qualifiers for the main draw. But they weren't. I was tired and annoyed. All the other grand slams offer a few wild cards into their own tournament to get their own country's best players into the others' – it is like a deal that suits everyone – but Wimbledon refused, so I had to play three matches of qualifying. Tired and cross or not, I qualified.
My first-round match against the Romanian Andrei Pavel remains one of the most satisfying victories of my life. Remember that when I left Britain there were people telling me I wasn't fit enough, wasn't strong enough and I wouldn't last a five-set match. This grand slam challenge was a five-set match, against a player who was 31 years old with loads of experience and I was just coming off a run of seven straight tournaments with a sore shoulder. What happened next made the front pages – but not in a good way.
In the middle of the match I drank too much of my energy drink in one go and threw up all over the court. Twice. I don't mind drama in my matches but this was over the top. At first, I just felt I was going to burp but somehow that turned into me being sick all over Pavel's bag. (We had a bit of a joke about it afterwards. At least, I did.) I sat down and when I went to stand up again, the same thing happened. The crowd were groaning, especially the second time. I think it's quite funny but I've never wanted to see any of the videos.
It was one of those matches that, for a lot of reasons, I will never, ever forget. I don't know how long I was on court. The official statistics say 192 minutes, but they must be wrong. It felt nearer five hours to me. I had agreed with my critics who said I needed to get stronger and here was the proof I was going in the right direction. I won 6–3 3–6 3–6 6–1 6–4 and I was so pleased. It was a huge match for me.
At the moment of victory, there had been so many things going through my head. I was thinking about what some British coaches had said to Mark when they found out he was going to work with me: 'You're not going to coach him are you? Be careful. He's pretty weak.' It had been so long since Britain had produced someone with a chance of being a decent player, not counting Tim, and yet here they were still being negative even though they didn't know me, they hadn't seen me practise, didn't know the sacrifices I had made and how hard I'd worked in Spain.
There was the usual British atmosphere of bitching behind people's backs. The coaches blaming the players, the players blaming the coaches. It could be a terrible atmosphere. I admit I'm making a generalisation, but it seemed to me that the majority of players and coaches were like that in Britain around that time. The match against Pavel was my vindication.
At the end, I just put my finger to my lips and went: 'Ssssshhhh!' That was my way of saying, 'OK, you can all stop now. I'm not in bad shape for my age. I can get way better as a tennis player. Just give me some time.' I didn't have a career-threatening problem. I was young. That's all. I kept the thought to myself. I didn't even say anything controversial in the post-match press conference. I didn't have to say it out loud. There was just a feeling of inner warmth and satisfaction.
Tennis doesn't let you sit around feeling warm for very long. I lost another five-setter in the next round against Arnaud Clement in four hours and two minutes and an attack of cramp ended the tournament for me. That brought another volley of criticism about my fitness. I didn't let it undermine my confidence. Within a month, I was playing Roger Federer.
I was called up for the Davis Cup tie in Switzerland, only my second appearance since my debut against Israel in March, when David Sherwood and I played out of our skins to beat Erlich and Ram, their top-10 doubles partnership, in four sets. That had easily been the highlight of my tennis career to that point – maybe it was the trigger to everything that happened next – and it had led us here, to Geneva, to come face-to-face with the greatest player in the world who had just won the US Open.
I was excited but also a little confused when Jeremy Bates, the Davis Cup captain, decided not to play Greg Rusedski on day one. I don't know why he put Alan Mackin, then ranked 262 in the world, up against Federer, and I suppose it wasn't a surprise that he was beaten 6–0 6–0 6–2. In the next rubber I played Stanislas Wawrinka with the full intention of beating him, even though he was in the World Top-60. That plan went wrong when I was 1–5 down in the first set. I won the next set in a tiebreak, but lost the decider 6–4.
At least I had the honour of playing Federer in the doubles. That is not overstating how it felt to me, even though Greg and I lost in four sets. After the match I actually told Roger it was 'an honour' to play him and he told the press later that he reckoned he would have some battles with me in the future. He just didn't know how soon.
We both flew out of Geneva together for the next ATP tournament in Bangkok. Other than that, our situations were not quite identical. He was already a grand slam champion six times over. I arrived in Thailand ranked 109 in the world, having never proceeded beyond the third round of any ATP tour event. What happened next remains very special to me. I would call it the most significant moment of my year. Even better than reaching the third round of Wimbledon, this was the time and place that I finally achieved my main ambition to break into the world top-100. I won a £400 bet too – a few of us had agreed that we each had to give £100 to the player who made the top-100 first – but the money was secondary to the feeling.
To reach the landmark I had to beat the Swede Robin Soderling, and he is one of the best indoor players in the world. We don't get on either. He doesn't like me and I don't talk to him much. So there was quite a bit of tension in the match and although I won in straight sets, both of them went to a tiebreak. When it was over my feeling of relief and happiness was amazing. I sent Mum a text just saying: 'I did it.'
From there the week just kept getting better. In the next round I beat Robby Ginepri and then I faced Paradorn Srichaphan, ranked 57th at the time, in the semi-finals. He is absolutely massive in Thailand, one of the most famous people in his country, second only to the king, I'm told, and travels on a diplomatic passport. Being British, I know I have a partisan crowd on my side, but Paradorn has about four billion Asians on his.
I lost the first-set tie-break and started smashing my racket. This probably was not a good sign, but I decided to be more aggressive in the second set and Paradorn seemed to tire. To the huge disappointment of the crowd, I came back to take the match in three sets and so take my first crack at Roger Federer in a singles match that also happened to be my first ATP final.
I'd played him in singles before . . . but only on my tennis computer game. When I actually stood on the court with him and started warming up, I felt a little bit strange. It just didn't feel normal. I don't really know how to explain it. I stood there on the same court as Roger Federer and it was almost as though I was looking down on myself from above. It didn't actually feel as though I was on the court. It was something I had imagined so many times in my head that I wasn't sure whether it was real or not. It was like being parachuted into a scene you've imagined a hundred times before. You're obviously there, but you don't feel like it. That is probably why I can't really remember much about the match. As I've told you, I can remember pretty much every point of every match I play, I know my stats, but I can hardly remember a single point of this one. I wasn't really focused on what I was doing. It just didn't feel like reality.
This shouldn't make me sound like a complete freak. Quite a few players have told me that when they played Pete Sampras or Andre Agassi for the first time, it was a little bit weird. The stars are so famous, their mannerisms are so recognisable, that it hardly makes sense to be playing them. Obviously Federer didn't have too many mannerisms. He doesn't need them. He just walks backwards and forwards across the back of the court and looks really relaxed. But it was still a cool experience to me and will always remain pretty special.
I lost the match 6–3 7–5, having gone down 3–0 at the start of the match. In the second set I had some chances. Yeah, I got beaten in straight sets but I didn't feel I was completely outplayed. It was a learning experience, making the world number one do some running left and right. I wasn't blown away. It gave me some confidence.
We did the trophy ceremony together and while the press were taking pictures we had a little chat. He is a really nice guy. I was pretty relaxed by now. I no longer felt as if I was a character in my own video game. I'd taken eight games off Federer and lived with him for a while. I was in the World Top-100. I was on my way.
Unfortunately, I was on my way to an industrial estate in Belgium as well. My reward for reaching the final in Bangkok was a night flight out of Thailand to London followed by three and a half hours on a Eurostar train to a Challenger in Mons. It was as far removed from the bright lights as you could be, but I had committed to play and there was no question of pulling out. That triggers an automatic fine. So I hauled myself through three rounds, before having to retire midway through the match against Xavier Malisse with a hamstring injury.
The year could have ended there and still been outrageously good. I'd made all the progress I'd asked of myself, but there was one more surprise. I was in Switzerland for the ATP event in Basle. Federer had pulled out and the tournament offered me a wild card, not perhaps as a direct replacement, but, whatever the reason, I was glad to be there. They invited me to join the draw, when the player match-ups are pulled out of a hat. One of my favourite players, Guillermo Coria, had been invited too and I was joking with him that it was a total certainty that I would play Tim Henman in the first round. Sure enough, the tournament director drew Tim's name out of the hat and then said to me 'Who do you think will play him?' There was a long pause. The name came out. Of course, it was me.
Tim was a great player, he had been ranked 4th in the world and had played in six grand slam semi-finals. He was also my friend, he was my mentor, and I looked up to him. We had practised together many times and I had never beaten him. I knew this was going to be a tough game for me mentally. He wasn't just an opponent. He was the man who had been generous to me with his time and his advice. He often talked to me about my game and what I could do to improve. Now I was playing him. It was a very strange feeling.
I saw him briefly before the match but it was quite awkward. I just tried to concentrate on how I was going to play. My game stacks up quite well against his. He likes to come to the net and I like to pass. I felt very, very confident going in, but it was very close. I served for the match in the second set and then became a bit nervous which dragged us both into the third set, which I finally won 7–6.
That was a big win for me mentally. To beat him in a match as close as that when I could easily have crumbled was huge for my confidence. At the end he just said to me: 'Good job.' I didn't really say anything. I would never do or say anything to Tim to offend him. It is not the nicest moment when you shake hands with one of your friends after losing. Well, one of your friends is not so bad, but when it is someone who you know respects you and looks up to you as much I did to him, it must be a little bit strange. Maybe I was more sensitive about it than he was.
The press wrote about it afterwards as though some kind of baton had been passed between us. The end of an era, and that kind of thing. It wasn't that at all. It was me winning a tennis match and, to be honest, Tim having a bad back. Not for the first time, the media had gone slightly over the top.
After that match Sean Connery phoned me again. I can't remember exactly what he said. I suppose he might have been pleased that I'd finished the year pretty strongly. I was too. That Christmas I went home to Scotland as the 64th best tennis player in the world.