Game Changers Talking Tennis

Quiet, please.

That's it.

A fabulous match, a really fabulous match,

and I believe it's one of the greatest,

if not THE greatest match, I've ever seen at Wimbledon.

Wimbledon, the world's greatest tennis tournament,

and the setting for some of the sport's most unforgettable moments.

For British tennis fans, it's the green, green grass of home,

and for two weeks every summer, a national obsession.

Over the years, we've been on the edge of our seats,

glued to the television,

watching legend after legend battle it out shot by shot,

point by point,

fist pump by fist pump,

in a quest for the ultimate victory on Centre Court.

Today, we're celebrating some of the most ground-breaking

of those players.

The champions who broke down boundaries,

set new levels of excellence...

He's done it, he really has done it.

..and, in some cases, shocked us with their antics.

They made us gasp...

You cannot be serious!

..then made us think, then made us gasp again,

as they fought it out in this most hallowed of sporting venues.

They are the game changers.

The early 1970s belonged to two true game changers.

Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe.

Both in their own way were pioneers.

They were at the top of their game and, with the world watching them,

had a platform that would allow them to raise awareness

of long-standing sexual and racial discrimination within their sport

and, through their sport, within the world at large.

Billie Jean King was the Queen of Wimbledon.

She had established the Women's Tennis Association

and threatened to boycott tournaments

if women's prize money wasn't the same as men's.

And if that wasn't enough to make her famous, there were her tantrums.

She was throwing wobblies on the court long before John McEnroe.

And tennis traditionalists didn't always approve.

The game is possibly not quite so attractive today

with the emphasis on some of the girls, like...

..Billie Jean King, who charges around the court

very much like a man,

rather than the old days when you had somebody like Doris Hart,

who looked exceptionally graceful on court.

Yes, I'm not very fond of Billie Jean.

I think she's too fond of herself.

She was a very nice young lady the first year she won.

But the second year wasn't so hot.

I know we're all out to win, but she really doesn't like losing.

I think they liked me until I won.

Then they weren't so enthralled with me.

But I think most players have said that that's the way it is

around the world, not just Wimbledon.

But Wimbledon...that does happen.

Then I think as you get older, then they appreciate you again,

cos they can see you're in your twilight years

and you might not be there much longer.

You said it was good and you called the score.

How can you change your mind now?

'You know, certain days, everyone in the world gets up

'and they don't feel on top of the world

'and they have to go to the office at nine o'clock.

'Sometimes a tennis player has that same feeling,'

and I can't walk up to the microphone and say,

"Look, I feel lousy today,

"will you forgive me that I'm having a little temper tantrum?"

You know, "I care very much whether I win this match

"and I hope I don't bother you."

That's the way you feel when you're out there.

But you can't do that, can you?

In 1969, BBC cameras followed Billie Jean

as she attempted to win her fourth consecutive Wimbledon singles title.

Things didn't go to plan.

At least she's performing on her favourite stage, the Centre Court,

as befits a reigning champion.

To some people, however, like the ticket touts,

she's just another tennis player who might do a deal.

-Anything to sell, Billie?

-No...

-Going to win this year, or what?

-Am I going to win this year?

-I don't know.

-I've got a few quid on you.

-I never sell tickets.

No, I know you don't.

-So...

-You don't buy them, neither, do you?

-Must win today.

-Hi.

-You've got to win.

-Thanks.

Can I have your autograph, please?

I'm sorry, but I have to prepare, get ready.

Sorry. I would otherwise.

No, I'm sorry, I have to practise.

If I do it for you, then I've got to do it for everybody, right?

Sorry. Later.

One point to the championship for Ann Jones.

Game, set and match.

3-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Hold it up, Ann. Hold it up, you big fake.

You waited long enough.

The climb to the top takes special qualities

and gives back its own rewards on the way.

Only when you've made it, when you are a champion,

can you appreciate how much more vulnerable you've become to defeat.

Do victories last a shorter time than defeats?

Oh, much. Defeats last a lifetime,

victories only last for a fleeting moment.

At least for me.

How long is it going to take you to get over this one?

I'll never get over it. I mean, any time...

You could ask me 20 years from now, that's still how I feel about it,

I'll still get the same painful feeling within myself

that I have at this moment.

But that was a rare defeat.

By the time she retired,

Billie Jean King had won an astonishing six Wimbledon singles,

ten women's doubles, and four mixed doubles titles.

Now on to Arthur Ashe.

On the one hand, a hard political animal,

happy to take the lead during a players' strike in 1971.

No tournament in the world, no tennis event can make anyone play.

But on the other hand, a deeply sensitive man who, during a match,

would enter a state of meditation.

What you are trying to achieve here is to empty your mind.

..And by two sets to one.

Arthur Ashe... one game away from the championship.

You try to put your entire being, mentally and physically,

on automatic pilot while you're playing tennis.

The fewer decisions

you have to consciously make,

the better.

Another way to say it is to converge

your thought processes to such a razor's edge that...

everything is concentrated on the razor's edge,

so everything else is blocked out.

And you forget the score, you forget where you are,

you forget what your name is.

But the experience of

I guess what some people may think of as the inner game,

that happened so infrequently that I guess there is a mystique about it

because it didn't happen every day.

But only one time, albeit a very important time,

when I actually felt, before playing the match, "I can't lose today,"

and that was the final with Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon.

40-15.

And his conviction was borne out.

His shock victory over Connors in 1975

goes down as one of the greatest upsets in Wimbledon history.

That victory also made Arthur Ashe

one of the most famous black men on the planet.

A role model and a significant voice for change.

I remember reading a...

..a People magazine, which is a very popular magazine in the US

which does short features on people,

that had a big cover story on Elton John.

The last sentence was...

he would trade it all for the men's singles title at Wimbledon,

which I thought was...

I wanted to call him up and say, "You'd better stay where you are."

Being world-famous and being black means that, wherever you go,

whether you like it or not, you're a sort of ambassador,

a representative of your race.

Is that a responsibility that you feel?

Oh, yes.

I don't like it, but I feel it, and I don't shrug it off.

Mainly because there does still persist in the world myths about...

..on athletes in general, that they are all brawn and no brains.

Specifically black athletes,

that they have even less brain and more brawn,

because we tend to do disproportionately well

in athletics, running, jumping, whatever, boxing.

And I like to fight the myth.

And I assume that role heartily.

There are lots of us, athletes in general,

and black athletes in particular, who can think as well as run, jump,

hit tennis balls, dump basketballs, box or whatever.

Of course, it also means that you have a certain power.

I mean, because you're famous...

Only as long as you're still winning.

If my ranking suddenly dropped to 50...

I mean, I'd still have certain power, I guess,

because I once was up near the top, but...

If you care to visit South Africa or you care to draw attention

to the apartheid situation...

-Yes.

-..then you pull a lot of weight.

Erm...

I don't think... Yes.

I wouldn't say a lot of weight.

I would say weight, yes, but just how much, I really don't know.

And after my four trips to South Africa,

I really can't assess how much it has...

Although, I guess I stick out so much in that situation that...

..there have been lots of movements started to stop me from going.

So if they think that much of my clout, then...

..maybe I am having some influence. But that's...

Are you conscious in any other way of your colour,

or has success opened all the doors...

You're always... Oh, no, you're always conscious of your colour.

If you're Polish or if you're Jewish

or if you're Russian or if you're French...

It's not as immediately obvious as being black.

You're walking down the street, you don't know what that person is.

You know definitely what I am. But...

..you get used to living with that and it's not really a problem...

..unless sometimes I'm in New York City

and I want to get a taxi.

Sometimes they won't stop because they think I'm going to Harlem.

I don't live in Harlem, but anyway...

While Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe

were breaking new ground in tennis,

another star was about to start breaking hearts.

Bjorn Borg first hit Wimbledon in 1973

and changed things forever by bringing a new Swedish sex appeal

to the game.

A teenage sensation,

his sudden popularity helped to boost TV audiences and prize-money.

And in 1979, he became the first player

to earn 1 million in a single season.

Bjorn Borg is locked in the dressing room,

unable to walk about even at Hurlingham,

lest he be mobbed by teenyboppers.

Excuse me.

His entrance to play an exhibition game

is stage-managed like that of a pop star,

which, of course, is what he is.

Bjorn Borg is 18, the son of a Stockholm grocer,

who this year has already won £40,000.

He plays a rough, unorthodox game,

playing his opponents as if fighting in a bar-room brawl.

Borg arrived last year at Wimbledon for the first time

to scenes of near riot.

Police have to beat a path for him to every court

through mobs of girls who want to touch him.

Borg fits uneasily into the British tennis scene,

as do the other young champions.

He makes a lot of money, but pays a high price for his success.

What do you feel about the teenyboppers

who come up to you and mob you?

What do you feel about them?

For the moment, I don't care about that, because...

I think it's very good, because if you play your match

and they are cheering you...

For me, you know,

maybe it's very disturbing for the opponent, you know?

They maybe get mad, you know?

That's good, I think it's great.

So you're prepared to use the cheering and the adulation

-to help you win matches.

-Yeah, for sure.

-Who are your idols?

The people you admire most?

For the moment, I don't have any idols.

But for the first two years, I had Laver like an idol

when I started to play tennis, but, no, I don't have an idol.

-Why not?

-I think because, for the first,

now I've been playing so well, you know, I can beat everyone.

That's why, I think.

-You are your own idol, do you think?

-Yeah, why not?

Is there anybody in the world you'd rather be except you?

Er... Yes, maybe sometimes I want to be a private person,

so nobody knows you.

When I go out, nobody looks at me and things like that.

That happens sometimes.

But is there any other tennis player

or any other public figure you'd like to be except Bjorn Borg?

-No, I don't think so.

-You like yourself?

Yeah, I like myself.

Borgmania culminated in one of Wimbledon's greatest ever finals -

his 1980 clash with the man who was, in many ways, his polar opposite.

John McEnroe.

So, having had seven championship points,

Borg now has two more.

That's it.

Borg.

But the intense media pressure on Borg eventually became too much.

In 1983, aged just 26, he announced to the world that he was retiring,

and then explained his decision to the BBC.

In the beginning, it was fun, because, you know...

..it was a new thing, you got very excited.

But I think by the end of it, it...

it was a little bit too much.

I mean, even if you still enjoyed it.

But to have the pressure, there was no way I could walk outside.

Was there a moment where you sort of suddenly said to Mariana,

"Mariana, that's it, I'm finished"?

How did it happen?

It happened in November.

We were practising in Stockholm, I was playing...

..practising with the Swedish juniors up there.

And from September to November,

I'd been trying hard and I've been really forcing myself to go out

and work for hours and really to see if I enjoy it

or if I don't enjoy it.

So just one morning when I woke up,

before we went to practise,

I said to Mariana that I'm going to retire from tennis.

She started to laugh because she thought I was crazy.

I mean, like I'm joking in the morning.

She said, "No, no, no."

I said, "Really, I'm going to retire from tennis, because...

"now I'm sure that I don't enjoy it any more.

"I don't have the same motivation."

Once you announced it and it was out, did you feel good?

Most like relief. Even when I took the decision, found the decision,

like I had it, I'm going to retire, it was like a relief for me,

because when you have this...

..you think about retirement is such a big step

and when you have it inside, thinking about it every day,

"Should I not retire? Should I retire?

"Is it the right decision?" or whatever.

But when I did it for myself, it was like a relief.

And then when it came out even later, there was even more relief,

because I knew that every single one knew about it.

You have been one of the greatest players ever,

which was your ambition, of course.

So you've given tennis a tremendous amount,

tennis has given you a tremendous amount.

Well over £10 million, which is an awful lot of money.

So what have you got in terms of...

to show for it, in tangible terms?

The shop here on the seafront.

An apartment here on the seafront. An apartment in Long Island.

A speedboat out there somewhere?

-Somewhere.

-Is that right?

-Yes, I have a boat, yes.

Really, a fast one?

It's pretty fast, yeah, because I like to...

I enjoy waterskiing quite a lot.

-Do you?

-Yes.

It's been a great 10 years, 12 years.

-No regrets?

-No regrets.

I mean, I had ten wonderful years,

and, you know, even if I missed a few things during those ten years,

I had a lot of fun.

I enjoyed myself and I love tennis.

I mean, I had ten great years and I don't really regret anything.

With Borg gone, it was time for another groundbreaker

to step into the spotlight.

Yes, step forward, Boris Becker.

In 1985, he showed Wimbledon

and the world what unseeded teenagers are capable of

by winning the tournament aged just 17.

He became, and remains, the youngest ever men's singles champion,

and that victory altered his life forever.

He's such a familiar face around Wimbledon now

that it's hard to remember Boris the boy,

but here he is talking tennis with the late Sir Terry Wogan

a short time after that first big win.

Have you found...? Have you found that people are...

a lot of fans gathering around you now?

Well, now it's more than before Wimbledon, that's for sure.

Yes?

When I'm walking down the street

and the people are coming to me and want to shake my hand

or want to talk to me,

it's quite amazing how many people that is.

It's not amazing at all.

Obviously, it's a naive question,

but how has life changed for you since you won Wimbledon?

Or do you notice anything?

Because you're playing tennis most of the time.

Well, I hope not that I've changed since Wimbledon.

I think the people have changed to me.

You haven't changed, you don't think?

Er... Maybe a little bit, but, you know, it's...

What little...? What little bit has changed?

LAUGHTER

I'm a little bit older now.

I think you're going to be 18 any minute, aren't you?

-In 12 days now.

-18.

You're an old man, Boris, you're over the hill.

Yes. Then I'm officially a man.

Officially a man. You can drive a car.

It's amazing.

How are you coping with the pressures?

With the press conferences? With the photographers?

With people who are now...?

You had a private life before Wimbledon,

you've had no private life since then, have you?

Yeah, at the beginning, it was a little bit difficult for me,

you know, to understand that now when I'm going on the street,

people are coming to me or want to talk to me.

I have to give press conferences.

When I'm talking, there are, like, 50, 60 journalists

all over the world there, and they listen to every word I'm saying.

But now I think I've got used to it,

and sometimes I even enjoy it a little bit.

John McEnroe said last week,

and I know you don't pay any attention to him,

but he said that if you continue to throw yourself around the court

the way you do, you will be an old man before you're 21.

Um...

I mean, you'll do some damage to yourself.

-Yes...

-HE KNOCKS ON TABLE

So far nothing happened to me.

I hope you don't think that was wood.

LAUGHTER

He's just knocked on plastic, then.

But I'm not diving on a hard court, or not very often.

No, you're not that foolish.

No, but I like to dive on grass, for example.

Yes. Can you think of, like Borg,

getting fed up of it all after a few years and retiring at 24?

Well, you know, I just started to play tennis,

I'm not thinking about retiring now.

No. No, but you can see it stretching ahead of you,

tournament after tournament, year after year,

millions and millions of pounds.

-Won't you get tired?

-Er...

I just can't say for the moment.

Tennis... I even play tennis when I'm on holiday, for example.

Tennis is for me not only a job, it's also my hobby.

So I don't think I would quit before I'm...

I don't know how old.

But I was wondering how long you would go on playing

before it becomes a job and less of a hobby, less fun.

I have no idea.

What about your social life?

Have you any time for a social life

-with the tournaments and going around and playing?

-Er...

Well, not very much, you know?

I'm playing a lot of tennis, but...

..sometimes I'm reading.

I've started to read now because my coach said it's good for me.

-Reading?

-Yes.

Does your coach let you go out with girls?

Er... Well...

LAUGHTER

Er... I... Yes, I do like girls, but my coach...

he doesn't like it so much.

Becker's youth wasn't the only thing that made him a game changer.

Boom-Boom Boris, as he came to be known,

also had one of the fastest serves ever seen in tennis.

John McEnroe said...

IMITATING MCENROE: "No-one has ever hit the ball that hard at me."

It was the birth of a new style of play - the power game.

A new generation of graphite rackets

became the weapon of choice for this new generation of power merchants.

The appliance of science has made it all possible.

Racket manufacturers have plundered the materials

developed for shuttle missions

to produce their brand of wide-body, power-shaft, biokinetic,

dynamic-damping, transient-contoured,

stress-reduced thunder sticks.

They are truly the explosive product of space-age technology.

The new graphite-shafted monsters make the old wooden frames

look like antiques. But tests carried out by Mark Philippoussis,

the world's fastest server, cast doubt on the theory.

The graphite shaft, the average serve was faster, but not by much.

The real reason the game has changed, says Philippoussis,

is a new brand of player - bigger, stronger and fitter -

not just a new brand of racket.

With graphite, obviously, you get a bit more power over it and control,

but, yeah, I think it is the players.

I mean, if someone hits the ball extremely well and hard,

they are going to hit the ball hard no matter what they play with.

I think it's more the player.

Guys are, after all, getting bigger and stronger anyway.

They're training harder than they used to.

It's gotten more serious in a way,

so in a way it's good that these guys are better prepared.

So the last thing you do is need to put some graphite

or titanium in their hand

that gives them the ability to hit a ball 130mph.

You barely can even see the ball, especially at Wimbledon.

And I think the fans and the players deserve more than that.

At yesterday's Stella Artois Championship,

Goran Ivanisevic was so worn down by the Philippoussis serve,

he asked a ball girl to take the heat for a while.

Philippoussis, who went on to win the tournament,

gallantly changed tactics and joined in the longest rally of the match.

What a lovely moment.

I suggest the idea of going back to a wood racket

because I think I'd prefer to see a Pete Sampras

show more of his versatility,

which I'm assuming he'd be capable of doing,

or Agassi or the other top player.

It wasn't just the rackets that looked different in the '80s.

Since the very first tournament,

Wimbledon has been famous for its strict rules on dress and behaviour.

Those rules have often been tested over the years,

but never quite as much as they were being tested now.

It seems strange to see you without a headband.

Did you throw the last one away or something?

No. Well, that quite often happens, actually.

Not so much in London here, but at home.

-Yes.

-You know, I walked down the street, for instance,

and people really don't have any idea who I am.

But then somebody says, "Oh, there goes Pat Cash."

"Oh, I didn't recognise him, he hasn't got his headband on."

-That's right.

-People come up to me and say,

"Will you put this over your head?" You know?

Like a headband, so they can recognise me.

Well, it is your signature.

How did it grow up that you threw the headband to the fans?

How did that happen?

Well, it really just happened this year at Wimbledon.

My second round match, where I was just so happy to win the match,

it was a very tight match against Russell Simpson, from New Zealand,

and I was pretty nervous when I went on there.

It was a close match and I was just very happy after the match.

Somebody said, "Can I have your headband?"

And somebody on the other side said, "Yes, give me one, too."

So I ended up passing a lot of headbands and sweatbands around.

Pat Cash wasn't the only player whose behaviour raised eyebrows.

In fact, he looked positively restrained compared to some.

Andre Agassi's colour choices were disturbing enough,

but he would go on to change perceptions of tennis

in a far more serious way after his retirement.

In his autobiography, he admitted to taking drugs,

revealing that he'd used crystal meth

and failed a doping test in 1997.

He confessed that he'd also lied to avoid a ban,

blaming a contaminated drink for the drug's presence in his body,

which he talks about here with the BBC's Stephen Sackur.

Perhaps the most difficult thing in your professional life,

which was your taking of illegal drugs.

-Yeah.

-Something which has attracted a huge amount of comment

and criticism from people inside tennis.

Are you disappointed with the reaction of,

for example, Martina Navratilova,

who says that she really resents the fact that you took drugs?

She believes you should have been suspended,

she points out that you beat other professionals

at a time when, actually, you should have been suspended.

And she's been very harsh about it.

Well, no question.

My first disappointment is that I ever took drugs

in the first place,

that I ever found myself at that stage in my life.

But as I look at how that all played out, you know,

I have to ask one question, which is, have you really read the book?

Have you seen where this fit in my life?

Why, what the drug was?

Not performance enhancing,

but a recreational, destructional drug.

-Crystal meth.

-Crystal meth is a term they use.

There's a technical name for it as well.

And what happened during that time I actually took the drug,

I mean, I didn't win anything.

If you actually went to the rule book at the time,

it would have been a three-month suspension

during a time when I wasn't even playing tennis.

I suppose one point, specific point,

about the drugs issue

is that you wrote a fairly lame, it has to be said, excuse

to the ATP Tour as to how the substance

had been found in your body.

And rather than check it out or really challenge you,

they accepted it, and you were not suspended.

And it looks as though you were not suspended -

and this obviously goes back to 1997 -

it looks as though you were not suspended because you were still,

despite poor form, a big name in tennis.

You were, in a sense, too big to bring down.

Do you think we as outsiders can assume

that that philosophy may still be there in professional tennis,

they don't want to know if some star names may be dabbling in drugs?

I think the cynicism is good

cos it makes you hold things up to the light.

But I do think you have to look at it in its full context,

and this is pre-age of steroids in sports

and this is that time when tennis was actually leading

in their own desire to monitor the habits,

the usage of illegal or recreational drugs for their sport.

We had a system in place, we oversaw the system in place,

and maybe as a result of my case, or others...

I don't know about the business

of how everything has gone down over that particular...

But that's really what I'm asking.

Do you think there are still stars who are as so big

that the ATP Tour doesn't want to know?

Well, this is the point I'm getting at,

which is, as a result of that, we've now gone to a third party governance

over our drug oversight.

So we now use Wada, which is recognised as an independent party.

The anti-doping agency.

Yes. ATP has no say so now in any results that happen.

And that's been for a long time.

I consider our sport to be very, very clean,

and I consider us to be on the leading edge of that accountability.

Andre Agassi was, of course, one of a long, long line

of overseas Wimbledon champions.

McEnroe, Connors, Ashe, King, Evert, all Americans.

Borg, Swedish. Becker, German. Cash, Australian.

We Brits were forever being reminded

that our last singles champion was Virginia Wade in 1977.

As for a men's champion,

that was the legendary Fred Perry about 250 years before that.

Or at least that's how long it felt.

We needed something to give, someone to really shout for.

We needed hope. We needed Tim Henman.

OK, so Tiger Tim never quite managed to pull off the big one,

but he did give us a lot of excitement,

altered our expectations,

and he was the closest thing we've had to a contender

since Slade had been number one in the charts.

# So, cum on, feel the noize

# Girls, grab the boys... #

Why didn't it quite happen for him?

The all too common accusation was that Tim was too TIM-id.

A surprisingly and totally justifiably feisty Henman

defends himself here against those wrongly but widely-held opinions.

Pete Sampras, a friend and, of course, a former world number one,

Wimbledon champion goodness knows how many times,

he has recently assessed you like this.

Is Tim the best player in the world? No. Is he a truly great player?

No. But he's an extremely talented player,

and if things fall into place, it can happen.

You still have that drive and ambition?

-Absolutely.

-Yes.

-As I said to you, why wouldn't I?

I've obviously got a pretty solid record at Wimbledon

over the years and, you know, the last 12 months,

2004 was my best year.

Absolutely, you know, you need some things to fall into place

and you need to play well at the right time

and you probably need a little bit of luck,

but that's certainly the aim.

But maybe it's not just luck,

and, of course, luck plays its part in every sport.

Do you sense that there's something maybe lacking mentally?

Because that appears to be the perception.

-Whose perception?

-The perception, for example,

of a sports psychologist called John Syer.

-Have I ever met him?

-I don't know.

-No.

But he doesn't have to meet you, maybe, to do an analysis.

-I think he does.

-Does he?

Yeah, I think so.

Maybe he just makes his analysis from television

and seeing your body language on television.

-You may say that's a big distance.

-I think it is, yeah.

He says that you've clearly got all the technical skills,

-you're clearly fit.

-I wouldn't agree with that.

-Oh, really?

-No, I think I could improve my technical skills.

-In what way?

-But it's like... Why is a sports psychologist

talking about my tennis technical skills?

Well, let me get to the point, because you interrupted it.

The point is that if you assume that he does have the technical skills -

I know you deny that - and he's looking after himself,

-there must be a failure somewhere mentally.

-Right.

I suppose my question to you is, after all that preamble,

my question to you is, psychologically,

are you properly prepared?

Absolutely.

Maybe people would actually like you to produce the kind of performance

that you put in in Hamburg recently

when you got very shirty about a dodgy line call.

They'd like you to be more like McEnroe, more fiery, more...

But, again, you can't... But, again, that's...

I still feel it's most important that I concern myself

with what I think is right. And I could...

But you're saying, in a sense, there is no other way.

I could talk to you about a hundred quotes where people say,

"Oh, you know, he's trying to get fired up on the court,

"and that's not him."

And then I could show you a hundred quotes where people say,

"Oh, he's too passive, he needs to get fired up on the court."

-OK.

-And at the end of the day,

as I said, I'm not the best player there's ever been

by any stretch of the imagination, but, you know, at some stage,

I've been the fourth best player on the planet,

and I've won, you know, numerous tournaments worldwide.

So I've got to be half decent at what I do.

-Sure.

-And when it comes back to Wimbledon

and we talk about some of the matches that I've played,

you know, we talk about your quote from the psychologist.

How about I wasn't good enough on the day?

How about Pete Sampras was better than me on the day?

I think that's where people sometimes shy away from that.

I'm honest enough to sit there and say,

"Yeah, when I lost to him in the two semis, he was better than me.

"I need to improve."

Tim gave us a glorious decade of grace and hope,

but our next game changer actually got his name

on the famous gold trophy.

Andy Murray, rewriting the story of Britain's Wimbledon record.

With him in the running,

victory became and remains a real possibility.

What makes Murray different from the rest?

Well, one possibility may have been that other British players

were not as fit and didn't train enough,

or at least that was a controversial opinion expressed

the week before this chat with Jonathan Ross.

OK, Wimbledon's looming.

-Yes.

-Of course. And this is the time when British players,

I guess they dread it, to an extent,

because you're the British number one,

all eyes are going to be on you now. Yes, and you know it.

Are you prepared for... what do they call it?

Murraymania? Andymonium? What do they call it? It's...

-I think Murraymania is the name.

-Murraymania.

-Yeah.

How do you deal with that? Do you gird your loins?

-Do you welcome it? Does it help in any way?

-Er...

I mean, we do get awesome support during the tournament.

When we're on the court, as well,

it's different to any of the other tournaments we play,

but it's more the build-up that's harder before you get on the court.

I was there when you played, I think, the first time at Wimbledon.

I was in the audience. I had some terrible seats,

right at the back somewhere. And you played Nalbandian.

-Yes.

-Yes, and this was about, what, three years ago?

-Yeah, 2005.

-OK, it was a great match, of course.

Fabulous match. One of the exciting things for everyone in the crowd,

as well, but I guess for you, as well, if you were aware,

-was Sean Connery was there.

-Yes.

Now, did you know he was going to be there in advance?

Was he there to support a fellow Scot,

or did he just happen to be there that day?

Yeah, I guess he likes tennis, but it was a bit strange for me,

cos pretty much the day after my match,

he gave me a call.

So to get a call from James Bond

when you're playing Wimbledon for the first time...

That's quite a week in your life.

So you played Wimbledon for the first time

and James Bond phoned you up.

LAUGHTER

-That was pretty...

-What did he say to you when he called?

He was just like, "It's great, keep it going."

He used to always say to me,

"Don't let the press affect you, "don't let the press affect you."

-Is it, like...

-IMITATING CONNERY:

-"You must not let

-"the press affect you"?

-Yeah, exactly like that.

"I saw you playing the other day.

"I thought it was very good."

-I ran out of the voice then.

-That was exactly right.

You are the number one ranked player,

and I have to be careful how I say that,

-here in the United Kingdom.

-Yes.

-Number one.

Put that in context for us.

What does that mean in terms of global scale?

Where are you in the world if you're the number one Brit,

and what does that mean for you personally?

Yeah, I'm ranked 11th in the world just now.

Wow. Well, congratulations. That's pretty good, isn't it?

-Thank you.

-APPLAUSE

11 in the world. Just 21.

Yeah, I mean, the British ranking's not really that important.

We don't have too many players just now, so it's more...

The world rankings are a bit more important.

Why is it we don't have too many players right now?

Because there seems to be a lot of players come out of Russia,

and obviously Russia is a vast continent,

but, you know, there's a lot of people from there

and they go to Miami and train them up.

They come out of there and they seem to be really good.

The Swiss seem to have quite a few.

Why is it that, so far, we haven't managed to produce

the people in the top level?

I've absolutely no idea.

Well, that's not what you said in the papers this week, sunshine.

LAUGHTER

Oh, someone's changed their tune(!)

It's got a bit hot in the old kitchen.

No, I mean, yeah, it's difficult.

I mean, the Russians, obviously,

have got an unbelievable work ethic and stuff.

Do you think that's what it is? Is it just wanting it more?

Yeah, I guess so. I moved to Spain when I was 15 to go and train there

because I felt like it was more competitive practice,

it was harder work and a better environment for me to train in,

but I don't know exactly what the problem is.

Let me ask you about your family,

-because your mum was a tennis coach, is that right?

-Yeah, she still is.

She still is. And your brother is also a gifted tennis player.

-Yep.

-He's slightly older than you, is that right?

-15 months.

-What's the competition like between the two of you?

When you were playing against each other as youngsters, how was that?

When did you start beating him? When did you start outstripping him?

It got pretty ugly. I've actually got a dodgy nail.

He punched me once after I won against him.

Hold on, hold on. That is hardly a big injury, is it?

LAUGHTER

Saying I have a dodgy nail on my left hand...

I've got a dodgy nail

from shutting it in the bloody toilet door last week.

-It's not nice, is it?

-No, it's not good.

Anyway, I apologise.

So you would actually get physical with each other?

Yeah. I mean, when we were younger, yeah.

When we were 14, I started to improve much more,

and Jamie obviously only plays doubles now.

Let's talk about Tim Henman a little bit,

because I know he's a friend of yours.

-Yep.

-A great player.

I know he's retired from the game at that level now,

but he was a great player while he was there

-and he got that close to winning Wimbledon, didn't he?

-He did, yeah.

Cos I know, it's in your book, which I've been reading...

Hitting Back is your book. You kind of didn't write it yourself.

I guess you spoke to someone and it comes out of that.

You're 21, you won't have time to write a proper book.

No, and I'm not bright enough.

You don't have time to read a magazine.

Anyway, Hitting Back is the book.

I've been enjoying reading it, cos I'm a tennis fan anyway,

but you talk about Henman in there,

you talk about the amount of advice he's given you.

It must be nice to have someone

who has essentially been through what you are going through

and about to go through, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, he's been great since pretty much when I went on the tour.

I didn't know any of the players at all. I was obviously 18.

Tim, yeah, he obviously gave me a lot of advice,

I practised with him a lot, he paid for a few of my dinners and stuff,

so that was good.

How is it when you then go on to play someone like that

who's been a bit of a mentor, perhaps, been a friend,

and then you have to play them professionally?

Of course, I'm imagining you want to stuff them as much as possible.

How do you get yourself in the different mind-set

to stop seeing them as a friend and...?

Yeah, that's probably the toughest part.

It's only really been when I played against him I found it difficult.

I've played him four times on the tour, but, yeah, that's...

It's really tough, there's not too much you can do.

You've just got to try and focus on winning the match,

but it's a bit uncomfortable at the end of the match

when you've got to shake hands and say, "Tough luck,"

-when you don't really mean that.

-Yeah.

We end with what is perhaps one of the biggest game changers

in the history of the world's favourite grass court tournament.

But it has absolutely no personality at all.

Wimbledon fortnight was always a hostage

to the great British summer

and, over the years, became synonymous

with the phrase "wash-out".

I've known nothing like it at all, ever.

I've asked various people like Fred Perry,

and he can't remember anything like this.

I think this must be the worst one on record.

I can't remember seeing anything...

anything as strong as this at Wimbledon.

I feel sympathy for the people braving it there

under their umbrellas.

They are taking a battering.

Ladies and gentlemen, play is suspended.

Along with the rain,

the carefully planned Wimbledon schedule has been washed away,

meaning that some top players have been frustrated,

spending more time in the locker room than on the court.

It's been a day of frustration for Tim Henman

and millions of British tennis fans.

Rain interrupted much of his crucial semifinal clash

with Goran Ivanisevic.

Just 51 minutes' play were possible before the rain returned,

putting the match back again till tomorrow,

with a decision on when to play the final left to the winner.

Wimbledon could have a serious problem

concluding the championships tomorrow.

And then, in 2009, finally, everything changed.

On Centre Court, at least.

And, arguably, nothing has had a greater impact on play

over all the years at the All England Club.

The sight of hundreds of tennis fans huddled under umbrellas in the rain

on Centre Court will now be a thing of the past,

and that's because Centre Court finally has a new retractable roof.

They have decided now to close the roof.

It takes eight to ten minutes to close.

So, there we go.

We've had women's rights, civil rights, fashion wrongs,

boom-boom, swoon swoon,

a so-nearly man, a very-real-y man,

and what turned out to be a very good plan, man.

It's still the ivy-covered, flower-drenched,

impeccably mown corner of SW19 we've loved forever,

but thanks to all these game changers,

Wimbledon is also a whole new ballgame.