Speaker 1: When I got clean and stopped using, I sort of
Speaker 1: had made a commitment to myself than anything that I do,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do properly and jump in full, which
Speaker 1: in the past had sort of never been the case.
Speaker 1: I dropped out of high school, so I'd never finished school.
Speaker 1: I had had a couple of jobs here or there,
Speaker 1: but never went for a day and then didn't go
Speaker 1: back and sort of stuff like that. So that commitment
Speaker 1: to myself that if I'm going to do something, I
Speaker 1: want to see it through. And tennis was a funny
Speaker 1: one to come back because there was so much fear
Speaker 1: about coming back because I was quite a successful junior,
Speaker 1: like I represented Australia twice for World Team Cup. I'd
Speaker 1: never lost a Dylan, I was world number three in
Speaker 1: the juniors. So I had a really good junior career
Speaker 1: and obviously just life got in the way and I
Speaker 1: chose a different path there for a while, and the
Speaker 1: fear of coming back and not being as good as
Speaker 1: I was was really, really heavily weighing on me. But
Speaker 1: I just said, you know what, this is what I
Speaker 1: want to do, so I'm going to do it, and
Speaker 1: I jumped in and I think I was hitting just
Speaker 1: I rang my local coach. Actually, one night I watched
Speaker 1: Nick Kurios beat Rafa I think it was twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: at Wimbledon, and my girlfriend at the time said, you
Speaker 1: used to play wheelchair tennis, didn't you? And I said
Speaker 1: I did, and she's like, if you ever thought about
Speaker 1: going back. I'd been cleaned for a few years by then,
Speaker 1: and I sort of went, no, not really, and then
Speaker 1: that sort of just it was in the back of
Speaker 1: my head. Yep, the seed had been yeah, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wonder if I wonder if I should. And then
Speaker 1: a couple of days later, I rang my coach, Marco Percy,
Speaker 1: that i'd hit with from fourteen to eighteen, and he
Speaker 1: used to come and look after me and come and
Speaker 1: check on me when I live by myself. He's like
Speaker 1: my big brother these days. I rang him and he's like,
Speaker 1: this is a blasphem passing thing something from you again,
Speaker 1: And I said, any chance I could come down and
Speaker 1: have a bash and he's like, I'll say the same
Speaker 1: thing as I did back when your dad rang me.
Speaker 1: Do you want to go and have a bash? I
Speaker 1: said yes, So I rang. I didn't have a wheelchair
Speaker 1: or anything. So I rang wheel chair, spat Tiktoria, borrowed
Speaker 1: a wheelchair, went down, had to hit. It was fun.
Speaker 1: I forgot how much I missed just hitting tennis balls.
Speaker 1: And then I think I posted I think I was
Speaker 1: hitting for three or four weeks and then I posted
Speaker 1: a photo of me back on a tennis court and
Speaker 1: Dylan had seen that post and then had a chat
Speaker 1: with Tennis Australia and said, hey, he's used to play tennis.
Speaker 1: He used to be pretty good. Let's get him down
Speaker 1: and just have a chat to him, see what's going on.
Speaker 1: And I came in, had a hit with Dylan. I
Speaker 1: was terrible. He was world number one at the time,
Speaker 1: so he pasted me. I met Francois and Brenda, who
Speaker 1: used to be in charge of our department, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that conversation led to would you like to come in
Speaker 1: and we'll have a chat and see if we can
Speaker 1: move forward, And then yeah, I went from hitting once
Speaker 1: or twice a week to being here five days a
Speaker 1: week with Dylan, not having any idea what it meant
Speaker 1: to be a professional athlete. I mean, at the time
Speaker 1: I was still in junkford four days a week and
Speaker 1: doing all the wrong things, and yeah, really really struggled
Speaker 1: to adapt to that lifestyle. But huge thanks to Dylan
Speaker 1: for being there every step of the way with me
Speaker 1: and helping me and pushing me. And he's a really
Speaker 1: good motivated that boy. He just he knows the right
Speaker 1: things to stay to get me to go. And I
Speaker 1: mean it was a well win twelve months because twelve
Speaker 1: months later we want to gold medal at the Paralympics.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was pretty pretty wild. We will talk
Speaker 1: more about Rio shortly, but also you won your first
Speaker 1: singles title international singles title in Korea in May twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: What did that mean for you at the time. It
Speaker 1: was mean a lot because obviously all of my success
Speaker 1: leading up to that had been in the doubles, and
Speaker 1: it was I mean, my first top ten win was
Speaker 1: a few months before. That would have been late twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, I managed to win Korea and played
Speaker 1: some good tennis. And I think I've always enjoyed playing
Speaker 1: doubles more because I enjoy the like partnership. And I
Speaker 1: think I've always been a very negative singles player in
Speaker 1: the sense of like I get in my own head
Speaker 1: and I'm really negative to myself and I mean I've
Speaker 1: been working with a sports like now for six years
Speaker 1: and it's still there, but we're starting to get better.
Speaker 1: So yeah, mean a lot to actually finally get out
Speaker 1: there and get one by myself. I liked being in
Speaker 1: ding Shadow, that was nice. If you'd like to hear
Speaker 1: the rest of our conversation with Heath Davidson, make sure
Speaker 1: you're head to the sit down wherever you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: or you can find the links in the show notes.