Speaker 1: Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of The sit Down.
Speaker 1: I'm Matt Trolo, a writer from oz open dot Com, and.
Speaker 2: I'm Brie Stewart, head of Content Strategy and Operations at
Speaker 2: Tennis Australia.
Speaker 1: And Brie, why are we sitting down with Pat Cash
Speaker 1: this week?
Speaker 2: Well, viv Christie, who is generally here with Matt, is
Speaker 2: currently in Wimbledon. Lucky duck, and why not sit down
Speaker 2: on someone like Pac Cash given his illustrious career. He's
Speaker 2: a very, very important Aussie in the tennis world and
Speaker 2: she was really lucky to get to sit.
Speaker 3: Down with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's hear what the nineteen eighty seven Wimbledon champion
Speaker 1: had to say.
Speaker 4: Pat, thank you for joining us from a very wet
Speaker 4: and somewhat cold Wimbledon. But if I remember correctly, the
Speaker 4: sun was shining in nineteen eighty seven when you won
Speaker 4: the men's title. What's it like to return to the
Speaker 4: All England Club as a champion?
Speaker 5: Well, it's a great privilege. I mean, I'm lucky. I've
Speaker 5: lived in London, so I have the opportunity to come
Speaker 5: back when I like. One of the benefits of winning
Speaker 5: the title is you become a member and they often joke,
Speaker 5: but I think there is some some some reality in
Speaker 5: it that the easiest way for an Australian or foreigner
Speaker 5: to get a membership is to win the championship.
Speaker 3: So it's it's a bit.
Speaker 5: Tongue in cheek, but but it is a very very
Speaker 5: exclusive club. But it's a really nice club. It's it's
Speaker 5: it's actually not old and as snobby is you know,
Speaker 5: I certainly when I first came came here, but it's
Speaker 5: you know, and they the clubs has tried to be,
Speaker 5: you know, in the forefront of tennis and and and
Speaker 5: and changes of tennis because they were they were the
Speaker 5: first Slam to invite the pro players back in the
Speaker 5: back in the day, Ken Rosell and Labor and these
Speaker 5: guys to come and play a tournament. And they said, well,
Speaker 5: yeah we're going to have a pros So the first
Speaker 5: you wouldn't believe it will Wimbledon. Wall Clubs were the
Speaker 5: first ones that say, yeah, we'll welcome the professional players.
Speaker 5: So they're always trying to be ahead of the game.
Speaker 5: I'm not as excited as I used to be because
Speaker 5: I can come here quite regularly, but I'm always very
Speaker 5: very proud to show friends or guests, you know, around
Speaker 5: the trophy room and say, hey, my name's on that.
Speaker 5: And and in a weird, a very weird way. A
Speaker 5: few years ago when Andy Murray went He's second title,
Speaker 5: and I went into the locker room afterwards as a memory,
Speaker 5: not allowed in the locker room money if you're a
Speaker 5: coach or a player. So but they let me in
Speaker 5: the locker room. And then there there was the trophy
Speaker 5: and I saw Murray that was just sitting there, and
Speaker 5: I was having a chat with Yvonne Lendel and his
Speaker 5: wife were their Samantha, and and I looked, I just
Speaker 5: looked at the trophy, but for some reason, I didn't
Speaker 5: look for my name.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what. Then.
Speaker 5: That's strange because afterwards somebody said, oh, was your name
Speaker 5: is still on the ise? Like I didn't even look.
Speaker 5: I assumed it is, So I'm hoping it's still on there.
Speaker 4: Do you come here often outside tournament time?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I do often enough.
Speaker 5: I mean I've been coaching on the on the on
Speaker 5: and off the tour for the last or ten years,
Speaker 5: eight ten years, and so when I'm off the road
Speaker 5: and I want to have it here to tennis. I
Speaker 5: live not too far away from Queen's Club, so that's
Speaker 5: usually been my preferred one. But they and the indoor
Speaker 5: courts he were very, very average until they built a
Speaker 5: beautiful new center a couple of years ago. So now
Speaker 5: I try and come here as often as they can.
Speaker 5: And there's a lot of good players, a lot of experts,
Speaker 5: Brick brit members, Davis Cup players and fed Cup, Billy
Speaker 5: Jean King Cup players here, so there's actually quite a
Speaker 5: lot of good players at the club, you know, and
Speaker 5: then there's amateurs of course, and so I do get
Speaker 5: to I do get to come when I want and
Speaker 5: which which is which is great. But it's always a
Speaker 5: very exciting of course when the when the tournament's on,
Speaker 5: because the rest of you know, for eleven months a
Speaker 5: year it's dead quiet. So you walk around here and
Speaker 5: you see the tours coming through and that's about it.
Speaker 4: And obviously, you know, one thing that changed for you
Speaker 4: is that you become a member of the All England Club.
Speaker 4: But what else changed for you when you became a
Speaker 4: WINM Wooden champion.
Speaker 5: Well, I suppose at the time I didn't think anything
Speaker 5: was going to change, but it seemed to be that
Speaker 5: I didn't really change, but every everybody else around me
Speaker 5: did so to speak, so there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 5: going around. I was still a father, I'll soon to
Speaker 5: be ill, soon to be a father of two. Not
Speaker 5: that long after the championship. For the next year before
Speaker 5: I played the defended.
Speaker 3: It was another one on.
Speaker 5: The way and it was so yeah, that was my
Speaker 5: that and my career with my priorities. But I did
Speaker 5: feel a lot of a lot of pressure, external pressure,
Speaker 5: and no one put more pressure on me than myself.
Speaker 5: I mean, that was that was I think. For the
Speaker 5: worst thing is I thought, okay, one I won Wimbledon,
Speaker 5: and reflecting back on it, it was one of the
Speaker 5: weirdest things ever. When I came in the locker room
Speaker 5: and I finally got to have a good chat with
Speaker 5: the team. Obviously I climbed up the stands and gave
Speaker 5: him a quick hug, but you know, I had had
Speaker 5: a good and one of the first things I said
Speaker 5: I was with myort psychologist, Jeff Bond, who was from
Speaker 5: the AIS and he he was over there and Ian Barclay,
Speaker 5: of course, my coach, and one of the first things
Speaker 5: I said was let's go and win the US Open.
Speaker 5: And they just sort of looked at me with this
Speaker 5: blank look and.
Speaker 3: Uh and and I thought, yeah, come on, you know,
Speaker 3: I want to win.
Speaker 5: And it was like mate, they almost basically they look
Speaker 5: at I only reflected on it later. It was that
Speaker 5: they kind of looked at me and went, mate, you
Speaker 5: just want Wimbledon. Why do you enjoy it?
Speaker 3: You know? And it was and it's and I just
Speaker 3: for some reason.
Speaker 5: I mean, of course I enjoyed it at the moment,
Speaker 5: but I was I was always And that's what I
Speaker 5: suppose high achievers or perfectionists have. They're always looking for
Speaker 5: something else and looking for another. And I thought I
Speaker 5: was very weird. And and I've heard I heard this
Speaker 5: a lot from in interviews from other some gold medalists
Speaker 5: and other champions there, and it's it's very hard to
Speaker 5: sort of enjoy the enjoy the moment. And I think
Speaker 5: hopefully players have learned from our mistakes. But you know,
Speaker 5: it was, it was such a so much. It's so disturbing.
Speaker 5: I think to me, that and the way that that
Speaker 5: I put stress on myself and every every single tournament
Speaker 5: that I ended up getting a tattoo on my arm,
Speaker 5: which was just about smelling the roses. I forgot a
Speaker 5: rose on my tattoo on my arm saying this too,
Speaker 5: shell pass, which means that the bad will pass, but
Speaker 5: the good will pass, So enjoy it. Smell the roses.
Speaker 5: So that's a constant reminder. It's on my arm and
Speaker 5: I have to look at it. And to this day
Speaker 5: I have a ritual where if I see a rose bush,
Speaker 5: doesn't matter what I'm doing, if I'm going for a
Speaker 5: jog or whatever, I will, i will stop and I'll smell,
Speaker 5: smell the roses, just to have a couple of minute
Speaker 5: seconds to go, you know what, trying to enjoy this
Speaker 5: and I do now, I really do. I've changed, but
Speaker 5: at the time, you know, there was the pressure, the
Speaker 5: expectations on myself and certainly everybody else changed. I hadn't changed,
Speaker 5: always put presure on myself, but I put more pressure,
Speaker 5: to say, and I think that also the fact that
Speaker 5: people were saying, oh, you know, Boris Becker went out
Speaker 5: early and you didn't beat Boris. I heard that a
Speaker 5: couple of a couple of times and got the guys
Speaker 5: Peter doing he's a good mate of mind, but he
Speaker 5: was giving me a he beat Boris Becker's ass. The
Speaker 5: away he's a good mate of mine, but he needs
Speaker 5: to say stuff like that, hey, image, how much percentage
Speaker 5: of the prize when you're going to give me for beating Boris?
Speaker 3: And you know, and I sort of kind of laughed
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 5: I go, well, you know, and I thought, so I
Speaker 5: actually I played him in the Sydney Indoors that and
Speaker 5: that was that was a big match for me to
Speaker 5: beat him. And I beat him in that and in
Speaker 5: a way, and I remember going to the press conference
Speaker 5: and saying, yeah, I've done it. You know, I've showed
Speaker 5: people that that you know, I can beat anybody. And
Speaker 5: they sort of looked at me and go, yeah, we
Speaker 5: kind of knew that. But for me, I was that
Speaker 5: was important. And so, you know, there was a couple
Speaker 5: of things I wanted to tick off my tick off
Speaker 5: my list, and you know, obviously proving to myself that
Speaker 5: that I was, you know, I could have beaten Boris.
Speaker 5: You know, he was obviously two time champion, and you know,
Speaker 5: going on to try and win another Grand Slam, which
Speaker 5: I didn't quite get done in obviously in Australia and
Speaker 5: or elsewhere.
Speaker 4: Was there ever a moment where you sort of stopped
Speaker 4: and really appreciated that you'd become a Wimbledon champion.
Speaker 5: Every day pretty much now every day I still pinch myself.
Speaker 5: I mean today I've just gone in and talked to
Speaker 5: some some you know, corporate guests and and you know,
Speaker 5: I can't believe it. And I said to my manager
Speaker 5: yesterday I said, I said, I thank god I wont Wimbledon.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just.
Speaker 5: It's it's it's something, he said, Mate, You've done something
Speaker 5: that it's it's near impossible to do. You know, people
Speaker 5: admire that. You know, you might see your normal person,
Speaker 5: but you're actually not. You're actually a bit of a
Speaker 5: freak because you won Wimbledon. And I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 5: really you know, if there's a little of other people,
Speaker 5: he said, well, not really. I don't know how many
Speaker 5: men of one thirty or forty, not many in the
Speaker 5: whole history of the sport of one Wimbledon.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think, wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So every once in a while I need reminding.
Speaker 5: But basically, you know, pretty much, you know, I'm reminded daily.
Speaker 5: But you know, I don't take it for granted. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I think I'm a very very normal person. You know,
Speaker 5: I don't I don't go around showing my members badge
Speaker 5: or any of that stuff.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: That's that's not what it's about. It's the fact that
Speaker 5: I did it. I've done it, and I didn't look
Speaker 5: at the name on the trophy, you know, and that's
Speaker 5: that's not important to him.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know where my replica trophy is. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you still don't know. I still don't know. I think
Speaker 3: it's a key, right, but I'm not sure. I walked past.
Speaker 5: I've been a key for the the tournament there, the
Speaker 5: lead up tournament, past it about twenty times and never
Speaker 5: stopped to look. Maybe I think it is, but that's
Speaker 5: not important to me.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I know the people when borg is saying he's going
Speaker 5: to sell one of his trophies and everybody hysterical, but
Speaker 5: Mac and no, no, no, we come on, we're gonna,
Speaker 5: we're gonna. We're gonna buy it for your Borgie so
Speaker 5: you can keep it. And he was like, and I
Speaker 5: kind of got it. I said, it's only trophy. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's nice, but it's nice to have. But he's got
Speaker 5: he got.
Speaker 3: Five beyond that. I'm not going to give mine one away,
Speaker 3: but I'm not. But I'm not. You know, I'm not
Speaker 3: overly concerned about that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: And what about your headband. You were famous for your headband.
Speaker 4: Do you have any of your head bands from.
Speaker 3: I've got my head I have.
Speaker 5: I got headbands in here because everybody seems everybody seems
Speaker 5: to want one somewhere, and usually I mean I give
Speaker 5: him out. I've never sold any. So my head band
Speaker 5: was just about having a bit of fun and doing
Speaker 5: a bit of rock and roll and tribute and Cheap Trick,
Speaker 5: who were my favorite band and still one of my
Speaker 5: favorite bands. And you know, just this morning, actually I
Speaker 5: love still playing guitar, and I played a bit of
Speaker 5: little little band around London, and I put my guitar
Speaker 5: off a bit of practice because I got a gig
Speaker 5: at the end of the tournament, and I had my
Speaker 5: Rick Nielsen guitar strap which he gave me, who's the
Speaker 5: guitarist from Cheap Trick, which I got the inspiration for
Speaker 5: the check headband.
Speaker 3: He gave me. He presented me his guitar.
Speaker 5: Strap, which is basically it looks exactly that my head man,
Speaker 5: which is the whole point, and I strapped it on today.
Speaker 3: Every time I picked that up. Agay that's bloody cool.
Speaker 4: The other way that you brought your individual touch to
Speaker 4: Imbuden was, of course climbing up into the stands. Are
Speaker 4: you proud of that legacy when you see the players
Speaker 4: doing it now?
Speaker 3: I am. I actually am very proud, and.
Speaker 5: It's I think it's a It was a natural sort
Speaker 5: of reaction, but because of the stuffiness of tennis or whatever,
Speaker 5: that nobody had done it or been stupid enough to
Speaker 5: do it, and I was stupid enough to do it
Speaker 5: and get myself in a little bit of trouble, but
Speaker 5: nothing I couldn't handle, but a bit of a slap
Speaker 5: on the wrist from the club to not do that again,
Speaker 5: and you kept the royal family waiting.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah. Nothing too dramatic.
Speaker 5: But it's a natural sort of thing to want to
Speaker 5: share it with your team and and for me, that
Speaker 5: was the team that I had was was really the first,
Speaker 5: the first team in in tennis.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Now you look at the box and you see you know,
Speaker 5: physios and trainers and coaches and assistant coaches and tech
Speaker 5: people and whatever strings strings and.
Speaker 3: As John McEnroe's walking path, amac, where are you going?
Speaker 3: I had to talk to you in a minute.
Speaker 5: You're busy, Okay, all right, I'll see I'll catch you.
Speaker 5: He's playing a gig as well at the end of
Speaker 5: I want to know what songs he's playing.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So it was it was a moment in my
Speaker 5: career where where it was suggested to me, and I
Speaker 5: accepted from wiser people than me, that I needed some
Speaker 5: sports psychology help. I don't think I really lost any
Speaker 5: matches because I because of my temper or going off,
Speaker 5: but I could be I certainly could have been better.
Speaker 5: And and of course i'd been injured, and you know
Speaker 5: it was a year off with a back injury, and
Speaker 5: I was a young father, so you know, there was
Speaker 5: a whole lot of There was quite a few things
Speaker 5: going on, so much like a business or whatever.
Speaker 3: I brought in the consultants.
Speaker 5: There were specialists, and you know that was the physio
Speaker 5: and then the trainer. You know David Zuker there, who's
Speaker 5: the Olympic physio, Jeff Bond who was the Olympic sports psychologists,
Speaker 5: had doctor round Quinn who's my lifelong friend, and you know,
Speaker 5: the best training there was. I was very, very lucky.
Speaker 5: You need a bit of luck. Of course, had super
Speaker 5: lucky to get get her and she was. She was
Speaker 5: amazing for me, got me fitter than any player, faster
Speaker 5: than any play, cutting edge training, she had you and supplements,
Speaker 5: all that sort of stuff which I wasn't wasn't known.
Speaker 5: And then and of course Barker is my coach who
Speaker 5: has been there from almost day one. So we had
Speaker 5: a great We had a great team. And actually a
Speaker 5: more orthopedic surgeon there he was in the back. He
Speaker 5: got him some tickets as well. He was more coming
Speaker 5: over for a holiday. But so I had had this
Speaker 5: team and and for me it was very special. It
Speaker 5: was important for me to share that that that with them.
Speaker 5: And of course my father was up there and and
Speaker 5: my partner, the mother, and my my my.
Speaker 3: Son, and.
Speaker 5: I don't know, it just didn't feel right to be
Speaker 5: back on the court alone by so I made up
Speaker 5: my mind to do it the night before, but didn't
Speaker 5: think much about it. And then afterwards, you know, I
Speaker 5: sort of so much in the moment and I was
Speaker 5: look looking up to them and going, they're so far away.
Speaker 3: This just doesn't feel right.
Speaker 5: And so that's when I made the decision to go,
Speaker 5: and I eventually made it. That wasn't very very elegant
Speaker 5: by any means, and almost it almost became the most
Speaker 5: embarrassing moment in my life from one of the best
Speaker 5: moments in my life about a minute earlier. So I
Speaker 5: couldn't get couldn't get find my way up there. But
Speaker 5: I eventually did it, and and you know, the rest
Speaker 5: is history. But you know, I'm glad they're cleared a
Speaker 5: pathway for the players to see their teams.
Speaker 4: Well, you created lots of kind of injuring memories. I
Speaker 4: always remember you had such a special bond with your
Speaker 4: coach in Barclay, that was such a long relationship.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I and still here comes every year we
Speaker 5: can and you know, when none of us are getting
Speaker 5: any younger. So it's great, great to see him at
Speaker 5: dinner with him the other day and a at a
Speaker 5: good great chat with him. He's still on top of
Speaker 5: the tennis. And he lived in England for a while,
Speaker 5: so he coached quite a lot of the players who
Speaker 5: now have now become coaches. So he ends up running
Speaker 5: into the coach of Jack Draper and and others. But yeah,
Speaker 5: it's and he doesn't he looks the same, because he
Speaker 5: looked he had gray hair and a gray mustache. Back
Speaker 5: then when he was only forty and uh now he's
Speaker 5: got the same he's got slightly less hair, but he
Speaker 5: looks exactly the same. People look at you look exactly
Speaker 5: the same, and he does. He's a bit slower, of course.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean Ian was my second father and his son
Speaker 5: was my best best buddies and you know with mad
Speaker 5: Hawthorne supporters, so he always had some fun.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of success with the Hawks at
Speaker 3: that that time of the of.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the eighties, and you know we were just yeah,
Speaker 5: he was like my like my dad and my dad
Speaker 5: used to get on the phone and my dad was
Speaker 5: almost almost the I don't know, the the person who
Speaker 5: sort of you know, kept on He did the some
Speaker 5: finance and he was a lawyer and so he kept
Speaker 5: an eye on that with along with IMG Management Group.
Speaker 5: So we had a I thought we had a bloody
Speaker 5: good team which was really modern modern, very modern version
Speaker 5: or the very modern version back then.
Speaker 4: And in that campaign you beat Paul McNamee Jimmy Connors
Speaker 4: of Van Landell. What do you remember from the tennis itself.
Speaker 5: Well, I remember that all of a sudden, the weather
Speaker 5: came from this sort of weather miserably cold for weeks
Speaker 5: to boiling hot. It came very fast, which suited me.
Speaker 5: I think one of the toughest matches I certainly playing Paul.
Speaker 5: Paul mcner me who you know, is one of my
Speaker 5: best parties. We played doubles together. Maca was a great
Speaker 5: influence on me, you know, a super role model. Showed
Speaker 5: me the robes, you know, around the circuit and certainly
Speaker 5: dealing with.
Speaker 3: You know, the other things, you know.
Speaker 5: The tennis association management, all that sort of stuff. You know,
Speaker 5: so he was a great you know, I probably I
Speaker 5: wouldn't have had the success without Paul's support and had
Speaker 5: the plane, you know, and I thought, well, this is
Speaker 5: my this is my year. And it was tough inne
Speaker 5: my game, you know, he wasn't He knew where the
Speaker 5: weaknesses were and he was going after them. And that
Speaker 5: was that was a really really tricky match. I ended
Speaker 5: up winning, but it wasn't easy, and there was three
Speaker 5: really tough sets. And then the next round Michael shape
Speaker 5: as the heat started coming in a Dutchman and I
Speaker 5: really struggled what I got end up getting through in
Speaker 5: four sets, and I sort of had to pull my
Speaker 5: head and that was a very frustrating match, and I
Speaker 5: know I was yelling and screaming and pulling my hair
Speaker 5: out and everything like that. And and you know, thank
Speaker 5: god I had Jeff Bond of the sports psychologist there
Speaker 5: because you know, we went to work on that and
Speaker 5: it's okay, we can we can improve on this area.
Speaker 5: You're going to get frustrated in these tournaments. And I
Speaker 5: thought Shape was going to be the easiest player of
Speaker 5: the whole tournament, and here he was making the toughest
Speaker 5: for me. And I improved from then a lot and
Speaker 5: playing fourge, I started really playing well. Villander Jimmy Connors
Speaker 5: was I had to had a great run in the tournament,
Speaker 5: and you know, I knew I had to get on
Speaker 5: top of top at the top of him, and.
Speaker 3: You know, I you know, one of the.
Speaker 5: First set, it was a bit of a struggle serve
Speaker 5: for the set and he broke broke me back, and
Speaker 5: the crowd were going crazy because he was here. He
Speaker 5: was at the end of his career. It's thirty five.
Speaker 5: I mean, you think thirty five back then. Now you're
Speaker 5: looking at jocol it just thirty six and Murray and
Speaker 5: still going it or barely still going. But you know,
Speaker 5: thirty five. Yeah, it's old, but it's not that old,
Speaker 5: I suppose now. I always had that opinion as well,
Speaker 5: but but you know, the crowd were really getting into it.
Speaker 5: So I ended up getting through Jimmy, playing really well
Speaker 5: at the end and getting into the final. I felt
Speaker 5: very confident against Yvann. I'd beaten him in his Train Open.
Speaker 5: My shoulder wasn't great during the Austrain Open semi final.
Speaker 5: I wasn't serving nearly one hundred percent, and and I
Speaker 5: beat Yvonne, and I figured, well, if I can beat
Speaker 5: him now that I'm fully fit, you know I've got it.
Speaker 5: You know I should do it. But it's one thing
Speaker 5: wanting to do it, another thing actually doing it. So
Speaker 5: a new Varne was going to be tough. Hit the
Speaker 5: ball harder than just about anybody. Probably Boris Becker was
Speaker 5: the hardest hitter, but you haven't hit the ball really hard,
Speaker 5: and so I just had to try and make him
Speaker 5: volley and try and put it together as best I could.
Speaker 5: And it was you know, there was two really tight
Speaker 5: sets that could have gone either way.
Speaker 4: You mentioned playing against Paul Paul mcnamie, and that was
Speaker 4: such a tough match for you. I mean, Izzie. Camaraderie.
Speaker 4: It's always such a feature of Wimbled and through the generations.
Speaker 4: It must be pleasing for you to see that that
Speaker 4: still exists now.
Speaker 3: It should do it? Really should? I think it.
Speaker 5: I think the camaraderie came back in the early days
Speaker 5: when the guys would travel together for months and months
Speaker 5: and months, and yeah, of course they'll incredibly competitive, but
Speaker 5: you know, there wasn't I suppose there wasn't a lot
Speaker 5: of there wasn't really money in it, so they had
Speaker 5: you know, it's like, well that element of uh, you know, lifestyle,
Speaker 5: I suppose didn't really come into it.
Speaker 3: You know, if you know, if I lose to it,
Speaker 3: I was your first round.
Speaker 5: Then you know, I get, I get, you know, a
Speaker 5: decent check, but you know, all of a sudden he's
Speaker 5: got a really good check. You know, I want, I
Speaker 5: need that, you know, I want to pay my coach
Speaker 5: and and now I can't type of thing. But but
Speaker 5: and I know I've always been raised to help the young,
Speaker 5: younger players, or younger people or or whatever. Maybe it's
Speaker 5: just in me as a young young father that I
Speaker 5: always wanted to help people, but it was installed in
Speaker 5: me by the older guys Neil Fraser and and and
Speaker 5: and whatever, and and I think that's that's uh, that's
Speaker 5: really important. And then the big world of business and
Speaker 5: everything else that goes on, there's always going to be
Speaker 5: friction between people and players and and whatever. But at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, you know, it's about people
Speaker 5: coming out there enjoying tennis and having a being able
Speaker 5: to have a shot.
Speaker 4: You know that I was his spirit also translated to
Speaker 4: you for Davis Cup. You had some great success in
Speaker 4: Davis Cup. You must be proud to have had by
Speaker 4: individual heights and team heights as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Davis Cup was just awesome.
Speaker 5: You know, just looking back at those times, they were
Speaker 5: probably the most fun times in my career. Also some
Speaker 5: of the most disappointing, because you know, you don't perform
Speaker 5: well for your country, you feel really really like you've
Speaker 5: let down your mates and your country. And you know,
Speaker 5: I was fortunate enough to have a great team, and
Speaker 5: you know, certainly in eighty three when I first came
Speaker 5: on the circuit, you know, I'd watched John Alexander play
Speaker 5: in the Davis Cup and he was a bit of
Speaker 5: a hero of mine. And I want to model my
Speaker 5: serve after Ja, and you know he did well. And
Speaker 5: remember seeing beat Panatta in the Italian White City at
Speaker 5: the semi finals of Davis Cup.
Speaker 3: You know, that was that sort of an endearing moment.
Speaker 5: I can I can see I can actually see in
Speaker 5: my mind Phrase holding up Ja's hand and it's sort
Speaker 5: of half twisted over at the back of his head.
Speaker 5: J looks completely drenched in sweat, looks exhausted. But big
Speaker 5: moments for me and Jay. When I came on the circuit,
Speaker 5: Ja was still there and Brad Drewitt was, you know
Speaker 5: who became a good friend, The late great Brad Drewitt
Speaker 5: is a friend of all of us. You know, we
Speaker 5: were sort of Orange boys with Peter the mac is
Speaker 5: the Supermax and playing in Perth against you know, MC
Speaker 5: and rain was coming out. That was that was great
Speaker 5: moments for me and I always wanted to play from
Speaker 5: for my country and got the opportunity the next year,
Speaker 5: and you know, we had a we had a you know,
Speaker 5: a great mentality and of you know, we'll just give
Speaker 5: it a shot. We've got a good we've got a
Speaker 5: great chance here. We've got playing every match in Australia.
Speaker 5: But you know, let's see how far we can go,
Speaker 5: and we always we dedicated ourselves to this, and.
Speaker 4: So many of those moments were on a grass court.
Speaker 4: So Bossie's and grass, it's a pretty special thing, isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well we had I suppose we've got some DNA
Speaker 5: from the throwback now now that not down play a
Speaker 5: lot on the grass.
Speaker 3: And I mean, what a great line of teachers we had.
Speaker 5: We had everywhere from the sedge Frank Sedgement all the
Speaker 5: way through m O. You know, Ken Rose was here
Speaker 5: yesterday and you know, I remember vividly watching Ken Rose
Speaker 5: was back and I've got videos I help him on
Speaker 5: my phone saved in my favor So I show my
Speaker 5: player how players how to hit a slice back in
Speaker 5: and when they start chopping on the ball, go check
Speaker 5: this out. And this is how hit to slice back in.
Speaker 5: And you know, you know the new curve of course,
Speaker 5: and Roachie the doubles, and you know, we just had
Speaker 5: a great line of teachers that teach taught us and
Speaker 5: Neil Fraser of course, that Davids Cup captain is you know,
Speaker 5: was you know, the most beautiful left handed serve. I
Speaker 5: watched watched some of the old video and some photos
Speaker 5: of him and I now know more about technique. I honestly,
Speaker 5: there's a photo at Kuyong that is worth anybody going
Speaker 5: past and watching. The phrase serve mid serves action is
Speaker 5: absolutely poetry in motion. It is the most technically perfect
Speaker 5: serve I think I've ever seen. It's and it's and
Speaker 5: that was some phrase back on those days. And you know,
Speaker 5: he's so we said, great teachers on the grass. They
Speaker 5: knew how to play on the grass. So you know,
Speaker 5: I was bloody lucky to have those sort of guys
Speaker 5: and barkers. Of course he was a play He didn't
Speaker 5: play top, top level international stuff, but he played all
Speaker 5: the country tournaments and you know how to play on
Speaker 5: the grass.
Speaker 3: And now it's more hard caught play on the grass.
Speaker 5: I'd love to see somebody tearing in and really getting
Speaker 5: around the net and making trouble for the players there.
Speaker 5: They're quite you know, he takes a lot of courage
Speaker 5: to be a serving volleyer because the risk is, you
Speaker 5: know that you have to hit the ball really close
Speaker 5: to the net on the volleys, and there's a lot
Speaker 5: of lunge volleys, a lot of low volleys. They have
Speaker 5: to skim over the net. I don't think the players
Speaker 5: are brave enough.
Speaker 3: To do it. I mean, it's quite simple. Are they
Speaker 3: a bunch of chickens?
Speaker 5: Yeah, because it takes a lot of guts to go
Speaker 5: in there.
Speaker 3: Is it stupid?
Speaker 5: Maybe it's a bit more stupid these days because you're
Speaker 5: going to get passed. But there's still absolutely an opportunity
Speaker 5: to do that, and hopefully somebody who will come in
Speaker 5: a big serve volume who can really volley. Now there's
Speaker 5: some big serves a volley ish, you know, but you know,
Speaker 5: it is easy to pass. The rackets and the strings
Speaker 5: make it easy to pass and lob Lobbing is the
Speaker 5: worst thing passing because you usually hit the ball pretty
Speaker 5: hard on the pass it's reasonably flat, but you're a
Speaker 5: sucker for a lob and guys like Andy Murray use
Speaker 5: these new strings to they hit the ball which would
Speaker 5: drop at least three or four five feet out in
Speaker 5: our day. With those strings drop in now buy a
Speaker 5: foot you know, that's how much spin the ball drops
Speaker 5: and you're a sitting duck. So yeah, the game's changed,
Speaker 5: there's still elements to you know that this is still
Speaker 5: a grass court.
Speaker 3: It's still pretty.
Speaker 5: Quick and as far as I know, I know, I
Speaker 5: talked to joke with my players.
Speaker 3: They go, well, what do we do with the modern game?
Speaker 5: It's and I said, I look, take them out on
Speaker 5: the grass court and I go, can you notice something
Speaker 5: different about this? They go, oh, I didn't don't know.
Speaker 5: I said, well, well guess what. The net is the
Speaker 5: same height and the dimensions of the same size, and
Speaker 5: you've still got the same damn rules as in my day.
Speaker 3: So let me tell you how it looks. It's usually
Speaker 3: a bit of a bit of a oak.
Speaker 5: But I often do that with a player who's coming
Speaker 5: on a center court match and the young players coming on.
Speaker 3: I come out the gast have a look at that
Speaker 3: center court. Tell me what's different.
Speaker 5: They go, oh, the stands, or oh the umpires, chairs
Speaker 5: further back, or seats of this and that.
Speaker 3: Have a look.
Speaker 5: There's something to have a look? Tell me and they oh,
Speaker 5: they're always picking something else. Let something else out. Oh,
Speaker 5: oh the line's being going to be further back. And say, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: keep looking. What's the difference.
Speaker 3: I can't see anything exactly exactly.
Speaker 5: It's the same damn sitees got the same size net,
Speaker 5: So don't worry about it. You know you've been playing
Speaker 5: on this for years, you'll be fine. So it's the
Speaker 5: same thing. On the grass court, it's still it's still
Speaker 5: a grass court. It's still pretty quick and not and
Speaker 5: maybe on days like today, but when it gets hot,
Speaker 5: it's the grass is as fast, if not faster than
Speaker 5: back in my day, more like Australian Open.
Speaker 3: Grass bouncy fast.
Speaker 5: I'll probably get that towards the end of the tournament,
Speaker 5: but definitely not today.
Speaker 2: So Pat Cash talking about the summer and the heat
Speaker 2: and how the ball bounds differently during that period, and
Speaker 2: there's obviously a lot of rain there at the.
Speaker 3: Moment, very very different conditions.
Speaker 1: I would be guessing very different. And I'm also intrigued
Speaker 1: to know where Viv and Pat sat down to actually
Speaker 1: do the interview, because it sounds like it was in
Speaker 1: a thoroughfare something and some pretty famous people milling around.
Speaker 2: Well. I loved when he stopped talking to Viv w
Speaker 2: Hey McEnroe, like I'd want to catch you a bit later.
Speaker 2: It just felt really, really natural. Absolutely, so I hope
Speaker 2: you enjoyed that as much as we did. Matt and
Speaker 2: Viv will be back again next Monday, and in the
Speaker 2: meantime you can listen to myself and John and the
Speaker 2: team this Thursday on the AO show.
Speaker 1: Weekly and details for how to contact us are in
Speaker 1: the show notes below, and it's always please subscribe, rate
Speaker 1: and review.
Speaker 2: See your later, Brak, see yeah