Blog by David Law
Posted on April 15, 2009
Hello! Welcome to the new ATP Champions Tour website. We hope you like it.
I’ve been travelling with the ATP Champions Tour, working between the media and the players since before I started to go grey, and that’s a while. What a privilege. If I had been told when I was a boy watching the 1981 Bjorn Borg vs. John McEnroe Wimbledon final on TV that I would one day be working alongside them, I would not have believed it. For a start, at the time I wanted to be a professional snooker player. Or the Incredible Hulk.
Seriously though, it seemed like another world. I have never been, and never even tried to be, a professional tennis player. Something tells me that, had I tried to do so, I would have set a win-loss record, and not a positive one. I love the game, but I’m not very good at playing it. I’ve heard John say a number of times over the years that playing tennis beats working for a living. I feel like that about my job.
The question I get asked most often is, understandably: ‘what are the players like now that they have retired?’ I always answer the same way: “They are all horrible and I hate them.”
Not really.
I personally think they are all great guys. I’m sure the maturity brought on by slightly more advancing years helps. Everyone is rather more relaxed than in the days when they were slugging it out for Grand Slam titles. It’s understandable. Winning was so important.
On the ATP Champions Tour, they still want to win - I think it’s in their DNA - but it isn’t the end of the world if they lose. They can actually laugh at their own expense these days. Henri Leconte has always been like that - he will NEVER miss a chance for some fun, and people love him for it. But very few are like that during their ATP careers. There is too much pressure, too many potentially career-defining points to be won for them to be able to show a lighter side on-court.
Join us at one of our events on the calendar and you will see for yourself what it’s like. It really is a great day out - tennis as you remember it from some of the greatest players of all time, and in a relaxed setting. What could be better than that? And if you think serve and volley tennis is extinct, try telling that to Pat Cash, Stefan Edberg, Michael Stich, Pete Sampras, Pat Rafter, Goran Ivanisevic and McEnroe.
Thanks for reading. We hope to see you at an event soon.
David