In my sports career I always had difficulty training hard. When I got to a certain point quite far up the tennis ladder, I realised that trying to step up the last few rungs was going to take a terrible toll in unending hours of soul-destroying practice and relentless physical conditioning. There was the slimmest chance that I might have been prepared to make the necessary sacrifice if I could have convinced myself that I might have made it to the very top. But, coldly assessing my chances, I reckoned the very best I might be able to achieve was a place in the top 20 with occasional wins over players in the top 10.
In my best year, 1955, I beat players ranked 7 and 11 in the USA, players ranked 2, 3, and 4 in the UK, took the Canadian No. 1, who had just reached the Wimbledon quarter-final, to 5 sets in the Davis Cup and in doubles beat the Wimbledon champions of the previous year in a quarter-final match at the Queen’s Club tournament. But I also had losses to more lowly players. I think a place in the top 20 was the ultimate I could have achieved. And, remember, 60 years ago prize money was minimal at that level so neither fame nor riches really beckoned.
But that is by the way. The real point is that I could not bear the thought of the drudgery of practice and endless physical labour, which even in those days I could see were essential to get to the top. As a result, I continued fundamentally to play tennis for the challenge, the excitement and the good name it carried and many other things remained just as or more important than winning tournaments. I remember clearly my best year at Wimbledon, the evening before my second round match against a dedicated young Italian I went on a boat trip organised by the All England Club up the Thames to Kew Gardens, where champagne was served in the rose garden. Afterwards there was a splendid reception and ball at Grosvenor House. I got to sleep finally at 5 am, feeling that life was very good, and later that day, needless to say, I lost my match on court No.2 fairly comfortably. I simply did not have the complete single-mindedness, the willingness to work and work endless, boring hours on perfecting strokes and tuning the body. In other words I didn’t have the dedication needed to make a real champion.
I am not particularly sorry about this. As I have said, even with the utmost dedication I really didn’t think I could have made it. And the money that might, therefore, have been forthcoming was never nearly attractive enough. But, more than these considerations, I thought from what I saw that getting to the top meant a loss of variety, spice and interest sacrificed in one’s life. Too much of the mind and the imagination would have had to be dulled, not to mention too many of the body’s cravings foregone, ever to make the sacrifice worthwhile. 90% of what I have found fascinating and challenging and inspiring in life I certainly would not have discovered if I had tried in those crucial years single-mindedly to become a champion. Some of this may be justifying to myself in retrospect what I decided to do at the time because I didn’t have the guts to do otherwise. But I think that most of it is true. Life would have been too stereotyped. I would have missed too much of the variety and the beauty that life has to offer.
Still, I do have this lingering regret left over from my tennis playing days otherwise so memorably happy. It is that I never knew what it was to be perfectly fit. I have occasionally seen absolutely perfect fitness in action. In my youth in Trinidad I remember seeing a stickfighter called Mauvais Roy. He shone with perfect fitness. Once in the Olympics I saw on film the great Cuban Juantorena win the 800 meters. In slow motion you could see the fitness exploding out of him. I saw Bjorn Borg win Wimbledon in 1980, gleaming, lithe, ultimately fit. I once caught a glimpse on TV of the world squash champion Jahangir Khan full of power and self-confidence that supreme fitness bestows. All of them had something in common- they were so light of foot it seemed if they had wished they could have flown. Since those long ago times there have been many others. It is a wonder of the world to witness such conditioning. But that never was for me.
Now that I look back over the long vistas of a life I have enjoyed very much, I am satisfied that I was right but sad that I never tried.
