Can Britain rule Wimbledon again? Tennis legends share what it really takes to win
John McEnroe, Virginia Wade, Tim Henman and Annabel Croft on what it takes to be Britain’s best player.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
For 77 years, we Brits got to host the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament – we could lay claim to the greenest grass, the brightest balls and the purplest towels – but when it came to the actual sport, we could not produce a men’s singles winner to emulate, as the commentators always told us, “the great Fred Perry”, three-times winner 1934–6.
That all changed in 2013 when Andy Murray emotionally lifted the trophy (a feat he repeated in 2016). Meanwhile, our last women’s champion was Virginia Wade in 1977.
What does it take to make a British number one and for them to triumph on the courts of SW19? For John McEnroe, who won in 1981, 1983 and 1984, the lesson from Murray’s success is that there is no one single lesson.
“Guys like Andy Murray have that competitive fire and drive that very few people have,” he tells RT. “Look at the people he had to go against – the three guys [Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic].
“There’s a bucketload of history he’s gone through ever since he was a kid. I don’t know if the Dunblane tragedy [the mass school shooting in Murray’s home town in March 1996] affected him: could he dig deeper and find a reservoir of will that maybe others couldn’t because he was close to this happening?”
The signs are positive for current British number one Jack Draper: “I remember seeing Jack when he was a little kid,” says McEnroe. “He came to my tennis academy. He was probably 14. The guy was tiny! I was thinking, ‘He seems good, but…’ and then you see him now… I didn’t see that coming, that he’d be this strapping six foot three great athlete – and be the player he is.”
According to Wade, Draper “has a good head on his shoulders”, while former US Open champion Emma Raducanu, who has been vying for the women’s British number one spot with Katie Boulter, “has all the ingredients: physically great, fantastic serve, groundstrokes – she should be in the top ten”.
But the game has changed since Wade lifted the trophy in the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. She laughs. “Well, for starters, I had a beautiful wooden racket with gut strings, but if I tried to use it now, the ball wouldn’t go anywhere.”
Expectations of fitness are also different: “Now, it’s so powerful and the players are extremely fit, because there’s so much stamina needed. The endurance factor is the difference between winning and losing. We were always fit but it wasn’t the overriding point when we were playing; it was skill, variety and strategy.”
Four-times Wimbledon semi-finalist Tim Henman sounds nostalgic for such times, before it became a contest of physicality from the baseline, telling RT: “If I could influence the sport, I would bring more variation to the court surfaces, so you get the contrasting styles.”
Another former British number one, Annabel Croft, highlights the ever-mushrooming entourages around the top players. “There are sports psychologists, nutritionists, physios – and they all travel as a team. I had one coach, and I’d be on the phone booking my bus to the next tournament. The money on offer is also huge.”
Draper’s team remains small. According to Henman, “There’s no right or wrong, but it’s a global game, the standard is high, you can’t leave any stone unturned.” Wade admires the fact that Djokovic, holder of seven Wimbledon titles, “has realised he doesn’t really need a coach. I don’t think the coach should be the shoulder you cry on when you’re upset, because they begin to identify with your limitations, and stop seeing you objectively.”
They’re all happy they didn’t have to deal with the scrutiny and abuse now reaching players via social media. Katie Boulter recently revealed that receiving death threats had become the norm for some players, and Wade is clearly enraged on her behalf: “It’s terrible, particularly for women. There was always press around, and I learnt early you needed someone to filter all that and warn you. I wouldn’t go near social media if I was playing today.”
Henman reflects: “When I was playing, the written press was a lot bigger, with more journalists at tournaments, but it didn’t interest me. For this generation, those opinions out there on social media are irrelevant and a distraction. I’d say focus on controlling what you can – your preparations and performance.”
As tireless competitors and lovers of the game, they can say instantly what they would change if they had their time again. For Wade, “a two-handed backhand and a better forehand” and for Henman, “I would have developed a baseline game” (as well as serve and volley)”.
As we pin our hopes of success at Wimbledon on Draper, Raducanu and Boulter in this era of huge winnings, global glory and daily discipline, Croft stresses the need to remember it remains a sport: “When I speak to kids, I remind them tennis is meant to be fun. Play with freedom and, like life, it’s one point at a time. I wish I could have seen where tennis fitted into the bigger picture of my life. But you only get that with hindsight.”
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