MONDAY
SO, I’m in Cincinnati, for this tennis championship. I think it kind of sucks, to be honest, that I have to spend all my time in sunny places like Cincinnati or Toronto or Washington, when I could be in grim and drizzly Dunblane, where I’m from. It’s like the way I have to spend my time in places like California and Spain in order to train, rather than being in inner-city sports centres in Britain all the time. It’s lousy.
Still, at least the Cincinnati Masters is going OK. I was speaking to my girlfriend, Kim, last night, and she reckoned I might win the cup.
If it is a cup. At a lot of these things you actually end up with a silver plate, or maybe just an obscene amount of money. Talk about a disappointment.
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TUESDAY
I’m in the limo, coming back from the grounds with my coach, Brad Gilbert. The limo is OK, I suppose, but I’ve already seen all the DVDs, I’m bored with the X-Box, I don’t like caviar, and the soft leather seats are frankly a bit too soft to be properly comfortable.
“You okay, Andy?” says Brad, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
“Suppose,” I grunt.
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We’re passing under a flyover, and I can see an old homeless black guy bedding down in cardboard on the sidewalk. I nod towards him.
“That lad there. Do you reckon he’s happier than me?”
“On balance,” says Brad, “no.”
“But I’ve got a bit of a headache,” I point out. “And the shower in my hotel room is over the bath, rather than freestanding, which I always find really annoying.”
“Ye-e-es,” says Brad. “But on the upside, you did beat Tim Henman 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, and in doing so, established yourself as the obvious pre-eminent force in British tennis today.”
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“Oh,” I say. “Aye. That.”
WEDNESDAY
Today, I beat the world No 1 Roger Federer in two straight sets, breaking his serve one time in every three. I suppose I can see how this might be every young tennis player’s dream.
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Unfortunately, I skidded on the dirt just before match point, and got a big grey mark right up the side of my shorts.
I called my girlfriend, Kim, to sound off about it, but all she wanted to talk about was the tennis.
Nothing goes right for me. Nothing. What a crap day.
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THURSDAY
I’m through to the next round now, after beating Robby Ginepri, in a real slog of a match. It went on for ages, though. That’s the problem with playing an epic evening battle in order to qualify for the quarter finals of one of the most prestigious tennis tournaments on the planet. It doesn’t leave you time to do anything else at all.
Loads of mail for me back at the hotel. Really boringly, most of it is from the bank.
I suppose there must be some plus side to receiving all these bits of paper that they keep sending me to congratulate me on the vast supplies of funds piling up in there because I keep doing so incredibly well in tennis tournaments, but I for one can’t see what it might be.
FRIDAY
So we’re back in the limo, on the way to the courts for some practice.
“Listen Andy,” says Brad, my trainer. “I think we need to have a talk about your attitude. You can’t be so unremittingly negative. You understand me?”
“Oh great,” I sigh, pausing the X-Box game, on which I am doing brilliantly. “So now I’ve got an attitude problem to worry about, as well as everything else. My life is, like, utterly awful.”
“Now that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” says Brad. “You’ve no excuse to be thinking like that. A couple of days ago, you beat the world No 1. You’ve got a beautiful girlfriend. Everybody in the world agrees that you are a rising star, and you’re a strong contender to win grand slams.
“Next week you’ll probably rank among the Top 20 tennis players in the world. And you’re still only 19. Do you see what I’m saying?”.
“Aye,” I agree, and I roll my eyes. “Totally. Isn’t it just rubbish that I’m not older?”