Ross Hutchins - a new CEO for a new era at the International Tennis Federation

0:03Ross Hutchins:Hello and welcome to the Leaders Worth Knowing podcast, the sports industry show from Leaders where we talk to the people worth knowing in the business of sport this week. I'm Leaders Editorial Director James Emmett and on the show today is Ross Hutchins, the CEO of the International Tennis Federation soon to be renamed World Tennis as is au courant in the International Federation world. Ross has been chief executive of the ITF slash World Tennis since November last year so he's six months just over six months into the role in an intriguing time of flux for tennis. WTA ATP merger talk continues.

0:52Ross Hutchins:There's talk of players boycotting Grand Slams as the Grand Slams continue to get bigger and better and dominate the calendar. There's talk about funding from Saudi in particular. There's talk about reworking of the calendar. All the while, the ITF sits at the center of a very complicated tennis ecosystem with a mission to grow the game at all levels all around the world. So participation through to professional pathway. They run the major team competition, major national team competitions in tennis so the Olympic competitions in tennis as well as the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup and Ross is getting used to all of this he's a new leader at the top of one of the biggest sports in the world this is Ross Hutchins.

1:52Ross Hutchins:Ross Hutchins thank you very much for being with us here in the leader's studio in Wimbledon, I might add. We're in an SW19 postcode, which it must feel sort of like home to you. This is, in some respects, the epicentre of the tennis world, is it not? It could be said that way and certainly has been my home for many years from where I grew up, where I went to school, where my former job at the ATP was and is based. and spending a lot of time at the Orlingman Club, the home of Wimbledon, as a member there, being very fortunate to spend a lot of time there. I learned how to play tennis here and very much home when I come back to this area and really enjoy it, a great place to be.

2:36Ross Hutchins:Where's the ITF based? Where are your offices? Roehampton. Okay, which isn't too far. So it's only 20, 25 minutes down the road, quite easy to access. Also in a good proximity with Putney and different areas of London and very accessible to central London to meet people and get up there. yeah um the atp it's worth saying for listeners because you already know this ross but the atp i think it's the atp media offices right it's not atp itself is somewhere separate or that they're all literally next door they are next door as well as tennis data innovation so the media tour which is the the organizing of the tour part of the arm and the data side of the business all together next door and were you there just now have you come from them i have not okay right Right.

3:17Ross Hutchins:Okay. Ross, you're six months into the role CEO of the ITF. You've done your critical first hundred days. You talk about that in sort of presidential terms, your first 100 days. How, I mean, very broadly, how have you found that first six months? How do you look at this role now that you understand what it is? It's been fascinating, really enjoyable. personally and professionally. You never know when you're first moving into a CEO role or into a new job, how you're going to land and how you're going to get on with people, new team, new environment, new projects, new strategy. And I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

4:01The organization is fantastic. The people are great. They've embraced my type of direction and my approach on things. The scale of the organization is enormous and the impact that it can have on a sport, which personally I love and many people around the world love is is there to see and it's really really apparent it's a huge impact we can have and importantly the excitement that i had going in with the impact that we can have and the upside that we can have to help the sport and and build the sport up in a bigger and better way which everyone's trying to do is clear to see so um been a great six months

4:35Ross Hutchins:actually and looking forward to what's to come what yeah i mean it can't have all been plain sailing what has um what's challenged you or or surprised you across those six months i would say the surprise is the difference of type of stakeholders and people that you come across from the different federations we are ultimately oversee and our membership group is the 214 national federations so the domestic tennis federations around the world and the scale from a conversation with one of the larger nations with more resources and more tennis players like in Italy or France or UK, America, Australia, to another conversations with the smaller nations with less resources and less tennis abilities currently would be the Cook Islands or the Moldovas or the Albanians or these, I don't want to single people out, but just the general size of the sport in those locations and having the different conversations between the two of them and how we can have partnerships and collaborations and positive impacts with the different nations around the world is exciting.

5:39And also one thing that's really been really noticeable is I genuinely believe that tennis, and it's really elevated in this role, tennis gives the opportunity for a better life for individuals. I genuinely believe that from health benefits to accessibility to social, to the way it adds years of life to individuals, to the opportunity to be outside for the juniors and for adults as well. So, so many benefits to playing the sport. And ultimately, that's largely where the focus of the ITF is to give more opportunities to more people to connect with tennis and to be part of our sport. So, that's almost been the really nice surprise around this first six months.

6:18Yeah.

6:19Ross Hutchins:Tennis famously is sort of one of the most complicated stakeholder structures of any sport. and that's not changing anytime soon. But I wonder, now that you've been at the top of one of probably the seven or eight major controlling stakeholders in tennis now, the ITF probably sits alongside the ATP, the men's tour, the WTA, the women's tour, and then the four Grand Slams as the sort of major players in tennis. And there are plenty more just sort of a level underneath that. I wonder what skills you've had to draw on in that leading one of the organizations in that environment, because it seems to me that more than most other sports, sort of being a bit of a diplomat, being a politician is probably quite important.

7:09And then the organization that you're on top of, you know, as you articulated there, you're an Olympic federation.

7:18Ross Hutchins:You've got all of these national federations that you're sort of underneath or that are your member organizations. organizations and they're sort of downwards politics sideways politics upwards politics yeah what are the what are the sort of your personal skills that you feel like you've had to draw on to to get somewhere in the role thus far you know you know a lot of people leading into the role would have said that these governing body roles are very political and I've tried to take that out of the role again you could say that I've done it well or not done it well but I think I've certainly tried to have that approach because ultimately we have the general interest of growing the sport of tennis and giving back to the sport of tennis and what we do is we generate money to reinvest in the sport through the national associations and trust them to have their impact in the domestic world and us trying to have influence over that so of course there are certain nations and certain individuals that that demand more attention but I wouldn't necessarily call that politics.

8:17I think that it's a skill set to be able to communicate. And I like to think that I like to communicate. I don't know if I'm a good communicator. I think I am, but I like to listen and I like to understand context. And I like to have that collaboration with the other T7 entities that you just mentioned with the HPWTA and the Grand Slams and with other stakeholders of the business to actually understand their point of view and what's non-negotiables from their side and what's troubling them in the different situations. And we do have a different landscape than other sports because we are very, very global with individual players who are not employed and a lot of individual countries who have their own desires.

8:58So how we can scale in a better way and align people so that any investment we all make helps the sport of tennis grow in comparison to a lot of other entertainment sports platforms around the world is where I try and focus my attention rather than the focus on politics and in our world a lot of the people that we would have to work with have businesses to run they have big businesses where they're running federations underneath them so therefore it's it's quite a healthy conversation to talk about the growth of tennis because it benefits our mission and it benefits the mission of our members and so it's different to my past role at the atp that you referenced but it's something which I'm excited.

9:40I'm really enjoying that non-political side of things and politics hasn't really hit me so far in the six months.

9:45Ross Hutchins:Not yet. Not yet. We'll see. We'll come back in a year and see. Well, what has hit you, Ross? What's keeping you up at night at the moment? I think when you're new to a business and you come in in November time and you have a look at the business at the end of the year and a lot of things are in place for 2026 already and possibly things that I thought, well, maybe we could have done that a different way or taken a different direction. A lot of them are already in place. So it's about trying to maximize and shape things in a way for 2026 that can be effective for our business that keeps with our overall goals of growing the game of tennis and giving more opportunities to people and creating these opportunities for the world to be successful and to enjoy tennis.

10:32And then it's largely at the moment, it's now what, but where actually are we going to focus our attention on? Where is going to drive the business forward to generate more revenue, to have the ability to invest more, to make a difference to the world of tennis and how are we going to stay at the top whilst understanding the other sporting landscape. So I spend a lot of time, I'm an overthinker, I do think a lot about things, I do like to talk to people, I do spend a lot of time in the evenings thinking, have we got this direction right? I like direction, I like knowing where our end goal is long term.

11:00And so I would say that spending time thinking where our focus should be which may not be it may be the same areas that we are currently but also being open to be flexible and agile and making sure that we understand the the general market and and and go in that direction for 2020 end of 26 and 27 onwards is where i spend most of my focus yeah

11:23Ross Hutchins:um tell us then how the itf works in terms of obviously it exists to as you say grow the game of tennis um and i i suppose provide clear pathways for for amateur players to become professional players and play at a high level um but also just generally getting people active and playing playing tennis playing racket sports in in general mandate across the whole world how is it funded um and what levers sort of commercial levers can you pull to to increase the funding that you're able to distribute to tennis organizations around the world yeah it's a good question so i say the four main areas to focus on for for the listeners and for me to explain would be being the international governing body of tennis what does that mean some might ask well actually it's four things one is we create the frameworks of the rules of the game to make sure the game is played and handled and moved forward in the right way with its product so so that would be the first one and then the the three which is more of a operational day to day and where we spend most of our time would be is the recreational participation area to try and give opportunities for anyone from any age any level any location any background to be able to access tennis as easily as possible in their local communities to try and grow participation no matter what level of life you are at or stage of tennis the second one would be giving a pathway to the youth a pathway to the professional world of the A to B WTA to try and make sure we provide value and high quality future stars and give them that opportunity to grow up the ladder and to create this this fan amazement of of the world of tennis of the professional space and the last one linked to the professional space would be we are responsible for the the nation's competitions around the world, which are big events for us and very important linked to your second part of the question around the revenue, the Olympics, the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup, which are the biggest nations versus nations team competitions in our sport and across very well known across wider sport as well.

13:32Those would be our main three areas, four areas that we would spend a lot of time on and focus on. And therefore linked to that from a revenue generation standpoint, we do focus a lot on our major event standpoint where we generate good revenues from from that space that we reinvest under the IOC the Olympic structure as you referenced earlier James and also in the world of trying to make sure that our tours which is the juniors tour the pathway into professional tennis tour the wheelchair tour the beach tour at the amateur tennis tour that you say which is actually a booming tour at the moment of passionate people who similar to myself really enjoy playing tennis and like the competitive side of tennis uh they they they also play regularly around the world and and that's also a big revenue driver for us and those the main areas where we where we would focus on generating revenue moving forward as well as sponsorship commercial media rights and that whole space of rights sales linked to our events

14:29Ross Hutchins:into the market how are those top tier national competitions doing it strikes me that um we're a few years into the transformation of the Fed Cup to the Billie Jean King Cup seems to be going, you know, all things considered quite well. The Davis Cup has come through probably what can fairly be described as a challenging period in its commercialization. We had Cosmos come in, not necessarily do what they thought they were going to be able to do. It's returned to sort of central control. I believe you've, you know, there's a bit of commercial momentum behind the Davis Cup now? Yes, it's a good summary.

15:11We have had some change across competitions, but we've also had some positive change more recently with being in Italy for last year's Davis Cup in Bologna for the final eight. Huge success. Ticket sales were phenomenal, sold out stadiums, engagement, audience, reaction from our partners and our commercial partners was fantastic a recent renewal actually which is showing the trust that sponsors have has come out today with visa which is a huge global brand fantastic renewal they were with us last year and they've elevated their partnership with us which we're delighted with a tremendous brand tremendous company that we're very integrated with in the way we we move forwards which is which is great and our thanks to our partners visa and many others and in terms of the billy jenkin cup as well it was a strong year last year in china being in shenzhen in the final and trying to have as much parity as possible with these events from the majority of these events are home and away ties last year we changed the approach of the september second round ties of davis cup to being home and away bringing back the core of this 126 year history competition which is incredible thinking about that long with amazing champions and players back to a home and away model leading to Bologna which we have two more years in Italy at a minimum moving forward being as the final eight 26 and 2027 and the commercials are in a good place both with the visa support and wider commercial support of our partners they are in a good place across both competitions so moving the right direction pleased with how it's been in 25 and certainly in 2026 the trajectory has been positive worth saying that you signed um mg as well to a deal not too long ago for the davis cup exactly where they saw the benefit of last year and the build of last year mg was a great partner is a great partner and continues to be yeah how are you finding that a sort of

17:08Ross Hutchins:being the de facto commercial head uh for um an organizer for a rights holder um it's not something you've necessarily done in in the past um yeah are you enjoying that side of things are you finding it you know tricky well i was involved in the past with the atp from an event standpoint we had a strong the atp have i shouldn't say we the atp have a strong commercial team a strong business team uh and i was involved from the event side of things with the atp finals and different next gen finals and so on so it wasn't totally new to me we have an amazing team at the itf across various different areas across the business and our commercial team are exceptional.

17:50We have Nikki Stanton, who's doing a fantastic job as our new commercial head and has brought in not only renewed partners, but also new partners this year, which has been great. And it's part of the responsibility. And I really enjoy it. I think a lot of it is down to understanding the desires of our client and our counterpart and our partner. Really, what do they want out of the relationship and what can we offer them that is very much collaborative with each other that we can both bring value to the partnership and often what we bring is exposure connection to sport all that we believe in with tennis that tennis brings and fantastic competitions of tennis

18:29Ross Hutchins:at the highest quality of the premium nature so with a strong team with a strong product with the right mindset and with the right attitude i believe that's why we are doing very well at the moment and started the first five, six months of this year, five months of this year in an extremely positive way and hopefully more to come in the near future with some really good partnerships on the horizon as well. If I was going to earwig on a conversation, maybe you were sitting down for lunch with your counterparts from the other major stakeholders in tennis, you know. You're there with Anno Polo, maybe with Marina Storty at the commercial side of the WTA and then with the heads of all the Grand Slams.

19:16Ross Hutchins:What are you talking about? What are the conversations going on in the corridors of power in tennis right now? I would say that how to continue to build the premium side of the sport. A lot of the focus of the fans, a lot of the focus of the investment, if you think about fans, audience and commercials, goes towards the premium side of the sport, of which as I've mentioned a lot of our focus is actually on the national federations and building the sport from the base but I'd imagine with the ATP WTA and certain conversations there would be that's where a lot of the focus has been a lot more investment and focus time and energy goes to the top so how do you elevate those products to be strongly competitive with other competition outside of tennis so how do we grow the pie at the top because that's often what feeds the investment down below and then therefore with that how do you make sure that the players participate in in the right levels of tournament how do you incentivize them in the right in the right in the right way and therefore what's the growing trends around the world in terms of us sharing audiences where often our audiences for davis cup is often similar audiences to the grand slams the wth and the atp so how do we make sure that our audience understands our quite complex landscape of a tennis calendar across 11 months of the year and across some major tournaments team competitions individual competitions all around the world engaging many cities and different locations how do we tell that narrative in the best way for our consistent shared fan to understand it and how do we commercialize that and how do we make sure that we're up to speed with modern day challenges of being a global sporting organization in some organizations you could say when there is big investment like formula one or like different organizations, UFC maybe, who have done well.

21:03They have a more streamlined structure where one or two individuals have more of an authoritative voice across the whole of the sport, whereas we do have to collaborate and communicate and work together. And so often we talk about where we can collaborate more to try and find better outcomes for the sport of tennis. And that's not just with the governing bodies, that's with everyone also from, you call it a level below, James, but everyone involved in tennis. I personally love to talk to them and understand what works for them and how can we help piece that jigsaw together to grow the sport of tennis

21:33Ross Hutchins:here's what i imagine you'll be talking about though beyond that and some of the here are some topics that i think are live discussions in tennis right now which tennis leadership definitely will be sort of thinking about if not talking about and some of these are slightly more gossipy than others and i invite you to tackle a couple of these at your discretion so who's going to replace It's Craig Tiley at Tennis Australia. What's going on at the WTA with their leadership? Portia Archer having just left quite suddenly. Are players actually going to boycott Grand Slams, as the suggestion seems to be right now?

22:15Ross Hutchins:Is Saudi funding dropping out and potential Saudi funding dropping out of tennis? um are the grand slams land grabbing calendar a bit too much uh and when is this wta atp merger actually going to happen okay so that's wow six of the best those those are some of the things that i i think those are live live discussions in tennis right now and i invite you to take your pick russ well let me start with the first question around leadership um i don't know who's going to take the role of Tennis Australia. They are one of our member nations. They are an important member of the ITF and clearly are a big player in the tennis ecosystem because they have a grand slam under their watch and under their authority and the revenues they generate from that, they reinvest in Australian tennis and other areas.

23:06So I don't know who they have. The role is still, I understand, to be defined in terms of would there be a separate tournament director of Australian Open versus CEO of Tennis Australia? that's obviously a decision that they need to make with their new chair to have that decision and that's something which is important which certain other tournaments at the Grand Slams level have split that role and other tournaments have kept that role together but again a very important person as is the person at the WTA and as was my role here at the ITF I would think because as we talked about before the communication amongst the Grand Slams the knowledge of the tennis ecosystem is not often repeatable or something that someone would have experienced in other roles if you think about the sporting world.

23:51Obviously, in other entertainment world or in other business worlds, also, it's quite unique. So I think that having some sort of knowledge of sports and some sort of knowledge of our ecosystem would be important. I think Valerie Camillo, who's come in from the WTA, who is new as well, has a very good knowledge of sport and started the role very well and has a very good understanding of the landscape and what's to come. And Marina, the lady that you mentioned before, has done very well at WTA Ventures on the commercial side of things with big continued upside growing. So I don't know who's coming in there or what happened with the WTA, but I think some changes have happened recently and we've got to make sure we continue to communicate in the right way.

24:31Those questions were good, but let me take another one with... Boycotting was the next one. With boycotting. So players are independent contractors. it's very different compared to other sports where they have their own commercial rights. They have their own ability to choose the tournaments they play. They are not employees of anyone. Whereas in other sports, when you talk about the percentage of revenues that someone makes or a player union can make, they are employees and they are unionized. So their ability to boycott is easier because that's what a union partly is set up to have that ability to do.

25:05But tennis players are very very passionate about growing their brand achieving the best that they can they're made from the age of five years old to compete and be on court and play to the biggest tournaments and enjoy that thrill of playing in the center court down the road and playing in Arthur Ashe Stadium and so on and so on so my understanding from the situation and from my prior role is there isn't a desire for players to have these difficult conversations with the Grand Slams It's more about what's the right compensation model, which everyone in every business would like to be paid and compensated and rewarded and have their share of voice in the right way.

25:46And therefore, it's a conversation of now that there is more of an understanding from the playing group about what their compensation actually means compared to the revenue that the biggest tournaments make across the ATP, our world as well. And in the Grand Slam world, is it fair or is it not? And can we have that conversation? because part of what the players are asking for is contribution to their well-being what's the right percentage of revenue and what should we be paid and also can we have a voice in any decision making that goes which might affect the players moving forward to help grow the game but collectively players and it was my role james as you know for 10 years dealing with players on a day-to-day basis they love the sport of tennis but they're very much in their own in their own business have their own business themselves of a me versus you i want to try and make sure that that that i beat you and my ranking goes higher than you and that's what you're trained to be so um i'm sure that those conversations can get settled and i'm sure that those conversations can be healthy with regards to wherever this nets out as a group of players yeah you don't have to tackle any more of them

26:48Ross Hutchins:ross but if you'd like to wade into some of these others so so saudi uh i can talk about saudi so look Saudi Tennis Federation are a member of ours as well I was very involved in the Saudi discussions of the past I think what Saudi Arabia have done in tennis certainly where they have purchased an asset of the ATP at the highest level the last 1000 asset is something which is very good because now they are fully integrated as an owned tournament as a member of the ATP which is something good for them and therefore that brings benefits to grow tourism and grow people come to their country and be part of the tennis calendar so that's a different approach than what a lot of their investments in other sports have been they've actually invested in the foundations of that and they do have plans and have good plans to create this this stable model inside of Saudi Arabia off the back of that investment to what we are focused on which is the participation the youth development the investment in tennis that the pathway of of the game of of the future talent.

27:50So that's good. And I think that it's slightly different conversation with regards to tennis versus with regards to other sports and their other investments, not just investment and then a jump out. This is a long-term play in the tennis ecosystem linked to Saudi. You're going to have to remind me again of a couple of the others.

28:07Ross Hutchins:Grand Slams getting bigger. I guess this is linked to the playing side as well. Are the Grand Slams taking and keeping too much money and calendar? Well, the Grand Slams are very successful i am a huge admirer of the grand slams not just because of my connection to the all england because i've played in all the grand slams and i have good relationships and admiration for what the grand slams are achieving they are the biggest events in our sports i believe it's them the davis cup the the billy jenkins cup the atp wcha finals are really that the main pinnacle tournaments and then the masters 1000s where there are quite a few of them as as the level which is the the go-to on a on a week-to-week basis but growing the premium like i talked about is something good for a sport it creates more eyeballs on the sport it creates people to invest more in the sport and it allows for the fans which ultimately are the ones who are affecting its future of the sport whether the sponsors are interested or the broadcaster interested the fans are creating more and becoming more engaged in the grand slams with the size that they are they are building are they having a land grab well inevitably yes because they are adding days but ultimately that could be argued as a good thing because they're continuing to have the fans engage for more days and more investment in sports which ultimately gets redistributed through the member federations and through through their own domestic programs and through us to reinvest in the sport so i don't think it's a land grab intentionally but everyone in every part of the sport is trying to find ways to grow their business and the grand slams have done exceptionally well to grow their business in more traditional ways ticketing hospitality media rights data sponsorship these type of areas and now they're finding new ways to grow their business with creative innovative ways that they have achieved with one point slam that tennis australia did or the new mixed doubles model that the us open did that is new innovative ways to grow their business which we can't really say is a bad thing in sport and so well done them for doing that so far yeah and the last one was the wta atp merger we had it's worth saying we had no polo on this podcast at the beginning of the year and he said his number one objective for the year was to get that done this year if you were a betting man would you put money on that happening well i was very much involved in it previously before i left and and the the idea of it happening makes all the sense in the world as you know in any type of merger when you involve commercial rights and governance rights and ultimately pooling of central rights together creates complexities because there's all these things around valuations, there's all these things around what's the future going to be.

30:41I think it will happen. I think there is a strong energy towards it. There's new leadership coming in, as we talked previously about the WTA, but you've got the right people in the room to have those right discussions who are very fair and honest and understanding of the tennis ecosystem to make that happen. So I hope it happens. I believe it will happen. I think it's the right thing for the sport.

31:01Ross Hutchins:Who do you most relish having conversations with now that you're in this role? Is there a particular, you know, obviously you've got your background at the ATP, but you've got existing relationships absolutely all over tennis. Is there someone who sort of emerged as someone that you really relish having, not necessarily an ally, but someone who you just really enjoy having a conversation with? You know what? No one's ever asked me that in the last six months. and the two different cohorts of people that that that I would reference would be I genuinely love spending time with the staff because I didn't know them very well and so therefore understanding why we're in certain situations and what their thoughts are and helping them develop in the way that I think that would help them and clearly either out of respect or out of position and status in the company then they would likely listen and then try and take that feedback on board so I think that's really really important and and personal to me because I like talking to people and then it's probably not what you expected but I like talking to the amateur tennis player and the 13 14 year old up-and-coming tennis player because maybe it's because the 10 years previously I spoke to all the bigger entities and sport that own the ATP and WTA tournaments and the top tennis players and I think I have a pretty good knowledge of that space but understanding what the 13 year old where I think it's a crucial time for that youth pathway and spending time with what matters to them how do we develop them both physically mentally and tactically for their game to give them the best opportunity to grow into the sport and to understand what I think the challenges and the the best advice I can give them to give them the best shot and what we can do better to give them the best shot at moving up into the top tiers and the amateur tennis player being what ticks your box what makes you want to go and play competitive tennis and how accessible is competitive tennis to yourselves because I think around the world again this is a broad statement because it's 214 countries but if you want to find tennis in most places you can because the national associations try their best and there's parks there's private clubs there's community programs but actually if you want to find competitive tennis for people that are really our core true fans and the true fans of tennis i like to understand what makes them tick and and and why they and why they want to engage in our sport because often that then trickles down to how to get more people to become like them to go from recreational standard park tennis players who then become more engaged in the sport of tennis and may play competitively now ross i'm going to tell you something potentially quite depressing okay according to your linkedin And I presume everything is a fact on there.

33:44Ross Hutchins:Okay. Next year, you will have been an executive in sport for longer than you were a player in sport. Right. So you retired from tennis in October 2014. That's right. Having had a career of almost 14 years. Okay. Playing tennis, according to LinkedIn. Okay. I need to change my LinkedIn on that one. Yeah. anyway you are you're coming up to a period in time of your life where you will have been an executive in the sport longer than you were a player in the sport I wonder how do you still consider yourself to be a player who's doing something else in the sport now and would you like to be a player now the first part of the question I think it's more linked to my personality I tend not to like to talk to myself about myself that much and therefore thinking back about my career I don't often think about that situation and I've always struggled since stopping about thinking back and what would I have done differently and I wish that would have happened and talking to friends and people in the tennis world about past results or past experiences I'd much rather talk to them and often go back to past experiences when we went on a road trip from one tournament to another when we slept on the floor when I lost early in a tournament and we were at the lower levels together when we played each other when we were under 14 rather than results so I often don't think of myself as a tennis player whereas a lot of other tennis players like to talk about do you remember at 30 or at 4 or in a certain instance as we played each other and the wind was blowing and you smashed a racket and and and the more specifics for some reason I tend to have blocked that part of my life yeah it really has like even when I'm talking here I'm trying to think about what resonates with me and there are obviously certain things around the bigger tournaments the Davis Cup the Olympics the Commonwealth Games the Grand Slams the bigger stuff which which mean more to you but yeah I tend not to think of it and haven't really thought about that and and or sometimes feel a little bit uncomfortable talking about that because maybe I didn't think I achieved as much that I could have achieved and so on anyway and And how I'd like to almost be seen as nowadays moving forward, I think it's someone with a lot of background in tennis from a young age, from a tennis family, where my father had huge influence on me, as did my mother and my brothers and sisters, who grew up in the federation environment through the Lawn Tennis Association, who had not many different coaches because I really trusted the people that I worked with.