Annabel Croft

0:07Hello and welcome to The Midpoint. Today I'm joined by a former British number one tennis player which I'm pretty sure is a first for the midpoint. At 15 years old, Annabelle Croft was the youngest Briton to play in Wimbledon's main draw for nearly 100 years. And after retiring from tennis at 21, she turned her attention to TV and has been working as a presenter and pundit ever since. Annabelle is a face and voice synonymous with Wimbledon now. She's a key part of the TV and radio coverage every year, including interviewing the world's biggest players courtside. She and her husband Mel were married for nearly 30 years and established the Annabelle Croft Tennis Academy together, which now has a permanent centre in Portugal.

0:46But in 2023, Mel, a former sailor, died of stomach cancer. Later that year, despite the rawness of her grief, Annabelle swapped tennis courts for the ballroom and threw herself beautifully into Strictly Come Dancing. Annabelle has said that learning to dance was therapeutic, so I wonder what lasting impact that's had and how she's feeling about the future now.

1:18Annabelle Croft, welcome to The Midpoint. Oh, hello. Thank you for having me. It's great to have you on. I've been hoping to have a chat with you for a while now. How are you? I'm well, thank you. Yes, I had a really nice Christmas. I did the Australian Open down in Melbourne. I had a family holiday. I've been to Dubai. I had a lot of sunshine, actually, which always makes you feel good. But I've come back home. We're into sunshine as well. Oh, it's made me realise I really can do that again. I never thought I could do a Christmas in the sun, but I definitely can. But I've come home and I've been helping my daughter move house.

1:50And I've actually cleared her bedroom with her for two whole days, a corner of the room that hadn't been really touched for about... A corner? Well, yes, it needed clearing and it was 25 years worth of stuff. And honestly, Gabby, I can't tell you how much rubbish was in there that really needed to be cleared. but half of it went to the tip, half went to charity shops, but it's really got me inspired to start clearing my own house. You know, just all the corners that need addressing. And, you know, you open these drawers, you haven't really touched much in it for probably a good 10 years. And I just realised we all have so much stuff and we really don't need it.

2:27So I'm inspired and that's what I've been doing a lot of, house clearing. And so this is a gradual process, is it? You're not going to just kind of move tomorrow? Well, I am looking to move. we want to move well I want to move out of a family home that I've been in for about 25, 26 years but I'm just trying to do it slowly before maybe D-Day comes when I have to really move out but I just find it very therapeutic and very cleansing just to clear a lot of rubbish out Is it also emotional though? I imagine you're coming along a lot of Mel's things It is, yeah I mean it is, it's taken me two years to start addressing his clothes in the wardrobe and And actually I did that this week, which was quite hard.

3:09I did his shoes a few weeks ago, many of them. And it's obviously a lot of memories and things, but it's painful. But I also did realise that, you know, when I do come to move home, of course I'm going to keep hold of a couple of things. But, you know, I can't keep sort of 20 pairs of jeans and trousers and masses of shirts and old suits that he didn't even wear himself. So, you know, it's emotional, but, you know, I think it needs to be done. I still haven't been able to clear his toothbrush, so that's still in the cupboard. Well, it's put into a little cabinet in the bathroom, but I cannot bring myself to throw it.

3:43You don't need to, do you? No, I don't think I do. It's tiny. Toothbrushes are very small compared to other stuff. Exactly, but that's the one thing I just don't know when I can do that. Well, I think it's something you can easily move on wherever you go, isn't it? Yeah. And you can take as much or as little as you want, but I guess that process of looking at the memory the life is quite daunting at the beginning and thinking well I'll do it did you have anybody putting pressure on you to to do that people trying to people do ask um and it's weird because obviously when you go past you know where all your clothes are and I have my side of the cupboard and his side and um you know it's always been there and it's just those very familiar suits and shirts and linen pieces and things that you really enjoyed looking at your husband wearing And so it's quite weird when you suddenly start thinking, well, that person doesn't exist anymore.

4:38And who's going to wear them? And what am I going to do with them? So it's a lot of memories and a lot of places that we would have gone together. And I've seen him in those suits and things. So, you know, like I said, a couple of pieces I've kept. But, yeah, I just feel like... Did the children agree with you? Yes, definitely. Yeah, we've done quite a bit of it together. and then there's a few kind of shirts and tops that some of the kids have picked out they might want to wear it in bed you know like a nice big oversized long sleeve top or something and they've they've picked certain shirts that they remember their dad in but um you know there was an enormous amount of stuff there so you know I can't move with it I don't think so you know that anyway that's what I've been doing I've been clearing out a lot of stuff uh in the last couple I think even if you're doing that kind of thing without what you've been through for the last two years it is an emotional thing to do isn't it I did it recently with the kids bedrooms yes because I was I was looking at things that they'd read 10 years ago or something they'd worn 10 years ago and you know then you're taken back in a nostalgic way to their childhood and so yes so a lot of people I think in in midlife think of maybe they're downsizing or they're moving on and it is the stuff that we think is our lives you know this is is this stuff us or you know do we need to exist without it and and what what is important to take forward some people like a lot of stuff don't they they like a lot of ephemera some people are hoarders and I think I've always been I've thought of myself as a bit in between but actually when I start getting going getting inspired to chuck it starts becoming obsessive and you just look at things and you just sort of look at shelves and You think, well, there's like three baskets up there that I don't need.

6:24I don't need three baskets and I don't know what they're even filled with. Then there's all the photographs and, you know, it's just corners and corners of stuff. Books. I mean, loads of books. Actually, I did take an enormous bag to a charity shop the other day. It was a specialist charity shop in books. Lugged this enormous bag in, which was incredibly heavy. and when I got there, bearing in mind my car wasn't parked in a perfect place and they said, oh, we need to go through every single book one by one and by the way, we don't want the bag either and it was actually a really amazing bag which actually was worth quite a bit and I said, you know what, I'll take it to another shop, don't worry.

7:04Yeah, I'm not going to stand here while you decide if each book is worth it. Yeah, so I just said, don't worry, I'll just take it somewhere else. And I suppose along the way you know that the memories are the most important thing and the feeling that you have for Mel is not something that you ever have to change. No, that's right. I think that's exactly it. And it's a weird thing to say, but when your nearest, closest person to you has left you, you, well, I still struggle to believe that he's not here, but equally I don't mind talking about him. I realise that any time people do want maybe to talk to me, then they're always going to maybe want to know about him or talk about him.

7:44and so I'm never going to say, oh, I'm never going to talk about him. But also, well, I'm still trying to figure it out in my own head. Where did he go? What happened to this physical presence, this huge personality with the most enormous sense of humour and smile? And so that is with me every single day and that's the only thing that keeps me going is just feeling that, you know, his presence or his humour and his character is still there. But there is this sort of, I can't even describe it, it's this thing that goes on in your head that you're having to contemplate the fact that the future will never exist with him in it and it's very hard I was going to say I'd read some interviews you'd done where you talked about the fact that you were at a stage in life where you're planning for things yes together or very much so yeah and I mean every single day we did I'm sure you do that with Kenny I mean you always sit and have a cup of tea in bed and it was like oh where are we going to live or what are we going to do as we get older and what where do we want to travel to and what what things do we want to achieve so we talked about it every single day without fail it just became our subject matter we were always talking about the future and I've learned the hard way that you just don't do that don't know what the future holds and you can you can make plans of course but um far better to be in the moment and far better to think moment by moment and enjoy every moment like a sports person does.

9:10You know, we're always taught as sports people to just play in the moment. Billie Jean King's favourite lines, you know, just to be present. And we always said that about Rafael Nadal when he was playing tennis. He had this unbelievable ability to just never think forward and back and just play. And it's a very hard thing for a sports person to do that. But I realise that actually when you're playing at life, that's what you need to do. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy the moment. But also a lot of couples enjoy that planning because I think you were at the age where your kids got their wings. You brought them up beautifully to go off and have their own dreams and lives.

9:46So you started to get excited. Yeah, we were. About what was coming. Well, I was really excited because we started going to the cinema again and it took us back 20 odd years before we had kids. And we started going, oh, my goodness. And we'd look at each other like, wow, we have time to go to the cinema again. We haven't done that for a long time. And we just started to enjoy doing all these lovely things together. and I was so looking forward to that time up ahead. And it is painful to think that that was robbed not just from us as a couple, but from him and from a selfish perspective from me.

10:18So it's a complete readjustment in my head about how do you go forward thinking about what's up ahead? And what does that mean? It means going back on your own and spending a lot of dinners on your own and just spending a lot more time on your own. And in a weird way, it's taken me back to being like a young tennis player out there on the tour again before I even met Mel. So I've sort of been taken full circle back to that and how I used to think as an individual travelling around the world as a tennis player. This was never the plan. Because obviously Mel died very quickly from his diagnosis.

10:56There was a matter of months that you had to prepare. What did he actually die from in the end? Well, people don't realise this. So he had stage four cancer. It started, well, I say it started, but they don't actually know that. So that's what I learned. So it started with colon cancer, but it could have been across everywhere at the same time. But it was spread into the liver, 97 % covered with tumours. It was spread into the kidneys, even possibly the brain as well. But what he actually died of was sepsis. And there was a perforation from one of the tumours. And, you know, we'd gone on this flight to Portugal, thinking that he was going to go and get some sunshine and some respite from all of his treatment and everything.

11:37But I believe, and I don't know this for a fact, but I believe that maybe on that flight it may have just swollen something and just burst and perforated one of the tumours. That's what my gut instinct tells me. And what was his initial symptom that led him to go and get tested? So we were making the bed one day and he just turned to me and he said, I haven't told you this Annabelle but I've got these funny pains in my side and they're just not going away, they're getting worse. And I immediately thought oh gosh it must be indigestion or something like a cyst or whatever. It never dawned on me that it could be something so absolutely catastrophic.

12:15But you know he went off to have some scans done and I went off to commentate. And then a couple of weeks later you know the scans came through. and clearly the sort of medical profession were absolutely horrified by what they'd seen because they knew that he wouldn't have very much time left and, you know, so they were going to have to deliver this absolutely horrendous news. But you went into that meeting, presumably no idea what they were going to say. Well, outside before we went in, Mel had said to me in the car park, I'm really worried about this meeting and I said, oh, don't worry about it, of course it's going to be fine.

12:50You know, maybe you just have a cyst that's going to have to be removed and we'll go through that together and, you know, don't worry about it. But, you know, the very first thing out of the surgeon's mouth was, I'm afraid your life expectancy is not very good. You know, you've got stage four cancer. It's spread across, you know, basically your body. You know, basically do you have your papers in order? And you can just imagine, I mean, it was like the worst meeting of your life. I mean, and Mel's life, it was just we both were spinning. and I can remember saying, I can't believe that's just come out of your mouth and the surgeon said, well, I've drawn the short straw and I'm the one who's had to deliver this news.

13:31The only thing I would say was that he died with complete hope as to what he was doing. It was a brave decision of him just to say, I'm not going to do chemotherapy. He'd already been told he wasn't going to survive it. He might get a little bit of extra time but he was told he was going to spend the rest of his life in and out of hospitals with treatments and have to have had this horrendous kind of operation to remove probably most of his bowel. I mean, it was pretty horrific what he was looking at. And they'd already told him he had... No hope at all. Yeah, they'd already told him he had very little time left and, you know, that, yeah, he needed to get his papers in order.

14:06And that was the very first meeting we had. At that point, you're making a decision together. If we go down this road of having loads of invasive procedures and chemotherapy, it's a few months left of his life. so was it? Yes and actually it's not very pleasant and he always said I'd rather walk around Richmond Park with you every day which we did, we did that for about two and a half to three months and he wouldn't have been able to do that? And he wouldn't have been able to do that because I think he would have been very depleted from a major major operation and even that might have been very tricky and I can remember asking the oncologist if his liver is 97 % covered in tumours can't we, I didn't know that at the time actually I said can't we operate on his liver can't you do something because the liver regenerates doesn't it and she went do you want to see the scan it's like there'd be nothing left of his liver if we operated on it this is brutal conversation oh it was really brutal i mean it was horrific um but i think you know i you're always going to wonder what might have been or what could have been i certainly have learned a lot over the time and actually for my future i do want to move more into that health area maybe that's a positive thing to leave you know it's mel's legacy i don't want to bring your whole podcast down into doom and gloom but you know there are i'm sure anybody who's suffering from grief will know what i'm talking about you just have moments where it's like the floodgates open and you're on your own and then it just passes like a rain shower and you just go forward and again and they feel better after it but you know there isn't there's there's many times when that happens and it's i don't think anyone who is going through any kind of grief you never get over it no i don't think those those are not the terms that you like to say really just think well you'll just find a way to live with it but not you're not going to get over it and actually don't want to get over it because you don't want that person to feel like oh that was just that and then move on it's just a weird way of looking at it yeah and i i think you're right in terms of those dark moments those darker days you have to embrace those in a way because if you put them if you push them to the side or put them in a box they're still there aren't they yeah they are I think it's far better I've always been somebody who wore my heart on my sleeve I'm quite open I can talk to people about anything all my friends you know we share everything and just like I think it's really good to get everything off your chest so I've never been a closed book in that department so I think it's far better just to to go with where your instincts taking you with your emotions and everything and get it out and that's way better to live and have your friends been amazing yeah Absolutely amazing.

16:39And I pinch myself every day with the friendships that both Mel and I had in our lives. We're so blessed and lucky to have incredible friends. And I've been really quite taken aback by the support that I've received and the family have received and how it continues to be so supportive. It wasn't just at the beginning. It's like continues to be supportive and, you know, lovely invitations where you realise you're in people's thoughts and not forgotten about. You know, and so I just can't say enough about how grateful I am for that. You really know what friendships are. Yeah, it's an important, I think, point to make, isn't it?

17:17Because we all love, you know, our friends and our friendships and we value them. But it's moments like that you realise how important. Yeah, and I've realised that the value of life, when you always say, well, what's, you know, what is valuable in life? nothing is more valuable than the friendship that is the wealth that you you are or you create is your friendships I know it sounds like a cliche but it it absolutely is everything else gets stripped away into meaning nothing really yeah we started out talking about stripping away objects actually and you're right those those people if you move to a different house they're still going to be there aren't they in your world yes and the children's world as well yeah absolutely and I think You know, for me, I walk a lot and I walked quite late in the evening last night and actually the most incredible rainbow appeared just while I was in my own headspace sort of thinking, oh, you know, I wish that we were walking together.

18:14Please send me a sign, you know, just send me anything. And then this rainbow, the most incredible rainbow appeared in Richmond Park last night. But walking, I find really incredible for the soul. and I do think as I get older, you know, we all love to exercise but actually walking is so beneficial, isn't it? And it really clears the head and actually just getting into nature. I'm not really a gym person. Lots of people are. You know, I don't blame people for going to gyms. But you play tennis as well? Yes, I played yesterday as well. I play about twice a week. I run quite a bit but I get much different when I run but walking is the thing I enjoy the most and I just love to walk in nature.

18:56And so I find that so therapeutic. And Richmond Park was your favourite walk. Yeah, it was always my favourite or our favourite. But I still walk there and I just love the sounds of the birds. It sounds really simple, but I just love watching nature. I mean, the deer were rutting and then some of the, all the stags were out last night and they're in a pack at the moment and you start to see them kind of, well, there was a little bit of rutting going on yesterday, but I'm just fascinated by them. I find them very majestic. and I could just sit on a bench and watch the deer for a long period of time.

19:28Do you know what amazes me as well? I used to live in that area, so I was in it a lot more, but this time last year I was training for a half marathon, so I did quite a few runs with the loop. Oh, yeah, it's amazing. Is that eight miles, I think? Yeah, it is about eight miles. It's great marathon training. Yeah, and it's quite undulating, actually. You don't realise until you're there how quiet it is. Yeah, it's beautiful. You're under the flight path in Richmond, and yet somehow there is this kind of serenity in there. Yeah, there really is, and it's the different sense of smell that you get from all the different seasons and it's very distinct so you start to get very in tune with that.

20:03And then some days there's days when you get in, especially more recently when it's been very cold and icy and then the blue skies and sunshine and you get this mist coming off all the ground with all the deer in the background and I just, I marvel at it. Has it become even more amazing to you nature since you lost it? Yeah, well I think I've always enjoyed it but... Your appreciation? My appreciation is heightened by it, I think, because it's just those simple things that mean so much more. And so I definitely know that, you know, I can take a lot of pleasure from just really, really simple things.

20:37And that's the only way I can look at it. And this time you're spending on your own, you said you compared it to the early part of your career when you were first on the tour. And you were so young, you know, when you were about 15. Well, I was travelling from about 12, but 15 when I was kind of on the tour and then going to live in America. So, yeah, I mean, I look back at all of that and I think what's flashing in front of me is just life is so short. You know, that's what's weird about it. It's like it didn't feel that long ago I was trying to do that, be a professional tennis player, trying to travel the world and all the excitement of life up ahead.

21:10And then I met Mel when I was 21. And, you know, I did about six, seven years on the tour. Then I came off and went down a whole different route. But it's like, and then I've had three children. you've now grown up, one's got married, one's about to get married and now, you know, my partner in life has disappeared and so life is flashing in front of me very quickly and very clearly and you realise, wow, you know, you don't know what's around the corner and you don't know how much time you have left. I have no idea what the future holds but all you know is you've just got to do what you want to do and not waste time with what you want to do.

21:45Well, you've never been one for hanging around, Annabelle, have you? No, no, I haven't actually. I realise I've always been quite sort of driven and I think sports people are like that. I mean, you were an athlete as well. And so if you're an athlete, you sort of like, you have tunnel vision and you go after things, you don't waste time, you're quite disciplined. So I'm disciplined in whatever I do. But yeah, I think I exhaust my kids actually.

22:24When you started your Strictly journey, it was so soon after Mel had died. I remember at the time I was quite worried about it. A lot of people were. Yeah, and I was thinking, oh, I hope she's going to be okay in this. And actually, it just shows you how you should never judge one person's situation because actually for one person that might have been too soon. But for you, it felt like the most brilliant, way of dealing with your emotions and you and johanna seemed to get somebody who was kind of sent to help you as well it looked like from the outside there was this i realized why people did question it um but for me it was just unbelievable like an amazing opportunity to just not come back to that house you know for the like in that winter period that was going to be the first time sorry well it's through the summer isn't it from july onwards right up till christmas but i knew that the dark evenings were going to close in and the thought that this was going to be the first time I was going back to my home kind of when the evenings were going to start closing in and being alone in that house where it had been such a lively kind of you know home with Mel always sitting there and us having breakfast lunch and dinner together and you know watching whatever you want to watch in the evening so for me I was terrified of that so the idea that I was going to I go dancing all day and have a plan and have something to distract me and also rest my brain from crying.

23:50I mean, I can't stress that enough. I mean, when you're in that situation, it's exhausting. And so to rest away from that with something so positive was incredible. And with music as well. Music, exactly. It can be very emotional, of course, music, but it can be so uplifting to have music. And also, you know, dance is wonderful. I loved, honestly, I absolutely loved it. I had an incredible partner in Johannes, but also he had been dealing with something quite similar. So we had a sort of a shared bond there. And, you know, he was incredibly helpful. He was an amazing teacher. So just to be sort of being taught all these different types of dance, which I had no idea.

24:31So you were obviously very coachable as a person. Well, I don't know. I just was... Well, I mean, your dancing was amazing. Well, thank you. I don't think it was. It really was. I think it surprised people because tennis feels like a sport that is combative. Yes. You know, it's quite dynamic and it's obviously, but doesn't necessarily immediately kind of lend itself to dancing, does it? No, in a funny sort of way. I mean, when we talk about Roger Federer, we say how balletic and so graceful he was. He was almost like a ballet dancer when he played. And I always thought that when I was watching him, he was so flowing.

25:03And I'd actually done ballet when I was very, very little. and then I'd stopped it to go off into tennis. So this, again, it took me full circle back to being like a very young child and it was bringing back all these memories of doing ballet and being in my bedroom putting on Tchaikovsky and for coffee oven and doing Romeo and Juliet in my bedroom. So, you know, I realised that the body holds on to that and it doesn't forget and it felt like this, you know, unravelling of all this layer upon the body that was getting very stiff and suddenly it was like a big, I always say a giant ball of string that had got very tight that was just unravelling.

25:39And then this dancing and music was just letting me free up a little bit. And I spoke to Julia Samuel, who you may know. She's written amazing books on grief and she treats people and everything. And she said to me, do you realise that dancing or yoga is one of the best things you can do for grief? And I didn't realise that. But it makes sense because you're freeing up your body. It might be the last thing you'd think of doing. But actually it makes sense. Yes, it does make sense. And, you know, and I really did enjoy it. And actually I can honestly say sitting here and it's a year or more than a year now, I really miss it.

26:16I really wish I could go back to dancing as much as I did. And of course it's very difficult to fit these things into your life, isn't it? You've got to find a studio. I've got to find a Johannes. I've got to find sort of six or seven hours or more in a day to do it. So, of course, it's difficult to replicate that. But the whole experience for me was a really positive one. And for the kids, it was very positive. It was. It was amazing for them. I think they were actually, I think they're quite traumatised. Sitting there watching their mum, you know, live in that studio on those Saturday nights is quite terrifying.

26:49I think they were, I think they know me well enough to say when they saw me enter into the studio with my shoulders up by my ears and sort of knew that I was going to be terrified. But I think overall, they really loved the whole thing. So, yeah, all in all for us as a family, it was incredible. And I do really miss it. And there was so much love for you as well. Well, thank you. So did you feel that energy and that support? I did. I really did, actually. Although I was so sort of involved in it, I was kind of very focused. But as I sort of went out and about and people coming up to me in the streets or wherever I was out and about, you know, I had so many people coming up to me who were dealing with their own grief.

27:29And I realised that what we were going through as a family was touching a lot of people in their way. So it was nice to share that with so many people. So I did feel a lot of love and I'm very, very grateful for all the support that I had for sure. You also got back into work quite quickly, didn't you? I did actually. And was that a conscious thing to again try and kind of just put your head in a different space? You know, when I think back to that period, so Mel died in May and the French Open was literally upon, you know, it was like about a week and a half later or something. And Mel and I had been planning to go in our camper van and he was desperate to go over there to the French Open.

28:12And he'd booked a space in a, you know, a caravan site, caravan and motorhome club site. and he was so excited and he said, don't cancel this on me because if you cancel it, it will kill me. And he just loved the van so much and he wanted to travel in the van. He could have lived in the van. And, you know, he'd converted it himself with a very good friend of ours and then he got too ill to be able to take the van. So we had to cancel it. And it was odd how everything unraveled so quickly and then he died. and then I had to sort of start looking at the whole thing about going to Paris and obviously I wasn't going to go in the camper van without him.

28:51But it was almost like, oh my goodness, you know, because that whole period of time, which is my busiest time of year, going through into French Open, Queen's, Eastbourne, Wimbledon, you know, I was kind of looking at all of it thinking, this isn't going to work with my husband being so unwell. You know, I'm going to have to pull out of absolutely everything and just not work at all and just support him and, you know, care for him. And then he left us. And so then it was like I was trying to think, what on earth do I do? And then it seemed like, well, you know, I know what he would have said. He said, go and do it.

29:25Go, go and go and do all these jobs that you're so used to. It will be helpful. And I knew that that's what he would have been saying. There's no way he would have said, well, just stay at home and cry all day long. Because there's no way he would have said that. He would have been. I know he would have been making light of his death. that's that's also what keeps me sort of um I don't even know the words to choose to describe it but he had such great humor in everything in life I know he would have found humor in his death in a weird way and when you went back to work I imagine the community that you work in is very tight isn't it and yes people that you see year in year year out did you feel really supported Very, very much so, yeah.

30:07And that was a real comfort. And, you know, to actually go back into sort of commentary straight away at the French Open and just be, again, distracted, a little bit like Strictly, but straight into what I knew in tennis and be able to talk about the matches I was watching in front of me, just to rest my head again. But also just to have that friendships from colleagues and everything, it was incredible. So I did feel a lot of support and love and help. and again I'm really really grateful to all of it so I can sit here now and say thank you to everyone. Yeah I'm sure everybody you know wanted you back because they love hearing your voice and they love seeing you on screen but nobody would have held it against you would they if you just said this season's over for me I'm not going but you obviously have great passion still for tennis and you've drawn analogies in life with tennis a couple of times already as we've chatted today I'd always kind of been under the impression because your career ended so young at 21 you came off the tour that perhaps you didn't you know you weren't in love with tennis for a while did you fall out for a while before you could get yourself back into it?

31:14That's a really good question because obviously when you pick up a sport when you're a little kid you pick it up because you love it and I never questioned that I wanted to be a professional tennis player and you know I just had my goals set on playing Wimbledon obviously wanted to win it and just wanting to be a tennis player. But the reality of the lifestyle that I'd chosen suddenly dawned on me as I was starting to travel around the world, live out of a suitcase, hardly coming back to England, hardly ever. I don't think I spent Christmas at home for many, many years. And I did start to question what I was doing, but it was also the nature of the sport is very gladiatorial and you feel like you're in combat, you're an enemy or they're an enemy to you, very difficult to have any kind of social life.

31:58And friendships, no friendships, because everyone's a potential enemy or a rival that you're going to play the following week. So you don't want to let your guard down and tell them what's going on in your innermost thoughts like you might have a normal friendship. So I did start to question and I was kind of like studying lots of psychology books and hypnotherapy and all sorts of things, trying to find ways of how can I enjoy this process. But the thing was, I never really fell out of love with the game because I love watching it. I love talking about it. I think it's an amazing sport. But I think psychologically for me, that wasn't how I wanted to live my life until I was into my 30s.

32:38And I had a very strong instinct about that. But having said that, as a much hopefully older, wiser woman who's now had three children, who have grown up, and you've gone through so much more and lived life outside the sport to look back in, of course I'm going to look back in at that younger girl and think, oh, I wish I'd done things a little bit differently or I wish I'd had the head that I have now to be that player again. And I think I would have approached it very differently. But, of course, you can never do that unless you mature. And the only way to mature was to come out of it. So that's hard, isn't it?

33:15Yeah, there's no way to do that. There's no space to do that, is there? No. Because it's such a relentless sport. It is. It's 11 months a year. It is. It's relentless and it's cutthroat. it's tough and I think you know in those days when I was playing on the tour there were no sports psychologists really well I certainly didn't know about them I think it's become a much bigger topic now and it's really impressive what they can do with and I guess on the tour they're more aware of that as well oh way more aware of it and also you know I still see unhappiness on the tour and I totally identify with it and understand it but I think for a lot of them it's about getting them to understand that they're just trying to be a better tennis player and try to not judge their happiness by winning or losing tennis matches because you're going to lose a lot when you're on the tour.

34:01You're not going to win every match you play. And that's a very hard place if you've never done anything else in your life. But it's also about that young player realising, because they may have picked up a racket at age four and they've never really experienced anything else except for hitting tennis balls and training and playing matches. Life can actually improve their tennis. Yes. A perspective that's bigger than tennis. Exactly. And it's about trying to get a young player to realise that tennis in the big picture of life is so small. But when you're in it, and I was in that space, it was like the be all and end all of everything.

34:36Maybe a certain portion of it needs to be to be able to do what they're doing. So that's where that balance is. Well, a lot of sports people say, oh, I wish at the time I'd taken a moment with my success, but I was always moving on. And I always say when I'm interviewing, well, you probably wouldn't have been as great as you were. You spend too much time thinking about your success. Exactly. That's why it's such a fine balance. And you can't really define what is it that separates the greatness from just ordinary. And usually I look at some of the great, great tennis players that we've looked at over the time.

35:08We've been so fortunate to cover the last 20 years or so. An amazing era. Federer, Serena Williams, Djokovic, Murray, Nadal, you know, all of these great, great champions. And they kind of tick every box. You know, they don't just have just the talent or the sort of strength of character, the physical ability, the charisma, the psychology, the tactics. You know, they tick every box. Do you think the ones that you've described there, the commonality is also the teams that they manage to build around them? Because it's certainly not the individual sport it might appear to people, is it? If you're at the very top of your game, you've got a team of maybe seven or eight who are around you, travelling with you.

35:49Yeah, it's changed a lot over the years. So, you know, when I was on the tour, you had sort of Bjorn Borg with one coach, Leonard Birkelyn. And that was that, you know. So what if Bjorn needed, when he was on the tour, what if he needed some physio? What if he needed a masseuse? Would that person just have to come in from wherever they were? There are still tour masseuses. Right, but not his own personal. Not that I knew of, but maybe he did. I mean, maybe I was unaware of it. But certainly over the years, well, Navratilova and Ivan Lindl were two of the first to really bring in a whole fitness regime.

36:21And even Yvonne started talking, well, so did Martina, talking about chefs and, you know, different nutrition and everything started to change in a very different direction. So I think you're right. You know, I look at them now and it's who can build the best team. And I call it like a Formula One team, but they really are. And if you can build the best or you can afford or invest in your best team, it is so professional now. And the little, tiny little extra bits of detail with that. But then they can share the pressure with those people as well, can't they? Yeah, they can. So they can enjoy their lives a bit more.

36:53Well, I know Andy Murray said it a few times, and he always had a good sense of humour, but he always said, I need a big team around me because then nobody's really falling out. If you travel with somebody, imagine if you just go with one person, their little habits are going to start irritating you when you're travelling. And honestly, it's like going on holiday, and you find little things are winding you up. And then you don't even want to get on the court and practice with them because they're really irritating you, and they're going to have to have dinner with them or lunch. and so if you have a big team it's all shared and then that's and you and there's somebody who's a bit you know the joker who can then take the mickey out of those people and you can kind of all laugh at it yourselves which is always going to distill a kind of any tension just diffuses it a little bit i know andy definitely mentioned that a couple of times and i then his team was was fun you know they were a great team and he always always was amazing at putting together an incredible team of very knowledgeable social media really highlighted that yes it did you could really see that that he was having a good time yeah and i think you know like you look at somebody like well certainly roger federer who he did they did change a few elements along the way but just incredible people with knowledge and uh same with novak djokovic i mean just absolutely phenomenal the and it's been talked about a lot recently not least to do with drug cases and various other things the way that people lower down the rankings their drugs tests are treated differently to those at the top, but also what's available to them in terms of resources legally and all those things and the book that really highlights is Conan Island's book, Racket.

38:23I haven't read it. I've heard a lot about it and I need to read it. He was Ireland's top tennis player. Yes, I remember him playing. I think he only ever got to 112 in the world, but it's a brilliant book to understand what goes on below the top 20 and what happens, because the sport can't exist without all those people, can it? And yet There is this kind of great division. And it's people like Djokovic, obviously, is trying to get the players to kind of have more power, isn't he? He's very supportive about those lower ranked players because he would appreciate what they're going through. And I always say this when I do talks and things.

38:56I try and say to people, well, the glamour of what you're seeing at Wimbledon, French Open, US or Australian Open, you have no idea what sits behind that. And all of the players will have gone through the lower tiered rankings. And sorry, the lower tiered tournaments. to get there. To get there. And it's all the sort of travelling to and from. You know, they'll be playing out on courts where not very many people are watching. Azerbaijan to China. Absolutely. And probably, you know, getting a dodgy tummy along the way. And they never know when they're going to be knocked out so they can't get cheap flights.

39:26No. And all of that stuff that... I mean, I look back at what I call my apprenticeship and people are surprised because in those days we didn't have mobile phones or computers. So you would sit on the phone for hours trying to get the cheapest method of travel to the next tournament. and I was frequently hanging out in what was called Greyhound bus stations in America at like 3am because that was the cheapest way to get to the next tournament. And you were how old at this point? Probably about 16 and I was definitely 16 actually. And I remember, you know, we were staying in travel lodges or sometimes you'd sign up and try and stay in the local club would have club members.

40:03You would house players and so it was digs and you'd stay there and it was always quite nice to stay in a family like that. I stayed in loads of different families. But again, it was just trying to save money. But, you know, you'd sign in at 8 o 'clock in the morning and you'd play what's called pre-qualifying and you'd play three rounds of pre-qualifying. You didn't get any money for that. If you won those three rounds, you'd then be into qualifying. Again, you didn't get your hotel paid for. So then you'd have to win three rounds of qualifying and that would get you into the main draw possibly to get your hotel paid for and then, you know, some decent price.

40:36well not even decent prize money compared to today but some money which would pay for the next tournament and I sort of look back at all of those years and think gosh that was just like a uni student going off traveling and getting the odd jobs to try and pay for the next bit of travel but um you know that's what all of those players are doing even today to make it hustling almost hustling all the time to try and make it to the next I admire them enormously because it takes incredible strength of character to break through that to get to the main tour and I you know when I hear people talking about rankings or you know players whatever and I'm looking at them going oh you have no idea what they've gone gone through to get there and um I thoroughly recommend the book um it won the William Hill yes I did hear that you've reminded me I was uh actually I should declare I was a judge uh so yeah but it was um yeah I just thought I'm I it's a really I love tennis always love tennis and understood that because I've met players who've you know been out on the Challenger tour and all that kind of thing.

41:35But when you read the book, it really does hit home. I've heard that. It's a tough journey. Thank you for reminding me. I'll send you my copy. You don't need to do that. I'll buy one.

42:00your passion for tennis is clear and and your love of the sport comes through your you know your commentary which is excellent and and the work that you do um i i guess it's giving you as well, an enormous source of joy and focus. Yes, it is. Yeah, very much so. I will never fall out of love with the sport. I love the characters. When I watch tennis, I feel like I can, you know, any tennis player has a real ability to pick up on body language, expressions. It's what you do as a player when you're facing an opponent. So you're reading messaging all the time from the body language. So when I'm commentating, I'm always picking up on what's going on.

42:38You can see when a player is slightly tightening up and they're not really trusting themselves. So they're holding back. They may not go for shots closer to the lines because they want to give themselves more margin, but that in itself will allow the opponent a bit more to go. Yeah, so there's so many layers to when you're watching a tennis match and I do love it. And the more that I watch, the more intriguing it becomes. But also you really appreciate the ones that are exceptional. You know, you can really appreciate how much the sport has changed in terms of their movement around the court. Their fitness.

43:12Their fitness levels are phenomenal. Some of them are going like four, five hours in matches. They have to rebound and come back. The Draper-Sinner semifinal in New York. Incredible. Throwing up on court. Oh, exactly. Yeah, and the heat. Yeah. You know, the heat that they're playing. But also when I watch players, I always compare it to when you're watching dancing. You know, you could watch four dancers, professionals, given the same steps, and you would be watching them on stage and your eye would be drawn to one in particular because of the way they move. But they're doing the same moves. And it's the same in tennis.

43:44They're all hitting forehands and backhands or serving. But the way they interpret what that is, it's just something within them like a dancer. And so sometimes you're drawn to it because of the way they flow, the way they just have this ability to strike a ball and it's coming out of the centre of the strings. And it looks effortless, but the power coming out, it's got weight on it. it just zings through the air and it has an impact through the court. So, you know, it's wonderful to watch tennis because there's so much a part of the personalities that's coming through in how they play the sport.

44:16They're so exposed, aren't they? They are. Because it's just them and their racket on a court with all these people watching. There's no hiding place. No hiding place. And I remember interviewing Jose Mourinho once and he loves watching tennis and he often comes to Queen's to watch there or Wimbledon. And he said exactly that. He said he so appreciates what tennis players go through because obviously in football you're part of a team. Maybe you're supported a little bit. Whereas tennis, psychologically, you are completely exposed. So if you serve a double fault on a massive point where there's pressure attached to it, you've just revealed yourself as slightly weakened or doubting yourself.

45:00And the audience can feel it and watch it as well. and that's what makes it such a great spectator sport. But it is tough because not everyone's going to play their best every single time they step on the court. And to me, it's about, I don't know what other guests you've spoken to in sport, what they would say, but to me, the greatest ones are the ones that have an ability to maintain an extremely high level consistently throughout their career. And that is so, it's so hard to do. And everything that goes on in people's lives. I mean, just thinking of Emma Raducanu in the last week, what happened with her, with somebody who was behaving inappropriately and as a young woman, you know, feeling so vulnerable.

45:39That has got to get into your mind and how you deal with stuff that happens off court. Off court, exactly. Because tennis is an emotional sport. It's not just sort of setting you on a line and go. You know, it's like there's layers of emotion and pressure moments that come into a match. But absolutely, you're right. If everything isn't right off the court, then you are totally distracted and you need to not have any distractions at all. So what Emma was dealing with last week in Dubai was uncomfortable for her. And I don't know too much about the circumstances other than this gentleman was behaving slightly strangely, you know, I think off the court.

46:17He presented a letter to her, hadn't he? Yes, and then he appeared sort of front row of the match and obviously started saying things to her. And it was weird and uncomfortable and it was very upsetting for her. So incredibly, I mean, she went down quite quickly in the match and as soon as he was removed she started coming back into the match and playing much much better but um a very uncomfortable situation but um and she's had to deal with quite a lot hasn't she um over the last couple of years um yes do you have an empathy for what you know she's gone through as somebody who's been there um i can't identify with what she's gone through because she won a grand slam so quickly i mean she literally hit the tour she'd only been on the tour a couple of weeks and she'd won a Grand Slam and that's usually the other way around it's like you build up to that and some players never get she'd already reached the second week of Wimbledon hasn't she just after yeah she reached the fourth round yeah and so she'd gone through the summer kind of overachieving yes and then continued it continued and then it was unheard of to be a qualifier and not drop a set and win the US Open which included seven more matches off the back of three qualifying matches and still not drop a set.

47:25So it was extraordinary. And none of us can imagine what her life, you know, turned upside down, all the contracts coming at her, having to adjust her head into what she wanted to achieve in the sport. And then she had all those injury problems. She's had surgeries. She's had a lot coming at her. Changing of her team, not finding perhaps the right team for her. There's been nine coaches now, I think. So, you know, I don't think it's been easy by any stretch of the imagination. She's almost got to kind of start again to rebuild almost, you think, because she never really built the foundations. No, she didn't.

47:57It was almost like she went straight to the penthouse, didn't she? She didn't do what we've just talked about, which is go out. Well, she did a little tiny bit of it that summer. But that was it. And that was it. And then never been back there because then her ranking was up. She was getting invited to tour. Getting invited all the time. So she's had a lot of wild cards into events and then she's been into some events on her. but she always plays on big show courts every single time she plays. And that's hard because I know she loves it and she copes with it very well. I think she's a player who embraces that.

48:27But she doesn't play any qualifying or anything. And I feel like you've just said, maybe she almost does need to rebuild, but I guess there's a lot in her head. She's probably trying to adjust. And also in this country, we put a lot of pressure on our tennis players. Yes, we do. Yeah, because we're a nation that has a Grand Slam. There are four Grand Slams. So you have Australia, French, Wimbledon and US Open. So the players that come from those four countries are always going to have extra weight of expectation and pressure on their shoulders. And that's just something I guess you just learn to live with it.

49:00But it's not easy. No. We love to kind of build up our tennis players. And then keep them down again. Yeah. And then obviously everybody focuses on two particular weeks of the year, don't they? Exactly. I mean, you know, in some ways it's great because it is such a wonderful sport and we're so lucky that it is such a huge part of... Well, it's the best Grand Slam as well. Yeah, it's just amazing. So we kind of embrace it and celebrate it, but, you know, yeah. The rest of the year, these guys are out there. They are slogging it week in and week out. And I think that's why I admire all the players that commit to the tour, they play all these tournaments and they're out there slogging away.

49:40You can tell, Annabelle, you know, sparing your blushes, when you talk about tennis on the telly and how much the players love you because when you're commentating, it's with such depth of understanding and appreciation of what they go through as well. Thank you. I do feel like I do really identify with it and I feel like I still feel those emotions of when I was a young player and what you go through and, you know, you need to, I think, as a commentator to be able to understand what's going on on the court. There's an empathy that you have. Yeah. Not just a technical understanding. And you can't be, just because I'm not playing professionally now, you can't be just an armchair tennis player and forget how difficult it is in the most pressurised moments.

50:22You can't just sit there and go, oh, why did they miss that shot? It feels like talking to you that tennis still informs a lot of your emotional intelligence and understanding of people and life. And it's taught you a lot. I think it has taught me a lot, actually. I think that's spot on. And I do feel like that, that from a very early age, I was very in tune with a lot of things emotionally. And that came through tennis and it came through just, you know, when you play junior tournaments, it's absolutely awful. There's no other way to describe it. You're dealing with parents who come down your end of the court and start barracking you and saying nasty things and trying to put you off.

51:03And, you know, and then you have opponents who are saying things to you and then you hit the tour and, you know, you still have opponents sort of like the odd sledging that goes on on a change event. It teaches you to be quite strong and resilient. You deal with a lot and, you know, you have to kind of process it all in your head. And I was saying this to somebody the other day that when I then went back as a commentator and you start bumping into some of the people that you played against on the tour and you start to view them very differently. you start to view them as a human being as opposed to that opponent that was quite tough to play against or a big rival who you really couldn't stand.

51:40They could turn out to be a friend. Yeah, they could turn out to be actually quite an interesting person. Maybe even what they did on the tour has gone and left them and they've also matured and see life differently. But, you know, I guess all of it does teach you a lot about life. Certainly. And as we finished chatting today, you've been really honest and open about how you're dealing with your grief. And you mentioned Julia Samuel, who's been on the podcast, and I would endorse what you're saying about her books. They're absolutely brilliant if anybody's listening to this and they're dealing with grief at the moment and wondering what resources or tools that you also want to share.

52:13Is there anything else? I think your walking in nature is probably the most powerful thing that you say. Walking, I think it is. And I always say not to be afraid to bring up, you know, for me, Mel's name and talk about him because I know that it must be difficult for people around you to know how to talk about it or how to approach it or what to say. And so I always bring his name up very quickly. And if I'm at dinner, I'll often say, oh, Mel would have liked that or Mel would have thought this or he would have made us laugh about that. And I bring his name up all the time to make him a part of the conversation.

52:43And I think that's easier for everyone around you. You're kind of breaking the ice with it. Breaking the ice with it. But also it's nice. You know, it's nice to talk about him. So I don't mind talking. I will always love talking about him. So I'll always want to. He always had the biggest smile. I can only picture him with his enormously kind of happy face. He did have a huge disarming smile. But I think the thing he's left behind the most is his humour. And I do think that that is one of the most wonderful things in life is to have this great humour, isn't it? And humour's being kind of suppressed a little bit, isn't it?

53:21I think life, you know, I wish it had more. Yeah, I think we've been through a period, haven't we, where people have become quite sensitive to what they can find funny. Yes, exactly. And Mel had an amazing ability to make everybody laugh very early on from when he met them, and I think that's wonderful. And so I hang on to that a lot because he still makes me... Sometimes I'm on my own in the house, and something will be on TV or some situation, and I'll start laughing on my own, but I'm remembering how he dealt with it and some of the things that he would have said to make us smile and laugh.

53:54So that's quite nice. I'm sure he's enormously proud of how you have dealt with the last two years of your life. Well, I'm not sure, but thank you. I'm sure he would be very, very proud. That big smile would definitely be there. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. Sharing him a little bit more with us. Well, thank you.

54:16Well, I absolutely loved chatting with Annabelle, and I appreciate her being so open and honest about coming to terms with losing Mal. What a Gorgeous Woman Inside and Out. Be sure to rate and review this episode if you enjoyed it too and hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to us so that you never miss an episode. I'll be back next Wednesday with more from The Midpoint. Catch you then.