Tim Henman On Roger Federer, Wimbledon & What Life Is Really Like On Tour | SLMan Podcast

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0:55Hector Lopez-Valido:On today's episode of the SR Man pod, we're getting into why Al Karaz is such an elite athlete. In terms of ball striking ability, just look at the numbers. How the Labour Cup is changing tennis. And the spirit of both teams. Because these are individual athletes coming together to work as a team. And that, yeah, I think that's been brilliant. Does Tim Henman have the ultimate post-career job? In our village. No way. Yeah, about four years ago. Incredible. It is without doubt the best thing I've ever been involved in. Stay tuned. It's a great conversation with a legend.

1:32Hector Lopez-Valido:Welcome back to the SL Man pod. I'm your host, Harvey James. And today I'm joined by SL contributor Hector Valido Lopez. Hello. And our very special guest, a former British number one, Wimbledon favourite, and now one of the most recognisable voices in the game. It's Tim Henman. We'll be talking all things tennis, the Labour Cup, his career highlights. We'll start with what we're loving and the things we're wearing, and we'll end with the quickfire round questions. Before we start, make sure that you're subscribed, not only to this podcast, but to our weekly newsletter too, so that you have access to key cultural insight, the latest style edits, exclusive interviews, and all that's happening at SL Man HQ.

2:15Hector Lopez-Valido:Thanks for joining us. Welcome, guys. Morning. Thanks for being here. Morning. Thanks for having us. How are we? Very good, thank you. Yeah, getting your way through that coffee. I am, yeah. Very good coffee. Compliments to the chef. How are you, Hector? Very well, thank you. Very well. I've come in with a dog today, which has caused a bit of a ruckus, but, you know, she's been quiet through there, so long may that continue. She was pretty quick outside, wasn't she? She was pretty... Let's not talk about what just happened to that poor cat. Shall we give context? Shall we give context? Yeah. I've brought in an office dog today, which has already caused a bit...

2:45Incredibly cute. The owner of the cat could be watching. If the owner of the cat is watching, your cat is actually fully intact. So I'm sorry about that. But I bought in some lamb for the dog to eat, like sort of wet dog food out of a tin. And it causes a bit of a stench in the office. So we've left that problem back there. Now we're in here. Yeah, we'll deal with that later. We'll deal with that later.

3:04Hector Lopez-Valido:Right. So we always start with our outfits. So Tim, let's go. I'm very, yeah. I'm very proud to be wearing my Lever Cup Team Europe tracksuit. the event that I was involved in last year was in San Francisco Europe against the rest of the world and unfortunately we came second and this year Labour Cup is in London at the O2 in September Yannick Noah is the captain I'm the vice captain of Team Europe and we're looking for a different outcome we're looking for revenge but it's an absolutely incredible event best players in the world who are normally sort of individuals throughout the year, come together as a team, kind of like the Ryder Cup in golf.

3:52It's absolutely phenomenal. And the O2 has got an amazing history of tennis with the World Tour finals over the years. And, yeah, can't wait for it. So that's my idea.

4:01Hector Lopez-Valido:Does everyone have to wear this in kind of unity? Yeah, yeah, we do. We have a team uniform. Okay, nice. So, yeah, it certainly differentiates. We're in blue and the rest of the world are in red. Okay. Very obvious team. I like that. Yeah, it's good. They're captains, Andre Agassi, vice-captains, Pat Rafter. So it's great. You know, we all played against each other back in the day. So it's good to... So much fun. Yeah, it is. It's amazing. That is cool. Bit of a Legends collab. Yeah, that's cool. And elsewhere? I'm going straight from here to Queens. I've got the tournament on at the moment. I work with HSBC.

4:36So I'd say I'm sort of smart, casual. Podcast in the morning, Queens in the afternoon. Yeah. That's a good day. It's a decent day, yeah. As I sort of referenced earlier, I've never had a real job. I don't want one now. So, yeah, hobbies, I think, are much better. So I'm lucky that I still work with HSBC. They're the title sponsor at the Queen's, the women's event, which was last week, and the men's event this week. So in there for a couple of hours with their clients and talking about tennis. That does sound like a real job, though, working with HSBC. No, it's not, because they're a great partner and supporter of sports.

5:11So I'm there around Queens for a couple of weeks, and then I'll be at the Open Golf as they're the official banking partner. So Royal Birkdale this year, if you like your golf proper course. And I like my golf.

5:25Hector Lopez-Valido:Sounds like a good client to be in with. Yeah, well, I worked with them for 32 years. Before your time, they were Midland Bank. They sponsored me in 1994, so I started wearing Midland Bank on my arm when I was playing at Wimbledon, and that became part of HSBC, and I've been hanging on ever since. That's cool. Yeah, Legacy. I love that. I actually had no idea they were a separate bank before. Yeah, they were a much smaller sort of UK bank. And what are you wearing on the wrist there? I am wearing a Rolex Milgauss. Is that kind of like a Wimbledon Green-esque? Well, I don't think it was... Not intentionally.

6:00Not intentionally, but it kind of is. And you were drawn to that. I'm a Rolex ambassador, so I work with them as well. Nice. HSBC, Rolex and Jaguar Land Rover. You don't mess about. that is a trifecta am I allowed to drop those plugs in so I'm lucky, I've worked with them for a long time as well so good relationships got good partnerships there and Hector what about yourself? I am wearing this rather warm right now number to be honest from Universal Works, it's just a nice little gilet it's a bit of a staple that I like to wear relatively toasty but still fine, can wear it when this comes out this is a bit of a signature piece to be because i had to give this a bit of a break you know when you wear something that's quite bright and you wear it quite a few times on the internet and the people go mate you got any other jumpers yeah i thought i'd bring it out of retirement so this is first venture out in a while um then i've got some black car hot jeans some trainers from maison margela and i'm also sporting some sunnies just here which i'll talk about later but i've just got these they're called nico's uh yeah i wear and he is an absolute legend the way he sells sunglasses is so cool it's like a third generation optician.

7:08Sells them out the back of like a 1950s Cadillac at like various cool shows and he's just the swaggiest guy. He's like James May but with loads of charisma. So yeah, he's cool.

7:18Hector Lopez-Valido:Yeah, I've seen him on the internet to be fair. Yeah, he's cool. Good stuff. Alright. Oh, me. I've gone for this little polo show. I got it yesterday. What's that? Rene. Rene? Lacoste. Lacoste. Yeah, I knew that. Of course. Yeah. But this is like a linen cotton blend so in the heat of summer. It's kind of perfect for that. It's tennis-esque. It's nice. I like it. Without any buttons here, just kind of a little flap. And then this is moss, I'm pretty sure. They're very, very nice. They're really nice, actually. And they've got like a little, comes with a belt. So it's kind of, I don't know, just all encompassing.

7:55Hector Lopez-Valido:They look kind of military with that belt, almost like a sort of old, yeah, they're very cool. With a nice herringbone. And then these are the first time out, first outing. What are your thoughts? Good. Alohas. It's kind of like a football, kind of vintage football shoe inspired. But it's World Cup at the moment. I don't know if you've seen. I don't know if you've seen that. Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready. Because Quaker's coming in hot with morning nutrition. 100 % whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. And that sounds absolutely delicious.

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9:04Hector Lopez-Valido:if we go into the things we're loving at the moment this could be tv shows restaurants books podcasts that we need or are loving in our lives um i'm going to start with a tv show that it's been around for i suppose like four or five years every year a new season comes out is clarkson's farm like jeremy clarkson i think is a bit of a genius in the way that he constructs narrative the way that he creates kind of just tension and drama almost just out of nowhere I think in the last season, he just decided to buy a pub and then open it within three weeks. Immediately, you've got this structure of tension and drama and chaos.

9:43Hector Lopez-Valido:Chaos. And the scale of it is just always huge. So you never know what's going to happen each episode. And he'll set something up. And then in the meantime, another kind of plot line starts. I genuinely think he's really smart with the way he lays the narrative. And it's shot so well. I mean, he did basically oversee the biggest TV show in the world. He's a bit of a genius broadcaster, isn't he? Yeah, he is. And it is a great show anyway. Yeah, and he's just an idiot, isn't he? He's just an idiot. But even just a fence falling over is like the most entertaining thing in that TV show. It's great.

10:16Hector Lopez-Valido:So true, idiot. Yeah. And even like when the pigs, he has to get rid of the pigs and he's like, he is genuinely really cut up by things and quite an emotional person, which maybe you wouldn't expect from watching him in Top Gear or Grand Tour. There's like a bit of a soft... He's definitely invested in it. You could say financially, but I think he's really bought into it, hasn't he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When he left Top Gear and then he went to Amazon or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Grand Tour. Yeah, that didn't really work, did it? No, I mean, they did it for a bit. Yeah. But this is... Is it Amazon's biggest TV show?

10:51Hector Lopez-Valido:I feel like I've heard that. I don't want to be quoted on it. But yeah, it's definitely up there, isn't it? Yeah. He's doing a great job. Yeah. And he's kind of followed a route, to be fair. There's a few guys from, like, the car world who have then gone to be farmers in Oxfordshire. Really? There's another guy called Harry Metcalfe, like, done a similar sort of thing. Okay. But it looks like a stressful but quite fun life. Yeah. Yeah, I suppose that's probably my only qualm, is the, like, constant harking back to, like, the financials of the farm and the pub. Whereas, you know, he's making so much money from that TV show that it doesn't matter.

11:22Hector Lopez-Valido:but it's kind of like you just pretend that it's in its own world but it's obviously highlighted you know how difficult and challenging farming is 100 % for normal people yeah I think he's self-aware enough like there's a couple of scenes where he says like you know investment bankers and people like myself who get into farming he's kind of self-aware enough to know that he's got the cheddar to take a bit of a hit from all of this whereas some people it is a bit like it actually it's more of like a life change isn't it yeah 100 % and so a restaurant that I'm loving at the moment on the weekend I went to a restaurant called Fowl which I think is like a sister restaurant of fallow which has kind of just been huge for the last few years and it's like a fried chicken restaurant but done in a kind of elevated way and it's the I can't remember the last time in a restaurant that I've had service this good everyone was so nice so attentive so welcoming and the food was absolutely on point if you like fried chicken and kind of the sauces that go with it there's incredible kind of what was it a white buffalo sauce it's just ridiculous and oysters that came with like bloody mary mix and horseradish and the pickle or like basically like a kind of bloody mary in an oyster yeah wow i like oysters phenomenal absolutely wild but yeah and also i'll just finish on a watch that i'm pining on because i've got quite into them and i want to get like a good daily watch around about a thousand pounds so there's a new watch by serica which almost looks like art deco it's kind of like almost like a bullseye kind of thing oh but really tasteful and kind of i think stainless steel but yeah it's i keep thinking about it i've not really thought about like an object this much it's quite sad i need to do it yeah straight up to sort of plug that brand before they send you right?

13:09Thank you. How much time?

13:11Hector Lopez-Valido:And that is the Serica 35 mil. Yeah. Once a week for a month or is it going to take more work than that? I'm just giving it a go. We'll see what happens. Yeah, definitely. As much as possible. Don't ask. Don't ask. You don't get it. A hundred percent. And what are you guys loving? Mine are, I think, slightly odd. Yeah. But they are three things that I'm enjoying. Wordle. Oh, we've got family. Come on. We've got family Wordle battles. Yeah, I love that. Um, and I, I, we haven't fallen out. No, it's just, it's just competitive. Yeah. So I've got, uh, three daughters. Um, and we're, yeah, we're pretty into that.

13:48My wife, less so she's busy with, uh, horses and her work. Who's the best? I was going to say the same. Well, it's sort of swings and roundabouts. Uh, I'd say, um, my middle daughter, Liv and I are probably, we're the most obsessed. we're i mean we're absolutely on it every day my youngest got a levels at the moment so uh so wordles one um this is quite bizarre but um living uh sort of being back in london we live south of oxford in a in a small village but back in london this time of year um i went on my first line bike and with hammersmith bridge being closed i mean what have i been doing driving yeah i mean it is just and i couldn't believe when i got on because i thought jeepers these bikes are heavy and sort of put my foot down yeah they're fast off you yeah off you uh off i went did you go on the new line bike with the smaller wheels or the og line bike with a more traditional looking big wheel bicycle yeah the bigger ones finally i've just haven't tried one of the new ones yet anyway that was a bit of a game changer i know i'm slow to the the party there but the thing that I'm most into and it's it's sort of topical is three other families and us we bought the pub in our village yeah about four years ago yeah and incredible it is without doubt the best thing I've ever been involved in it's called Olivier at the checkers and one of my passions is wine so yeah um it's it's there's a good wine list yeah it's a good wine list but also as a sort of owner we can take our own wine there um without paying corkage as well as I just sort of uh mentioned to you on the way in our black lab just had eight puppies and uh seven of them have gone but we've got one uh so we've kept we've got three dogs and the important thing when they're very young is to socialize them so my wife said to me about six weeks ago because i was going to the pub she was like we take the dog take the puppy and i was like oh wow this is a game changer yeah because i am obviously here to socialize the dog and and now uh so i've the dog and the dog all dogs are very welcome at the pub but then i thought okay this is we're onto something here so i bought a dog bed that i leave at the pub because it's our pub yeah and so when i go you know a couple of treats dog bed in the corner dog sits down on the uh on the dog bed and uh yeah it is you just constructed

16:14Hector Lopez-Valido:the perfect setup and it's 200 yards from our front door yeah and it is That's unbelievable. Oh, God, I wish I went before you, to be honest. Yeah, we're south of Oxford. The food, wine, great place. Yeah, I wish I had gone before you. How are you going to follow that? Yeah, not as interesting. I've been reading a book, which I don't often do, to be totally honest. Well done, Hector. And there's no colouring. It's called London Falling. It's a great read. I can't remember who the author is, but it's a new book, so I love good SEO. Go and check it out. It's a bit of like a missing persons mystery, all about sort of London oligarchism, if that's word um it's very very interesting story and it's true um the second thing i've been loving is a restaurant or bakery actually let's say i'm not sure how large our northern demographic is specifically within the hull and beverly area of england but there is an epic new baby worth traveling it is genuinely worth traveling to a bakery up in a place called beverly which is a beautiful little town outside hull it's in a massive old court building it's like a gorgeous grade one listing building and there is a young couple uh he was a michelin star chef she was uh a patisserie chef a very very famous bakery in mexico city called la rosetta so they've kind of come together and they've made this really amazing yeah bakery up in uh up in beverly called merienda and they're going to be opening like a lunch service soon and stuff but pastries are genuinely incredible and very sort of exotic and like a lot of Latin American theme.

17:48So yeah, shout out to them.

17:50Hector Lopez-Valido:So this is a quick reminder. If you're enjoying this episode, please do subscribe so that we can go ahead and make the content that you love. Thank you very much. Right. So we're going to move on where we get into your career from Wimbledon Centre Court to coaching and broadcasting. You've experienced and witnessed some of the most defining moments in the modern era of tennis. So it'd be rude not to ask about it. yeah um so let's go back let's go back to the beginning yeah and how did you get into tennis initially i got into tennis really through my family my grandparents um on my mum's side both played at wimbledon and my great-grandmother played at wimbledon my great-grandmother was the first lady to serve overarm at wimbledon and my grandmother was the last lady to serve underarm at wimbledon no way can you repeat after me anyway um yeah so then I I did have tennis in in my family but it wasn't the reason why I played I played because I loved it and then my mum took me to Wimbledon first time when I was six um first Monday in 1981 Bjorn Borg had just won five Wimbledons in a row and uh yeah I saw him coming on centre court um and that was I think when I made my one and only career decision that that's what I wanted to do I've still got the ticket um still yeah still remember where I what I was wearing and where we sat so that was a big defining moment and then um yeah I played sort of junior tennis and um and then you know left school at 16 to play full-time tennis and um that was that was definitely that was the plan are your your kids feeling a pressure or no I mean it's a good question I never encouraged them to play okay I got three girls as I said I seem they have played though they have played they play socially but um I just felt and look I absolutely loved it I would do it all again tomorrow however I I felt that they had the wrong surname I think it would have been quite a lot of pressure and expectation yeah um and so they play socially but they never had any sort of aspiration to to pursue it um my oldest was at exeter university and when she joined um in her first term she she joined the local tennis club using my wife's maiden name so i thought that was quite just take the pressure off a little bit yeah yeah so so they love the game and and but they don't they don't play and i'm i'm pretty happy with that yeah i would 100 do the same thing 100 yeah going back to your your career what's the most surreal moment that you've experienced on court that kind of still makes you fills you with joy you know I referenced the first time I was at center court when I was six years of age and then 15 years pretty much to the day was the first time I got the opportunity to play on center court I it was 1996 first round and and I was probably ranked 75 80 in the world but I was playing against Yevgeny Kafelnikov who was just won the French Open you know two weeks before and he was you know top three or four in the world and I was nervous about that well I I was nervous and I think that's a good thing because it shows you care.

20:57However, it's how you deal with it. And I remember when I knew I was going to play on centre court, the schedule comes out, you know, a few days early. I sat with my coach for 10 or 15 minutes every day in the stadium with no one there just to have a good look around at that stage so that then when I came out on the court, it's almost like I'd done my looking around. And I came out, you know, walked on the court and you put your bag down, you spin the coin with the umpire, who's going to serve? And it's probably one of the only five-minute warm-ups that I can remember from my career because the others, you're just sort of ready to get going.

21:27Whereas this was centre court or Wimbledon. 15 years earlier, I'd been sitting up in the stands and I came on the court and barely missed a shot and then broke serve in the first game and ended up winning 7-5 in the fifth. And I saved two match points. So my first experience of playing on centre court was so special, you know, to be a Grand Slam champion. And so that, you know, I think as sort of defining moments and that will always be very special.

21:56Hector Lopez-Valido:And the moment just after that, there must have been a sort of swarm of interest after that. How do you then deal with that kind of next psychological challenge? Yeah, it was a very different world then. There was no social media, but the written press was so much greater and yeah, there's no doubt that my life changed that day. Waking up the next morning, it was different. with the focus of attention and obviously playing at Wimbledon as a British player. And I think that's where, you know, you as an individual learn a lot about yourself, but it's important the people you've got around you. And I always had very good, you know, family support, but then also, you know, coach and physical trainer and physio and, you know, the agent, my agent who still looks after me today.

22:48I think that gives you the foundation to, you know, focus on, you know, A, what you want to do and B, the things that you can control. And, you know, what's written and said in the papers is not something you can control. So I never worried about it.

23:03Hector Lopez-Valido:If there's a match that you can think back to that you can't imagine, like you're shocked as to how that played out, but maybe that was that game. I think not necessarily shocked, but I think the one that then stands out a little bit is obviously what he went on to do is when I beat Federer in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and he had beaten Sampras who was the king of Wimbledon and you know Sampras had won it I think seven times and so Federer and I'd lost to Sampras in two semifinals in 98 and 99 so when Federer beat Sampras it was like to me I felt like well this is an opportunity because I don't have to play Sampras in the next round.

23:44But if Federer has just beaten Sampras, then he's obviously playing pretty well as well. That's so funny that Federer is like the easier option. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me that guy, I'll lost it. Yeah, exactly. I then beat him in that round, next round in the quarterfinals. Still lost in the semifinals. But, you know, to have beaten Federer on Centre Court at Wimbledon, considering, you know, he went on and won eight times and 20 slams and everything he did, that's a good one to have on the CV.

24:13Hector Lopez-Valido:And what's a kind of behind-the-scenes moment from Wimbledon that fans wouldn't really expect? In tennis, all the players are in the same locker room. So I don't know if you saw the French Open final. There was a camera in the locker room as Sasha Zverev and Flavio Caballi were getting ready to play a Grand Slam final, and they were 12 feet from each other, you know, getting ready, headphones on, preparing. And in a lot of other sports, that is completely alien. However, in tennis, that is the way it's always been and the way it always should be. And so, you know, people deal with that differently.

24:54And, you know, Federer was, you know, is a great friend of mine and I played him 13 times. And I can remember the last final that I ever played on tour was in Japan. um in tokyo japanese open and obviously at the end of the tournament everyone's lost so it's just the two of you and we're in the locker room you know stretching warming up you know talking to each other and yeah and then you're going out to each other i mean some people would some people wouldn't you know nadal wouldn't you know he'd be charging around you know running and putting on his headband eight times and checking his hair yeah it's horses for courses so um uh and you've got to be able to separate the two i know that when we step on the court we're going to do everything we can yeah to beat each other but are you mostly respectful at that point you're not

25:42Hector Lopez-Valido:trying to yeah i mean again no i mean because you've been in that environment for so long and um you know it's just you're not it's not going to be an intimidation factor necessarily i mean if when you're first on the tour and you know you're a wild card and you come in and you're getting ready to play at wimbledon and there's rafa running around you know i'm sure it is yeah a bit intimidating, but you certainly get used to it. So, you know, rain delays and pre-match in the same locker room. You know, we used to, when it rained, we used to play a lot of backgammon. There were quite a few people that liked to play backgammon.

26:19And then we'd quite often play cricket. And then there's always, I mean, tennis players and a lot of sports people like golf. There's always a couple of putting, you know, sort of. Sounds like good vibes. Yeah, I mean, but again, get a couple of overs in, just on the rain delay. Exactly. I'm so glad it started raining. I was really looking forward to getting back onto a bit of French cricket in the changing rooms. You're just like anyone else. You're just trying to kill the time. Yeah. And I mean, if your next match on, then you're probably not playing cricket. But if your third match on that day, then, you know, you might not be playing for five hours.

26:54It's hard to think if there's another sport like that, but sort of like intimacy with your opponent. Yeah. And that's it. I mean, it's like a traveling circus because you're going from tournament to tournament. You're staying in similar hotels, same hotels, and you're practicing together because there aren't, on the men's tour, there's no one else good enough to practice with. So you're practicing with... And there have been instances where players have warmed up together. I mean, I was just working with Mats Villander. He's an absolute legend of the sport, won seven Grand Slams, and he played Australian Open final.