Patrick Holloway: I am trying to secure my place in sporting history — my opponent just doesn't know it

As a writer, I am interested in what people cannot admit even to themselves, those complicated inner lives, such as I have on the tennis court, writes Patrick Holloway

Jannik Sinner in the semi-final of Wimbledon against Novak Djokovic in July. I would be happy to renegotiate, open to bringing designer labels onto the court, front and centre, as Jannik Sinner did with his Gucci bag at Wimbledon. Photo: Ben Whitley/PA

There is a version of me who has won Wimbledon, several times. Standing at the baseline in Crosshaven, preparing to serve, I sometimes feel close enough to him that I take a moment to compose myself. 

I bounce the ball, there is a stillness, an intake of breath. Across the net, though, is a man who would probably like to finish this casual game in time for dinner. I am trying to secure my place in sporting history, does he not get it?

I don’t know why the Crosshaven closed tournament final cannot be enough. I’m mad to win it but apparently I also need a commentary team discussing the years of sacrifice, my sudden rise through the rankings, how nobody saw this coming. Nobody did, in fairness. (It never happened). 

The strange thing is that I know how ridiculous this is, how crazy my inner monologue is, and yet I still need it. Somewhere between knowing my limitations and throwing the ball up, I give myself this other life.

There is also the question of endorsements. Everything I wear on court is Nike, those multi-million dollar deals (even the fantasy is American), in reality I’m just another fool whose spent too much money on a tick. 

I would be happy to renegotiate, open to bringing designer labels onto the court, front and centre, as Jannik Sinner did with his Gucci bag at Wimbledon. I mean do the head honchos at Gucci not know they are overlooking a lucrative opportunity in Crosshaven? My tennis does not withstand any comparison to the elite, but I have considerable experience of wanting clothes I cannot afford.

I am 38. My chances of becoming a professional tennis player have passed, and realistically never existed in the first place, on any planet, in any galaxy. I know this, but there is some part of me that blocks all that out and enjoys the time spent living another life. 

Being a writer definitely doesn’t help. I spend so much time getting caught up in the lives of people who don’t exist that an imaginary tennis career hardly seems a stretch. 

And I am very good at finding trouble for a character who was getting along fine before I intervened. Give me a shabby second serve and I can do the same for myself.

Even a practice match can get out of hand. I go down wanting to see friends and have a bit of a laugh. Then somewhere in the first set something switches on, and I have no idea how it happens or where to find the off switch. 

I become far too intense so the friend across the net blurs into some formless foe. They have done nothing to deserve this — they are simply playing the game we agreed to play, while I have quietly changed the stakes without informing them.

There are plenty of others at it, thankfully. I have faced those who provide a running commentary on the entire match, commenting not only on their own game but mine too. ESPN, is it? I’ve enough of that in my own head, thanks. 

I don’t mind a bit of chat, but there is something difficult about being told what went wrong with a shot you have just watched go wrong. By the second set I would happily pay for the mute button.

Then there are those who celebrate my mistakes. A fine winner deserves a celebration and I might even give a nod of acknowledgement. 

But roar with delight at my double fault and I begin to reconsider your upbringing. 

I know it has won you a point but must you be so pleased about it when you did nothing to win it?

Others take so long to collect a ball that I have time to question my tactics and several awkward decisions I have made since puberty. They can say they are tired but I know deep down they are slowing the game deliberately and get so annoyed that it works. 

One opponent looked ready to jump the net and grab me by the throat because I couldn’t remember his name. Sure, I can barely remember my own.

As a writer, I am interested in what people cannot admit even to themselves, those complicated inner lives. I can spend months trying to understand a character, following a thought, going back, wondering what I have missed. On court, call a ball out that I thought was in and I have your whole character sorted and the names to go with it.

Do we all need somewhere though, to be this unreasonable, so uncharacteristically ourselves? There is so much in life to stress over, so much we cannot do anything about, and then there is the simplicity of a ball being hit back and forth over a net. 

There is the trying to stay in the calm of the moment, taking one point at a time. There are the moments of trying shots that aren’t in my artillery, going for an Alcaraz dropshot and being briefly glorious but mostly ridiculous. 

Patrick Holloway: 'I am 38. My chances of becoming a professional tennis player have passed, and realistically never existed in the first place, on any planet, in any galaxy.'

Whatever else has been going around in my head has to wait until the rally ends. And then between points all the crazy swarms back.

I recognise something young in the images of grandeur and the need for attention, approval, whatever it might be. I miss how, as a child, I could easily turn an afternoon into something enormous, how completely I could enter the daydream. 

I am less nostalgic about the child who couldn’t bear losing, who smashed rackets and spent hours in bed replaying missed volleys, though apparently I have kept him too. I would like to let one out without the other escaping, but before long they are both on court all angst and glory.

And all the while, across the net is someone with their own reasons for being there, probably just to get out of the house and do some exercise. But then I bounce the ball and take a breath. And there is everything to play for.