My third round match was on the Saturday, and by the middle weekend the place changes in character. The locker room becomes less crowded, simply because there are fewer people around – you start with 128 players in the singles draw, and by the weekend you’re down to 24. But it also becomes a much colder place, emotionally. People watch you a lot more. At first they were happy for me, but by the time I’d beaten Odizor they were less friendly; they didn’t interact so much and were less chatty – I felt an antipathy that reflected the fact that I was a threat.

My match was being billed as a Saturday afternoon blockbuster. I was up against Bill Scanlon, one of the best grass court players in the world, and on the old Court 2, which was known as ‘the graveyard’ because of all the big names who had lost there over the years. Scanlon was ranked 17 when I played him and had won a ‘golden set’ the previous year (6-0, without losing a point); he was also the player who John McEnroe wasn’t looking forward to playing in the round of 16. In fact Scanlon was someone nobody liked to play on grass – he had a good game, and a very strong personality (he works in personal financial investment now). But by then people were saying ‘who’s this young kid from West Germany?’ German television had picked it up, it was Saturday afternoon, and it was the match of the day, because the winner would play McEnroe in the fourth round and McEnroe hadn’t lost at Wimbledon for three years. So the hype was already promoting either a ‘McEnroe-Scanlon’ match or a possible ‘McEnroe-Becker’ match on the Monday. I became aware that I was involved in a real spectacle.

I played well. I lost the first set but I won the second. The third was tight – I lost it on the tiebreak, but I then got an early break in the fourth and was really enjoying it. I knew this guy was really good, but I was sticking with him and he wasn’t killing me. I was really revelling in the moment.

But I was beginning to get tired. I wasn’t used to best-of-five sets matches. I was still confident, but I was running on empty, which perhaps made me quite dangerous because I had nothing to lose. Then at 2-1 in the fourth set I served, I came to the net, I did my ‘split step’, which is how you stop your forward run in readiness for the volley, and my ankle gave way. I twisted it badly – it was a really bad sprain. I hobbled to the net but I couldn’t even walk off court. The physio, Bill Norris, came and talked to me. He rattled away in English, and I didn’t understand a word he said. It was a big drama – they carried me off on a stretcher, my ankle swelling up like a golf ball. I went for an MRI scan as quickly as I could, and it revealed that, of the three ligaments in the ankle, two were torn.

Clearly the story was that this young German player had been carried off on a stretcher with a horrible injury, and I later learned that some people wondered whether it might end my career. But I didn’t mind, I was at peace. I’d played for two hours with Bill Scanlon, feeling the ball really well. I felt the ankle would heal, and when it did, I’d gained so much confidence from the two wins and giving Scanlon a real run for his money, that I could be optimistic about the future.