While I was at peace, my mother reacted very differently. She was actually relieved that I’d torn the ligaments. That sounds strange, but you have to go back to the big argument in my family that sport wasn’t a proper job. Ţiriac had somehow persuaded my parents that my prospects of making it as a professional were sufficiently good that I should put my education on hold for two years, but they were still worried that an injury might kill my tennis career stone dead. So here, in my very first tournament as a professional on my leave of absence, I play the Wimbledon qualies, I make it to the main draw, and then I tear ligaments in my ankle on the Saturday, just as my parents and the principal of my school had feared. On Sunday I flew home, on Monday I had surgery in Heidelberg. And as I was convalescing, my mother said to me, ‘I told you so, I told you so. Now you’d better get your rehab, and then I think it’s time for you to go back to school.’