‘Now hold on, Mum,’ I said. ‘Let me have my rehab, and then I can at least play the year through, so I only lose one year of my education.’ This was the conversation after I came out of ankle surgery in Heidelberg, a couple of days after being carried off on a stretcher from my match with Bill Scanlon at Wimbledon. It was just a few weeks earlier that Ţiriac and I had persuaded them to put my education on hold for two years, yet despite what I considered the great success of five wins at Wimbledon – three in qualifying, two in the main draw – and a creditable defeat, I was right back in my battle to be a tennis professional. I really had to fight off my parents’ attempts at getting me to end all thoughts of a professional career there and then. They felt their words of caution had been proved right by my ankle injury, and you can understand that. But they did accept that I should at least get fit and play the year out, so my tennis career was back on.

The rehabilitation techniques weren’t as good then as they are now, so it was another eight weeks before I was back in a competitive match, and my next tournament was the 1985 US Open juniors. I reached the final, and waiting for me was Mark Kratzmann, the Aussie who had beaten me in the French Open semis. He won again, more easily this time (6-3, 7-6), but this proved to be a momentous day for me.

The boys’ singles final took place on Saturday morning. Although I lost, I then witnessed one of the best Saturdays ever in tennis. At that time the US Open operated what it called ‘Super Saturday’, a day with both men’s semi-finals, and the women’s singles final sandwiched in between. It was crazy scheduling for the players, but wonderful for the fans who had tickets. That particular Super Saturday started with Cash-Lendl, then there was the women’s final, Evert against Navratilova, followed by McEnroe-Connors. I went straight from the boys’ final ceremony to Stadium Court to watch Cash-Lendl, and I stayed there all day, still in my tennis clothes, and that changed my tennis life forever. I was so fascinated by all six players that I watched all day without even showering, still with my ankle taped from the junior final. That was the best day of my life at that point – I was hooked. Although they didn’t know it at the time, my parents had lost the battle to prevent me from being a professional tennis player.