So what else was going on in the world in 1999, the year I ended my playing career at Wimbledon?

The European currency (euro) was launched, even if it didn’t become everyday money until 2002. I feel this was one of the biggest lies we were told. We were told the value would be the same, so what used to be two Deutschmarks for something would be one euro, but it quickly became two euros. I’m not saying I’m not a fan of the euro, but the story was told differently to how it’s been in reality. I think it was a very clever way by the government to get more value out of money. We had a vote on it, and I voted in favour, but it was sold to us in a way that hasn’t proved to be true.

Perhaps the biggest event in retrospect was the Nato bombing of Belgrade. I remember thinking this was the whole of Europe against one small country – it can’t be right; it’s not fair (I always like a bit of fair play). Among those sheltering from the bombardment was an 11-year-old Novak Djokovic who spent the first fortnight of the bombing in the basement of his grandfather’s apartment. I hope we never experience anything like that again.

I had a tiny role in the year’s biggest sporting drama. In the European Champions League final, Bayern Munich led Manchester United 1-0 after 90 minutes. There were two people there ready to present the trophy: I would do it if Bayern won, and there was someone else if Man United won. So I was sitting in the stands with Franz Beckenbauer and the head of Uefa Lennart Johansson. As the fourth official showed three minutes of injury time, we left our seats and got into the lift to go down to the pitch to make the presentation. While we were in the lift, Manchester scored two goals in two minutes to win. We came out of the lift, we were almost on the pitch, and suddenly the big screen was showing 2-1 for Man United. I looked at Franz, and he had his hands across his face. I said ‘What happened?’, and someone said ‘We lost’, so I couldn’t present the trophy.

Among other events that year, Boris Yeltsin and Nelson Mandela (pictured below) stepped down as presidents of Russia and South Africa. I met Mandela a few times; he was the most charismatic man I’ve ever been with. I was at dinners with him five or six times. I never met Yeltsin.

I remember the earthquake in Turkey, which killed more than 15,000 people, because Germany and Turkey are very close due to the number of people of Turkish origin who live in Germany. I was at the Oscars in Los Angeles that year, one of only two times I’ve been there, and one of the highlights of my year – Shakespeare in Love won the best picture award. I did my first advertising campaign for AOL, but the big computer story was that, in the run-up to the year 2000, the world was paranoid about the Y2K Internet bug – it proved to be a false alarm.

And my son Elias was born during the second week of the US Open, so I missed Serena Williams beating Martina Hingis to become the first black woman to win a major title since Althea Gibson 41 years earlier. During my time with Barbara we became good friends with Serena and Venus, and they came to our house a couple of times. (Incidentally, my first son Noah had also been born during a Slam: the Australian Open of 1994.)