THE PROBLEM WITH (BRITISH) TENNIS

“Go get me a coffee. “

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.” I reply.

“Go and get me a coffee, NOW.”

And then it dawns on me. I don’t have a choice. I have to do it or I’ll be fired in the morning at worst and demoted a couple of steps further down the corporate ladder at best. He OWNS me. And he knows it. A couple of months ago I was pretty much top dog with the swagger of a winner. Strutting in and out of meetings. Pushing my way ever closer to the pinnacle of the Presidents corner office. And then out of the blue I slipped up. It wasn’t much. I was working out and I pushed the bar a bit too hard. I felt my abdomen pop. I’d torn a muscle.

The boss called me into her office laughing with the demonic smile that only fate ever seems to offer up. “You’re in the mail room now Rashid. All management rights are removed. You will hand back your company car and mobile phone. “

The air is sucked from my lungs. The pain is excruciating. And it isn’t from the abdominal tear. It’s from the knowledge that for no reason other than luck, I’ve lost all that I’ve spent years working for.

For professional tennis players this is your every day life. In one fell swoop your life is shattered. You’re 225 in the world, making the cut for grand slam qualies and riding the wave of your many years of hard work.

Years. Picture that. Years. Not a few weeks. Not 6 months. But years. And most mere mortals like myself will never comprehend what it takes to be in the top 250 in the world at anything. Let alone the toughest circuit on earth. Suddenly though, one injury and you’ve gone from being the boss, back to the mailroom.

How many people could cope with that pressure daily, hourly or even by the minute? Knowing at any moment that you could be kicked out of your job and be pushed down to the bottom of the corporate ladder and have to spend 3-5 years working your way back up again. As you fall you look around at the faces you once thought were friends and hear their sniggers and giggles. You sense their gratification in your loss. Because they were never comfortable with you closing in on them. They were great friends when you were in the mailroom. But as soon as you were snapping at their heels they got worried. They bitched. They moaned. And then laughed.

Now every time you make the slightest inroad you’re having to face one of them to make your way up. There’s no career guidance. No Human Resources department. Just you. And your so called friends.

Added to all this you’re getting stick in the press. You’re written off on television. You’re ridiculed by the man in the street as a “plucky Brit, but she doesn’t have the killer instinct.” So lets think about being 300 in the world and what that entails before we heap more abuse on them.

Are you the Chief Executive of your company? Are you even 2nd in command? No….interesting. So you’re 33rd in command in your company. So is your company in the top 1000 companies in the world? No. Really? Then next time you’re giving a tennis player, British or otherwise, a bit of stick for underachieving, spare a moment and try living in their worn out soles for a second.

Rashid Ahmad