Less than three years ago Britain’s Liam Broady admits that he contemplated walking away from the sport all together.
Once a promising junior star who peaked at a high of second in the rankings and reached the final of two major tournaments, Broady revealed that towards the end of 2018 he considered retirement. It was during that season where he failed to win back-to-back matches in 25 out of 29 tournaments played and plummeted outside of the world’s top 300.
Despite the blows, the Brit opted not to give up and continued playing. At this week’s Wimbledon Championships he finally returned to the winner’s circle after beating Italy’s Marco Cecchinato 6-3, 6-4, 6-0, in what is only his second main draw win at the tournament and first since 2015. As a result of the victory, he will climb back into the world’s top 140 and close in on his career ranking high of 137.
“I mean, to be honest, I’m the first person that feels that way,” Broady replied when asked if this victory has been a long time coming.
“But I look back now and it’s a longer journey than I thought it would have been. Obviously maybe I messed around a lot more than other people might have done who were sort of similar ages to me, my peers.
“But if I hadn’t have done that, would I know what I know now? Would I be in the same position I am now? Who knows. One thing I am is grateful I’m in this position again because I nearly stopped playing tennis. At the end of the day I’ll take what I can get.
“I played some pretty bad tennis over the years. But probably the end of 2018 I was pretty close to hanging the racquets up.”
The 27-year-old says part of the reason as to how he managed to turn his career around was a chat he had with Andy Murray during the Battle of the Brit exhibition in June last year where he received some valuable advice.
“I had an incredible conversation with him after the match, just me and him eating dinner in the cafe,” Broady said.
“Then he sent me a couple messages about the match, my game after that, which kind of turned it around for me quite a bit.”
Since that conversation, Broady has made steady progress on the Challenger Tour where he has reached the finals of tournaments in South Africa and Italy so far in 2021, as well as the semi-finals of two other events. He has jumped roughly 60 places in the ATP rankings within the past seven months.
However, Murray has played down the significance of his role in his compatriot’s surge in form. Questioned about Broady’s comments following his first round win over Nikoloz Basilashvili, the former world No.1 said he was ‘being a bit generous.’
“Yeah, we had a chat after that match, and, you know, he was really struggling like with his game and stuff,” he said.
“He was pretty down. I gave him some positive ideas and positive thoughts.
“He loves it, like, he works hard and he loves tennis.
“I told him that I thought he’d get to his career-high ranking within 12 months of that match. And he at the time was feeling terrible about his game, and I messaged him when he got to his career high [saying] I didn’t know if I totally believed it, but… …I really like him. He’s a good guy. I want him to do well, and I’m happy for him.
“He’s a very loud guy when things are going well, so imagine we’ve got a group chat with all the British tennis players, so I’d imagine he’ll be chirping up this evening!
“Yeah, it’s great that he’s turned it round and I’m happy that he’s doing well.”
Broady is on course to play 9th seed Diego Schwartzman in the second round. The Argentine was leading Benoit Paire by two sets on Monday before their match was postponed.
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Quotes via The I/Wimbledon media
