Conor Niland: ‘The Irish got such a kick out of me playing Wimbledon, but unfortunately there was just one chance’

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Limerick native had a rollercoaster career as a pro tennis player, training with Serena Williams and playing against greats including Novak Djokovic. Regrets? He has a few, he tells Lauren Murphy

Conor Niland: ‘The Irish got such a kick out of me playing Wimbledon , but unfortunately there was just one chance’

Having read his forthcoming memoir The Racket – which documents the highs and many lows of his career as a professional tennis player – Niland’s answer makes complete sense. So, too, does the smashed racket and the book’s subtitle , which encapsulates the agony, the ecstasy and the self-deprecating humour of the now 43-year-old Niland’s life as an elite player. He agrees that it is something of a cautionary tale, as well as an entertaining recollection of his tennis-playing life.

“Well, I didn’t get to meet them, that’s the problem,” he says, laughing loudly. “I brushed shoulders with them. I think I tried to give a sense of their distance, in some ways; that even when I was in a tournament with them, I still felt like a tourist. There’s obviously some really entertaining insights into what that world looks like, without anything very specific that you could probably say is a ‘juicy story’ – but it’s probably more about creating a picture of what that world looks like.

He sighs softly, nodding. “I suppose in hindsight, it’s obvious now that going to Florida would’ve been much better for my tennis. But it was never even discussed in depth; it was almost a little bit like, ‘Did ye hear yer man offering us…?!’ So I think it was probably the wrong decision, but at the same time there are a few cautionary tales of people who’ve gone through those tennis academies.

He mentions in the book how he still thinks about that defeat, and what might have been, virtually every day since it happened almost 13 years ago. “When I got the note that it was Djokovic, I was really excited and really pleased, but I wasn’t sick at that time,” he says. “And then over the next 24 to 36 hours, it came on and I was like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’” He shakes his head at the memory. “I think it was Johann Cruyff who said, ‘Every disadvantage has an advantage’.

It seems as though certain ghosts have been laid to rest with The Racket, 12 years after Niland’s decision to retire. At the time, he cited his ongoing hip injuries as the primary reason, but really, he says, he had had enough of the long stints away from home for little financial reward and often only fleeting recognition.

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