> To Articles Home Page
> Wimbledon Pictures

Patty Schnyder doesn’t think she can play well on grass, but she’s into the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time.

She’s an odd one, Patty. A few years ago she was embroiled in controversy when a so-called coach, Rainer Harnecker, made her drink quarts of orange juice a day, telling her it was almost identical to mother’s milk. She bought into it and not only saw her ranking plummet but she became estranged from her parents. They in turn hired a detective to ‘rescue’ their daughter, but instead she became entranced with him and her parents reacted badly to that relationship as well. But she continued her association with Rainer Hofmann and they married in December 2003. The sceptics have been proved wrong, and they are as strong a couple as you will find.

They are writing a book together about their experiences and in keeping with Schnyder’s controversial image the website for the book, called The White Mile, is - um - different. It features flying bats and spiders crawling across the screen. Hi ho.

“It is progressing,” she says of the book. “It's going a little slower than expected, but we have no pressure from our publishing house. It's going to be a big thing, and they can't wait until we finish it. It's going to be in German and Russian first for sure, and a few months later English and some other languages.

"It's like a journey, especially being a really stressful tennis player, like everything seems to go right, your life seems great, but there's little things going on behind the scenes, especially in my life, and the things we went through with my husband. It's a pretty gripping story. It's going to be a big story that no one knows. You won't be disappointed.

“It's our story, especially with my husband together, some ups and downs we had, some tough times. But also then the funny side of the tour. I mean, 12 years travelling, you see many people, many funny stories, things happen. Yeah, it just like takes you through all the faces of tennis. We have been involved in some things that haven't been nice and were very scary.”

Looking at her husband can be a bit scary, too. He is a little, how shall we put it, casually dressed, and he doesn’t smile much, if at all. Deep down, though, he’s okay. Patty is certainly happy with him.

“We've known each other so well, and we stick together in all those situations,” she said. “It's the same in tennis. He's really a very smart guy and has an eye for the game, which helps me a lot. Yeah, it's just great to be with him and talk about tennis with him, talk other things with him. Just having him around, it feels me so much better. He knows exactly when probably I should relax more and have more fun, and he knows exactly when I should go for an extra workout. He kind of keeps me on track, but also keeps my mind off tennis.”

Jelena Jankovic is one of the nicest, friendliest, most open people around, just like her fellow-Serb Ana Ivanovic. And their success doesn’t appear to be changing that.

But she was a little disappointed when Ana spoke recently of having to practise in an empty swimming pool.

“I don't know why Ana brought this up, and it's nothing to be to proud of, at least from my point of view, because these are the facilities that we have in Serbia when you have to practice there,” she said. “It's just sad that Serbia has such facilities like that and that we don't have many different surfaces and big clubs there so we can practice, and big gyms and everything.

“Little by little, hopefully it will change, and they're working on building a tennis centre, which would be a big help for the younger generation to develop their games so they don't have to go outside the country and practice somewhere else. I would love to see a big change there.”

Serb Janko Tipsarevic also had it tough, really tough, trying to make it. Like Jelena, he is also into the fourth round after beating fifth seed Fernando Gonzalez.

“You all know the situation in the country was really bad,” he said, and I would like to use this opportunity to thank my family, because at the point when I was growing up as a tennis player there were no sponsors, no Federation, no nothing.

“I'm not blaming the Federation or anything. It's just that the political situation of the country was a complete mess.

You can only imagine tennis, one of the most expensive sports in the world, how is it possible we have so good players today. I really don't know. When I was growing up I remember, because my mother told me, the paycheck that my father had working for as a PE (Physical Education) professor could buy two kilograms of carrot. That was it, nothing else.”

Martina Hingis lost to Laura Granville, but was quite upbeat about having got as far as she had when she wasn’t really fit enough to play at all. Laura is one of those players who rides the tour hoping for the big one, and a win over a former champion on the Graveyard Court Two was a welcome relief after a tough run on the clay.

People think the tour is all glamour, bright lights and big money, but there is another side to it all.

“I see my friends, and they're able to be in one place and meet a lot of new people,” she said. “I think that's probably the hardest thing, just travelling so much, feeling like I'm losing contact with friends, not able to have as much social life as some of my friends. That's something that you have to give up. It's just the lifestyle. But I feel like when I'm done with tennis, I'll have time for all of that. I'll have plenty of time to do other things. Right now I'm happy doing this.”