Liam Broady opens up about mental health struggle and battle on ‘dog-eat-dog’ tour

ATP Tour
Liam Broady in action

Liam Broady is slowly finding his feet again, but he admits he considered quitting the “dog-eat-dog world” of tennis as he struggled with his mental health.

The 25-year-old is currently 335th in the world, which is a far cry from the career-high of 154 he found himself in April last year.

However, after finding himself in a bad space in 2018, he is starting to feel upbeat again.

“I’m feeling great, better than I ever have on court, so I’m pretty sure the results will start following soon,” he told Press Association Sport.

After a solid start to the 2018 campaign, he suffered a dip in form as he lost nine matches in a row and suffered a loss of confidence, which nearly led to him quitting the sport.

He continued: “I wasn’t sure if it was what I wanted to do any more because I didn’t feel happy as a person, and I fell out of touch with a lot of people who care about me, which I think is probably a very guy thing to do.

“On tour it’s kind of a dog-eat-dog world, you don’t want to show weakness to anyone else, you don’t want to say you’re struggling because they’re trying to take food off your plate and you’re trying to take food off theirs.

“I don’t really like to complain about stuff and I only started to realise how much I was going through the motions towards the end of the year.

“I called Naomi after the French Open and I was really upset, and that was a bit weird because I don’t really get upset around anyone, but I didn’t really feel like I had anyone else to talk to.”

His sister Naomi could relate to what he was going through as she is also a professional tennis player.

“There’s so much talk in this country at the moment surrounding men’s mental health, and I think it’s really important with the (suicide) statistics we have, so I was really glad he did reach out,” she said.

Follow us on Twitter @T365Official and like our Facebook page.

More from Tennis365:

Liam Broady

Latest