Grand Slam champion laments change in player/press relationship

James Richardson
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John Newcombe
Austrailia's John Newcombe in action during his match against compatriot O. K. Davidson on Court Number 2 in the 1970 Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London.

Seven-time Grand Slam winner John Newcombe says that the relationship between players and the press has changed markedly since his playing days.

Newcombe was one of the game’s biggest stars early in the open era and a player who reached the top as both ab amateur and a full professional.

Playing in the 1960s and 1970s, Newcombe says that the relationship between players and the tennis press used to be very cordial.

Newcombe admits to occasionally plying journalists with alcohol to get some leverage on them.

Speaking on the ATP Tennis Podcast, Newcombe said: “Now there’s a lot of new journalists involved in the sport and the guys and girls have to be so careful about what they do and say around them. We’d take the journos out to dinner, get them to have quite a few drinks and get the goods on them!”

Newcombe believes that much of his success was down to his ability to learn from his failures.

“I was told when I was twelve years of age that you learn more from every match you lose, than every match you win so rather then sulk after I lost a match, I had a practice that within an hour I would sit down by myself and I would do a serious analyzation of why and where I actually lost the match and not being afraid to say that the other player was just better.”

In terms of prepration, Newcombe was also a fan of using visualisation as a mental tool on the ATP Tour.

He added: “It was something I learnt when I was in my late teens, I would visualise the court and walking on the court and who my opponent was going to be and tossing for serve and playing the match and it was like a dress rehearsal and when I went out there I felt that this was very comfortable, I’ve been here before.”

Newcombe feels that tennis is a sport where the mindset of the player os of paramount importance.

“I said to myself, you’ve got sixty seconds before you walk onto the court and you’ve allowed negativity to take over your whole body in the next sixty seconds you’ve got to force out all of that negativity, when you go out on the court there’s going to be a player at the other end of the court and a tennis ball and that’s it,” he added.

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