I’m at Wimbledon when I get the message. Would I like to go to the luxury Sani Resort in Greece to be coached by Toni Nadal? Known to the world as “Uncle Toni”, this is the man who helped his nephew (and my sporting hero) to the first 16 of his 22 Grand Slam titles so far.
Is this an elaborate wind-up cooked up by one of my Federer-loving friends? Or a hallucination brought on by the heady atmosphere of the All England Club? Surely I can’t have consumed that much Pimm’s?
But five days later, there I am under the sweltering Hellenic sun being urged on in husky Spanish-accented tones: “Slow down”; “Remember to follow through”; and then that famous Nadal mantra — “?Vamos!”