Pat Cash still living, breathing and loving tennis

I think one of the great things about the event is that the public can get so involved. They get so close to the players. The access to the players, they’re doing clinics, I’m on the field doing all those different things with the kids… and you can really get up close and see these players which is not something you really get anywhere in the world. 

I’m reading a book about the Borg-McEnroe rivalry and it’s making that era seem like it was all bad boys, a crazy lifestyle… what was it like for you coming through after all that, in the 1980s?

I just missed Bjorn Borg, he retired early and I sort of didn’t see the Borg-McEnroe rivalry but there was fierce rivalry, there’s no doubts about it and the players didn’t necessarily like each other. It was about being brash and strong and up front and a lot of that sort of boiled across into the ‘80s. 

There was a lot of gamesmanship on court. A lot more than there is now. John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase were 
introducers of that real gamesmanship. They would argue with umpires, trying to put their opponent off and I learnt from that. 
The umpires would have no control of the matches and couldn’t calm things down. You had players arguing across the net and yelling at each other. You had to be mentally tough to be able to get through that. There was an extra element that we don’t have these days. Maybe it went too far sometimes back in the ‘80s. 

When was the time when you were under the most pressure?
I think I was under the most pressure was when I played at home. The expectations for me to do well as a young guy coming through… John Newcombe was the last champion before me – grand slam champion in the early ‘70s. 

So 15, 16, 17 years later… Australia is one of the great tennis nations and here we were having the driest period we’ve ever had without a champion by a long shot. So I was the next one to come through and people were expecting a lot from me. It was crippling at times, really debilitating, hard to breathe, felt uncomfortable, felt watched… that was the way it was. 

I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way of being the best player that I could be. I trained twice as hard to make sure I could be the best player despite the distractions.

Do you have regrets over not winning the Australian Open?
Yes as far as the one thing I didn’t do in my career was to win the Australian Open. I wanted to win Wimbledon, I wanted to win Davis Cup and I wanted to win the Australian Open. I won Wimbledon. I won the Davis Cup twice with a great team and I got the final of the Australian Open losing five sets both times. Every time I go to the Australian Open I go ‘(sigh) that was the one I missed, at home in Melbourne’. I grew up in Melbourne so that was big for me to win there. 

So I feel a little sad when I go in there but I also played really well in those finals. I wasn’t disgraced. As far as my career goals I fell just marginally short of what I wanted to achieve so I’m pretty happy about that.

You became a dad when you were quite young on tour, how was it for you travelling and competing as a young parent?
Becoming a dad at 21 on the tour was… everything had to change. I was starting my career really. I’d won Davis Cup and I’d been in the semi-final of grand slams at the age of 19 then I was out for a year with a bad back and when I came back I was pretty much becoming a father. 

So I was a father just about the time I really got stuck into my career. It was a lot of stress. But I had a great team around me, support, family… People know me as the guy who climbed through the stands to go and hug his family and friends, and that’s why. Because these people were there to support me through a career-threatening back injury and then when I got back on the court again, through being a father and needing all that support. 

A father at 21… I didn’t know what to do. I certainly didn’t know how to change a nappie. And there I was changing a nappie in the middle of the night, at 5:00am and feeding the baby and I had to get up and play a match the next day against one of the best players in the world. That’s a bit of a shock to a 21-year-old. So why did I climb through the stands? To say thank you to those people.

This year at Wimbledon, they put a gate to try and discourage players from climbing up the stands the way you did (below)…
Yes they’ve got a gate there through the players’ box now. I think they should name it the Cash Gate. That sounds like Watergate? (laughs) That would be pretty cool. If there’s one thing that I could actually be remembered for… I got a statue of my head at the Australian Open, but that would be pretty cool. I’m a member of the (All England) club, maybe I can suggest it to them? Or is that a bit too big of an ego?

You interview a lot of people through your work with CNN, did things get embarrassing for you at any point?
Sometimes if I’m not really prepared or I don’t know somebody’s career all that well – I mess things up all the time. That’s quite 
embarrassing.

Jim Courier was a classic. He’s the US Davis Cup captain. I started off my interview with Jim, saying ‘Jim, US Open’s coming up, you won the US Open…’ He goes ‘Cashy, before we even start, I’ve never won the US Open, so let’s get this started the proper way’. Jim’s one of my mates and I was like ‘sorry, mate’. He said, ‘I got to the final but I didn’t win it so let’s start this interview again please’. 

Who were your favourite players growing up?
Growing up I had three heroes in tennis:  Bjorn Borg, Connors and McEnroe. Borg for his mental strength, Connors for his determination and McEnroe for his tactics. I tried to make myself a combination of all three. 

If you were playing today, who would you fear most as an opponent?
It’s fair to say my biggest nightmare would be to play Nadal on clay. But on grass, back in the ‘80s, I think the tables would turn a little bit, maybe not completely, but a little bit.