I Always Wanted To Be Somebody: Part 9

Althea's long term coach Sydney Llewellyn. One thing about the life of a tennis champion; you never can rest on your victories, unless you retire, and I'm not ready to retire yet. With my coach Sydney Llewellyn working along with me, I will keep going right back into training as each new season approaches, just as I did when I got back from the Caribbean and began promptly to prepare for the 1958 Wimbledon and United States championships. I knew I wasn't going beat anybody with my reputation or my newspaper clippings. I would have to beat them all on the tennis court. If I ever showed signs of forgetting that, Sydney was right there to remind me. Sydney is not only a fine teacher of tennis, including both strokes and tactics, he is also something of a psychologist. He keeps after me all the time. First, he pounded to make me think and act and play with the idea in mind that I had what it takes to become the champion. And after I made it, instead of letting up, he pressed me all the more. "You've got to hit that ball with all your strength and attack forcefully,...