One of the most enduring match-ups in British tennis began with a fault. Returning from a junior tournament in Italy, a lost bag meant a 16-year-old Jo Durie was five minutes late to her first training session with Alan Jones.
“When I walked in I was treated to a barrage from Alan on how disrespectful and rude I was, and [told] to turn around and leave. At the time I was the top junior in Britain and so I was a bit stunned to say the least,” she recalled.
This was the mid-Seventies, when Jones was building a reputation as perhaps one of the best British tennis coaches and certainly one of the most demanding. “I’m as soft as old rope away from a court,”
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This article was first published here