Personal Thoughts :
Malcolm Willstrop

Thanks, Framboise ...

Since wherever I have been I have received favourable comments about Framboise's efforts to portray something of what I am about, I would like to thank her for all the work she put into it. She certainly did a thorough job, as she always does - you can bet she has watched any match she writes about from start to finish.

I ought to thank, too, all those who were asked to contribute for their mostly favourable remarks. They were a select group and I am sure I owe them all a great deal. It could be, of course, that people exist who didn't like reading about me. I suppose they are unlikely to tell me!

No favours for James ...

I greatly enjoyed the Sky coverage of the Mamut English Open and was interested when commentators, Mark Cairns and Robert Edwards, referred to the position I would adopt when Lee played James in the semi-final.

There was a suggestion that I would be pulled by paternal feelings into James's corner. Absolutely no chance! I don't view Lee and James in opposition with any other anticipation other than that I hope they play well, entertain spectators and are a credit to the sport, which has given them so much. High-sounding, but true.

It is obviously a pleasure in my dotage, which I am fighting hard to resist, to have a son playing the game I love as well as James does. But having spent my life in teaching and as a professional squash coach, looking after other people's children and other players, I hope and believe that I have acquired a sense of perspective.

Press Perspectives ...

The one-eyedness of our sporting press amazes me. When a British tennis player wins the US Open Under 19, which is an achievement and a half in view of the nation's tennis achievements - Tim Henman excepted - he gets a full-blown picture and comprehensive coverage on the front page of the Daily Telegraph's sports section.

Nick Matthew's performance in reaching the final of the Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Open scarcely received a mention in the same paper, even though he was competing against the world's best senior players.
 

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