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21st May, 2000 I’m pushing myself to fire not retire Suggestions that I will soon retire are inaccurate. I am not contemplating retirement at the moment, nor at the end of the year. What I am going through is a struggle for motivation and consistency and certainly not a question of whether I should keep playing or not. I’m not playing the big points very well and I’m not taking any chances very well. Until I do that, I will struggle. I’ve found it difficult to get motivated and I’, not sure whether I should go harder in training, or whether I should back off a bit. Right now, I think the only is to work harder – and you don’t really want to do that if you’re thinking about retirement. Last year was a little similar to this in that I found it hard to get up and really compete. This year is slightly different in that I haven’t done enough work yet. I’m searching for the drive and commitment to help me start stringing wins together. I’m the type of player who needs a lot of matches to play my best and it ‘s a bit of a double-edge sword. I need the matches to get into top form but I need the form to win matches. I’ll be catching up with Tony Roche at the World Team Cup in Dusseldorf today and if anybody can help me find the key to my game, it’s Rochey. There’s nobody I respect more in tennis than Tony and he knows my game inside out. I’m sure he’ll work out what I need to do and from there I can go forward. Once that happens, the form and enjoyment will return and this talk of retirement will quickly disappear. I just need a couple of wins and it’s amazing how quickly it can turn around. BUNGEE jumping is something I’d tried only once previously and that was back on the Gold Coast seven years ago. But I had another go last week in Hamburg as part of the ATP Tour’s Stars program. I had a camera strapped to my chest to record the jump from off a 130m tower. I went with my brother Pete, who went first to test out the rope. I had plenty of second thoughts when I was standing on the platform. The operators were talking to me a lot and I just asked them to go away so I could get my head around it. Pete and I kept telling ourselves that this was for the Queensland State of Origin team after what happened with the refereeing in the first game. Bungee jumping is, by far, the most frightening thing I’ve ever done. I wanted to get off that platform up on top of a building similar to Sydney’s Centrepoint Tower, but I couldn’t have faced any of the guys on tour if I’d pulled the pin. It was a weird feeling to push yourself over the edge and do something which is against your human instincts. But it was an incredible rush. Having said that, I don’t think I’ll be in a hurry to go back and do it again.
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