1987 Wimbledon Champion Is Really Fair Dinkum

Everything you’ve always wanted to know about Pat Cash but were saving until he won Wimbledon . . .

Is he as cute in person as they say?

Personally, I think Gabriella Sabatini is cuter, but I might be prejudiced. Let’s stick to serious questions, OK?

OK. Cash climbed through the stands Sunday after he won. Does he always interact with the crowd?

Sometimes. At the ’84 U.S. Open he got mad and threw his racket into the stands, skulling a salesman from Illinois.

He’s a hothead, then?

You might say that. At a tournament in Dusseldorf he was fined 5,000 pounds for visual and audible obscenities and racket abuse.

His father, Pat Sr., a lawyer, said Sunday: “He’s ruffled a few feathers, he’s had some scrapes, he’s been fiery at times.”

His coach of 11 years, Ian Barclay, said: “If you have a thousand pupils, you always take the one who’s a competitor.”

When they make the movie, The Pat Cash Story, will we see that this was a child of destiny all along?

If you believe his dad and his coach. His dad told me: “I always thought he’d win Wimbledon. I truly think it was his destiny to win.”

And listen to Barclay. “I was told I would never make a tennis player out of Pat Cash, not with his temperament and under my guidance. We received a lot of rubbish . . .

“When he was 11 he would come to me and say, ‘Mr. Barclay, how can I be No. 1 in the world?’ ”

Where has Pat Cash been all our lives?

His tennis career has been, according to Cash, “Steep ups and quickly downers.”

Two years ago, he was rated No. 7 in the world, but suffered a herniated spinal disc that stuck him on the shelf for eight months. Last year, he had his appendix out just before Wimbledon, and came into that tournament ranked No. 413 in the world. He made it to the quarterfinals and has been inching up the computer list ever since.

His biggest tennis triumph came late last year when he single-handedly led Australia to the Davis Cup championship over Sweden.

How does Cash compare with the other Aussie all-time greats?

I guess I’d have to agree with former Aussie great Neale Fraser, who says: “He is the quickest Australian tennis player since Roy Emerson, the strongest since Lew Hoad, the toughest mentally since Ken Rosewall, and he has got Rod Laver’s ability with the ball.”

Pat is what, about 6-6 and 240?

No, he’s closer to 5-11 and 170. Also, he lives in London with his girlfriend, Anne-Britt Kristiansen, and their son, David Patrick, who was born on dad’s 21st birthday. Their apartment is decorated with a John Wayne cowboy poster.

Cash’s great-great grandfather was really a Tasmanian bandito?

Yes, but the family has cleaned up its act. Pat’s dad, Pat Sr., is a lawyer and a former Australian-rules football player. Pat has a mother and a younger brother and sister. None are Tasmanian banditos.

What kind of guy is Pat?

Let’s let his dad take that one. “He’s his own man. We have an expression in Australia--fair dinkum. It sort of means genuine, down to earth, no phony. He’s really fair dinkum. You get what you see.”

By the way, dad says Pat was always a great natural athlete. He was a star in Aussie-rules football, tennis, cricket and track and field (sprinter and jumper).

What’s Pat’s greatest fear?

Me and you. In general, media people and the public. He does not love doing interviews and playing Mr. Superstar.

Sunday he said: “I don’t want my life to change too much. I don’t want to be hounded to death. I think I’ll be much nicer to everybody if I’m left alone a little bit. I’m scared, because I just want to be happy.”

Will he still be playing tennis at 34, like Jimmy Connors?

Cash says his ambition at 34 is to be “Lying on the beach, getting a good suntan, vegetating and getting 20-stone overweight.”

How about one last story, to send us away feeling good about the whole Pat Cash experience?

OK, just one. Ian Barclay says, “He started working with me at 11. I worked with him a while and I remember one night telling my wife, ‘One day this boy will win Wimbledon.’ ”

And Sunday, that boy did.