Two years later, certain sections of the press criticised Nathan for refusing to ditch Jez for a high profile coach with a playing pedigree. Jez responded by bamboozling them in post-match interviews. He insisted that his coaching methods were based on observations of bird behaviour, and fooled some of them into reporting even his most outlandish assertions. When Nathan reached the quarter finals at Queens Club as a wildcard, for example, he credited the success to the peregrine falcon! Actually, Nathan's performance genuinely fitted the analogy on that occasion. His predatory malice was more than evident as he repeatedly knocked his prey over with his serve and swooped on the net to pick up the pieces! A few commentators looked slightly dubious, though, when Nathan's counter-punching attitude on the clay in Stuttgart was attributed to "a redstart, flitting and darting and flycatching from bush to bush". Other commentators, who surely should have known better, advocated a coaching revolution based on practical lessons from the natural world! But by the time Jez explained that Nathan's stonewalling tactic in the Canadian Open was "inspired by the song of the dipper echoing from cliff to cliff", there were not too many left on the wild goose chase!

Indeed, it was Jez and Nathan who got the bird during their first appearance at the US Open. Strangely, given their reputation for embracing the brash and the controversial, the New York crowd deplored Nathan's racket-throwing antics during a night match against a French qualifier and they vented their feelings against him. Although his grip on his racket appeared to slip in direct proportion to his grip on the match, Nathan managed to avoid disqualification. He could not, however, avoid being distracted by the crowd's derision and he eventually succumbed, leaving Jez more than ever resolved to address the subject of mental toughness.

Another incident involving Jez and Nathan was reported in one or two mainstream publications that year. Several spectators witnessed the fleeting appearance of a ghostly figure near the umpire's chair during a second round match in the ATP event at Scottsdale. "A kind of hologram of a small, bald man" was how one witness described the phenomenon. Nathan, who had been sitting in the player's chair close to the apparition, was said by some spectators to have been remonstrating with it, but he had denied seeing anything when he was quizzed about it afterwards.

We catch up with them now as they sit alone immediately after that post-match interview.

"How does he do that, anyway? It was your dad, wasn't it?"

Nathan was trying to catch a coin off his elbow. "I think so. He's done that a few times now. Just wishing me luck. I don't know how he does it and I don't know why he can't just come up and speak to me normally!"

"Maybe he finds that hard now, after all this time," Jez suggested. "Anyway, you and I need to have a talk."

"What about?"

"Mental toughness," said Jez. "I want you to tell me something."

"What?"

"Would you say you're the sort of player who doesn't care about winning or losing as long as you enjoy the game?"

Nathan balanced the coin on his elbow once more. "No," he said. "I guess I'm the sort of player who doesn't care about enjoying the game as long as I win!"

"That's what I thought," said Jez. "Well, I have to tell you that enjoying it is absolutely crucial to winning."

"It's all part of being positive, yeh?" asked Nathan, chasing the coin after missing the catch.

"It's more than that."

"What then?"

"Well," Jez began. "Remember when you were starting out in tennis and you kind of cloned yourself from your favourite players, yeah? You picked out so-and-so's forehand and someone else's serve and you copied a hairstyle, baggy shorts, whatever? Some of it you were aware of because you were consciously copying someone, and some of it was kind of like Darwin - natural selection and all that. You with me?"

"Yeah, ok!"

"You refined those bits and pieces and added your own personal touches and gradually put it all together until you became the player you are today," Jez continued, frowning as Nathan started balancing a stack of coins on his elbow. "You're not listening, are you?"

"Yeh I am! Go on!"

"The problem is, you've stopped doing it now. Lots of players do. And the thing is, well, you have to continue with that cloning technique. Except now you gotta copy more subtle things. Things like - what the best players do on big points, and how the best players behave when they miss easy shots or fluff a break point or they get a bad call or whatever. Just carry on creating the image of how you want yourself to be! And not just as a player, but as a person! You gotta define your own belief system - values, rights and wrongs and all that stuff! And be ambitious with it! Push the envelope! Then take that image and burn it into your subconscious - I'll teach you how to do it!" He paused for a moment, while Nathan caught the coins. "Allow the image to become your destiny! Become your own hero!"

"You're not just talking about winning matches, are you?"

"Some things are bigger than winning matches."

"So, what's all this image stuff got to do with mental toughness?"

"Well, then you've gotta try out the image. Practise coping with all the bad stuff that can happen to you. Rehearse it. I'll help you with it! People without an image are running in the fog and maybe there's a snake in the path. They're mentally weak because they're scared of the snake and they can't see it and they haven't rehearsed what to do about it. If you burn an image on your soul like I've just said, it'll light the way. You might be scared of the snake, but you'll see it coming and you'll have practised what to do when you encounter it!"

Nathan missed the stack of coins and they scattered in all directions. "Have you got any more coins?" he asked.

"You're just in this for the money aren't you!" said Jez. They both smiled.