{"id":294764,"date":"2023-11-22T13:24:38","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T13:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/?p=294764"},"modified":"2023-11-22T13:24:38","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T13:24:38","slug":"exc-skupski-on-dream-visit-to-liverpools-training-base-wimbeldon-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsloveme.com\/tennis\/exc-skupski-on-dream-visit-to-liverpools-training-base-wimbeldon-win\/","title":{"rendered":"EXC: Skupski on dream visit to Liverpool&apos;s training base Wimbeldon win"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Neal Skupski on his dream visit to boyhood Liverpool&#8217;s training ground as a reward for winning Wimbledon, talking fame with Mohamed Salah&#8230; and Jurgen Klopp cancelling a game of padel due to a hamstring injury!<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Neal Skupski is a boyhood Liverpool fan and recently visited their training base<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>British doubles star Skupski is focusing on their Davis Cup tie against Serbia next<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Neal Skupski recently ticked one off his bucket list when he was invited for the day to Liverpool&#8217;s training headquarters, and at one point found himself in conversation with Mo Salah.<\/p>\n<p>Before long they were comparing notes about their contrasting ability to walk the streets of Skupski&#8217;s home city unmolested.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We talked about him being very famous and what he can and can&#8217;t do. It&#8217;s often difficult for him to go out so he prefers to stay indoors with his family. He was a very nice guy,&#8217; says the world No 3 doubles player and one half of the reigning Wimbledon champion doubles team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I can go wherever I want when I&#8217;m home in Liverpool and hardly get noticed. I&#8217;ve been world No 1 in my sport but it doesn&#8217;t get reported much locally, I&#8217;ve come to terms with that.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>His success has, however, been conspicuous enough to enter the consciousness of Jurgen Klopp&#8217;s assistant Pep Lijnders. After meeting Skupski, and his brother and coach Ken, at Wimbledon the Dutchman invited them to watch their team in training.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/22\/11\/78105693-12779437-image-a-18_1700652517609.jpg\" height=\"394\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Neal Skupski (right) has reached the top of doubles tennis but doesn&#8217;t attract the limelight<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/22\/11\/78105765-12779437-image-a-19_1700652625723.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>His stunning array of accolades includes winning the men&#8217;s doubles at Wimbledon this year<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/22\/11\/78105823-12779437-image-a-20_1700652709951.jpg\" height=\"461\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>A boyhood Liverpool fan, the British tennis star was recently invited to the club&#8217;s training base<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/22\/12\/78107625-12779437-Skupski_got_to_share_a_chat_with_Liverpool_legend_Mohamed_Salah_-a-7_1700655913047.jpg\" height=\"793\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Skupski got to share a chat with Liverpool legend Mohamed Salah &#8211; a moment he will treasure<\/p>\n<p>A post shared by Liverpool Football Club (@liverpoolfc)<\/p>\n<p>The original idea was to have a game of Padel tennis on the court installed at the AXA Centre, whose use is popular among players and coaching staff. That did not materialise on this occasion as the manager has been playing sparingly since going down with an injured hamstring while celebrating a goal against Tottenham.<\/p>\n<p>Klopp, however, was among those who made time to speak to the tennis-playing brothers when they visited. That followed the group stage of the Davis Cup in Manchester, which saw Skupski and Dan Evans save match points in a deciding rubber against France to put them through to this week&#8217;s final eight in Malaga.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I&#8217;ve been a fan since I was a kid so it was a fantastic experience. I spoke to Salah and a few other players like Virgil van Dijk &#8211; I don&#8217;t know if he was briefed but he seemed to know quite a lot about us.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Jurgen came over to have a coffee and we spoke for about half an hour. He has got this way where it sort of felt like I&#8217;d known him for years. His Dad was a football goalkeeper (and also a keen amateur tennis player) and so was mine, so we had that in common. It was fascinating listening to him about the importance of never giving up until the end, it&#8217;s never over until it&#8217;s over.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He obviously follows tennis and he loves Padel although he can&#8217;t play quite as much as he wants at the moment. The whole thing was great, the people we met were very down to earth.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Skupski is hardly unusual in being a huge football fan from Liverpool, but is unique in achieving such success in a game hardly associated with the city. His father was more typical, and played for in goal for AFC Marine while joining Merseyside police.<\/p>\n<p>The key to his sons&#8217; choice of sport was down to the geographical accident of growing up next door to Palmerston Lawn Tennis Club. &#8216;I basically only needed to leave the garden through the back gate, and there&#8217;s six tennis courts right there,&#8217; he says.<\/p>\n<p>It has taken until his thirties to reach his peak, which might be connected to where he grew up.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/22\/11\/78105879-12779437-image-m-22_1700652818478.jpg\" height=\"520\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp (L) and captain Virgil van Dijk were two people Skupski spoke to<\/p>\n<h3>NEAL SKUPSKI Q&amp;A\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><span>Who is your favourite Liverpool player of all time?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Steven Gerrard.<\/p>\n<p><span>When was your first visit to Anfield?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It was actually for the 1996 Youth Cup final versus West Ham.<\/p>\n<p><span>Who was your tennis hero growing up?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pete Sampras.<\/p>\n<p><span>Who is your favourite current player to watch?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Carlos Alcaraz.<\/p>\n<p><span>Where is the most obscure place you&#8217;ve played professional tennis?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>A Challenger event on Guadeloupe in the French Caribbean. We stayed in an all inclusive resort, it was very windy and the courts had big cracks in them. But very beautiful and it was hard to leave.<\/p>\n<p><span>Your favourite place to play tennis?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Wimbledon&#8217;s Centre Court.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;If I&#8217;d lived down in London, then I might have got more exposure to top coaches and the National Tennis Centre, but I never really thought I had to get down there because I had such a good player in Ken to practice with. I didn&#8217;t play that many junior tournaments.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Instead he took the route of going to Louisiana State University and then embarking on a professional career, soon switching his attention to playing doubles when his higher ranked brother offered to form a partnership to support him through the lower rungs of the tour.<\/p>\n<p>From there he has made it to world No 1, collecting a men&#8217;s doubles and two mixed doubles Wimbledon titles along the way. The former was achieved this summer with Wesley Koolhof, only for the Dutchman to give him an unwelcome surprise at the start of this month by telling him he was splitting up their partnership.<\/p>\n<p>Skupski has a placid temperament, but was clearly shocked, even knowing full well that doubles is a notorious carousel. They failed to make it through the group stage of last week&#8217;s ATP Finals.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He messaged me the Saturday night before the Paris Masters saying he wanted a chat,&#8217; said Skupski, who will play next year with Mexican Santiago Gonzalez. &#8216;I would rather we had spoken sooner as a team. A lot of the changes (of partnerships) were sorted around the time of Shanghai in October, so it didn&#8217;t leave me with many options.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I think we had won Wimbledon and reached world No 1 and he felt that had hit his motivation and he wanted something fresh. I was taken by surprise because I just assumed that we would carry on next year, and I wasn&#8217;t really ready for it.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>His last act of this season could be to face Serbia and Novak Djokovic in doubles in Thursday&#8217;s quarter-final match. If GB can win one singles rubber &#8211; the hope will be that in-form Jack Draper can get a point on the board &#8211; then the doubles is likely to be decisive in who makes it through to the weekend&#8217;s semis and final. He will partner Joe Salisbury.<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic is the most brilliant singles player, but he is a mere mortal in the two-man code: &#8216;I&#8217;ve played against Novak in the past, Jamie and I beat him in Shanghai,&#8217; says Skupski.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He has a presence but you just try and focus on yourself. It was obviously like that when we were up against Nadal (in the 2019 finals) and I&#8217;m confident we will play well again against another of the greats.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/22\/11\/78105963-12779437-image-a-23_1700652940832.jpg\" height=\"378\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Skupski was shocked to learn Wesley Koolhof wanted to end their run as a doubles partnership<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/22\/11\/78106075-12779437-image-a-24_1700653080045.jpg\" height=\"410\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Skupski isn&#8217;t overawed about possibly facing Novak Djokovic in the Davis Cup quarter-finals<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/tennis\/article-12779437\/Neal-Skupski-visit-Liverpools-training-ground-talking-Mohamed-Salah-Jurgen-Klopp.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neal Skupski on his dream visit to boyhood Liverpool&#8217;s training ground as a reward for winning Wimbledon, talking fame with<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - 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