ABC Journeyman's Cup Memories
8/01/2010
By Chris Pike
ABC TV’s Shaun Giles is now a veteran of Hyundai Hopman Cup’s in Perth and sure has some stories to share about his time spent doing colour stories with some of the biggest stars in tennis over the years.
Giles has spent the majority of his time working with the ABC at the Hopman Cup doing feature pieces with the players and enjoys it, but doesn’t want to think about how long for.
“I’m very confident that I’m in double-figures, that I do know, and part of me doesn’t want to think how much I’ve actually done. Each year is a different year, though, and it’s a new year,” Giles said.
“It’s mostly been as a colour reporter/producer, but mostly reporting out and about with the players doing whatever. There was one year I did produce up with what Karen (Tighe) does and I looked after that one year, but I couldn’t wait to get back on the road.”
Several stories standout that he’s done with players over the years, but the one that does more than most was when Serbia’s Novak Djokovic got the vegetarian Giles to eat a mixture of meat and drink some Serbian alcohol that he’s still not sure what it was.
“It’s hard to go past the story with Novak Djokovic when we went to a Serbian kitchen and I’ve never seen a man so excited by trays of dead meat in my life. It was quite an eye-opener and he also had me drinking some Serbian alcohol which I’m pretty sure was laced with battery acid, but I can’t confirm nor deny those reports,” Giles said.
“We spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen and there was a particular tray of dead flesh that caught my eye and Novak was pointing out to me that it was all different meats – pig, cow and when he mentioned horse I started get a little concerned and to this day I’m still not sure if he was joking or not.
“He was so excited about it, though, and when it was all cooked I had to tell him that I’m a vegetarian. But the poor guy was so excited that I had to take one for the team and try it, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth and I have never eaten dead flesh again.”
Another that stands out is when he was interviewing Sweden’s Asa Carlsson and he thought he saw a squirrel that turned out to be a toupee and the Swede didn’t know what to think.
“One year I was talking to Asa Carlsson over by the pool at Burswood. It was all going fine until out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a squirrel run into the pool. Still to this day I don’t know why I asked it, but I asked her if she has seen any squirrels around Perth,” he said.
“We then had a closer look and it turned out there was a guy that had just jumped in the pool and his hairpiece was hanging on for dear life. It’s fair to say the interview wasn’t quite the same after that and she was a bit standoffish.”
Giles also almost had a hand in ending Australia’s Hopman Cup campaign in their only winning year of 1999.
“The scariest moment, though, was when I almost put Jelena Dokic out of the tournament before she went on to win Australia’s only Hopman Cup. We went out bike riding around the Burswood and it was my fault that we did it without helmets,” he said.
“It was all going fine until we were coming back and she wasn’t paying attention and was about to run right into one of the boom gates. Now it wouldn’t have decapitated her I’m quite sure, but it could have done some real damage. I had to yell out to her and try to get her attention and in the end it only missed her by less than a foot.”
Then there are the memories of the players who are just flat out good people once he gets to know them.
“You get to know a bit on a personal level, and get to see that they are just normal people despite being big name tennis players. Tommy Robredo is back for the fourth time and always has a smile and is great value, James Blake is always fantastic no matter how jetlagged he is and it’s a fantastic experience to spend some time with them out and about in Perth.”
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