Mark Roddentalks to the Olympic boxing silver medallist who had a net advantage when it came to his passion for tennis

I STARTED boxing when I was eight, but tennis came along when I was about 11 or 12. They needed someone to look after the nets in the evening times, a house to put them into, so myself and my brother decided to take the job on.

Every summer, Wimbledon is on and it's always the same - you see a bit of sport on TV and all the kids are out. When it's football, we're all out having a bit of craic with a ball and then with Wimbledon you get hundreds out playing tennis.

It's funny because when I came back from the Olympic Games I saw two kids at the top of my road with gloves on them, sparring out on the grass, and that's something that I'd never seen at all. It's mad how sport has that effect on people.

With regard to the tennis, it was always great, but there's brutal weather these days, whereas a couple of years ago we used to get a half-decent summer. But the Kit Kat tennis camp was a great bit of craic. We were off school so it got us out of the house and it was a bit of fun.

It was only every summer, but because we had the nets, myself and the lads could use the courts anytime we wanted. The courts are only 100 metres away from my house, in a park. There's a basketball court and three tennis courts, so it was perfect.

I always had it in me, a will to win. The boxing gave me that as well but when I was on the tennis court I was always there to try and win. When I'm in any type of sport I like to give 100 per cent all the time.

I had a half-decent serve, but I was no Goran Ivanisevic or anything. But what I did love was good, long rallies from the baseline and making people chase the ball like a madman.

When I was growing up I remember watching Pete Sampras because he was only coming of age at that time. He got beaten in his first Wimbledon match but he went on to win seven titles. He was always the one - whenever I was down the tennis courts I'd be calling myself Sampras. He was brilliant and I think he was the best of all time.

I suppose you have the other two boys now that are brilliant as well, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, but Sampras was a great player.

When Federer and Nadal go head-to-head it's great. Especially this year's Wimbledon final, when Federer was two sets down and came back but got beaten three sets to two - it was unbelievable.

When I was over in the Olympic village I met the two of them. Nadal's a big lad - he's about 6ft 1in or 6ft 2in (1.88m) and he's well-built. But I saw all sorts of athletes there - I bumped into the Williams sisters and Ronaldinho as well. It was amazing at the start, but as the tournament went on you'd see them and you just walked past them as if to say 'actually they're just doing the same job as myself'.

Tennis is an individual sport and the hand and feet co-ordination is the same as the boxing. On the tennis court, although I'm no expert, it was great to get the hands and feet working together.

It's the same in the boxing - you need to be on your toes and your hands and your feet have to work together, so I suppose they're sort of similar.

But with boxing, if your plan A is not going right - especially in the amateur game - then you don't have much time to switch to a plan B. You have to be thinking on your feet all the time because it could be over in a flash.

Tennis is a bit longer and I think you have a little bit more time to work out your opponent.

Every time Wimbledon comes around I'd watch it, just to see how they keep up their peak performance all the time, to watch the likes of Nadal, who just keeps going on and winning competitions all over the world.

The perfect example was him gong off to Wimbledon. He won it and got straight back into it then to get ready for the Olympic Games. And then he went straight on to the US Open. He's non-stop - he just wants to win, win, win all the time. He's a machine and I think that's a good thing.

I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but whatever choice I do make I still want that feeling you get from winning and being successful.