It’s slightly unusual to hear Henry Patten – along with Harri Heliövaara, the reigning men’s doubles champion at Wimbledon and the Australian Open – call tennis a “fun hobby”. But then you spend time in his company and realise he is slightly unusual.
Patten, 29, was not supposed to be a professional, never mind a grand slam winner. Though he played county level as a child, he enjoyed various sports as a teenager before a tennis scholarship to Culford School in Suffolk – “I don’t know how we weaselled that!” – inspired him to attend college in North Carolina, where he read economics.
