WHEN Alex Bolt quit tennis aged just 23, he would never have imagined making four appearances at Wimbledon.
Within days of hanging up his racquet, the Aussie, now 32, joined his brother-in-law’s fencing business and began hard graft in the sweltering Southern Australian heat.
Alex Bolt quit tennis aged just 23 to work as a fencer in March 2016[/caption]
Bolt with British tennis ace girlfriend Katie Swan in London[/caption]
After a flurry of defeats against lower-ranked players, Bolt decided to call it quits after “hating his time on the court” in March 2016.
Hours after an emotional farewell chat with his then-coach Simon Rea, Bolt joined the family business and set his alarm clock for 5:30am to make a 45-minute drive to his new fencing job.
In 2020, he told ATP Tour: “Let me tell you, that was work. Putting up retaining walls. Digging holes. Sticking posts in the ground. Cementing. I didn’t know much of anything about what I was doing, but I was doing it.
“Those were long, hot days. It can get pretty hot out on a tennis court, but this was rough. I was drained to say the least. Those 5:30 wake-up calls? My excitement was gone after Day 2. That was not fun at all.”
Just to rub salt in the wounds, one of his first jobs was around basketball and tennis courts at a primary school.
After grinding out his new job for a few months, Bolt was persuaded to buy a pair of boots and play in a local Aussie Rules team called the Mypolonga Tigers, which he says “helped him regain his happiness”.
He said: “It was probably a couple months after that when I started missing tennis. I didn’t think I’d ever pick up a racquet. But I wasn’t totally out of touch. I’d made some great mates with the Aussie boys, and was still in group chats with them.”
Bolt then thought ‘that could’ve been me’ when he saw his mate Jordan Thompson crack the Top 100 and win four ATP Challenger Tour events later in 2016.
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After hesitating for a while, Bolt got a random call from tennis coach Todd Langman, who was working with his best pal Thanasi Kokkinakis.
Todd saw a picture Bolt posted on Facebook at the end of the Aussie Rules season and gave him a call – and Bolt didn’t need much persuading.
After nine months away from the court, Bolt’s first day back was the 2016 AFL Grand Final. He was massively out of shape and was told to start from scratch.
Todd even made Bolt play against young kids, telling him to not back down and “to give everything he had”.
He made his official return to action at a Challenger in Adelaide at the start of 2017, with his Aussie Rules pals coming out to cheer him on while he made the main draw and lost in the second round.
Bolt, who is now dating British tennis ace Katie Swan, was then given a wild card into Australian Open qualies in 2017.
He said: “It was all such a blur. Before I knew it, I was beating Julien Benneteau in the final round to reach the main draw of a Slam for the first time.“
Despite losing to Yoshihito Nishioka in the first round, Bolt finished the year with a singles ranking of No. 192 – an improvement of almost 400 places from the end of 2016.
He also had a handy year on the doubles circuit, making five Challenger finals with three victories to finish the season ranked No. 86, a career high doubles ranking.
Before his best singles result in a third round at the Australian Open in 2019, Bolt booked his first Wimbledon main draw debut in 2018 after beating best friend Kokkinakis.
Fast forward seven years and Bolt, currently No.194 in the world, has beaten 19-year-old Spaniard Martin Landaluce in the final round of qualifying to reach the main draw of Wimbledon for the fourth time.
He takes on 10th seed Ben Shelton today in the first round.
Meanwhile, girlfriend Swan’s dream of returning to Wimbledon was crushed in the first qualifying round in a tight defeat to Leyre Romero Gormaz 7-6(2), 7-6(6).
It was only as recently as 2023 that Swan was going toe-to-toe with Katie Boulter for the British No.1 ranking, before Emma Raducanu won it back last month.
Amazingly, Swan, 26, is not the only British tennis player called Katie in a relationship with an Aussie called Alex, with Boulter dating world No.11 Alex De Minaur.
As well as representing Australia in Davis Cup, Bolt has been ranked as high as world No.125 in singles and peaked at world No.81 in doubles.
Elbow surgery in 2022 provided a slight setback, forcing Bolt out of competition for six months.
In 2024, Bolt won back-to-back singles titles at the Swan Hill Tennis International, an ITF 25 grass-court event.
Bolt and Swan have been an item since 2022[/caption]
