Tennis, trauma and finding self – a conversation with Todd Ley
Behind the glamour of famous tournaments like Wimbledon and the Australian Open stands a man – once the world’s top junior tennis player – who has flat-out had enough. Channelling rage into words, Todd Ley recently published his first novel Smashed which exposes the harsh realities of a child sporting star caught in the net of the tennis world. We sat down with Todd at Byron Writers Festival to discuss his writing process and breaking out of an identity which has shaped his entire life.
As a highly successful child athlete, Todd knows firsthand how brutal the world of elite sports can be, especially for the young. Given a racket at age three, Todd’s journey through the competitive tennis circuit left him with far more than trophies. It left battle wounds. His memoir Smashed isn’t a celebration of victory, it’s a reckoning.
When asked what drew him to explore and share his experiences through the medium of memoir, Todd answers bluntly, “Revenge and disgust. I had to put my experience out there somewhere.”
Signed by IMG at just 11 years old – making him the youngest athlete the agency had ever signed – he quickly became captured by the high-pressure environment of the prestigious international tennis academy which he now jokingly refers to as a kind of incarceration. But behind the humour lies the dark truth of fame and pressure which resulted in family collapse, bankruptcy, alcoholism and mental health issues.
Writing the memoir was both cathartic and confrontational and now that it is all out in a book he admits to feeling better about the whole experience.
“Even speaking about it today during the Tennis Smashed panel on the Lilly Pilly stage it feels like I’m digging up something that I’ve buried the bones of.” He says.
For Todd, memoir isn’t just storytelling – it’s liberation.
“There’s something about revealing indecent exposure, in a way,” he explains. “It feels naked, like flashing. But once it’s out there, it doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s not polished. It’s raw. And now, I can walk away from it. It was a massive part of being able to course-correct my life.”
In order to defy people’s expectations in writing and in his career he mentions, “literally [having] to destroy yourself to leave,” he say. “It’s an identity breakdown. Otherwise you’re only seen as that.”
Todd draws a comparison to celebrities like Justin Bieber who he says “wears jeans 5,000 times too big for him, not as a fashion choice but for an expression of him saying, ‘I’m not who you think I am’. I’ve experienced my own version of that at a much smaller scale.”
Breaking out of the box that others put you in, especially a box that you have been in since childhood requires deconstructing your image completely. Todd’s writing is part of that process.
Sports still plays a role in his life by means of tennis coaching, however the passion that once fuelled him has shifted. The sport is no longer his identity.
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“I’d like to do something else – but it’s not an easy escape when you’ve done that one thing your whole life and everyone identifies you as that. My relationship to it is that it’s a job, I can make good money out of it and work my own hours.”
As for the future, Todd is currently working on a TV show called Tennis Parent which tackles similar themes to his memoir, but in a more lighthearted way. Through satire and character study, the show dives into how environments shape someone to be the way they are.
At the crux of everything, for Todd, telling the truth – no matter how uncomfortable – is the real prize.
A MESSAGE FROM BYRON WRITERS FESTIVAL
Byron Writers Festival wants to thank everyone who made this year’s event possible. BWF is looking forward to welcoming everyone back to celebrate its 30th year. If you would like to support the festival and help keep the arts and literary culture thriving in the Northern Rivers, you can make a tax-deductible donation here.