But since Junior's press conferences were such rapids-running streams of consciousness and mea culpaism - he should have paid reporters the

But since Junior's press conferences were such rapids-running streams of consciousness and mea culpaism - he should have paid reporters the customary Freudian fee to listen - the thrice king apparently felt no need to employ a confessor, sports psychologist or any other crutch.It was Martina Navratilova, self-orphaned by her defection to the US, who made guruism a pluralistic enterprise. Accompanied by preceptor-trainer Lennart Bergelin, and wife-for-a-time-to-be Mariana Simonescu, Bjorn did the upscale swatting, they the urgent sweating with eye contact. Chris Evert's mum showed up in 1976 to provide championship home-cooking and iron the dresses, but it was also in 1976 that the most successful of male Wimbledon runs began beneath the plimsolled Swedish feet of Bjorn Borg, no loner he. Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King - who as US Federation Cup captain and assistant to Martina Navratilova now holds a guru licence herself - carried their own bags (and whatever psychic baggage) and figured out how to win Wimbledon on their own. It was a career win." Carlos and Conchita are almost unbeaten, their six-tournament run marred only by a close semi- final loss to champ Steffi Graf at the French Open.As recently as 20 years ago gurus were nowhere to be seen and rugged individualism was pretty much the rule. Just keep trying, maybe she'll cool off'."Conchita smiles when she remembers this "All of a sudden I was fighting My attitude got better.

"I said Majoli was playing so well, hitting so many lines there wasn't much she could do: 'If she keeps it up, you probably lose That doesn't matter. "At the changeover I slipped behind Conchita's chair and whispered to her," Kirmayr recalls. He has me working harder, going to the net more."Kirmayr, a playful little guy not bothered, as Van Harpen was, by Conchita's tight friendship with fellow player Gigi Fernandez, says, "I could sense and see her change in attitude the first tournament we were together." It was their defining match, at Hilton Head, South Carolina, in March Martinez was lagging behind Iva Majoli, 6-3, 3-0. She decided to lose him recently, as Agassi did with Bollettieri, and knew that peppery little Carlos Kirmayr was at large, a guru-for-hire Theirs was a "great" confluence of talents, she says "Carlos makes me feel good, and when I do, I am my best It just works.

Like Agassi with Bollettieri, Conchita Martinez - Wimbledon winner in 1994 and No 3 seed this year - had been with Dutch coach Erik van Harpen since adolescence, for "what seems all my life". I needed a coach who'd been out there on the court, doing it" [a backhand at Andre's boyhood mentor, Bollettieri, who appears to prefer playing golf to tennis], "and Brad was the guy. For the first time I was intellectualising about the game."However taken he is with Gilbert, who has him thinking about the other players' games, Andre makes it plain that it's the troika of Gilbert, Reyes - who built Agassi a gym at his Las Vegas home - and Shields that accounts for his "believing in myself". He won a lot of other matches and money that seemed beyond the reach of his gifts."Brad was winning matches over better guys who shoulda beaten him," Agassi says "I was losing matches to guys I shoulda beat. Gilbert won a bronze medal for tennis at the 1988 Olympics - a surprise Olympian, who was admitted thanks to Agassi declining a place in the US team.

You have to be able to win when you're playing bad, not overwhelming the other guy with sheer talent, which Andre depended on."In Gilbert's view it's called Winning Ugly, the title of a book he just happens to have written. "I saw long ago that nobody could hit the ball with Andre," Gilbert says, "but he wasn't getting enough from what he did. Brad Gilbert can do both, though he laughs at the thought of increasing Agassi's armament. This is the way of the tennis universe, particularly at the fountainhead, Wimbledon, where soothsayers and swamis abound for all needs and deeds - bodily, mental and technical. It is not a requirement that a guru be able to play and teach tennis. Becker has Nick Bollettieri, Conchita Martinez has Carlos Kirmayr and Martina Hingis has her mother, Melanie Zogg-Hingis. The No 1 seed could not do it without them, as virtually every tennis player will tell you about his or her own handlers, cornermen, hand-holders and gofers who writhe in empathetic angst and clamour for victory from their bunker. And if there's space left, they will be joined by Agassi's girlfriend, Brooke Shields, and Ian Hamilton, representing sports company Nike and thus Andre's clothes supplier.

Leading Agassi's support staff will be his coach and tactician Brad Gilbert, who has remodelled Andre and taken him from 30 in the world rankings back to No 1. Beside Gilbert will sit Gil Reyes, a New Mexican muscleman, who is the player's counsellor in matters of physical and spiritual strength. When Andre Agassi begins his Wimbledon campaign on Tuesday he will have a team behind him that will fill the Friends' Box, also known as the guru bunker, to overflowing. Nothing has changed on that."Jeremy Hanley, the Tory party chairman, declared: "I think it would be bizarre if at the end of one week he says he's going to support the Prime Minister and at the beginning of the next he says he isn't."Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education, said that last Thursday Mr Redwood "took the trouble to telephone me to discuss the forthcoming leadership announcement and told me that he would be supporting the Prime Minister, so I assume that's still the position."However, all the signs last night were that the entreaties had failed to make any headway..