Coach to the stars returns Grim Reaper’s serve

The man who coached tennis to Princess Diana and Elton John is urging for lifesaving device to be implemented at all courts.

Brisbane coach Clive Martin, who toured the world playing tennis, with a group of friends who revived him after he suffered a heart attack Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

When the end came for Clive Martin, in Brisbane in October, it was far bleaker than he had expected given the colourful life he had lived.

A former touring professional who had a crack at qualifying for Wimbledon, the 57-year-old had lived life well. He would note to mates that his belly was a testament to this.

Martin was chatting to clients at the Morningside Tennis Centre in Brisbane and hitting a couple of balls in preparation for his next coaching lesson when the world turned black.

It was October 15, about 6.45pm. Martin and the team at Tennis Gear had been back in the swing of things for a fortnight after school holidays.

Then the Grim Reaper delivered what appeared to be the decisive break in the game of life against Martin, who suffered a massive heart attack.

Martin, who had coached celebrities including Princess Diana and Elton John in London during the 1980s, collapsed.

He was dead on hitting the court. And remained that way for ten minutes.

He has no memory of what happened during the cardiac arrest, nor much of the next week he spent in an induced coma.

But The Weekend Australian is happy to report the Grim Reaper did not consolidate the break. With the help of his mates, Martin hit back hard.

The recollections about what happened in the fateful moments are best left to others including his lifesavers Gabe Uzum and Diego Diez, who are fellow coaches at the club.

But Martin is happy to be alive to report there was no flash of light at the end of the tunnel, not even a handshake on offer from St Peter at the Pearly Gates for a match well played.

“I had lost a close mate last year and I half expected to see him waiting at a massive buffet asking me to join him,” Martin told The Weekend Australian.

“There was no such luck. I don’t remember a thing. There was no light in the tunnel. No light coming at me. Anything like that.”

A life saving event has proven a life changing experience for Martin. He has since been diagnosed as a diabetic and has dropped 15kg since the scare of a lifetime.

He feels fortunate to have celebrated Christmas on the Gold Coast with his daughter Laura and her children on Friday.

Someone died in the intensive care unit from a heart attack as he was being worked on, while another roommate passed away in his hospital room while Martin was recuperating.

“I am very aware of the numbers in terms of recovery,” he said.

Fortune often favours the brave on a tennis court and, in this case, Martin was lucky in a number of ways.

Only a fortnight earlier Uzum and Diez had completed a first aid course as part of a junior coaching course run by Tennis Australia, with CPR and the use of defibrillators a focus.

Martin was also very fortunate Morningside Tennis Club was resourced enough to have a defibrillator at the courts.

A desire to spread the message about their importance is his reason for sharing this story.

Uzum was on a nearby court when those surrounding Martin sounded the alarm.

Those watching the coach in action say he approached the situation with the steely resolve of a player facing a break point on serve.

After Diaz delivered the defibrillator from the club house, the pair and others got to work. Their intervention was critical in giving Martin a chance to respond as they awaited an ambulance.

“The machine is amazing. It talks to you. The machine did the shock to Clive and I could see his face, his colour was getting better,” Uzum said.

“Before that he was turning kind of purple, but after the shock I could see the red … coming back, which was a bit of a relief for me. Then we started CPR. We kept doing that until the paramedics arrived.

“I don’t remember much. It is very strange. But the good thing is I never felt as though we were going to lose Clive.

“I could see people around me crying, so it was clearly desperate, but for me we were doing the right thing. There was no way we were going to lose him. I was very confident with that.”

Martin is yet to step back on to a court. He wants to be fit enough to deliver a proper lesson when he returns to coaching at some stage in 2021.

But the experience has also driven him to spread the message regarding defibrillators.

Various state governments have delivered grants over the past decade to tennis clubs and other sporting organisations for defibrillators and Martin’s message is simple.

“The reason I am carrying on about this is that I just think it is so important,” he said.

“To lose someone over something that may be reversible, I think the investment is worth it. There is no way I would have been here without it.”