What are your thoughts watching Emma’s historic US Open win?

I was there for most of Emma’s matches in the second week, which just got more and more exciting. I mean, it was just incredible – it was such a great achievement.

Her match against Sorribes Tormo was an awesome match and then it was just one more after another. The way she just kept going through her opponents was amazing.

It seems that she has the answers to whatever problems she’s presented to with. Her opponents would start to get a little despondent and you could see their optimism fading.

When you're playing, you sort of know matches where you think ‘I'm going to win this whatever happens’. Then there are others where you lose that belief and get deflated. You could see that she has the ability to totally defeat her opponents and even Leylah – who had been this unbelievable little bubble of enthusiasm all through her matches – was definitely deflated.

It was interesting to listen to Leylah after the final because afterwards she thought she had developed a strategy to be very calm on the court, and got pumped up with the crowd in the other rounds of the tournament. But she couldn’t get there in the finals and I think that was Emma’s influence on her.

Emma acknowledged how amazing it was to see you and Billie Jean King watching in the stands – what was it like to be in that stadium?

It was just thrilling (watching Emma). Just watching the way she goes about her business, the way she moves, how good her technique is, her presence and her voice on the court.

She’s got a magnetic personality on the court without doing anything outrageous – she’s not going to be throwing tantrums or anything like that.

Watching her is mesmeric. I just have such an appreciation of her skill and her demeanour.

What about her game impressed you the most at the US Open?

I think the way she moves is very impressive, especially side to side – she is very quick and very balanced.

She gets down to the low balls so well. She covers so much court that even when she went for the ball where she fell in final, most people and couldn’t even try for, but she was there comfortably.

I haven't really seen how well she moves forward quite yet as she stayed back a lot and that's something I would like to see – but I'm sure she's equally as good.

She persevered with the wide serve to the forehand and it was so good. If you can get your opponents so far out, so they’re hitting like halfway between the net and the service line – even if they hit a pretty decent return, they've exposed an awful lot of the court.

Then there’s her return of serve – I think that makes its presence well felt, especially on the second serve.

When she steps in, particularly on the backhand, it's very impressive because she can take those nasty, high kicking balls and hit them on the rise aggressively. The person serving has hardly any time to recover.

Technically I think she's got everything.

Did you get chance to meet Emma at the US Open?

Pam Shriver was doing the post-match interview on the court, after the match. She saw me and made the link and Emma couldn't have been nicer about it – I was very touched to be included.

I bumped into after her round of 16, which was really nice. I managed to go down as she was coming off the court with Kim Clijsters and we shared a hug. She was over the moon at that stage, but so was everyone else.

Are you hopeful that Emma’s win will inspire more young women and girls in Britain to pick up a racket?

She's going to be an inspiration for generations to come.

I think of what she's achieved – being youngest British winner and all the rest of it – people are going to be looking at as their inspiration for a long time, way past her career.

It doesn't just have to be tennis. Anyone who is aspiring to do things in their life and are confronted by obstacles – I think they can take tremendous hope and inspiration from watching Emma.

Do you see yourself in Emma at all?

There are a couple of players that I can sort of identify as far as the movement and the approach, but with Emma, I definitely had that same sort of mindset that I can recognize and her already.

How can Emma make sure she keeps this momentum going forward?

One key that Emma has to continue to keep, is that that inner belief. If you believe that you're going to go out and beat somebody, you're probably not going to come out of court until you've beaten them.

People ask me what advice I would give players and one I give out to a lot of people as a bit of a joke is ‘don't come off court until you've won the match’.

Keeping your concentration levels can be hard. Your thoughts are going to go here, there and everywhere – it’s a long time to focus – but you have to isolate the points.

She has to keep a good balance in everything she does – mixing life and tennis, playing the right number of tournaments, the right number of matches and the right time on the practice court developing her game.

She's World No.23 now so she's got to set goals and try and set them accurately and not be disappointed by any sort of steps backwards.

The WTA Tour has never been more competitive – what are your thoughts on the next generation?

I think there's so much talent out there. Iga Swiatek won the French Open last year and she was doing so well. We've got Coco Gauff and she's fantastic – there are still a few areas that she can work on but her attitude is brilliant.

Then we've got Fernandez, who is very ambitious, so she's going to be out there and it will be interesting to see how she bounces back.

I think Emma is really special but there will always be around six to 10 other girls sharing the silverware, but she should definitely be winning her share.

What were your other highlights from the US Open?

The fact that we had so many British girls coming through and playing in the main draw of a major, that was really fantastic.

On the men's side, we’ve got some really good players like Dan Evans and I think they will take inspiration from this as well. There's no reason for them not to.

I think it was an absolutely a super year for the British tennis players, and the U.S. Open was unbelievable. It was compelling from start to finish – that opening day with Andy Murray’s five-set match was incredible.

Then it went from strength to strength. Joe Salisbury for example – what a good doubles player he is!

They’re achieving things on their own with the real determination and belief and you know, it's there for the taking.