She once spent every Wimbledon in the court-side players box watching big-serving husband Greg trying to lift the title, but this time Lucy Rusedski is centre stage.

The 32-year-old mother-of-one has not seen a single shot struck during this year’s tournament, nor listened to a word of his television commentary on the action – and she could not be happier.

Lucy has returned to her first love of acting and is on a nationwide tour with the comedy The Naked Truth – at the Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton until Saturday.

US Open finalist and former world number four Greg is playing a very different role in this famous mixed-doubles pairing. He sits in the audience while all eyes are on his wife as she takes the applause after performing as a lap dancer.

“This is the first time I have missed Wimbledon but I don’t feel the loss because I am really fulfilled doing this,” she told the Express & Star as she prepared to go on stage last night. “I had always been interested in tennis but that has gone now.

“I trained at drama school for three years, worked with a theatre company and did some TV presenting but we could not both be away from home at the same time or else we would never see each other. I followed Greg on the tennis tour and waited for my turn.

“In the world of top sport and acting you have to be selfish and very professional. If you have got two people doing that in a relationship then it is not going to be easy. First Greg gave it 100 per cent and now I am doing the same.”

Lucy said the change from having a husband who was a leading player to one who had retired was seamless.

“His career came to an end gradually,” she said. “He was injured and that gave us plenty of opportunity to come to terms with the new life. We have always had a very good, strong family life and it has never been all about work.”

Lucy said Greg was waiting for her to return to the stage as soon as he finished playing. “I said ‘right, that’s it – it is my turn now,’” she continued. “I realised that I had taken a long sabbatical from acting while he was playing really well and had a two-year-old child Scarlett.

“But the truth is I did not realise how much I had missed it until I returned. I absolutely love the theatre and I got this part at the second audition I attended.

“It was a national tour and I realised it would be a really big commitment but knew I had to give it everything.

“I understood it was the right time in my life because my daughter could come with me and Greg was not heavily committed elsewhere.

“We have been to Scotland, Ireland, all over the place, but Greg has been very supportive. He lessened his commitments so that he could come on tour with Scarlett.” Lucy was driving home to the capital after last night’s show to enjoy the morning with her family before returning to Wolverhampton.

Her role as a lap dancer in The Naked Truth, where she appears alongside Emmerdale and Fat Friends star Lisa Riley, did not send her husband into a John McEnroe-style tantrum.

She explained: “It is a fantastic part and really suits me.

“He was amused when I got it. There is nothing smutty about this. It is a comedy and so he knew it was a fun play. He was not anxious about it at all. I threw myself into learning to pole dance. I did it for a month, full on, and then got Greg’s physical trainer to work with me so that I would have the necessary upper body strength. I am fortunate in having a husband who supports me financially and so I act for the love of the art rather than the money but that does not make me different from anybody else in the profession. They all act because they love to perform.”

It is game, set and match to Lucy while on stage because she must be playing a blinder. Her performance is so convincing that fans ask which lap dancing club she was working in when she met Greg.

The truth is rather less revealing. She was a ball girl at a tennis tournament.