The real tennis champions who inspired Aidan Turner’s dark drama Fifteen-Love

Aidan Turner’s new drama takes a dive into sexual assault scandals that have rocked the sporting world in recent years.

Fifteen-Love follows former tennis prodigy Justine (played by Ella-Lily Hyland) make explosive allegations against her former coach Glenn (Aidan), years after an injury halted her rise to stardom.

As the scandal erupts, those involved in both their lives are forced to reconsider who they believe.

The series flicks between the past steamy relationship between Glenn and Justine, when she was in her late teens, to the top tennis coach returning to her life several years later, which sparks her revealing the allegations.

‘It was an important story to tell,’ Poldark actor Aidan previously told Metro.co.uk. ‘I just think that vehicle of who has the burden of proof, as the audience, who do we believe and why one character over another?

‘They’re both speaking their own truth, and who do we call out on being the liar?’

Is Fifteen-Love based on a true story?

Producer Hania Elkington has revealed that while Fifteen-Love isn’t based on one specific true story, it was influenced by so many sexual assault cases in the sporting world.

She told us: ‘I looked at so many different stories and reports and articles, and I think that was my responsibility and my duty as a writer, and I’ve probably taken tiny fragments of maybe 50 or 60 different stories.

‘Not just about scandals or abuse but also about fantastic relationships when things go well, when relationships fall apart, and there’s bitterness, but there’s not transgression. I read biographies and autobiographies. listened to podcasts.

She continued: ‘One of the great things about telling a fictional story is that you don’t put the weight of that story on to a real life person, but I think then your responsibility is to refract real life events through your fictional drama in a way that makes that drama relevant and inclusive to as many people as possible.

‘So I wouldn’t land on any particular stories, but there was a lot of research done.’

The series stars Aidan Turner and Ella Lily Hyland (Picture: Prime Video)

Poldark actor Aidan branded the series an ‘important story to tell’ (Picture: Prime Video)

Hania elsewhere revealed that while the programme wasn’t directly influenced by one particular person or story, the likes of Naomi Osaka and Emma Raducanu played a part.

She said: ‘When I started writing it in 2019, I thought it was a really interesting and relevant story. But then as I started to research and as I started to write, the stories around me started to snowball.

‘In 2021 suddenly Naomi Osaka, is talking about athletes needing the odd bit of respite from press, or Emma Raducanu is talking about anxiety, Simone Biles is talking about mental health.

‘Female psychology in 2021 was under the spotlight as it’s never been before. At the same time there were stories, darker stories surfacing, from Wrexham and so on, so it became very clear that in terms of safeguarding and of the power balance balance between coaches and athletes, it’s a bit of a hothouse.

‘There were stories, darker stories surfacing’ (Picture: Prime Video)

‘In terms of the safeguarding that’s a dangerous world, whether you are a coach and allegations can be made against you, maybe when you haven’t done anything, it’s also very tricky and dangerous for young athletes, who are sometimes left vulnerable.

‘So I thought, actually, it’s the perfect time and I think now that we’re coming up to the launch, we can see things like Break Point, and so many different sporting dramas and documentaries that are leaning into it.

‘It feels like a summer of tennis, and it feels like a summer looking at safeguarding and looking at mental health. So I think Fifteen-Love hopefully delves into all of those things within a nice kind of tasty and delicious dramatic casing.’

During creating the show, Hania revealed that they not only spoke to a physio to discuss injuries in sport and the psychological impacts, but tennis consultants, safeguarding professionals and an anonymous survivor of abuse within the sporting world.

The survivor read all six scripts when they were written and spent several hours with Hania making adjustments.

She explained: ‘I added little emotional resonances here and there to make sure that those those stories were coming through so truthfully, so at different stages, I look to different people, but I would say the content of the show is sensitive, and I wanted a lot of eyes on it.

‘And it didn’t mean that they would always change the drama, but it would mean that I felt very confident in in what I was writing that it made sense and did justice to these people working in those specific fields.’

Fifteen-Love launches on Prime Video UK and Ireland today, Friday, July 21.

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‘The stories around me started to snowball.’