Category: Story

April 18, 2020

April 18, 2020 “When I was 17 years old I was at a crossroads in my life. I had to think if I would continue to live and train in Palermo, Sicily, where I grew up, or go somewhere else and find new goals and motivations. I decided to move across Italy to Caldaro, a very small town up north, where I had the chance to train and live with coach Massimo Sartori and a very young Andreas Seppi. This was the beginning of my professional career. The first few months were so hard on me. Caldaro was a little town in the middle of nowhere on the Italian Alps. It was cold and rainy, where most people speak German and are pretty introverted. I would say it felt like a totally different world from what I was used to. Palermo is a large, sunny city right on the beach. I am an only child has had all my parents attention and I was always their number one priority. In Caldaro I was on my own, from cooking and cleaning, to doing laundry or just spending time with someone. I had no friends there and all I would do was (more…)

April 16, 2020

April 16, 2020 “Early on my father said, ‘Listen, son, I rather have you play an individual sport because it’s going to be tough without any money or connection to play cricket. I don’t want you to put so many hours into something and not be able to live out your dream.’ That’s why we chose tennis. Tennis started small for me, not knowing s**t. I went to the court the first day, played for an hour and hit one ball in the court. I was happy making one ball in the court. Then from there, just started playing hours of tennis. My typical schedule was fitness from 6:00 to 7:30 in the morning, come back, have breakfast and then go to school. I was allowed to miss assembly and first period. I would stay at the school until around 2:00 and then come back home and eat lunch. I would chill in bed watching anime until 5 where I would go train again. I would play tennis and do fitness and get home around 10 at night. Imagine, living like this not knowing much about tennis. My dad couldn’t afford much, we only had a bike to get around. (more…)

April 14, 2020

April 14, 2020 “I’ve always wondered how better or worse my life would be without tennis. With what this sport has given me I cannot imagine my life would be better without. At times I found myself too busy comparing myself to others. Most of my friends go to normal high school. I felt like they always seemed so happy being ‘normal’. For a while I thought I wanted that but then I realized that just like social media everyone isn’t as happy as what you see in their posts. It took me about a year to get over that idea. Again, my results were still okay, so this didn’t have much to do with tennis. I just wasn’t happy playing anyway. My parents did a great job of trying to make sure I did ‘normal’ childhood things. I was able to go to homecoming this past year and was planning on going to prom until the coronavirus. I do try to see friends as much as I can. My parents both work so I do spend a lot of time at home alone. It is challenging to do school alone while you can’t socialize with other students. Even though (more…)

April 11, 2020

April 11, 2020 “The problem with my injury was it wasn’t only about tennis. It negatively affected my daily life. My elbow injury was the worst one in my life. Some people may think I am just complaining but it was very tough for me. It lasted about three and half years with five surgeries during that time. Before returning in 2018 I had three difficult surgeries, with a couple easier in 2018 and 2019. 2015 was one of the best years of my career when I got to the finals of Barcelona. From that I reached my career ranking. I also made third round of Wimbledon, which for me is very difficult since I didn’t win a match there prior. I was playing well until I felt something in my elbow. I did what I could to avoid pain but it wasn’t helping. I remember playing a match where I could barely finish the first set serving. After the match I saw a doctor who said it was all okay and it would be fine for me to go to the American swing of tournaments. I first played in Canada, then Cincinnati and then finally the US Open. After (more…)

April 9, 2020

April 9, 2020 “My mom passed away in 2018. I was at the club I used to train at when I got a call after practice. I found out my mom went to sleep and didn’t wake up. It was 100% unexpected. She was very young, only 52 years old, but was supporting a lot of stress from taking care of my father. Back in 2016 my father was in an accident. My father fell while he was cleaning our horse stables and became paralyzed. It was days before the Rio Olympics, which I almost decided to skip, but ended up going in the end. My father was in the bed in the next room when my mom passed away. It was an incredibly tough four years. From my father’s accident he became a quadriplegic, couldn’t move from the neck down. He used an artificial breathing machine since he couldn’t do it himself. We had two people, plus my mother, who took care of my father 24 hours a day. Then when my mom passed away, my wife and I had a lot of work considering that he needed all day help. We added a few more people to the (more…)

April 8, 2020

April 8, 2020 “The recent Australian bushfires have devastated large parts of the land I call home. This crisis had also put a literal cloud over the Australian Open, and it is deeply personal to many Australians and, increasingly, many in the tennis community. Tens of people have died, millions of hectares of land have been burnt, much of our wildlife has perished, and entire communities have been devastated after suffering through years of drought. The bushfire smoke had hit South America, and NASA estimated that it would travel the entire globe. As Australians, we live with the threat of bushfire every single summer. Our rural communities are always prepared for the worst, and our firies are true heroes. While my family home in Ouyen were safe, my parents were asked by emergency services to evacuate in December before potentially disastrous conditions could hit our town. My Gran and my cousins were also evacuated from their homes when a sudden grass fire almost struck Wodonga. I’ve also been in constant contact with friends that are firies, fighting on the front line, or who have lost their homes and businesses. While the world looked on and sent their thoughts, prayers and (more…)

April 7, 2020

April 7, 2020 “I started playing tennis when I was six years old. From four to six I practiced gymnastics. It’s one of my favorite sports, especially to watch on TV. When I started gymnastics was never to be a professional or anything. I was getting better and better but one day the coaches came up to my parents and told them I would be too tall for it. Looking back I guess they were right. The summer was approaching and my parents said I should try something else. I said, ‘Why not tennis?’ From the first day I was really into it. I remember rolling my ankle in my house before the first practice but still went. I enjoyed tennis from the beginning but probably because I was so competitive. I hated to lose and needed to win. I do really love tennis. There is nothing quite like playing a night match, especially at Grand Slams. You can tell I love tennis when I spend the whole day on site and the first think I do when I get back to the hotel is turn the TV on and watch more tennis. I remember having one of my longest (more…)

April 5, 2020

April 5, 2020 “It was extremely difficult to make the decision to retire. I played my last match when I was only 27 years old. In my head, I had many more years left in tennis. I was at the peak of my tennis career when I got sick with mononucleosis, which was around two years before I retired. For a long time before I was diagnosed I was stressed, tired and really rundown. Through this all I kept playing. I became sick all the time because my immune system was weak, but I kept pushing. Deep down in my mind I knew something was wrong, but all the tests doctors took came back fine. Even though I was playing well, it was all up and down, until I got mono. I feel like the combination of my bad immune system and seriously overtraining affected me. Mono was just the last thing my body could handle. Doctors said I first got it in Indian Wells of 2011. It wasn’t too bad in the beginning but got worse after my last tournament in Bastad. I didn’t leave my house for six months. After about a year I would begin to feel (more…)

April 3, 2020

April 3, 2020 “I grew up in Tunisia. I started playing tennis at three years old because my mom used to play. I was the youngest one of my brothers and sisters, so she took me to the club with her. It was around this time, from 3-5 years old, I was actually swimming. I was born in Ksar Hellal and moved to Sousse at 5 and that’s when I chose to play tennis. Sousse was great but needed more resources to improve, which is when I had to decide if I needed to leave my home city at 13 years old. There was this school in Tunis that would allow me to train and go to school at the same time. It gave me the chance to train more hours, which is what I needed. It was 140 kilometers from my home. It was very difficult for me to leave my city, it was one of my biggest struggles. It has been a long process since then. Even with all the help I had to figure out a lot on my own. I made many mistakes when it came to coaching, practicing, tournament scheduling, everything. I had to figure (more…)

March 31, 2020

March 31, 2020 “When I was 13, my dad stopped working to travel with me full time. There was already pressure from not being too wealthy and now my father wasn’t making money. People from my hometown thought we were crazy. They watched my dad stop quit his job as a coach at the club to travel with me and they didn’t understand it. When I think back, I see what they saw. All I know is we saw a small a chance to have what we have now and we had to go for it. Even if you are top in the world as a kid, the chance of becoming a top professional tennis player is beyond a small percentage. My family took some big risks that paid off and what I achieved is for all of them. We made many big decisions. Our family is five in total, with an older sister and younger brother. This decision my dad made affected everyone. Not only was my family making less money, now my father was away from my siblings for long periods of time. There was a lot of pressure on the whole family to also keep up with (more…)