Category: Story

February 17, 2023

“I’m from a really small town — I’m not from Moscow. I started playing tennis at four years old because my parents were searching for some stuff for me to do. As a kid, I explored in a lot of different ways — I danced, played music and also found tennis. I remember we were driving through town and we saw a big racket with the name of a club. It said that they had groups of kids. My mom was like, “Maybe we should try this one.” We got there and asked if I could try one practice, just to see if I would like it. They said yes, and that day I just tried it. There was a good coach for the kids, and he saw that I had good reaction times that are needed for tennis. I came a second time, a third time, and then the coach gave me a racket to keep. I went everywhere with the racket. My parents used to tell me that I was sleeping with the racket — I never let it go. They told me that I broke everything, all the glass in the flat, because I was always holding (more…)

February 9, 2023

“There’s no one moment when tennis changed my life. Throughout my career, I’ve gone through many beautiful and not so beautiful moments. All of these moments helped me to grow. The hardest moment in my career was when they told me I was positive for a doping test. It was from contaminated supplements and I couldn’t compete for 9 months. That was a very hard time. Surely, one of the most beautiful moments of my career was last year getting to play the Grand Slams for the first time in my life. Also, at the tournament in UMAG I experienced indescribable emotions. Victories often confuse you and make you deviate from the most important thing, which is to always give 100% and continue growing. In my case, it has happened to me that I was affected by thoughts surrounding expectations. The expectations of others, or the expectations I thought they had for me, dictated my thoughts. Additionally, the belief that “If I beat an opponent with a high ranking today, I must beat someone with a lower ranking as well,” was constantly on my mind. I am a very self-demanding person — a perfectionist.  I love tennis and I try (more…)

February 2, 2023

“I think to become 54th in the world in the same year that you started at 250th, what sets you apart is perseverance, daily work and the passion with which you compete. I try to be very professional, and meet the requirements that tennis at this level asks of you. For many years, I worked and did not reach the levels I thought I could. Those years helped me become the person I am today. At the age of 19 I left my home to live in Europe alone and train. I wasn’t aware of the major change that I was making. It took me a long time to get used to all the differences. I remember long nights wondering if it was really worth it. In the first two years, I felt lonely many nights and loneliness is one of the worst feelings a person can feel. I was very young and did not know how to fix it, but eventually I adjusted and learned how to live with it. There have been moments in my tennis career that have changed my life both for the worse for the better. In 2016, I had a vertebra fracture. It was (more…)

January 26, 2023

#LegendaryBTR – “I won Wimbledon in 2013 and retired weeks later. When you win a Grand Slam, you are on top of the world and do not want to quit because you have finally gotten the reward of your hard work. My mind wanted to continue but my body could not play anymore. I devoted my whole life to compete with the best players in the world. The extra hours of practice and fitness took a toll on my body. I could not continue to play in pain. I wanted a Grand Slam so much that my mind pushed my body until I won Wimbledon. But when I finally won, I felt empty. I did not have any more resources to return to the court. It was painful because I could not capitalize on my victory. Luckily, I found fashion and design. I earned my fashion degree from Central Saint Martins in London which took my mind off the pain of not being able to play tennis. I have designed for Fila for a long time. My success off the court has helped me mentally erase my past identity as a tennis player. Without fashion, I would have fared worse (more…)

January 20, 2023

“It’s pretty terrifying to think about not succeeding, because you always dream about doing the opposite.  Tennis has been the main constant in my life since quitting football when I was around 10. From then, everything just happened: Getting a better national ranking, then rising on the international junior ranking, playing junior slams. You’re a full-time player already at that point.  From 2018, I basically went pro, but it didn’t feel like anything changed in my ‘tennis life’. The only thing that slightly changed my perspective was the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires. I went there with 30 other athletes from different sports and had the opportunity to see what they do. It was a big eye opener, in a very nice way, to see others’ dedication and commitment to their sport.  I think one of my biggest weapons is my work ethic, especially while training at home. I give my everything. I’m kind of a perfectionist, so I put pressure on myself to work hard, otherwise I don’t feel satisfied while laying in bed at night.  My challenger win in June 2021 was something that changed my expectations. I won one, and basically expected more and better results (more…)

January 3, 2023

“I consider myself a truly ordinary guy, who takes pleasure in helping the people he loves. I don’t think I have any particular distinctive characteristics, but I recognize that I have an excellent conception of work, which I never want to escape out of the desire to improve more and more. Because of this, I’m also continuing to study outside of tennis, attending the faculty of economics and commerce. Off the court, there have been some painful moments. Recently, my grandfather was diagnosed with a tumor, which he is still living with today.  He is one of the people I love the most. Even if he’s under control, I have this constant fear that one day he may suddenly go away, without giving him all the joys and satisfactions he deserves, because for me he is a bit of my superhero. I’m not very worried about not being successful in tennis, simply because everyday I try to give 100% of myself to improve myself more and more.  I think this is the secret: I only think about giving my best, and what comes will be the consequence, without ever having regrets. The moment when tennis changed my life was my (more…)

November 10, 2022

“During my return to the WTA tour, I played five tournaments in Portugal and started feeling a pain in my finger on my left hand. Because things were feeling strange, I got an MRI and it was discovered that I had a benign tumor that had to be removed. At the end of 2020, I had surgery where they had to open my hip to get the bone and make a graft for my finger. I had to stop playing tennis again for almost four months and then make another return to the tour. In my career, I’ve already had six moments that I had to stop playing. In tennis, starting again is not easy, especially when you come from South America. In 2017, I reached the top 100 for the first time, and then I had another surgery on my lower back in 2018. After that, I came back to the top 100 in 2019 and then I got suspended. For sure, that was the most painful moment of my life. It was around 14 months off of the tour. I was unable to go to my club and play with my family. I couldn’t watch tennis, or use social (more…)

November 3, 2022

“I was officially diagnosed with OCD in the spring of 2021. I’ve been struggling with it for as long as I can remember, but the crazy thing is I didn’t even know I had it. It was one day after a dual match here at UNC, one of my teammates and friends reached out to me and brought it up, saying, “Hey, let me know if you need any help or if you have any questions about OCD.” When he said that it rang a bell. I went on the internet, like most people do these days, and I Googled it, and it really shocked me, because what I thought were just crazy habits of mine were actually compulsions. From there, well, I didn’t really know what to do, so I started working with a sports psychologist at UNC in private — none of my teammates knew. It was just a thing with me and my coach, who knew, my girlfriend and family. For me, my OCD spiked when COVID started because I had no way home — I stayed in the States. When I was diagnosed in the spring, I didn’t initially tackle it right away because I was afraid (more…)

October 25, 2022

#MyBTR- April 1983, at age of 18, I walked on a tennis court as a UCLA Bruin 22-0, one win away from breaking Jimmy Connors all-time record for consecutive wins by an incoming freshman. A year later, I had quit the team and dropped out of school to live in my van, drinking and drugging my life away around the clock. What happened? Well, it turned out it was happening all along. I suffered from un-diagnosed and untreated Bipolar Disorder from my earliest ages. The signs were all there. The volatility of the cheating, the tantrums, the choking, the tanking, all sprinkled within stretches of inspired play. A middle of the pack junior growing up, late my senior year I came into my own, making the US Jr Davis Cup Team and earning a scholarship to the defending NCAA Champion UCLA Bruins. It was a feverish year of results, vaulting me near the top of my class in American tennis.  So out of my comfort zone, I cracked under the pressure of elite tennis, succumbing to my self-medicating ways of alcoholism and addiction, anything to tame my raging mind. I would struggle mightily with addiction and mental illness throughout adulthood, (more…)

October 20, 2022

“In April of 2015, I was playing a Future in Brazil and just starting my career on tour. My dad traveled with me for this tournament. He is my biggest supporter. Never counted anything to invest on me and my sister in sports. All of a sudden, he told me he couldn’t afford my trips anymore. The moment in the country was not the best and he was worried. It was a shock for me. I couldn’t see myself without tennis in my life. At the time, college in America was not well known for a lot of people in Brazil, including me. It was seen like the end of your tennis career. I could barely speak English. I did not want to go and couldn’t agree with my dad. But I didn’t have any other option besides stop playing tennis and live a “normal life”. I also didn’t want that. Tennis is my passion and I had dreams and goals to achieve. I had to go in August since I was already 18. He sent me a couple of articles that opened my mind. I also researched but couldn’t find many information but the ones that I found were (more…)