Category: Story

October 13, 2022

“I don’t like to use the word ‘scared’ because a lot of things can happen in a tennis career. Personally, I just try to improve every day and do the best I can. I believe that good things come with hard work and dedication. It’s common for everyone to have their own goals and it’s not always easy to achieve each one of them. At the end of my career I want to be able to look back and know that I did everything I could to achieve my goals and have no regrets. I’m someone who has a lot of passion for this sport. I really enjoy being in the gym, working hard everyday and putting the utmost effort into every aspect of my development. Sometimes I need to be reminded by my team to have a rest day or I would be working nonstop throughout the year. My passion and the work I put in helps me in the tournaments and matches that I play. Thinking back and reminding myself of the work I’ve put in helps me to stay motivated and gets me through difficult moments. My first junior international tournament was in Georgia when I was (more…)

October 2, 2022

#CelebrityBTR– “I started playing tennis at this day camp my parents sent me to. It was actually a religious camp — well maybe not religious but they made you pray at lunch, so, to me, that’s a religious camp. I was not used to praying, but I ultimately ended up enjoying the camp.  While at camp, we played some version of dodgeball on the tennis courts everyday, really chucking these balls at each other. I’m pretty sure we called it chuckball. I told my parents about it and they called the camp to complain. Chuckball was discontinued, so we had to find something else to do on the tennis courts. I guess it made sense to play actual tennis.  I started playing and was fairly coordinated. My dad had played tennis at Hunter College and used to give tennis lessons. I asked him if he would teach me and never looked back. I must’ve been around 12 at the time, so I started kinda late, but got into it very quickly. My favorite tennis moment was the American East conference quarterfinals against Stonybrook where my dubs partner Barrett Wolf and I won in a dramatic tiebreak. Stonybrook was better, and (more…)

September 29, 2022

“My grandma raised me since I was four — both of my parents passed away when I was young. Because of the experience with my parents, I think I felt like I could deal with a lot of things on my own. There were times where maybe I wouldn’t talk to my family, but I would talk to Johnny, my coach. A lot of emotions come out on the tennis court and you can’t really hide from them. There were many, many times where I’d have conversations with him about anything and everything. He would really help my perspective on my life situation and give me tough love when I needed it. He would tell me things like, “It is what it is. You can’t change your situation, you can only make the best of it. You can either moan about it or put in– work extra hard to get those opportunities. I remember one time when I was 13, my grandma didn’t drive. Sometimes getting to training or getting to tournaments was hard. I had to start taking public transport and things like that from an early age. I remember one time I was moaning to him saying, “Why (more…)

August 28, 2022

“My father was a Pat Rafter supporter, and I grew up watching his matches trying to emulate his type of game. When we were kids, we played on my grandfather’s synthetic grass court every weekend, dreaming to one day play on the real one. It was really tough this year when my grandfather passed away. I was with my sister playing a challenger in Ilkley, and we weren’t able to come back for the funeral. He was my first fan together with my parents — he didn’t miss a match during all my career. The first days were really bad, but thinking of him gave me strength, and being able to dedicate the main draw to him made me proud. I think I’m a positive person who believes a lot in the process and hard work. I had a normal growth path, finishing high school in my city and not playing many junior tournaments. I was slightly behind all the good players that were my age, but I have always believed in improvement and the strength of my team. This also helps me in more difficult times, when I have to be able to live with the failures and move (more…)

August 18, 2022

“Probably the most impactful moment for me in tennis was when Naomi won the US Open in 2018. I had already been a tennis agent for 7 years or so by this stage, and had been to Slam finals before with other players, but the manner in which that final was played and the impact it had on tennis probably changed my life instantaneously. I thought I knew the job of a tennis agent inside out, but a global superstar athlete that transcends the tennis world is another one altogether. I feel like I remember my tennis life as before and after that match. I come from Scotland, and while this is not differentiating, I do find the influence of people from our country on tennis to be quite interesting for those of us of a certain age. I first played Andy Murray in a tournament called the Waverley Open when I was 16 and he was 12. He beat me 6-0, 6-0, but I took him to deuce in every game, honestly. Afterwards, I overheard him on a payphone telling his mum how rubbish I was. Judy had been a coach to my brother and I, and had assured (more…)

August 10, 2022

“Being a tennis professional is something that was not part of the plan from a young age. I started to play because an American friend introduced it to my parents when they moved from Ukraine. They played on the weekends with my brother, who is almost 12 years older than me. One time, I got bored of my toys and asked my dad if I could try his racquet. I made contact with the first ball he threw me, and then tennis turned into my favorite activity.  Something that differentiates myself from other players is that I attended public school until 11th grade. Education is valued greatly by my family and myself, so the plan was to get a scholarship to college. I started to travel much more when I was 14, playing my first junior ITF events. This meant a lot of missed school, and when I came back home I had to miss practice to come to school after hours. Many people commented that I was falling behind in the tennis curve because I wasn’t homeschooled. By the time I was 16, I won a couple Grade 1 ITFs and tested my first professional tournament. I became sure (more…)

August 3, 2022

“The most painful experiences I’ve had off the court have definitely been the three surgeries I’ve had. I’ve had one surgery on my elbow and two on my shoulder. The one in my shoulder was called thoracic outlet syndrome. That’s when the first rib that’s located in your shoulder area is too tight and it constricts one of your main arteries, which means that blood can’t flow into your arm. My rib, from birth, was too tight and over years damaged my artery to the point where I, one day, was in the gym and my artery closed because it was so damaged that my arm got no more blood flow. It was a huge surgery and I got very lucky. Doctors were telling me they were very close to just having to amputate my arm, meaning tennis would’ve been out of the picture completely for me.Then, my lungs collapsed and filled with blood, and that’s where the third surgery came in.  I had some rough moments, and all of this happened during my second year of college. It was really, really brutal. I spent two months in the hospital. It was terrible, but I’m happy I got to keep (more…)

July 27, 2022

When I start to play tennis at age 4 , literally nobody thought I could play tennis except for my parents, not even talk about pro tennis, because tennis is a minority sport in China, we only have one tennis court in my city when I started to play, we knew nothing about the sport, a lot people don’t even know what tennis is , but my parents believed I can do something, so I believe in myself , and I’m still here, chasing for my dream. I remember when I turned pro from junior at age 16 , and it didn’t going well for about 2 years , that I don’t have enough money to travel, or get a better coach , my ranking stayed at 500 for almost 2 years, nothing improved, I felt like maybe I can’t play tennis ,I’m not good enough, I think maybe it’s time for me to do something else, like go to college in US, so I spoke with my parents and the Federation, they respected my decision but hoped I can try one more time, give it my all and have no regrets. I accepted it. In the next year, my (more…)

July 20, 2022

“I think I have an interesting personality. I consider myself a calm person, but I have the ability to turn on the heat and be completely different when I’m on the tennis court. I think that’s what has helped me throughout my career, especially mentally.  I was pretty scared of not succeeding. I was very successful from a young age and always had good results growing up. It always felt like I had my whole country behind me, and that was pretty scary. At the time, Portugal had not had any big time players and I could feel the people back home hoping I could fill those shoes — that’s something a kid might not be able to handle.  I’ve had a few life-changing experiences, but moving to the US when I was 16 was the most significant one.  I had to adapt to a totally different lifestyle: Being away from family, starting to study in a different language, and living in a place known for the IMG Academy. I was breathing tennis pretty much every minute of my life. It was scary, but at the same time I feel like that was a very important period of my life.  (more…)

June 10, 2022

“What differentiates me is enjoying tough moments. I didn’t realize it for a long time, but a few weeks ago it became clear to me.  There are some points during the match, for example, it could be 5:5 40:40 in the third set after 3 hours on the court and people start to feel really tight and nervous. In this moment, you have to challenge yourself to see how strong you are. When your head probably isn’t working well, you have to push yourself to do work and do whatever it takes. In these moments, to me, you really feel alive and everything makes sense.  In 2017 I became number one in the Juniors and had to play my first junior Australian Open — it was a disaster. This was the first time I had to face pressure, but I didn’t know this at the time. Looking back, the most interesting thing was that I was the main person putting pressure on myself. Yes, there were definitely people who said “This is your year, I hope you will win” but the main guy who wanted it was me. And it was a really bad joke.  Even making QF this year, (more…)