Category: Story

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…)

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…)