Despina Papamichail

September 9, 2021

“It was a random summer. My best friend back then was like, “Come to the tennis court, Despi. The court is beautiful,” and I was like, “Okay.” Since day one, it just started like this — I liked it.  I liked tennis because it was an individual sport. I wanted the responsibility on me. You could either win or lose, but because of your own fault. I liked the sound of the ball. I like that you have a racket and you got to hit it so you need more coordination. There is not something specific that threw me into it, but the whole thing — I love the whole thing. The competition, the screaming, the match after match. Being a defensive player, I was winning a lot from the mistakes of the others. I had to change into an aggressive player. They were pushing me to be aggressive, and then I lost my game because I don’t think players should change their games. We started the tournaments the year that I was 18. 350 with so much pressure of winning, and I start losing. I was not sleeping, I was dreaming that they would take off my contract. I

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