Serena, Andy and me
Besides being a fan of the NFL, LeBron James and the Lakers, and the Cleveland Indians, one of my favorite sports to watch and that I play myself, is tennis. I have been playing tennis for about 10 years now, and for the past two years in high school, I have played on the varsity level and competed in conference matches as well as various USTA tournaments. So, this week, I choose to write about two tennis players that have truly inspired me: Serena Williams and Andy Murray. I, fortunately, was able to watch these two game-changing players in person at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England and I’ve admired them ever since.
Tennis stars formerly ranked #1 in the world, Serena and Andy recently have experienced challenges and setbacks, whether it be a life challenge in a pregnancy for Serena, or a long-standing hip injury for Andy, and both have relentlessly worked their way back to their original forms. Serena revealed she was 22 weeks pregnant in mid-April of 2017 after she had stopped playing tennis matches. She went into labor on September 1, 2017 and gave birth to Alexis Olympia Ohanian. Ten months after recovering from the birth and post-partum depression, which most recently she said she suffers from, Serena became the first mother in 38 years to reach a Wimbledon final. With Serena already having 23 Grand Slam Titles and seven Wimbledon Championships, this victory would have capped an already amazing career. But, unfortunately, Serena lost 6-3,6-3 to Germany’s Angelique Kerber.
Despite the loss, it was not a sad moment for Serena at all. She said that her return to competition was not to add more championships to her mantle, but to show that women in “all walks of life” are able to accomplish anything they set their minds to, especially when hit with setbacks and challenges. Just reaching the final is recognized, especially by women who know the sacrifice to compete at the top level of tennis and handle the demands of motherhood at the same time. Few have successfully attempted to do both.
As for Andy, he re-emerged slowly from a grueling hip injury that slowed him down for years. He resumed a regular tennis schedule this year (though it excluded Wimbledon) after being out for a year due to hip surgery and a painful recovery. He made his long-awaited return to action against Nick Kyrgios at the Fever-Tree Championships. He played an impressive game but eventually lost in three sets. His latest match was in the Citi Open, located in our nation’s capital, Washington D.C. In that tournament, he made it to the quarter-final match before pulling out due to severe exhaustion, since the last match he played started at midnight and lasted three hours until 3 am. Despite him withdrawing from the Citi Open and not being able to play at Wimbledon, he has been on the come up and is reshaping himself into the old number one ranked version of Andy Murray that I witnessed play on the Wimbledon courts in 2012.
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