How My Family Experiences Helped Develop my Love for Tennis
I fell in love with tennis at an early age because of my parents and uncle. They used to play tennis before I was born. My Uncle still plays sometimes. My older brother also played tennis in college. My parents also watched it when the grand slams were on TV. I developed my love of tennis through them.
My favorite players when I was growing up were Americans Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. I started watching women’s tennis more when I got older because they were more exciting to watch. Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sánchez were the top female players at the time.
I used to watch the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. The US Open was the easiest to watch because it’s in New York City and the same time zone. I didn’t watch the Australian Open because I didn’t know it existed. In 1996, I remember hearing about these two black sisters who could be future stars.
Their names were Venus and Serena Williams. The 1997 US Open was the first time I saw Venus. I fell in love with her from the moment I saw her. The power that she would hit the ball with was so amazing. I also was happy to see someone of my race starting to dominate a predominately white sport. That year Venus went all the way to the finals and lost to another young rising star Martina Hingis from Switzerland.
In 1998, Serena made her debut in the main draw of the Australian Open losing in the second round to Venus. I think that was my first time watching the Australian Open. I loved watching the way Serena played with her power and risk taking aggressive style.
I saw that she would be much better than Venus. In 1999, Venus and Serena started their domination of the WTA Tour. Winning in doubles multiple times and Serena won her first grand slam singles title at the US Open.
Seeing the racism and hatred towards the sisters further rallied my undying support for both of them. I didn’t have much experience at the time with racism so I didn’t fully understand why people felt the way they did. I remember people thought they were these two ghetto black girls from Compton, California who were not well educated.
They quickly proved all their critics wrong and handled every incident very graciously. That won them a lot of support from fans all around the world. They still face sexism and racism from some people today.
Just recently Raymond Moore the CEO of the Indian Wells tournament said that the women are lucky because they ride on the coattails of the men and don’t have to make any decisions. He suggested that women should get on their knees and thank god that Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer were born.
These comments are ridiculous and disgusting especially for saying a woman should get on her knees. These women work very hard to be at their best and should receive praise instead of being marginalized. I’m glad that he resigned but why must we continue time after time repeating this old way of thinking about female athletes.
Serena’s father said she would better than Venus. Based on Serena’s record her father was right. Serena has won 21 singles, 13 doubles, and two mixed doubles grand slam titles. Venus has only seven singles, 13 doubles, and two mixed doubles grand slam titles. They have also won four gold medals in the Olympics.
They could earn at least two more medals in Rio this summer. Both have had highly successful careers. Serena still has a chance to catch or even pass Margaret Court for the most all-time at 24.
My love for the Williams sisters is the reason that I love tennis as much I do. I don’t know what tennis would be without them. A new generation of black players will have to do their best to carry the torch.
Players like Sloane Stephens and Madison Keys have the greatest chance of becoming America’s next great tennis stars. Other players could also emerge as future stars. In my next post, I will write about some changes to tennis I would like to see to improve the game.
