New Tennis Inspiration for 2025
Well, the new year is coming, and with it, there comes a new tennis season! I spent most of the end of 2024 taking some time off and continuing college. I'm looking forward to returning to the tennis court, though! I want to get out there and hit that ball!
A couple of days ago, I was thinking about how I'm taking the chance in life to continue my tennis journey. One thing that's often come to my mind is that I don't want to stop playing before it's truly my time to hang up my racket. I wouldn't want to have regrets about giving up before I even reached my full potential. Besides, I love the sport of tennis, and I want to continue playing for as long as I can.
I know I won't necessarily become a tennis superstar, but that doesn't really matter to me as much as it did when I was younger. In the past, I would sometimes compare myself to others and wish I could be as successful as other players were. But we all have different resources and challenges that we face in life, so we won't all be on the same path. Not everyone succeeds when they're only 20 years old. It's amazing if you do, but for many other players, it takes more time to develop their mental and physical strength, and that is okay! It doesn't mean you will never have a fulfilling career - it just means that you may need more time to develop.
The tennis life lesson I learned from accepting myself and where I am as a player is that there's no need to "keep up with the tennis Joneses!". I think younger players today may really have more challenges in focusing on themselves and not comparing themselves to others, because with social media, a lot of us see other players' successes almost instantaneously. It is very easy to compare yourself to someone's highlight reel. What we don't always see is the amount of time, effort, and dedication put into reaching a high level in tennis. What's more, it's an unfortunate truth in tennis (and professional sports in general) that not everyone gets to the top in a fair and honest way. Doping is a problem in many sports, and tennis suffers from it, too.
I know we all want to win and play our best, but we should try not to lose our integrity in the process. That's another valuable tennis life lesson - at the end of the day, it's our integrity that we take with us after we shake hands and step off the court.
I hope to continue writing here when I have the time, to document my tennis journey and the experiences I've had. I've enjoyed playing tennis matches against many different kinds of players, from experienced juniors to USTA Open tennis matches. I continue to learn from each experience.
Thanks for reading!