Parental pressure on kids having to win tennis matches is an unspoken horror story of tennis.
Recently a girl who won a major junior 12s title tried to end her life, due to pressure from her parents to win tennis matches.
One future Grand Slam champion was told by her father if she loses this match, she would have to jog home 15 miles instead of being driven. The then 13 year old lost and had to run.
Another top junior and now journeyman pro was not allowed to sleep inside the family house if he lost – he had to sleep in a tent outside.
A junior girl lost a match and her parents would not talk to her for four days. She played at Stanford and had a decent pro career.
A greatest of all time figure was kicked out of her father’s car on 95 in South Florida after a loss and told to walk home. This player also had a racquet broken on her thigh by her father after subpar play.
One son of a famous pro who never quite reached the top ten, lost a junior match and was seen hiding under a table in the indoor club, to escape the wrath of his mother.
There are numerous stories about parents striking/assaulting their kids after a loss.
There are also unsubstantiated rumors of stories of abuse even far darker than these terrible anecdotes.
Tennis has a dysfunctional dark side that needs to be fixed.
Steve · June 17, 2025 at 7:01 am
The crazy tennis parent will continue to exist as long as the potential for big dollars and/or greatness are there no matter how small the odds.
I read the first Sampras’ book and I don’t get the sense his parents were totally insane. He actually shared lessons for a while with his sister. I’m sure there was incredible pressure as the family invested their money in him but I don’t think was abusive.
Steve · June 17, 2025 at 7:08 am
When I see a Dad yelling and getting frustrated with their little kid cause he/she can’t rally right away I yell out “Try this” and toss the ignorant parent a red or orange progression ball. Maybe we can save kids from the wraths of angry parents who have no clue how hard tennis is for beginners, at least for an afternoon.
Scoop Malinowski · June 17, 2025 at 9:13 am
Steve, the Sampras story seemed to be of Pete and Stella just stumbling into tennis, showed some talent and they just went from there. Some parents have kids and the kids are pushed into tennis as early as possible and never had any choice in it. They have that pressure to be a pro since before age ten. It’s hard to imagine parents selling their house and living in a motel and the whole life revolves around training the son and daughter or two sons to be top pros. Some make it big, most don’t.
Scoop Malinowski · June 17, 2025 at 9:14 am
That’s a good way to make a kid hate tennis from the very beginning. Supposed to be about having fun and playing a game.
Steve · June 17, 2025 at 11:38 am
Yeah, man, it’s crazy. Esp. when the whole family’s finances seem to hinge on their young pro-to-be winning matches.
Scoop Malinowski · June 17, 2025 at 11:56 am
And sadly that happens a lot. Mary Pierce is just one example.
Sam · June 20, 2025 at 5:29 am
These stories are horrific. 😳
And they remind me of something that a girl named Marjory Lavery once said about her father. She finished second in the 1995 National Spelling Bee, and because she didn’t win, her father threatened to kill her!! 👹
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spelling-bee-dad-accused-of-abuse/
In an interview, she was once asked if, after missing a word, she was disappointed. She replied, “I wasn’t upset that I missed a word. But I was terrified about how I knew my father would react.”
She also said that she and her siblings would sometimes joke that, whenever they stepped up to the mic in a spelling bee, they should say something like, “Well, I sure hope I get this word right, because if I don’t, my father is gonna beat the hell out of me!!” 😬
She was also asked if she was proud of her spelling-bee accomplishments. Her response: “Not really, because everything that me and my siblings achieved was done out of fear—not because we actually loved what we were doing.” 😢
Scoop Malinowski · June 20, 2025 at 7:52 am
Sam, there is no doubt competition pressure brings both agony and ecstasy. And since there are more losers than winners… Some top players have said they do not love tennis, one famous one told me that when I asked her the Biofile question, why do you love tennis. “I don’t.”
Sam · June 27, 2025 at 11:11 pm
Scoop, I believe it. In fact, didn’t Andre Agassi once complain to Steffi about how much he hated tennis, only to hear her respond, “Doesn’t everyone?”
The thing is, success is much more likely to come if you love what you’re doing than vice versa. And if the main reason that you hate what you’re doing is that you were pressured into it by family, well, that’s just awful. 🤢
Better to be mostly unknown, with just a modest income, but fulfilled and happy than to be in the spotlight and completely miserable. 😕
Scoop Malinowski · June 28, 2025 at 8:28 am
Sam, Agassi loved tennis more than he hated it. Everyone hates it at times, we all suffer heartbreaking losses. I know of an anecdote that proves Agassi loved tennis and it will be in my book Facing Agassi. You can’t play as long as he did consumed by hatred of tennis. Most great players were forced into tennis and became slaves of tennis. Fritz just mentioned how his dad would stop at a park after a basketball game and make him run sprints and do pull ups to make him stronger for tennis. Almost every top pro has stories like this. The ones who make it are able to maintain their love for playing through all the adversity and slavery.
Sam · July 6, 2025 at 5:10 am
Scoop, I haven’t read Andre’s autobiography Open, but apparently him hating tennis was a main theme in it. Of course, maybe that was all just to sell lots of copies. 😉
Anyway, good to know that there’s more to the story than that.
This whole topic reminds me of what Andrea Jaeger once said:
Everyone seemed to be happier in the lower-players’ locker-room. They weren’t thinking about the semis or the final and weren’t focused just on tennis. They were just happy to be at Wimbledon.
Scoop Malinowski · July 6, 2025 at 9:28 am
Sam it’s a fantastic book. It’s understandable why he held some hate for the sport that consumed his life from early childhood. He never had a choice. He’s always been a slave to the sport. With all the pressure to make it, after his three older siblings failed. Against all odds he became a tennis legend great icon. Tennis is agony and ecstasy, joy and torture. He loved and hated tennis but obviously loved it enough to play until his body could no longer do the job. Spadea’s book said Roddick avoided the seeded player locker room and preferred to stay in the lower ranked players locker room.
Sam · July 14, 2025 at 12:01 am
Scoop, didn’t know that about his older siblings. Seems their home was just a tennis factory. 🏭
It does sound like the locker rooms for the lower players are a lot more interesting. 🍿