Valeriya Solovyeva

April 28, 2020

April 28, 2020 “As a junior I was someone that parents would use as an example for their kids all the time. Saying, ‘Look at her footwork, copy her attitude, she is the best junior’, and so on. I signed a contract with Nike and Babolat while also signing with a management agency when I was 13 years old. This was all after winning the Orange Bowl. Things looked pretty good at that moment with a very promising future, but things turned around. I felt so much pressure and responsibility to perform as a 14 year old kid and I couldn’t handle the expectations that came with it. I was just a kid who did what she was told to do, win. When you hear on a daily basis that you must win, you truly forget to play tennis or enjoy the game. The tennis court was a stressful zone for me. As I went on court for the next few years knowing I wasn’t allowed to lose, that’s all that was happening, over and over again. I was only thinking about results and not how I could improve my game. I lost confidence, everybody else was getting better but

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