French Open Champion Nearly Quit Tennis to Sell Insurance
French Open Champion Nearly Quit Tennis to Sell Insurance
Misia Kedzierski, Austin Krajicek’s wife, felt he may truly be serious the last time he rushed through the home door, slammed his tennis bag into a closet and proclaimed that he was through with the sport for good.
Krajicek, a big-hitting lefty from Florida who had been a champion as a junior and in college, had spent seven years toiling on the professional tennis circuit. He had broken into the top 100 in singles a couple of times, and he had even won a number of matches in Grand Slam events. However, Krajicek’s career was cut short when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. However, as the summer of 2018 drew near, he had a string of defeats, which caused his singles ranking to plummet into the 300s.
During the previous summer, he and Kedzierski had been residing in a modest flat in Chicago, Illinois, with just a dog, a few dishes, an old mattress on the floor and a few pieces of inherited furniture from her parents’ home. Krajicek’s tennis career was costing him more money than it was bringing in, but she never questioned his commitment to the sport, even though she was footing the bill for the majority of their expenditures.
Recently, Kedzierski, a data analyst for the restaurant business, remembered, “It’s like that awkward time where you don’t necessarily want to talk about money.” “It’s like that awkward time,” “But then you get to a point where you’re like, ‘Well, if we can’t pay rent, then should we continue doing what we’re doing right now?’ “
Krajicek didn’t think so.
During a recent interview, he remarked, “It’s a brutal sport, and you have to be a little bit insane to keep going,” while speaking from his home in Allen, Texas, which is located to the north of Dallas.
Since he was 6 years old, tennis had been a significant part of Krajicek’s life, and the sport seemed to be urging him to give up on his ambition of fighting for the biggest trophies in the sport that had largely defined his life. At the age of 28, he could no longer be considered a child, and he was just a few credits away from completing his bachelor’s degree in psychology at Texas A&M. He was working towards acquiring his licence to become an insurance salesman. He was prepared to proceed with Plan B.
Then, a friend from his time spent playing tennis in college gave him a call. Did he have any interest in going to England to compete in the doubles competitions that were held there?
Krajicek went into the closet and pulled his tennis bag out of there.
One final attempt.
At the age of five, Krajicek asked his father, a former college basketball player who had taken up tennis at a club near Tampa, whether he could tag along when he went to the tennis court. Richard Krajicek, the winner of the men’s singles event at Wimbledon in 1996, is a distant relative of Krajicek. Krajicek began his adventure in tennis by asking his father. Soon enough, he was working out with the club professional on several days a week, and not long after that, the club professional informed Austin’s father that he needed to find his kid a more qualified trainer.
At the age of 14, Krajicek joined at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, which is famed for being the place where Nick Bollettieri turned out future champions under the oppressive heat of the Florida sun. After winning the United States National Junior Championship in Kalamazoo, Michigan when he was 18 years old, Krajicek toyed with the idea of becoming professional. Instead, he made the decision to enrol at Texas A&M in order to give both his body and his game a couple more years to mature. In 2011, he was victorious in the men’s doubles competition at the N.C.A.A.
After that, it was time for him to begin his game in order to earn his next meal.
Players on their way to the major leagues of tennis may make a few stops in famous international cities like Paris and London along the way, but they may spend much more nights in places like Binghamton, New York; Aptos, California; Rimouski, Quebec; and Gimcheon, South Korea. There are a number of motels that are poor, a lot of meals that are dreadful, and lots of stands that are vacant. Or there may not be any stands at all.
When Krajicek first met Kedzierski, he had just become professional and was competing in a low-level event in Champaign, Illinois. Kedzierski was a senior tennis player at the University of Illinois. One of Kedzierski’s other friends had a secret crush on Krajicek but was too shy to talk to her about it. Kedzierski was trying to help her buddy by getting his number so she could contact him, but when she did so, she discovered that Krajicek was interested in Kedzierski.
Two months later, in Maui, where they were both competing in tennis tournaments, they had their first supper together after realising that they were both in the same place at the same time. She had a favourable impression of him.
After she received her degree, she relocated to Los Angeles and began working for an entertainment industry stylist there. Krajicek was utilising Los Angeles as a home base for his practise sessions. Krajicek was a skilled ‘couch surfer’ who frequently stayed in the vacation homes of affluent tennis benefactors. He would show up to Kedzierski’s apartment with his tennis bag and a suitcase, train there for a week or two, and then head back out on the road. He started staying at Kedzierski’s place.
