Roger Federer, at 36 years of age, has come to the end of a new season of success and is, along with Rafa Nadal, the tennis player with the highest number of Grand Slams in history. However, Roger began the season after a 2016 full of injuries, troubles and disappointments. What happened to him in 2017? What put him back up to No. 2 after finishing last year in 16th place on the ATP ranking?
Sometimes I wonder why I engaged in this adventure of dreams in which I involved myself, my family and so many people who give everything for our students-athletes at Sánchez-Casal. Every holiday, when I review the year, I wonder if it’s worth it. 2017 was terrible, so many tough things happened: Casper, our little angel, left us; Irma visited us, leaving innumerable damages; we had to internally improve and grow in order to maintain our position.
December is a busy month for junior tennis players. The prestigious Orange Bowl, Little Mo, Eddie Herr are marked in their tournament calendar from the beginning of the year. Mostly all ASC academy players compete in these events, showcasing their talent and hard work demonstrated throughout the year.
Great efforts resulted in the first week of December: Academia Sánchez-Casal (ASC) student-athlete, Jerry Shang, won the Boys ’12 Eddie Herr Championship, an internationally renowned event which gathers over 2000 junior tennis players from more than 90 countries.
December is an exciting and active time for junior tennis players all around the globe. The Academia Sanchez-Casal is proud to join the ranks of Eddie Herr, Little Mo and The Orangebowl by introducing the brand new Sanchez-Casal International Winter Junior Cup, which will take place December 7-10, 2017 in beautiful Naples, Florida.
Ukrainian tennis player Olga Savchuk has been training at Sanchez-Casal Academy in Florida for the past several weeks to get ready to compete in the US Open Series.
Savchuk, who achieved her career high doubles ranking of No. 34 last week, has kicked off her American tour at Stanford, where she will play the doubles semifinal tomorrow with A. Pavlyuchenkova (RU) against US A. Spears and C. Vandeweghe .
We spoke with Olga during her stay to know more about her future plans:
Maturity and consistency are both ingredients that usually lead to success, although of course sport has another ingredient, which is competition, and with competition, anything can happen. This season has been especially important to the ATP player, Gilles Müller, who is 34 years old and is excelling thanks to some great recent results.
Everything that happens has a reason: some people call it ‘destiny’, others ‘energy’, some people call it ‘luck’, and others, ‘bad luck’. I think I’m fortunate to live life how I choose. I carry with me my principles and values, and I am that way partly thanks to my parents, thanks to the education they provided me, some key people that became role models in my life but mainly thanks to tennis, which shaped my character and made me resilient to adversity.
Every athlete wants to achieve good results, but we have to be aware that good results don’t automatically happen because we spend hours and hours training on court, in fitness or in mental training. Inspiring young athletes to give their best effort is both the coach and the parents’ responsibility.
