I started when I was 8 years old, which is obviously nowadays pretty late, but I guess in my generation it was all right. I had plenty of other interests and I didn't do only tennis.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
As a kid, I wanted to be a pro tennis player. I was pretty good; at the tennis academies I attended, I always 'played up' against older age groups.
I've been athletic since I was a kid. My parents got me playing tennis when I was seven years old and I started to play competitively.
It is never too late to get into tennis! While I started playing at the age of 8 when my parents gave me a tennis racquet for Christmas, tennis is a lifelong sport that can be enjoyed by people of almost any age. It's also something you never forget once you learn.
When I was eight and a half, my parents moved to a part of Queens where there was a club nearby. We joined, and if you believe in someone up above, I think I was meant to play tennis.
The thing is, it's not good anyway for eight-year-olds to be out there playing tennis tournaments so soon in their lives. But when I did get to play in a tournament, when I was nine, I was overjoyed.
Summer I was 13, my grandfather and my father taught me how to play golf. I took lessons that summer, and I played every day that summer. I probably would've kept playing, except I realized that girls don't watch golf; they watch tennis. So I let my golf game go dormant and started playing tennis.
Well, my mum's been a tennis coach - she coached me till I was 12.
Probably around 14, when I was finishing primary school. I'm coming from a pretty small city in Croatia, not too many options to train, not too many players. So I had to either choose to stay at home to do more school or move to Zagreb to the national training center. That was when I made decisions to do something better in tennis.
Later, I discovered there was a lot of work to being good in tennis.
I started tennis around age 2.