The Dark Side Of The Moon

Tennis has always been a rather impersonal sport, all things considered. We watch it played from a distance, with players we might admire but never really know. Henin may have the most beautiful backhand in women’s tennis, but you’ll have to wait a long time before she reveals an aspect of her personal life. Mauresmo was once renown for being a lesbian playing tennis more than a tennis player who was a lesbian: she worked so hard to undo that image that now it is the press, rather than her, who tend to bring it up. Even media-friendly Martina Hingis is somewhat reserved: above all, she is a tennis player, and intimate details are still few and far between.
Yet despite all this, we hear tales of glamour, with the pretty players and their pretty styles. Players like Sharapova, Hantuchova, even Ivanovic, to a certain degree, give a personality to an otherwise impersonal and distant sport. They are the faces of the sun, with their pictures in magazines and their faces on billboards. They are the media’s dream, they are the stories tennis fans learn to recite by heart.
We know their stories because they are the ones who have made it. We can recite them because we have heard them so many times, the prodigal ‘reluctant rebel’ from Switzerland who grew up to defy expectations, the Russian export who is neither ‘fully’ American nor ‘fully’ Russian but seduces fans from both countries, the quiet Belgian who questioned life and found the missing answers in tennis. They are all stories we like to hear, if only because they are stories of success. So one has to wonder what happened to the stories the media forgot to tell us. Tales of players, perhaps as talented as the likes of Sharapova or Hingis, but for some reason have been robbed of their talent. Players, future players, or maybe even ex-players, whose careers have ended before they really began. The nameless players, who have seen the dark side of the moon, and who never got the chance to tell their tale. They are like us, now, but we don’t pay attention to them at first. It is only when we begin to listen that we realize who they are.
Her name is Camille, but her friends call her Cam or Cammy. At first glance, she looks like any other 18-year-old student. With her 5”7 build, hazel eyes and dark brown hair, mixed with a charming smile, she appears to be extremely popular, yet she doesn’t claim to be “anything special”. 5 years ago she might have been, but a lot can happen in 5 years, and now she’s flirting with the idea of being a lawyer. She doesn’t want to commit too soon, though, because she knows that fate has a nasty way of interfering with plans.
5 years ago, Camille was training at the same academy as Sharapova and Golovin. Born in Paris, she moved with her parents to Florida when she was 3 years old. She was 4 when she first picked up a racket, 5 when she realized she could hit the ball with her left or right hand, all depending on her mood. At 9, she integrated the Nick Bollettieri academy and spent 3 years “getting beat by Sharapova”. She left the academy in January 2001 following her parents’ divorce- ‘it was too expensive for them, the academy and their divorce’.
She was “destined” to make it. People could see her talent- she was an element of Hingis, a touch of Seles, a little bit of Evert, with hints of Graf.  She was 13 and assumed she’ll have the world forever at her disposal. She was going places, everybody could see that. In April 2001, aged 13, Camille strained a muscle in her right shoulder. She was supposed to enter a tournament for under 14s the following weekend, and so turned to the family doctor for advice. He examined her injury and told her she risked a far greater injury if she played on it.
When she told her temporary coach, he gave her a different story. Camille was equally talented as a left or right handed player, so he suggested using the left shoulder instead, and to take medication to “avoid making it worse”. As a 13-year-old prodigal tennis player, desperate to impress the one who promised her the world, Camille did as he said. She struggled her way into the semi-finals, but lost 6-0 6-0 to a player she had easily beaten on 17 other occasions.
When the doctor examined her, he told her the injury had indeed worsened. Before she had “just” strained a muscle in her shoulder. Playing on injury had caused the damage to intensify: the ligament was torn, the muscle strained, and there was considerable nerve damage. On April 16th, 2001, at 13 years old, Camille was told she could never play competitive tennis again at the level she had been currently playing at.
She had therefore experienced the darkest side of what tennis had to offer. More so than sacrifices, she had been robbed of her talent, her game, her purpose of getting up in the morning. She couldn’t compete anymore, “what reason was there to live now?” She needed answers, but the questions were impossible. Why her? What had she done to deserve it? How come nobody saw the greed in the coach’s eyes, and why didn’t anybody do anything to stop him? She needed to know, she needed those answers because it was the only way for the scars, which ran so deep, to (ever?) heal.
2002 saw Hingis leave the game and Camille fall into a spiral of depression. She had lost her motivation, her love of and for the game. Tennis suddenly wasn’t a game anymore; it was something which had destroyed her. She turned away from it, fell in love with her education, and tried her best to move on from the sport which had caused her so much pain. “I didn’t want anything to do with tennis anymore,” she says. “And school was the ideal escape. I was suddenly just another student instead of a rising tennis player. No one cared about what happened.” The psychological and physical damage started to mend.
Surprisingly, it was Sharapova, who, indirectly, pulled Camille out of her spiral of depression when she won Wimbledon in 2004. “I knew her. I knew the sacrifices she had made and it paid off.” Two years after having vowed to never get involved with the game again, Camille started to become involved with the school’s tennis team, but not as a player: she was a ‘junior assistant coach’. “I could see things about the players,” she says. “I knew how they could improve. And they could relate to me. They liked having that connection.” A connection which would last for another two years.
But it was Hingis’ decision to return to the game which made Camille take a more active role in tennis. “Hingis came back. No one would have blamed if she didn’t and yet she still chose to come back. She did it because she loved the game.” Hingis’ feelings made Camille question her own. She had been destroyed by greed and ambition, yet despite all she had been through, she still felt something for the sport. And so she approached the Geneva tennis club and asked if she could work there during the holidays. Impressed by her CV, she was hired as an ‘assistant recruiter’ for the club. She scouts for up and coming juniors and tries to convince them to play for the club.
She doesn’t know if she’ll find a prodigal tennis player but admits she’ll know immediately if she does. “They’re easy to recognize. They have that look in their eyes. It’s like they know they were born to do it. And they smile when they play. They do it because they love it, their talent hasn’t been corrupted.”
She longs for the world of competitive tennis but is forced to be content with “just hitting a ball back and forth”. She stills feels bitter about what happened, but has learnt to put it behind her. In a few weeks she’s off to college, but in the mean time she has the recruiting job and wants to make the most of it. “Some of the worst memories I have are associated with tennis,” she says, “but some of the best ones are of tennis as well.”
The sun breaks out from the clouds. As if on cue, the bell rings. Camille gives a radiant smile and walks off to class. She’s back to being “just another student.” This is her reality now, and she’s doing just fine.