After winning yet another French Open match, Sloane Stephens walked into the interview room and said, “It is nice and bright in here.” Actually, what’s nice and bright in American tennis these days is one breezy belle from Bel Air, California, Ms. S. Stephens. Okay, she’s far from being another Seles, Capriati or Hingis. But it’s nice to have another bright, confident and amazingly self-assured teen in the conversation. Though just 19, Stephens lights up a room and is beginning to light up the scoreboard. The youngest player in the top 70, she doesn’t lack for confidence. When IT asked her what we would be saying about her in a decade, she said without hesitation, “In 10 years I better have won this [Roland Garros] one time at least, otherwise I will be one unhappy camper.” After today’s convincing 6-3, 6-2 triumph over France’s Mathilde Johansson, her ranking will zoom. She’s close to making it onto the Olympic team and may soon make it into the hearts of many a tennis fan.
But it all hasn’t been easy. Stephens was estranged from her father, John, a former running back for the New England Patriots, and she was just renewing the relationship when, almost two years ago, he was killed in a car accident. On court, she reached the third round of last year’s U.S. Open, but she had a modest start this year, barely winning more matches then she lost. Then, while in Spain practicing on clay, her favorite surface, she melted down.
“If you only knew what was happening three and a half weeks ago,” she confided. “I mean … the only way to go was up. So my mom and aunt came, and that helped me a lot, because I don’t know what was going on. My head was – I was having brain farts and things weren’t going my way.
“I was being 19, and I think now I am being 29 … My mom and aunt definitely helped me through the last couple of weeks … I’m very grateful for that … I don’t know what I was doing. I stopped drinking soda. I think that helped. I haven’t eaten as much candy … I’m moving in the right direction.”
A fan of the Williams sisters who as a kid had Venus and Serena posters in her room, Sloane was raised by her mom, who was an undefeated swimmer at Boston University, plus her grandmother and a team of eight aunts and uncles who did OK in the child-rearing department.
Her mom, Sybil, told reporters that she named her daughter Sloane in part because it means warrior. The “go to” slogan around Sloane is “work hard, no excuses.” When asked how, in tense moments, she manages her emotions, the Californian said, “I definitely have practiced that and worked on staying calm. That’s helped a lot. My grandparents gave me a necklace, and it says ‘In calmness and confidence.’ Every time I’m like getting really tight or I’m like, oh, my God, what am I doing, I’m just like, OK, relax, you can do that.”
It’s doubtful that the young, happy warrior can do what her heroes Venus and Serena have done. Who could? But what one can say, with some calm and a lot of confidence, is that for many a year this rising warrior, with her athletic baseline game, will bring joy to many a tennis fan.
