Olivia Slate '22 Recruiting Profile

The biggest obstacle I’ve had to overcome is a tendency to dwell on the fact that I started playing competitive tennis relatively late in life – immediately following my 13^th birthday. I spent my early childhood trying everything from soccer to gymnastics, ballet, basketball, musical theatre, science, art, technology and music.  My mom let me find my passion, instead of finding it for me. Once tennis made its way on to my summer camp schedule, I was hooked.  I remember the joy I felt learning how to play, the exhiliration from those early tournament match wins.  But as time went on, I began to fixate on how far I could’ve gone with my tennis, had I actually picked up a racket at age five.   I kept focusing on what could have been, instead of concentrating on what can be. 

I worked with a variety of coaches and began to receive consistent feedback  - that I possess special qualities that can’t be taught, including a true love for the game, a fighting spirit and a determination to win.  This slowly changed my perspective on what makes a good tennis player.  I am much more present these days with my tennis.  I continue to focus heavily on evolving the physical and technical aspects of my game,  but I’ve learned that my love for tennis, along with my ‘take no prisoners’ attitude when I compete, levels the playing field against opponents with a longer tennis resume.  I now realize that ballet gave me good balance, soccer gave me endurance, basketball gave me good footwork, gymnastics gave me flexibility and strength. My aptitude in math, science and technology is what makes me innovative on the court and a good problem solver during matches.  Ten years of piano (and still going strong) has made me comfortable performing under pressure.  My short term goal is to secure the #1 singles position on the varsity team this year and reach the finals at State. My goal senior year is to Captain the varsity team and win State. My college goals are two-fold; to pursue my love of technology and study Computer Science and to play college tennis.  I’ve played 193 USTA matches in three years, so maybe I’m still trying to make up for a little lost time, and loving every minute of it.