She was a star at 9 years old and retired from tennis without winning a professional match
The story of Monique Viele is one that all parents should read. It's an example of how a girl who seemed to have all the tools to succeed ended up leaving tennis quietly and through the back door.
There are tennis stories that need extra time for rest and reflection to understand what really happened. In the case of Monique Viele, why nothing happened that everyone assumed would. At the age of 9, she had already signed with IMG, gone through Nick Bollettieri's academy, and was presented as a future global star. Unfortunately for her, none of these dreams materialized.
Today, Monique is 41 years old and does not shy away from recalling that stage with a very different perspective. Of course, tennis taught her a lot, but it also showed her too soon the price of turning a girl into a sports project. Her latest interview with the colleagues from L'Equipe is delightful, which is why we wanted to highlight some of the most interesting statements.
Viele started playing at just seven and a half years old, initially trained by her father. Very soon, she began to dominate tournaments of different categories, accumulating up to ten trophies in three weeks. Her talent caught the industry's attention, and her family ended up moving to Florida. There, she worked with Bollettieri, Chris Evert, and Rick Macci, while her name began to grow beyond the courts. The Viele phenomenon was on the verge of acquiring extraordinary dimensions.
At 13, she won most of the junior tournaments she participated in and even conquered the Florida Open under-18. IMG secured advertising contracts and television appearances while her father started a battle with the WTA for her to compete professionally before the established age. The problem was that exposure grew much faster than the player. Media, sponsors, fans, and even stalkers and death threats arrived. At 14, she met Donald Trump, who would later manage part of her career and secured her a contract with Fila worth 1.8 million dollars.
Her professional debut came in Tokyo in September 1999. She was 14 years and 11 months old and suddenly found herself in front of 10,000 spectators, having never played a professional match before. She lost to Jane Chi 6-3, 6-1. However, the hardest part came afterward. As she recalls, Rick Macci labeled her as “the biggest disappointment in the world” and reproached her for all the money he had lost with her.
Monique Viele, from failure to starting over
Viele did not then find the path to stardom that everyone had imagined. She continued on the secondary circuit until 2002, accumulating 12 wins and 23 losses, and reached a best ranking of 817 in the world. After suffering problems in both wrists, she left tennis.
For four years, she stored her rackets in a closet in Arizona and decided to start over without telling anyone that she had been a professional. Paradoxically, it was there that she rediscovered tennis. She eventually became a coach and has been linked to teaching for two decades. Today, Viele no longer speaks from resentment; her reflection is much deeper. The American believes that tennis has learned from stories like hers, that of Jennifer Capriati and others who were exposed too soon. Her story reminds us that behind every “prodigy child” is a person who is still learning to be an adult. It reminds us that sometimes, winning simply means surviving what everyone expected you to be.
This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Fue una estrella con 9 años y se retiró del tenis sin ganar un partido profesional