Rennae Stubbs just short of her 40th birthday is enjoying a career of semi-retirement from professional tennis. Stubbs the longest serving member of the Australian Federation Cup team has made her professional tennis mark as a doubles specialist. Over her twenty year career on the tour she has chalked up sixty tournament wins, including six grand slam doubles titles. Stubbs made history this year by becoming only the fourth player in World Team Tennis history to be on five Championship teams. Stubbs participated as the co-captain on the Washington Kastles. The team was the first in WTT’s 36 year history to have an undefeated season. Rennae’s tennis career is not over but as she winds down she’s been shifting into a new role as a t.v. commentator.
This is the second installment of an interview with professional tennis player Rennae Stubbs, held during the WTA Mercury Insurance Tournament at La Costa Resort and Spa.
SZ: A singles match can be played as early as 11 in the morning while a featured doubles match may not go on court until 9 or 9:30 in the evening. How do you negotiate planning your day?
RS: When you are young it’s easier because your body responds. One big reason I stopped playing singles because I was hurting myself in singles to the point it was affecting my doubles. I was losing matches because either I had bursitis in my knee and I couldn’t really move the way I wanted on the court. I knew I had to concentrate on getting my body healthy and then I could be prepared in the doubles. Yes, physically it’s tough, really tough. Some players like Lisa Raymond have been blessed with good genes and have had few injuries. I think about players that I know that were never in the training room for injuries. Then some players are in there all the time.
SZ: Do you go to the gym while on tour?
RS: Usually every event has a gym either at the courts or at the hotel. Players, depending on how long their match is will do a cool down, maybe a work-out if they are only playing doubles they’ll do a training session after. It’s governed by how much you’re playing. If you are playing a lot of matches, if you feel like you are in shape you need to stay at a certain level or if you feel like you’re getting slow. There were times when I felt like I wasn’t getting up for my overheads or not getting to the first volley and I needed to do more explosive work. It depends on how you are.
SZ: Do you have a trainer at home who sends you work-out programs? Or do you have enough knowledge to do it yourself?
RS: In the last few years it’s narrowed down to me being disciplined enough to do it in the gym myself. When I was playing at my prime I would go home and really have training periods and then go on the road and maintain as much as I could. I also like to push myself in practice. I would always push myself on the court during practice and I think that always helped me.
SZ: Because you were more prepared when you got on the court?
RS: I just liked to push myself out on the court. Steffi Graf was like that. She just worked so hard on the court nothing was harder than that.
SZ: It shows, that’s why you’re Grand Slam Champions.
RS: It wanes, you have your up and down periods where sometimes you are working harder in the gym than other times. It’s a long season. Sometimes you see players working a lot at the start of the year and then at the end they are just trying to maintain their health. A lot of players just do yoga or things that keep themselves fresh. It depends on your body type and what works.
SZ: What do you consider to be your professional title. You just retired this year?
RS: I haven’t officially retired. There was bit of a misconception of my retirement at the start of this year because the Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley asked me if this is my last Australian Open. I said it is, and he said Tennis Australia wanted to do something for me during the Australian Open because I am so rarely at home.
I never retired and haven’t retired from the WTA so when I saw a ticker at the bottom
of the Tennis Channel saying I had retired, I was like “No, no it’s my last Australian Open.” I’ve also said I wouldn’t play Australian Fed Cup anymore because I’ve always made myself available for Fed Cup. I wanted to give the other players an opportunity. Having said that if they said, “We really want you to play, would you play?” I probably would have.
SZ: Can you see yourself coaching Fed Cup for Australia?
RS: I’d love to. I’ve always said if I were asked I would be honored and I would love to do that but I’m not going to boot anyone out. I think everyone is doing a great job.
SZ: Did you enjoy participating on Fed Cup?
RS: Absolutely.
SZ: You’re a team player.
RS: No question. I was orange girl, or hitting partner, or showed up to stand in the corner and do whatever was asked. “Rennae, we need you to serve a hundred balls to a player, or we need you to go out there and win our 5th rubber.” It was just sort of like whatever you need me to do.
SZ: That’s one feature that makes you a great player. You love your environment. You love what you are doing.
RS: I think tennis players are selfish and in their own world. I just love the team environment of Fed Cup. It’s a very Australian thing the mate mentality and I just love it. It’s been really great to play and we have so much fun. I mean our team dinners, the stories, the matches some of the memories from Fed Cup are irreplaceable.
SZ: So it would be be neat if you had an opportunity at some point to be involved with Fed Cup Australia on the coaching side?
RS: No question, it'd be great.
SZ: You are one of the consistently successful players on the tour. In your opinion what are mental toughness qualities that help talented professional players become successful week after week, year after year? Part of it sounds as though it’s just the passion for the game.
RS: I think it’s the passion for the game. The respect for the outcome in the game itself.
SZ: The history?
RS: A little bit. More than anything for me it was about a legacy every time I walked onto the court I wanted to give 100% and never tanked a match. I never threw a match. It was always very obvious that I wanted to win and I think you have to love to win but hate to lose more.
SZ: You have purpose when you play.
RS: You have to have purpose in practice. I tell kids now that I hit with that are sort of half-assing it in practice, “Listen I just want you to know that this is the way you are going to play for the rest of your life, because you can’t practice one way and turn it around in a match. If you can’t do it now you’ll never be able to do it in a match.” Just being around Steffi Graf and some other greats through-out the years I saw that. I’m a pretty jovial kidding person but when I walked onto the court I was very serious about what I did. I think you’ve got to have this yearning to be good everyday. You’ve got to surround yourself with the right people who also want success.
SZ: Who were your early role models and mentors, the people that enriched your life and appreciation of tennis and life?
RS: As a young Australian Liz Smylie was a big influence. She was doing well in doubles, won Wimbledon doubles and was a good singles player. I just sort of hung out with her a lot and practiced with her and Kathy Jordan. They took me under their wing and we would practice and they would make me feel like I had potential to be as good as them. There’s little things I’ve grasped from people. I remember Kathy Jordan yelling at me in practice because I’d hit a volley a certain way and she said, “Don’t ever hit that volley there,” and that resonated in me. I probably say the same thing to younger players now. I just think that’s the great thing about life it’s exposing what you’ve gone through in your life to someone younger and seeing the fruition of it.
SZ: The tour is an unusual place because players come and go. It’s the opportunity to be mentored by this flexible family of people.
RS: It’s true. I’ve had different people just sort of tell me different things through-out my career that I grabbed ahold of and used to help me through big matches. Todd Woodbridge would tell me things during mixed doubles matches that I would remember on the doubles court. Todd had told me he would play with me if I reached number one in the world in women’s doubles. I got to number one in the world and he didn’t play with me. I had to beat him in the Australian Open final before he agreed to play with me. We ended up winning the U.S. Open (2001) together which is pretty special.
SZ: You haven’t experienced huge gaps in your career, you’ve been consistent.
RS: Yeah, I take pride in that. In 2009 when I played with Samantha Stosur and we made the finals of Wimbledon and the finals of some big events we ended up not winning a tournament that year, although we made the end of the year Tour Championships. We had a good year but it was the first time since 1992 I hadn’t won a tournament. I said the year I don’t win a tournament is the year I quit. I got to the end of 2009 and thought I had such a good year it would be a bummer to stop on this note so I played on in 2010 and Lisa Raymond and I won the tournament at Eastbourne which made it 60 tour titles for me and 70 titles for her. It was kinda cool. You don’t think about it until people begin saying 60 tournaments, it’s a lot of tournament wins.
Sandra Cecchini was an Italian singles player and she won an event every year she played on the tour. When I heard that I thought that would be an awesome accomplishment. I thought it was a good goal.
Thursday, part 3 of the 4 part interview, do players relax on tour, how
sport psychology fits for players, and thoughts about her career transition.
Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro
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