At 2:40 p.m. while most students are headed home, sophomore Scarlett Gates is in the middle of her training. By the time her classmates are finishing their last block, she is already on the court. Scarlett made the decision this year not to play for the girls tennis team at school. Instead, she competes in USTA tournaments, training at a higher level with one goal in mind: Division 1 recruitment.
“I am trying to get recruited to a division 1 tennis team, and it’s easier for me to do that when I only play for USTA,” Gates said.
For Gates, tennis has never just been a school sport. It’s a commitment that takes up most of her day, every day. “I practice for six hours every day,” Gates said. “I leave school early at 2 p.m. and stay there until 8 p.m. I practice for five hours, and I do fitness for an hour every day.”
While other students hang out after school, go to games or relax at home, Gates is running drills and pushing through conditioning workouts. Gates’s schedule doesn’t leave much room for anything else.
“I don’t get as much social life as everyone else does,” Gates said. “I also have to leave school early due to my training schedule, so I don’t get as much time to do homework and spend time with people.”
Her weekends aren’t typical either. Instead of staying home, she often travels across the country for tournaments, competing against some of the best players in her age group, then returning to school the next day.
“The hardest part about training year-round is motivation and not thinking about results,” Gates said. “It is also hard to travel across the country most weekends and coming back to schools the next day. I almost stepped back from tennis because I felt it was too much to handle, and I wasn’t getting the results I wanted for work I was putting into it. But I think overall, it was worth it to start receiving Division 1 offers soon.”
Gates has been making sacrifices for tennis most of her life.
“I was homeschooled from fourth grade through ninth grade. I had to give up a lot of my friendships and other activities I used to do, Gates said.
Those sacrifices still affect her today.
“I feel like I don’t get the same experiences that everyone else gets,” Gates said. “It’s a lot. I spend most of my day training, and I miss out on a lot of real-world experiences.”
But she keeps showing up.
“Through the years tennis has taught me to always work my very best and to find the motivation even if I don’t feel like doing it,” Gates said. “I saw my older siblings work hard and succeed, so I want to do the same.”
Gates’s high school experience may not look like everyone else’s. Instead, she chases something bigger than a single season. For Gates, tennis isn’t just part of her life. It is her life.
