00:00:10.740 - 00:00:20.930

I started playing tennis when I was three. My older brothers played. And my parents were not really tennis aficionados. But we did belong to a tennis club.

00:00:20.930 - 00:00:28.120

And because my brothers were taking lessons, I wanted to take lessons. And I kept asking for lessons when I was four, when I was five, when I was six.

00:00:28.120 - 00:00:39.890

They wouldn't give me lessons because they thought I was too young. Finally, when I turned seven, I took my first lesson by a guy by the name of Luis Ayala, who is a Chilean former top 10

00:00:39.890 - 00:00:53.390

player who lived in Puerto Rico at the time. So that was my first introduction to tennis lessons. And it was not successful right away. I lost my first match that I played, 6-0, 6-0.

00:00:53.390 - 00:01:10.330

But I persevered and played junior tournaments in Puerto Rico growing up, under 12, under 14, under 16. And I had enough talent to not practise very much and still be number one in my age group, and the two age groups above.

00:01:10.330 - 00:01:19.270

So I figured why practise more if I'm already beating everybody in my age group and the two above? So I didn't really take tennis seriously until I went to college.

00:01:19.270 - 00:01:29.980

I got a college scholarship for Clemson University in South Carolina. And that was the first time in my life that I started to play tennis every day.

00:01:29.980 - 00:01:43.320

So obviously, my improvement there really was meteoric. I improved so much my first year having to play tennis every day. I made the finals of NCAA as a freshman. And I lost to a girl who was ranked number 27th in the world

00:01:43.320 - 00:01:49.020

at the time. College players have pro rankings. But it was 7-6 and 1/3. I had a match point.

00:01:49.020 - 00:01:59.340

But I still to this point didn't really think I would have a professional career. But six weeks later, I was watching Wimbledon. And she's playing on centre court against Billie Jean King

00:01:59.340 - 00:02:07.230

on the round 16, and she's beating her. And I was like, wow, that's a girl I almost beat. So that's what I kind of figured-- I think I have a shot.

00:02:07.230 - 00:02:16.080

Because before that, she was saying she was 27th in the world. But if you think back to 1983, there was no computers, no cell phones, no internet, really no way to verify her

00:02:16.080 - 00:02:24.130

claim of being ranked 27th in the world. But when I saw her play Billie, I thought, wow, this could be something. I might have a career here.

00:02:32.060 - 00:02:40.070

So when I started playing professionally, I didn't really have success right away. I had, I'd say, four years of struggle. I was not happy.

00:02:40.070 - 00:02:50.120

It's interesting when you have such a successful junior career. I wasn't used to losing. I lost a handful of times in my life, and then I turned pro. And then when you turn pro, you lose every single week, twice--

00:02:50.120 - 00:02:59.840

lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. So I wasn't really used to losing. I hadn't learned that losing our learning experiences. So four years in, I was pretty much going to hang it up.

00:02:59.840 - 00:03:08.430

I was had it. And my agent said to me, OK, before you quit, why don't you go meet Dr. Jim Loehr? And Dr. Loehr is a very famous sports psychologist.

00:03:08.430 - 00:03:18.140

And he taught me a few things before the 1988 US Open. The first one being, he asked me if I could act. And I said, well, I don't know. What do you want me to do?

00:03:18.140 - 00:03:26.430

And he said, well, I want you to pretend like you're having fun. I know you hate it, and I know that you're going to quit at the end of this grand slam. But let's just pretend like you're having fun.

00:03:26.430 - 00:03:34.980

And I must have had the acting gene because Jose Ferrer is an Academy Award winner, who's actually my great uncle. So I acted the first match, like I was having fun.

00:03:34.980 - 00:03:42.840

And we won that match 6-4 and the third. And I came off the court. And he said, are you having fun now? I'm like, no, it was stressful.

00:03:42.840 - 00:03:49.980

6-4 and the third is stressful. He said, well, just keep doing it. So I won the next match and the next match and the next match. And then we made it to the semi finals of the US Open,

00:03:49.980 - 00:04:00.450

playing the best team in the history of our sport. Pam Shriver, Martina Navratilova, they won 21 grand slams as a team, more than any other team, male or female.

00:04:00.450 - 00:04:11.130

And they had just finished 108-match win streak. They won 108 matches in a row. That's three years without losing. And they had just finished that streak at Wimbledon.

00:04:11.130 - 00:04:19.340

And now, we're playing them in the US Open and really had no chance. But if you remember the song at the time was, "don't worry, be happy."

00:04:19.340 - 00:04:25.150

And my partner and I just kept singing that song, "don't worry, be happy." And then, we actually beat them. We beat them three sets.

00:04:25.150 - 00:04:31.690

And I come off the court and Jim says, are you having fun now? I'm like, yes, I'm having fun. I'm in the finals of the US Open. And then we won.

00:04:31.690 - 00:04:46.950

I won my first grand slam, kidding myself into thinking that I was having fun. So then, that was a little bit of a breakthrough, but still not really enough to make a giant I guess, a giant--

00:04:46.950 - 00:04:57.060

I don't know what the word I'm looking for-- but not enough to keep me satisfied, put it that way. And three or four years later, it's really when I had my major breakthrough, which was in 1992.

00:04:57.060 - 00:05:09.450

I went to the Martina Navratilova. And Billie Jean King asked me to go to train with them on the way to Europe at a place with a Deepak Chopra Centre in Lancaster,

00:05:09.450 - 00:05:19.680

Massachusetts, where we're going to learn transcendental meditation, learn about Ayurvedic medicine. I also learned how to practise diaphragmatic breathing, so breathing from your diaphragm.

00:05:19.680 - 00:05:31.380

And I took those newfound skills that I just learned into the European swing. And I won the French open, Wimbledon, the Olympic gold medal, the US Open, the championships,

00:05:31.380 - 00:05:41.100

and the Australian Open, all within an eight-month period from learning how to meditate. So meditation changed my life. And what it taught me was the skill of changing one

00:05:41.100 - 00:05:54.270

thought for another without judgement or emotion. So if you can change your thoughts and remove the emotion, that's very powerful, not just in tennis but in life. So I could take any unpleasant situation, like bad call.

00:05:54.270 - 00:06:04.170

The umpire messed it up. Or I blew a lead. My partner missed an easy ball and set point. The opponent's got a lucky record,

00:06:04.170 - 00:06:11.710

any number of things that could be upsetting, even life things, like my parents getting a divorce during Wimbledon, or my grandmother passing away during championships.

00:06:11.710 - 00:06:21.810

I was able to put those thoughts into-- change those thoughts for another and remove the emotion. And it was really incredibly powerful. And so I ended up winning--

00:06:21.810 - 00:06:30.570

my partner and I, Natasha Zvereva-- that was her-- when we started playing, that first grand slam that I mentioned, the French Open, was our the first grand slam we ever played together.

00:06:30.570 - 00:06:44.160

And we won six grand slams in a row, which is still a record for a new team getting together. And then, we ended up winning 14 grand slams in five years, which is also a record of how many grand slams

00:06:44.160 - 00:06:53.320

in that short period of time. So we were winning two or three grand slams every year for five and a half years. So yeah, that was kind of a nutshell of my career.

00:06:53.320 - 00:07:04.780

And, and then in '97, I decided to retire because Natasha wanted to-- she was eight years younger, and I was 33. And the game was starting to change.

00:07:04.780 - 00:07:14.940

It was starting to go to the power game where people really were hitting the ball extremely hard. And I was more of a finesse player, position the ball like play traditional doubles,

00:07:14.940 - 00:07:25.650

chipping, charged, hit, angled volleys. So she felt like my game was not going to be successful in the future, which we'll never know if it was or wasn't because we stopped playing

00:07:25.650 - 00:07:33.970

and I retired. And I remember thinking I've won 17 grand slams and two Olympic gold medals. So how is my life going to change if I win one more?

00:07:33.970 - 00:07:45.600

So I felt-- at the time, 33 was a dinosaur to be playing. People now are playing into the 40s. But it was a long 14-year career. Back then, people were not playing so long.

00:07:45.600 - 00:07:58.130

So we didn't have the support, I guess, from the medical perspective. We didn't have all the physios and the masseuses and the trainers and all the fitness that they do now.

00:07:58.130 - 00:08:08.860

We didn't have that. So I think our bodies broke down a lot sooner than they do now. So yeah, I retired in '97. And that was a long time ago.

00:08:08.860 - 00:08:25.960

But yeah, that was sort of my career. When I first started playing tennis as a junior, I was playing for Puerto Rico. I obviously grew up in Puerto Rico.

00:08:25.960 - 00:08:34.100

And Puerto Rico is a very unique country in that all Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but we have sports independence. sports are sports independent.

00:08:34.100 - 00:08:42.670

So you could be Puerto Rican and represent Puerto Rico, but you could also be Puerto Rican and represent the United States. And it happened in a few occasions

00:08:42.670 - 00:08:54.430

that people from Puerto Rico would go play for the United states, but no one ever won a medal. So my junior career, I spent playing Pan American Games and Central American Games, which

00:08:54.430 - 00:09:06.940

are sort of lesser versions of the Olympics, like the Commonwealth Games or the Pan Asian Games with pretty good success there, I would say. And then in the '84 Olympics, which were in LA,

00:09:06.940 - 00:09:16.840

I represented Puerto Rico. It was an exhibition sport. It was the first year that tennis was reintroduced back into the Olympics since the 1930s.

00:09:16.840 - 00:09:22.580

Steffi Graf won the singles. I played in the singles. I lost first round. There was no doubles competition.

00:09:22.580 - 00:09:40.530

As you know, I was better known for my doubles play. So when the Olympics came around, right around that time-- '88 was the Seoul Olympics, and I had won the US Open what was my first grand slam.

00:09:40.530 - 00:09:49.160

And I thought-- I wasn't sure if I could play for Puerto Rico or not. But there was not another player that I could play with. I probably could have played singles,

00:09:49.160 - 00:09:59.390

but I definitely couldn't have played doubles. And I already knew that my future was in doubles. So I didn't play the '88 Seoul Olympics. And then I started representing the United States

00:09:59.390 - 00:10:10.740

in Fed Cup and Wightman Cup. And of course, it was very controversial in Puerto Rico because most Puerto Ricans weren't happy that I left Puerto Rico to play for the United States.

00:10:10.740 - 00:10:21.180

But my take was that I didn't have a choice because if I wanted to win a gold medal, I had to go play for the United States. And what Olympian doesn't want to win a gold medal?

00:10:21.180 - 00:10:34.940

We all train and dream of winning Olympic gold medals. So when '92 Barcelona came around, then I had already been representing the United States. So I really had-- my only option was to play for the United

00:10:34.940 - 00:10:46.550

States at this point. I had a handful of partners to choose from. Mary Joe Fernandez, Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati, these were the options for my partners.

00:10:46.550 - 00:10:56.690

While I was in Puerto Rico, there was really not another college-ranked player, even, or highly regarded junior, or anybody that I could have played-- that would have even qualified us

00:10:56.690 - 00:11:01.800

for the event. So for most people listening to this, they're going to say, well, of course, you're going to play for the United States.

00:11:01.800 - 00:11:13.220

But most Puerto Ricans don't feel that way. They still feel like I was a traitor, that I abandoned the country. And there's a lot of, I'd say, animosity towards the decision

00:11:13.220 - 00:11:21.360

still to this day. So in the end, I have two gold medals. You can see them right there. And that made it all worth it.

00:11:21.360 - 00:11:33.920

But I wish that the circumstances would have been different in that I wish that I would have been applauded by the entire world and not by half the population of Puerto Rico.

00:11:33.920 - 00:11:44.130

Representing your country in the Olympics, I think it's the highest honour that an athlete could have. Sport's generally very solitary. You're very independent.

00:11:44.130 - 00:11:53.760

Even on team sports, it's you training and you spending the hours and you're doing it for yourself. Particularly, with individual sports, like tennis and golf, You do it for yourself, maybe for your team.

00:11:53.760 - 00:12:00.470

But really, by and large, you're playing for yourself. And then when you compete in the Olympics, or you're representing your country, you're no longer playing for you,

00:12:00.470 - 00:12:10.910

you're playing for your country. So it really has had a different feeling. I always played my best tennis for some reason when I was playing for Fed Cup, which is our tennis

00:12:10.910 - 00:12:26.060

competition of nations, similar to the Davis Cup in the men. I always behaved my best and gave my best effort and never-- always had a good attitude. So when the Olympics came around,

00:12:26.060 - 00:12:35.900

just walking into the opening ceremonies was-- that's really all you need. Winning the gold medal is cherry and icing on the-- cherry on the top or icing on the cake.

00:12:35.900 - 00:12:44.510

But just walking-- I still remember it very vividly, walking into the opening ceremonies. We were underneath the stadium in Atlanta,

00:12:44.510 - 00:12:54.480

particularly the one in Barcelona, because it was enclosed stadium, so we were walking under the tunnel, waiting to go on. And there were 600 US athletes.

00:12:54.480 - 00:13:09.690

And we all started chanting USA, and it was reverberating. And it was one of the most special moments in my life. And then, of course, in Atlanta, we came down a ramp. So there wasn't the same sound to the entrance

00:13:09.690 - 00:13:17.630

into the stadium. But it was still-- just walking into the stadium, you feel like you've accomplished your lifelong dreams,

00:13:17.630 - 00:13:36.210

even if you dare to dream to play in the Olympic games. Just walking in is really all you need. So it's pretty special. Yeah, so then, I retired, and I went on this journey,

00:13:36.210 - 00:13:44.350

trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I was 33 years old, and then I'd done the same thing for 30 years. And one day I woke up, and I wasn't doing that thing anymore.

00:13:44.350 - 00:13:53.400

And I was like, now what? It was a real struggle. It was a huge adjustment. There's no books you can read about retiring at 33.

00:13:53.400 - 00:14:03.150

It was very-- I felt very alone. It was a really difficult period. So I completed my undergraduate degree

00:14:03.150 - 00:14:14.460

because I had left Clemson after one year, and subsequently got my MBA and started a bunch of businesses. I had an internet company before the bubble burst in then late '90s.

00:14:14.460 - 00:14:22.930

I had a weight loss business. I had a real estate business. I had a wine cellar business. I had a baby video business.

00:14:22.930 - 00:14:30.100

I had a-- you name it, I try to start it, and not successfully, I might add. So eventually I got my MBA so I could figure out how to run a business.

00:14:30.100 - 00:14:37.030

And then, with that, I got hired to be director of tennis at a club. And now, this is when I came back to tennis. It was 15 years after retiring.

00:14:37.030 - 00:14:46.970

And I had spent those 15 years trying to be something other than Gigi Fernandez, a tennis player. And finally, I came to the realisation that I was always going to be different as a tennis player.

00:14:46.970 - 00:14:53.710

I could be something else. Like, I'm now a Mum, and I could be an entrepreneur, or I could be a coach. But I was always going to be that.

00:14:53.710 - 00:15:05.290

And I needed to go back and embrace it. So I started as a director of tennis at a facility in Connecticut and developed what-- there was a programme called The Gigi Method,

00:15:05.290 - 00:15:17.560

because what I saw was people not really understanding the game of doubles, which is very different than the game of singles, and coaches trying to teach doubles how they play, which is also not how you teach.

00:15:17.560 - 00:15:28.270

Because the skill of a pro is not the skill of a intermediate player, sort of mid-level player. So I spent a lot of hours on the court coaching.

00:15:28.270 - 00:15:44.440

And in the USTA, rating system is 3-0s to 5-0s. So I would say beginner to intermediate to below college level players, and created this programme that has really resonated with people because it really explains doubles from

00:15:44.440 - 00:15:52.480

the geometric perspective. Doubles is very geometric. There's a high-percentage shot, and then the next shot that is less high-percentage, and then

00:15:52.480 - 00:16:00.190

continues on. Usually, anytime I hit the shot-- the ball, I had six options for what shot to hit. And there was the one that I should

00:16:00.190 - 00:16:07.750

hit, the high-percentage one. And then there's the one that if I pulled it off, the crowd was going to cheer. So the discipline is in continuing

00:16:07.750 - 00:16:15.560

to hit that high-percentage shot. So I put this programme together. And then I-- so basically what I do now is I combine my two passions, tennis and travel.

00:16:15.560 - 00:16:23.840

I love to travel. And I bring people to unique, fun locations. I have camps here in Tampa where I live, and we go to the tournament in Indian Wells.

00:16:23.840 - 00:16:29.570

I'm bringing a group to Wimbledon. I'm bringing group to the French Open. I have a safari. I'm putting together-- right now,

00:16:29.570 - 00:16:40.290

I'm in the middle of a Africa court renovation project. I'm trying to renovate tennis courts in Africa, or in Tanzania specifically, so that the kids in Tanzania can have better opportunities.

00:16:40.290 - 00:16:49.870

And then, I'm going to bring-- if I'm successful renovating the course, I'm going to put together a safari for tennis fans to go do a tennis safari, which would be super fun.

00:16:49.870 - 00:16:56.610

I have a trip in the Virgin Islands, which is where I grew up visiting-- grew up in Puerto Rico-- vacationing in the virgin islands.

00:16:56.610 - 00:17:03.910

And I have some contacts there, so I have a group of people going there. So that's what I do. I combine my two loves, tennis and travel.

00:17:03.910 - 00:17:11.520

I'm a Mum. I have 15-year-old twins, and that's my number one, my number two, my number three priority. My daughter is a high-level soccer player,

00:17:11.520 - 00:17:23.360

and my son is a golfer. So I spend a lot of time dedicated to them as a Mum. That's, like I said, my number one priority. And life is treating me good.