In 2021, Tennis Acumen interviewed American Evan King at the Champaign Challenger tournament. Here is a part of that conversation:
Tennis Acumen: At what point do you say: “I'm done playing tennis.”?
Evan King: I think when I stop feeling that I can improve. I reached, I think, #185 in the world a couple of years ago, late 2018. And then my singles ranking was going down. When I decided to stop, I was about #380 and my doubles ranking was still # 130. So, I'm pretty good at this. Let's see if I can crack top hundred or top 70. This is my first year of focusing solely on doubles. I want to see how that goes. I have had some ups and downs, some good results, some poor results. Next year, I’ll try to use what I have learned and make a couple of better decisions and play better moments. It is a different scoring system with no-ad and ten-point tiebreakers. Picking partners, finding what skill sets you match with and see what people that you match with. Because you have to vibe as a person and get along, strategize, all that kind of stuff.
Tennis Acumen: I've heard it said that playing doubles can be a bit like a marriage.
Evan King: Yeah, totally. you spend a ton of time together. You are traveling together; you're practicing every single day together. You're eating majority of meals together unless you don't like each other. it is a ton of time together, so you need to know what makes each other tick. If I feel I plateaued at a ranking or get stalled at a prize money that's not sustainable to live on, then I will stop. There are things I can definitely improve on. There's more that I can learn. So, until that happens, I'll keep it going.
More of this exclusive interview is available at Tennis Acumen. Go to the interviews category, shown on the upper right hand side of the screen.
Tags: @EvanKingChicago
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