American Mallory Burdette, who reached the third round of the Family Circle Cup before falling to Serena Williams, talks about growing up in a tennis family and allegedly falling asleep under a tennis ball basket when she was a kid.
“My mom has been a huge part of all of my brothers and sisters and I’s tennis career,” the former Stanford University player told reporters. “She wanted us to play a sport, I think it was either golf or tennis. And with four kids, having all of them in the same sport was much easier than having everybody going to different events each weekend. So, I was the youngest of the family and so as soon as I was able to wield a tennis racket I was out there on the court hitting with my older siblings.
"I don’t necessarily remember the story about falling asleep under the tennis basket, but I don’t doubt that it happened. I feel like I was very lucky to be the youngest in my family to feel like my parents had all the kinks worked out by the time I came around, they knew exactly how they wanted to develop me as a tennis player. I’m very, very fortunate to come from such a big tennis family.”