Throughout November and December, we'll be highlighting the true heroes of tennis with our annual celebration of the gifted, the courageous, the inspired and the inspiring. You can read about heroes we've honored previously here.
For most players who take a break from tennis, rediscovering timing simply takes time. It’s easy to get frustrated when starting up again, but players of all skill levels can usually regain their timing within a day or two, if not at the end of their first hit.
Peyton Palermo is not like most players. The 16-year-old former top junior from Colorado had to accept that she would never be the player she once was. Her muscle control, speech, vision and mobility were affected after a brain tumor she had partially removed when she was 5 returned when she was 12. “All of the other players were getting better, and then there was me who was starting all over again,” Palermo says.
A couple of years after having the tumor (pilocytic astrocytoma) first removed, Palermo picked up a racquet for the first time and hasn’t let go since. She was ranked in the Top 15 in the Satellite division of the Girls’ 12 and unders and had dreams of playing Division I tennis when she discovered that the tumor had returned. When she woke up from surgery, she couldn’t feel the entire right side of her body. “In the recovery room, I had my tennis racquet on my bed to kind of inspire me,” Palermo says, but she couldn’t even wrap her hand around the grip.
Palermo went through 18 months of various forms of physical therapy just to be able to learn to walk again. Originally right-handed, she had to learn how to write with her left hand because her right side was too weak. While this was taking place, her physical therapists gave Palermo foam tennis balls and a plastic tennis racquet to try to hit with in the hallways of the hospital. It was something she was familiar with, and something she embraced enthusiastically.
“Her love of the game has driven her physical recovery,” says Palermo’s mother, Celeste. “It helped her healing overall.”
But Palermo didn’t realize just how hard this recovery would be. When the tumor was removed the first time, she exhibited no hand-eye coordination deficits. When she went in for surgery seven years later, Palermo and her family remained optimistic, considering the four surgeries she had at age 5 went so well.
This time, however, Palermo had to make significant adjustments to her life, and her game. Described by her mother as having a “textbook forehand and backhand” and “the most beautiful strokes ever,” Palermo had to learn how to hit a two-handed forehand because she needed her stronger left hand to help her right hand control the ball. Her serve breaks down and she has trouble with certain strokes. After an exhausting workout, her right leg often shakes.
“I’m not 100 percent, and I don’t think I ever will be,” she says. “You can’t tell, though, unless I tell you.”
