- 2019 Highlights
Personal Statement
When I was five, I had a dream about becoming a tennis player, and ever since tennis has been a considerable part of my life. I enjoy the sport and love the competition.
My family and I are expats (originally from Sweden), and I started off playing tennis for fun with my friends and brothers in Belgrade, Serbia. Tennis was a way for my brother and me to make friends in each new country we lived in. Three years later we moved to Casablanca, Morocco where I trained with a Moroccan coach. After two years we once again moved, this time to Lima, Peru. In Lima, my training became more serious as I started to excel in my game and win matches. At that point, I started playing with an American coach connected with the Peruvian Tennis Federation with whom I trained with throughout my 5 1/2 years in Peru. I started to take tennis more and more serious and played as many tournaments as possible in the region. That was the point when I had fallen in love with the sport. I increased my court time and in June 2017 I joined the Peruvian Federation to get a national ranking. I only had time to play in the Peruvian Tennis Federation for one year before our next move. When leaving Peru in June 2018 I was ranked 26 in GS16.
Now I am 17, currently living in Johannesburg, South Africa. I have joined the Tennis South Africa Association and practice and play daily to get nationally ranked. As dedicated as I am to tennis I am just as committed to my education. I will graduate in the spring 2020 with an International Baccalaureate High School Degree. I simply love playing tennis and being on the court. Tennis has given me a way to have consistency throughout all of the amazing countries I have lived in through coaches and friends I have met on and off the court. The universal language of tennis is spoken in all the countries I have lived in.
On the court, some of my many strengths are that I’m very coachable and my athletic ability/movement on the court. I also consider my first serve an advantage, though occasionally a weakness as it is powerful but could be more consistent. I’m currently working on increasing my consistency and balance on the court. But overall I am a strong player and can dominate my opponents with my versatility and athletic ability. My goal is to reach top 20 in South Africa before I turn 18. (TSA ranking GS17 78 of 1051, June 2019)
Other than tennis I love spending time with my family exploring the world and life as an expat. I also enjoy being creative while studying the visual arts and fashion, which I do through my IB Arts courses, as well as fashion modeling (Insta:@vhstar & @vegahorberg).
Living in several different countries and being able to see life from many different perspectives has given me an opportunity to know the world around me and what I want in my future. My goal is to find a college where I will be able to study business and visual arts at the same time as I pursue my passion for tennis.
