Page 42 - Full Solutions 2nd Advanced Student Book_Neat

LittCe rta*r 40 sitting in my hotel room all night, going, "Well, everybody

:) thinks l'm great because I won the match, but what about
1
Andrea Jaeger was a tormented teenager lost in the
the person I beat? How's she feeling?"' She minded
world of professional tennis. Now she's at peace with
losing less than her opponents did. Only in 2008, though,
herself.
did Jaeger admit to deliberately losing the final of the
45
At the age of 47 and more than two decades after her 1983 Wimbledon Championships, a tournament she had
5 blasted through without losing a set. On the eve of the
enforced retirement from the game, Jaeger now runs a
charity that she set up to help children with cancer. lt has final, after a protracted row with her father, she was shut
been a long, sometimes tortuous, often uplifting journey out of the family's rented house in Wimbledon. Jaeger
of sacrifice on the road to a destiny she dimly glimpsed went to knock on the door of the only person she knew
as an impressionable teenager lost in an adult world. in the street, which happened to be Navratilova. The next
day the three-time champion finished Jaeger off in 54
10
Along the way she had to reconcile a stormy relationship
minutes.
with her overbearing father, Roland, and admit to losing
'l never looked back on my tennis career until this year
matches on purpose, among them the Wimbledon final
of 1983. Through a painful and all too brief chitdhood, and l've never wondered how good I could have been,'
Jaeger discovered she had few equals at hitting tennis she says. 'lf l'd stayed out there for ten years and not been
15 injured and won allthe Grand Slams, lthink I would have
balls, but lacked the killer instinct required of great
champions. ln the women's locker-room, inhabited by lost a bit of my soul. Professional tennis was my teenage
Chris Evert, Billie-Jean King and Martina Navratilova, the calling; this is my adult calling. When my teenage years
fifteen-year-old found herself out of step with a ruthlessly were done, it was time to move on to something else.'
competitive environment. Success is now measured in less stark ways than
20 the numbers on a scoreboard. Raising money for her
'l didn't join the circuit to be number one', she says. 'l
joined because I was good enough to.' She also played charity requires preparation and discipline, qualities
the game to please her parents. 'Kids should be driven by easily transferable from the tennis court, but the sound
their own goals and their own passion, not by someone of laughter coming from the children on holiday at the
else's. That's when it becomes dangerous,' she says. foundation's ranch near Aspen in Colorado echoes
through each day. Many of them have never seen a
25
Jaeger took the first opportunity offered to her by a
mountain, let alone experienced rafting down the Roaring
shoulder injury, sustained at the French Open in 1984, to
Fork River, with Jaeger as guide. Recently she was
pursue the life that secretly she had always been wanting
recognised by a fellow passenger on a plane not for
to lead. She set up the Little Star Foundation - initially being a former tennis champion, but for running a cancer
with her career earnings of $1 .38m - to help children with
30 charity. That pleased her, a sign of progress in her own
cancer or at risk in the community.
life too.
'When I got injured, to be honest, I was relieved', she
A few years ago Jaeger returned to Wimbledon with
explains. 'Everyone was applauding me for playing
some of her terminally ill kids and the guards on the gate
tennis, but when I was injured I thought, "Finally, I can go
not only recognised her but gave the children bags of
and be me." I was given a gift to play tennis, but it wasn't
35 sweets. 'There were these guards all dressed in uniform
my right to say whether I had it for five years or 50 years.
practically saluting the kids. My kids thought they were
- the king and queen of England,' Jaeger says. 'lf it took all
I beat Billie-Jean King on Centre Court at Wimbledon
how many people can even say they played Wimbledon?
those hours of training and discipline, all the anguish,
'My dad was a brilliant coach and my mum enjoyed how to get to this, it was worth it. I didn't lose anything by
well we were doing. My sister was at Stanford and I was losing a Wimbledon final.'

Unit4 ehariges f*C