Eyes on Guyana
PUTTING IN SOME WORK AT HOME! Guyana Chronicle’s Samuel Maughn was on hand at the GBTI Tennis Courts in Bel Air on Thursday to catch tennis star, Sachia Vickery during training.
PUTTING IN SOME WORK AT HOME! Guyana Chronicle’s Samuel Maughn was on hand at the GBTI Tennis Courts in Bel Air on Thursday to catch tennis star, Sachia Vickery during training.

Sachia Vickery ready to represent the ‘Land of Many Waters’

TENNIS is her life and her life is all about tennis; literally! At 22 years old, Sachia Vickery is considered by pundits as one of the game’s emerging talents that will take the world by storm.

Her diminutive stature can force first-timers to her game to be critical as to how good she is, but, after a few minutes of seeing her execute and display her phenomenal speed, agility and power on the court, mouths open, jaws drop and applause follows.

Vickery, the daughter of former national footballer Rawle Vickery from Linden and Paula Liverpool from Kwakwani (a mining and logging town on the Berbice River in Region 10), departed Guyana on Saturday after a five-day stay here and it was a well-deserved rest for the now World 102 ranked tennis ace.

Sachia Vickery pays a courtesy call on Dr George Norton, Minister of Social Cohesion. Also in photo, Sachia’s mother Paula Liverpool (at left) and brother/manager Dominique Mitchell (extreme right).

“This is pretty much all I do, and I’m very focused on achieving my goal, which is to reach the Top 50 and be a regular feature at Grand Slams,” Vickery told the Pepperpot Magazine.

At 22 and making her own money, the fast life could easily be had for Sachia, but as she pointed out, her mother’s discipline and her passion for the game keeps her away from the distractions of the world; something her brother Dominique Mitchell, who also serves as her manager confirms.

“She makes it easy for me because she’s always focused, you know, there’s not much that we have to tell her about her game from the standpoint of keeping away from controversy and all that usually goes down on Social Media,” said Mitchell, himself an accomplished music producer.

Mitchell recently brokered a deal that will see Sachia joining the ‘K-Swiss’ family – an American athletic shoe brand based in Westlake Village, California and currently owned by Korean firm, E-Land World Limited and its creator Kevin Randall.

“Some young players who are caught up in the hype could easily say that they rather wait or go for the bigger brands like Nike, but Sachia understands that right now, this could be the best thing for her since she’s presently on the rise and this could eventually be huge,” the tennis player’s manager said.

REPRESENTING GUYANA
“I currently play for the US but representing Guyana is something I definitely want to do in the future and I’m passionate about it,” Sachia had told reporters while visiting Minister of Social Cohesion, Dr. George Norton.

“I always represent Guyana at my tournaments or wherever I am so I would like to play for Guyana,” Vickery further highlighted.

Vickery proved that her interest is more than just lip service, and she met with the President of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) Juman Yassin on the way forward.

“I’m open to representing Guyana at the Olympics. It’s my home country and that would be something that’s a dream of mine in the future. Even though I wasn’t born in Guyana, I still consider myself Guyanese. I embrace the whole culture and I always love going back, so I do consider myself Guyanese,” said the tennis player who has now grabbed the attention of the world.

Vickery is on the verge of breaking the WTA’s Top 100 for the first time after she had the best week of her career in Auckland, New Zealand recently. She not only reached the first WTA semi-final of her career but also set a brand new career-high of No. 102 in the world.

Before this year, Vickery’s best showings at the WTA level were four quarterfinals, one per year the last four years – Stanford in 2014, Nottingham in 2015, Bogota in 2016 and Quebec City in 2017.

But in the very first week of the 2018 season, the 22-year-old Hollywood, Florida native surpassed all of those at the International-level ASB Classic, not dropping a set through three rounds of qualifying and another three rounds in the main draw – including upsets over No. 5 seed Lauren Davis and No. 4 seed Agnieszka Radwanska. She’d fallen to No. 1 seed Caroline Wozniacki in the semi-finals, 6-4, and 6-4.

Vickery’s win over the No.28-ranked Radwanska was the best victory of her career. Her previous-best win in terms of ranking came against No.30-ranked Zhang Shuai at Stanford back in 2014.

The run pushed Vickery from No.122 to No.105 on the new rankings, leapfrogging her previous career-high of No.108 in the world, which she had originally set the week of July 20, 2015.

Vickery has made two appearances at the US Open, featuring in the second round at the prestigious tournament twice (2013, 2017), while exiting in the first round of the Australian Open (2014), French Open (2016) and Wimbledon (2015).

“I truly hope to make as many main draw Grand Slam appearances, because that’s where the money is. But I know once you keep playing and winning the money will come but it’s not as easy as it seems,” Vickery said with an infectious smile.

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