At 32, it could time for Zimbabwe most successfully tennis player entertained thoughts of retiring but in fact, Cara dreams of another grand slam.The tennis ace could not hide her ambition for more glory when she spoke to The Standard last week.
The player who is in the country on three-week break said all she could do was cutting down on the number of tournaments she compete in this year.
“I have just discovered that age is catching up with me. I am not saying I am retiring, no, but I have to do with a lesser schedule,” she said.
“I used to play 40 weeks a year, but now I am looking forward to reducing the number of matches that I play per year. My body still tells me to go but I have to make a decision so as to manage my body,”
Cara is also recovering from a knee operation she underwent last year.
“I have to fully recover from operation that by giving myself a lesser schedule, these are some of the results that come with 25 years of playing tennis. So I have to manage my body,” added Cara.
It remains to be seen if Cara, who is ranked the 34th richest tennis player by the Women Tennis Association, will not go back to her routine once her knee has healed.
Being constantly on road has been Cara’s business since 1998 when she started the hunt for titles.
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And in that journey she reaped 63 women’s doubles titles, and US$6,4 million prize money.
While her career prospered Cara had to put other important things on the backburner.
She told Standardport that though she was married five years ago to Australian Brett Stephens, her wish to sire a “bundle of joy” had not materialised since she put her career first.
“At times one has to consider your career first,” she said.
“I have been in marriage for the past five years but I do not have any kids. It is my wish like any other grown up or married woman to have kids, but because of the profession, at times you have to measure twice and cut once.
“I got married to an Australian guy called Brett Stephens who used to play Australian football but later joined the tennis field as a fitness trainer,” Cara said.
Stephens was the fitness trainer for the world’s best tennis player Pete Sampras before he retired for four years. Stephens also worked with Cara’s brothers, Byron and Wayne Black as their fitness trainer.
Cara has not lost her love for her mother country and comes back to the capital every November to mix and mingle and coach tennis.
“I make it a point that when I come for a holiday, I liaise with Tennis Zimbabwe so that I have a day which I spend with kids just to show them that you can be someone in life through tennis and that they can also have chances to be celebrities as well,” Cara said.
But one thing that the tennis Queen will never forget in her life are the days that her late father (Don) used to wake them (Byron, Cara, Wayne) up early in the morning for an hour of training before going to school, after school and in the evening.
“We have four grass tennis courts and one hard tennis court which our father constructed for us when we were still young.
“He would work us up at 5:30 am to train for an hour, at 2pm to 3pm after school and 4:30 to 5:30pm a day which made us all what we are today. But as an athlete, you must watch whatever you eat, your diet might put everything astray,” she concluded.
