So I kind of pride myself in not making the same mistakes twice in my life in general, not just in business. You're really forced to figure out what you did wrong and how to fix it. But in reality, you learn so much more from your losses. When you win most people think that’s the greatest thing. Rowley: What are some of the biggest lessons your tennis career has taught you?įernandez: Tennis taught me to learn from my mistakes. But I know it’s the right way because it's the way that won me 17 Grand Slams. I have a completely different way of teaching doubles than the rest of the world it seems. I’m not afraid to go against the grain or be controversial. I didn't just stand back there and wait for my opponent to miss. I came in and I kind of pushed the envelope. So I've been working really hard to face that, and understand that I don't know everything-that I have a lot to learn still.Īt the same time, I think the risk-taking of sport really helps me in my career. I always go into things with 100 percent conviction that they’re going to work, and sometimes that's not good because I don’t understand my limitations. So when I’ve started businesses in the past, I've never thought they weren’t going to be successful, even though there were times they weren’t. Rowley: How has tennis impacted the way you do business?įernandez: When you're an athlete you have this mentality that you can do anything. So I've always been very entrepreneurial. Then I started a weight loss center in Puerto Rico. I raised $3 million in venture capital money for the internet company. After that, I started redirecting my passion for business back to tennis because it's what I know. So I figured that I needed to learn business and got the MBA. I got caught in the bubble, and when it burst I lost a couple of million dollars. One of them was an internet company back in the 1990s when the internet first started booming. But before that, I started a couple of companies that were not very successful. Gigi Fernandez: After tennis, the first thing I did was finish my education, which I had neglected because I turned pro after my first year of college. How was it for you? Do you like being an entrepreneur? Melissa Jun Rowley: For a number of athletes moving from sports to another career is a difficult transition. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2010.I spoke with Fernandez to learn about how tennis has helped shape her entrepreneurial mindset and what her hopes are for the VIKTRE Challenge - Power for Puerto Rico, a crowdfunding campaign she’s leading with other pro athletes to support solar power solutions amid the island’s aging infrastructure. Fernandez was also a distant cousin of actor José Ferrer. Her long-time partner was Jane Geddes, a former LPGA golfer who became an executive with the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). She is director of tennis at Chelsea Piers in Connecticut. In all Fernandez won 69 WTA Tour doubles titles, adding two singles titles.įernandez became a tennis coach and entrepreneur, and earned a college degree from the University of South Florida in 2003. She won 14 of her 17 Grand Slam doubles titles alongside Russian player Natasha Zvereva. She won a doubles Grand Slam each year from 1990-97, and in 1992-94, won three of the four titles. Gigi Fernandez won 17 Grand Slam doubles titles – two Australians, six French, four Wimbledons, and five US Opens. Gigi also won two gold medals, in both singles and doubles at the 1983 Pan American Games, representing her native Puerto Rico. Fernandez later became one of the world’s top players, especially in doubles, and competed at the 19 Olympics for the United States, winning the doubles gold medal both times alongside her namesake Mary Joe Fernandez, who is no relation. Gigi Fernandez was a Puerto Rico native who played for the island nation at the 1984 Olympics in the tennis demonstration event.
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