Destanee Aiava Reveals Why She Ended ‘Toxic’ Relationship with Tennis on Valentine’s Day: “Not Worth Waking Up Every day”

Destanee Aiava is just 25, and she had enough of the cruel side of tennis. On February 14th, that is, on Valentine’s Day, Aiava, before admitting her boyfriend to the hospital at 3 a.m. due to an illness, took to Instagram to announce her decision to part ways with tennis in a nine-slide post, calling the sport her “toxic boyfriend“.

It was the Australian ace whom Danielle Collins defeated in last year’s Australian Open second round, and produced the infamous celebration. Aiava, who is of Samoan descent, recently sat for an interview with CLAY and revealed why she chose Valentine’s Day to call time on her career, also explaining why she hung up her racket at such a young age.

I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed this sport. The only reason I enjoyed it was because of the good things that came with it. And for me personally, that’s not worth waking up every day and hating my job and basically living a lie. I’m getting hundreds of people coming up to me saying, ‘You must love it.’ Some days, honestly, I would have rather done anything else but hit on a tennis court.

Also off the court, Aiava faced a lot of online bullying from the fans, with some of them calling her “fat” and a “man”. She also recalled an incident of racism, revealing that when she was a kid, some tennis parents did not shy away from calling her a “man” or a “monkey”.

The way I kept going back and forth with tennis and just battling my own demons within this sport–wanting to quit or wanting to keep going—I felt like even in my own relationship, everyone has their own ups and downs with their partner. So I just felt like that was the equivalent of what I was going through, which was my relationship with my own job. It was basically toxic.

Destanee Aiava added

Because she is of Samoan descent, she understands how a woman of color in a sport that is “predominantly White” struggles, saying she never felt she belonged in tennis because of her color. The former World No.147, however, also thinks that no matter the negative things that players generally encounter while on the tour, “no one really gives a (expletive)” after a while.

Destanee Aiava shares how it felt while competing in the women’s tour

Aiava also did not have a great experience in the locker rooms. During that aforementioned interview with CLAY, she claimed the female players create a hostile environment because they talk behind each other’s backs and then give a fake smile. In 2024, she was part of the United Cup and later described the team atmosphere as weird and hostile.

Everyone’s kind of competing against each other, and especially women. I feel like we don’t really know how to put that aside as well as the men do. They’ll play a match against each other, and something would happen on court, and then 10 minutes later in the locker room, they’re joking around with each other. That’s just not how women are. It felt very high school.

Aiava never clinched a tour-level title, though she won 10 ITF trophies. She played the main draw rounds of three Grand Slam events, reaching the second round of her home Slam once, while at the French Open and the US Open, she crashed out in the first round.

Aiava became the first Samoan player to compete at the US Open in 2024. She played her career’s last professional match at this year’s Australian Open, where Harriet Dart knocked her out in the first qualifier.

Also read: Marta Kostyuk Shares Emotional Reaction on Disqualification of Her Compatriot at the Winter Olympics

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