The US Open is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the US Open Wheelchair Competition in 2017, with the best wheelchair players from around the world returning to Flushing Meadows. Throughout the event, we are spotlighting the standout wheelchair athletes taking part in the event here at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. We’re looking within to see what it takes to train and compete as an elite athlete, and we’re looking beyond to see how these athletes spend their time off the court.
Leading off is 26-year-old American Dana Mathewson. Currently the highest-ranked American woman, Mathewson is debuting in her first Slam this summer at the 2017 US Open as a wild-card entrant.
Looking Within
Kicking and screaming. That’s how 26-year-old professional wheelchair player Dana Mathewson first was introduced to the game of wheelchair tennis.
When she was 10 years old, Mathewson, a San Diego native, contracted Transverse Myelitis, a rare autoimmune disease that attacks the spinal cord. An athlete growing up, Mathewson was on the soccer field running sprints when she felt a stabbing pain in her lower back. She was rushed to the hospital, and within 20 minutes after feeling the initial onset of pain, was completely paralyzed from the waist down.
It seemed that Mathewson’s dreams of continuing in athletics were diminished. But fortunately for Mathewson, her mother didn’t let her disability sideline her. Instead, she urged her daughter to jump back into sports, first getting involved in wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby. She liked them, but she definitely wasn’t in love. At least not yet. Not until Mathewson’s mother signed her up for a USTA junior wheelchair tennis camp near her home in Coronado, Calif.
“The first time I ever played,” said Mathewson, “my mom literally brought me dragging kicking and screaming to a camp they had in Coronado. I didn’t want to go.”
But her kicking and screaming subsided, and Dana fell head-first in love with the game: “I got there and I picked up a racquet and I loved it and I’ve been playing ever since.”
Since her early days at the camp, Mathewson has gone on to continue - and thrive in the sport she loves. As a junior in 2008, she reached as high as No. 5 in the world. She has gone on to represent the United States at the Rio Paralympics last year, and in the World Team Cup a total of seven times.
Mathewson has spent much of 2017 on the road, competing in wheelchair tennis tournaments all over the world, looking to pocket ranking points. She is currently the highest-ranked American woman, and in July, Mathewson reached a career-high ranking of world No. 10 and was given a wild card into the 2017 US Open Wheelchair Competition – her first Grand Slam event.
“I can’t wait," said Mathewson. "And to have my first Slam be at home is extra exciting.”
Mathewson’s training varies, especially after an especially heavy summer on the road competing in tournaments. Prior to the Open, Mathewson was making sure she stuck to the basics.
“I want to get back to working with my coach and make sure all my fundamental things are good.”, said Mathewson, “There will have to be some gym work, there’s gonna have to be some fitness stuff with pushing drills, and all of that. I’m just going to hit it hard the next couple of weeks, because that’s all the time I really have.”
Mathewson will be accompanied at the Open by her mother and her brother, making her first major extra special. While it is yet to be determined how the bubbly brunette will fare on the hard courts of Flushing, one thing it for certain – she couldn’t be more excited
“I’m just excited to be part of an experience that big,” gushed Mathewson, “I mean as an American tennis player to even play at the US Open is huge, and being a wheelchair tennis player with how we don’t have as many accolades and huge things offered to us, I guess in comparison to the able-bodied game, to be able to also play at an event that big is humongous, so I’m over the moon.”
Looking Beyond
Off the court, Mathewson likes to spend time with family and friends – and of course, Netflix.
“Recently, if I’m ever home, I’m like Netflixing like it’s my job, and then kind of visiting with family, because I don’t get to see them very often," she said. "I would say outside of tennis and school, right now my life’s not that exciting, I’m kind of the regular average person that spends a lot of time on the couch that’s just socializing or eating.”
As if competing in her first Grand Slam wasn’t exciting enough, Mathewson is following up the tournament with an almost equally exciting endeavor – moving almost 5,500 miles from her home in San Diego to London, England.
There, the athlete will top her tennis togs with a thinking cap, where she will pursue a master’s degree in audiology at University College.
“For a while I thought I wanted to major in speech pathology,” said Mathewson, “which is why I majored in speech and hearing sciences, and then towards the end of my undergraduate time in Arizona, you start to take audiology courses and it just kind of clicked, and I absolutely loved it, and that’s kind of when I made the switch."
Mathewson’s move will be a lifelong dream come true for the aspiring audiologist.
“I’ve always wanted to study abroad, ever since I was little," she said. "I would have posters in my room of different places, I’ve always found places like London and Paris to be absolutely exciting and fascinating.”
A few days after the Open, Mathewson will head straight to the airport, and will trade in her suburban life for the cosmopolitan streets of London.
And if a move across the Atlantic and complete Master’s course work weren’t enough, the American still on her tennis ascent, will continue to train and play in tennis tournaments overseas.
For her to maintain a high enough ranking to be able to qualify for elite tournaments, she has to play and travel often. Her move abroad will enable Mathewson to travel to more tournaments. The British team, of which many of the players are personal friends of hers, have already happily invited her to train with them.
“My ultimate goal is to at least participate in another Paralympic games, so that would be Tokyo,” said Mathewson. “So after to get to playing the US Open, I’d love to start qualifying for other slams, and do all that, because I really feel like I’m coming into my own now, and I would really have a lot of those ‘What If’ questions if I stopped playing tennis right now I think.”
A move to a new country, playing in professional tennis tournaments and balancing graduate school work is an ambitious challenge, but one that Mathewson embraces with a positive attitude.
“I’m really nervous, but I’m also really excited," she said. "And I remember reading some quote, some cliché thing like, ‘If something makes you nervous but mostly excites you, then that’s the thing that you should do', and so, that’s what I’m doing.”
