15Colgate and Built with Chocolate Milk. She walked
the ESPYs red carpet, and won Best Female Tennis
Player honors.
Following the Open, Stephens kept entering
tournaments despite nursing a sore knee, reluctant
to miss more time after her long layof. The results
were dismal: eight straight defeats, including
in the irst round of the Australian Open. The
courtside chatter turned, again, to whether
Stephens had what it takes to be great. Tennis
legend and ESPN analyst Chris Evert, for one,
publicly questioned if Stephens had the desire to
win more Grand Slams.
Stephens takes the criticism in stride.
“Everyone was, ‘Oh my God, what U.S. Open
champion loses eight matches in a row?’ ” she says
from the couch in the Washington hotel. “I was
like, ‘Me!’ It’s going to be ine.”
Stephens has a coolness that can be mistaken
for ambivalence. But she has always managed
her career on her terms. In late 2017, she inished
the requirements for a bachelor’s degree in
communications from Indiana University East’sonline program. She didn’t mind missing practice
to tend to her studies, and ignored whispers she
was loaing on the tennis court. “Bro, I’ve got to
graduate,” she says of sticking to her timeline, no
matter the consequences. “This is important, O.K.”
She’s now pursing an online MBA.
Stephens is deiant about sticking to her chosen
path. “I’ve been pretty harshly judged for always
doing what I wanted to do,” she says.
Some critics are coming around. Evert says she
now sees determination in Stephens’ eyes. It helps
that she’s regained her winning form, reaching
the inals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal just a few
weeks before the start of the Open. Stephens knows
she’ll face additional pressure as the defending
champion. But she insists she’s ready to handle it.
“I’m in a good place,” Stephens says before
leaving the hotel for dinner with her coach. “People
say, Oh, you’re inconsistent, you’re this, you’re that.
Whatever. When I retire from tennis, I’ll be able to
look back and say I did it the way I wanted to do it.
I was just playing. And I was just making sure I was
happy along the way.” ‘I’ve been
pretty
harshly
judged for
always
doing
what I
wanted
to do.’
SLOANE
STEPHENS,
on her doubtersJUERGEN HASENKOPF—BPI/SHUTTERSTOCK