Tennis Updates: February 21, 2013

I read an interesting article today about Rebecca Marino, a woman's professional tennis player, who just  retired from the tour at age 22. She was ranked as high as 38 in the world just two years ago with a powerful game much like Venus Williams', but decided to bid farewell to the game today. She cited that she was suffering from depression and did not have the "passion or enjoyment" to bring her game to new heights. Also she called out the cyber bullies who would make fun of her on Twitter, commenting maliciously on her results and looks. Some people told her to die, to go to hell and worse things. She suffered from depression as well. Fans would berate her after losing a match and constantly make fun of her. I feel bad for her. I know most people can usually brush off things like that, but some people really do take those words for face value. Cyber-bullying was a huge problem for a little while; I remember seeing it in the news all the time. Kids would kill themselves because of bullies, people would suffer from depression from insults from strangers. It's really not right, but it's the world we live in. I'm glad she made the decision to leave tennis because she needs to get to a spot where she is happy. Tennis is the happy place for her, so she should leave it. I hope she recovers from her depression and starts seeing the better sides of people.