[New post] [INSPIRATION] From Kicking Cancer To Wimbledon Wildcard. The Miracle of Ryan Peniston
HelluvaLotToShare posted: " For a kid who endured cancer at age one, undergoing surgery and two gruelling rounds of chemotherapy to making his first-ever ATP tour appearance as a Wimbledon wildcard, Ryan Peniston, 26, continues to defy the odds. One of the fastest-rising tennis sta" Derek J. Wheeler
For a kid who endured cancer at age one, undergoing surgery and two gruelling rounds of chemotherapy to making his first-ever ATP tour appearance as a Wimbledon wildcard, Ryan Peniston, 26, continues to defy the odds. One of the fastest-rising tennis stars today, he sailed through to the second round of the championships on his debut. Beating a top seed at that!
FIGHTER!
Ryan Peniston has said he donated the winnings of his first ITF (International Tennis Federation) title to the hospital that treated him, St Bart's in London.
"Every day is a bonus," he says on his social media bios.
Prior to Wimbledon, Ryan Peniston was yet to play a match on the ATP tour. A regular on the Challenger tour since debuting in 2013, the Britisher had a win/loss record of 246-145 before Wimbledon 2022. However, with a strong push from former World No. 1 and three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray, Peniston got the opportunity of a lifetime. And, he made it count.
Murray, at the Stuttgart Open a week prior picked up an abdomen injury at the beginning of the third set of the finals and opted out of the Queen's Club Championships that was scheduled to begin days later in front of his home crowd in London. The announcement came just before the draw was made, meaning that organizers had to scamper to fill in the slot.
Enter World No. 180 Ryan Peniston with a wildcard who went on to pull off the upset of the tournament without so much as dropping a set. A 7-6(4), 7-6(2) drubbing of World No. 5 & Roland Garros finalist Casper Ruud on the very first day. Accomplishing a feat not many in tennis history can even fathom: Beating a top-5 player on their ATP tour debut.
His mother, Penny, calls him a "determined fighter", saying he had "worked so hard" to achieve his dreams.
But, Casper Ruud was not the biggest opponent the 26-year-old has defeated till date. 25 years ago, Ryan fought a much bigger fight, a battle that made.
Lets Backtrack
Ryan, from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, was born to a Malaysian-born mother and half-English half-Irish father. He started playing tennis aged three with his dad.
At the age of one, Ryan was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of soft tissue cancer that predominantly affects children. He underwent successful tumor-extraction surgery, followed by extensive chemotherapy to prevent any relapse.
The treatment eventually interfered with his development, rendering him smaller than other players in his own age group. Now six feet tall, the 26-year-old revealed in an interview with ATPTour.com that he was almost a foot shorter when playing junior tennis.
But the World No. 180 somehow managed to see a silver lining, remarking that the experience has helped him work on other aspects of his game. With his serve all but taken away as a reliable weapon right from the beginning, he had to adapt and seek other avenues in order to remain competitive against the big servers.
"The chemotherapy affected my growth. I was really small up until I was 14 or 15," Ryan Peniston said. "I was almost a foot smaller than some of my friends. In that aspect, it almost helped me in terms of tennis because I was able to work on some skills maybe other players weren't working on. For example my movement, using my hands and tactics."
His mother, a 66-year-old hospital ward manager says: "When he was diagnosed with that malignant disease I was with him for eight months, staying in hospital. It was a terrible time, like what any other family with cancer is going through.
"The chemotherapy stunted his growth. For his age he was always smaller than any other peer group. He didn't grow until his late teens. It was just a tough time."
She credited his success to having "good family support". His brothers – Sam, 31, a paediatric nurse, and Harry, 28, a junior doctor – work alongside their mother at Southend Hospital.
Speaking after he defeated Switzerland's Henri Laaksonen in straight sets in the first round of Wimbledon in June 2022, he told how having cancer as a baby had had a "huge impact" on him personally and on his career.
"It definitely affected my growth," he said. "I was a really late bloomer. I didn't start growing until 15, 16. I was always about a foot smaller than all my peers. They all were growing and getting bigger serves and everything. I was struggling just trying to run around and get the balls.
"It's such a terrible thing to go through, especially for my family, my close friends. But … it gives me so much strength. I've had some really, really nice messages from some foundations and people as well, like families that have gone through similar stuff. It's really special to receive those kind of messages. It puts everything into perspective really."
His father, Paul, a former train driver, said he started playing tennis before his sons were born. He told how he only discovered that Peniston had picked up the sport, aged three, after a neighbour made a complaint about his sons throwing apples over the garden fence.
The 66-year-old recalled: "So I opened the back door and all three boys had pinched my old rackets. We used to have an apple tree in the garden and they were smacking them over with the rackets. I looked and Ryan, who was the youngest, and went actually Ryan, do that again' and I thought 'that's decent, that's pretty good'. So after that we started playing. Then it just went on and on."
Wrapup
Due to the difficulties of his childhood, Ryan is a relative newcomer to tennis world championships. Regardless, he is currently ranked No. 135 for the men's singles.
At 13, he moved to Nice, France to train at ISP Academy before going to college at 18.
A graduate of the University of Memphis tennis program, he was part of the GB University Team that won the nation's first ever team gold medal at Master'U Championships.
Professional career
2020: Battle of the Brits
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Peniston took part in the 'Battle of the Brits' tournament and performed well, losing only on final set tie-breaks against top-50 players Dan Evans and Cameron Norrie.
2021: ATP doubles debut
Peniston won the Heraklion leg of the 2021 ITF Men's World Tennis Tour (April–June) on 30 May 2021, conceding only three games to Yuta Shimizu in winning the final in straight sets and only dropping one set in the whole tournament.
He was given a wildcard into the singles and doubles main draws of the 2021 Nottingham Open. He then received a wildcard for the 2021 Queen's Club Championships doubles main draw, playing alongside Liam Broady, and the qualifying draw in the singles. In the doubles first round, Peniston and Broady defeated Alexander Bublik and Nicholas Monroe in straight sets. In the singles qualifying, Peniston defeated Marc-Andrea Hüsler before losing to Aleksandar Vukic in 3 sets.
2022: ATP debut, first top-5 win & quarterfinal, top 150 debut and progressing to the 2nd round of Wimbledon
Peniston made his ATP main draw singles debut at the Queen's Club Championships as a wildcard, where he upset top seed and world no. 5 Casper Ruud in straight sets for his first ever ATP Win. He reached the quarterfinals in his first ever ATP tour level tournament for the first time defeating another top-50 player Francisco Cerundolo. As a result he made his debut in the top 150 in the singles rankings.
At the 2022 Eastbourne International he reached the second round as a wildcard defeating 8th seed Holger Rune.[16] Next he defeated Pedro Martinez before losing to compatriot Jack Draper in the quarterfinals.
Penniston then defeated Henri Laaksonen in straight-sets in the first round of Wimbledon.
Conclusion
Ryan reckons that other kids going through a similar situation can take heart from his story, thereby motivating them to push themselves beyond the realm of what was previously considered possible for them.
"I am sure my parents didn't really want to talk about that time in their life as it must have been so hard for them, like everyone around me. But it gives me a lot of strength when I look back to it."
"I think any other kids or families that are going through such a tough time, if they can have any kind of glimpse of hope or see what is possible, that would be a great."
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