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hannah berner by bri an co l em an
Last year, Hannah Berner was added to the cast of Summer House, the reality television series on Bravo TV, which follows the lives of eight young adults as they work their jobs in New York City and spend weekends in the Hamptons. But this was not the first foray out into the Hamptons for Berner, who spent many of her weekends and summers on the East End of Long Island while growing up. “On the weekends my family would go to Shelter Island and I would watch my dad play his weekend doubles game,” recalls Berner. “And this doubles game was what he lived for. He talked about it all week, and they would talk trash to each other. It was just the center of his universe. I would sit there and make sand castles on the side with the clay while I watched. But eventually I was out on court playing with them, and I began getting tennis lessons when I was around sevenyears-old.” Berner would take lessons at what is now Prospect Park Tennis Center, and immediately had dreams of being a professional tennis player. “The pro there said that I was starting too late to be a professional tennis player, and my parents, for whatever reason, thought they should tell me that,” said Berner. “I was crying all week; my dream was crushed. But as a tough, little girl who didn’t like to be told that I couldn’t do things, I became determined that day to become a professional tennis player.” Her talent and work ethic were evident 8
from the very beginning, and resulted in her shooting up the junior rankings to the point where, at 14-years-old, she was ranked inside the Top 15 in the country and had a sponsorship with Dunlop. It was then that she was told in order to continue pursuing this dream of being a professional, she needed to go down to Florida to train. It was a hard experience for Berner who, despite getting better and achieving a higher junior ranking, started to become unhappy. “It was tough. I was away from my family; I was traveling to play tournaments which I knew was expensive for my parents. And I was starting to not enjoy it,” she said. “I was feeling a little burnt out from it. And at 16, I said I wanted to go home. I was in a tough place. I was dealing with some depression and anxiety, and I just felt lost.” Returning home to New York City helped Berner recapture her love for tennis, and began taking the steps to play in high school. She got into the Beacon School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but the school did
New York Tennis Magazine • March/April 2020 • NYTennisMag.com
not have a girls’ team. Berner tried out and made the boys’ team, which in turn put her at the center of controversy. Many other teams were not thrilled with a girl being allowed to compete on the boys’ team, especially a girl who was as good as Berner as she won NYC Player of the Year and helped lead her team to multiple PSAL titles. “It was crazy, I remember the Daily News and New York Times coming to cover our matches. I remember getting so nervous about that,” she recalls. “The best part about all of this though was that after I graduated, PSAL granted Beacon funds to start a girls team, which my dad actually coached for a couple of years, and I got a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin.” In Madison, Berner played the top singles spot for the Badgers and was on her way to finalizing that dream of turning professional. “It was a great experience for me, and I got to the point where I really did want to play professional. And in my senior year, I remember thinking that if I don’t get all-Big 10, it’s probably a sign from the universe that I shouldn’t go pro,” Berner said. “And right before the Big 10 Championships, I got hit by a car while walking to one of our morning workouts. That put me out for about two months, and even though I got back on court in time for the conference championships, I ended up losing a few matches. And I had one of those moments where I thought the universe was telling me something, and I tried to be very logical in that moment.” Berner weighed the decision to turn pro, and contemplated whether or not it was worth it.
