After a break of more than three years - 74-year-old Gail Falkenberg is making a comeback!
74-year-old Gail Falkenberg celebrated her comeback on the professional tennis tour on Monday. However, the American was not granted any game gain.
by Nikolaus Fink
last edit: May 04, 2021, 09:57 am
Age is just a number. Gail Falkenberg apparently took these words very seriously. Because although the American is already 74 years old, she recently celebrated her comeback on the professional tennis tour in Naples. Falkenberg met French Tiphanie Fiquet in the first qualifying round at the ITF tournament in Florida, which is endowed with 25,000 US dollars, but ultimately had to admit defeat 6-0 and 6-0.
The result was probably only marginal for Falkenberg, as she played her first match in Naples in more than three years. On April 2, 2018, she had to admit defeat to her compatriot Ronit Yurovsky in Jackson without winning the game. But the 74-year-old shouldn't be looking for victories in the current phase of her career anyway.
Career start at the age of 38
In truth, Falkenberg, who also played against Naomi Osaka once in 2013, was never about this, at least on a professional level. Because she only started her career at the age of 38, but about two years later she played her way up to 360th place in singles and 430th place in doubles - a great performance for which one can only salute the American .
If you look at video sequences of what is probably the oldest professional tournament player of all time, you can see what she is really about: having fun with exercise and tennis. In addition, Falkenberg also wants to be a role model. "Older people tell me that I'm an inspiration for them to keep going," the 74-year-old once said. Falkenberg should be able to do that with performances like the one in Naples - and there is apparently no end in sight for them either.
Because, as the US-American emphasized to the French newspaper L'Equipe , she was in "great shape": "I'll keep playing until my body tells me to stop. I can still win a professional game."