{"id":445638,"date":"2026-02-25T23:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T23:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/445638\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T23:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T23:37:08","slug":"tennis-star-who-announced-retirement-at-25-signs-up-for-new-sport-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/445638\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis star who announced retirement at 25 signs up for new sport | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Destanee Aiava has announced that she\u2019s looking to swap sports following an explosive revelation that she plans to quit tennis at the end of the season. The Australian ace had announced her intentions in a fiery statement, claiming death threats and racist comments were the driving force behind the decision.<\/p>\n

Aiava posted a lengthy statement to her Instagram account earlier this month<\/a>, citing social media abuse, sexism and racism for wanting to hang up her racket. That\u2019s despite only being 25 years old, with Aiava having previously qualified for the main draw at Grand Slam events as well.<\/p>\n

Having doubled down on her decision, Aiava has since turned her attention to a brand new sport. That\u2019s because in a new social media post, Aiava has told her social media followers that she\u2019ll be turning her hand to netball instead.<\/p>\n

The sport is popular among female athletes in Australia, with Aiava saying: \u201cI have a little update for everyone. I actually have my first netball training session on Thursday night, which I’m so excited for. Super random for people who don’t know me, I know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before adding: \u201cMy plan was always to find a team sport to play when I did finish. I always said if I wasn’t playing tennis as my sport, I would be playing netball.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Aiava had previously described her relationship with tennis like being a \u201ctoxic boyfriend\u201d, with the Melbourne-born ace having originally turned professional at 17. In her original statement, she said: “I want to say a ginormous f*** you to everyone in the tennis community who’s ever made me feel less than.<\/p>\n

“F*** you to every single gambler who’s sent me hate or death threats. F*** you to the people who sit behind screens on social media, commenting on my body, my career, or whatever the f*** they want to nitpick. And f*** you to a sport that hides behind so-called class and gentlemanly values. Behind the white outfits and traditions is a culture that’s racist, misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to anyone who doesn’t fit its mould.”<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cFrom the moment I had my first lesson at Casey Tennis Club, my entire life was tennis. I often wondered what my life would have looked like if I\u2019d chosen anything else. And whether everything I sacrificed for this sport was actually worth the cost. There was a time in my career when I had reached the point that comes just before you make your big breakthrough, when the world is at your feet and nothing can touch you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Destanee Aiava has announced that she\u2019s looking to swap sports following an explosive revelation that she plans to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[156332,161805,161804,101,118,872,56,54,55,11572],"class_list":["post-445638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-destanee-aiava","tag-destanee-aiava-netball","tag-destanee-aiava-retirement","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tennis-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wta-tour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}