Young Tennis Sisters II

Two young Black sisters from southern California and budding tennis stars; sounds familiar. No they are not the William sisters. They are Elizabeth and Mary Profit, but they share many of the athletic qualities that have made Venus and Serena the most dominant sisters in tennis history.

Elizabeth is 13 years old and holds a top ten ranking among 14-year-olds. She is already defeating top-ranked players in the 18-year-old division. Her sister Mary, at 11, is also a top-ranked player and dominating her age group. Mary won her first tournament at the age of 6.

Both girls started playing tennis as infants by hitting balls of socks across their living room. Their mother, Yvonne Profit, recognized their talent and saw it as an opportunity to develop sportsmanship and character and just maybe an opportunity for them earn athletic scholarships at top national universities. So far, they have exceeded her expectations. The Profit sisters grew up in a single-parent household and developed an exemplary work ethic to compensate for a lack of resources. Mom Yvonne, who earned a degree at the University of Michigan, decided to give up her full-time job and move her daughters into an RV to compensate for the expenses of traveling for tournaments. The girls view living in an RV as an inconvenience rather than a hardship. In a sport that more often tends to develop players from affluent backgrounds, Elizabeth and Mary have already beaten overwhelming odds and endured the kind of adversity that too often ends in defeat.



The Profit sisters may be on a path toward a professional tennis career, but Elizabeth's story off the court is just as compelling. She has juvenile diabetes and has been living with the disease since the age of 2, when her body stopped producing insulin. Elizabeth learned how to test her blood sugar levels before the age of 3 and two years later, she began administering insulin injections on her own. She does not use her diabetes as an excuse. Younger sister Mary knows that diabetes can be debilitating and a matter of life and death, so she constantly watches over her older sister.

For the past ten years the Profits have been unable to obtain private health insurance on the open market because diabetes is considered a pre-existing medical condition. Elizabeth used to rely on a large insulin pump to make it through the day, but now she wears a small patch that releases insulin. Despite the inconvenience of checking her blood sugar level a dozen times a day, Elizabeth has not let diabetes deter her from achieving her goals. At 17 she plans to be playing in at least the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open and eventually winning grand slams and obtaining the No. 1 ranking.

Next year Elizabeth plans turning pro and enter the women's professional tour, at the same age that Serena and Venus Williams turned pro.