Early Life
Born in Hamburg, Germany to Brigitte and Peter Haas, Haas started playing his own version of tennis when he was two years old, by using a wooden plank to hit balls against the wall or into his father's hands. When his father noticed his talents, he started bringing Haas to work, as he happened to be a tennis coach.
At five years of age, Haas won his first youth tournament, in Hamburg. At eight years old, he won his second, in Munich. Between eleven and thirteen, Haas would twice win the Austrian Championship, the German Championship, and the European Championship.
Haas's talents were noted by world renowned tennis guru Nick Bollettieri. Nick was so impressed by the young German's talent that he offered Haas the chance to stay and train at his Bollettieri Academy in Bradenton, Florida for free. At 13, speaking little English, Haas moved to Florida to begin training at the academy.
Read more about this topic: Tommy Haas
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been, my senses would have cooled
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)