“I actually played my first tournament three months after he was born” – When Lindsay Davenport reflected on playing tennis while being a mother
Lindsay Davenport made a strong comeback to the tour after her pregnancy break and won two titles in 2007, despite once stating that she had no plans to return to the sport after giving birth to her first child.
Speaking about her pregnancy and her return to the tour in a 2021 interview with Chris Evert, the American stated that finding out she was pregnant was the happiest moment of her life.
Davenport added that she missed playing tennis during her time off the tour and that she returned to it barely three months after the birth of his son Jagger.
"It was like the best moment of my whole life and we were so excited and ready to kind of move on and I was about seven months pregnant. I think when I said to my husband John like I think I went, made me want to play again. He was like, ‘What! you want to tell me now in like a couple months before our first child,’ I’m like yeah I don’t know, I kind of miss it and he’s like, ‘Okay, well let’s just get through the last few months, let’s have hopefully a healthy baby, we’ll go from there’ and then things just went so fast, I actually played my first tournament three months after he was born,” said Lindsay Davenport.
The three-time Grand Slam champion further stated that while she had a great time on the tour with her son, it got more challenging as he grew older.
“We had so much fun for that year. It became much more difficult when Jagger got older, obviously you know, he started walking at 12 months that summer, he is more mobile, John couldn’t travel as much and that didn’t feel right my knee started to kind of act up but honestly we look back at that year as the most fun tour that I ever had,” she added.
“It was exhilarating to play as a mom” – Lindsay Davenport
In the same interview, Lindsay Davenport recounted how she discovered she was expecting a second child just about a year into the tour following her first pregnancy hiatus.
“It was right after that the US Open actually of 2008, my knee was really bugging me all summer. I had to pull out of singles at the Olympics. I just played the doubles in Beijing, didn’t do great at the US Open and I was going to get my knees scoped and the night before surgery, the doctor called to say like, ‘I can’t do the surgery’ and I’m like what happened, he’s like, ‘Well, in all your pre-surgery tests, it shows you are pregnant. So, that was the end of it and we found out we were expecting number two,” Lindsay Davenport said.
While her knee troubles made it difficult for her to play at her best, the former World No. 1 admitted that it was "exhilarating" to play tennis as a mother.
“I don’t know if I could have ever played again, honestly because of my knee but it was exhilarating to play as a mom and take my son everywhere. I couldn’t believe I had this cute little squishy little baby and just it seemed like a lot less pressure. Playing as a mom your focus is definitely there on the court but off the court. There’s a lot of happiness,” she stated.