Berankis Featured In VMAN Magazine

© Milan VukmirovicRichard Berankis is the higest-ranked player to emerge from Lithuania.

Up-and-coming Lithuanian Richard Berankis is the subject of a VMAN Magazine feature. The 20 year old is the youngest player in the Top 75 of the South African Airways 2011 ATP Rankings, jumping 22 positions to No. 73 after reaching the third round on his Australian Open debut.

“We were young, we didn’t know when to stop,” wrote David Foster Wallace of his teenage devotion to competitive tennis. But that’s the thing about Richard Berankis: there is no when about it—nothing will stop him. The 20-year-old up-and-comer, who in 2008 captured a U.S. Open junior title and became the world number one junior tennis star, is the highest ranked tennis player ever to come out of his home country of Lithuania.
 
“I used to follow my older sister to the club and I would hit against the wall by myself while she practiced,” he says of his introduction to a sport that has since become his entire existence. “I don’t really remember when or how I picked up my first racket but my earliest memory was my first match, which I lost. I was really pissed off afterwards, but I didn’t cry.”
 
Which sounds like a good place to start: not crying. And that may be partly due to the fact that Berankis devoted himself almost immediately thereafter to tennis, one of the most emotionally and psychically difficult sports humans have yet constructed.
 
“I moved to Siauliai, a small town in the country, when I was 9 years old to train with my coach,” he says. “I now spend most of my time on the road traveling to and playing tournaments. I am rarely at home or in one place for that matter.” It’s a tough life, to dedicate yourself at such a young age to a single, highly intense sport. Particularly one like tennis, a game many believe to be the most artful but also the most pressurized.
 
“I guess I don’t really think about the pressure,” Berankis says nonchalantly. “I’m usually too focused and into the match. When you are competing almost every week, you get in a mode that is very focused and determined. I’m always working to get stronger and better, I’m always looking to the future. Sure there are times I get tight and nervous, like every other player, but the greatest ones know how to handle those emotions and still play their best.”
 
Perhaps part of his confidence comes from training at the renowned IMG Bollettieri Academy in Florida, which boasts notable tennis alumni, such as Björn Borg, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, and Venus and Serena Williams. But tennis is a game that requires not merely tremendous balletic precision, but ferocious, indefatigable will. When we try again to find a crack in his bold Baltic resolve, asking Berankis his greatest fear, he does not disappoint: tennis doesn’t figure into it. “Drowning,” he says with a smile. “I don’t know why, but it really freaks me out.”

- Elliott David, courtesy of VMAN Magazine