Wheelchair Tennis Champion Dana Mathewson’s Greatest Ideas

As the first American woman to win a Grand Slam Major title in wheelchair tennis and one of the top wheelchair tennis players in the U.S., 33-year-old Dana Mathewson knows what it means to be on top of your game. 

Always an athletic kid, Mathewson played a variety of sports in her youth when she was able bodied. “I always liked soccer. I liked softball. I tried tennis once or twice at summer camp, but was not really into it,” she tells me over a recent video call.

However, after developing a rare autoimmune disorder called Transverse myelitis (TM), she became partial paraplegic, “or basically someone that needs to use a wheelchair to run or to get around,” she says. 

After encouragement from her mom (which she says was, perhaps, insistent at times) she picked up adaptive sports—and this time tennis stuck. The rest unfolded all thanks to Mathewson’s sheer talent and drive. 

Dana Mathewson: My condition shut a lot of doors that I thought were my only doors leading to athletic pursuits. But luckily mom had talked to a lot of different people when I was in the hospital and found out what wheelchair sports and adaptive sports were. 

At that stage of life, I had never seen anyone with a disability that wasn’t 90 years old. I just wasn’t exposed to a lot at that time, and I think that’s actually the case for a lot of Americans. Our country is so big that you don’t come into contact with a lot of different demographics. 

At first I was one of the kids who had no interest in wheelchair sports. I thought it sounded really boring. I couldn’t conceptualize what it would be. 

But my mom was like, “Nope! I want you to be active. I am signing you up for every camp possible.” And tennis was one of those. 

Mathewson: I’m a big breakfast person. I cannot start the day without breakfast. I know there’s lots of people that wake up and all they need is coffee and an apple. I’m not that girl. 

I love waking up and having scrambled egg whites or an egg white omelet with toast. If I’m really in the mood, I’ll sauté mushrooms and spinach, and put that in there. That way I have protein and carbs to get me going. Having that hot meal just helps me feel ready.

Aside from that, I think that I’m very big on veggies. I’ve never been a big meat eater ever since I was a little girl. So if you were to offer me a steak, I wouldn’t really want to eat it. But I don’t have the vegetarian mindset of not wanting to eat meat because of ethical reasons, I just haven’t really enjoyed it. 

Mathewson: I have a whole team of coaches down here in Orlando that I work with. My strength and conditioning team has specific programs I have to do every day. 

So, for example, Mondays and Wednesdays are lifting days. So for me, that’s a lot of upper body, but we do actually have me doing stuff just to keep whatever muscles I have in my legs active. That will involve me using the SkiErg machine, the rower, free weights, bench press, and stuff like that. 

Then Tuesdays and Thursdays are more conditioning based, so we’ll have court conditioning drills. 

Friday is a circuit where I combine pulling a sled, rowing, lifting, and battle ropes. It’s brutal. 

There’s good variability between conditioning and strength. I think that if you go completely one or the other, you can burn your body out—or you’re not providing your muscles the exercise that they need.

When I was in college I was just very obsessed with the idea of being skinny and being toned. I think a lot of girls fall into the trap of, “Well, I’m just going to be on the elliptical for 30 minutes or I’m going to be on the bike for an hour.” Yeah, that burns calories, but it doesn’t actually burn calories the same way it does like burning muscle. 

Mathewson: After training, there’s a lot of stretching that we do. That was something that I have to admit I didn’t do for the bulk of my career and I was just lucky I didn’t have injuries. But now that I’m getting older, I really see the importance of stretching and cool downs after a workout. 

I also think it’s important to recover mentally. I set aside time to play with my dog, call my friends, or even just sit on my couch and watch TV. I love the Real Housewives. It’s good to have things in your life that bring you joy!

A few years ago, my mindset was like, “I need to work hard. I just need to put my head down and be productive all of the time.” But I think it’s actually productive to be lazy sometimes. That’s what refuels you. Benign a couch potato, being a sloth, being by myself for a bit is what recharges my batteries. 

Mathewson: That’s been something I’ve really had to work on in the past few years. Tennis is such mentally based sport, and I didn’t realize just how much until I got to the more elite level of playing. Because at that point, everyone has a good forehand. Everyone has a good backhand. Everyone has a good serve. Maybe one person is a little bit better than the other. But what really makes people win more often is their mindset. 

And I think as an early tennis professional, I heard that, but didn’t really embrace it or didn’t really understand it, but I very much do now.

A lot of what I’ve been doing is positive self talk when I’m playing or before the match. I tend to give too much credit to my opponents before a match even starts. If you do that, then you’ve already lost the match, right? Because you’re already thinking like, Well, she hits super big or she’s really fast. She’s going to get everything. 

I’ve had to learn to visualize positive outcomes. The night before a match, I will give myself jobs of things I want to do because I’m very goal oriented. What I mean by that is I’ll give myself assignments for myself for a match. I’ll write them down on a notecard, then try to visualize what it would look and feel like to achieve the goals. I do it again and again and again. 

Mathewson: I think you’re right that certain people have more of that stubborn mindset, which helps you be more resilient. What I mean by that is like you get knocked down five times, then you’ll get up six because you’re stubborn enough to keep trying. But I think that that can also be a learned trait too.

With tennis being my personal example, there’s only one person every week in a tournament that wins, right? So that means that everybody else has to lose. You play X number of tournaments a year. So there’s a lot of losing that you have to get comfortable with in tennis! 

It’s week in and week out games, and most times you do lose. You might win a few,, but ultimately you’re ending up with an L most likely. Unless you’re Serena Williams. By nature of tennis being my job, it teaches you resilience because you learn how reframe loses. 

Mathewson: Tennis is really technical, so yes it can be frustrating. It can turn a lot of kids away from it. Or maybe kids will be frustrated because they don’t have a team they can play with, and that can be hard. 

But tennis is one of the coolest sports in that it allows you to pick up a racket and play with anyone on any given day. You can just go to the park, meet someone, and play with them. You don’t need a whole team to play, like basketball or soccer. 

But aside from that, I’d say to just stick with it and trust the process. Because it’s not always easy. 

There’s sacrifices that have to be given to a sport that people don’t always think about when they’re kids. Like maybe you’ll have a tournament on a weekend when you want to go to a sleepover. Or maybe you’ll be getting frustrated that one practice didn’t go well, or other people are playing better than me.