For those of you who haven’t heard of Deja Kitchiner, she is a young girl from the USA who is being touted by her father as the next Justine Henin and Steffi Graf. She has a youtube account and her father has attempted to create hype around Deja by spamming tennis forums with videos of her and making outlandish claims about her future in the game. The problem is that in reality, she just isn’t very good. In the youtube videos of her being fed balls, she appears to be hitting her serve, backhand and volleys all in the same western forehand grip, and any beginner could tell you just how wrong that is.

It really highlights just how easily fathers can exploit their daughters. She probably is a nice, normal young lady but she has become the butt of jokes across the tennis community as her father continues to shamelessly promote her under the moniker of JustWinDeja among other usernames and fake profiles. Shouldn’t it be JustPlayDeja? He claims that she is thirteen years old but not only does she look far older, but she has seemingly been thirteen for years now. It’s just a sad situation and if (and when) she doesn’t become that world famous pro that her father is adamant she will be, how will she be able to have a normal life considering she will have spent her whole childhood playing tennis?

With all that said, the sob story is brilliant;  “We played in a hallway and when there was no hallway we, um, hit on the back of our SUV”. Completely believable of course.