If American tennis star and entrepreneur Sloane Stephens ever needs to be kept grounded, she need only hit a few balls with the kids who play tennis as part of her Sloane Stephens Foundation.

“Half of them have no idea who I am, and they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re the girl who plays tennis on YouTube?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, that was me,’” Stephens says with a laugh on a Zoom call from Los Angeles.

“Or I was playing mini tennis with them one day, and we lost a point and one girl said to me, ‘You’re just not that good.’ They bring me back to Earth 1,000 percent.”

Stephens, of course, needs no introduction to global tennis fans who are well versed in her powerful all-court game, physicality and resilience. A star junior before turning pro at 16, Stephens’ breakout year came in 2013 when she reached the semifinals of the Australian Open (beating Serena Williams in a massive upset along the way) and the quarter finals of Wimbledon.

In 2017, she realized a childhood dream when she won her home Grand Slam – the US Open – defeating one of her heroes, Venus Williams, in the semis and Madison Keys in the final, before reaching the final of the French Open the following year.

The winner of eight Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) singles titles and one doubles title, she reached a career-best singles ranking of number three in 2018.

Still as competitive as ever on court, the 32-year-old is now hitting winners in the business world, an arena she believes she was ready for because of her tennis career.

“Life comes at you pretty fast as a tennis player – you start so young that you mature quickly,” she reflects. “You get so used to adversity that you’re used to handling problems very much on your own, which raises a maturity level extremely quick.

“I mean, you’re playing in front of 20,000 people as a teenager. It’s not normal, but it prepares you for anything. I see people freaking out in the airport when they lose a bag, and for me, it’s more, find a solution and deal with it.”

Big business

Even when her tennis career was in its infancy, Stephens always had ambitions to expand her brand and expertise off court.

While still playing, she received a bachelor’s degree in general communications and a master’s degree in business administration, taking inspiration from Venus Williams, who entered design school while she was still one of the top players in the world.

“It’s becoming more prevalent in sports for athletes to be able to do even more outside of their sports without being judged,” she says.

“I always did things that I was passionate about and I think that’s why I’ve played tennis so long – I never felt like I was missing out because I still did all the other things I wanted to do.

“I was able to get my bachelor’s degree, and then my master’s degree. All the things I wanted to accomplish in life, I was able to do while I was playing tennis, and I always took advantage of my downtime. I’d think, ‘OK, I’m going to go back to school online or I’m going to start a business,’ and I would do it.”

Laying the foundation

At the urging of her wider family, whom she refers to as her greatest support network, Stephens started the Sloane Stephens Foundation in 2013, which helps children from underserved areas, giving them the opportunity to play tennis, soccer or to learn to swim, as well as education and access to mental health services.

“My mother is an educator, and everyone in my family is very heavy on education and bettering yourself,” she says. “We wanted to combine tennis and education to use that as a vehicle for kids in under-resourced areas.”

Since its inception, Stephens estimates the foundation has impacted more than 50,000 children a year across the United States.

“We have a curriculum that we use, and we try to give the kids resources; we have an e-sports lab, an art class, a crystalized art class and we have mental health services all year round for all of the kids,” she explains.

“We take a lot of special needs kids – kids with autism – who normally wouldn’t be able to play because they usually separate those kids. We take everyone in our program so that they all have the opportunity to play.”

Through her foundation, Stephens is not expecting every kid who comes through the door to be the next Serena Williams or Carlos Alcaraz (although she wouldn’t mind that, either), but what she wants her kids to understand is that there is a breadth of opportunity around the tennis industry.

“There’s analytics, scorekeeping, tech and broadcasting,” she explains. “I wanted to use tennis as a vehicle so that kids would have the opportunity to play tennis and also have the opportunity to get a job and take care of themselves through the sport of tennis.”

Last July, she won the Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian Award at the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards. For Stephens, it was validation for the work the foundation had done over the past 12 years and an acknowledgment that they were on the right track.

“The award felt like, ‘You guys are doing the right things.’ We’re helping the kids that we want to be helping, we’re helping the families, we’re in our communities and we’re doing the work,” she says.

“It’s also like going back and continuing to do the work and helping more kids and more families and giving them more opportunities, so while it is amazing and so cool, it inspires us to do more.”

Family matters

That drive and ambition started young. Her mother was a champion collegiate swimmer and her father played in the National Football League (most notably for the New England Patriots).

“You don’t get to the top of your sport or even to a professional level in your sport without having some sort of dedication and hard work and work ethic in you,” she says.

“I do think that following in those footsteps has played a role in how driven I am in everything I do, not just tennis, but in everything in my life.”

Stephens has also been heavily inspired by her late grandparents, who were a major force in her life.

“They’ve been the inspiration behind a lot of things in my life,” she reflects. “The first ever event I had for my foundation was because of them – we did it at a school that they both were on the board of. They’ve always inspired me to want to give back.”

Indeed, Stephens’ fledgling wellness brand, Doc & Glo, which launched in August 2024, was named as a tribute to them.

“I loved my grandparents,” she says. “I hung out with them all the time, they came to tournaments, they traveled with me, they picked me up from school and took me to practice, they came to Florida when my mom was out of town and I had training – they were so special and they taught me so much.”

Drawing on memories of trips to Hawaii when she and her grandmother would go and have massages and pedicures, Stephens says she always dreamed about starting a business focused on self-care, even if it was meant to be built after she retired from tennis.

“It was supposed to be a long-term thing that decided to happen early,” she says with a laugh. “But we had products, so we thought, ‘Let’s just do it, right?’”

A new challenge

Stephens says the entire process has been trial and error.

“Initially, it was like, who’s buying it? Is it only tennis fans who watch me? Is it other people? What’s the base model going to be? Is it sustainable?” she says. “All of these questions I had, I wanted answered before we went full force into something we couldn’t manage.”

Stephens knew eventually she wanted to expand into brick-and-mortar retail and has already seen those dreams realized, with the line now available in American retailers Free People, Anthropologie, Revolve and WTHN. The brand has also joined forces with a gym, Ballers, which launched in October.

“I want to own the locker room in terms of self-care and wellness,” she explains. “So we’ve created shampoo, conditioner, a new facial cleanser – to have a whole locker room moment, and that’s the vision for the brand.”

Doc & Glo, which is based on a subscription model including refill pouches, has expanded rapidly, with Stephens putting on full-time employees.

“It’s become a full-blown business now that I can’t even manage myself. When I was injured, it was great, but now it’s like, ‘Oh no, I’m not the real CEO, right?’ I have to go and play tennis now, so Mom, step in,” she says, laughing.

Influencing the future

Stephens has also given back to her profession. She sat on the WTA Player Council for four years (her tenure ended in 2024) and she was heavily involved in the WTA Fertility Initiative, a comprehensive program that provides financial grants, ranking protection and paid maternity leave for its players, allowing them to balance starting a family with their professional careers.

Again, she was inspired by her grandfather, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and her aunt, who froze her eggs and later went on to have children in her 40s.

“I’ve been talking about this with my family since I was 20,” Stephens says.

“I’ve personally frozen my eggs twice and it’s because my aunt froze her eggs 25 years ago, when it was not a thing. I thought, ‘OK, if I’m still playing tennis or I’m not playing tennis, I’ll do it, so I don’t have to decide to stop and have a baby.’ I froze them in 2021 and then in 2024, because I didn’t want to have to worry about stopping or quitting.”

Stephens says the WTA player council needed to put in place a protection ranking so that women didn’t feel pressured to come back to the tour immediately, and risk getting injured or face other health complications.

“We wanted to make sure the girls who did it had support,” she says. “Being forced back into your job or your sport when you’re not feeling good, that’s not fun.”

Now, Stephens is turning her attention to the Australian summer circuit, including the Australian Open in January.

“I’ll be there,” she says, smiling.

But ask her to reflect and describe what she’s most proud of so far in her career, and her answer is simple.

“I did what I wanted to do, I played tennis, I got my degrees, and I did it how I wanted to, on my own terms,” she says.

“Tennis players don’t always do things on their own terms, but to be able to have the freedom to step out and do the things that are important to me – like run my foundation and be a part of something bigger than myself – I’m proud of that.

“And to win a Grand Slam, and to make the finals of my favorite tournament, the French Open, I feel most proud that I did all those things while living the life that I wanted to live.”