As a curious child with little to no plans of doing sports, this child experienced an unexpected turn of events as she watched her aunt and uncle play the sport that she would be playing in the near future.

 

Maria Faraseth “Faith” Celso is a 17-year-old tennis player from Pulilan, Bulacan who began her journey from watching tennis. After watching, she started to have sessions and kicked off her tennis career.

 

Celso started tennis way back in 2015 at the age of 11. Since then, she has played and joined many competitions, albeit with a brief pause after meeting volleyball. 

 

She eventually went back to tennis in Grade 7, rebuilding her past sport and re-branding her name for her future.

 

After two years of performance, she experienced one of the best moments in her timeline as she won Gold in the Malolos City Meet, giving her an opportunity to go to the Central Luzon Regional Athletics Association (CLRAA) Meet.

 

Even though she did not win, she used that moment to give her A-game performance at every training and competition, utilizing that as a big step in her journey in tennis.

 

She has tallied 1 gold, 2 silvers, and 1 bronze under her name.

 

  The five-foot-four tennis player is expected to work even harder as she plans to get into a big university. She had also started to work harder for her success, not just as an athlete but also as a person.

 

“[For me,] hopefully to get into one of the big universities in Manila that can help me grow as an athlete and a person,” Celso said.

 

Although at the moment, she does not consider herself to be a successful and notable player, she is doing her best to be known in her field.

 

“Honestly, I still don’t actually consider myself as someone who is known in this field of sports yet, but I must say as time passes, I eventually found myself wanting more of those victories. It was like it left me craving and aiming for something bigger than what I have now,” she said.

 

For her, being a student-athlete in this pandemic is quite hard but with the help of her coach, she maintains her body and her fitness.

 

“Before we were under the NCR Bubble and ECQ this year, I was actually training under Coach Davis Alano, the D Academy, he helped get into shape again and improve my games,” Celso shared. “We trained for like 3 or 4 hours twice a week, along with my teammates. Then I also observe my diet to make sure that my body can keep up with the intensity of my activities.”

 

As of today, she still has no competitions to join due to the pandemic but as her collegiate years are near, she hopes to do her best and one day, play for the biggest schools in the Philippines.