Hero Tennis Player Wins After Giving Herself a Haircut Mid-Match

In the sports world, female athletes often have to overcome additional hurdles, some of which are considered taboo to speak of. But one of the prettiest, shiniest hurdles? Long hair. When you're a female athlete with long hair (or male, for that matter), your strands can do everything from weigh down your movements to block your vision and require repeated, and sometimes annoying, adjustments. (We see you, you troublesome ponytail.) But turns out there's a simple solution for dealing with long hair—at least for one tennis player, Svetlana Kuznetsova, who showed the world when she took on defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska at the WTA Finals in Singapore.

Mid-match, Kuznetsova freed herself from an awkward braid by grabbing a pair of scissors, lopping off several inches of her hair in one fell sweep. Yes, you read that right. She cut her hair off literally on the court. Naturally, it was a move that no one saw coming, as evidenced by the shock of the commentators who speculated that her hair could have been at “an awkward length where it’s clearly disturbing her” or “feeling heavy on the court,” according to The Cut.

The Russian tennis player explained in her own words that it was a combination of both, though. "I was trying to put it behind my headband, but my hair is very thick and heavy," Kuznetsova told CNN. "In the end, when I was hitting the forehands, every time I would hit a good shot... [my hair] would hit my eye every time and I was struggling. I thought, 'Okay, what's more important now—my hair, which I can let grow, or the match?'"

https://twitter.com/WTA/status/790549136827305985?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Kuznetsova obviously made the right decision. She ended up coming back from being down a point and taking home the big win.

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