Caroline Garcia’s new season of learning

Feeling fatigued, Caroline Garcia ended the season early and headed with her fiancé to the Republic of Mauritius, an island paradise off the coast of East Africa. They went to the beach, enjoyed boating excursions, trekked, and saw dolphins and whales cavorting in the Indian Ocean.

“It was nice to take some time off, see something different, take care of myself,” Garcia said recently from her home in Spain.

While the best singles and doubles players gathered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the WTA Finals presented by PIF last week, Garcia — winner of the year-end championship two years ago in Fort Worth — will get back to the grind. She’ll hit the gym for strength and conditioning — and, surprisingly, the books, too.

That’s right, for the first time since she was home-schooled in her teens, the 31-year-old Garcia is a student again. Like that time at the beach, she’s seeing different things and taking care of herself — and, most importantly, her future.

She’s one of five Hologic WTA Tour players enrolled in the Harvard Business School’s 2024-25 Crossover Intro Business program. Garcia, winner of 11 singles titles, is joined by Aldila Sutjiadi, Angelina Gabueva, Fernanda Contrerasbo and Katarzyna Piter.

Earlier this year, Garcia received an email from the WTA outlining the offering, but it wasn’t until her future husband, Borja Durán, coincidentally mentioned it that she gave it some serious thought.

“They are doing a crossover with famous athletes,” Durán told Garcia. “I really think you should consider it.”

Durán, an associate professor at the University of Barcelona with specialties in e-commerce and marketing, is something of an entrepreneur himself. He and Garcia launched a podcast this year, “Tennis Insider Club,” which features their exclusive interviews with people involved in the sport. As a result, Garcia has become more involved and interested in the business side.

“I always believed I was too busy with tennis to go to university,” Garcia said. “I’m discovering a new environment, seeing different perspectives. Obviously, when you arrive at the end of your career, you want to start building your future.

“The podcast for me already was a very good beginning. I want to keep exploring, learn new things. It’s also very good for my English. All of this together, pushed me to do it.”

Harvard Business School launched the pilot program in 2017 in partnership with the NBA. Ten active and recently active players, along with a group of 20 second-year MBA candidates participated. The idea was to give professional athletes a better handle on the business of their sport and how to leverage their success into life after competition.

Since then, there’s been one tuition-free, exam-free course each semester and there are alumni from the NFL, WNBA, MLS, NWSL, UFC — and the WTA. Previous participants include Olympic silver medalist and Players’ Council member Donna Vekic, Caroline Wozniacki, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Alison Riske-Amritraj and Riyadh tournament director Garbiñe Muguruza.

“My experience with Harvard Crossover was great,” Muguruza said in a recent interview. “It was something that fits our very busy calendar. It was very refreshing, a unique opportunity, enriching and relevant to our sport.”

Garcia’s class began in September, when she was paired with two graduate student mentors. They meet regularly online, reviewing case studies of different sports businesses. One of this semester’s topics was TEAM8, the management team created by agent Tony Godsick with Roger Federer. The company, behind the successful Laver Cup and the representation of such players as Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton, offers a glimpse of what is possible for retired athletes.

“You study the case, go through the story,” Garcia said. “You schedule time with your mentors and work through questions. The things they’re asking are designed to get you to think about things a different way.

“I’m quite good friends with Fernanda Contreras, and we say maybe one day we will do a case together, to see how we see things. At the end of March there is one case examination that you have to do with [professor] Anita [Elberse]who is in charge of the course — to see if we pass or not.”

In a very real sense, professional tennis players are people in business. They are essentially the CEOs of their personal brand, employing a support team, navigating a global schedule. The Harvard program is a finishing school of sorts for young future entrepreneurs.

“Investing prize money, how to spend reasonably — because it’s a career that ends quite early,” Garcia said. “Paying a coach — tennis brought me a lot of experience for sure,” Garcia said. “It’s a learning process. There are some things I wished I learned earlier, like finance and how to manage money for the future.

“But I think it’s also important to go outside of your bubble, because tennis is a very small bubble. So far, it’s been super interesting.”

Garcia’s biggest takeaway: There are no wrong answers if you remain open-minded.

“People’s minds work differently, and what’s important to me might be second for your or third for someone else,” she said. “Together, that makes a business work. This helps me with building my identity of only being a tennis player. Learning new things gives me confidence. So it’s really important to me to go through this.”

Muguruza recently retired from playing but transitioned quickly and found herself running the WTA’s year-end tournament, which features the top singles and doubles players and more than $15 million in prize money. Experience gained with the Harvard course in 2021 put her in a better position to deal with the myriad details.

“Structure, sponsors, working with a huge team, everyone professional in their own sector,” Muguruza said of the planning stages for Riyadh. “As a player, there’s downtime at the hotel when you’re not sure what to do with yourself. But having something exciting to learn and study helped me to organize my time.

“I had a great time. It’s totally worth it to every player that I’ve talked to.”

For Garcia and Durán, who have set their wedding for next July, the future seems certain to include a place in the business world. The podcast is a success and there are plans for more. Garcia said the Harvard course comes at a terrific time.

“We ask questions all the time,” Garcia said. “What kind of content is working, what kind of content is not working? How can you pitch your product to brand, how you can sell yourself better? Also to understand there is a mid-goal and also a long-term goal and how you can grow in time.

“Yeah, for me it’s really interesting and something quite new. I’m loving to understand it.”