After a decades-long tennis career during which she played professionally on the WTA Tour and for the UCLA Bruins, Ayan Broomfield hung up her racket to support the career of her boyfriend, American tennis star Francis Tiafoe.
And no, before you say it, Broomfield is not the real-life Tashi Duncan (aka Zendaya) from Challengers. But watching the film, given its similarities to her life, was a little strange.
"I was sitting there and I texted Francis when I was watching it," she tells me. "I'm like, 'this is weird. I feel like this is us.'"
While Broomfield didn't play a part in inspiring Challengers, she did have her own Hollywood moment: as the tennis double for the character of Venus Williams in the 2021 film King Richard.
"That was another highlight of my life because it was full circle," she says. I grew up having them as my idols, trying to emulate them and then to be able to play her in a movie about their lives was incredible."
Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Ayan Broomfield fell in love with the sport from an early age and moved as a teenager to Florida to focus on her tennis career. She met Tiafoe, 26, when they were both young tennis players and they've been inseparable ever since. Broomfield played at both Clemson and UCLA, and was playing professionally when COVID hit. After an injury -- and playing Williams -- she decided to take a break and explore her opportunities in content creation and modeling.
But when Tiafoe asked her to travel with him on the tour, essentially to be a WAG, she was hesitant. She didn't want to just be seen as his girlfriend, when she was an athlete too. But then she had a fateful conversation with none other than Roger Federer.
"He [said] he wouldn't have been where he was now without the help of his wife, how much sacrifice she made for him, all the things that she helped him with and that it's crucial to getting to a certain place," she says. "He gave me tips. He told me different ways that I could help and what I could do. And I remember leaving that conversation like, okay, I am in it. Let's do this."
Broomfield was also inspired by fellow tennis WAGs like Morgan Riddle, who have, as she put it, made a "career out of being on the road" thanks to social media.
"I think that it's given women such an opportunity to create and show their personalities and be able to show the world who they are, instead of just being such and such girlfriend or such and such wife, you're able to show your personality," she says.
Now, Broomfield is focused on building her brand and running her nonprofit foundation which she launched early this year and helps elevate local nonprofits all across the world. She's been featured in Forbes. She's also not ruling out a return to playing tennis, though she says either way, she's making an impact on the sport.
"We're able to bring a lot of younger women to the sports," she says. "I know some girls are even coming out just to see some of the WAGs...and a lot of people are playing tennis because of it. So it's bringing it a completely different demographic to sports....I think that's amazing to have women interested in sports. I think it's great."