Linda Wild.

For 28-year-old tennis pro Linda Wild it happened in a "dumpy little hotel" in Eastbourne, England--a town in the backwaters of Wimbledon. In 1990 she stayed there to compete in the traditional warm-up tournament to the main event. Her guest room would have happily slipped from memory the moment she checked out. However, that's where one fine morning she finished reading the book her stepfather had handed her months earlier, Why Wait? by Josh McDowell.

"At the very end of that very thick book, there was a little paragraph," she recalls. "It read, `If you want Christ in your life, say this prayer.' I had never seen those words before, the message of unconditional love."

Rather, growing up as the neighborhood's only girl--one affectionately called "Tot" by her two older brothers.... she always felt that she needed "to prove to somebody that I was good enough. The compulsion started with her brothers and later extended to her national tennis coaches. "I was always trying to win for somebody," she reflects.

Eight years after reading the simple sinner's prayer and accepting Christ, Wild still appreciates her faith conversion as if the light had just dawned after a starless night No wonder, really, when she remembers how friends can come and go based on wins and losses

"When you win, all these people accept you. Everyone wants your time because everyone wants to be around a winner," she explains. That was certainly the case in 1996, her best year yet, when she reached the quarter finals of the U.S. Open, defeating Wimbledon champion Lindsay Davenport on the way. Besides perks (e.g., two free tickets for life), she bagged $261,042 in prize money, which bumped her career earnings to more than $1 million. Nonetheless, ever since she first picked up her racquet at age 10, losses have deflated her confidence.

"But when I accepted Christ, I felt Christ accepted me, for who I was ... whether I won or lost."

Wild says her faith in God also helps her cope with loneliness. For instance, to compete on courts as distant as Hobart, Australia, she must hit the road up to 24 weeks a year. This travel schedule keeps Wild from her support network of family and friends in the Chicago, Illinois, area. And even professional athletes complain that schlepping bags from airport to airport and criss-crossing time zones take their toll on the body.

Plus, professional tennis tours can pressure-cook players into a fierce and isolating state of rivalry. Most days Wild would rather wince through a struggle than share it with a woman she could compete against days later on the tour. So she once held thoughts and feelings in with a sense of self-preservation. Now God acts as her Flawless Confidant, One always available to listen and encourage.

At the end of her career, Wild says she has enjoyed it despite the highly competitive tours and many solo travel legs. That doesn't mean she likes going to dinner by herself in strange cities or living out of a suitcase. But she knows she's never alone, and she's always a winner in the eyes that count most.

Pam Mellskog writes on health topics from St. Paul, Minnesota.