She tore her ACL from tennis and built a $25,000 a month business

Sammi Ekmark, 29, co-founded personalized greeting and gift card company Ink’d Greetings in 2023 alongside her husband Andrew — a major pivot from her previous career as a star tennis player.

Ekmark picked up the sport when she was 10 years old, and by the time she was in college, she was playing on a Division I team where she was individually ranked among the top 50 tennis players in singles in the United States.

“I really focused on tennis. I was 92-0 in high school, so I never lost a match,” said Ekmark. “I played every single day for two and a half hours after school,” she said, adding that this was on top of her matches and tournaments on weekends.

Her goal was to become a professional tennis player, so she said she would often prioritize the sport over her academics and social life.

It didn’t take long for university recruiters to notice. As high school graduation approached, she received many offers from colleges around the nation. Ultimately, she decided to go with Arizona State University (ASU), which gave her a full-ride scholarship to attend the school and play for their Division I team.

Unfortunately, one night while playing a late tennis tournament in college, Ekmark planted her feet wrong and tore her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), one of the main ligaments in the knee. This is known to be a major injury in sports.

“A lot of the times people do consider ACL [tears] a massive career ender,” she said. “When I got my injury … It made me take a year off, and it was very tough. Tennis was still my life, but it was hard to get back into it as good as before.”

Ekmark recovered from the tear and got back to playing tennis, but along the way, she also developed an interest for business after taking an entrepreneurship class at her university. Although she had dedicated much of her life to the sport, she ultimately decided to pivot and focus on building Ink’d Greetings.

Today, her business brings in over $25,000 in revenue a month, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

In the U.S., parents spend on average $3,000 annually on their children’s sports, with 64% reporting rising costs in recent years, according to a 2025 report by insurance company New York Life.

However, less than 2% of more than 500,000 athletes in National Collegiate Athletic Association schools are drafted into a professional sport, according to NCAA data.

“I unfortunately wasn’t as serious about academics…