Bianca Andreescu on challenges of finding purpose away from the tennis court

 Bianca Andreescu on challenges of finding purpose away from the tennis court
Bianca Andreescu returned to action in April after missing the first three and a half months of the season due to personal reasons. (FILE/AFP)
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Updated 20 May 2025
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Bianca Andreescu on challenges of finding purpose away from the tennis court

 Bianca Andreescu on challenges of finding purpose away from the tennis court
  • Ranked 102 in the world this week, Andreescu is competing in the qualifying rounds of a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2019 Australian Open

MADRID: Bianca Andreescu has spent more time than she would have liked away from the tennis tour since she stormed onto the scene back in 2019.

That breakthrough season six years ago saw a 19-year-old Andreescu become the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title when she defeated Serena Williams in the US Open final.

She ended that year ranked No. 4 in the world after starting it ranked outside the top 150.

Her career has been a stop-start journey since then, as a slew of injuries, a self-imposed break for mental health reasons, and more recently an appendectomy, have kept her on the sidelines for various stretches of time.

Currently mounting yet another comeback following a six-month hiatus, Andreescu opened her Roland Garros qualifying campaign with a bang, delivering a 6-0, 6-0 performance against China’s Yao Xinxin on Monday to advance to round two.

Ranked 102 in the world this week, Andreescu is competing in the qualifying rounds of a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2019 Australian Open.

The 24-year-old Canadian returned to action in April after missing the first three and a half months of the season due to personal reasons, as well as an emergency surgery to remove her appendix back in February.

Looking fitter and feeling healthier than, perhaps, ever, Andreescu sent out a signal of intent in Rome last week, where she claimed two top-20 victories, over former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina and Olympic silver medallist Donna Vekic, en route to the round of 16.

A long journey of soul-searching and self-development is what helped Andreescu get to where she is today. But ever the seeker, she admits her appetite for learning and finding meaningful off-court experiences doesn’t always make her life easier on court.

For years now, Andreescu has been working on finding fulfilment beyond winning a tennis match. During a break she took in 2022, she started volunteering at various charities, including a women’s shelter dedicated to victims of domestic violence.

She made sure her most recent hiatus was just as productive.

“I did a lot of things. After Tokyo [in October 2024], I was not too good mentally, so since I was in that area, I went to Thailand, and I did a lot of volunteer work there with kids,” Andreescu told Arab News earlier this month.

She spent time in Phuket and Chiang Mai, helping bring food, water, and clothes to impoverished areas.

“It was very humbling, obviously, and just such amazing people,” she added. “That definitely helped me get into a better mindset.”

Just as she was preparing to return to the tour for March’s ‘Sunshine Double’ in Indian Wells and Miami, Andreescu’s progress was delayed by appendectomy surgery.

“But that led to other things; so I went on two retreats,” she explained.

“I did an online Tony Robbins retreat, and then I did a Joe Dispenza retreat in person [in Basel]. I've read all of his books, and I talk about him quite a lot. I went to one of his retreats to really get into that mindset of, coming back into the sport.”

She also visited her grandparents in Romania.

“They are my biggest supporters, and, honestly, when I have tough times on court, I really think about them, and they really give me that confidence to push harder and to be better on the court, so it was really nice,” said Andreescu.

Getting healthy has been a top priority for Andreescu, who spent months researching various nutrition plans before settling on Dave Asprey’s ‘Bulletproof diet’. She said a lot of her previous injuries could have been attributed to being overweight and is pleased with all the work she’s done to “get leaner”.

Now back on tour and working her way through the qualifying rounds of the French Open, Andreescu is armed with a wealth of knowledge and real-life experiences she never would have amassed had she been on the tennis circuit full-time.

“It is definitely great, but sometimes I can get too much in my head with all the information that I'm seeking,” she confessed.

“Because, yes, I have a lot of interests outside of the court, and that can be beneficial, but also not. Because if I go back to 2019, yes, I read books and stuff, but I was still in that era of ‘ignorance is bliss’, and sometimes that's really nice, because I can definitely get into my head.

“But it helps me so much in the way of growing as a person on and off the court, a million percent. And I think that's what life is all about, and I think that's why I also seek those experiences, especially volunteer work. For me, that's, like, super, super important, giving back.”

‘Getting in her head’ can manifest in different ways and Andreescu tries to elaborate with a few examples.

“Let's say I'm feeling nervous. I have all of these tools under my belt that I can use to help me tame that nervousness. But then I can also take the way of going with the flow and just letting the nerves hit me and use that to my advantage,” she says.

“So it's like finding that balance, for instance, because I know that I can do well when I am nervous, but I know I can also do well when I'm more calm and centered, so it's a bit weird in that way.

“And then the other part is I feel like I always need to be doing something and always needing to learn something, and that can get quite overbearing because sometimes, let's say, if I don't write in my journal one day, I can get in my head, if I lose my match today, I'll maybe think, ‘Oh, if I wrote in my journal yesterday, maybe I would have won’. Little things like that.”

Striking that balance remains a work in progress for Andreescu but she certainly feels empowered by all her off-court endeavors and feels “super different than even six months ago”.

Her biggest challenge is shedding all the comparisons people draw between who she is now, as a player, and who she was during her breakthrough 2019 campaign. She admits it’s a trap she herself sometimes gets caught up in.

“It's like how can I be Bianca now instead of how can I be Bianca from last year, or even, you know, 2019, right? Because everyone talks about 2019, but it's never going to be the case. So it's like finding who Bianca is now is the most important thing,” she states.

“I can definitely have a toxic relationship in a way with the sport, and so it's just really focusing on giving myself grace of, yes, I'm a perfectionist and I know where my level can be, but it's also like, I'm not the same person I was back in 2019, because people always compare me to 2019, and me too. That's kind of been the narrative of my career.

“So it's just giving myself grace and patience because in a way I'm still young.”

A month shy of her 25th birthday, Andreescu has every reason to believe the best is yet to come.


Bencic downs Alexandrova to break Wimbledon 4th-round barrier

Bencic downs Alexandrova to break Wimbledon 4th-round barrier
Updated 07 July 2025
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Bencic downs Alexandrova to break Wimbledon 4th-round barrier

Bencic downs Alexandrova to break Wimbledon 4th-round barrier
  • Bencic, who has been knocked out in the fourth round here three times before, said she turned the tide by being more courageous

LONDON: Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic reached her first Wimbledon quarterfinal in nine attempts on Monday, dismissing 18th-seeded Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-6(4) 6-4 in just under two hours on a breezy Court One.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, 28, shed tears after she finally broke the fourth-round barrier 15 months after giving birth to her daughter Bella and said she felt very proud of herself.

But she needed six match points to down 30-year-old Alexandrova, who just last month beat Bencic with the loss of only three games at the Den Bosch grasscourt tournament in the Netherlands.

Bencic, who has been knocked out in the fourth round here three times before, said she turned the tide by being more courageous.

“I think I tried to be more brave. I had more matches under my belt and it turned out better than the last time I played her,” she said.

“I always got stuck in the fourth round. It was so important for me to break through to the quarterfinals,” she added.

Alexandrova, who has also never passed the fourth round at the All England Club, blew hot and cold in the first set, dropping two service games before turning on the aggression, improving her second serve and fighting back to force a tiebreak.

But Bencic, calm and businesslike, won four points in a row in the tiebreak and sealed the set after an hour and one minute when Alexandrova sent a backhand long.

Bencic broke Alexandrova’s serve in the eighth game of the second set but was unable to capitalize when serving for the match in a mammoth eight-deuce game that lasted some 15 minutes and during which the Russian saved five match points.

But Bencic came fighting back on the Russian’s serve with a forehand winner for a sixth match point, converting it when Alexandrova put a forehand long.

The Swiss, ranked 35 but a former world number four, was one of nine mothers in the draw, but the only one to reach the fourth round. She gave birth in April last year and was back playing competitively within six months even reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open in January 2025.

“I’m really proud of myself and the whole team. We did an amazing job coming back,” she said.

“It’s amazing to share the memories together as a family. I’m enjoying it more. I juggle it like every mum does.”


Wimbledon blames ‘human error’ for embarrassing line-calling glitch

Wimbledon blames ‘human error’ for embarrassing line-calling glitch
Updated 07 July 2025
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Wimbledon blames ‘human error’ for embarrassing line-calling glitch

Wimbledon blames ‘human error’ for embarrassing line-calling glitch
  • Officials apologize to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sonay Kartal after the malfunction during their fourth-round match
  • A fully automated system has replaced human line judges at Wimbledon in 2025, in line with the Australian Open and the US OpeN

LONDON: Wimbledon chiefs on Monday blamed human error for an embarrassing failure of the tournament’s electronic line-calling system.

Officials apologized to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sonay Kartal after the malfunction during their fourth-round match on Center Court on Sunday, which Pavlyuchenkova won in straight sets.

After an investigation, organizers admitted the technology was turned off in error on a section of the court for a game, with the mistake only becoming apparent when a shot from Britain’s Kartal that clearly missed the baseline was not called out.

Had the call been correct, it would have given Russia’s Pavlyuchenkova a 5-4 lead in the first set, but instead umpire Nico Helwerth ruled the point should be replayed, with Kartal going on to win the game.

The Russian accused the official of home bias, saying: “Because she is local, they can say whatever. You took the game away from me.”

Wimbledon issued a statement on Sunday saying the system had been “deactivated in error” for one game by those operating the system.

“In that time, there were three calls not picked up by live ELC on the affected part of the court. Two of these were called by the chair umpire, who was not made aware that the system had been deactivated,” it said.

“Following the third, the chair umpire stopped the match and consulted with the review official. It was determined that the point should be replayed.

“The chair umpire followed the established process. We have apologized to the players involved.”

Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club, told reporters on Monday that the system was “working optimally.”

“The issue we had was human error in terms of the tracking system having been inadvertently deactivated, and then the chair (umpire) not being made aware of the fact that it had been deactivated,” she said.

She added: “We’ve spoken to the players, we’ve apologized to them, we’ve very quickly moved into reviewing everything that had happened yesterday afternoon and putting in place the appropriate changes to the processes.”

A fully automated system has replaced human line judges at Wimbledon in 2025, in line with the Australian Open and the US Open.

But the glitch in Sunday’s fourth-round match follows concerns raised by other players about the technology, including British stars Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper.

Around 80 former line judges are employed as match assistants, with two on each court offering support to the umpire.

But Bolton said there was no need to put them back on the courts.

“The system was functional,” she said. “It had been deactivated. We didn’t need to put line judges back on the court again, we needed the system to be active.”

Automated line-calling technology has become standard across tennis, with all events on the men’s ATP Tour and many WTA tournaments using it.


Sabalenka downs former doubles partner to power into Wimbledon quarters

Sabalenka downs former doubles partner to power into Wimbledon quarters
Updated 06 July 2025
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Sabalenka downs former doubles partner to power into Wimbledon quarters

Sabalenka downs former doubles partner to power into Wimbledon quarters
  • Sabalenka has never reached a final at the All England Club
  • Now she is the only one of the top six seeds in the women’s draw still standing

LONDON: World number one Aryna Sabalenka marched into the Wimbledon quarter-finals on Sunday as her former doubles partner Elize Mertens fell short of upsetting the US Open champion.
Sabalenka has never reached a final at the All England Club but is the player to beat as the only one of the top six seeds in the women’s draw still standing.
The 27-year-old missed last year’s Wimbledon due to injury and was banned in 2022 as part of a blanket suspension on Russian and Belarusian athletes due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Sabalenka looks determined to make up for lost time and, just like in her third-round victory over Emma Raducanu, had to overcome a tough test from Mertens to progress 6-4, 7-6 (7/4).
The pair won the 2019 US Open and 2021 Australian Open together as a doubles partnership, but Sabalenka has now won their last 10 meetings against each other in singles.
“It’s tough to play against someone you know quite close, it’s tricky facing her,” said Sabalenka.
“I know how smart she is, I know she is going to fight until the very end.
“She really challenged me today and I’m super happy with the win.”
A fast start from Sabalenka saw her stretch out to a 4-1 first set lead, only for Mertens to battle back and level at 4-4.
The three-time Grand Slam winner responded in style, winning eight of the next 11 points, to take the set.
Mertens got the early break in the second, but the world number 23 could not hold on.
Sabalenka broke back to tie up the second set at 3-3 and after six straight holds of serve, the match was decided in a tie-break.
Mertens again had the early advantage, but Sabalenka’s blistering ground strokes forced the Belgian onto the back foot before a volleyed winner sealed victory in just over 90 minutes on court.
Sabalenka faces Germany’s Laura Siegemund in the last eight on Tuesday.
“It’s such a beautiful tournament. I always dreamed of winning it,” she added of potentially claiming a first Wimbledon title.
“I’m just trying to give my best and really hope for the best.”
 


Sinner demolishes Martinez to reach Wimbledon last-16

Sinner demolishes Martinez to reach Wimbledon last-16
Updated 05 July 2025
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Sinner demolishes Martinez to reach Wimbledon last-16

Sinner demolishes Martinez to reach Wimbledon last-16
  • “Obviously very happy but I think we all saw that he was struggling with his shoulder,” said Sinner
  • The Italian said his first week at Wimbledon “couldn’t have gone better“

LONDON: Imperious Wimbledon top seed Jannik Sinner made short work of Spain’s Pedro Martinez on Saturday to reach the the last 16 without dropping a set.

The Italian three-time Grand Slam champion eased past his 52nd-ranked opponent, who was struggling with a shoulder problem, 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 in less than two hours.

“Obviously very happy but I think we all saw that he was struggling with his shoulder,” said Sinner.

“He couldn’t serve very well. Especially on this surface when you don’t serve well, then it’s not easy to play.”

The Italian said his first week at Wimbledon “couldn’t have gone better.”

“Every time when you reach the second week of a Grand Slam it’s a very special occasion,” he said.

“Even more special here in Wimbledon, so I’m very happy to be in the second week.”

Sinner, a Formula One fan, said he would organize his practice schedule around the British Grand Prix, which takes place at Silverstone on Sunday.

He will face either 19th seed Grigor Dimitrov or Sebastian Ofner in the fourth round at the All England Club.

The 23-year-old took a vice-like grip on the Center Court match from the start, racing into a 5-0 lead.

Martinez was given a time-out at that point and received treatment on his right shoulder before winning the next game to love on his own serve but Sinner wrapped up the set in the following game.

The second set was tighter until Sinner broke in the fifth game, repeating the feat to take the set.

Martinez required further treatment before the third set but it had little impact as Sinner raced into a 5-0 lead.

The Spaniard, 28, held up a finger to the crowd after clawing a game back but that only delayed the inevitable.

Sinner has lost just 17 games in total across his three matches in the first week of Wimbledon, in contrast to defending champion Carlos Alcaraz, who has shown patchy form.

The Italian returned from a doping ban in May, losing the Italian Open final to Alcaraz and squandering three championship points against the same opponent in the French Open final.

His best performance at Wimbledon was a run to the semifinals in 2023 and he reached the quarters last year.


Coach Ivanizevic slams Tsitsipas after early Wimbledon exit

Coach Ivanizevic slams Tsitsipas after early Wimbledon exit
Updated 05 July 2025
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Coach Ivanizevic slams Tsitsipas after early Wimbledon exit

Coach Ivanizevic slams Tsitsipas after early Wimbledon exit
  • Stefanos Tsitsipas was forced to retire from his Wimbledon first-round match while trailing to French qualifier Valentin Royer
  • ‘He wants to but he doesn’t do anything. All ‘I want, I want’, but I don’t see that progress… I was shocked’

Goran Ivanizevic gave a scathing assessment of Stefanos Tsitsipas, saying he has “never seen a more unprepared player” in his life following the Greek world number 26’s opening round exit at Wimbledon.

Tsitsipas, the 2021 French Open and 2023 Australian Open runner-up, was forced to retire from his Wimbledon first-round match while trailing 6-3 6-2 to French qualifier Valentin Royer on Monday due to a back injury.

The 26-year-old, who said he had no answers to his ongoing fitness problems after his elimination, appointed Croatian Ivanizevic as his coach in May after a string of disappointing results at the Grand Slams.

Tsitsipas, a former world number three, has reached only one quarter-final in his last nine Grand Slam tournaments.

“It’s simple and it’s not simple. I’ve talked to him a lot of times. If he solves some things outside of tennis, then he has a chance and he’ll return to where he belongs, because he’s too good a player to be out of the top 10,” Ivanizevic told Serbian network Sport Klub after Tsitsipas’ exit.

“He wants to but he doesn’t do anything. All ‘I want, I want’, but I don’t see that progress... I was shocked, I have never seen a more unprepared player in my life. With this knee, I am three times more fit than him. This is really bad.”

Ivanizevic, who won Wimbledon as a player in 2001, helped Novak Djokovic claim nine of his 24 Grand Slam titles before leaving his team in March last year. He then had a short stint with Kazakh world number 11 Elena Rybakina this season.