By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Monday April 18, 2022
Since winning the US Open in 2019, Bianca Andreescu has been through her share of trials and tribulations. And as the injuries and setbacks piled up for the Canadian, she contemplated leaving the sport.
The 21-year-old gave a heartfelt press conference prior to her long awaited return to tennis on Monday, telling reporters of the difficulties she faced, and how the ceaseless storm of setbacks nearly pushed her away from the game.
"I'm being really honest here, but I actually wanted to quit the sport," Andreescu told WTA Insider. "It was really bad.”
Andreescu has since found the right mindset and is now embracing what she calls the “privilege” of playing professional tennis.
“I am privileged in a way for having this opportunity and doing all of this,” she said. Now I'm very grateful, more than ever. So I don't want people to think, 'Oh you're a little baby, just suck it up.' But it was an accumulation of two-and-a-half years. A lot had happened and I just didn't want to deal with anything anymore.
"So I realized that I really do love the sport and I do want to continue, but not just to win Grand Slams, or to do this and that. I want to do something bigger in the sport and I want to help contribute to a better world as well. I realize that tennis is my way toward that."
Andreescu, who has not played on tour since losing at Indian Wells in the third round to Anett Kontaveit last October, is currently ranked 121 in the world. She will begin her road back on Tuesday on the red clay, facing Jule Niemeier of Germany in her first-round match.
During her time off, Andreescu spent time at a retreat in Costa Rica, where the former World No.4 focused intensely on her mental health. She hopes to take the lessons learned, “hippie stuff” as she calls it, with her on the road. She told WTA Insider that she has made some key realizations about her own happiness, that should help her as she moves forward in this next phase of her career.
“I was very critical and it was very unhealthy,” she said. “People were telling me this and this and this, and I was absorbing it to the most of my capabilities at the time, but I felt like I was just so closed off from everything. I was in my own world. I did feel like I was absorbing what they were telling me, but at the same time, I really wasn't. That wasn't fair to my team, my family, or my friends at all. So I was like, 'Yo, something needs to change because if I continue like this, my career is going to go down the drain.'”