After ending 2018 ranked No. 178, Bianca Andreescu admits she never envisioned winning her first WTA title, reaching the Indian Wells quarterfinals and leading the WTA in victories.
Creative visualization has helped the Canadian wild card craft a break-out season.
TN Podcast: Bianca Andreescu
The 18-year-old Andreescu powered past 18th-seeded Qiang Wang, 7-5, 6-2, to advance to the BNP Paribas Open quarterfinals against two-time Grand Slam champion Garbine Muguruza.
Introduced to mediation by her mom six years ago, Andreescu said meditation and yoga have helped her keep calm on court.
"Yeah, my mom introduced me to that when I was really young," Andreescu told the media in Indian Wells. "Ever since then I have been meditating. I do a lot of yoga, as well, and I think that really helps me just have a balanced life. I don't only work on my physical aspect. I also work on the mental, because that's also very, very important."
The Auckland champion said her practice of creative visualization meditation keeps her focused on the now.
"It's definitely showing through my matches where I'm staying in the present moment a lot of the time," Andreescu said. "I don't like to focus on what just happened or in the future. And I think that's a really important aspect of the game. I'm going to keep continuing on improving that, and I think with that, I can do great things."