Tennis Prose




Jan/25

21

Badosa Blossoms at AO

By Jayita Belcourt

World no. 12 Paula Badosa has delighted Spanish fans by clinching a spot in the Australian Open semi-finals after defeating USA’s Coco Gauff 7-6, 6-4 on Rod Laver Arena on Day 10. Gauff came into the tournament seeded three and notably the most in-form player after winning the WTA finals to conclude the 2024 season, yet fell short with a string of unforced errors and outclassed play in the quarter-finals match-up.

Clearly elated, the Spaniard shared her journey so far and insists securing her first Grand Slam semifinals appearance, given the challenges she has faced, has made today’s victory, even sweeter.

Yes, it has been an uphill battle for the 27-year-old, who was once soaring as high as world no.2 in 2022 but saw her upward trajectory unravel with a back injury that left her sidelined and suffering from significant pain in 2023. January last year, she was fighting for her career and ranked a mere No. 100.

Speaking candidly, the partner of Stefanos Tsitsipas confessed “it was a stress fracture in my L4/L5 (lower back) that wasn’t recovering well. Then the facet joints that were inflamed all the time. Every time I was doing exercises, I had to stop because it wasn’t responding well.”

“I think also especially after in my home tournament in Madrid it was very tough for me. A mix of back, mentally, and everything. That moment I was thinking maybe I’m not made for being back again. Yeah, I was doubting a lot.”

Understandably, the Spaniard was left perplexed of how to re-ignite her game. It was in these dark moments, Badosa had to dig deep and acknowledged just how close she came to calling it quits.

“Well, it was one point of last year that I was pretty close [to retirement] because I wasn’t seeing myself at the level. The back wasn’t responding well. I didn’t find solutions. But I wanted to give it a last try, a last chance to finish the year and let’s see how it would go.”

“When I thought about stopping [playing] was when I was doing the [cortisole] injections because they told me I had to do max three a year, and I was already on my second one. It was the fourth month of the year. I was quite playing like in the limit with that also.”

“So I think especially it was in the clay court season. It was pretty bad for me and also the back was still hurting. So in that moment I really didn’t know what to do.”

Anyone who has suffered from chronic pain knows just how debilitating it can be. Waking up in pain every day can feel like a weight too heavy to bear, with often no tangible solution or respite in sight. No stranger to adversity, the powerful baseline blaster insists a positive mindset and supportive team kept her going and that hard-work and persistence, has finally paid off. Making the quarter-finals of the US Open in 2024, and now a career high in Melbourne, Badosa is in position to ascend to new heights.

“Well, here I am. So I’m really proud of what we went through with all my team and especially how I fighted (sic) through all that, especially mentally.”

“Especially there after Madrid, I did a few changes in my team. That was my fitness coach, my nutritionist, and everything that was connected a little bit with my back. I went with a new team that I really believed because I worked with them in 2021, and it went really well. And, of course, they know my body. They gave me a few different tips that I wasn’t having in that moment. With that and when you have faith in something, in a team, I think things start working, start working really well.”

“My back started to respond really well with the exercises they were telling me, with the food I had to eat, with the supplements I had to take. Also, new doctors. So all that, the puzzle started to look better. I started to play more matches, more matches”.

“And do I feel if I’m back where I belong? Yeah, of course. I mean, since I came back last year here in Australia, my goal, I said it here last January, I wanted to be the comeback of the year. I achieved that. When I started this year, I also said I want to be one of the best players in the world and prove that, show that, and be consistent. That’s my goal for this year also.”

So can Badosa continue her dream run and actualise her first major title? Why not. If she can outhit and outsmart the blazing Gauff and sustain the form, she can beat anyone.

Up next the Spaniard will play the two-time defending Champion, Aryna Sabalenka who survived a three-set, quarter-final battle with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Clinching the match 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 on Rod Laver Arena, Sabalenka’s hopes of winning the Australian Open title three years in a row, remain intact.

(Jayita Belcourt is our Australian Open correspondent.)

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21 comments

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 21, 2025 at 9:04 pm

    Nice job after a very very late night for you Jayita. Nobody expected Badosa to have a career best Grand Slam this fortnight but it’s a pleasant surprise. She is very popular and well liked. To beat Coco, Sabalenka and Iga in succession is a very tall order tho.

  • catherine · January 22, 2025 at 3:39 am

    Just noticed that out of the first 5 comments on the Swiatek/Navarro match 3 have been removed by moderators. (Guardian report)

    I wonder why.

    Now if the target had been Raducanu I would have understood. But Iga ?

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 22, 2025 at 5:27 am

    Catherine, so the media machine is protecting Iga?

  • catherine · January 23, 2025 at 12:32 am

    I suspect it’s the tall poppy syndrome….

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 23, 2025 at 3:43 pm

    Nice to see Keys playing the tenis of her life finally it’s all galvanizing, the impact of her new coach and husband, the new racquet Yonex has supercharged Keys, she looks unbeatable or unplayable at times, just too much power. Perfect focus, like a terminator machine. We all knew she had this level, even Davenport could not summon this out of Keys but Bjorn Fratangelo and Yonex have indeed. Iga showed poor sportsmanship again, this time by taking shadow swings on the side while Keys was ready to serve. Iga is an accomplished inventor of innovative wacky gamesmanship tricks, remember her arm waving at net to distract the passing shots? Fans are buzzing and crying foul play but they should just enjoy the theater. These players will do anything to win, fans should just sit and be fans and let karma take care of it. Karma surely did factor into Keys beating Iga.

  • catherine · January 24, 2025 at 2:36 pm

    BTW – talking point for all the anti-Raducanu fans with fingers poised…Emma’s parted with her coach and this time it’s his decision. His health isn’t good and he wants a rest from the tour grind.

    Emma isn’t currently looking for a replacement. I think she plays next in Singapore.

    Re Keys – I saw her lose to Sloane at the USO. Contrast in their careers now…

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 24, 2025 at 7:55 pm

    Catherine, I wouldn’t be surprised if Raducanu dismissed the coach but flipped it in order to save his coaching value. Consider Djokovic and Goran, they made it seem it was mutual but it’s rather obvious it was the boss’s call. Sloane is totally shot, like burned out two years ago. She has no fire left.

  • catherine · January 27, 2025 at 1:48 pm

    Bit sorry for Sloane – Can’t be personal reasons – she got married awhile ago, or maybe that came undone. It’s in her head surely. I wonder why she goes on playing.

    Raducanu lost an epic in Singapore – 5-7 7-5 7-5 – serve let her down. In place of Nick Cavaday Emma’s mother was in the stands. Nick will continue as an LTA coach I imagine. No travelling.

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 27, 2025 at 2:55 pm

    I guess Sloane is burnt out, she’s had enough of it, no drive or fire left, she’s had an excellent career, made a fortune, she’s at the finish line. Raducanu is also done, she has tried everything to win a title, any title, she’s trained like there’s no tomorrow but there’s nothing to show for it but early round losses. It’s almost shocking that a Grand Slam champion can lose her magic touch but that’s how cruel this game is. The miracle maker is now a journeywoman with an empty confidence tank.

  • catherine · January 28, 2025 at 3:09 am

    Scoop – don’t agree with you about Raducanu and not just because she’s British. In Singapore she lost to Bucsa and the match seemed a bit of a slugfest between both. Heavy hitting. Which suggests Emma is putting on weight and muscle and hasn’t lost confidence. I think she now sees the USO win as a different time in her life. One that’s over.

    I watched the end of Sinner/Zverev and was impressed by Sinner’s kindness to Zverev at the net when Z was clearly distressed.Something you don’t see so much in the men’s game.

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 28, 2025 at 8:18 am

    Catherine, I hate to say this because I adore Raducanu and her US Open miracle is and always will be one of the all time tennis magical moments but I think she is cooked. Her US Open was the perfect storm situation, not unlike Michael Chang at French Open (they are both Chinese, she half of course, may have something to do with it). But she has tried everythingand worked so hard and her results are actually worse. This is mixing up her mind, how can she work so hard and actually go backwards? I saw the match with Bucsa, she was up 3-1 15-love on serve in the third when Bucsa pretended her string dampener was askew and took 30 seconds to fix it. Somehow that rattled Emma who lost the game and two more after that. Her baseline game is good but nothing special, she isn’t moving so well for the wide balls. And the pressure is wounting, I read her sponsors might drop her if she does not improve, so she has the pressure of losing $11.5m a year from all those sponsors. I don’t see how she can dig her way out of this mess. I hope to the tennis gods though she proves me wrong and she does score her best results in the future.

  • catherine · January 28, 2025 at 9:14 am

    Well, I think many people said similar things about Keys when she was young and hyped. And now…so we’ll see.

    BTW I doubt Emma will care much about the money – she’s a bright girl and is interested in a career in finance.

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 31, 2025 at 10:47 am

    Catherine, Raducanu on court warnings in 2024 were $900,000. off court earnings were $12,000,000.

  • catherine · January 31, 2025 at 1:47 pm

    Well of course we don’t know what kind of investments Emma has – pretty sound I’d guess. And I think one of the better aspects of her loss to Bucsa was that her body held up through a 3 set 2 hr + match.

    On the subject of prodigies – is Bianca Andreescu still playing ? Haven’t seen any news about her for a long while.

  • Scoop Malinowski · January 31, 2025 at 8:08 pm

    Bibi had a foot out the door, she lost confidence and drive after getting super fit and no results to show for it.

  • catherine · February 7, 2025 at 10:37 am

    I’ve read that Bianca has had her appendix out recently. She’s looking to return to play in a couple of months but I see this as over optimistic.

    Simon Briggs ( Daily Telegraph) would like Andy Murray step up as Raducanu’s next coach. Clearly a slow news day….

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 7, 2025 at 6:38 pm

    Interesting Murray wants to coach Raducanu, I guess he’s done with Djokovic. Raducanu asked for another WC, which shows she still believes and her confidence is there, just needs to win some matches to prove it’s not a pipe dream.

  • catherine · February 8, 2025 at 11:46 am

    I never saw Murray/Djokovic as more than a kind of novelty pairing – but stranger things have happened….

    Raducana has attracted some negative comments about the number of WCs she’s piling up but I imagine she has her own reasons – and maybe she, and her team, see even losses to highly ranked players as better learning experiences than plodding through qualifying.

    What is it with Emma and fans ? A poster elsewhere, talking about Emma’s public personality, described her as ‘not entirely likeable’. Now this I don’t understand. Maybe it’s cultural. Whatever, I’ve never seen that aspect myself.

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 8, 2025 at 6:17 pm

    Catherine, Murray is probably only willing to coach and cheerlead Novak at Grand Slams, and the agreement was only for AO 2025. I think Murray will be with Novak at FO and Wimbledon, if he’s not and not there with Raducanu, that would be very interesting. Raducanu is a superstar, she will get as many WC as she asks for. She generates buzz and excitement, fans want to see her keep trying. She’s very likable, some sour pusses will nitpick silly reasons to dislike certain stars.

  • catherine · February 10, 2025 at 5:13 am

    Changed my mind. Emma loses again. She should ditch the WCs asap and get some opponents she can hopefully beat.

    She has a ‘mentor’ who flies around with her but I don’t recognise the name.

  • Scoop Malinowski · February 10, 2025 at 7:55 am

    Catherine, Raducanu is done. She trained as hard as she possibly could and she still can’t win a match. This struggle has been going on for two years. It’s over. She will put all the blame on her chronic injuries but that’s just a smokescreen. The game passed her by and her confidence tank is bone dry.

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