ROME — Bianca Andreescu’s first Italian Open had simply come to an comprehensible halt within the quarterfinals in opposition to Iga Swiatek, a steamroller disguised as a tennis star.
However even after failing to stop the top-ranked Swiatek from extending her profitable streak to 26 matches, Andreescu nonetheless took a seat within the Roman sunshine with a broad smile on her face.
Defeat at this stage doesn’t have the identical exhausting edge that defeat has had in different phases of her profession.
“Actually, I’m simply fired as much as get again on the market and play her once more,” Andreescu mentioned in an interview after her loss, 7-6 (2), 6-0, on Friday. “If I have a look at myself a yr in the past, there’s simply been a lot progress in the way in which I’m dealing with being again on tour and my wins and my losses. I’m simply tremendous motivated. I need to return on court docket proper now and work on being extra aggressive or whatnot.”
Andreescu, a 21-year-old Canadian from the Toronto suburbs, stays one of many nice abilities in tennis, which she made abundantly clear in 2019 by profitable the U.S. Open girls’s singles title in her first try, defeating Serena Williams in straight units.
Ranked a career-high No. 4 within the month that adopted, she might be No. 72 on Monday however nonetheless has that beguiling mix of finesse and punch and a uncommon capacity to shift gears and spins. She additionally has highly effective legs paying homage to her position mannequin Kim Clijsters that assist her cowl the court docket explosively and generate big-time tempo regardless of missing the leverage of taller gamers (she is 5-foot-6).
“There’s no shot she can’t hit,” mentioned Daniela Hantuchová, an analyst and former prime 5 participant who was commentating courtside on Friday as Andreescu and Swiatek performed on tour for the primary time.
“In that first set, Bianca was not removed from her prime stage in any respect,” Hantuchová mentioned. “For me, that was the perfect set of tennis within the girls’s event to this point. In a means, it virtually seems like a mirror in opposition to a mirror. They’ve completely different approach, however they’ve their routines between the factors mentally, and tactically they know precisely what they’re making an attempt to do on the market. Each are nice athletes, and I saved saying through the match that I hope we see this matchup extra typically. It could be a beautiful rivalry to have.”
However till now, Andreescu, not like the 20-year-old Swiatek, has been solely a part-time risk. There have been a collection of accidents, a career-long concern, and extra just lately the malaise that moved her to take her most-recent prolonged break after the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., in October 2021, earlier than returning for a event in Stuttgart final month.
She used her day without work tour to do neighborhood service, volunteering in a youngsters’s hospital and a shelter for victims of home violence. She went to a wellness retreat in Costa Rica and centered on growing extra psychological instruments to enrich the visualization and meditation work that she, like Swiatek, began throughout her junior profession and has cited as one of many keys to her precocious, if intermittent, success.
“After Indian Wells, I legit, like, didn’t need to play anymore,” she mentioned. “I don’t know if I used to be being dramatic, however that’s simply how I used to be feeling within the second. However now, I’m simply tremendous comfortable that I didn’t cease, as a result of having that point off actually made me admire my time on court docket extra now, as a result of that was a choice that got here from me. It wasn’t something exterior like accidents or an sickness or no matter. It was my name, and so I felt very empowered, and that was an enormous step in me taking extra management over my life and simply not placing strain on myself and simply having fun with myself.
“Throughout that break, I did principally all the pieces I like to do, and I instructed myself if I do come again, I need to be in that very same mind-set. Clearly, I need to be aggressive and upset if I lose as an example, however I need to additionally really feel that I take pleasure in myself on court docket and that I’m extra motivated after a loss as an alternative of identical to crawling in my mattress and identical to crying all night time, which I used to be doing final yr.”
Andreescu, like her fellow tennis star Naomi Osaka and another outstanding athletes of their technology, has been open in regards to the mental-health challenges she faces. Three tournaments into her newest comeback, Andreescu is clearly in a greater place and can head into the French Open with momentum on the purple clay that fits her diverse recreation.
She arrived at Friday’s interview with no tape on her physique or ice packs in tow.
“Nothing,” she mentioned. “I’m simply tremendous grateful for my physique particularly, as a result of that’s been an enormous downside. However I do see myself being an amazing clay-court participant if I simply proceed doing properly and dealing exhausting in apply and believing in myself.”
The problem on tour — a 10-month take a look at of endurance and resilience — is to take care of the well being and enthusiasm.
Her workforce, headed by the veteran coach Sven Groeneveld, is concentrated on maintaining her recent and, based on Andreescu, additionally on calling her bluffs.
“They’ll name me out with out me changing into defensive, and I believe that basically helps,” she mentioned.
Groeneveld, whose highest-profile pupil lately was the now-retired Maria Sharapova, declined to touch upon Andreescu as a result of they’re “nonetheless early” of their relationship. However he has a scientific strategy to his work, sitting courtside throughout matches and noting the rating level by level together with the important thing patterns of play and different particulars, together with a participant’s lapses in focus.
“He might write like 10 books with all of the notes he’s taking. It’s hilarious,” Andreescu mentioned.
Andreescu, as Canada’s first and solely Grand Slam singles champion, has already had a e book written about her referred to as “Bianca Andreescu: She the North,” printed in 2019, and has written one herself, an image e book printed final yr titled “Bibi’s Bought Recreation: A Story about Tennis, Meditation and a Canine Named Coco.”
However with the shock retirement of the reigning Wimbledon and Australian Open champion Ashleigh Barty earlier this season, the leaders of the ladies’s recreation can solely hope that Andreescu’s tennis story is simply starting.
She has an incandescent recreation as was clear to Hantuchová and anybody else who watched the opening set on Friday earlier than Swiatek kicked right into a gear that Andreescu was not able to match, at the very least not but.
“She clearly gained some confidence from that first set,” Andreescu mentioned. “I used to be making an attempt to be extra aggressive, however at the very least within the second set I used to be lacking by inches. However she’s on a 25-match streak, properly make that 26 now, for a motive.”
