Amanda Anisimova is back from a mental health break and playing super-strong tennis, which powered her to the 2024 Canadian Open semi-final.
However, she's eyeing even more success in the future. Anisimova emerged as a super-talented teenager with a deep run at the French Open. She was one of the most promising players a few years ago, but her breakout didn't go as smoothly.
A lot happened in her tennis career that induced mental fatigue, for which she took a break last year. She didn't play last year after a successful 2022 campaign, and many questioned her choices.
We've seen quite a few players speak openly about the mental fatigue of being a tennis player, and breaks are now something that's not considered completely strange.
Anisimova is just one of the most prominent players who stepped away from the sport, but she's not the only one. Her ambition was always to return once she felt better, and she did it this year with mixed results up until this point.
The talent was obviously never in question, so this run in Toronto isn't a surprise. After her impressive win over Aryna Sabalenka, she was asked about her break and how it impacted her.
"I think that after the break I felt very refreshed and just had a different kind of head space, like more clarity. I just was very burnt out before I took the break, so coming back I was enjoying it a lot more, and the training and all the process, I had like a different perspective for it."
"I think that I just gained a different perspective when it comes to traveling and the training process. As I said. I'm just really happy to be back, and I think taking the break really just helped me, because I honestly never took a break that was longer than like two weeks in my life, so I think I just needed that as a human being to just rest for once and just let my body recover."
It takes a special kind of resilience to grind out yearly as tennis players do. Anisimova took a bold step in admitting that she needed a break, which clearly had a hugely positive impact on her tennis career.
Her run in Toronto proved that she's still one of the better players on the WTA Tour and is highly motivated right now. In fact, she's so motivated that she's eyeing the number one rank in the future.
That's not a minor goal, but she's certainly capable of doing it. It will take a lot of work, but right now, thanks to the break she had last year, she doesn't see a problem with that.
"I still hopefully have many more years left in my career, and there are many goals that I have for myself that I want to accomplish throughout my career. Like a small one for this year was to break into the top 100, and I've already done that, so I'm really happy about that."
"It's just small steps in the right direction to hopefully achieve the things that I want to be able to achieve, like winning a Grand Slam, and becoming No. 1 one day, so, yeah, I just, I hope that with all the training I do and staying healthy I can get to that point."
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