Paula Badosa recently discussed the harsh reality of being constantly judged as a tennis player.
The Spanish player has been in the tennis world for much of her life, but there are some things some people can simply never get used to. One of those things is being constantly judged as a tennis player.
Judgment is something all people deal with, but the amount is vastly different for athletes. Anybody in the public eye is a lot more judged than any other person, and for tennis players, it's even worse.
As Badosa explained during a recent Tennis Channel's Inside-In podcast episode, the judgement is constant after every match, every set, every game, and every point.
"I think especially tennis players, we're constantly judged every match, even every shot, every point, they're judging us from the outside. I totally understand it. But for us sometimes it's a little bit tough. But yeah, I feel that of course we're judged every tournament."
Feeling like that isn't particularly unique to Badosa. Many tennis players have expressed similar sentiments over the years, and the social media abuse issue has been a widely talked about problem that is yet to be properly addressed.
The overall stress of being a tennis player also makes it pretty hard to truly understand the moment. The Spaniard was playing the best tennis of her career two years ago, and it was only recently, after being away from the sport, that she was able to look back on that.
"In that moment, no! I was feeling so much pressure and it was so stressful for me. But now that 2 years past, I value that a lot. And now after my injury, I had a lot of time to think about it and of course, I said, 'Oh, I've been pretty good you know', because you don't realize that in that moment you don't value it."
Hopefully, she will return to the sport soon because the recent injury issues have been very tough to deal with.