Paula Badosa suffered a very disappointing loss at the 2024 US Open, but the Spaniard took a moment to focus on the bright side of things—just a few months ago, this would have been a dream for her.
Badosa has been battling a chronic back injury for a while, something she's openly discussed, admitting that it will impact her career, and it already has. Back in May, she seriously considered ending her tennis career because there didn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.
It felt like she might never return to her best tennis, which was not the career she wanted. However, through hard work and patience, Badosa was able to rediscover her form, as the past month has shown.
She won the Citi Open in Washington and had a strong run in New York, even though it ended on a sour note. Badosa could have beaten Emma Navarro in the quarter-final, but she simply wasn't good enough on the day.
It was a very painful loss, but there are positives to take from it. A few months ago, she wasn't even sure she could play anymore, and now she found herself in the quarter-final of a Grand Slam event. She would have gladly accepted that outcome a couple of months ago.
"Yeah, now I say it's a disaster, but when I started in Washington I would sign all the results ,for sure. And coming from where I'm coming from, look, I have to be happy. I don't know. Maybe I'm 15 in the race, so I wasn't expecting that a few months ago. So on that, I'm really proud of myself."
Keeping things in perspective is necessary because life is not all black and white. While the loss certainly does sting, this is a very positive sign for Badosa, and this surely won't be the last time she's made this round of a Grand Slam event. She can't wait for the next major, even though she'll have to wait a few months for the 2025 Australian Open, which starts in January.
"The thing that for me makes me the way I am today, it's a slam and, you know, your dream is always to make last rounds in a slam. Performing the way I performed today, I know that if it wasn't a slam I would perform well."
"So that's what's a little bit why I'm like this today, you know. Because I didn't know how to handle it the best way. Now I have to wait four months for the next slam, so it sucks."
Her match against Navarro was quite bizarre, and Badosa will have to think about it carefully to understand better what had happened, since she insanely lost a 5-1 lead in the second set to lose it 5-7.
"Everything. Everything. This is the first time it happens to me in my career. I think losing a set from 5-1 up, I never did that before. So I think there is always a first time for something, so it had to come today unfortunately."
"I don't know. I still need to think what happened, because I had two service games there also. I started to miss. I lost, I don't know, 20 points almost in a row. It's very weird for me because I'm quite a consistent player, so I wasn't expecting that either. I’m quite disappointed."
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