Maria Sakkari did not enjoy a very good year on the Tour overall admitting to feeling very lonely at times during the season.
In many team sports, the phrase "Winning conceals a lot of difficulties" is common, but it is especially true in an individual sport like tennis. It's because seeing results makes the enormous sacrifice tennis players make every day seem more justified.
That has not been the case for Sakkari this year and she left very lonely at times:
"Tennis can be very lonely, yeah there are times, especially this year like there were times that I was calling my mom and I was actually crying on the phone because I just didn’t want to yeah I was feeling lonely."
The comments were made in an episode of the video series 'The Real Me' produced by the WTA where players talk about their struggles to highlight the importance of mental health. In the talk, Sakkari added:
"I didn’t want to be there and I felt like you no a little girl just calling her mom and just crying because I didn’t want to be wherever that was."
Things have seemingly improved as Sakkari has played some good tennis lately with the end of the season perhaps a motivating factor for her.