As her name suggests, she is … Argentinian
Nadia Podoroska was born and raised in Rosario, Argentina’s third largest city, that of footballers Lionel Messi, Angel Di Maria or Gabriel Batistuta. She nicknamed “the Russian” in the country, but her grandparents are in fact of Ukrainian origin. Podoroska, who will appear in the top 100 next week, does not speak a word of the language of his ancestors, however.
His father, Marcelo, started out as a watchmaker, but now works as a pharmacist alongside his wife, Irene. The 23-year-old chose two years ago to live in Alicante, Spain. A primarily economic choice: the greater density of tournaments in Europe allowed him to play without multiplying long and expensive trips.
France succeeds him
Taking stock of Nadia Podoroska’s victories allows working on her French geography. The first $ 25,000 she won in her career? Denain, in the suburbs of Valenciennes (North), in 2016. The second? Périgueux, Dordogne, in 2018. This year, she won again in Petit Bourg, Guadeloupe. And last month, she won her first $ 60,000 in Saint-Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine. And if you watched her eighth against Krejcikova, you surely noticed that there was written “La santé” on her dress, in French in the text. Podoroska is actually sponsored by an Argentinian pharmacy and perfume chain.
She’s been on fire for a month
In Saint-Malo, in a completely anonymous match against the Latvian qualifier Diana Marcinkevica, Argentina started a crazy streak of twelve straight victories. Five to win the trophy in Brittany, then three during the qualifications at Roland Garros and finally four in the main draw. She has therefore already won seven matches at Porte d’Auteuil but she is not on the rim, she says: “I feel fresh, I haven’t played very long matches”. In fact, she lost only two small sets on the way, in the second round against Kazakhe Putintseva and this Sunday against Krejcikova. She will be at the worst 69th in the world at the end of the tournament, she who has never done better than 130th.
Philosophy and Buddhism
If she started her round of 16 backwards, Podoroska managed to keep her cool. The fruit of intense psychological work. “I started to work as a mental trainer, who works a lot on the side of Zen Buddhism, she explained this Sunday. It serves me a lot. Today I was able to ignore the context, the pressure of being in eighth, the wind, and rather than seeing the negative side or complaining, I managed to stay positive. All these things that I managed to do, it is thanks to all that I learned about this zen side, even if it sounds a little crazy said like that. “
Argentina is also passionate about philosophy, even which serves her in life but not in her game. “In philosophy, you ask yourself a thousand questions, you try to see all the possibilities, all the whys, she explained in June. In tennis, the more you keep it simple, the better your results will be, because you don’t have time to philosophize. “
She will go to Tokyo in 2021
In Lima, last year, an Argentinian TV journalist gave him a live phrasebook in Japanese. Podoroska had in fact just won the Pan American Games, which allowed him to compile his ticket for the next Olympic Games in Tokyo. “It is the dream of every athlete to go to the Games, I dreamed of it when I was very little”, she said then. To win the trophy, she had managed an improbable comeback against the American Caroline Dolehide: she was led 4-0 in the last set, then 4-0 in the final tie-break.
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