Marina Bassols (Blanes, 1999) will be 23 years old in two weeks. He will most likely celebrate them on vacation, recharging his batteries and looking to the immediate future with optimism. He has good reasons to smile. With a glance back, the past shines. He is about to close a dream 2022, the best season of his career, still short and with many adventures to face. He has fattened his individual record and has climbed, by the head, about 150 positions in the WTA ranking. The progression is meteoric, taking into account the precedents, observing in detail its evolution. In just a few years, from the time he joined until now, he has climbed a thousand places and earned himself a chance to live experiences of an ever-increasing scale. The icing on the cake, the last Sunday. Victory in Valencia, achieving the heaviest tournament so far in his particular curriculum. The third trophy in recent months. The confirmation of a player who, even, has taken the lead in the national team and who has between eyebrows to contest the final draw of the Australian Open, the first grand slam of a 2023 that is to touch
The Swiss Ylena In-Albon has been his latest victim. Bassols swept her in the final of the Ciutat de Valencia Open. 6-4 in a more balanced first set, to move to an uncontestable 6-0 that left the match to be decided. Triumph to win the tournament, repeating the feeling that, a few months ago, he tasted in Madrid and right after in Palma del Río. In the first, category W60, superava Alexandra Eala while she was French Jessika Ponchet who she would beat shortly after, in a W25+H championship. Two almost consecutive joys to climb to 222nd place in the ranking. Fifty more than his best ranking of 2021, when he had reached 272. The ceiling has been rising in recent years, and in what way. Because from 2018 to 2020, and for a good part of last year, there was no way it would sneak into the top 300 rackets on the planet. The hatch has recently arrived.
In August, he played in the preliminary round of the US Open. He didn’t catch the final frame, but he already did something more than other times. He took his head off. A whole statement of intentions for what is to come from now on. He has lived on the upswing this fall. He came close to winning the title in Caldas da Rainha, in Portugal; he also made it through the preliminary round reaching the final stage of the W250 Jasmin Open Monastir in Tunisia. In Madrid, quarter-finals of a tournament that Aliona Bolsova would win. And in Valencia, on Sunday, third title of the year and eighth in his individual record. The largest in scope and category so far.
What a way to end. I wouldn’t have imagined it six months ago. I am happy and satisfied with my progress this season
Enough to climb again, once more, and make the umpteenth jump. It is now 121 in the world. I had never come this far. The second best tennis player in the province, heading this classification is Paula Badosa from Emporda, currently thirteenth but who a few months ago had even been second. Bolsova from Palafrugell is currently the 140th. “What a way to end the season!” wrote Bassols, a native of Blanes, on his Instagram account. “It’s been a year in which I’ve gone from being almost 400 in the ranking to finishing it among the best 120 in the world and sixth in Spain. I wouldn’t have imagined it six months ago, and not because of a lack of work. I am happy and satisfied with my progress this year. Also for the hard work of all these seasons, which have ended up paying off over time”, he added. Now, time to unplug and start thinking about 2023.
