An end in apotheosis: Caroline Garcia ended 2022, the year of her spectacular rebirth, with a fourth title, the most beautiful of her career, at the WTA Masters, Monday in Forth Worth, becoming the second Frenchwoman to achieve this feat after Amélie Mauresmo.
The 29-year-old Lyonnaise, who beat Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (N.7) 7-6 (7/4), 6-4 in the final, will end the season in 4th place in the world. A ranking that she had already reached in 2018, before living four difficult years, between crisis of confidence, tennis in distress and recurring physical concerns, which made her sink to 74th place at the very end of last year.
mental resources
“I would like to thank all my team present in the stands, but also share this trophy with all the people who have accompanied me all these years. I only keep positive things from these experiences that made me a better player and a better person.she reacted in the heart of the Dickies Arena.
Arrived in Texas ten days ago, in relative uncertainty, after the unexpected departure of coach Bertrand Perret, Caroline Garcia found the mental resources – and physical, the legs are heavy at the end of the year – to win the 11th title of his career, further validating his return to the heights of world tennis.
By becoming her coach barely eleven months ago, succeeding her father Louis-Paul who had occupied this position for ten years, Perret endeavored to consolidate the young woman in her identity as an attacking game, by pushing her to play more forward, to take the ball earlier, to position themselves inside the court on the return and to attack the net without fear.
Flamboyant summer
All key factors in his success from the second half, in the wake of a doubles victory at Roland Garros with Kristina Mladenovic, their second after 2016. Titles in Bad Homburg, Warsaw and Cincinnati followed in of a flamboyant summer concluded with a semi-final at the US Open.
The third Frenchman to reach this stage of the prestigious event, she can above all boast of joining Amélie Mauresmo on the list of winners, who had triumphed at the expense of Mary Pierce seventeen years earlier, in a 100% French final of another time.
