Garbiñe Muguruza Finds Happiness Away from Tennis: No Intention of Returning

Away from the courts since the end of January, when she played her last match and decided to take a break without a defined end, Garbiñe Muguruza continues to distance herself from tennis and says she does not miss elite activity at all, but rather the opposite. The tennis player tells in an interview with Women’s Health magazine that today she is “very happy” away from the circuit and that she does not miss the routine, and she offers a serious indication of where her thoughts are going now. same. She is in no rush to return and, in fact, she says she has not yet planned for her return for next season.

Asked if she intends to return to the competition, the former number one answers: “As of today I have no intention. My plan right now is to sleep, rest, be with my loved ones, make up for lost time… I don’t see beyond what I’m doing today, tomorrow and this week.” And to the question of how she is experiencing this hiatus that she announced in mid-April, fed up with the professional whirlwind and the weekly judgment of the media and specialists, she adds: “I am living this hiatus very happily, since it was something that my body and my mind needed it, so I am really enjoying these moments.”

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Muguruza played her last match on January 30 – a loss in Lyon, against Linda Noskova, then 56th in the world – and then announced that she would stop until the summer. The circumstances, however, changed progressively and before the end of the spring he already knew that this season he would not compete again, and that he needed to detoxify. That is, zero tennis. “She doesn’t have any place in my routine,” she tells Women’s Health; “I still pay attention to my teammates and from time to time I can play, but not intensely, but rather for fun. It doesn’t occupy my mind, my day or my routines. “I’m really taking a real break and trying to stay away from the slopes.”

Instead of holding the racket, Muguruza today prefers to dance Zumba – he recently participated in a massive event in Malaga –, play paddle tennis, take walks and move from here to there. But the dynamism is not due to tennis now. “My physical form has changed because by not being in competition I try to stay in shape without having to train to the limit. I go to the gym regularly, maximum times a week; I love doing weight training, completing my cardio part with Zumba, Pilates classes, yoga, boxing… I take advantage to do all those things that when I was training for tennis, I didn’t have the time,” he answers without pay the least attention to the ranking, which currently classifies it as 1,038th in the world.

Azkoitia, the exception

Muguruza, who turned 30 last Sunday, has taken advantage of all this time to enjoy options as diverse as the April Fair or Zinemaldia, in addition to having invested hours in the Andalusian coast and nature. He also went to Madrid to receive the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit at the Real Club Tenis Chamartín, and that afternoon he extended the ellipsis: “I was a little brave to stop, something that cost me a lot, so I’m happy. I don’t have a return date, but I’m sure not this year, because I want to be with my family. It is not a definitive goodbye, but a sabbatical year. I don’t miss the competition, winning does. But I want to rest.”

The champion of Roland Garros (2016), Wimbledon (2017) and the Masters Cup (2020) has only been seen rallying in public on one occasion, when in July she visited Azkoitia accompanied by her father José Antonio, who emigrated to Caracas in 1978. There, together with 250 children, he inaugurated an indoor track that bears his name and he already let it be known that it did not cross his mind to reappear in the short or medium term, a position he maintains.

Muguruza and his partner, Arthur Borges, recently at the closing gala of the San Sebastián Festival.Raúl Terrel / Europa Press (Europa Press)

“I don’t want to consider a date because then you don’t rest mentally. I want to be calm and come back when I really feel like it,” she said that day, in line with the autumn speech. She does not miss the adrenaline of the elite and, instead, she continues to discover the pleasures of a life model that until now she was unaware of, since at the age of seven she left for Barcelona to start her career. . Happy in the new everyday life, in some way liberated, he continues to commit to keeping his distance from his sport, of which he only misses “sharing” with his team, “that union that brings very good moments of support, of suffering, of be together…”.

The next course will be special for her, since in 2024 she will marry the couple who has shared her daily life for the last two years. Meanwhile, internally she will continue to pluck the leaves of the daisy, while from her closest environment she is supported and at the same time given distance so that she can decide freely and without interference, without pressure of any kind. “It is in her hands, the decision is exclusively Garbiñe’s,” her circle conveys to this newspaper. The fact is that today, the answer is crystal clear: if she is to return to tennis, it will not be now.

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2023-10-14 09:07:33
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