Amanda Anisimova: Style & Tennis – Liberation

Amanda Anisimova loves to paint. Take your brushes, sketch impressionist shapes on the canvas, inspired by the universe of Van Gogh, and forget the sound of the balls for a while. A recent passion that acts as an outlet. “I started to be interested in art when I did not feel very mentallysaid the American, a great lover of the Orsay museum during her fortnight in Wimbledon. This is something I did during my free time to empty my mind. ” She got into painting a few years earlier, in October 2022. “I always liked art when I was younger, so I bought canvases, painting and I told myself that I was going to try to laugh. And then it became a routine every week ”she says still on the WTA website. “I wanted to find things that I liked to do alone, rather than just seeing people and spending time with them. It was me to be good mentally to move away from my phone, from everything else for a few hours. ”

In New York, on the court Arthur-Ashe smeared with green and blue, the right-handed right-handed, 24, is perhaps on the way this Saturday to achieve its most beautiful masterpiece: a victory in the US Open final against the world number 1 and title holder, Aryna Sabalenka. Anisimova leads 6 to 3 in his confrontations against the Belarusian. The latest is fresh. It was in the semi-finals of Wimbledon in July. In the final, Anisimova sank, paralyzed, “Paralyzed by the stage fright”. She left for tears, weighted with this reality that she would not have even imagined in her worst nightmare: a “double bubble”, 6-0, 6-0, against Iga Swiatek.

Such a disappointment would have mistreated the psyche of the majority of current players for a while. But at 24, the current world number 8 has cashed the thing as if it were ten more. Over the years, she has been able to build herself precisely to be over this kind of execrable Sunday. When she found the Polish in quarters on Thursday, she sent it in two dry sets (6-4, 6-3). “It just shows that I worked very hard, especially on the mental aspect”she put forward.

From Wimbledon, she kept in mind that being in the final did not constitute a thin feat, she who was still in the 442nd planetary row when she returned to competition in January 2024. She came out of a long break, taken in the spring of 2023. “Sometimes we imagine going back in time and we tell ourselves that we could have done things differently. But this decision, I would take it ten times out of ten ”she certified to The team at the start of the year. At the time, in an Instagram post, she explained to fight against a burnout since the summer of 2022. She writes in particular: “It has become unbearable to play a tournament. ”

During his break, Anisimova was able to experiment with a normal existence. Follow in face -to -face, during a semester, its business and psychology at the Nova Southeastern University in Florida. Or spend time with her friends, she who spent all her schooling, all her childhood, in distant.

Anisimova was born in Freehold Township, New Jersey, less than a hundred kilometers from the courts of Flushing Meadows, of Russian parents. She speaks the language, but has “Never considered to represent Russia”she declared to New York Times In 2017. Originally from Moscow, they moved to America in the late 1990s, in the hope of offering more opportunities to their first daughter, Maria, then 10 years old. Amanda’s older sister was, long before Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, her first source of inspiration. It was by accompanying it to its university tennis lessons, while the family moved to Florida, that Amanda discovered sport around 3 years old. She has always been trained by her father, Konstantin Anisimov. With Nick Saviano in the role of the mentor. Former trainer of Sloane Stephens or Eugénie Bouchard, the man has collaborated with her since her 11th birthday, in his plantation academy, in the northern suburbs of Miami, thirty minutes from Aventura, another locality where Anisimoa learned to play.

Technically early, explosive and powerful, she quickly detonates from her age class. She was only 15 years old when she receives a Wild-Card (invitation) to take part in Roland-Garros, in 2016. The youngest to receive this sesame since Alizé Cornet in 2005. The same year, she won the US Open Junior by beating another Floridian prodigy even younger than: Cori Coco Gauff, 13.

His compatriots soon compared to the greatest. From its first WTA title, conquered in 2019 on earth Beaten from Bogotá, at 17, when she became the youngest American to raise a trophy since Serena Williams in 1999. The same year, Porte d’Auteuil, Anisimova eliminates the title of the title of the title Simona Halep, then 3rd in the world. Before undergoing the law of the future winner Ashleigh Barty. Whatever, her Parisian epic projects her suddenly in the light, and the world says that the best is yet to come.

The same summer, a few days before the opening of the US Open, his father’s heart and coach stops. He was 52 years old. She almost never evokes it, but the drama stopped its ascent. Back after a six -month break, the results do not follow. At least not immediately. She had to wait until January 2022 and a WTA 250 preparation tournament for the Australian Open in Melbourne, to win her second title.

Without knowing it again, the beginnings of its burnout already surround it. “I had trouble managing my lifestyle and I suffered a lot of stress, which weighed me a lot on the courtshe traces with the Guardian. Especially towards the end of the year. I think it was spoiling a large part of the joy I felt in training or tournaments. It really didn’t suit me. ”

Her decision to temporarily withdraw from the circuit, and the redemption that followed since she won the WTA 1000 in Doha in February, her biggest career title could serve as an example for other players confronted with the same evils. In the same way that Anisimova rents her colleague Naomi Osaka for having been one of the pioneers on mental health in sport in 2021, when the Japanese had left Roland-Garros, explaining to suffer from stress and depression. The same Osaka that Anisimova defeated in the half on Thursday, after losing the first round, in a harsh duel between revenues. “This tournament means so much for me”she moved on the court. From little, Anisimova has not “Considered one thing: win the tournament”. By overcoming the boss, Sabalenka, in front of his audience, there is no doubt that the painting would be perfect.