Gabriela Sabatini is the only Argentine tennis player to win a Grand Slam in singles. She was the 1990 US Open champion and for years fought with German Steffi Graf and American Monica Seles for world number one. . His retirement came too early. It was in 1996 when he was just 26 years old. And on that topic he spoke without a filter in an interesting conversation with Agustín Creevy, the former Puma turned YouTuber.
And precisely in the Argentine hooker channel, where several Argentine sports stars such as Francisco Cerúndolo, Julián Álvarez and Nicolás Varrone have already passed through, Gaby reviewed his notable career and his current relationship with the sport. And in that context, he told from the inside what happened to him and why he decided to step aside at such a young age despite his successful career.
“He didn’t give me any more head. At 26 years old, physically I was super good. I was already processing it, this started maybe in ’94. There I started working with a sports psychologist, with whom I had already worked to see what was happening to me. You feel like you’re in a rut and you say ‘I don’t want to play, I don’t want to be in here’“Everything doesn’t matter to you and I wasn’t motivated to be there,” Gaby’s story began.
Later, he confessed that this episode was not the first one he had: “The same thing happened to me when I was 17 years old. I felt like I didn’t want to play tennis anymore. But it happened, I got hooked again and then it came back. That’s when I realized it was the end. I don’t know if it was the sport itself, I think it was everything around it: fame, press, demands, expectations… At one point I said enough, I couldn’t continue. I was starting to hate tennis and I didn’t want that to happen because it’s something so beautiful and it gave me so much.”
After feeling those emotions, Gaby had no qualms about ending her career. His last role as a professional was in 1996, year in which she was in 6th position in the WTA ranking and in which she closed 10 consecutive years in the top 10. The farewell was in a tournament played in Zurich, Suiza. There she lost by a double 6-4 against the American Jennifer Capriati in the first round. and there He put an end to professionalism after 12 years and 27 titles.
However, in the same talk, the US Open winner commented that she managed to have a good time on the court again after her retirement: “I played an exhibition when I was older and enjoyed the game again. It was like I was a girl playing tennis again.. And this was what I felt at 13 or 14 years old, which later became a job and everything that that implies.”
