When asked how she feels about being back on court, Bianca Andreescu’s voice rings with the rehearsed precision of someone who knew this question was coming. The 22-year-old Canadian tennis player feels great. She feels ready, focused, fresh. She knows she pulled out of the Cincinnati Western & Southern Open on short notice earlier this month, but it’s helped her get ready to play the US Open. She was able to train, and regroup, and at the end of the day, she’s very glad she made the decision. As for the other decision, the one more complex, and painful, and consequential to the numbers and rankings that count in the life of a professional tennis player – the decision to take six months off in December of 2021 – she lets it fly.
“I literally wanted to quit this sport. It was so bad,” Andreescu tells the Guardian over the phone, the day before she heads to New York for the US Open. “I didn’t want to hear about tennis, or think about tennis, or anything even close to it for the first three months I was away. And then, after three months, I realized, ‘Oh shit, I really do miss this. And I need it in my life.’”
