Badosa : "Ce qui me fait le plus mal, c'est douter de moi-même"

Paula Badosa lands at her favorite tour of the calendar with more doubts than certainty, although something remains unchanged: her passion for tennis. "Every day I think about quitting, but that's when a much stronger and more powerful feeling emerges."

The vast majority would have given up by now due to the number of injuries, unforeseen events, and pains that Paula Badosa has been experiencing in recent years. How far those times are when she held the World No. 2 spot, a scenario that has turned into a sort of nightmare where her own body prevents her from competing regularly. Currently outside the top hundred in the rankings, the Spaniard has a lot at stake this week at the WTA 500 in Charleston, where we could hear her discussing her situation during the Media Day prior to her debut. It is cruel to see everything she is going through, but that survival instinct and love for what she does cannot be more inspiring.

The voices inside her head

"I think all players have those voices inside our heads. Sometimes you can control them, you can silence those negative voices a little better, but then there are other moments in your life when it's impossible, you simply can't. Personally, it has been a very difficult stage for me, since I got injured over a year ago, it has been a period of tremendous difficulty."

Criticism from outside and also from within

"Of course, there will always be people who doubt you when difficult times come, when things don't go as they are supposed to, or when expectations are not met. I already know that, I have always been very aware of it, but what hurts me the most is when I am the one doubting myself. This is where I am now, doubting absolutely everything, both my body and my tennis."

Desperation every time she looks at the rankings

"At the beginning of the year, it was very difficult to control my thoughts; I was too hard on myself mentally. In a way, I still am to this day, all because I want to make up for the lost time. This is what is causing me the most anxiety, the fact that I can't accept where I am right now every time I look at the rankings. I am really not used to seeing myself in this place where I am now, so it's an internal mental battle that I have to deal with myself. I'm trying to face it, see everything with perspective, and have a little patience."

Her most important shot: the brain

"I love working on my brain, my mind; for me, it's as if it were another muscle of the body. Furthermore, it's a muscle that never stops, it's the only one that never rests. There are others you can recover, you can stop them, but with the brain you can't. For me, it's the most important; I don't even do it for a professional tennis issue anymore, but already for a mental health issue and for my personal life. I was out for a long time last year, so I was working on my mindset every day; now I meditate every morning."

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Paula Badosa explains why she doesn't quit tennis

"Every day I think about it... but, just at that moment, something that is even stronger and more powerful appears: I still have faith, I still believe in myself. I know deep down that I have it; I love this sport too much, I have so much passion for tennis that I feel it every time I step on a court to compete. It gives me goosebumps no matter where I play; I just love living those moments."

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Badosa: “Lo que más me duele es dudar de mí misma”