Pop Culture
Badosa, Kyrgios, and Maria Sakkari all open up about the emotional toll of competing among the tennis elite in the forthcoming Netflix docuseries, which releases its first five episodes on Friday.
Published Jan 11, 2023
Paula Badosa
Badosa was arguably the first top-flight tennis player to speak out about struggles with anxiety and depression, sharing a video documenting her mental health struggles in the summer of 2019.
“I’ve been struggling for years with a lot of depression,” she asserts on Break Point.
“People were talking about me like I was the next big thing, the next Maria Sharapova. I felt like, ‘Wow, now I have to be a legend. Maybe next year, I have to be a Top 10 player.’ So, for me, it was a lot of pressure.”
That pressure kept Badosa confined to the tennis wilderness in the years following her junior Grand Slam victory at Roland Garros 2015; it wasn’t until she opened up about mental health that her ranking began to rise.
“It was very tough for me because I didn’t know what to do in that moment. Life didn’t have a lot of sense because ever since I was seven years old, my dream was to be a professional tennis player. It was very bad. I didn’t want to go on a tennis court. I started to try to find solutions to work on it, with mental health professionals.
The Spaniard went on to enjoy a breakthrough 2021 season, culminating with a first WTA 1000 title at the BNP Paribas Open.
“I’ve been very open in the press and everywhere about my mental health struggles because even the best athlete in the world can feel this. I’m in a position right now that if I can talk, I can help other people.”
“A lot of people don’t talk about it because they feel they’re going to be weaker, but I think it’s totally the opposite. I’m fighting a lot mentally to try and find myself again.”
Stream the first five episodes Break Point on Netflix January 13, and click here to read the official Baseline review of the docuseries.
