It is just over three years since the American announced she would be taking an indefinite break for mental health reasons. A brilliant junior, she was a semi-finalist at the French Open in 2019 and seemingly destined for the top, only for her world to be rocked by the sudden death of her father, Konstantin, a few months later. Struggling for motivation and burned out, in May 2023, she revealed she would be stepping away from the sport.
It turned out to be the best decision she ever made. In the past, it was really just a lot of tennis and I didn’t really know how to incorporate those small breaks for myself. I think that’s a big reason why I reached such a breaking point and needed to take that time away from the sport.” Three years on, Anisimova is better able to feel when things are becoming too much.
For a top tennis player, with a tour that’s an 11-month grind, there are not many obvious opportunities for lengthy breaks, but Anisimova finds time for herself. If she is not feeling it on the practice or match court, she takes herself away. At least not to let it keep happening.
It’s obviously normal to get tired or burnt out, and we all have days where we don’t feel like doing the things we need to do. It’s about how to manage that and navigate that. I think that’s been the biggest thing that I’ve learned, and that’s helped me tremendously as an athlete.” Anisimova finished 2025 at No 4 in the rankings, a remarkable achievement, not least because of what happened to her at Wimbledon.
After beating Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals with a brilliant performance, she crumbled in her first major final, frozen with fear, her feet stuck, her racket arm feeling like it weighed a ton. The result was a 6-0, 6-0 thumping by a ruthless Iga Swiatek and an unwanted place in the history books as the first woman to not win a game in a Wimbledon final in more than a century. Many players would never have recovered from the experience but Anisimova’s time away has helped her to see the bigger picture.
As painful as the day was, reaching a first grand slam final was a huge milestone. And it’s not something that I really had when I was 20, 21.” Her resilience is remarkable. She took revenge on Swiatek at the US Open to reach a second consecutive major final and pushed Sabalenka hard in the title decider.
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