The dark spring of Paula Badosa: she withdraws from Roland Garros injured and overwhelmed

The crooked gesture of Paula Badosa and the breaking of the strings in a right hand anticipate that something bad is to come.

The tennis player changes rackets, but not luckily, as if the farewell had been written in advance.

She is about to drop the first set against Veronika Kudermetova when she reaches for her calf and claims the doctor;

she responds with ostensible gestures to the exploration, she resignedly returns to the track and in the end, her leg tells her to stop.

There is no remedy or turning back.

Bye Paris.

to sleep

There is no tournament that I want to win more, but this spring's trip ends with an ugly frame: the Spanish, who had been leaving some clues – "I don't get here as I wanted", "nerves", "I try to feel free" – hits his head, he whips himself internally, he laments.

And she falls in the round of 16: 6-3, 2-1 and left at 68 minutes.

"She's screwed," summarizes a person from her environment to this newspaper.

His soleus hurts – ruling out the break, it will take about three weeks to recover – but even more so the abrupt farewell to Roland Garros and the closure of a tour that has resulted in a host of disappointments, because the start was not good and the story ends as it began, with several setbacks in the development.

“I hope something changes and there is a

.

It is a difficult situation and I am learning from it.

I seek to free myself”, she said upon her arrival in Paris, where she has not been able to escape the bad moment.

After a very promising start to the season, already installed among the best and with the Sydney trophy on the record, Badosa has entered a rut.

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But not so much because of the results, elusive since she lost in the semifinals of Indian Wells against the Greek Maria Sakkari, as because of the bad feelings that she has been carrying for two months.

"He is going through a difficult time," continues the same source;

“and it's not a question of tennis, because he pushes himself daily and in training and he's breaking the ball;

the other day, Swiatek [the number one, who has 31 consecutive wins] ended up hitting the rackets because he couldn't handle her.

She has tennis, she hasn't lost it, but things don't end up working out for her and she gets very nervous, and then she punishes herself.

She is the first who wants to do it well and she sets the bar very high, too high;

but she needs reassurance and from there, things will get better”.

Two months of vertigo

This season, Badosa has been subjected to the test of heights from the beginning and suffers from the vertigo inherent in the new space it occupies.

She is number four in the world –

paradoxes , she will be number three on June 6 if Jessica Pegula does not win the tournament – ​​and the demand for her has multiplied.

The impact of disappointments, too.

"I need to be kinder to myself," she says.

"I noticed discomfort in the calf, I got a little scared and preferred to prevent," she added this Saturday.

The Catalan, 24 years old and who will not play in Berlin, which

was going to be her first stop for the grass court, is no longer just the player who stoically climbed to the top of the circuit, but one of the benchmarks and, consequently, it is measured by the standard of the favorites.

Hang this in the Louvre 🤩@paulabadosa |

#RolandGarros pic.twitter.com/6HAfI3ycds

– Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) May 28, 2022

For her, the tour on clay has been an uneasiness.

She arrived physically fair in Charleston, the starting point, due to an illness that forced her to leave previously in the Miami quarters against Jessica Pegula;

she then seemed to pick up the slack in Stuttgart, where she gave up in the semifinals offering a good level against Aryna Sabalenka, but in Madrid, “overwhelmed”, she lost inspiration and ran into Simona Halep in the second match.

In Rome she didn't straighten up either –second round, against Daria Kasatkina– and in Paris she had already suffered more than usual (against Kaja Juvan, the 68th) to overcome the previous obstacle to Kudermetova.

His departure and that of Aryna Sabalenka leave a surprising landscape.

The number one, Iga Swiatek, will be the only representative of the

in the second week of the competition.

The Pole defeated Danka Kovinic (6-3 and 7-5) and is still unleashed;

she links 31 consecutive wins and 40 this year, more than she obtained in the entire previous season.

Meanwhile, Badosa has lost strength.

She opened 2022 with the joy of Sydney and continued on the right track until spring arrived.

From there, curves and difficulties.

Darkness.

She has to rebel against the present.

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