‘Tennis doesn’t make sense if I’m not on the top’published at 17:09 British Summer Time
Badosa v Navarro
Paula Badosa beat China’s Yafan Wang to book herself a second Grand Slam quarter-final appearance,
The Spanish star revealed she had contemplated retiring earlier this year after a back injury saw her miss out on competing in the second half of 2023. The hiatus saw the New York-born player drop from a ranking of number two in the world to outside the top 50.
She found it hard on her return to the sport and, amid a run of poor results earlier this summer, considered a life away from tennis.
She said: “There were some moments I was thinking about it, like in the clay court season when I was losing very soon in the tournaments, and I’m like, ‘Wow, what can I do now?’.
“For me, tennis doesn’t make sense if I’m not on the top. I want to play big stages. I want to play the last rounds of every tournament. I want to be one of the best players in the world. But at the end, I always had this small part of me I had faith on myself, I had this belief that I could come back.”
She will meet American Emma Navarro, who ended Coco Gauff’s title defence.