All US Open fortnight long, Victoria Azarenka—she of boundless energy and philosophical leanings—has preached about confidence coming from within. She pointed out that if you let your results determine your confidence then you are lagging woefully behind the power curve.
Lagging behind has never been the Belarusian’s style and that’s why she came into the 2020 US Open taking everything on the front foot, without a crystal of doubt in her mind, believing that she still belongs among the elite of women’s tennis.
All this despite the fact that her last Grand Slam final was seven years ago, three and a half years before she gave birth to her baby boy Leo.
Naomi Osaka may have stunted her 11-match winning streak by rallying from a set and break down to topple her in Saturday’s US Open final, but there were too many positives to be taken by the 31-year-old Belarusian to let that get her down. It takes a lot more than a harrowing loss to take the bubbling energy out of Victoria Azarenka.
After Saturday’s final she was a picture of radiance in her post-match press conference, doling out wit and wisdom as she periodically sipped from a bottle of her almost empty recovery drink. Did the sting of a difficult loss, a painful near-miss and a chance at a third Grand Slam title bother her?
If it did she wasn’t showing it.
A little backstory before we proceed: Azarenka was close to saying goodbye to the sport this off-season. It would have been a shame and thank goodness she didn’t. A half-year later she’s a proven, in-form commodity.
“I will say that I was ready to stop, definitely,” she told a reporter who asked her to talk about how close she came to calling it quits on her professional tennis career. “I said that before. I hadn't touched my racquet for five months. I was really not planning on coming to play until I had my personal issues resolved. So I never really made the final decision because I was going to do that after. So it was pretty close. But what kept me in the game is my desire to go after what I want. That's pretty much it.”
Now that she’s engineered such a stunning turnaround, the former world No.1 and two-time Grand Slam champion is excited to continue her quest. She’s never been a player that needs validation from her results, but she hinted that she feels the last three weeks in New York are a sign that there’s more championship tennis inside her.
“It's more, like, confirmation that the work you're putting in is bringing the positive result,” she said. “I think it's an important way to kind of build on that. Things that maybe don't work, like some things today didn't work out, it's an opportunity for me to learn and move forward.”
And as far as the critics go?
“Thankfully, I stopped looking for any kind of validation from anybody,” she said on Saturday.
Title or no title, there has been a joie de vivre that has characterized Azarenka throughout these last three weeks and, frankly, ever since she returned to the tour as a mother in 2017 with her young child in tow. It shows in her actions, in her on-court body language, and in the words of wisdom that she consistently offers to the public.
The last time she played a US Open final, in 2013, Azarenka was a far different person.
“I felt that I've enjoyed myself throughout the tournament way more,” she said when asked to compare her level of enjoyment between 2013 and 2020. “When you're young, you have some not great people around you, they just put in, like, this tunnel vision. Don't look right, don't look left.”
Azarenka says to live and play with blinders can be a dangerous trap for a young woman. Now that she’s come out on the other side, she’s thankful that the experience of competing is that much more pleasurable.
“You're kind of missing the point of living,” she said, recalling her younger days on tour. “You're becoming this focused machine as a tennis player. So [these days] I’m able to be more fulfilled, I will say, outside of the tennis court, on the tennis court. I think that's a real success.”
