In complete distress, Caroline Garcia was very close to putting down her racket for good. The French N.1 tennis player, who ended a failed 2024 season at the end of September, “asked herself the question” of never returning to the circuit because she “couldn’t stand anything anymore”, she admits. in an interview posted online Monday evening on the website of The Team.
“At the end of every game, win or loss, I was just relieved. I no longer knew why I was playing. I was obsessed with the ranking,” confides the former world No.4, who fell to 48th place.
“Everything had become toxic and dark”
She also says she had a bad experience with her coronation at the WTA Masters at the end of 2022, crowning a season in apotheosis. “Three days later, I was just as empty inside. On my record, it’s a magnificent star, but in my relationship with tennis, it was a huge black spot. Everything had become toxic and dark,” she says.
At the Australian Open in early 2023, “every match was a nightmare. I had a shitty attitude, I was bad with my team… I hated the person I was becoming. It exhausted me,” she rewinds.
An expected return to the Australian Open
Currently training with Ivan Ljubicic, high level director at the French tennis federation (FFT), she will appear at the Australian Open (January 12-26, 2025), first Grand Slam of the season, without a coach , after his separation in September from Bertrand Perret. “For the moment I don’t want to be responsible for a team. Sometimes I felt like I had the weight of my staff on my back. There, I find my freedom,” she explains.
For this new season, she plans to play “just the big tournaments”, explaining that she made “a mistake by taking anti-inflammatories for too long” to treat her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll end up making the qualifiers, but I prefer that to playing every week. In any case, I will not return to the Challengers. At some point, I want to do something else in my life, start a family. I don’t see myself playing for another five years, that’s for sure, and I don’t want to struggle on the secondary circuit.”
