“I love to grind hard, but sometimes I can’t do that" - Eva Lys highlights how she handles challenging disease to go on remarkable run in Beijing

It has been an unbelievable week for Eva Lys, who has shot herself into the spotlight with a magical run in the China Open, storming through to the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 event before eventually being halted in her tracks by world number three Coco Gauff.

The German first featured in this event in 2023, making her 1000 debut. It would not be until the start of 2025 where she would more regularly appear in these competitions having only failed to qualify for the Miami Open. Her best result was a third-round appearance at the Canadian Open, but that previous best has been annihilated with a run to the last-eight.

She began the tournament with a routine win over Chinese wildcard Ruien Zhang, before being intwined in some mesmerising battles, defeating Iva Jovic, Elena Rybakina, and McCartney Kessler in three sets to force a showdown against Gauff. Unfortunately for the 23-year-old, she could not clinch her second top 10 victory, trailing the American 6-3, 6-4. It is still a historic week for Lys, who has broken into the top 50 for the first time, rising to a new high of 46th in the world. One incredible achievement when you put in context that she was ranked outside the top 100 at the start of the year.

In 2020, Lys was diagnosed with spondyloarthritis, a progressive inflammatory disease which causes the recipient to feel pain and stiffness predominantly in joints around the spine and lower limbs. Despite this setback, Lys has worked through it, wiring her brain to deal and cope with the disease.

“It’s super weird,” Lys said in an interview with The Athletic. “Especially because with my family growing up, (the message was) hard work pays off. And the harder you work, the better you get. This is the usual thinking.

"We just had to adjust and for me, actually, less is better sometimes,” Lys said. “I love to grind hard. I love to go over the edge sometimes. But sometimes I can’t do that because then I wouldn’t be able to play the next week. So, yeah, it’s a weird feeling to know the less, the better. It’s something we had to learn, not only myself but also my team. It definitely took a while. The first years were really, really tough, like up until last year. But, yeah, I changed a lot. I adjusted small details with my team. I can do everything all the other tennis players can do, I just sometimes need to take a little bit time from my body and recover a little longer.”

While she is flying high in Beijing, she has not forgotten about the issues in tennis, focusing on the disparity between the ATP and WTA. She also touched on hate players receive on social media, using her new platform of influence to spread the word.

“The equality part is still a big thing,” Lys said. “Compared to the ATP we’re still very far away — so I’m definitely trying my best to talk about these topics. I think one of the biggest topics next to it is also the whole social media hate we get. It’s important to speak out on it and, for me, staying quiet is not a solution if you wanna change things.”

Despite the hate, Lys does like spending time online, primarily to show off her creative skills. As a switch off mechanism from tennis, Lys revealed a hobby for videos and photography, as she attempts to explore and expose more of the sport the fans do not tend to see.

“I love videos and I love taking photos and just seeing everything from a different perspective,” Lys said. “I love getting creative, and also about showing different perspectives and showing people tennis from a different side. I feel like there’s not many people showing the insights of a tennis player’s life with maybe a different spin. So I do enjoy that a lot and I like fashion. I like taking hobbies to a different level. And I try not to focus too much on tennis when I’m not on court because I tend to go a little crazy."

Continuing from this, Lys advocated for more personalities in the sport, commenting on how nice some of her opponents are outside the court. “One thing that is maybe missing a little bit is that we have so many nice personalities on tour that maybe are not shown as much. You just see the player on court but they’re a totally different person off court. And especially with my friends, I just like to put out and show people that we actually have cool tennis players but also cool people next to (off) the court.”