Paula Badosa recalls pressure to be "the next Sharapova" and its mental toll: “My level and mental capacity weren’t ready for that.”
WTA
Paula Badosa spoke about her admiration for former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova, saying she identified with the sacrifices Sharapova made from the beginning of her career. The five-time Grand Slam champion, like Badosa, left home at a young age to pursue her dream of becoming a professional player.
Badosa was born in New York, where her parents worked, before moving back to Barcelona at the age of seven. At 14, she relocated to Valencia for a fresh start before returning to Barcelona at 17. As she developed her career, she eventually settled in Dubai, where she now trains.
Sharapova, on the other hand, moved from Moscow to the United States in 1995 at just eight years old after being scouted by Martina Navratilova, who convinced her parents to make the move. She initially tried to join the Rick Macci Tennis Academy but eventually trained at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, where she laid the foundation for her illustrious junior career.
"I wasn’t ready for the expectations placed on me"
When Badosa was still a junior, Sharapova was one of the biggest names on the WTA Tour, winning five Grand Slam titles between 2004 and 2014. The Spaniard always felt a strong connection with the Russian, as she revealed in a recent interview on Caroline Garcia’s Tennis Insider Club podcast.
“Yes, she was when I grew up and as I said, it’s not all the game that she was playing, it was what she was going like above tennis. She had a different mindset of being an athlete but more than that. So that’s something that I really liked about her and was very inspiring.”
Additionally, the former world No. 2 addressed the mental health struggles she has faced in her career. Badosa, who has dealt with injuries and career ups and downs, also suffered mentally when things didn’t go as expected. “I went through depression and I had mental health problems,” she said. “Because I was 18, I was a very good junior, but then the step of going to the pro was not easy.”
“You start losing, and people expect you to be the next Sharapova. They wondered why I wasn’t in the Top 10 yet, but I wasn’t even in the Top 100 at that moment. The expectations were super high, but my level and mental capacity weren’t ready for that.”
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