World No 10 is one of the best players yet to win a major and heads to Flushing Meadows in fine form after learning to embrace being uncomfortable
Amanda Anisimova can see the signs now. It is just over three years since the American announced she would be taking an indefinite break for mental health reasons. A brilliant junior, she was a semi-finalist at the French Open in 2019 and seemingly destined for the top, only for her world to be rocked by the sudden death of her father, Konstantin, a few months later. Struggling for motivation and burned out, in May 2023, she revealed she would be stepping away from the sport.
It turned out to be the best decision she ever made. “I learned how important it is to have a great balance on and off the court,” Anisimova says in an interview from New York, ahead of the US Open, where she will try to go one better than last year and win her first grand slam title.