Month: November 2022

November 10, 2022

“During my return to the WTA tour, I played five tournaments in Portugal and started feeling a pain in my finger on my left hand. Because things were feeling strange, I got an MRI and it was discovered that I had a benign tumor that had to be removed. At the end of 2020, I had surgery where they had to open my hip to get the bone and make a graft for my finger. I had to stop playing tennis again for almost four months and then make another return to the tour. In my career, I’ve already had six moments that I had to stop playing. In tennis, starting again is not easy, especially when you come from South America. In 2017, I reached the top 100 for the first time, and then I had another surgery on my lower back in 2018. After that, I came back to the top 100 in 2019 and then I got suspended. For sure, that was the most painful moment of my life. It was around 14 months off of the tour. I was unable to go to my club and play with my family. I couldn’t watch tennis, or use social (more…)

November 3, 2022

“I was officially diagnosed with OCD in the spring of 2021. I’ve been struggling with it for as long as I can remember, but the crazy thing is I didn’t even know I had it. It was one day after a dual match here at UNC, one of my teammates and friends reached out to me and brought it up, saying, “Hey, let me know if you need any help or if you have any questions about OCD.” When he said that it rang a bell. I went on the internet, like most people do these days, and I Googled it, and it really shocked me, because what I thought were just crazy habits of mine were actually compulsions. From there, well, I didn’t really know what to do, so I started working with a sports psychologist at UNC in private — none of my teammates knew. It was just a thing with me and my coach, who knew, my girlfriend and family. For me, my OCD spiked when COVID started because I had no way home — I stayed in the States. When I was diagnosed in the spring, I didn’t initially tackle it right away because I was afraid (more…)