Amanda Anisimova shook her clenched fists, smiled and let out a deep breath.
While the 6-3, 6-4 score might not have indicated it, nor her dominant play, the 22-year-old American had just won her first major match in over 17 months. As the elated Australian Open crowd cheered her on, the relief was evident all over her face as she walked to the net to shake hands with her opponent, Liudmila Samsonova.
On Tuesday, she found magic yet again with another straight-set victory in Melbourne over Nadia Podoroska. And now, Anisimova is back into the third round at a major for the first time since 2022. She will take on former world No. 2 Paula Badosa on Thursday.
While it’s her seventh major third-round appearance, and third at the Australian Open, this one is perhaps the most improbable. Having stepped away from the game for most of the 2023 season for an indefinite mental health break following months of poor on-court results, it was unclear for a time whether she would play again. But during her time away, Anisimova spent time with her family and friends, enrolled in on-campus college classes, traveled with friends and cultivated her passion for art — and rediscovered her love for tennis along the way. She made her return in Auckland earlier this month.
“I feel a lot more refreshed,” Anisimova said this week. “I’m enjoying practicing. I’m enjoying every second that I’m out there. Even when I was down today, I was still just enjoying the challenge.
“I’m just happy with how I feel coming back. I feel like I was very burned out while I was playing, and that really wasn’t a nice feeling. Being able to just reset is really nice.”
On May 5, Anisimova shocked the tennis world with an Instagram post.
“I’ve really been struggling with my mental health and burnout since the summer of 2022,” Anisimova wrote. “It’s become unbearable being at tennis tournaments. At this point my priority is my mental well-being and taking a break for some time. I’ve worked as hard as I could to push through it.”
She gave no indication when — if ever — she would be back.
Following a quarterfinal run at Wimbledon in 2022, Anisimova’s struggles on the court had been apparent. She lost in the first round at both the 2022 US Open and the 2023 Australian Open. By the time of her announcement, she hadn’t won a match in over two months.
Since winning the junior title at the US Open in 2017, and then reaching the semifinals at the French Open less than two years later, there were few young players with as many expectations and attention. There were comparisons to Maria Sharapova and a Nike contract rumored to be worth tens of millions. After her breakthrough in Paris, she had become a household name among tennis fans, and she was ranked just outside the top 20.
But her fairytale ascent was quickly derailed. In August 2019, her father Konstantin, who had been her coach since she first picked up a racket, died of a heart attack. She withdrew from the US Open and played sparingly the rest of the year as she grieved.
She never was quite able to get back on track. Her 2020 season started with promise as she reached the semifinals in Auckland but the year was quickly upended by the pandemic. A positive COVID-19 test prevented her from competing at the Australian Open in 2021.
But her luck seemed to be taking a turn in 2022 — briefly anyway. She reached the fourth round at the French Open and then had a run to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, which included an unexpected win over Coco Gauff in the second round. She had been hoping to ride her momentum into the US Open but she broke her toe during the Cincinnati Open and lost in the first round in New York.
She didn’t play again until 2023. In the seven tournaments she played at the start of the year, she won just two main draw matches. By the time she announced her break, her ranking had fallen to No. 46. Her decision to walk away was a surprise to most, but others said they could relate to where she was coming from.
“I don’t think anybody was expecting it or anything but I can understand really,” Gauff said over the summer. “I think it’s a much different pressure when you’re good I guess throughout pretty much when you hold the racket. Amanda always has been one to watch, at least since I was a little girl, since she was. She was always considered to be the next thing. I can really understand the pressure that she’s probably felt.
“She had a lot to deal with the loss of her dad. I was really surprised personally how she was able to be able to continue to play … I think that’s a thing that people forget, that she’s human, athletes are human.”
Having played tennis for most of her life and having spent the better part of her teenage years living the grind of the globetrotting tennis schedule, Anisimova was able to spend an extended period at home in Miami. She spent time with her family, including her young nephews. She volunteered with a dog shelter. Already taking college classes remotely thought the WTA’s partnership with Indiana University East, she transferred to nearby Nova Southeastern University to take classes in person. She took trips to places she didn’t get to see during the tennis season with her friends. And she dove into her passion for painting.
Anisimova had started painting in 2022 and quickly found it to be a creative outlet and escape. With time to explore it further, she began sharing some of her work online and then even selling it online with the proceeds going to various charities. She got the attention of Ted Dimond, a New York-based artist whose work frequently features tennis players and other athletes. He had met her years prior but he was impressed by what he was seeing and wanted her to show her work in a gallery exhibit he was staging ahead of the US Open. She agreed, and by Dimond’s recollection, needed little convincing.
While many of her friends and peers were preparing for the year’s final major, she was showing off her work at a gallery in Tribeca.
Special night with even more special people! Shoutout to Ted & Sam for putting up an amazing gallery party 💃 & for letting me be a part of it! It meant a lot to me having my work up, and going to very important causes 🙌🏼 pic.twitter.com/C8ecn742Af
— A (@AnisimovaAmanda) August 28, 2023
“They were these pieces of abstract work, with beautiful colors, just very creative and flowing and playful,” Dimond told ESPN this week. “I said this to her but if there had been 50 pieces of art displayed and I had to guess which ones she had done, those were the ones I would have guessed. She’s really talented and even being abstract work, who she is comes across in the paintings.
“She was really proud of the work and she brought some friends to see what she had done. And then she spoke about her journey and the work and some of what brought her to that. It was clear what it’s meant to her.”
During that gallery showing, Anisimova confided in Dimond that she would be returning to the practice court in the coming days.
“She wanted to get back out there,” Dimond said. “She was excited. I think the balance painting has created for her in her life was a big part of the reason. It’s allowed to her express her creativity and find her voice and it’s help her develop as a person. Now she knows she really she wants to play, and also has something else that provides fulfillment. And when you’re fulfilled off the court, then you’re going to play better because you’re in a better head space.”
Her desire to return to competition had started months before. She began working with performance coach Ricard Cesari in July. After such a long time away — by professional athlete standards, anyway — from regular training, Cesari didn’t know what to expect from Anisimova initially but he could tell right away how much she wanted to be there.
It started gradually with two sessions a week, just to get her back training and in the gym. Initially their time together was what Cesari described as “super easy,” low-impact workouts focused on body-weight exercises and injury prevention. But she got back into shape quickly and their sessions increased and got more and more physically demanding.
Within a few weeks, Anisimova was adamant about her goal:
“She said she was going to play in Australia and was going to be in the best shape possible,” Cesari told ESPN on Wednesday. “She was super motivated and knew what she wanted.”
By the end of August they were training together six days a week with two days of double sessions. Anisimova returned to the practice court in September.
Her days became highly structured as she balanced her time on the court with her time in the gym, as well as her course schedule at Nova Southeastern, while still making time to paint and spend with her family and friends. But even Anisimova, who said her top priority was staying healthy, was impressed by her level throughout her extended preseason training.
“Everything was there,” Anisimova said. “It was kind of like I never stopped playing actually. It was just the fitness part because I’m a human, so that’s obviously going to go away, and you have to build that up. But my game and my shots, I was actually playing great from what I thought the first week with my coach.”
Once it became clear Anisimova’s goal to play in Australia was achievable, she parted ways with Cesari at the end of November as he was unable to commit to a full-time travel schedule. But he was proud of the progress they had made and has followed her results from Florida.
“I think for sure this is probably more than she was expecting for herself,” Cesari said. “To do this in a Grand Slam with all of the extra pressure, so early in the year, I think she’s only going to get better.”
Anisimova officially made her return in Auckland earlier this month. Ranked No. 373, she won her opening-round match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the 2021 French Open finalist, 7-5, 6-4 on New Year’s Day.
After the match she posted a picture of herself smiling widely while taking a selfie, presumably with fans behind her, from the court on Instagram. “Happy new year,” she wrote in the caption alongside two heart emojis.
On Thursday at John Cain Arena, Anisimova will have another compelling test. Badosa has recently returned from an extended injury absence and is also looking to reclaim her former glory. They have never played against one another.
For Anisimova, a spot in her third Round of 16 at the Australian Open is on the line.
But, no matter the final result, this trip to Melbourne isn’t like her previous ones. Instead of staying in a hotel like most players tend to do, she is staying in an apartment with close friend and fellow player Priscilla Hon. It’s allowed her a sense of normalcy in an otherwise high-stress situation.
“That’s been very enjoyable,” Anisimova said. “Just getting to be with my best friend here is really good.”
With at least some semblance of a work-life balance and a new perspective — and having had the opportunity to discover who she is away from tennis — Anisimova sounded content no matter what happened during the rest of the tournament.
“I’m just here for the journey right now and seeing how much I can progress,” Anisimova said after her first-round victory. “I think I would take it with whatever outcome I would get. But I am happy with the wins, and I really hope that I can build on from it.
“I’m happy with today’s win, but I’m trying to just stay settled.”