‘Reframing’ Setbacks, Snakebit Andreescu Looks Ahead
2019 US OPEN CHAMP MAKING MOST OF CHARLESTON DEBUT
You can’t talk about Bianca Andreescu without talking about her injuries.
They’re as much a part of her story as her parents’ move from their native Romania to Canada, her passion for hip-hop, or her run to the 2019 US Open title, when at 19 she stunned Serena Williams in the final, her home nation’s first-ever Grand Slam singles champion. But once again on the comeback trail, she’s choosing to look at all those setbacks — the repeated ankle ligament woes, the meniscus tear, the back injury, etc. — in a whole new light.
“We all have life challenges, and that’s been one of mine,” she said this week on Daniel Island, where the 25-year-old is making her tournament debut. “I just try to take everything as a challenge rather than a setback, kind of like reframing it. But, yes, it’s been quite consistent for me, and I’m just doing my best to stay positive.”
“I have my goals, I know what I want, and that’s helping me stay on the path that I’ve chosen. There have been moments where I thought maybe this isn’t the path for me, and maybe the universe is trying to tell me something, but I just believe in my heart that this is what I was meant to do, at least for this part of my life.”
“There have been moments where I thought maybe this isn’t the path for me, and maybe the universe is trying to tell me something, but I just believe in my heart that this is what I was meant to do.” — Bianca Andreescu
It’s not often that a former major singles titlist drops down to the ITF circuit, but that’s exactly where Andreescu could be found at the start of 2026, playing low-level events in towns like Bradenton, Weston and Vero Beach in Florida.
Flushing Meadows this was not.
But the 25-year-old isn’t second guessing her decision. Not only did she come away with a pair of titles, more importantly, she got in the kind of court time she so desperately needed.
“I wanted to do that back in 2024, but I guess my ego got in the way of that,” she admitted. “I decided that maybe it was time to put that aside and really get what I’ve been needing, which is matches. It’s never guaranteed that you’re going to be playing a lot of matches. The level on the ITF circuit is huge. I think they’re fighting for a lot. I mean, it’s kind of do or die. These players are barely breaking even. In that way, I think they’re fighting for a little bit more. I think I proved to myself that I can play match after match and feel good. I think I played 14 matches in 16, 17 days, and my body felt great. I’m really happy that we took that route.”
Since her 2019 breakthrough in the Southern California Desert, when she became the first-ever women’s wildcard to win the WTA 1000 BNP Paribas Open, the Ontarian has been an outside-the-box thinker, open to visualization techniques, meditation and other non-traditional disciplines. It’s a mindset that should help her moving forward, as she tries to work her way back up the PIF WTA Rankings. Once a career-high No. 4, she’s now outside the Top 100.
“My mom [Maria] introduced me to the mental side, the spiritual side of things when I was very little, so it was very much talked about in the household,” she said. “It was never anything weird or woo-woo. Now there’s a lot of factual evidence for things like frequency, energy. I’m trying to kind of balance that aspect because we’re living a human experience, and there’s obviously so much out there. It’s just finding that balance for me.”
“Meditation has always been a big part and that’s never going to go away. Being alive is such a beautiful thing. We go through life’s challenges, but that’s the purpose of why we’re here. It’s not supposed to be all butterflies and rainbows.”
