On her ‘own path’ to champion status
After strong performances, Françoise Abanda takes the indirect route to success
When Montreal’s Françoise Abanda was just 15 in 2012, she was a few games away from making it an allCanadian Wimbledon junior girls’ final against 18-year-old Eugenie Bouchard.
She ended up losing in three sets to 17-year-old Elina Svitolina, who was a junior Grand Slam champion at 15 — and is currently No. 5 in the world.
Despite the loss, expectations of Abanda’s success began in earnest back then, tempered by the fact that Bouchard had already made a huge splash. Abanda had time to be “the next one” for a while, as she found her own path to the top.
Fast-forward five years; Abanda is now 20. And while she still hasn’t broken the top 100, expectations remain high. Her path has been up and down, but as she prepares for her fifth Rogers Cup appearance, there is more optimism than ever.
Abanda’s WTA Tour ranking stood at a career-high No. 120 after she qualified for the French Open and Wimbledon and reached the second round at both earlier this summer.
“I’m a big supporter of her potential; I know what she’s capable of,” Fed Cup captain Sylvain Bruneau said after that first-round win in Paris. “I’m just happy, encouraged she was able to do it in an important tournament, but it’s not a surprise to me. She did it three years ago (at the US Open in 2014) and I think the wait was too long.”
Abanda suffered a 6-0, 6-0 pasting at the hands of former No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki in the second round at the French Open. But once she arrived on the grass, a surface that suits her game well, she rebounded.
After three victories in the qualifying in fairly primitive, low-profile conditions at Roehampton, Abanda finally walked through the gates of the legendary All-England Club for the first time as a true professional. And she made the moment count. She defeated veteran Japanese player Kurumi Nara in the first round and then came up against Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia — a player born the same year, 1997, but who just weeks before had stunned the tennis world by winning the French Open. (Three years ago, when both were 17, Abanda had defeated Ostapenko in the French Open junior event in straight sets.)
The Canadian came close at Wimbledon — so close to making the biggest splash of her career. She fell just short due both to her opponent’s soaring confidence and her own lack of experience.
“To each their own path,” Abanda said as she prepared for that Wimbledon debut.
Her path has certainly been her own. With every breakout performance at the Rogers Cup or when representing her country in Fed Cup competition, excitement has grown among Canadian tennis fans and the people at Tennis Canada.
At the Rogers Cup, her successes have included taking a set off world No. 12 Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia in Montreal in 2014, when she was just 17 and ranked outside the top 200. She won the first set against No. 16 Andrea Petkovic of Germany in Toronto in 2015 before losing in a decider, when she was ranked No. 315.
And last year, ranked No. 275, she beat China’s Zheng Saisai (No. 66) in straight sets during the first round in Montreal. She was beaten by Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina (then No. 20, currently No. 5). But she gave her everything she could handle in a 7-6, 7-6 defeat. At the Fed Cup, Abanda has punched above her weight just about every time. Last April, against Kazakhstan, ranked about 200, she upset both Yaroslava Shvedova (career highs No. 25 in singles and No. 3 in doubles) and Yulia Putintseva (top 30 at the time) in straight sets. In April 2016, she defeated Slovakia’s Jana Cepelova (career high of No. 50) in straight sets and pushed Cibulkova to three sets. Two months before, ranked No. 343, she defeated Olga Govortsova of Belarus, ranked No. 74.
Despite the encouraging signs, each time there has been disappointment in the aftermath. Abanda would return to playing the level of tournaments her low ranking dictated and — in front of only a few fans — would put up a stinker of a match. Or she would withdraw from some events. Or an injury would pop up. Rumours emerged from the national training centre in Montreal that she wasn’t working nearly as hard as she should. And over the years, she’s had many coaching changes.
“All good players can be hard-headed. They have their ideas, we have ours — it’s not only her,” Bruneau said.
“What’s been difficult until now is that she really likes to be in Montreal. Some players have no problem living out of a suitcase or exiling themselves for training purposes — Genie (Bouchard), for example. Françoise is not one of those. So it can be a problem getting a coach willing to not only go on the road, but also be in Montreal, to train with her.”
From Simon Larose, to Antonio Van Grichen (a world-class coach who lasted only a few weeks), to Bruno Echagaray, to Freddie Rodriguez, no one has quite found the secret code.
There was a period two years ago when Abanda, still a teenager, was left to fend for herself for the first time since she came under the Tennis Canada support umbrella as a preteen. She remained coachless for a period of several months, travelling to at least one tournament in the U.S. and to Europe with only her older sister.
Abanda’s schedule earlier this year had her trying to qualify at high-end events such as Indian Wells and Miami rather than grind it out at the lower levels, accumulating points and rising up the ranks as most players of her status would.
The hope, obviously, was that with the spotlight shining, Abanda could catch lightning in a bottle — as she had done many times before.
It didn’t work. For the last few months, she has been coachless. Bruneau helped when he could; he was both in Paris and at Wimbledon.
As she arrives in Toronto, Abanda is testing out another new coach.
But she also arrives with a high level of confidence and a clearly upgraded level of endurance. That’s something she ascribes to having spent more time in the gym in recent months in part due to the absence of a full-time coach.
If there were a standard blueprint to produce a tennis champion, someone would be very, very wealthy by now. But there isn’t.
In the end, the Abanda solution will prove to be a unique one.
But she’s never been closer.