Years after anorexia, hiatus, Italian reaches French Open QF
PARIS» Martina Trevisan has been doing video chats from her hotel room with hermental coach every day along the way to the quarterfinals at Roland Garros, a run the 159th-ranked qualifier acknowledges is “a little” shocking, just not asmuch to her as to everyone else.
So after Trevisan’s 6- 4, 6- 4 victory against No. 5 seed Kiki Bertens at Court Suzanne Lenglen on Sunday, which was just as outof-nowhere at this out-ofnowhere French Open as Iga Swiatek’s 6-1, 6-2 win against 2018 champion and No. 1 seed Simona Halep over at Court Philippe Chatrier, the 26-year-old from Florence, Italy, planned to stick to the routine.
It’s helped her for the past two years, not merely the past two weeks, which also featured unexpected wins over Coco Gauff and 20th-seededMaria Sakkari.
Trevisan’s tennis coach, Matteo Catarsi, described one of the goals of the sessions with Florida-based Lorenzo Beltrame, whose clientele also includes three-time major semifinalist Johanna Konta, this way: “Not to feel uncomfortable in this environment, like someone who played in Grand Slam qualifying, but to feel like a queen, like a star.”
Trevisan and Beltrame chat. He gives her writing assignments. She works to find the right words to describe her thoughts and buttress her self-belief. The exercise is important for where Trevisan is these days, in her sport and in her life. It’s been quite a journey, one Trevisan said hopes offers others
this message: “Don’t ever give up, even in the toughest moments, where it really feels like life wants the worst for you, like it doesn’t care about you at all. Stay strong and seek the light. Because there is light there, and it will arrive.”
A decade ago, shortly after turning 16 but beset by the pressure of others’ expectations, promising prospect Trevisan quit tennis, which her mother teaches and her brother played professionally (her father was a pro soccer player).
She had anorexia, an experience and recovery she discussed in detail in a blog post two months ago.
“I hated my muscular body and I lost weight by adopting a diet that was just enough to survive,” Trevisan wrote, saying she eventually sought help and “re-learned how to eat and to make peace with my wounds and to appreciate my new body.”
Then, having returned to
tennis in 2014 from a 4½year break, having toiled at tiny events offering total prizemoney of $10,000, having moved up the rankings enough to enter the qualifying rounds at Grand Slam tournaments but failing on her first nine attempts to reach the main draw, she finally made a breakthrough this year.
Trevisan made her debut in a major’s 128-player bracket at the Australian Open in January after making it through qualifying, exiting from the first round with a straight-set loss to eventual champion Sofia Kenin.
Trevisan learned, though, that shewas ready to compete with the best.
“I’mmore confident,” she says now. “I know I belong here.”
While Rafael Nadal overwhelmed qualifier Sebastian Korda 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 — the 20-year-old American, whose father won the 1998 Australian Open, was
so star-struck he asked his idol for an autograph after the rout — and U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem held off French wild-card entry Hugo Gaston 6- 4, 6- 4, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, the unpredictable outcomes kept arriving at Roland Garros in the fourth round Sunday.
U.S. Open runner-up Alexander Zverev lost 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to 19-year-old Jannik Sinner of Italy, then said he had a fever and was short of breath, two symptoms that raise red flags during a coronavirus pandemic that postponed the French Open from MayJune to September-October.
Sinner is the first man to reach the quarterfinals in his debut in Paris since — yes, you guessed it — Nadal 15 years ago and now faces the 12-time champion. Thiem, runnerup to the King of Clay the past two years, plays No. 12 seed Diego Schwartzman, a 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 winner against Lorenzo Sonego.