Marino enjoying her return to sport
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA— For the first point she played at a Grand Slam event in six years, Rebecca Marino hit an ace.
She celebrated with a subtle fist pump, determined to have the best next act she could after a lengthy intermission during which she became the face of depression among athletes.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the moment, just going from tournament to tournament now,” Marino said. “But if I stop and think about it, then that’s when I see that it’s pretty cool that I was able to do this, and to get this far, from no ranking to suddenly in the qualies of a Slam.”
Marino lost, 6-2, 6-2, to Caroline Dolehide on Tuesday in the first round of Australian Open qualifying, limited by a back injury, which curtailed her off-season training. Despite her stiffness, Marino, 28, showed flashes of the power and clean ball-striking that sent her into the upper echelons of tennis seven years ago.
With a percussive forehand and a booming serve that topped out at 120 m.p.h., Marino surged to a high of 38th in the rankings in the summer of 2011, when she was 20.
Not a highly touted junior prospect, she had planned to enrol in college before her tennis successes mounted, catapulting her faster and further than she was prepared for.
“Not expecting it, I felt like I was thrown into this machine, and I didn’t understand how it worked,” she said.
Marino stepped back from the sport for the first time in 2012, taking seven months off. After returning for several months, she retired in February 2013 at age 22.
In a conference call announcing her decision, Marino revealed her struggles with depression; days earlier, she had discussed her social media abuse in an interview with The New York Times. Her leaving the sport was often attributed to one of those factors, or both of them, which Marino said was inaccurate in retrospect.
“When I look back, I wouldn’t necessarily say it was depression,” she said of her decision to stop playing. “It was burnout, and it was expectations put on my shoulders by myself and others, and I just wasn’t able to cope.”
Marino’s retirement at 22 generated considerable attention, particularly in her native Canada, where she was one of the brightest tennis prospects in generations.
Her story resonated with others, but she felt uneasy being a touchstone for athletes struggling with depression.
“It wasn’t something I was prepared for, and it’s still something I’m grappling with,” Marino said. “I’m still a really private person, and so for people to come up to me and tell me all of the things they’ve dealt with, or how I’ve affected them, it’s difficult sometimes, because I don’t really know what to say.”
After retiring from tennis, Marino worked one summer for her family’s construction business, pouring cement and digging through clay. She later began teaching tennis lessons and enrolled at the University of British Columbia, where she studied English literature.
Marino was shaken in February 2017 when her father, Joe, received a prostate cancer diagnosis.
“After he finished chemo, I took a step back and wanted to look at what was important in my life,” she said. “I didn’t want to live with any regrets, and I thought tennis was the one thing in my life that I wish I had a do-over for.”
She also wanted her father to see her play again. Marino weighed the idea of a return for months and gained confidence after serving as a hitting partner at a tournament in Vancouver, her hometown, in August 2017.
Aweek before her next semester was to begin, Marino pulled out of classes, quit her coaching job and moved to Montreal to begin working toward a fullfledged comeback at Tennis Canada’s training centre.
After a false start because she did not re-enter tennis’ antidoping program in time, Marino returned to the sport at its lowest rung last January, at a series of small tournaments in Turkey.
She won her first 19 matches, including her first 30 sets. She worked throughout the year to bring her ranking to its current spot of 216th, which was enough to reach her goal of entering the Australian Open qualifying draw.
Marino plans a long stay in the sport this time, and is working to ensure it is more pleasant and sustainable. She stays in better contact with friends, including more trips home to Vancouver, to help her keep one foot outside the sometimes suffocating tennis bubble.
“My friends don’t play tennis, so they don’t care if I win or lose,” she said. “They’re just concerned about how I’m doing as a person, if I’m enjoying myself, and when I’ll be back so we can hang out. My whole structure this time around is a little bit different, and I have a lot of things outside of tennis that keep me grounded.”