'I WASN'T MEANT FOR THIS LIFE': TENNIS' TOUGHEST BATTLE OF THE MIND GAME

Despite winning three Slam titles, life on tour wasn't always easy for Ash Barty. (Getty/Tim Goode)

In tennis, the spotlight and the media often focus on the physical aspect: serves pounding down at 220 km/h, rallies that defy physics, and matches that stretch into the fifth hour. Yet, for all its athletic demands, the sport's true vessel is the mind. Professional tennis is a psychological minefield, where players have no choice but to confront solitude, pressure, and self-doubt, all while navigating the relentless cycle of the tennis tour.

Tennis is an unforgivingly solitary game. Andre Agassi summed it up succinctly in his autobiography, 'Open'… "Tennis is the loneliest sport."

There is no teammate to lift you up after a double fault or to pat you on the back following a running cross-court winner (although with on-court coaching, this has been somewhat tempered). Players must stand and think alone. Their every shot and every decision dissected by thousands in the stands and millions online.

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To be the best, there is no time to switch off in a tennis match. The next point is always the one that matters most. Rafael Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam champion, described the challenge best.

"If your head is not ready to accept that you are going to lose points, that you are going to miss shots, it's going to be very difficult," the Spaniard said.

"Victory and defeat is part of our life on a daily basis. You have to be able to accept both things."

This relentless focus, point after point, is a mental marathon in itself. The margins are razor-thin. Consider Roger Federer's career, one of the greatest of all time. Yet he lost almost 46 per cent of all points he played. Tennis players have to deal with losses. Every day. Some small, some big, but if a player can't accept that, the challenge becomes far greater.

The sport's structure will offer no mercy. With no clock to wind down, matches can grind on for hours, testing players' mental stamina as much as their legs. A lead can evaporate, a deficit can build, and the emotional swings are unforgiving.

Novak Djokovic spoke to this in 2023 with journalist Jon Wertheim: "I might appear to be locked in," he said. "But trust me, there is a storm inside. And the biggest battle is always within, right?"

The Toll of the Tour

If the court is isolating, the professional tour is a psychological siege. Players criss-cross the globe, competing in dozens of tournaments with very little time to recover, or even to celebrate a successful week.

Jet lag, unfamiliar conditions, and the need to adapt to new beds and surroundings, week after week, chip away at mental reserves. Serena Williams, with 23 Grand Slams, spoke of how hard it was for her to play multiple tournaments in a season.

"I don’t know how people play 32 tournaments a year. The maximum I played was 17, and even then I didn't feel like I had a life," she told Vogue Magazine in 2015.

She is certainly not the only player to feel like that. For many, especially those from outside the tennis-centric regions of Europe and North America, the distance from familiarity breeds a gnawing homesickness.

Ashleigh Barty, in her memoir, My Dream Time, laid bare this struggle from her junior days.

"I remember standing on that court in the Netherlands, weeping every time I hit a winner, and sighing with relief every time I hit the net, or pushed the ball wide. My dreams of success were getting mixed up with a desire to fail - to get off the court, pack my bags, and fly home, and never leave home again. That was when I knew I wasn't meant for this life."

There can't be too many sports in the world that make a young prodigy so homesick to the point where it would force a player to contemplate losing.

Norway's Casper Ruud, a three-time Grand Slam finalist, has echoed this sentiment recently, calling the tour a "hamster wheel that just never stops". He admitted, "You’re kind of sacrificing certain personal, family time, which sometimes feels tougher than others."

Ruud also offered a peek behind the curtain on the struggles that fans rarely see.

"There's a lot of things you deal with as a player," he said. "There are some things you keep to yourself, especially when it comes to certain pain and things we deal with. There's probably a bit more than the fans hear about."

In 2025, Ruud sought therapy to cope, saying, "I’ve been kind of feeling not great mentally this year. But I’ve sought help, which has really worked for me, and I’ve been feeling [a] quick response and feeling a lot better."

His honesty emphasises the tour's hidden toll, where even the top players grapple with burnout and isolation.

A New Era of Openness

The conversation around mental health in tennis has shifted dramatically in recent years, thankfully, driven by players willing to share their emotions. Naomi Osaka's withdrawal from the 2021 French Open was a seismic moment.

Media responsibilities were a clear struggle for her, as she shared, "I am not a natural public speaker and get huge waves of anxiety before I speak to the world's media."

She also made a valid point, arguing, "Perhaps we should give athletes the right to take a mental break from media scrutiny on a rare occasion without being subject to strict sanctions. In any other line of work, you would be forgiven for taking a personal day here and there, so long as it's not habitual."

Osaka’s call for empathy exposed the relentless pressure of media obligations and social media vitriol, sparking a broader dialogue about athlete well-being.

Nick Kyrgios' struggles appear to have cut even deeper. Despite tournament victories earlier in his career, behind the scenes, he was unravelling.

"I won tournaments on the professional tour (but was still) drinking every night, self-harming, burning things on my arm, cutting myself for fun. It became an addiction of pain. I hated myself. I hated waking up and being Nick Kyrgios," he said.

Kyrgios' descent into self-destruction, even at the peak of his career, reveals the gulf between on-court success and off-court turmoil.

Mardy Fish, in the Netflix documentary Breaking Point, shared his battle with anxiety.

"The idea that I wasn't good enough was a powerful one — it drove me, at an age when many players' careers are winding down, to these amazing heights," the American stated. "But it also became a difficult switch to turn off. I was, objectively, doing great. And looking back, I wish I had been able to tell myself that."

Fish's struggle with perfectionism highlights the contradiction of tennis: the drive for greatness can quickly become a mental prison.

This vulnerability was on display recently at the 2025 Madrid Open, where Iga Świątek, the defending champion, crumbled in a 6-1 6-1 semi-final loss to Coco Gauff. At 6-1 3-0 down, the former world No.1 buried her face in a towel, tears streaming as the weight of the moment overwhelmed her.

It was later revealed that her grandfather had recently passed away, confirming exactly what Świątek alluded to in a pre-tournament press conference.

"I'm just trying to keep my job and not really focus on what people say," she told the media in Rome. "Honestly, like they have no idea what's going on in any of our lives, so if they think some things, they can just think, but it's not necessarily the truth."

Ruud, who spoke about the exact same thing just weeks ago, offered a heartfelt gesture on X: "Hey @iga_swiatek keep your head up… Like millions of other people I love watching you play."

The weight of expectations

The mental challenges in tennis extend far beyond the court and the tour. Financial pressures loom large, particularly for lower-ranked players who face steep travel and coaching costs with meagre prize money.

Often, players build the pressure within themselves, feeling as though they need to recoup costs and sacrifices that their family may have made to help achieve their dream.

Relationships strain under the tour's demands, with months away from loved ones testing partnerships and friendships. Performance pressure is relentless—every match impacts rankings, sponsorships, and finances. The average fan has very little idea of the stress associated when an early loss in a tournament, which could send a player's ranking out of range for a Slam, Masters, or even a Challenger.

All of a sudden, that player might find themselves scrambling for months on end, on the lower tiers of tennis, as a way to return to earning money on the top tier. During that time, finances can be tough, the stresses build up, and performance suffers, creating a cycle that can be impossible for some to break.

Social media amplifies this, turning every loss into a public referendum. Players often share the disgusting messages received through social media, as Australia’s Omar Jasika did recently. While some players can simply ignore them, others can't. Especially when family starts to get involved. No person should object to the kind of vile abuse that gets thrown the way of a professional player doing their job.

In tennis, all players lose regularly, meaning job security is a genuine anxiety, as rankings dictate tournament entries and endorsement deals. Fear of failure haunts players, as losses are inevitable. And the fear of life after tennis looms, with many players dreading the void of retirement, unsure of their identity without the sport.

Even the greatest, like Serena Williams, find it hard to step away.

"It’s the hardest thing that I could ever imagine. I hate it. I hate that I have to be at this crossroads," she confessed. "I keep saying to myself, I wish it could be easy for me, but it's not. I'm torn: I don't want it to be over, but at the same time, I'm ready for what's next."

Brain training

Sports psychology isn't new, but more players are becoming open to using it, as the benefits that can be gained are obvious.

Ruud discussed this recently after his Madrid Masters victory.

"When you talk to someone, whether it’s a psychologist, psychiatrist or anyone, I think it helps like a kind of personal training for your brain. You get personal training in the gym to work on your glutes or your arms, but I think talking to someone in this aspect is like personal training for your feelings," he said.

"It was really nice and I had a great experience with it. I encourage anyone who's doubting whether they should try it to try it, and see how it goes."

Andy Murray used sports psychologists early in his career, at the behest of his coach, Ivan Lendl, who admitted he used them when he was playing. Back in 2012, he opened up about it.

"I spoke about things away from the court that may affect you and stop you from being fully focused on tennis. A lot of athletes use sports psychologists. I had in the past, and it hadn't worked particularly well for me," the British legend revealed.

"It's something when I spoke to Ivan [about] at the beginning of the year, he'd travelled with a sports psychologist throughout his career. He asked if I was open to trying it, and I said yes. It's always good to try things and see how it works out. It's been more about things away from the court. That was refreshing because when I'd spoken to psychologists in the past, I'd only spoken about tennis. And there's a lot more that goes into your life, and an athlete, than just what goes on on-court."

As off-court spectators - regardless of how close you think you follow the sport – we only know a small part of the lives of the players we watch. The tennis tour offers endless reasons to fail. Endless reasons not to perform at the highest level. Endless reasons to make excuses. Endless reasons to quit.

We need to have a better understanding of the ups and downs. Players are human. We all go to our jobs every day, and have unproductive days. We have other days where we kick metaphorical goals.

Players play tennis because they choose to, yet it is also their own business, their own company, and they are the CEO of everything. It's a tough career choice, and while we all wish players could play at 100 per cent every time they step onto the court, it's just unrealistic. And that’s totally fine.

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