‘Just Couldn’t Breathe’- Maria Sakkari’s Agonizing Experience Right After Achieving It Big In Tennis

Tennis fans are currently celebrating the position that Maria Sakkari has gained in the ongoing Indian Wells tournament. While the young star has been presenting unbeatable confidence on the courts, her journey has also had contrary moments of struggles, darkness, and self-doubts, that even compelled her to consider quitting tennis.

Netflix’s Break-Point’s discontinuation was undoubtedly a point of disappointment for the tennis community. The show, which was targeted to present a detailed on and off-court story of famous tennis stars, also gave out a narrative that was probably the most scary phase in Maria Sakkari’s career.

In an episode of ‘Break Point’, the Greek tennis star revealed the intense mental toll of her rise in the sport. While the world saw her on top of her career as she achieved an impressive rank of world number three in 2022, Sakkari faced unexpected challenges that led to a downward spiral in her mental health.

Sakkari described feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of her success, mentioning, “Tennis is a brutal sport. Last year, everything was going great, getting to number 3. But then there was a decline. I lost my mind a bit. It came so fast. Just the idea of me being that close to the world number one, I was not ready for it.”

Along with that, the show also included a description of her feelings as she mentioned the occurrence of disturbing things like panic attacks. “So, I started getting all these panic attacks and there were matches where I just couldn’t breathe. I thought I was gonna faint and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling. I was in a dark place for 6 months. I was scared of stepping on the court,” she added, detailing on the magnitude of the issues she faced.

ALSO READ: Who Is Maria Sakkari’s Sister? Meet Amanda, Who Played Tennis For 15 Years And Chose A Different Field As Her Profession

The revelation came as a reminder of the unseen challenges that Maria Sakkari overcame to gain the confidence required to be on top of the rankings. However, with her own efforts and winning the support of her coach, she overcame a disturbing phase in her career.

Maria Sakkari’s ex-coach Tom Hill’s perspective on the situation

Each narrative on Netflix’s Break Point came with an in-depth explanation of the facts. Along with Maria Sakkari’s admission of the disturbing incidents that she had to face during the period, her ex-coach Tom Hill also explained how he saw her reacting to it.

“The Maria that started the season just disappeared,” he mentioned, comparing Sakkari’s behavior from the time when she started the 2023 season. Along with that, he also talked about the repeated times when she wanted to quit. “It just got tougher and tougher and it got to a stage where she wanted to quit tennis every week,” he added.

As Maria Sakkari currently finds herself on top of the names at Indian Wells, the confidence that she is presenting shows the pivot that she made possible with mental as well as physical training.