ROME – Anastasija Sevastova shared that among all her expectations of motherhood, learning to walk concurrently with her baby daughter was something she hadn`t foreseen.
However, this became her reality just over a year ago. Only four tournaments into her return after maternity leave, Sevastova suffered a significant knee injury during the Austin quarterfinals, damaging her ACL, meniscus, and cartilage. This left her on crutches for six weeks, precisely during the time her daughter, Alexandra, was taking her first steps.
“That was not fun,” Sevastova remarked in Rome, where she is playing using a special ranking. “But having another life helps [distract]. And then I started walking with her!”
After her comeback was abruptly halted, few anticipated her return to the tour, much less the impact she made at the recent Mutua Madrid Open. The 35-year-old achieved her first victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in nine attempts during her opening match, then defeated Stuttgart champion Jelena Ostapenko in straight sets to advance to the third round. Her signature drop shots and slices looked as sharp as ever.
“Nobody beats me nine times!” she joked about the Pavlyuchenkova match. “When I got to 3-3, I thought, `I`ve won three games. That`s good enough.` And then I relaxed and didn`t think too much. It was a process.”
This mindset also helped Sevastova navigate her severe injury. “Pregnancy, giving birth – nothing compared to it,” she stated regarding the injury`s difficulty. Returning to tennis was initially far from her thoughts; her primary goal was simply to walk independently again.
“When you`re on crutches, you don`t think about playing tennis,” she explained. “It was step by step. After six months, I could maybe be on court for an hour once a week. It`s another step and another. I wanted to start practicing because I could see the progress, but in November, December, it began getting worse again.”
“I would practice, and for the next four days, my knee was swollen and painful. I tried some injections, but they weren`t effective. In January, I had another surgery, which helped significantly. From that point, I could see myself coming back.”
With her characteristic deadpan humor, Sevastova can now talk about her injury recovery more lightly.
“I cannot complain,” she said. “Worse things happen to other people. I was injured for a year – that happened to me. You cannot explain why it happened. But now I`m healthy, I have a healthy family, a healthy daughter.”
Sevastova will utilize her protected ranking for Wimbledon and the US Open, choosing to skip Roland Garros. The US Open was the site of her most successful Grand Slam results, including a semifinal and two quarterfinals between 2016 and 2018. However, she now considers her recent run in Madrid last month the achievement she is most proud of in her career, jokingly implying it means she is currently at her peak.
Considering her seemingly content life off-court, what was her motivation for returning at all? Sevastova describes a “beautiful life” in Graz, Austria, with her partner and coach Ronnie Schmidt, 2-year-old Alexandra, and their Portuguese water dog Oscar (who, ironically, dislikes swimming). Alexandra has even shown brief interest in tennis – though it usually lasts only five minutes before she gets distracted by water, sand, or the trampoline.
“I just want to prove it to myself,” Sevastova concluded. “I want to show my daughter this life and show her that you can achieve things when you`re persistent. It`s important for her to see it. You can say, `I want to win this, this and this,` but that [proving it through persistence] is my goal.”
