INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — There are a few different ways for Coco Gauff to evaluate her next opponent at the BNP Paribas Open.

Maria Sakkari is the best female player Greece has produced. She is a two-time Grand Slam semifinalist who entered this tournament three years ago within shouting distance of the No. 1 ranking, following the sudden retirement of Ash Barty. She may be the fittest player in the sport, a gym rat who likes to lift and do track workouts as much as she likes to play tennis.

Sakkari is also 4-8 this year. Her winning percentage has declined through the past three seasons and she has lost in the first round at six of her last nine Grand Slams. She is dangerously close to slipping out of the top 32 and no longer being seeded at big events. During the past year, she has been battling injuries to her body and psyche, and has come close to quitting altogether on multiple occasions.

Sakkari has also made the final in Indian Wells twice in the past three years, losing both times to Iga Swiatek. Swiatek became world No. 1 shortly after their 2022 meeting and held that ranking for most of the next three years, including when she beat Sakkari in 2024. The Greek made the semifinals in between, losing to the current world No. 1, Aryna Sabalenka. Transplant Sakkari into the California desert and something happens to her.

“There’s something special when I come here that just feels so good and I just feel that I don’t want to lose,” Sakkari said in an interview after her 6-0, 6-3 win over Viktoriya Tomova Saturday in her first match of the tournament. “That’s extra motivation.”

For generations, people have traveled to California searching for a fresh start. This has long been the place where people shed their old identities and create new ones. The crisp, dry air of the Coachella Valley is said to be especially therapeutic. For Sakkari, this trip could be a balm to one of the most difficult periods of her career, which followed a milestone moment she shared with Gauff — or thought she would.

Both players point to the events surrounding their selection as their respective countries’ flag bearers at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games as one of the formative experiences of their sporting careers, if not their lives, but in diametrically opposite ways.

Members of the United States Olympic team selected Gauff and basketball icon LeBron James to carry the national flag during the opening ceremony. Gauff succumbed to tears when her friend and fellow player, Chris Eubanks, called her with the news.

Sakkari said Saturday that the president of Greece’s Olympic committee informed her days before the opening ceremony that she would carry Greece’s flag during the boat ride down the Seine.

“My biggest dream of my life,” she said.

Then, she says, the Olympic committee changed its mind. She says she was told they were going in a different direction and that the people who lead Greece’s sports federations had decided she was not good enough to hold the flag. She says she believes that her private life played a role in the decision: her longtime boyfriend is Konstantinos Mitsotakis, the son of Greece’s prime minister.

Greece’s Olympic committee did not respond to an email on Sunday seeking comment. The committee selected Antigoni Drisbioti, a racewalker and two-time European champion, as its female flag bearer alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo, the star basketball player. In a statement shared by the Association of National Olympic Committees after the selections were made, the president of Greece’s committee, Spyros Capralos, said: “From the beginning, together with the mission leader Mr. Petros Synadinos, we proposed having two flag bearers at the Olympic Games.

“There was a significant discussion about whether there should be one or two, and we ultimately followed the directive of the International Olympic Committee for two flag bearers, embracing the spirit of the times and maintaining the effort for gender equality. There was unanimity for Giannis, but for the women, there was a vote among particularly distinguished champions who have honored Greece, as mandated by the democratic process.”

Sakkari said the experience left her so distraught that her body fell apart. She injured her shoulder during the Games and played just one more match the rest of the season, retiring after the first set in the first round of the U.S. Open.

Sakkari said that other than the 2022 loss of her grandfather, who was her first tennis teacher, having the flag taken out of her hands was the saddest experience of her life.

“Mentally, I just couldn’t take it,” she said.

Sakkari had never had a problem with her shoulder before. After she lost to Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine at the Olympics, she could barely lift her arm. Autumn became a dark time. She had serious doubts about what her comeback might look like and whether it was even worth it as she neared 30. Her mother, Angeliki Kanellopoulou, a former pro herself, assured her it would be.

“I wish you spoke Greek so I could show you the messages, me telling her I’m never going to make it to where I was and her writing me back that I’m convinced you’re going to make it,” Sakkari said. “She’s been the most supportive person out of everyone.”

Kanellopoulou traveled with her daughter to the tournaments in Doha, Qatar, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, last month. Sakkari won one match and lost two; her mother hugged her after each one and told her she was proud of her for being there.

Sakkari has also added a new coach in Raemon Sluiter, a Dutchman with a reputation for steady, quiet support, to work alongside Julien Cagnina, a young Belgian. Sluiter coached Elina Svitolina to a triumphant return from giving birth two years ago, guiding her transformation into a more confident and aggressive player than she was before she became a mother.

“She can trust herself in many aspects, which she can forget sometimes,” Sluiter said of Sakkari in a text message Sunday. “We’re working on helping her rely on herself on the court a bit more because she has every reason to do so. To use us as coaches more as a helpline than an ambulance.”

When she asks in practice why she missed a shot, Sluiter puts the question back to her.

“It is so much more worth it when a player can detect and tell her or himself tips to do better than following instructions from a coach,” Sluiter said. “The more this shifts to Maria doing this, the more we feel we do our job well. It will help her feel better on the court. And then it will take her to wherever she is supposed to be.”

In Gauff, Sakkari faces a mirror image of herself, with some variations.

Gauff is a Grand Slam champion, an otherworldly athlete, and also among tennis’ fittest players. She is also prone to wild swings in confidence and long stretches of error-strewn play where it’s not at all clear where the ball might travel from one stroke to the next.

She double-faulted 21 times in her first match here on Saturday, against Moyuka Uchijima of Japan. She frittered away a 4-0 lead in the deciding set and missed two chances to serve out the match, a series of events that would crush others and, in the past, has crushed Sakkari. Gauff, though, may be the toughest competitor in the sport. She kept plugging away and prevailed in a third-set tiebreak, before spinning an ugly day into something positive — no easy feat.

“If I’m able to win matches playing kind of like D tennis, then it gives me confidence just when I’m able to mesh things together like I did earlier this season,” she said in her post-match news conference.

They met at last year’s event, in a three-set semifinal duel that lasted three hours but took more than five to complete, in the cold and rain of a desert night. Sakkari stormed to a 6-4, 5-2 lead, only to let Gauff climb back in. The American saved multiple match points and drew even. In the deciding set, just when it seemed like Sakkari would fade, she did the opposite. She hit without fear and won 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-2.

“Bring it on,” Sakkari said of the opportunity to go deep at one of her favorite events. She is practicing well, eating right and feels motivated, she says: “I’m not partying and stuff.” She has faith that things are going to turn around for her. In Indian Wells, the perfect tournament has arrived at the perfect time and she is growing more sure that she can get back to the lofty heights of a few years ago.

“It’s going to take a bit of time,” she said. “We don’t know how much, maybe it’s gonna be this week, next month, three months, who knows? I just feel very comfortable coming back here and having all those good memories. It just makes me feel very happy, I just couldn’t wait to come.”

Walking around the grounds the past week, Sluiter watched in amazement as all the drivers, security workers and locker room attendants greeted Sakkari like a member of their family.

He asked her if this was her second home, or if she was considering taking up residency. The way Sakkari has played in Indian Wells in recent years, that may not be such a bad idea.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Olympics, Tennis, Women's Tennis

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