MELBOURNE, Australia — As she flicked away a forehand winner to move up match point, Paula Badosa knew it was over. She technically had one more point to win, but she knew. She pumped her fist and looked at her team, pointing down to the court as if to say, “This is it”. Two points later, she’d beaten Olga Danilovic to reach the Australian Open quarterfinal.

“I almost didn’t recognize myself because I was so calm,” Badosa said in her on-court interview moments later.

In her last quarterfinal appearance at a Grand Slam, Badosa was unrecognizable from the composed figure that swept past Danilovic 6-1, 7-6(2) in Melbourne Sunday.

She imploded against Emma Navarro at the U.S. Open in September, leading 5-1 in the second set but going on to lose 6-2, 7-5. It was an excruciating collapse, with Badosa barely able to find the court — like something out of an anxiety dream.

“I was completely disaster,” Badosa said, Rafael Nadal-style, in a news conference afterwards. She finished off by saying, “I even forgot how to speak English today. Imagine. What a day, man. Can I go to sleep?”

She had also said something quietly poignant about the importance of the biggest events in tennis: “Now I have to wait four months for the next Slam, so it sucks.”

Those four months have gone quickly, and on Tuesday Badosa will face Coco Gauff for the chance to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal with a mindset she did not have that dreadful September day in New York. Badosa, the former world No. 2 from Spain, will be in the WTA top 10 next week for the first time since October 2022.

Last month, she was named the WTA’s ‘Comeback Player of the Year’ for 2024 after recovering from a potentially career-ending back injury to finish the season ranked No. 12. Some players who have struggled mentally in getting through adversity try and block out that side of things; others accept it’s something they can’t run from.

Badosa stares it in the face. She is about to start an online one-year psychology course at Harvard University — saying in a pre-tournament interview in Melbourne: “I’ve always been very passionate about the psychology part and I want to study.”

“Maybe through my experience in life and studying about that, I can help other people. I think that fulfils me a lot.”

For now, Badosa needs to help herself. “The second set was a little bit tricky because I think I was 5-2 down, but it wasn’t like a real 5-2 because I was playing well,” Badosa said of her comeback against Danilovic. “It was like small points there.”

Her feeling that she was not out of a set despite being way behind was similar to the brutal assessment that Navarro had given of Badosa after their U.S. Open quarterfinal.

“Even though she was up 5-1, 5-2 after that game, I felt like she wasn’t totally confident in her ability to close out that set,” Navarro said in a post-match news conference.

“I felt if I could push back a little bit and make her think a little bit on her service game, maybe I could sneak my way back in there.

“I didn’t picture myself playing a third set. I felt like I could come back and do it in two.”

Born in New York to Spanish parents who worked in fashion, Badosa climbed to No. 2 in the world in 2022. She won the WTA 1000 event at Indian Wells, Calif. in 2021 and reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the French Open in the same year, with those results taking her close to the summit. A great mover blessed with a powerful serve and solid off either groundstroke wing, she looked set to make major progress before being beset by injuries.

A stress fracture in her back forced Badosa out of the French Open in 2023; at Wimbledon a few weeks later, she had to retire hurt from her second-round match against Marta Kostyuk. She didn’t play a match for another six months. When she finally did, in January 2024, it took her five days to recover. She didn’t think that was normal. She was terrified.

A couple of months later at Indian Wells — the scene of her biggest career triumph — doctors told her that her ongoing back issues would make it “very complicated” to continue her career. Badosa’s ranking stood at No. 73 at this point. In desperation, the doctors suggested that she take cortisone shots to manage the pain. She did, and a few months and several matches later, she found herself crying tears of joy on Court 3 at Wimbledon, after making it back into the last 16 at the All England Club for the first time in three years.

Badosa always shows her emotions; she knows no other way. Part of it she puts down to her Spanish heritage.

After that restorative win at Wimbledon, Badosa won her next tournament: the Washington Open. After reaching the semis in Cincinnati, she made it to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal in three years, where the Navarro nightmare unfolded. She still appeared recharged after her injury-enforced absence from the sport.

“I worked on my patience,” she said. “I’ve never been very good at that.”

Badosa is naturally restless. On top of the psychology degree — which the WTA helped to organise — she’s launching a jewellery business in the next few months and plans on creating her own perfume and moving into other areas of fashion. “I love to do different things and my mind doesn’t stop,” she said.

That’s not always a positive thing for tennis players, who generally strive to have a clear mind. But more and more are being open about managing their mental health as well as their physical health, on the tour and during the off-season. Naomi Osaka and Caroline Garcia — two players who have been very open about the subject — met in the first round in Melbourne, after Osaka appeared on Garcia’s podcast to discuss the mental challenges of being a tennis player.

“It’s very inspiring and for me; I see them as very strong,” Badosa said.

“I think as players, sometimes we value each other through results. We shouldn’t do that. I think it’s really important in my case for sure: I don’t want to be the best if I win or the worst if I lose. I want to have other things and feel valued as a person and as an athlete either way.”

This mindset is part of why Badosa is honest about her mental challenges, because she doesn’t think it should mean she’s valued any less as an athlete. She said on court after beating Danilovic that she was “really nervous” beforehand and then explained in the interview room that this anxiety never really goes away during a match.

Over the last year or so, Badosa’s emotional intelligence has been valued by those closest to her.

She is extremely friendly with Aryna Sabalenka and was a big support to the world No. 1 when her ex-boyfriend Konstantin Koltsov died in Miami in March, in what Miami-Dade police described as “an apparent suicide”.

Badosa’s boyfriend Stefano Tsitsipas, has also benefited from her newly discovered patience as they endure opposite rides on the tennis elevator. Tsitsipas, who lost in the first round to Alex Michelsen at the Australian Open, is moving down the rankings as she moves up.

“Of course we talk about it — as I say, I love to talk about all these things and I had my own experiences,” Badosa said.

“I was coming from the injury, so my year was very bad in that case and the year before. Maybe he’s going through other phases right now. Also big changes in his life. So it’s not easy. But yeah, I think we help each other through our own experiences.”

Tsitsipas has had his share of Grand Slam heartache, but with that Navarro match, Badosa has her own very recent experience to inform how she prepares to face Gauff, against whom she has a 3-3 record. After that New York heartbreak, Badosa said she wouldn’t try to hide away from the devastation. “No, I’m very obsessive, and I think about things and I don’t like to make the same mistake two times.”

She insisted Sunday that the Navarro match would not be in her head against Gauff. “I already forgot about it,” Badosa said in a news conference, smiling.

Gauff meanwhile paid tribute to Badosa’s movement and ball-striking and referenced how tough their last meeting had been — a three-set win for the American in Beijing three months ago.

For Badosa, the would-be psychologist, the match will be another data point to help her understand herself better: “I think I need to experience more of these moments to know how to deal and to face them.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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