Bianca Andreescu returns to the Canadian Open after a year of resilience

There’s this thing that Bianca Andreescu does on the tennis court that still takes the breath away all these years later.

She scrambles into a corner, stretching at full extension to get the ball back in play. Then her opponent tries to outsmart her, smacking the ball back into that same corner, thinking that they can wrongfoot Andreescu as she sprints back to cover the middle of the court. 

The ball jams her. Most players would be doomed. But Andreescu twists and contorts her body to whistle the ball back over the net, in one of those split-second defense to offense shifts that might turn a a game or a match back in the right direction.

Perhaps even a career.

It’s the sort of shot that took everyone’s breath away in 2019, when the then 19-year-old phenom defeated Serena Williams twice in five weeks. In the second win, Andreescu solved Williams as few players had solved her before to lift the U.S. Open trophy. She became the first Grand Slam singles champion from Canada in the modern era in the process.

The first win over Williams came in the final of the Canadian Open, where Andreescu, now 26, this week returns to action. Williams retired from that match seven years ago with back spasms after four games. It still propelled Andreescu, who grew up in nearby Mississauga, into becoming the woman who showed a generation of Canadians that came after her that they could do the really big thing.

Before her, Milos Raonic and Eugenie Bouchard had gotten close, making the final of Wimbledon only to fall short at the final step. Two years after Andreescu won, Leylah Fernandez made the U.S. Open final at 19; two years after that, she led the Canadian women to the Billie Jean King Cup title.

This time last year, Victoria Mboko, the WTA’s breakout star of the season, won her home tournament as a wild card. Mboko is out this summer with a left knee injury she sustained on the grass, an especially tough break for a defending champion at a tournament that all Canadians have circled on their calendar.

Fernandez, a Montrealer, spoke in a news conference at last week’s D.C. Open about her Canadian disappointment of last year. She lost in the first round, right when the tournament was in her hometown. (The men and the women switch between Toronto and Montreal each year.)  

Fernandez came in having just won the D.C. Open and hit a wall.   

“Definitely a heartbreak, because I was playing at home where I grew up in the stadium that I played in and trained at for the longest time,” she said. 

She will have more time to prepare this year, having lost her second match in Washington to Alexandra Eala of the Philippines. Still, with Mboko on the sidelines — and even though Fernandez is ranked 140 spots ahead of Andreescu, who received a wild card — the tournament in many ways will be Andreescu’s show until it isn’t. 

That is a rare thing these days. Andreescu has been managing injuries for five years. There has been time off to manage her mental health and her motivation. She spent months volunteering at a shelter for women recovering from domestic abuse. She went deep on yoga and meditation at a retreat in Costa Rica, where other guests knew her only as Bianca and had no idea that she was a U.S. Open champion. A stress fracture in her back had her out for nine months at one point.

At last year’s Canadian Open, one point from victory over Barbora Krejčíková, Andreescu twisted her ankle, laughing through tears at the cruelty of it. She won the match, but had to give a walkover to Mirra Andreeva in the next round. 

It’s been the sort of experience that could drive a lot of players into an early retirement. Instead, it sent Andreescu to tiny pro tournaments at the lower tiers of the sport, in Bradenton, Weston, and Vero Beach in Florida, and into the qualifying rounds of tour-level events.

“There were many moments where I wanted to give up or I didn’t believe in myself,” Andreescu said in June after she qualified for Wimbledon, making her first Grand Slam main draw since the 2024 U.S. Open. Wimbledon was the first Grand Slam she qualified for at all, back in 2017.

“Such a full circle moment towards the end there,” she said. “To qualify for any Grand Slam, even to play in qualifying, it’s just such a privilege.”

That is where Andreescu is right now. She’s also in college, studying psychology through the WTA’s program, at Indiana East University. She started out studying business because it seemed more practical. She quickly pivoted to where her heart was, and where her brain often goes.

Andreescu has done multi-day meditation retreats in Marco Island, Florida with Joe Dispenza, a chiropractor who leads meditation sessions in stadiums. She swears it’s helped her tennis.

“There’s like 2,000 people all meditating for one reason and that’s just to give love and share love and feel love,” she said.

“That frequency is something that I strive to feel every day through meditation. Because of course we can focus on anger, we can focus on being nervous, for instance, before a match, but really focusing on that love frequency really helps me just stay present and it reminds me of my purpose, which is to give back. That I think comes from love.”

Does that sound like someone who chooses to study business in college? Not really. Is it enough to get Andreescu back to No. 4 in the world and a threat to challenge for the biggest titles? That remains to be seen. 

The women’s game has evolved since Andreescu was at the top of it. Movement and variety are as important as hitting big. Andreescu had plenty of variety when she was at the peak of her powers. She also got good at a time when everyone was focused on toppling Williams, playing the power game Williams played a little better than she did.  

“I know what I can do, I know what I’m capable of,” she said. 

That’s why she kept it low-key after qualifying for Wimbledon this year. She and her team ordered some Uber Eats. They ate in her hotel while she was getting a massage. She described it as “real” and “beautiful.” 

For Andreescu, tennis used to be all about what the scoreboard said at the end of a match, and whether she finished a week lifting a trophy. She knows how dangerous that can be. Now, she said, she’s all about effort and intention. 

“If my intent is there with whatever shot I’m hitting or with the mindset that I have, whatever the score is, it is, it is what it is. It’s not in my hands at the end of the day. Those are the two things I can control.”

Still, after losing her first-round match at Wimbledon to China’s Zhang Shuai, Andreescu was feeling the pain of a result as every player does.

“I’m shocked, to be honest,” Andreescu said after she lost 6-7(3), 6-7(6).

“I feel like I’m not ready to go home. “I had the match in my hand in so many moments.”

And she did.  She was up service breaks in both sets, only for Zhang to take it back from her, especially in the second set, when Zhang was serving at 3-5, 30-30. Surely this was going to a third set. Andreescu played some of her best tennis in years through qualifying, because that’s what the world No. 174 has to do these days to get into the main draw of a Grand Slam.

Then it was all slipping away, and one thought was running through Andreescu’s head.

“Don’t s––– the bed!”

That was not where she wanted it to be. Toronto, though, is.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Tennis, Women’s Tennis

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