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By Giri Nathan
[vc_empty_space height="15px"]Isn’t it wonderful to see someone pick up where they left off? Especially when they left off just absolutely blowing shit up. When Bianca Andreescu stepped away from tennis at the end of 2019, it was with a comical 46–7 record. She came into that season ranked No. 152 in the world, and ended it as No. 4. She had never faced a top 10 player before then, only to beat the first eight she encountered. She played her first Indian Wells, and won it, then did the same thing at Toronto. She played her first main-draw US Open and won that, too—over Serena Williams, at 19 years old. But health didn’t hold up, and she wound down the season with three straight losses, all against other top 10 players, and had to bow out of the WTA Finals with a knee injury. And after an entrance that explosive, 2020 was the idle drift of cinder and rubble, as Andeescu managed her injuries and tried to stay active during the lockdowns at home in Canada. When the tour resumed, her titles went undefended. The endless rite of entering and withdrawing from tournaments had a boy-who-cried-wolf effect; I’d believe she was back when I saw her standing on the baseline. All said, she wouldn’t play a single match all year, though she did continue her practice of positive visualization, which, she maintains, can be as effective as actual court time.