Future Maria Sharapova Reveals She's Suffering From Depression

A tennis player who was once dubbed as the next Maria Sharapova opened up about pressure and depression.

Spain’s Paula Badosa is a professional tennis player who was considered in the past as the next Sharapova. While some players would surely take the comparison as an honor, it became one of the things that put pressure on Badosa.

In an interview as quoted by Eurosport, Badosa spoke about the expectations Spain and the rest of the world put on herself over the last years. According to Badosa, at 18, everything was so overwhelming that she ended up being depressed after a devastating lost, Tennis World reported.

"Everyone thinks that I would be a top ten player at 18 years,” Badosa said.

“But I was not prepared or aware either. Some unreal expectations came up and then I lost. I had to be on the sidelines to improve and be happy. I was depressed and nervous. Then I looked for Xavi Budo, who changed my life," Badosa recalled.

Budo wasn’t only a coach to Badosa. He was also her mentor whom she used to talked to about her depression.

"They were telling her she was the new Spanish Sharapova: when she was so young, you get affected by it. For some years Paula totally had an unreal life. When Paula came to see me, in September 2018, she told me that ‘I had lost the excitement’,” Budo revealed.

At that point in Badosa’s career, Budo even recalled the Spanish sensation telling him she “didn’t see herself as a tennis player” at all.

“She did not see herself as a tennis player. She was telling me she was crying three hours a day. That she had no future in her life," Budo recalled.

Another young tennis player was once told that she could become the future Sharapova. But unlike Badosa who felt pressured with the comparisons and expectations, Aryna Sabalenka felt “angry” when she received the compliment.

Last September, Sabalenka commented on how she aims to stay herself and go her way avoiding the comparisons.

“When I was maybe 12 a friend of my dad came to me and said: ‘Oh, you’re a future Sharapova',” Sabalenka admitted.

The young Sabalenka was so mad that at a very young age, she already vowed to build a name for herself and not carry Sharapova’s or any other tennis stars’.

“I was so angry. I said ‘I’m a future Sabalenka, not a future Sharapova’," Sabalenka recalled.