Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

Timea Bacsinszky almost retired two years ago because her body was extremely hurt. But her coach, Dimitri Zavialoff, convinced her that some day she would be very good, and he was right. Now, after reaching the final at Beijing, the Swiss has cracked into the top -10 for the first time.

The 26 year old entered this year ranked No. 138.  But immediately, she was very aggressive and smart. She reached the final at Shenzhen in the first week of January and she didn’t stop, until the summer hard courts, when she was tired.

“First of all, 15 wins in a row [between the Fed Cup and Indian Wells]. If you were telling me that two years ago, I would be like, Yeah, yeah, for sure,” Bacsinszky. “Roger [Federer] can do it, but I cannot.

We never know which limits we have. We just don’t have to put ourselves limits and we can achieve big things. It’s the same with my semifinal run at the French Open, then straight quarterfinals in Wimbledon. Never would thought to be able to reach that. I did. “At the end of the day, did it change my life? Well, it’s super cool, at the end great emotions, but you’re not a better person if you achieved that or not.  Just trying to still enjoy everything what I’m doing. I think it’s the most important thing. You never know how long you can live, so just enjoy it as much as you can. Right now I’m enjoying it quite well, so I’m really happy about that.”

After Wimbledon, Bacsinszky didn’t rest enough mentally. She took four straight losses at Toronto, Cincinnati, New Haven and the US Open. After that, she finally rested. When she arrived at Beijing, she finally felt refreshed again.

“Maybe I wasn’t ready to fly so early in the U.S., even if I took some weeks home to practice,” she said.

“Maybe I needed one more week. But it’s something that I’ve maybe learned from this summer.

Like, let’s say compared to my beginning of the season, for sure, four first rounds in a row was not super, but it has also some positive things. It makes you maybe communicate more with your team. It makes you try to find solutions. It helped me for a lot of things.

“I always planned to play Seoul, got a wild card there, then Wuhan, then I withdraw from both because I wasn’t feeling ready. My head was still like going everywhere. I wasn’t like completely Zen. You take some decisions. You never know if it’s going to work or not. But at least you assume them.  Right now, I sticked with this decision.”

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.