MADRID: Bianca Andreescu has spent more time than she would have liked away from the tennis tour since she stormed onto the scene back in 2019.

That breakthrough season six years ago saw a 19-year-old Andreescu become the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title when she defeated Serena Williams in the US Open final.

She ended that year ranked No. 4 in the world after starting it ranked outside the top 150.

Her career has been a stop-start journey since then, as a slew of injuries, a self-imposed break for mental health reasons, and more recently an appendectomy, have kept her on the sidelines for various stretches of time.

Currently mounting yet another comeback following a six-month hiatus, Andreescu opened her Roland Garros qualifying campaign with a bang, delivering a 6-0, 6-0 performance against China’s Yao Xinxin on Monday to advance to round two.

Ranked 102 in the world this week, Andreescu is competing in the qualifying rounds of a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2019 Australian Open.

The 24-year-old Canadian returned to action in April after missing the first three and a half months of the season due to personal reasons, as well as an emergency surgery to remove her appendix back in February.

Looking fitter and feeling healthier than, perhaps, ever, Andreescu sent out a signal of intent in Rome last week, where she claimed two top-20 victories, over former Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina and Olympic silver medallist Donna Vekic, en route to the round of 16.

A long journey of soul-searching and self-development is what helped Andreescu get to where she is today. But ever the seeker, she admits her appetite for learning and finding meaningful off-court experiences doesn’t always make her life easier on court.

For years now, Andreescu has been working on finding fulfilment beyond winning a tennis match. During a break she took in 2022, she started volunteering at various charities, including a women’s shelter dedicated to victims of domestic violence.

She made sure her most recent hiatus was just as productive.

“I did a lot of things. After Tokyo [in October 2024], I was not too good mentally, so since I was in that area, I went to Thailand, and I did a lot of volunteer work there with kids,” Andreescu told Arab News earlier this month.

She spent time in Phuket and Chiang Mai, helping bring food, water, and clothes to impoverished areas.

“It was very humbling, obviously, and just such amazing people,” she added. “That definitely helped me get into a better mindset.”

Just as she was preparing to return to the tour for March’s ‘Sunshine Double’ in Indian Wells and Miami, Andreescu’s progress was delayed by appendectomy surgery.

“But that led to other things; so I went on two retreats,” she explained.

“I did an online Tony Robbins retreat, and then I did a Joe Dispenza retreat in person [in Basel]. I've read all of his books, and I talk about him quite a lot. I went to one of his retreats to really get into that mindset of, coming back into the sport.”

She also visited her grandparents in Romania.

“They are my biggest supporters, and, honestly, when I have tough times on court, I really think about them, and they really give me that confidence to push harder and to be better on the court, so it was really nice,” said Andreescu.

Getting healthy has been a top priority for Andreescu, who spent months researching various nutrition plans before settling on Dave Asprey’s ‘Bulletproof diet’. She said a lot of her previous injuries could have been attributed to being overweight and is pleased with all the work she’s done to “get leaner”.

Now back on tour and working her way through the qualifying rounds of the French Open, Andreescu is armed with a wealth of knowledge and real-life experiences she never would have amassed had she been on the tennis circuit full-time.

“It is definitely great, but sometimes I can get too much in my head with all the information that I'm seeking,” she confessed.

“Because, yes, I have a lot of interests outside of the court, and that can be beneficial, but also not. Because if I go back to 2019, yes, I read books and stuff, but I was still in that era of ‘ignorance is bliss’, and sometimes that's really nice, because I can definitely get into my head.

“But it helps me so much in the way of growing as a person on and off the court, a million percent. And I think that's what life is all about, and I think that's why I also seek those experiences, especially volunteer work. For me, that's, like, super, super important, giving back.”

‘Getting in her head’ can manifest in different ways and Andreescu tries to elaborate with a few examples.

“Let's say I'm feeling nervous. I have all of these tools under my belt that I can use to help me tame that nervousness. But then I can also take the way of going with the flow and just letting the nerves hit me and use that to my advantage,” she says.

“So it's like finding that balance, for instance, because I know that I can do well when I am nervous, but I know I can also do well when I'm more calm and centered, so it's a bit weird in that way.

“And then the other part is I feel like I always need to be doing something and always needing to learn something, and that can get quite overbearing because sometimes, let's say, if I don't write in my journal one day, I can get in my head, if I lose my match today, I'll maybe think, ‘Oh, if I wrote in my journal yesterday, maybe I would have won’. Little things like that.”

Striking that balance remains a work in progress for Andreescu but she certainly feels empowered by all her off-court endeavors and feels “super different than even six months ago”.

Her biggest challenge is shedding all the comparisons people draw between who she is now, as a player, and who she was during her breakthrough 2019 campaign. She admits it’s a trap she herself sometimes gets caught up in.

“It's like how can I be Bianca now instead of how can I be Bianca from last year, or even, you know, 2019, right? Because everyone talks about 2019, but it's never going to be the case. So it's like finding who Bianca is now is the most important thing,” she states.

“I can definitely have a toxic relationship in a way with the sport, and so it's just really focusing on giving myself grace of, yes, I'm a perfectionist and I know where my level can be, but it's also like, I'm not the same person I was back in 2019, because people always compare me to 2019, and me too. That's kind of been the narrative of my career.

“So it's just giving myself grace and patience because in a way I'm still young.”

A month shy of her 25th birthday, Andreescu has every reason to believe the best is yet to come.