Mississauga’s Andreescu isn’t playing at Aussie Open, citing a need for more recovery time

Canadian tennis star Bianca Andreescu has decided not to play at the Australian Open next month, saying she’d like more time to recover physically and mentally.

The 21-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., announced the decision on social media on Monday, noting that the many days of required quarantine for COVID-19 protocols and her grandmother’s COVID-19 health scare both took a huge toll.

“The past two years have been very challenging for me for a variety of reasons,” wrote the 2019 U.S. Open winner.

Andreescu said she spent “multiple weeks” in quarantine isolation, and her grandmother spent “several weeks” in the ICU fighting the virus, “something that really hit me hard.

“A lot of days, I did not feel like myself, especially while I was training and/or playing matches. I felt like I was carrying the world on my shoulders.”

Andreescu’s last tournament appearance was Indian Wells in October, where she was the defending champion but was eliminated in the third round by Anett Kontaveit of Estonia. The loss was her first in nine matches at Indian Wells.

“I want to give myself extra time to re-set, recover and grow from this (as cliché as that sounds), and continue to inspire by doing charity work, giving back and working on myself, because I know by doing this, I will come back stronger than ever,” she wrote.

Andreescu recently wrote a children’s book — “Bibi’s Got Game” — about tennis, meditation and perseverance, that set for publication May 31, 2022.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 6, 2021.

The Canadian Press