If you see something, say something
In which Amanda Anisimova alleviates all my fears.
Yes, I'm the person who's been asking all the WTA players about Alysa Liu this week. No, it's not for clicks or clout. It's because the WTA players were who came to mind when I was watching Alysa Liu's story unfold during the Olympics. And specifically, two players kept floating around in my thoughts: Ash Barty and Amanda Anisimova.
Courtney Nguyen
Ash came up because she's the only player I could think of who truly did walk away with burnout after teenage success, only to come back and commit to playing the sport and living her life on tour 100% on her own terms. And actually doing it, right up to walking out like a goddamn champ after winning the Aussie Open. Badass in every way.
Amanda came to mind because I was still working through my thoughts on the start of her year. It's been solid results-wise – Australian Open quarterfinal (l. Pegula) and Dubai semifinal (l. Pegula), but her vibes have been....off? She was struggling to harness her intensity in both those losses, and I guess I was surprised to see it.
And a little worried.
Courtney Nguyen - WTA Insider
Queue Stateside by PinkPantheress and Zara Larson 🥇#TennisParadise pic.twitter.com/68tM2hks8B
— wta (@WTA) March 9, 2026
Because the one player who could maybe come close to matching the Alysa Liu "I'm here for a good time" comeback vibes was Amanda two years ago. She was talking about painting as a hobby. She had spent some time in college and had a blast. She seemed kind of blasé about this whole world and I loved that. It seemed healthy! And it led to fantastic results last year, with finals at Wimbledon and the US Open and WTA 1000s in Doha and Beijing. Pretty fuckin' good.
Courtney Nguyen
So what was up with her now crying on the court and yelling at her team in-match? I wasn't going to ask the question THAT directly – I do, contrary to popular opinion, value my life – but after Amanda gave a shoutout to Alysa Liu in her on-court interview, it was the perfect opportunity to ask....AROUND my point.
Q. You mentioned Alysa Liu on court. During the Olympics, I thought about you and like Ash when she was kind of telling her kind of life story. As you have been on tour now a couple years since coming back and everything, how hard is it to maintain the perspective that she currently has in terms of it's vibes, I choose my friends over training. How hard is it to maintain that? Can you maintain that?
AMANDA ANISIMOVA: I mean, I'm sure she doesn't choose her friends over training. [Editor's note: Yes, she does.] I think she just has a good balance of, she doesn't only train, train, train, and have to miss out on everything because I can agree with her on that. But you still have to balance the two or else you won't perform at that level.
But yeah, it was refreshing, because I feel I might have shifted a little bit away from that in the beginning of the year. I feel like I was putting a lot of pressure on myself and trying to be like overperfectionist in what I'm doing and really try and improve. That kind of took away from everything that made my year last year what it was.
Following her story and her journey from before she even performed in the Olympics, I saw all the videos about her. I saw her when nobody really knew about her, and yeah, she blew up.
Even before then, I thought it was very inspiring, and I like the fact that she's still so young and she chose to be very independent and make decisions for herself. She's not going to do things the way others will tell her to do, and that was kind of my way of going into my career when I was coming back.
Yeah, I saw a lot of similarities. She's definitely more on the extreme end, which I love. It looks like she doesn't care about anything, and I absolutely love that, and it seems to be very much her personality.
I feel like I really needed something like that to kind of remind myself that life is short and try and enjoy what you're doing, don't take things too seriously. And with that, at least personally, results will come for me when I have that mindset. I'm not someone who does well when I'm an overperfectionist and I put a lot of stress on myself. It just doesn't work.
Yeah, I really needed that. Even though she's much younger than me, she's very much a role model for me.
Q. What chips away from that ability to have that perspective of enjoying, just being a professional athlete, like with the success that you got? Was it the success and the accolades and everything of last year? What starts to play with your head?
AMANDA ANISIMOVA: Yeah, I think it's a very fast-paced environment, and a lot of times I feel like I shift away from the present moment. I think that's the biggest thing, and looking too far ahead into the future and overfocusing on the results and what you need to improve.
I think I was just thinking too much of that when I wasn't supposed to be, like when I'm already done with my practice. When I won matches in the Australian Open, like right after, I was always, like, I need to improve this, and I need to do that. It was kind of like not looking at the glass half full.
I definitely notice that, as I was reflecting after the whole tournament that, yeah, that was different to what I normally would have done in the past. So, yeah, I think it also takes just reflecting. I mean, you can go to doing something differently and it doesn't work for you. As long as you realize it fairly soon, I think that's important.
And with that, I'm not so worried anymore! That's all a really great perspective on all of it and shows a good amount of self-awareness, that the way she was reacting on court was not normal or desired.
So far in Indian Wells, she's put her money where her mouth is. After dropping her opening set to Anna Blinkova – at which, she could have easily started to panic and go away – Amanda has lost a total of three games across four sets. On Sunday, she raced past Emma Raducanu 6-1, 6-1 in less than an hour.
