The French N.2 starts a new tournament Thursday in Antalya (Turkey) in search of points to climb the rankings and perhaps win the only wild card issued for the Roland-Garros tournament to the best Tricolor, who is currently Emmanuelle Morch.

"Recently I had a real click to play my best tennis. I had less frustration, restraint as I had because of the fear of missing. Self-support", explains to AFP Pauline Déroulède , whose life changed in October 2018 after being hit by a car driven by a nonagenarian.

An assiduous recreational tennis player before the accident, she has made this sport her professional life project today.

Highlighted during a television show, "Dancing with the stars", she was able to bounce back.

She recently signed two "big performances" at a tournament in England, beating the world No.3, the Dutch Aniek Van Koot, and the Japanese Shiori Funamizu (N.14).

Psychological course

"It was great, it's girls that I'm going to play at the Games (in 2024), I've passed a psychological milestone, I allow myself to beat these girls. When I started, I didn't feel legitimate. There is a lot of jealousy in the high level, which is new for me. When you are exposed and you show your ambitions, it bothers, "she slips.

With the Games in her sights, she advances "step by step" by learning to use an armchair, she who lives with a prosthesis.

In Para tennis, the only categories are wheelchair tennis and tennis for the deaf and hard of hearing.

"My disability is an advantage, in quotes, because I have my abs. But unlike other girls who are in a wheelchair all the time, I'm less familiar with it. The girls know that I don't roll in the real life so they will make me roll, it's normal, it's the game", recognizes the 31-year-old sportswoman.

As soon as she entered the world of high level, she had to do a lot of work, with 4 hours of tennis a day and 2 hours of physical work a day.

Wheelchair training

"I also do a lot of sessions dedicated to + rolling +, surely more than other players because I don't live in a wheelchair. At the beginning, I had a blockage. Afterwards I was determined because it's borderline more important than the racket. Wheelchair movement is your legs. You may have the best technique, if you don't touch the ball because you haven't moved your chair, it's dead", says she argue.

His post-accident life is slowly being built around his three pillars: his life as a couple with his partner and their baby expected in August, his sports project and his fight for a law making driving ability tests compulsory.

Addicted to skiing – which she resumed for the first time since her accident – ​​she also practices crossfit in addition to pushing the song during the Enfoirés concert.

Crowned champion of France in 2021, she is about to join the Army of Champions.

"Before my accident I had an ordinary life which suited me very well, honestly. I was very fulfilled in what I was doing, I was doing my sport, I was happy. Well, there was that. allowed to live extraordinary things, Dance with the stars, the Enfoirés. But I still have the syndrome of the impostor, I am just the girl who lost her leg, calm down. I sincerely mean it, "says Pauline Deroulede.

© 2022 AFP