Tsvetnana Pironkova
left professional tennis for three years to start a family.
During this time it was never clear whether her professional career had ended there, on the grass of Wimbledon, a tournament in which she was a semi-finalist a decade ago.
This year she decided to take up the racket again.
Her idea was to do it at the end of March, but the pandemic delayed the plans, so she was planted at this US Open without having competed since July 2017. The Bulgarian, the great revelation of the tournament, will face
Serena
in the quarterfinals today
Williams
, another tennis player who knows what it is like to compete again after motherhood.
Pironkova began to claim headlines by eliminating
Garbiñe Muguruza
in the second round (7-5, 6-3).
The debut against rookie
Liudmila Samsonova
had been straightforward, but this was a World Top 20 and double Grand Slam champion.
Then he defeated
Donna Vekic
, another seed, and with even more authority: 6-4 and 6-1.
And after beating
Alizé Cornet
in a match lasting almost three hours, he has reached the US Open quarter-finals for the first time in his career.
Pironkova returned to tennis thanks to the regulation change that the WTA approved at the end of 2018 to facilitate motherhood.
With the new regulations, tennis players can use the ranking they had when they left the circuit to qualify in 12 tournaments in a period of three years, one more margin than before.
In addition, they will not have to face any seed in the first round.
"Let's take advantage of it"
I guess I needed to distance myself a bit for a couple of years.
Little by little, I was missing the circuit, I began to see more tournaments and to follow players.
I started to make plans, to see which tournaments suited me the best, and it got to the point where I was like, 'Wow, let's take this opportunity,' ”recalls Pironkova.
«When you are a mother, you don't magically lose your ability to play.
If you want to do it, there is nothing to stop you.
And capacity always had.
He never passed 31 in the ranking, but he has more than one surprise to his name.
In 2010 he reached the Wimbledon semifinals, beating
Marion Bartoli
and
Venus Williams
.
And in 2014 she won her only title in Sydney after overcoming three rounds of the qualifying round and leaving three Top 10s on the way: Sara Errani,
Petra Kvitova
and
Angelique Kerber
.
This withering comeback at the US Open, after three years in the dark, has a place on that shelf.
In the semi-deserted bleachers of the US Open, Serena's husband can be seen with his daughter
Olympia
on his lap.
The American is looking for her 24th Grand Slam title to match
Margaret Court
as the tennis player with the greatest in history, but she remains elusive.
She has not won one since the 2017 Australian Open, the last played before becoming a mother.
Since her return in 2018, she has made four finals - two at Wimbledon and two at the US Open - and lost them all.
Azarenka, three years later
Serena had serious health problems after giving birth.
"I was about to die," he confessed.
Among other complications, she suffered a pulmonary embolism, but at six months she was already competing.
Although the titles are resisting her (she has only won in Auckland, a third category tournament), she has once again become one of the great references of the circuit and will look again at the US Open for that number 24. About to turn 39 , Williams selects her calendar a lot and Flushing Meadows was marked in red.
On that same track,
Viktoria Azarenka
was crowned Cincinnati Open champion just a few days ago.
"My first title as a mother!" Exclaimed the Belarusian, who became world number one in 2012 and had not won a title since returning from motherhood in 2017. She has also reached the quarterfinals of this US Open in which the tennis players claim that there is still a lot of career left after being mothers.
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