Caroline Garcia knows the dark side of elite sport. © APA/afp / ULISES RUIZ

Anxiety and panic attacks: Tennis star ends season

Caroline Garcia ended the season due to panic attacks "I'm exhausted from the anxiety, the panic attacks, the tears before games."

September 27, 2024

From: dpa

Former world number four Caroline Garcia has announced that her tennis season is over due to anxiety and panic attacks. She now wants to prepare herself mentally and physically for 2025, the 30-year-old tennis player wrote on X. Garcia won the WTA Finals in 2022 and also reached the semifinals of the US Open this year. This year, she has not made it past the second round in singles at any Grand Slam tournament.

She needs a mental "reset," Garcia wrote. "I'm exhausted from the anxiety, the panic attacks, the tears before games." She is tired of living in a world "where my value is measured by last week's results, my ranking or my unforced errors."

The pressure on yourself

In her thoughts, she was fixated on what she had not achieved. "I never made it to number one, never won a Slam, never reached an Olympic podium. I was inconsistent, unable to stay in the top ten for a whole year," said the Frenchwoman. Garcia is currently ranked 36th in the world.