A head is not prepared the same at 18 as at 35 to manage certain things
At twenty-five, Spanish tennis player Paula Badosa spoke openly about the depression she endured as a young athlete burdened by comparisons to Maria Sharapova and Rafael Nadal — comparisons that demanded she be someone she was not, before she was ready to be anyone at all. Her story belongs to a larger human pattern: the way societies project their hopes onto the young, mistaking potential for readiness and resilience for the absence of struggle. Badosa found language for her experience partly because Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles had already broken the silence, demonstrating that naming one's limits is not a retreat from strength but a form of it.
- A young Badosa was expected to crack the top ten at eighteen — a demand her body, mind, and emotional development were simply not equipped to meet.
- Years of being cast as 'the next Sharapova' quietly eroded her sense of self, contributing to a depression that went largely unspoken in a sports culture that equates silence with toughness.
- When Osaka withdrew from the French Open and Biles stepped back at the Tokyo Olympics, the wall of stigma cracked — and athletes like Badosa gained room to speak without being dismissed.
- Badosa now pushes back against the assumption that young players should arrive on tour with the psychological armor that veterans like Nadal built over decades of competition.
- The conversation is shifting, but slowly — mental health remains a quiet taboo in elite sport even as the athletes most affected begin to name it out loud.
Paula Badosa was twenty-five when she spoke plainly about the weight she had carried for years. People had spent much of her early career asking when she would become the next Maria Sharapova, the next Rafael Nadal. She was neither — and the gap between who she was and who the world expected her to be had led her into depression.
At eighteen, Badosa was not physically, mentally, or biologically ready for the top ten. But the expectations of a nation with a storied tennis tradition did not wait for her to be ready. In interviews, she described this pressure without softening it: the world had demanded something from her that she could not yet give, and the cost had been real.
What made it possible to speak was a shift she credited to two other athletes. When Naomi Osaka withdrew from the 2021 French Open for mental health reasons, and when Simone Biles stepped back during the Tokyo Olympics, something cracked open in the culture of elite sport. Suffering in silence was no longer the only available script. Badosa recognized the debt: the stigma had not disappeared, but the conversation had begun to move.
At the heart of her argument was a challenge to what strength is assumed to mean. Coaches and fans often treat mental fortitude as a given — something a serious athlete simply has. Badosa rejected this. The capacity to absorb pressure and criticism develops over time, just as physical skill does. Young players need room to grow into themselves, not a demand that they arrive already formed.
Constant comparisons to legends only narrow that room. Nadal and Djokovic had built their psychological resilience across decades of competition. Asking a teenager to match it was not a standard — it was a trap. Badosa's clarity on this point — 'I am not Rafael Nadal' — was not a concession but a reclamation. In naming what had nearly broken her, she was also describing a different kind of strength: the kind that knows when to say it is not ready, and trusts that readiness can still come.
Paula Badosa was twenty-five when she sat down to talk about the weight of expectation. The Spanish tennis player had spent years carrying a comparison that never quite fit—people kept asking when she would become the next Maria Sharapova, the next Rafael Nadal. She was neither. She was herself, and that had nearly broken her.
Badosa had battled depression. She had felt the particular kind of pressure that comes when a nation with a storied tennis tradition looks at a young player and sees a vessel for its hopes. At eighteen, she was not ready. Not physically. Not mentally. Not biologically. But the world expected her to be top ten anyway. In interviews with Marca, she spoke plainly about this gap between what she was and what people demanded she become. "Everyone expected me to be top ten at 18," she said, "and I was not physically, mentally, or biologically ready for it."
What made it possible for her to speak this truth aloud was a shift that had begun a few years earlier, one that Badosa credited directly to two athletes who had stepped into the light with their own struggles. In 2021, Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open citing mental health reasons. The decision sent ripples through the tennis world—some supportive, some critical. Then Simone Biles, the gymnast, spoke publicly about her own mental health challenges during the Tokyo Olympics. These moments cracked something open. They made it harder to pretend that strength and mental resilience were the same thing.
Badosa recognized what was happening. "It was, and it is, although it is improving a lot thanks to the testimony of athletes like Simone Biles or Naomi Osaka, among others," she reflected. The stigma had not vanished. Mental health remained a taboo subject in sports, even as the world talked about it everywhere else. But the conversation was shifting. Athletes were no longer expected to suffer silently.
The core of the problem, as Badosa saw it, was a fundamental misunderstanding about what strength means in sport. Coaches, fans, and commentators assumed that because tennis players needed physical stamina and technical skill, they must also possess unshakeable mental fortitude by default. "People see it as a sign of weakness and it's the complete opposite," Badosa said. A person's mind at eighteen is not the same as a person's mind at thirty-five. The capacity to manage pressure, to absorb criticism, to perform under scrutiny—these are skills that develop over time. Young players needed room to grow into themselves.
The constant comparisons to legends only compressed that space. Nadal and Djokovic had been on tour long enough to develop the psychological armor that comes with years of competition. They had earned their resilience. Young players were being asked to arrive with it already intact. Badosa pushed back against the assumption that she should simply be like Nadal, that she should want to replicate his path. "I am not Rafael Nadal," she said, with the kind of clarity that comes from having nearly lost herself trying to be someone else.
What Badosa's openness revealed was not weakness but a necessary reckoning. The pressure to be the next great thing, to live up to a nation's tennis legacy, to match the achievements of players who had spent decades building their careers—this was a burden that could crush a young athlete before she had a chance to discover who she actually was. Osaka and Biles had given permission to name that burden. Badosa was naming it too. And in doing so, she was helping to build a different kind of strength: the strength to say no, to step back, to admit that you are not ready, and to trust that you might become ready if given the time.
Notable Quotes
Everyone expected me to be top ten at 18, and I was not physically, mentally, or biologically ready for it.— Paula Badosa, in interview with Marca
People see it as a sign of weakness and it's the complete opposite.— Paula Badosa, on mental health in sports
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
When you say the comparison to Sharapova hurt you, what exactly did that feel like in the moment?
It felt like I was being measured against someone else's entire career before I'd even started mine. People weren't asking who Paula Badosa was—they were asking when I'd become Maria.
And you were eighteen. Did anyone around you try to protect you from that pressure?
That's the thing—the pressure was so normal, so expected, that it didn't feel like something to protect against. It felt like the job itself. You're Spanish, you're talented, so you must want to be top ten immediately.
But you weren't ready.
No. And I couldn't say that without it feeling like failure. That's what's changed now. When Osaka spoke up, when Biles spoke up, they made it okay to say: I'm not ready. I need time.
Do you think young players today still face the same pressure?
Less, maybe. The conversation is different now. But the expectations are still there. The difference is we're starting to acknowledge that a mind develops like a body does. You can't rush it.
What would you tell your eighteen-year-old self?
That being strong enough to admit you're struggling is stronger than pretending you're fine.