NEXT up in our 2022 WTA Tour Players to Watch series is Amanda Anisimova. After an emotionally affected few years, 2022 might be the year she returns to the form she showed in 2019.

If you look back to the 2019 season, Anisimova was on the rise in the tennis world. She won her first title in April and had made the semi finals of the French Open at just 17-years-old. She was also on the verge of cracking the top 20. At the French Open, she beat the likes of defending champion Simona Halep before losing to eventual champion, Ash Barty.

On the back of such performances, she had signed a huge long-term deal with Nike that was reported to be the largest ever for a teenager.

Then, just as the US Open was about to start, tragedy struck. Anisimova’s father and long-time coach Konstantin died of a heart attack at the age of 52. She subsequently withdrew from the US Open that year, and her incredible progress was slowed.

At the Australian Open the following year, she was seeded 21^st but lost in the opening round to Kazakh Zarina Diyas. After the match, a journalist asked how she was managing her career without her dad and whether she felt unsettled. She burst into tears.

Her father’s death, coupled with the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic and the limiting of the numbers in her travelling party saw Anisimova never quite reach the highs and results in the years since. Although she was able to reach the quarters and semis a few times, she more often lost in the first or second rounds.

2022 is the year that could see Anisimova reset and return to the highs she began reach in 2019, with a fresh start perhaps all she needs to fulfil her high potential.