"I just felt my life had no purpose": Brady honest on time away from tennis due to injury giving her new perspective

Jennifer Brady revealed the difficult moments she experienced after being sidelined from the WTA Tour for two years due to injuries.

The American tennis player showcased her potential to be a world-class player in 2020 and 2021. She reached the semifinals of the US Open and the final of the Australian Open, losing to Naomi Osaka on both occasions, with Osaka clinching both titles.

Injuries disrupted Brady's ability to maintain consistency in 2021, ultimately leading her to step away from the WTA Tour. She made her return at the WTA 500 Washington Open after her extended hiatus. Brady shared the challenges she faced during her time away from the sport:

“If somebody had told me, ‘You're going to be out for two full years, go do whatever,' I would have done something: get a job, go back to school, do all of it. I just felt like my life had no purpose because I was just playing a waiting game,” she wrote in an essay for Eurosport.

“There was not much that I could do physically, so just trying to find things to kill time to make the days go by. It’s kind of sad now that I talk about it,” Brady added.

Brady also confessed that despite the setbacks of injuries, she fought hard to make her way back to the tour.

“I didn't want to have any regrets. If I had gone, 'this isn't working, maybe I'll just go back to school', I would also end up feeling, what if? You just can't really live your life like that. You have to commit and just trust the process,” she wrote.

“I just wanted to play tennis. It is who I am. It is my identity,” she added.

“The tennis world is like a little bubble. As soon as you lose, you're out of the tournament and you book a flight for the next day. You're off to the next event and you're just in this cycle of doing the same thing over and over and not really taking a step back or just looking from the outside and being like, ‘Wow, the life that we live is unbelievable,’” Brady explained.

“Some of us complain about things that really are not that big of a deal. Things are a lot tougher in the real world. I want no part of the real world. We have flexibility in our work life, we make our own schedules and we're in charge. We're our own boss and we're extremely privileged to be doing what we're doing,” she added.