Separating results from self-worth has freed Kostyuk up
In 2017, Marta Kostyuk won the Australian Open girls' title at the age of 14, becoming the first Ukrainian ever to do so.
The following year in Melbourne, as a 15-year-old, she became the youngest player to reach the third round of a major in 21 years.
With such early success came outsized expectations and increased pressure, which only seemed to compound with every passing year.
Nearly a decade after that historic girls' title, the 24-year-old has learned to separate her results on the court from her self-worth, and it's freed her up to play the best tennis of her career.
Over the past three-plus months, beginning with the Clay-Court Swing, Kostyuk has been one of the hottest players on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz. She won back-to-back titles in Rouen and Madrid -- the latter was her first WTA 1000 title -- and reached the semifinals at Roland Garros, her best result at a major.
She's carried that momentum onto the grass. Despite not playing any warm-up tournaments prior to Wimbledon, she's won four matches this week and is into the quarterfinals at the All England Club for the first time.
The World No. 13 credits much of her breakthrough to the work she's done in therapy.
"I've done a lot of very deep work on understanding myself on a very, like, basic human level," said Kostyuk, who has now won 20 of her last 21 matches. "Understanding where my worth is coming from. It's not coming from being a tennis player. I think that helps to separate it, in a way. I told [coach] Sandra [Zaniewska] before my third round, before my fourth round, that I know I've done a good job already here.
"I'm very happy with my progress on grass, and just generally how I feel on the court. No matter how this match ends today, I'm still going to be [the] same [level of] happy, and I'm excited for the American swing."
As it turns out, the match went about as well as Kostyuk could have hoped. She excelled in every phase of the game in her 6-4, 6-4 win over qualifier Ashlyn Krueger, winning 81 percent of her net points and 64 percent of her second-serve points. She flashed her controlled power, too, striking 22 winners to just 13 unforced errors.
But it was the mindset and the freedom, more than anything, that was the differentiator.
"I spoke about it in Paris, where I said changing these habits was the most difficult thing that I've ever had to experience or do," she told reporters. "So for me, playing tennis is much easier than doing this, because it takes much longer to get better at it, much more work, much more self-awareness.
"It's the same thing when you have huge success when you're young. A lot of new things happen to you, and you have no idea how to deal with it. And then once you know what it takes to get there, once you've done it a couple of times, you kind of know what to expect a little bit."
Kostyuk will play Jasmine Paolini, who beat Alexandra Eala on Monday, for a spot in the semifinals. Paolini leads the head-to-head 2-1, though they haven't played in three years and they've never played on grass.
