125773240_web1_125773240-bf8d3ecb637745ac8b8a693d4cb51205

Lone Star Sadness: Horns, Aggies form Axis of Underachievers

Trump's doctor's comments on symptoms, care spark confusion

PARIS &mdash; Martina Trevisan has been doing video chats from her hotel room with her mental coach every day along the way to the quarterfinals at Roland Garros, a run the 159th-ranked qualifier acknowledges is &ldquo;a little&rdquo; shocking, just not as much to her as to everyone else. 
				So after Trevisan&rsquo;s 6-4, 6-4 victory against No. 5 seed Kiki Bertens at Court Suzanne Lenglen on Sunday, which was just as out-of-nowhere at this out-of-nowhere French Open as Iga Swiatek&rsquo;s 6-1, 6-2 win against 2018 champion and No. 1 seed Simona Halep over at Court Philippe Chatrier, the 26-year-old from Florence, Italy, planned to stick to the routine.
				It&rsquo;s helped her for the past two years, not merely the past two weeks, which also featured unexpected wins over Coco Gauff and 20th-seeded Maria Sakkari.
				Trevisan&rsquo;s tennis coach, Matteo Catarsi, described one of the goals of the sessions with Florida-based Lorenzo Beltrame, whose clientele also includes three-time major semifinalist Johanna Konta, this way: &ldquo;Not to feel uncomfortable in this environment, like someone who played in Grand Slam qualifying, but to feel like a queen, like a star.&rdquo;
				Trevisan and Beltrame chat. He gives her writing assignments. She works to find the right words to describe her thoughts and buttress her self-belief. The exercise is important for where Trevisan is these days, in her sport and in her life. It&rsquo;s been quite a journey, one Trevisan said hopes offers others this message: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ever give up, even in the toughest moments, where it really feels like life wants the worst for you, like it doesn&rsquo;t care about you at all. Stay strong and seek the light. Because there is light there, and it will arrive.&rdquo;
				A decade ago, shortly after turning 16 but beset by the pressure of others&rsquo; expectations, promising prospect Trevisan quit tennis, which her mother teaches and her brother played professionally (her father was a pro soccer player).
				She had anorexia, an experience and recovery she discussed in detail in a blog post two months ago.
				&ldquo;I hated my muscular body and I lost weight by adopting a diet that was just enough to survive,&rdquo; Trevisan wrote, saying she eventually sought help and &ldquo;re-learned how to eat and to make peace with my wounds and to appreciate my new body.&rdquo;
				Then, having returned to tennis in 2014 from a 4&#189;-year break, having toiled at tiny events offering total prize money of $10,000, having moved up the rankings enough to enter the qualifying rounds at Grand Slam tournaments but failing on her first nine attempts to reach the main draw, she finally made a breakthrough this year.
				Trevisan made her debut in a major&rsquo;s 128-player bracket at the Australian Open in January after making it through qualifying, exiting from the first round with a straight-set loss to eventual champion Sofia Kenin.
				Trevisan learned, though, that she was ready to compete with the best.
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;m more confident,&rdquo; she says now. &ldquo;I know I belong here.&rdquo;
				While Rafael Nadal overwhelmed qualifier Sebastian Korda 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 &mdash; the 20-year-old American, whose father won the 1998 Australian Open, was so star-struck he asked his idol for an autograph after the rout &mdash; and U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem held off French wild-card entry Hugo Gaston 6-4, 6-4, 5-7, 3-6, 6-3, the unpredictable outcomes kept arriving at Roland Garros in the fourth round Sunday.
				U.S. Open runner-up Alexander Zverev lost 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 to 19-year-old Jannik Sinner of Italy, then said he had a fever and was short of breath, two symptoms that raise red flags during a coronavirus pandemic that postponed the French Open from May-June to September-October.
				Sinner is the first man to reach the quarterfinals in his debut in Paris since &mdash; yes, you guessed it &mdash; Nadal 15 years ago and now faces the 12-time champion. Thiem, runner-up to the King of Clay the past two years, plays No. 12 seed Diego Schwartzman, a 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 winner against Lorenzo Sonego.
				In the other women&rsquo;s matches, No. 3 Elina Svitolina beat Caroline Garcia 6-1, 6-3 and next takes on Nadia Podoroska, a qualifier from Argentina who is ranked 131st and eliminated Barbora Krejcikova 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.
				Like Trevisan, Podoroska never had won a Grand Slam match until this event.
				The 54th-ranked Swiatek, a 19-year-old from Poland who ended Halep&rsquo;s 17-match winning streak, also will be making her Slam quarterfinal debut when she meets Trevisan.
				&ldquo;Nobody surprises anybody anymore,&rdquo; said two-time major champion Halep, who had to be taken aback at least a tad, considering she defeated Swiatek 6-1, 6-0 in 45 minutes a year ago in Paris.
				Trevisan tossed her racket after closing out the biggest win of her career with a backhand lob she couldn&rsquo;t see land; she knew the match was over when she saw the expression on 2016 French Open semifinalist Bertens&rsquo; face.
				A giddy Trevisan frequently laughed as she spoke in Italian with reporters &mdash; about exactly how much she&rsquo;s earned so far ($330,000, more than her total career winnings entering 2020), about how she&rsquo;d describe her personality (&ldquo;I try to smile a lot, and I do; but when I&rsquo;m sad, you definitely can tell that I&rsquo;m sad&rdquo;) and whether, given everything she went through, Trevisan thought she could return to this level of play.
				&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she replied, &ldquo;I&rsquo;d never been to &lsquo;this level.&rsquo;&rdquo;

Years after anorexia, hiatus, Italian reaches French Open QF