Fueled by adversity, Marta Kostyuk builds on breakthrough season at BNP Paribas Open

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.—Marta Kostyuk experienced an emotional release 10 days ago in San Diego, triggered by a three-set defeat in the final to Katie Boulter. The 21-year-old Ukrainian delivered a stirring runner-up speech, dedicating the result to those affected by the ongoing invasion into her home country.

“It was just an emotional week in general,” Kostyuk clarified at the BNP Paribas Open. And indeed, the Ukrainian was in tears earlier that week in the quarterfinal against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Playing the Russian for a second time in two weeks at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, Kostyuk was all business, navigating a high-quality opening set to secure victory, 6-4, 6-1, and reach her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal.

“I think with time and age you become more calm, because you go through more matches, more stress, more experience, and not everything is so overwhelming,” she said after the match. “I’m still overwhelmed sometimes, especially when things are happening for the first time, but it’s way less than before.”

She hadn’t come to Indian Wells with a title but instead with something more valuable: a desire to build on what is already shaping up to be a career-best season.

When I was younger, I was like a teenager, and so generally, teenagers are much more emotional than adults and other people. Everything is so important and seems like the whole world is watching you and wants something from you, and you have nothing to give, and whatever you give is not enough. There’s a constant feeling of rushing for something. Marta Kostyuk

“Last year, I had a different experience,” recalled Kostyuk, who captured her first WTA title ahead of the BNP Paribas Open, only to leave the desert with a first-round loss. “I was so emotionally drained after. When you lose, you think, ‘Ok, I did well, but I still kind of have to work and keep going.’

“It was fine, honestly, because I played really good tennis in San Diego, and I was like, no need to be sad over the loss. I played much better than I’d thought before the tournament, even results-wise. For me, that was the most important thing because obviously, you always want more, but you should stop yourself sometimes and be more grounded where you think, ‘Wow, this is really good and if there’s more, it’s going to come.’”

Kostyuk has long felt that certainty from those around her, having burst onto the scene as a precocious 15-year-old who went from winning the 2017 junior Australian Open to reaching the third round of the senior draw 12 months later. The ensuing six years haven’t been as seamless, compounded by the war both at home and on tour.

“When I was younger, I was like a teenager, and so generally, teenagers are much more emotional than adults and other people. Everything is so important and seems like the whole world is watching you and wants something from you, and you have nothing to give, and whatever you give is not enough. There’s a constant feeling of rushing for something.”

But from her meteoric rise, Kostyuk, only barely out of her teens, has enjoyed incremental improvements of late, cracking the Top 30 and reaching her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, where she pushed Coco Gauff to three sets on Rod Laver Arena. Crucial to that newfound consistency was her decision to hire coach Sandra Zaniewska; the former WTA player has proven capable of providing that grounding influence on a player who can hit every shot in the game.

“When you’re a player, you look at everything more from an emotional side,” muses Kostyuk. “When you’re a coach, it’s more structured and there’s no emotion involved whatsoever.”

Kostyuk looks back on her decidedly less structured entry onto the professional tour without regret, feeling it gives her an advantage over next-generation peers like next opponent Anastasia Potapova, who is also into her first Indian Wells quarterfinal.

“There are a lot of girls who are my age and there are some that play really good but they don’t have as much experience as I do because of all the years I had on tour. I cannot say they were extremely successful, or I’m very happy with how all these years went, but I still have them: all these matches and all this experience with me. That’s something you cannot buy.”

It’s not always perfect where you can defend all your points. I’m just focusing more on raising my level so I can keep going for more without thinking about what I should defend. I’ve had those thoughts, but when I was 15. It’s been a long time ago! Marta Kostyuk

Married life has also mellowed the loquacious Kostyuk, who took a no-nonsense approach to planning her November wedding and posited that problem-solving in her personal life can help her on the tennis court.

“Our wedding planner was like, ‘Wow, you are so easy to work with,’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, because in 10 years, I will hate everything I picked anyway!’” she joked.

That sort of stress-free approach is a far cry from the player who once obsessed over ranking points, evidence of her resolve to no longer look back on what she accomplished and instead looking forward to what she is yet to achieve.

“I just want to see how far I can go,” said Kostyuk. “I think before, I had a different thinking in general about this because I would think, ‘Oh, I made a lot of points and now I have to make even more because I’ll need to defend the ones I already have and if I don’t, then I can still be in a good position.’

“It’s not always perfect where you can defend all your points. I’m just focusing more on raising my level so I can keep going for more without thinking about what I should defend. I’ve had those thoughts, but when I was 15. It’s been a long time ago!”