Happily married, a calmer, quieter Anastasia Potapova aims to make noise in Indian Wells

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.—What happens when two tennis players get married in the off-season? They double up on their honeymoon by tacking on a training bloc in Dubai, of course.

“It wasn’t exactly a vacation!” joked Anastasia Potapova, who married ATP pro Alexander Shevchenko in December. “We were practicing every day. But it was nice.”

Potapova, 22, and Shevchenko, 23, had planned to be married by the end of 2023 after making their relationship public earlier in the year. That didn’t make his proposal at a hotel in September any less surprising for the world No. 33, who is in the midst of a career-best run at the BNP Paribas Open.

“I’d come to see Sasha because he was in Germany, practicing for the tournament in Astana,” recalled Potapova, who breezed past Nadia Podoroska, 6-1, 6-1 to reach the fourth round on Sunday. “I thought I would just spend a few days with him, and so it was in the hotel room, with the ring under the pillow.

“It wasn’t something big, it was quiet and personal. That’s what I like about Sasha and me: we don’t like to be super social. He kept it quiet and I like that.”

Potapova repeatedly affirms her love of all things low-key, feeling at home amid the oasis known as the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

It feels like I have two people in my head...I do think, though, that the older I get, the quieter I’ve become. I’ve never been a party girl, it’s not my preferred way of spending the weekends, but I’ve been more outgoing in the past. Now I don’t like to go anywhere, stay home and watch Netflix with my dog and my husband. Anastasia Potapova

“I like how calm it is here. It’s very quiet. I don’t like big cities, like New York is not for me,” Potapova says, giving an apologetic nod to a lifelong New Yorker. “I like Manhattan, but only for a couple of days!

“It’s funny, I was talking with my coach about how I’ve been here for two and a half weeks, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. We haven’t gotten tired of it yet, and I think that’s because it’s so quiet, nice, such an easygoing environment.”

Calm, quiet, easygoing: none of which are adjectives I’d immediately ascribe to the bubbly Potapova, one who rarely presents as especially spotlight-averse.

“It feels like I have two people in my head,” she smiles at the contradiction, speaking behind literally rose-colored glasses. “My best friends who really know me, they know that sometimes I can be really loud, funny and laughing. Another day I can be calm, and not talking. I think this is the case for a lot of athletes, where our moods will change 100 times a day.

“I do think, though, that the older I get, the quieter I’ve become. I’ve never been a party girl, it’s not my preferred way of spending the weekends, but I’ve been more outgoing in the past. Now I don’t like to go anywhere, stay home and watch Netflix with my dog and my husband.

“Other times, when my friends are around, we can go big!”

The wedding to Shevchenko—and ensuing festivities—satisfied both sides of her personalities, but it was also a natural progression for two athletes who have been in one another’s orbit since their junior days.

“I’ve known him since we were nine years old, but we never spent time together, hung out, or even spoke much,” she recalls. “It was like we were always so close to each other but also so far away!”

Once they did start talking, the conversation never stopped and the two became inseparable, becoming fixtures at one another’s matches and even moving in together, becoming the latest tennis power couple alongside the likes of Gaël Monfils and Elina Svitolina, Denis Shapovalov and Mirjam Bjorklund, and, of course, “Tsitsidosa:” Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa.

“Maybe we’re young to be married, but we’re also athletes and we’re more mature than other people are at this age, people who don’t do sports,” Potapova muses, already feeling like an elder stateswoman among younger rivals like Mirra Andreeva. She and Andreeva planned to play doubles this week before injury forced the 16-year-old to withdraw.

“I do think since getting married, there’s more of a calm in our relationship, where we have each other, we’re not rushing for anything and we just try to help each other perform our best. It’s really helpful for an athlete to find someone who can relate to what you’re doing.”

That calm has translated to solid, if unremarkable results thus far in 2024. After exiting in the first round of the Australian Open, she went 5-3 in February, reaching the Round of 16 in Dubai before regaining her rhythm on her return to Indian Wells—where she pushed Jessica Pegula to three sets last spring.

“I’ve been struggling a bit before the tournament and before my first match,” she said. “Somehow, I managed to feel better and now I’m probably in one of the best shapes I’ve ever been in.”

After cutting her ranking in half last season, winning her second WTA title, and coming within one spot of a Top 20 debut, Potapova feels no pressure to live up to the new standard she set—when it comes to the top tier of women’s tennis, she’s still in the honeymoon phase.

“Last year gave me a lot of motivation. I got to the point where I know what I have to do, and now that I’ve done it once, I can do it one more time—and plenty of times after that!”