She had the season of her life in 2025. But in the demanding sphere of professional tennis that was then — and this is now. It’s one of the leading questions heading into the Australian Open: What will Amanda Anisimova do for an encore?
“Yeah,” she said in Brisbane, “super excited to build off that, and I feel like I’m in a really good place mentally, so I feel like that’s maybe the change from the previous year.
“I feel like I’m growing into the person that I am and that’s helped a lot.”
Anisimova was the Most Improved Player of the Year, jumping 32 spots, all the way to a career-high No. 4 with a WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz 1000 title in Doha and back-to-back Grand Slam finals.
After taking a significant break in 2023, Anisimova flourished with an astonishing burst of success, winning 10 matches against Top 10 players (more than she had previously), 13 straight three-set matches and defeating all four reigning major champions.
After her first career appearance at the WTA Finals in Riyadh, it was an oh-so-short offseason back home in Miami.
“But I feel like I made the most of it,” Anisimova, a native of New Jersey, said in an interview with wtatennis.com. “I have all my family and friends there, then I got to go to New York quite a bit. I love New York, also I have a lot of friends there, just a lot of fun. I feel like I was able to do most of the things I wanted to do.”
There was also a productive six weeks, tweaking things with her team.
“I feel like I worked on a lot of the things I wanted to fill in gaps that I kind of noticed last year,” Anisimova said.
What were those gaps?
“Um,” said Anisimova, laughing, “I don’t want to give away too much, but I’m sure people always expect that we want to work on our serve, improve it and make it faster. So we did things to help with that. Yeah, just working on consistency and all the physical elements as well.”
Consistency, at this level, is what distinguishes the best players. Her coach, Hendrik Vleeshouwers, was happy with the strides Anisimova made in this area last year. This year, they’ll focus on a more subtle approach.
“To put it simply, maybe court awareness,” he said in Riyadh. “More aware of where she is in a match, what is necessary to get success in the match. Or the ability to change because she won a lot of three-set matches as well.
“And that’s a big thing, right? You can lose all those matches in three sets. So, adaptation skills also.”
After losing the Wimbledon final to Iga Swiatek in a heartbreaking 6-0, 6-0 match, Anisimova showed some of that ability when she came back to beat Swiatek in the quarterfinals of the US Open and Naomi Osaka in the semifinals. Anisimova gave Aryna Sabalenka a good go in the final, losing a second-set tiebreak.
It’s worth noting that Sabalenka was 24 when she won her first Grand Slam, the 2023 Australian Open — the same age Anisimova is now.
She was the No. 2 seed at the Brisbane International and split two matches, defeating Kimberly Birrell 6-1, 6-3 and losing to red-hot Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 6-3 — the first of three Top 10 wins for the Ukrainian.
Although Anisimova briefly moved past Coco Gauff for a career-high ranking of No. 3, she’s the No. 4 seed in Melbourne. She said she’s looking forward to seeing how she responds to duress.
“Putting myself in situations back-to-back, where I know that I can push myself and get to the finish line even when there’s self-doubt that creeps in,” Anisimova said. “I think I did that over and over again, throughout last year. Just knowing that and looking back at all those moments I think will help me hopefully do the same kind of thing this year.
“I’ve also been thinking about what I would want to do differently this year and hopefully put myself in more situations and opportunities where I can go even further this year.”
