ATP Tour

Zizou Bergs: Winning the battle inside

Earlier this year I noticed a change in myself. In Munich, Geneva and Roland Garros, I was quite emotional. I was not controlling myself as much as I wanted to and it would even happen in practice.

Whether I was not doing something I was working on well, was making some errors, or the player across the net was playing really well, things just were not going my way. I was aware of what was happening, but there was an overwhelming feeling that I could not fight back anymore. I would freak out and there was nothing I could do about it.

Wimbledon was the most eye-opening moment, when I really did not know what the hell was going on. I played Lloyd Harris in the first round and was getting in a fight with everyone on court, even though some people, like my team, were there to help me. I was just not being myself at all.

Obviously your mood on the court has a lot to do with playing well and winning points, which I was not. If I double faulted and somebody started to clap in the crowd, it really bothered me. I would get so irritated all the time and even with the decisions of the referee.

Nothing that was happening to me was crazy. In a typical match, I would have usually said, ‘Okay, it is what it is’. But in that moment, it became a lot to deal with in my mind and I tried to fight to make it all go my way. At a certain point, it is like the devil is in you and you realise he is there, but it became just too hard to deal with.

There was so much anger and frustration — I was not going to win that battle. After losing the match in four sets, I shared a personal post with my fans on social media.

“If you had told me as a kid that I’d one day play at Wimbledon but wouldn’t enjoy a single point, I never would have believed you,” I wrote. “Yet, unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.”

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Zizou Bergs (@zizoubergs)

I'm quite an open book. I don't mind discussing how I feel and I think it's important to sometimes talk about it because being open about your problems could help.

So many of us — in all lines of work — have experienced that and I don't think it's something to be ashamed of. When things become difficult, I think it's okay to talk about it and, for me, it is good to show awareness to the players and to the fans as well, because they think it's normal to consistently be at your best and nothing less.

Whether it's Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Zizou Bergs ranked 50th, or the World No. 200, tennis players are not superhumans. We also have to deal with things that are going on in our lives. Everyone has normal things that go on, but we are expected to come out and perform at our best, which is not always easy.

As a player, I make this mistake myself sometimes. It is easy as a fan to take for granted what the best players in the world are able to produce. You wonder why someone is not playing well and the truth is they might just be having a bad day.

This has been my first full season on the main ATP Tour and I have done a lot of traveling. I lost myself a bit this year since my previous coach and I were a bit of a mismatch. We were trying to figure things out and in that process I forgot who Zizou is as a tennis player. By distancing myself from my values as a tennis player I was freaking out way more because I couldn’t enjoy myself on court.

I was afraid and stressed about playing big and with a bit of a show together with the crowd. With this issue, it slowly became too much to handle.

If a football player has a bad day, they can hide behind another football player. In tennis it’s all you on the court and when it goes well, you are on top of the world. When it does not, you get exposed, and that is not always easy to deal with.

I really enjoy what I'm doing, but to perform is something else. When you go out there, you really have to play at a high level and do it all the time, and that is not as easy as it looks.

The good thing is that I am aware of this and have been working to improve. I have worked with a sports psychologist since I was 16 years old, but at the time that was all about becoming a better tennis player and harnessing how I felt certain things on and off the court to execute my game at a higher level. Since 2020, I have traveled with a psychologist named Gert-Jan De Muynck 10 weeks a year, and we have been working hard on this.

Off court, and even when I'm at tournaments, I feel good in my skin. I could walk around the venue, do some activity on site or talk to other players or coaches and I feel perfectly well. That is already a positive.

After Wimbledon, my girlfriend and I went on holiday to Ibiza to decompress. When I'm on holiday, it always takes another three days to really disconnect, and then I have a few days where I really could relax. But after the trip, when I hit the courts again, I felt totally different.

I was very relaxed and obviously the more days you're back on court, the more competitive you become. You really want it so badly — because I'm a guy who really wants success — and maybe that's a little bit the tricky side of it. You want it maybe too much, and when it doesn't go your way, you wonder why it is not working.

My coach in the juniors taught me that the faster you want to go, the more time you're going to lose. It is really about your mindset. If it's not going to be here today, maybe it will come tomorrow. If it's not tomorrow, maybe it will be the day, the week, the month, or the year after. In the end, it's most important that you put in the work with the right intentions and after that, you just have to trust where it falls.

As I wrote in my post after Wimbledon, I love this sport and the whole vibe around it. I’m excited to have learned from this experience and will continue to give everyone my very best.