“This injury allowed me to play more liberated,” Garcia would later write. “I learned to let go, I learned to accept my mistakes, the unexpected, to delegate, to trust myself, to follow my instincts…
“By building day by day, by staying positive, by having confidence, with simple goals in mind—to be healthy, to do my best day by day, to live in the present moment, to play my game to the fullest—I ended up living the best season of my career!”
For the first half of the season, her unglamorous work went relatively unnoticed as little by little, at qualies and WTA 250 events, the Lyon native began to chip away at her ranking. That is, until June, when her renaissance abruptly kicked into high gear.
And suddenly, it was hard not to notice the threat Garcia posed in every draw.
The Frenchwoman racked up 39 match wins from the start of June until the end of the year, finishing with a 46-20 record on the season. She won four singles titles across multiple surfaces during that time—one on grass (Bad Homburg) and clay (Warsaw), and two on hard courts (Cincinnati, WTA Finals)—and also teamed up with Kristina Mladenovic to lift her second Roland Garros doubles trophy in May.
In Bad Homburg, Garcia returned to the WTA winners’ circle for the first time since 2019, and in Warsaw, she sent a message by toppling world No. 1 Iga Swiatek—her first win over a top-ranked player in 10 attempts—with a 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 win on home soil.