Alexei Popyrin hit rock bottom when he feared he wouldn’t enjoy even his own wedding next month.
From the giddy high of taking down Novak Djokovic at the 2024 US Open, Popyrin needed a wildcard into this year’s New York grand slam after slumping to as low as number 139 in the rankings last month.
He knew then he needed professional help.
The fallen Australian tennis star turned to Oscar Piastri’s esteemed mindset coach and credits Emma Murray for helping him find contentment again. To a point.
“It’s not easy,” Popyrin said in a raw interview ahead of his first-round Open date with former semi-finalist turned 2026 qualifier Grigor Dimitrov.
“A lot of that is what was eating at me, thinking about things, searching for that feeling of being at the career-high rankings, of playing at that level, and it becomes a kind of an unhealthy obsession.
“It becomes a really negative and bad balance between you and tennis and it’s what was really not helping me and it was the main culprit in what has been happening over the last few months.
Emma Murray is now working with Alexei Popyrin as he tries to rise in the rankings. (Getty Images: Kym Illman)
“I needed to change that and I needed to change just the whole way I look at tennis as a whole, and it’s still a work in progress and it’s not going to be a quick fix over one or two weeks.”
Popyrin took his first mental-health break after Wimbledon last year before needing another reset following a straight-sets first-round loss at the All England Club six weeks ago to Jiri Lehecka.
“After Wimbledon, I was a wreck,” said the former French Open junior champion.
“I used to — well, I still do — every time I lose, I think I don’t deserve to have fun. After, I think I don’t deserve to be happy.
“I was worried that I wouldn’t enjoy my wedding because of my tennis, and when I had that thought for the first time I was like, ‘OK, something is really, really wrong and I’ve really got to take some time and figure things out.'”
The 27-year-old one-time world number 19 has been working with Murray for only a short time, but already the high-performance emotional regulator is making progress.
“I’m trying to not associate my results with how I feel as a person,” Popyrin said.
“I’m trying to look at it in a way that it’s just a journey that I’m on. Where I am is where I am and what I have to do is just continue trusting the process that I’m on.
“I’ve stuck with the same team and I haven’t changed anything. I believe in the guys. I believe in myself. I believe that everything is just mental for me.
“And if I’m able to make those changes up in my head, then I’m able to not only get to where I am, but I believe I can go further.
“I’ve got to kind of start from scratch, which is never easy. It’s something I have done before, but it’s even harder for me to do that because of where I have been and what I have done and what I have achieved.
“But it’s important for me if I want to continue playing tennis that I get through this, and the way I get through this is continuing on the trajectory that I have been the last month.”
AAP
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