Bianca Andreescu’s fall from 2019 US Open glory has been brutally tied to injuries, surgery, and lost form. After her 2025 season was delayed by appendectomy and her ranking dropped to 228 earlier this year, she returned to the ITF in 2026—weeks of smaller cro
Bianca Andreescu doesn’t describe the moment her body stopped cooperating, but the numbers make the pause impossible to ignore.
Injuries—issues with her abdomen and ankle—kept her away from the court. and her 2025 season was delayed by appendectomy surgery.. The result wasn’t just missed matches.. Her game also changed.. She failed to go beyond the fourth round at a Grand Slam since her US Open triumph. and her ranking slid from a high of world number four in 2019 to 228 earlier this year.
So at the start of 2026, she made a decision that looks like a retreat only if you don’t understand why she’s doing it. Andreescu swapped life on the WTA Tour for the ITF, returning to an environment where she hadn’t played since 2018.
The tournament structure is built for movement, not glamour.. ITF rankings run from W15—the lowest level—up to W100.. Andreescu competed in W35 and W75 editions, where the total prize pot for a W35 tournament is about £26,000.. It’s a far cry from the spotlight of the sport’s biggest stages. and the changes are visible even before the first serve: ITF crowds can be tiny. and line judges are rare.
On court, she says, it’s the opposite of small.
“The hunger the women had that I was playing against, every match was so difficult, and I feel like maybe on the WTA Tour, the athletes are maybe a bit more comfortable with certain things,” Andreescu says.
Her point isn’t that one tour is inferior to the other. It’s that the pressure comes packaged differently.
“Certain things are getting paid for [on the WTA Tour]. But on that [ITF] level, nothing’s getting paid for, and you’re barely breaking even. I was there too at one point, so I know how it is.”
Then she pushes back hard against the easy narrative that can follow a player downward through the ranks.
“I don’t want people to get the idea that the ITF tour is Mickey Mouse compared to the WTA Tour, because that’s not the case.”
What she sees instead is work that has to be done, match after match, without the comfort of bigger guarantees.
“I feel a lot of admiration and respect for the women that continue to grind on the tour, because it’s not easy, even on the WTA Tour, it’s just not easy.”
Her coach, Vemic—who joined Andreescu’s team in September 2025—echoes that framing. For him, the ITF isn’t a fallback. It’s a proving ground where the motivation is sharper because the margins are slimmer.
“Every player there needs to prove themselves and everyone is hungry and they’re not bored of playing many years on tour,” he says.
He describes how the tour gathers different types of careers, all chasing the next step.
“They’re all driven by their dreams and passion because a lot of them are younger athletes. So sometimes it’s a transitional part or stage of coming from juniors into professional waters and some of them carry a lot of confidence.”
That context matters, because Andreescu’s own story has already been shaped by seasons she couldn’t fully control. What looks like a drop is, in her words and in her coach’s, an environment chosen for the grind that comes with it.
Andreescu’s 2019 peak as world number four now sits far behind her. But in 2026, the court she’s chosen isn’t built around trophies or headlines. It’s built around proving she can still play through the difficulty—without excuses, and with the kind of hunger she says she’ll need to rise back up.
Bianca Andreescu US Open ITF WTA Tour appendectomy injuries world number four ranking 228 W35 W75 tennis comeback