ANDERS LIND

My story with DONIC is a special one,” says Anders Lind. “When I was ten, eleven or twelve years old, I was considered a huge talent; I was the No. 1 in Europe. But I wasn’t fully focused, and for years I mostly disappointed. Despite that, DONIC always stood by me, just like my mother and father did.” By the 2023 World Championships at the latest, the highly gifted left-hander had more than lived up to the expectations placed on him: Anders Lind was the only European player to reach the quarter-finals of the men’s singles. The ups and downs, the long years during which it seemed that the sensitive young player might buckle under the enormous pressure of expectations, are now behind him. And so is a serious car accident that nearly cost him his life. In March 2021, Anders was travelling at 110 km/h on a motorway near Copenhagen when he collided with a car whose driver had suffered a heart attack. He was taken to hospital with multiple spinal fractures and came frighteningly close to ending up in a wheelchair. But Anders Lind fought his way back. After three months of almost complete immobility and another two months of painstakingly learning to walk again, he resumed training just five days before the 2021 European Team Championships in Romania. Twenty minutes a day was enough for him to lose only one singles match throughout the entire tournament and lead his team to the bronze medal with a series of outstanding performances.

“The accident obviously didn’t help,” Lind says, but it nevertheless marked a turning point in his life. “Maybe it made me mature five years in a very short time.” The mental struggles, the difficulties he had previously experienced in critical situations, and the occasional lack of seriousness and discipline all seem to have been overcome since then. His joy of playing and his creativity, meanwhile, have always been exceptional.

His backhand sidespin flick, the aggressive sidespin push known internationally as the “strawberry”, is spectacular, while his attacking game from both wings is powerful and extremely difficult to read. “Perhaps my greatest strength is that my opponents find it very difficult to come up with a tactic against me,” he explains. “They never know what I’m going to do next—and neither do I.”

There has, however, been one major constant in his game since the very beginning of his career, when he was just ten years old: “DONIC is my partner, and the people there have always been there for me. Not only when I produced so many disappointing results, but also after my accident. I really hope I can stay with DONIC until the end of my career.