The 2026 season has been incredibly tough for Beatriz Haddad Maia. She wasn’t able to record a main draw victory on the Tour and had an abysmal win-loss record of 4-19. Her exit in the first round of Wimbledon qualifying, a loss to Maria Timofeeva, was the eighth successive defeat she’d suffered on Tour. This run of results took a toll on Haddad Maia’s mental health and has forced her to take a hiatus.

The Brazilian has announced she won’t be playing for the remainder of the season. Opening up about her deteriorating relationship with tennis, Haddad Maia revealed this is a decision she’d been thinking about for months, and that she’d already been quietly stepping back before making it official.

“I know I kind of disappeared and I used this time to reflect a lot,” she said in her native Portuguese in an Instagram video. “It’s a decision I’ve been dealing with mentally for a few months. It hasn’t been easy, for those of you who’ve been following me on the court, my relationship with tennis hasn’t been easy. So I really wanted to share this with you.”

This is now the second consecutive year that Haddad Maia has ended her season prematurely. In 2025, she had decided not to play any tournaments after her appearance at the Korea Open in September. She took this decision to “rest” her body and mind for a longer period.

Coming back into 2026 didn’t help. It was in May that Haddad Maia dropped out of the top 100 for the first time in five years. She’s clearly lost her rhythm this season, and the break is her attempt to rediscover it.

Having last played in late June, Haddad Maia will remain out of action for at least six months. That means she’ll return in 2027 with a protected ranking, letting her re-enter the Tour at her prior standing rather than start over from scratch.

Haddad Maia has slipped to No. 156 in the rankings, her lowest mark in five years, a long way from her career-high No. 10, reached in 2023 after her French Open semifinal run. Her form has cratered across the board, with three of her four wins this season coming at the WTA 125 level rather than the main Tour. She played frequently throughout the year and still couldn’t find footing, suffering first-round exits at nearly every major stop, the Australian Open, French Open, and every Masters event she entered.

None of that changes what she’s built over a 12-year career. Haddad Maia is considered one of the best players Brazil has ever produced, and her results since turning pro in 2014 back that up.

Beatriz Haddad Maia has achieved various feats in her 12-year professional career

Haddad Maia wrote her name into the record books three years ago by reaching the semifinals at Roland Garros, becoming the first Brazilian woman to reach a Grand Slam semifinal since Maria Bueno in 1968. Her run there was built on knocking out real threats along the way, Diana Shnaider, Ekaterina Alexandrova, and Ons Jabeur, before falling to eventual champion Iga Swiatek, 6-2, 7-6. That run pushed her into the top 10, making her the first Brazilian woman in the Open Era to reach that mark.

She carries 12 WTA titles into this break, four in singles and eight in doubles. Her doubles peak reached even higher than her singles career, a career-high No. 10 in that discipline, including a run to the 2022 Australian Open final alongside Anna Danilina. Her biggest doubles title came at the 2023 Madrid Open, where she and Victoria Azarenka stunned top seeds Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff, 6-1, 6-4, in the final.

In her own words, the decision to step away now isn’t as simple as it looks from the outside.

“Decisions seem very easy to make, but in reality, they’re very internal,” she said. “I kept fighting a lot against things that were actually more external. I did make changes, I made decisions, I tried different paths, and this moment of taking this break has arrived.”

Considered a trailblazer for South American tennis, Haddad Maia is targeting a return in 2027, with cracking back into the top 100 as her first benchmark once she’s ready to compete again.