“I felt the pressure,” she mentioned.
Ostapenko, who blasted Gauff off the court docket in straight units Sunday, is aware of one thing about that. After she got here out of nowhere to win the French Open in 2017, her life turned the other way up. She felt like everybody anticipated her to win each event, “which is crazy, because you are still a human and you cannot feel great every day,” she mentioned. “A lot of attention from everywhere outside the court, like photo shoots and all those kinds of things. You became more popular in your country. Everybody is watching you.”
Currently ranked seventeenth, Ostapenko mentioned she got here to Australia hoping to start a climb again into the high 10.
It’s price noting that inside the locker room, nobody is underneath the radar. Every participant is aware of each different participant’s strengths and weaknesses, who’s sizzling, who’s nursing an damage or having a disaster of confidence.
Both Gauff and Pegula mentioned that they weren’t at all stunned that Rybakina, who performed her first two matches on outer courts, simply as she had for a lot of the summer season and fall, had taken out Swiatek along with her flat, thumping energy that’s ideally suited to the court docket circumstances right here.
“It’s a motivation to win even more,” Rybakina mentioned final week of her court docket assignments.
Likewise, everybody in the locker room is aware of Pegula, who beat Swiatek earlier this month, has been taking part in the finest tennis of her life, shifting quick throughout the court docket, freely giving so few factors, forcing opponents to take no matter they’ll get from her, which hasn’t been a lot.
“That locker room is the most educated place in the world,” mentioned Pam Shriver, the Grand Slam doubles champion who just lately began teaching Vekic part-time.
Like everybody else right here, Shriver, who was courtside Monday as Vekic beat Linda Fruhvirtova, a gifted 17-year-old from the Czech Republic, is pondering the so-called Netflix curse. No participant featured prominently in “Break Point,” which was launched 10 days in the past, made it previous the fourth spherical. Three withdrew with accidents simply days earlier than the event. Shriver puzzled whether or not the gamers who had determined to take part in the collection had taken the time to suppose by way of the results that being a part of a high-profile collection may need on their psyches on the eve of the 12 months’s first Grand Slam.
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