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“I felt the strain,” 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 loopy, since you are nonetheless a human and you can not really feel nice daily,” she mentioned. “A variety of consideration from in all places exterior the court docket, like photograph shoots and all these sorts of issues. You grew to become extra well-liked in your nation. All people is watching you.”
Presently ranked seventeenth, Ostapenko mentioned she got here to Australia hoping to start a climb again into the highest 10.
It’s price noting that contained in the locker room, nobody is underneath the radar. Each 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.
Each Gauff and Pegula mentioned that they have been by no means shocked 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 much more,” Rybakina mentioned final week of her court docket assignments.
Likewise, everybody within the locker room is aware of Pegula, who beat Swiatek earlier this month, has been enjoying the perfect tennis of her life, shifting quick throughout the court docket, gifting away so few factors, forcing opponents to take no matter they will get from her, which hasn’t been a lot.
“That locker room is essentially the most educated place on this planet,” mentioned Pam Shriver, the Grand Slam doubles champion who 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 Level,” 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 questioned whether or not the gamers who had determined to take part within the collection had taken the time to assume via 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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