This is a defeat that she will have a hard time forgetting and swallowing!
Caroline Garcia, the world number 4, left the Australian Open with her head down in the round of 16, beaten by the Polish Magda Linette 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 on January 23.
It's a huge disappointment, a slap.
And all the more infuriating that after the elimination this weekend at the same stage of the favorite, the other Polish Iga Swiatek, the Lyonnaise seemed to have a clear horizon until the final.
With the possibility of a first Grand Slam triumph on the horizon, his goal since his victory at the Masters.
But boom, everything fell to the ground!
“I am very disappointed, reacts the Frenchwoman.
You come on the court to play a good match, try to get the win and that's not what I managed to do despite a lot of opportunities in the first set.
I had a hard time keeping my emotions in check and putting my game together and releasing forward.
But we're not going to say that it's a real surprise not to have managed to do it today (Monday).
I struggled to do this in my previous matches and often won by fighting.
Today, it was not enough, the other was solid and went to get his match at important times.
What was not smooth in my game cost me dearly.
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💪 Disappointed by her elimination in the round of 16 of the Australian Open, Caroline Garcia discussed her match and her initial expectations at a press conference:
🗨️ https://t.co/CJ54g7dpeA#AusOpen • #AO2023 pic. twitter.com/9HgcQa8Jiy
— FFT (@FFTennis) January 23, 2023
It's not the first time that Caroline Garcia's emotions have taken over her game. Her second part of 2022, which took her to the semi-finals of the US Open, seemed to have resolved problem.
Not yet, then.
“What's annoying, she continues, is that I can't manage to free myself, to put my game in place, to move forward.
I didn't get to the net much… And that's what saddens me the most.
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Not comfortable with pressure
Before continuing: “There is what we show and what we keep for ourselves.
These last days in training, it was more relaxed.
But at the beginning, it was super tense.
Those who were with me all the time felt it and on the matches, it was obvious that I was tense, on edge on certain things.
But when I played well, it's also because I had my emotions and I put my heart into it.
In this tournament, it cost me.
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For the first time among the favorites, Caroline Garcia simply could not bear the pressure.
“It's one of the parameters with which I am less comfortable.
I have to manage to work on it to manage it better.
There is the pressure that you put on yourself in relation to what you want to do.
Generally, when the ranking goes up, it goes up with it.
My own expectations are pretty high and maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot.
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Lyon, at home, a good tournament to digest the disappointment
But Caroline Garcia does not want to throw everything away.
“There are positive things all the same!, she notes.
When you arrive with a better ranking, a semi-final at the US Open, you want to live these moments, these great matches.
There were complicated matches, against Leylah Fernandez, Laura Siegemund, and these victories are positive points.
Today, the product level was not enough.
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The Lyonnaise will now have to digest and this will go through therapy at home: “A Grand Slam defeat, whatever the following tournament, is difficult to digest.
I have the chance to play in Lyon, at home, a tournament that is very close to my heart (and in which she is a shareholder).
But we will have to pass the disappointment.
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