Garcia disappointed and frustrated: “I was tense since the start of the tournament”
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“Today I had a hard time keeping my emotions in check and breaking free, she said, confirming what everyone had actually seen. What saddens me the most is not having been able to set up my game forward because in the end, I didn’t get to the net much. I couldn’t let go. But we can’t say that it’s a real surprise because I had already struggled to do it in my previous matches. It was passed by beating me. But this time, it wasn’t enough, also because Linette knew how to get her match.”
No good feelings since the start of the tournament
Obviously “disappointed” but nevertheless lucid and completely inclined to express herself with sincerity and without prevarication, the Frenchwoman pointed out the lack of sensations that she will have experienced throughout the tournament, in match as she says but also, less visibly, in training.
“The last few days, it was a little better but at the beginning, it was super tense. Those who are with me felt it well. In the match, it was seen that I was tense, even on edge at times. I had complicated matches. Fernandez, it was complicated. Siegemund, it was complicated. I managed to beat them and it’s already positive. Simply, today, the level that I was able to produce wasn’t enough.”
It was not enough also and above all because unlike the previous matches that she mentions here, “Caro” could not, this time, count on her serve to get her out of trouble. With a tiny 49% of first serves, as many double faults as aces (3), the Lyonnaise was deprived of what is perhaps her main weapon. Not necessarily the one that earns her the most points, but the one that reassures her the most in hot moments. Going to the front without your most faithful lieutenant, of course, is stressful. And it reflects on everything else.
The status of favorite is one of the parameters with which I am still a little less comfortable.
But there again, the world N.4 – she could go down N.5 if Sabalenka reaches at least the semis – did not really fall out of the cupboard. “The service, I struggled to stabilize it in training. Even in Adelaide (where she had been eliminated in the quarters by Belinda Bencic, Ed), it was not very regular. So we’re not going to say that I’m completely surprised that he ended up cracking under the pressure. And when my serve doesn’t go through, it ends up getting in my head. A bit too much…”
Pressure, the bad word is dropped. World number 4 but second highest ranked player in the table after the eliminations of Iga Swiatek and Ons Jabeur, best player in the world over the whole of the last seven months punctuated in particular by her semi-final at the US Open and her title at the Masters, Caroline Garcia couldn’t really hide. Yes, she was indeed considered one of the main ones in the title. Yes, she knew it. And yes, it weighed.
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“The status of favorite is one of the parameters with which I am still a little less comfortableshe admitted. I must continue to work to better manage this. Apart from the outside pressure, I put a lot on myself, my own expectations are very high and maybe that’s where I’m shooting myself in the foot. It’s up to me to find the right balance.”
If the French admits that it will take a little time for her to digest, the prospect of being able to follow up very quickly with “her” Lyon tournament (January 30-February 5) will help her to project herself towards something else. Above all, she refused to leave Melbourne brooding. And even found the strength to joke about his discomfiture with journalists asking him whether to qualify his defeat as “stoppage”, of “slap” or something else?
“But I’m getting buried here! she replied, laughing. No, it’s just a loss in the round of 16 at the Australian Open. It doesn’t call anything into question. When you lose, you feel like you didn’t do anything right when it’s not completely fair. Not everything was to be thrown away, even if I myself want to throw everything in the trash for the moment. I’m doing a second week not being very well, it’s still an experience to take. Now, I just have to be able to relax or let go of things when things aren’t going very well.”
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