Artem Sitak, Divij Sharan’s doubles partner, shares his thoughts on their second round loss and whats coming up in terms of schedule.
Thoughts on the match
The opponents did their homework well and did a few things differently compared to how they played against us at the Paris Masters last year. They picked their moments and executed really well. The tie-break was a bit disappointing. I started with a double fault (which I barely missed) and that set the tone for the tie break. I managed a good return winner but it was not enough as they served big and closed it out easily.
We should have stayed strong and not give the break away easily in the second set. They hit some big shots and we had to come up with something bigger than that. We picked up the energy at the end and played some great points in the last game but they managed to serve it out well.
The big difference in the match was they served big on key points. We didn’t have that many looks into their service games.
Overall it has been a positive tourney and we are working on good things with Divij. If we keep on improving, we can get better and better from now on.
You were playing on Court 3 which seats about 2000 people and it was completely packed!
When I walked onto the court, I was a bit surprised myself. I was like wow, what’s going on here! This is great though – that people do appreciate and watch doubles. They wanted to see a good doubles match and I hope we delivered.
What is your schedule like moving forward?
I am reaching Pune on Wednesday afternoon. We have 4 ATP events lined up in February and hopefully we can do some damage.
Thoughts on the conditions
We managed it well. We did a lot of training with the indoors, outside with the wind and then with the heat – so we were prepared. We played a good first round and we were prepared for today. It was a good level, unfortunately they were a bit better today.
