22-yr old Shrivalli reviews a heart breaking loss to WTA next gen prodigy Alina Korneeva in R2 of the WTA L&T Mumbai Open with a scoreline of 7-5 4-6 4-6.
Excerpts from the press conference are below
Thoughts on the match.
I’m really proud to be in this tournament because I came with zero expectations in the tournament. I qualified, I beat the 2nd seed in the qualifying, then I beat the 2nd seed again in the main draw. So I think it was a good show.
Today also, I played against one of the top juniors and she’s a wonderful player. She’s been playing so many tournaments on the tour and I think she’s a little more experienced than me. She’s done herself better. I have a lot to learn from this match but I’m really glad the way I could play and match against her and I see myself up there right now. So after this match, I think I trust myself even more.
I had nothing to lose out of this match because I’m a debutant in this tournament and I’ve played against such an experienced player. One thing I’ve learned from every match of mine is, I can’t keep messing my head about the previous points but just focus on the points. So even if I made so many double faults, yes, I’ll go back and work on my serve and make it much, much better, but I just wanted to play my tennis to the level I wanted to as well.
It didn’t bother me though that I made so many double faults. My serve was a little off today but I still managed to almost pull the match off.
What did you make of the playing conditions today? It was very windy today.
Well, when you’re in a sport, every day is different. Every day the conditions are different and the conditions are the same for both the players. So the only thing you can do is accept and move forward and not break your head behind it because if you focus on what you have to do, I think you will adjust to it pretty quickly.
Yesterday, you spoke of how you admire Novak’s resilience. We saw that today in the way you came back in crunch situations.
I didn’t give up even on the last point. I was two match points down and I made her play two extra games. And again, when she was serving 5-4, I still saved one match point though I could not win that game but I did learn a lot as to what I have to do and I think I’m going to get much better than that.
Where do you hope to be eventually?
All I want to do is just keep playing a lot of tournaments and keep focusing on competing harder and harder. I’m not going to set any goals for myself. It’s just that right now the belief is so that I can see myself up there but I’m not going to let it get to my head. I’m just going to keep working hard and keep doing what I’m doing now.
What’s next for you?
I am going to go back home for 10 days. It’s been so long I’ve been home. I’m just going to work at home and recoup my body because it’s been 4 or 5 long weeks. There are 3 weeks of Indian ITFs again. So I’m going to compete in those again.
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