World No. 24, Russian tennis player Anna Kalinskaya, reflected on her dramatic second-round victory over Czech Katerina Siniakova at the WTA-1000 tournament in Rome, Italy. She saved a total of nine match points before winning 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 7-5.
“Looking back at the match against Katerina Siniakova, you saved five match points in the second set and another four in the third. How did you motivate yourself to keep fighting?”
“Honestly, during that match, even though a lot of things weren’t working, I was able to quickly reset for the next point. I didn’t dwell on my mistakes; I just focused on correcting them as fast as I could. While I was playing, I didn’t actually feel like there were that many match points because in the moment I simply wasn’t aware of it. I only knew I had to fight for every ball. But yes, it was truly a memorable match in my career. I’m really happy I managed to win. And when I finally converted my very first match point to close it out, I just couldn’t believe it.”
“You mentioned earlier that you don’t recall a similar match in your professional career. Did anything like this ever happen in juniors or as a child?”
“No, I don’t remember anything like that,” Kalinskaya said.
In an exclusive interview, Kalinskaya added: “During that first match, I didn’t even realize I had saved nine match points.”