Caroline Garcia at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship 2023

Gulf News

Caroline Garcia at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship Player’s Roundtable press meet on Sunday.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/sport/tennis/pressure-of-expectations-is-weighing-heavily-on-caroline-garcia-1.93954973  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  #CarolinaGarcia  #DubaiDutyFreeTennis

Transcript

00:00Karine, how are you feeling entering this tournament?

00:03Yeah, I'm happy to be back in Dubai. It's a very nice tournament. It's a big one, a big road, a tough match.

00:10And really, obviously, exciting to start a new country.

00:14You said the ball has changed here this year. How are you feeling, the conditions in general?

00:19I haven't been practicing much, just got a practice yesterday, going on court this afternoon again.

00:26Yeah, but it's the same ones that we had last week in Doha.

00:28Obviously, it was colder and very windy, but it didn't feel that different.

00:33And I have to admit, I don't really remember last year, or was it?

00:36But it's pretty fast conditions. The court is fast, the ball is going through the air fast.

00:47So, in a way, you can see it in two ways. Either you can carry the momentum,

00:50or you have to tell yourself, no, this is a brand new year.

00:53How do you balance both by telling yourself, I want to take confidence from what I did without adding pressure?

00:59How do you do that balance?

01:01Apparently, I didn't do good.

01:03You have to, obviously, take the confidence of a great year of tennis, playing good, proving to yourself

01:12that your game style is the game style that is working and can bring you a lot of great things.

01:17You have to take that, and then it's a totally new year.

01:22Playing someone who is top four in the world, people don't prepare or play the same

01:29than when you're playing another girl top 50 like you.

01:32You have your own expectation, being a top player, and then the expectation of the other one.

01:40It feels like you cannot lose anymore than two people who are outside the top five.

01:47And it's tennis.

01:48So, obviously, there are a lot of things happening.

01:54It's easy to say, but it's quite difficult to put it into practice for me.

01:58I don't know about the other members.

02:02I want to ask you, you were able to unlock last year.

02:08What did you do last year that you're not doing now?

02:12You're saying you're not feeling as good as you did.

02:15You're not feeling free.

02:17Can you just talk about that?

02:20Yeah, I think, like I said, I was feeling lighter last year.

02:26When you're top 70 or top 50 and you play someone against top 10, you have nothing to lose.

02:31And now it's a little bit the other way around.

02:35You have less expectation about yourself, and you can play more free.

02:41You're not afraid or you're not mad if you make a mistake, which is not quite what is happening right now.

02:47So, with the game style I want to play, it's a little bit tricky.

02:52I think that Sanya Mirza is playing her very last tournament.

02:55Yes.

02:56So, I just wanted you to say a few words.

02:58What do you think Sanya meant to the game?

03:00I think she meant a lot.

03:02She had a very long career, starting very good in singles first,

03:06and then in doubles the last couple of years did some amazing work.

03:11She brings so much, I think, in tennis and in the women's sport.

03:15Being from India, she's a huge star obviously in tennis, but also just as a regular person.

03:23Most of the time when you cross Indian people, they always,

03:27like if you say you are playing tennis, they always know Sanya Mirza,

03:30even if they don't know a clue about tennis.

03:33And I think there is very few people who can say they inspire just boys and girls in their country,

03:42and she's definitely a huge star all around the world.

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