By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Saturday, August 5, 2023
Seeing her 6-3, 4-1 lead slip away in opposition to Jessica Pegula in the present day, Maria Sakkari was in no temper for slipping from one other semifinal slope.
Winless in 5 prior semifinals this season, Sakkari snapped her semifinal slide with dedicated closing kick.
Extra: Washington, DC Picture Gallery
The fourth-seeded Greek toppled the top-seeded Pegula 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 to achieve her first closing of the season on the Mubadala Citi DC Open.Â
Sakkari snapped a streak of six straight semifinal losses in the present day.
Tomorrow, she goals to shatter an 0-5 file in hard-court finals and seize her maiden-hard courtroom championship when she faces Coco Gauff for the title.
“I performed 4 finals final yr, so I do not know why everyone seems to be, like, so, you understand, loopy about me shedding within the semifinals,” Sakkari advised the media in Washington, DC. “I feel that I’ve been doing fairly properly. I’ve been high 10 for 2 years, however I suppose that everybody has one thing to say.
“So on the similar time, you understand, it’s what it’s. I do not actually care about it anymore. I simply need to win the title. Yeah, that is for certain.”
Nonetheless, her semifinal struggles—Sakkari carried a 7-20 profession semifinal file onto courtroom in the present day—did not deter the previous Roland Garros semifinalist at crunch time in the present day.
Sakkari stated she’s conscious of the concentrate on her latest closing 4 futility—pointing on the market’s even a YouTube video on the subject— and is decided to “overcome it.”
“I actually tried to dam that semifinal factor that has been happening and on for thus lengthy and in each totally different platform. I simply do not actually care anymore,” Sakkari stated with a smile. “They’ve made YouTube movies of my shedding semifinals. I am, like, No matter. Persons are simply so dumb (smiling).”Â
In the end, Sakkari stated clearing the semifinal stumbling block will hopefully assist vault her to her second profession title and first on onerous courtroom.
“I am telling you, I feel when you had been to ask numerous gamers on the tour if they’d take my semifinal file, they’d say sure, as a result of I am not shedding first spherical. I am shedding in semifinal,” Sakkari stated. “So on the similar time, it is nothing unhealthy about it.
“However clearly I had it in my thoughts that I need to overcome that for this yr, and, you understand, it is one thing that I am comfortable about that it occurred this week. However I am not achieved but. That is how I really feel.”
Picture credit score: Matthew Calvis