Maria Sharapova, who had won the U.S. Open back then, about a decade later at the US Open 2018, was not able to make it. Having beaten by Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, Sharapova lost it in the fourth round by 6-4 and 6-3 on Monday.
She described her performance: “Just a little too up-and-down.”
Facing trouble in serving and recurrently catching wayward ball tosses, she committed eight double faults and was smashed in six out of her 10 service games. Despite being right-handed, many a time, she switched the racket to her left hand for taking a desperate shot for grabbing a point. Furthermore, her errors were almost double than that of Suarez Navarro.
When asked about how she foresees her game in the future, she responded:
“First of all, if I didn’t have the belief to keep doing this and to keep having the motivation and the grind of doing this every day in order to get myself in these positions, I don’t think I would be here. I think I’ve done plenty in my career, established a lot for myself personally, professionally.”
“The belief is not something that I’m eager to show everybody else,” Sharapova added. “The belief matters most when it’s internal and when you have a passion for something. If you don’t, it’s your choice to not continue that, not for anyone else to tell you so.”
