Destanee Aiava: 'I enjoy Fed Cup weekends and playing for my country'
The Melbourne native Destanee Aiava was one of the first players born in the 2000s who achieved the success on the professional Tour, winning the first match at the age of 14 and playing in the first final at the age of 15 in 2016. At the beginning of 2017, Destanee qualified for the main draw in Brisbane, becoming the first player born in 2000 to play the WTA match and score a win, beating Bethanie Mattek-Sands before losing to Svetlana Kuznetsova. After a place in the top-150 at the end of 2017, Aiava couldn't repeat that in the season behind us and she is eager to get back on the winning way in the rest of 2019 despite a slow start.
Destanee would love to be in the Fed Cup team against Belarus in April at Pat Rafter Arena in Brisbane and has some big goals in the next seven or eight months, to establish herself as a regular player on $100,000 and WTA tournaments and crack the top-100 for the first time
“It was good to see different Aussie players in the team,” said Aiava. “Because there’s a lot of competition in getting into the team and getting our results to be able to be in contention for the team. I guess having a lot of girls to choose from is an excellent problem to have. It probably makes me even hungrier to want to be in the team again, because I enjoy the Fed Cup weeks. And to have an opportunity to play for my country again. The bittersweet feeling is natural – everyone wants to play for Australia. I think coming from Brisbane into Sydney I put probably a lot of pressure on myself to do well again, because I did so well in Brisbane, beating players that I’d never beaten before, so that extra pressure kind of played in a little bit.
But I think just going back to the drawing board and learning how to come back after a big run in a tournament like that, and just backing up in smaller tournaments is another goal of mine that I’ve been working on. At the top level that I’m transitioning to at the moment, they’re very physical and all quite fit. To keep up with that – especially on the road, for months at a time – it’s pretty important for me to get that fitness up, so I won’t be breaking down or tired as the weeks go by. The goal is to player higher tournaments this year – some more WTA and more ITF $100,000 as opposed to $25,000.
Going to America is probably the best option for me to get more points and to lower my ranking for the bigger tournaments. The aim is to get more matches at that level as well so it will prepare me better for big tournaments like Grand Slams and the WTA leading up to them. I would love to get into the top 100 this year. Last year was a bit rocky with my results, but I feel like I’m definitely in apposition to achieve that this year.”
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