Kristina Mladenovic:I don't want to be in a bubble. I just try to be myself
Following her first-round victory against Fiona Ferro at the French Open, France’s Kristina Mladenovic disclosed her personal thoughts on important concepts, notably on her cooperation with Naomi Osaka’s former coach Sascha Bajin.
To help her progress on a daily basis, the German uses “little details” to upgrade the World No. 53’s practice and game, “I really trust his work, I think he’s one of the best coaches on tour. I’m very flattered that he accepted to train me, to share my project. It’s always a bonus. We work and we advance.”
Regarding the challenging conclusion of her match against Ferrero, Mladenovic demonstrated a constructive attitude, “It keeps us alert, having difficult situations where you save breakpoints and you have to play everything physically, mentally, to stay positive, to find the right resources when you're back against the wall and facing a difficult situation.
So indeed it's positive, and it gives food for thought versus when everything is going perfectly fine. Of course, it's fantastic, but a match like today is very positive. There are a lot of lessons to learn in good and not-so-good moments to identify the room for improvement.
In the end, a victory is always positive, whatever happens.”
Mladenovic also affirmed that she doesn’t feel an overwhelming pressure when she plays her home Grand Slam, “I don't want to attract bad luck, but I have never had any problems, in management or mistakes with respect to my previous Roland Garros tournaments. It's always been a great pleasure. I always took it in the best way possible.
That means it's just a trait of my character. It depends on how I take pressure or adrenaline or tension which can exist because I'm a French player and I'm playing Roland Garros.
But I try to turn that into something very positive, joyful, and to keep smiling and see that as a big challenge, where I have to fight with the difficulty of trying to overcome that challenge.
And I don't remember that for any match since, I don't know how many Roland Garros tournaments I have played, maybe 10, but I don't remember -- well, sometimes there is an opponent which is stronger than you and deserves winning. But at no point in time, I felt I could not play my tennis due to this pressure or something else.
So for me, it's very natural. I don't have any routine. I don't want to be in a bubble. I just try to be myself. I try to focus, to be concentrated, to be on the court, and to focus on the sports part and I'm always happy to be on the court.”
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2EBzubz
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