Satisfied Sloane Stephens: “I played well from start to finish”
Sloane Stephens had nothing to reproach herself after giving no chance to Timea Bacsinszky in her 6/2, 6/4 victory in the first round of Wimbledon, but pointed out what kind of players do well on grass and talked about what urges more and more WTA players to take breaks along the year.
Sloane resumed her “good match” against Bacsinszky pointing out that the Swiss is a difficult player on grass because of her large arsenal of shots: "Obviously playing Timea is always really tricky because she plays a lot of slices and it's the kind of stuff that works well on the grass... I just stuck with the game plan. I thought I played well from start to finish. A little bumpy at the end. Obviously not much you can do when someone plays with such variety."
The American talked more about what kind of skills it takes to be a solid grass player: “You don't have to be a great mover. You don't have to do a lot of amazing things, but be a good striker of the ball. I think people with a lot of variations in their game, a lot of slices, the court really plays to them. I think you need to be ready and be able to face any type of adversity when you're playing on grass because a lot of different things can happen, you can slip and fall. I think to be able to just really focus and focus on what's in front of you on grass is really important.”
Furthermore, Stephens referred to Barty’s long break from professional tennis and explained that the length of the season and the feeling of being far away from the family tempts a lot of players to do this kind of hiatus: “I think we'll start to see [breaks] more just because the season is so incredibly long and there's so much travel. I think for a lot of girls, family is very important. Being home and being with your loved ones, being able to feel that sense of comfort, but knowing you also have to go to work every day. Work isn't down the street; work is in another country, it may be six thousand miles away. To be able to play longer, you have to have some type of break in there.”
In Sloane’s opinion breaks are beneficial, but not for all players: “Every person is different, because some players, maybe they don't want to go home. For them, playing every week, that's good for them. But like I said, it just depends. For top players to play longer and have longer careers, I'd say breaks are pretty beneficial.”
Former Roland Garros champion, Sloane Stephens, will meet Yafan Wang, who defeated Tereza Martincova, in the second round of Wimbledon.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2XmOs0m
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