Svitolina after surviving Gasparyan: “I was a little shocked”
Elina Svitolina was surprised by the withdrawal of her Russian opponent, Margareta Gasparyan, who missed a match-point minutes before being forced to throw in the towel due to physical problems.
Gasparyan was leading one set to love and had the upper hand in the second set (5-4) before missing a match-point and letting the Ukrainian make it 5-5. Then, the physical problems came for Gasparyan who conceded a break and withdrew a few points after that.
Svitolina was highly involved in the match and was surprised by the unfortunate event: "Honestly, I was a little bit shocked. It's never nice to get this when someone is injured like that. It puts you a little bit off. In the end, we'd expect that she would go and play. It happened that way and really unfortunate for her."
The Ukrainian admitted that Gasparyan’s game pushed her hard: "She played some great tennis. She was really striking the ball really good and playing some great tennis. I had to really fight and try to earn my opportunity. Yeah, it was good that I held for 5-All, and that was my plan to do. She was just going for all the shots today, and she played really strong today. I think she's, in general, a really good player."
Furthermore, Svitolina continued to congratulate Gasparyan saying that the Russian should be much higher in the rankings that number 62: "I know that she was struggling a little bit with injuries, but I think her ranking should be much higher than it actually is. Yeah, she actually strikes the ball really clean. Her serve is big."
Elina concluded that the match was a “tough battle”, but she expects nothing different from her next match against Sakkari. "It's going to be another tough one. I know she improved massively for the past years, and she can really play great matches and great tournaments,", said Svitolina about her third-round opponent.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2XpJ2BU
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