MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Some professional tennis players try to improve their serves or tweak their backhand slice mechanics. Maybe a better comeback is the focus. Or change those patterns.
For Magda Lynette, 31, from Poland, who advanced to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at Monday’s Australian Open by defeating fourth seed Caroline Garcia 7-6 (3) 6-4, her efforts were worth it. Half a year ago, I targeted what she called “emotional management.”
what did it entail? Aside from learning how to deal with losses, the 45th-ranked Lynette explained that she also makes “little mistakes here and there” during matches.
“I never really got along with them. rice field.
Of course, Lynette added that he wants to improve how he hits his groundstrokes, for example by placing them deeper into the court. But what she knew was most important to her and her coach was to “grow a little bit emotionally.”
Lynette’s next opponent is 30th seed Karolina Pliskova. Karolina Pliskova is a two-time Grand Slam runner-up with a 6-0, 6-4 victory over No. 23 seed Zhang Shuai on Monday. She has reached the finals at the US Open in 2016, Wimbledon in 2021, and in 2019 at Melbourne Sheriff Park.
The other women remaining in the other half of the bracket reached the quarterfinals for the first time at the Australian Open: fifth Alina Sabalenka and unseeded Dona Bekić. Sabalenka improved her 2023 to 8-0, No. 12 Belinda she beat Bencic 7-5 6-2 and Vekic in women’s doubles she won 21 Grand Slam titles. I was getting help from my own former player Pam Schreiber, but it ended. The 17-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova’s run she was 6-2, 1-6, 6-3.
Other quarterfinals are third-placed Jessica Pegula vs. two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka and current Wimbledon winner Jelena Ryvakina vs. 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.
“I definitely felt like I couldn’t handle her power today. I think that was the biggest difference,” Bencic said of Sabalenka. Sabalenka has reached the semi-finals in three of her last five major tournaments and has done nothing more. “Still, I don’t think this is a really bad loss. She’s in really good shape right now, for sure.”
So does Lynette.
Until last week, when she beat Mayar Sherif in the first round — which she made it all the way to on the small court of No. 17 — then two pairs of seeds, No. 16 Anett Kontaveit and No. 19 Ekaterina Alexandrova, went on to beat Lynette. hadn’t advanced in a week. She finished second in a Grand Slam tournament.
By overtaking current US Open semi-finalist and WTA Finals champion Garcia, Lynette not only made it through the third round, but reached the semi-finals in her 30th major appearance.
Instead of years of thinking and worrying about whether we could make this kind of breakthrough, Lynette said, “It was more of the frustration of ‘How can I not?'”
Garcia was unable to fully equip his attacking style on Monday.
“She was rock solid and focused on what she wanted to do,” Garcia said of Lynette. “She had her confidence. Maybe because of the good wins over the last few days, she went for it… something I couldn’t do.”
The more positive outlook that Lynette is trying to take from match to match, set to set and point to point seems to be working quite well at the moment.
“I was being too negative and being too hard on myself,” Lynette said.
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