TENNIS US OPEN – 6th of September 2014. Makarova – Vesnina d. Pennetta – Hingis 2-6, 6-3, 6-2. An interview with Martina Hingis and Flavia Pennetta
Q. So many opportunities in the third set. I don’t know, thousand break points. Makarova first, Vesnina after. Pity.
FLAVIA PENNETTA: Yeah, just a little bit.
MARTINA HINGIS: No, you can’t normally slip away so many opportunities, of course. I mean, it’s a little disappointing that, you know, served well sometimes; sometimes we didn’t go for it enough. Yeah, we definitely had our chances, but when we look back starting the tournament, if you ask me to sign a paper that I’m in the finals, I would probably accept it with my eyes closed. When you’re that close of course you want to win. We beat them before. It’s not like we didn’t have a chance. We showed that we can beat the best doubles teams out there today again, but I felt like the juice ran out a little bit at the end. To push a little bit more, to have a little bit more energy like we had in the beginning of the tournament, I think at the end it was a little bit they were closer, they were more aggressive. Yeah, they pushed more.
Q. What was it like for you being back in a Grand Slam final? What was that feeling like? Do you feel the same?
MARTINA HINGIS: Well, I mean, it’s amazing. I mean, like last year I lost here in the first round to Errani-Vinci. A year later I’m a year older.
FLAVIA PENNETTA: In the final.
MARTINA HINGIS: And I make the finals. So of course I’m really happy. Still a great tournament. That’s not going to take anything away from that. Hopefully we will have more opportunities in the near future. We’ll go to Asia and try to do our best there, and then next year there is again four Grand Slams.
FLAVIA PENNETTA: I mean, for be here after just four tournament in the final is a good result. We just play I think four tournament together, so, I mean, everything is working pretty good. Today we had our chance, but we didn’t make it. I think we had to push a little bit more in the second set, but they play a more aggressive in the 3-2 and they go for the shot all the time. They had also a little bit of lucky, I think, in the important moment. But, I mean, this is matches. Tennis is always like this.
Q. You mentioned how hard it had been for you to find another partner after Gisela. Do you think you two can stay together for a while now? Australia?
FLAVIA PENNETTA: I hope so. Finish this year and then we gonna see what happened next year.
Q. You’re full-time player again? I mean, you want to play all the tournaments or only…
MARTINA HINGIS: No.
FLAVIA PENNETTA: Not all.
MARTINA HINGIS: Not all, but definitely the selected, the smarter ones, the good ones, and the ones you feel good. Today I don’t have to prove nothing to nobody, but definitely there is so many nice tournaments still this year. It hasn’t finished yet. There is, yeah, next season. I’m looking forward to it already now.
Q. It’s better if you stay, because for us, for Italians, it means Pennetta is going to play longer.
FLAVIA PENNETTA: They are scared that I am stopping.
MARTINA HINGIS: Oh, well, I’m keeping her out here hopefully next year, yes.
Q. For Flavia it was a big tournament, great tournament: quarterfinals singles; final in doubles. Which one of the two do you think surprised you more in a way? What was the bigger surprise, to make the quarters in the singles or to make the final in doubles?
FLAVIA PENNETTA: I think the final in doubles more than quarter in singles.
MARTINA HINGIS: She’s been in the semis here last year.
FLAVIA PENNETTA: No, not for that. Just because, I mean, like I say, we didn’t play a lot together. Definitely the draw was really tough from the first match. And the day when we saw the draw, we look each other and we say, Oof, again. I think we play really, really good. Every matches was high level, so… Bad luck for tonight. Still a little bit bitter.
