Paula Badosa has described her quarter-final exit to Emma Navarro at the US Open as a ‘disaster.’
The Spaniard has had an amazing US hard court season but was well and truly beaten by Emma Navarro in the quarter-finals.
Badosa lost the opening set 6-2 but had a convincing 5-1 lead in the second set as she was seemingly well on her way to forcing a deciding set.
However it wasn’t Badosa’s day as she lost six games in a row to lose in the quarter-final stage.
Speaking after the match a disappointed Badosa described the performance as a ‘disaster,’ “Well, I’m very disappointed with my level today. I think she played really good and she managed the situation really well, and I was completely disaster,” Badosa said in her press conference.
“I never had the momentum in this match. I played four or five games okay. It was 5-1, but I never felt myself in the court. I didn’t feel serving well, playing well from the baseline. That’s my biggest strength.
“So I think today it surprised me because I was playing pretty good the other matches, I was feeling good. But when I walked into the court, I think I didn’t match well the situation or the emotions. It was a bit hard to handle for me. I wanted to win so much that sometimes that doesn’t help at all.”
It wasn’t an ideal performance from Badosa as she will feel that it was a missed opportunity as she was bidding to reach a first Grand Slam semi-final.
When asked to elaborate on the performance being a disaster, Badosa said that everything went badly in her defeat to Navarro, “Everything. Everything. This is the first time it happens to me in my career. I think losing a set from 5-1 up, I never did that before,” Badosa stated.
“So I think there is always a first time for something, so it had to come today unfortunately. I don’t know. I still need to think what happened, because I had two service games there also. I started to miss. I lost, I don’t know, 20 points almost in a row.
“It’s very weird for me because I’m quite a consistent player, so I wasn’t expecting that either. So I’m quite disappointed.”
Despite the loss it’s been a great summer for Badosa which has included a title at the WTA 500 event in Washington.
Reflecting on the past few months Badosa admitted she is proud of her results and her recent progression, “Yeah, now I say it’s a disaster, but when I started in Washington I would sign all the results for sure,” Badosa admitted.
“And coming from where I’m coming from, look, I have to be happy. I don’t know. Maybe I’m 15 in the race, so I wasn’t expecting that a few months ago. So on that, I’m really proud of myself. The thing that for me makes me the way I am today, it’s a slam and, you know, your dream is always to make last rounds in a slam.
“Performing the way I performed today, I know that if it wasn’t a slam I would perform well. So that’s what’s a little bit why I’m like this today, you know. Because I didn’t know how to handle it the best way. Now I have to wait four months for the next slam, so it sucks.”
As things stand Badosa will climb up nine places to 20 in the wold heading into the last few months of the season.
