Serena Williams was gracious in her defeat at the hands of Karolina Pliskova, crediting her opponent’s amazing shot-making at crucial junctures to her victory.
Williams was serving for the match at 5-1 and was 40-15 ahead at one stage but crashed to a 4-6, 6-4, 5-7 loss at the hands of the seventh seeded Pliskova.
While serving for the match in the seventh game of that final set, Williams looked to have twisted her ankle and looked in discomfort but she refused to blame that for her defeat.
Speaking at the press conference after her quarter-final defeat on Wednesday, Serena said:
“I think she just played well on my serve after that point. I think she just kind of started playing really, really good.”
“My ankle seems to be fine. I don’t usually know until the next day. I think she just played lights out on match points, hitting lines. She just played unbelievable on match points.”
When asked why didn’t she opt to bring out the physical trainer following her injury, Serena said:
“I really hate calling the trainer out, to be honest. And at that point I didn’t feel like I needed it or I didn’t feel like it would be a big deal. So I just kept going.”
“I like to kind of just tough it out.”
The moment you realise you’ve beaten a 7-time #AOChampion & reached your first #AusOpen SF.
? @KaPliskova pic.twitter.com/d9j8hWGee8
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 23, 2019
The match looked so out of Pliskova’s hands that she admitted she had already started thinking of the locker-room in the seventh game. Fortunately for her, her shots came off rather well when she came out all guns blazing towards the end of the encounter.
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