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AEGON INTERNATIONAL

June 24, 2016

Johanna Konta

Eastbourne, England

K. PLISKOVA/J. Konta

6-7, 6-3, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Firstly, how's the ankle?
JOHANNA KONTA: Ankle's fine.

Q. The fall that shook you a little bit.
JOHANNA KONTA: Yeah, no, it was quite an aggressive fall the way it happened. It just -- yeah, it rattled me a bit. It was a bit of a shock and, yeah, nothing happened. Nothing major happened.

Q. Did you have any idea what was going on behind you when the screaming started?
JOHANNA KONTA: No idea, no idea. No.

Q. Stopped you from crying, though?
JOHANNA KONTA: No, no, it did shock me, as well. I had a lot of shocks going, yeah.

Q. It's good to see you smiling. Do you feel okay now? Seemed like a very emotional moment there.
JOHANNA KONTA: Oh, yeah. I was fine after that. The crying happened just because the shock of the fall, it really did shock me because the way my leg twisted, it was like it was just a bit of a shock.

I tend to cry when I get shocked. Don't shock me, guys. (Laughter.)

Q. Everyone would want to know -- obviously you were limping a little bit, it seems.
JOHANNA KONTA: No. Gosh, no, no, no. I was only limping straight after just because -- yeah, like the way the fall happened, I couldn't actually get up because my body spasmed up a bit. And then it's fine. Yeah, no, like, I'm fine.

Q. Have you had any treatment on it?
JOHANNA KONTA: Yeah. Honestly, guys, I'm fine. (Laughter.)

Q. Does this happen to you all the time? Yeah, yeah, yeah, a bit shocked, have a cry?
JOHANNA KONTA: Yeah, it's just get it out of the way, just get it out of the system. Yeah, it does happen. It does happen.

I tend to, if I get very heightened in emotion I usually cry. Whether it's good or bad, I cry.

Q. It's rare to see this much emotion from you. You have worked hard to keep that under control.
JOHANNA KONTA: To cry?

Q. It was a really big opportunity for you to make your first final in front of the home crowd. Must have been a big sort of well of emotion.
JOHANNA KONTA: I think honestly the crying thing was from the fall. It was nothing else. It was from the fall.

But I thought actually I did quite a good job with really not adding to the occasion of my own expectations or the expectations of people around me, being in the semis, maybe making finals.

I really kept myself quite far away from any thought of, yeah, any sort of thought process like that. Yeah, no, I was -- I even forgot about the previous match I had played only an hour and a half earlier. I was very much, yeah, just there in that match.

Q. How tiring was that to compete like that so close together? It was not before 4:00 for your second game and you were pretty much...
JOHANNA KONTA: We were on at 4:00. Yeah, no, we were. Well, it's not ideal but it's the challenges that I was faced with today. My opponent, she also played earlier today, as well.

So we were in similar boats. Actually, I thought I did quite well really, because it was so close, such a short turnaround. I thought I did quite well in just getting on with it.

Q. How do you bring yourself back up then? You had a good win. You had to sort of bring yourself back again.
JOHANNA KONTA: It's more like I never left. I think it's more of not so much, you know, cooling down and then warming back up. It was literally I started my first match and then I finished end of this match, so there was no cooling down in between. It was just you kept yourself, yeah, kept going.

Q. How would you sum up your Eastbourne experience this week, Jo?
JOHANNA KONTA: Shocking. (Smiling.) Well, it was pretty spectacular in a way. I mean, I played again a bunch of really, really good matches against really, really good players.

I got to stay at home that much longer. So, yeah. No, I think overall it's been a very happy and positive week.

Q. Have you looked at your Wimbledon draw?
JOHANNA KONTA: No, but you're going to tell me.

Q. Monica Puig. First round.
JOHANNA KONTA: Okay.

Q. Any reaction?
JOHANNA KONTA: Well, she's been playing well, made semis here. Yeah, so it will be a tough match. But we played I think once previously last year on the grass and it was a close match then. I'll expect nothing other than it being tough.

Q. Serena in the semifinals.
JOHANNA KONTA: Oh, yeah, let's totally talk about the semis. (Laughter.) Yeah.

Q. No problem?
JOHANNA KONTA: Yeah.

Q. And the fancy locker room beckons.
JOHANNA KONTA: Yeah, I saw that. I kind of felt like I had been upgraded like an airline upgrade. Felt like I sort of got upgraded to business. It was like, Oh, look at that.

Q. And upstairs?
JOHANNA KONTA: It's not so much that it's upstairs. I don't know if you have been to Wimbledon, but you know the little walkway, the little bridge? You don't have to go down. It's just there. (Laughter.)

Q. That's what you were talking about?
JOHANNA KONTA: It's pretty much business class. You don't have to walk all the way to the back of the plane. It's just there.

Q. (Indiscernible.)
JOHANNA KONTA: No, because I'll be with the girls that I see every week. So, no.

Q. Do we think the towels will be more fluffy there?
JOHANNA KONTA: No, no. Well, actually I'll let you know.

Q. You seem a little more upbeat now after defeat than you were, I don't know whether it was yesterday or the day before in victory.
JOHANNA KONTA: Well, no, I think it's more that the shock that happened and now I have cooled down, so now I'm like, I'm alive. Everything is okay. I haven't dislocated any joints. (Laughter.)

Q. Hungary versus Belgium on Sunday, will your dad be watching that?
JOHANNA KONTA: Certainly on Sunday. Who knows. I'll probably know what's going on even if I'm not watching.

Q. You've got very little time to sort of get some practice in in London. I'm guessing you will head straight down there?
JOHANNA KONTA: Head up to London?

Q. Yes.
JOHANNA KONTA: Yeah, I have not yet decided exactly when I'm leaving but I'm definitely staying at home tonight. But then I'll slowly make my way.

Q. What do you think of your prospects at Wimbledon over the next fortnight?
JOHANNA KONTA: I don't -- well, I guess I'm healthy, so my prospect is that I'm going to be playing, which I'm most looking forward to. Another thing that's for certain is I'm playing a very good player in the first round who has done very well on the grass these last number of weeks and this year has played some very, very good tennis.

Going into the match it will be 50/50, and I will go in there and try to get it as much in my favor as possible.

Q. Does it feel extra special to do well in your hometown of Eastbourne?
JOHANNA KONTA: Yes. Yeah, because I get to just be in this little bubble of an environment that much longer. I want to prolong it and, yeah, make it last as long as possible. Yeah, I guess it's the first time I made a semifinal at a WTA and that happened here, and last year was the first time I had every beaten a top-10 player. So, yeah, I get to have a lot of firsts here.

Q. So obviously in the final next year then?
JOHANNA KONTA: No. The thing is previous results are in no way a reflection of what's going to happen next year.

Q. How do you think it will compare to playing your home slam coming in as a seed?
JOHANNA KONTA: I don't know. I'll let you know if there is any change. I don't know. I honestly don't know what to expect. I'm not expecting anything. It will be what it will be.

Q. The fact that you went one step further this year than last year, is it a possibility your ranking might even improve on 18?
JOHANNA KONTA: Oh, I don't know. I don't count points. I don't look at how much is in between me and -- all I know is that the higher you go up, the more significant points you have to do to move even one spot. So, yeah, I don't know.

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