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U.S. OPEN

August 29, 2016

Monica Puig

New York, NY, USA

S. ZHENG/M. Puig

6-4, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How tough was it out there today?
MONICA PUIG: It's always a little bit tough, especially coming off winning the Olympic gold medal. A lot of pressure, a lot of expectation, but I can always continue to learn. That's what I'm going to try and do.

All credit to her, though. She played well. She complicated me just enough. But, you know, I'm still learning. I'll still growing. Trying to find the positives out of everything.

Q. Does this feel like something you're going to have to take some time to process in terms of recovering in a way from this big career achievement?
MONICA PUIG: Sure. I've never been here before. These are new waters for me, new territory. I'm going to have to start getting used to it. Once it starts becoming a little bit more of a habit, then I'll feel comfortable.

It took me a while to be comfortable being in the top 50, the top 30, all this stuff. It's always a process. I'm just going to have to keep learning and just take it day by day.

Q. New York City has such a big Puerto Rican community. What did you make of the crowd support for you?
MONICA PUIG: Well, it was great. Everyone was there supporting me. They didn't really let down at any moment. It's even great to see that at my lowest points they were there for me. I really appreciate it.

I know that I can always come back to New York and have a Puerto Rican family there for me.

Q. You mentioned positives that you want to take from this match. What are some of those positives that you are going to work on?
MONICA PUIG: At no point in the match did I have a bad attitude towards what was going on, and no moment did I give up. That's really positive for me, because no matter how tough situations get, I know that I won't give up and I'll always keep trying.

I tried to be aggressive when I could. It didn't happen today. But we have bad days as tennis players. I just got to keep working on my game.

Again, I'm still in the process of learning. There's so much to be done still with my game. I'm 22 years old. There's always room for improvement. I'm just going to go back to the drawing board with my team and see what else we can fix.

Q. How tough is it that it was such a big tournament so soon? Did you feel maybe there could have been an extra week between the Olympics?
MONICA PUIG: I wish. Everybody does. Kind of had some time to come down from the high a little bit. At the end of the day, the calendar doesn't really give you much room to, you know, ask and take, whatever. You have to get back out there like everybody else does.

Kerber went out after the final of the Olympics and made finals of Cincinnati. But, again, she's been there. She knows what it's like. She knows she's No. 2 in the world. She's tested the waters out a little bit. I'm brand-new to this.

I need to keep racking up as much experience as I can. You know what? This isn't going to be the last of me. I know I'm going to keep working hard. The Olympics was something that happened because of all my hard work.

I'm just going to keep working harder to get those results as soon as possible.

Q. Kerber, after she won her first Grand Slam, she had struggles. Does that give you confidence knowing they were able to rebound from that?
MONICA PUIG: Of course. I mean, I'm playing well. I'm playing good tennis. I feel good out on the court. I feel good hitting the ball. It's something I did tell myself.

Garbine won her first Grand Slam and then she had a little bit of a letdown. She's coming into her own as well.

A lot of people go through this. It's not, you know, just me. That's what a lot of people need to kind of understand sometimes. I've gotten a lot of negativity over these past few weeks. I'm like, Well, okay, take your time a little bit. You know, I'm still learning. I'm still coming about.

With time everything will become a lot easier for me. Again, it's all about hard work and it's all I'm going to keep doing.

Q. What are some of the things you're going to work on for the next tournament?
MONICA PUIG: I'm going to keep on working on everything in general. I know what type of game I like to play. I know how I play. It's just continuing to make myself as solid as possible to try and patch up all the holes in my game. Just make everything as solid as I can.

There's only a few more tournaments left in the year. I'm going to definitely try and finish the year off with a high. I have had a great year until now, so only going to try and build my confidence up with that and just keep going.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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