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HENGQIN LIFE WTA ELITE TROPHY ZHUHAI

October 21, 2019

Maria Sakkari

Zhuhai, China

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English, please.

Q. You were at the draw ceremony earlier today. Your first time here in Zhuhai, what do you make of the experience thus far?
MARIA SAKKARI: As I said during the draw ceremony, it was one of my goals, I'm very happy to be here, even though I missed four out of like many of the big tournaments, like Doha, Dubai, Wuhan, Beijing, still made it, so I'm very happy for that. I can now really tell that I had a good year, despite my two injuries, and I'm actually very excited.

Q. How do you feel about your group, the other two players?
MARIA SAKKARI: I mean, I knew that there are no easy matches here and of course they're two very different players. Aryna is like one of the biggest hitters on the tour and Elise is one of the most solid players, I would say.

But I've played with them, I played with both of them this year, so, I mean, we all know how to play each other.

Q. In the middle of the season we noticed that you changed your hair style with your two bands, which look pretty cute and pretty much like Chinese old style, because in ancient China every little young girl used that hair style. So we want to know where is the inspiration come from and can we see that again in Zhuhai?
MARIA SAKKARI: Well, if you ask for it, you will have it, because this week I have my mom with me, so she's going to help me, because it really took a lot of time for me to do it. My inspiration was my friend Ajla Tomljanovic, she was like, she did it first and then we decided to do it for our doubles. And then I was like, let's try for singles.

But then I was having a headache and it was too tight and then I was losing hair and I'm like I'm not really good about losing hair.

So maybe I'll try it out, if I reach the final, I will -- okay maybe if I reach the semi-final I will do it.

Q. A lot of players set a lot of goals probably at the start of the season and throughout the year and some happen, some don't. Is it a special feeling when one that you have set comes true and do you then want to set another goal right after that? How does that process work for you?
MARIA SAKKARI: Yeah, of course, I was quite unlucky that I didn't get to play, because I didn't get to play now during the Asian tour, because I had some goals for that tour, but I couldn't play, so I couldn't reach them.

But I'm, as I said, I'm very happy that even though I didn't play so much lately I got to reach one of my goals. Of course, after this week it's time to rest and refresh our mind and set new goals for next year.

Q. Do you remember during the interviews, Stefanos Tsitsipas said he would like to play mixed doubles with you in Olympic games next year. How do you feel about this invitation?
MARIA SAKKARI: I think that it's not an invitation, I think it's something that we both have really spoke about it since we first played at the Hopeman Cup this year. I think we're a pretty good team and we have high hopes for the Olympics. Hopefully it's going to happen. If we have a high ranking by the Olympics it's going to happen for sure.

THE MODERATOR: Questions in Chinese.

Q. We know this is the first time in Zhuhai for you and have you seen the city and how do you feel about the city? And your friend, Tsitsipas has been here a month ago. Does he give you any advice or recommendations for you to see in the city?
MARIA SAKKARI: No, actually, I didn't have so much time to go around, but hopefully during the week I will have some time. It looks like a city that doesn't stop building, I would say. It's a very nice location, but I will let you know more at the end of the week.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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