ROLAND GARROS

October 7, 2020

Alexa Guarachi

Press Conference

GUARACHI-KRAWCZYK/Aoyama-Shibahara

6-0, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. (Question about first-ever doubles semifinalist.) How does it feel?

ALEXA GUARACHI: It feels like a dream. I'm so happy. Yeah, I feel unbelievably happy, but I also know we are playing really good tennis, and we have been playing good tennis all year.

I'm just really happy it's kind of paying off now, seeing the results, and I know that we can keep going further in the tournament. It's really exciting.

Q. Five years ago you had this ACL injury and you were doing great but then you lost all your points. When you returned to the court back in Chile, did you imagine yourself as a Grand Slam semifinalist at the time?

ALEXA GUARACHI: I didn't, and I honestly didn't even know that I would pursue doubles like this. You know, after I graduated college I really wanted to play singles and see how far I could go. And especially with the knee injury I felt like I don't know if I can come back, can I do this? I'm just going to try and see.

I had so much fun in doubles. It was just so much fun for me, and I had a lot of success. So I think it just started rolling from there.

Then all of a sudden I felt like, you know, the biggest thing for me was when I qualified for Wimbledon two years ago, and we lost first round against Siniakova and Krejcikova, and they ended up winning Wimbledon that year, and we lost in three sets. For me, that was a moment in my career where I thought, wow, I'm right there with the girls that can win the slams. So if I just keep working and building and creating opportunities for myself, I think I can get there.

Q. Talking about the match there, you played a flawless, almost perfect first set. What were the keys to that amazing start?

ALEXA GUARACHI: I think we just played within ourself. We didn't let the moment get too big, think about, oh, we're in the quarterfinals. We just went out there and played our tennis and knew how they played.

Yeah, just knew that we had to be aggressive and play our tennis. We had to go on our terms.

Q. Then in the second set you were a break up, you had breakpoints to be two breaks up in the second and the match could have been over like earlier, but then you got broken back. Did you feel at that moment that you relaxed a little bit, or was just your opponents improving a lot?

ALEXA GUARACHI: I think it was a little bit of a combination of both. Maybe we kind of relaxed just a little bit, and they were definitely playing a little bit better, taking a little more pace off the ball and making me question the returns a little bit more.

But I knew that I had played them before in St. Petersburg and we won the first set, and they came back and won the second set and then won the tiebreaker. I knew they were going to fight back. Just had to play within ourself and just keep playing the way we played in the first set.

Q. You played Lenglen and had the chance to play Centre Court last year, and it was totally full, it was a dream for you. Was it weird? Was it strange for you to play at such a big court today and having like almost no crowd?

ALEXA GUARACHI: No, actually. I mean, it was a beautiful stadium. I'm so lucky to be able to play in there.

I think last year having the experience at Centre Court at Wimbledon was an amazing experience. I felt so much pressure. There were just so many people.

So now I think using that experience to now, I feel very relaxed in those big stadiums. Yeah, I feel just excited. I can focus more on the tennis instead of on everything else around me.

Q. With the WTA Tour having just one tournament following the French, probably after this tournament you'll probably have to plan for next season already. Having this run at the last big tournament in months, now being a brand new top 30, do you take it as a challenge to keep this momentum going to next year?

ALEXA GUARACHI: Yeah, definitely take it as a challenge, but I definitely want to use the momentum. I think the tournaments are going to start in Australia maybe beginning of January, so this will be my last tournament of the year, but only a couple weeks off and then we're back to training and the season starts all over again coming up.

I'm just excited. It's kind of exciting to finish the last tournament like this. I think we can still keep going and going further in the tournament, but, yeah, just excited and staying in the moment.