ROLAND GARROS

September 30, 2020

Victoria Azarenka

Press Conference

A. SCHMIEDLOVA/V. Azarenka

6-2, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Sorry your tournament ended today. Just wanted to get your thoughts on Serena. She had to pull out for an injury, Achilles that she suffered at the US Open playing you. How hard is it to keep playing at this stage of your career? Secondly, can anybody match what she's done in tennis?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: That's a lot of questions in one question.

Honestly, I have not thought about that. I just actually just saw like five seconds ago that she withdrew. I don't necessarily have any, much thoughts of this. I think that's unfortunate, but, I mean, I honestly don't know what to say at the moment. Haven't thought about it too much.

Q. None of the women's semifinalists from the US Open will be a factor in the French Open for different reasons from here on out. I'm wondering, in your opinion, how much of that has to do with the surface and how much of that is this very tight turnaround that you tried, attempted?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: I'm just going to speak only for myself, and I will say that today was not the case of a turnaround, was not the case of the court, was not the case of anything else.

This is a lesson for me to learn. I don't think about what happened in New York today. So to me it doesn't really matter.

Q. What is the lesson for you to take from this match?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: Well, the lesson I need to learn is that sometimes when things don't work for me, the way I was playing today was just not the right time, was to be willing to adjust a little bit more and not think kind of in the end of the match to finally start changing your kind of my game.

I felt like I was trying a lot, trying different things, but today things were not working. I felt like nothing really was working, but I still had to find a way to win, and I didn't.

So it's a lesson for me to learn how to be more, I will say, courageous, to go for more. And I will learn it, for sure.

Q. Just wanted to come back to my question about Serena. Is there anybody on the women's tour that could potentially in the future match what she's done, or is that just unrivaled?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I'm not going to sit here and just think about what can happen in 15, 20 years.

So maybe not today ask me those questions, because I'm not in the mood to predict the future.

Q. In your US Open semifinal against Serena, were you aware that she had that heel injury before she sought the injury timeout? How good of a job did she do of hiding that from you early in the match?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: Um, well, when I was down 6-1, I didn't really feel like there was anything wrong. I felt that the match was close.

I mean, look, I don't think that player really watches the other player. I think we do turnaround and kind of try to take care of your own business.

So I don't know. I don't want to speak on her. It's not my -- I don't like to do that, and I'm not going to talk about it.

Q. I guess as a follow, I was more getting at you guys, you're so competitive that it seems as if you'll do anything to not show your cards if you're not feeling exactly right. Is that fair to say?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: Yeah, I think that's fair to say. A lot of players also do the opposite. When they have nothing, they show drama, so...

Q. How do you plan to finish this year? We don't know if there is going to be a finals tournament this year. There may be an announcement, but if there is an announcement, will you consider playing it?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: Well, I actually am not sure if there has been announcement. I know my plan exactly what I'm going to do. If it hasn't been announced, I guess we'll get back to it later. I'm not the person to announce those news, I guess.

Q. So you're done for the year so far, as you know?

VICTORIA AZARENKA: No, I'm not done for the year.