ROLAND GARROS

September 30, 2020

Astra Sharma

Press Conference

E. ALEXANDROVA/A. Sharma

6-3, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Can you sum up your thoughts on the match?

ASTRA SHARMA: I think she played a pretty clean match. She came pretty aggressive at me. I just don't think I was consistent enough on both wings to match up to her. I don't think I returned very well either.

I think with those two kind of factors combined, she kind of ran away with it.

Q. Do you think your second serve let you down, as well?

ASTRA SHARMA: Yeah, I felt like she was reading some of my serves pretty well, and I wasn't probably getting enough zip on them. With colder, heavier conditions, I think I maybe should have played around a bit with that, yeah.

Q. What is your takeaway from the week? Obviously it could have been very different if you didn't have that name drawn out of the hat.

ASTRA SHARMA: Yeah, really grateful for the opportunities. Loads of lessons. I mean, I had five matches now I think here at French Open. Five matches at that sort of level, I mean, that's incredible to take away for learning and everything, yeah.

Q. How do you make sure those lessons learnt can carry over as far forward as the Australian summer?

ASTRA SHARMA: I mean, yeah, it's pretty easy. I think whenever you play matches at this level, you're exposed quite a bit on what you need to work on, what lapsed. Coming to the Australian summer, look, that's a few months away still, I got a lot of time, a lot of specific things I need to work on to get better, push these girls at a higher level, yeah.

Q. Did the money aspect come into your mind, as well? It's a pretty good payday. €84,000 for what you achieved. Does that come into thinking at all or not?

ASTRA SHARMA: I mean, yeah, like off court for sure I think I'm definitely aware of it. Once I step on court, I'm not thinking about ranking points or money. I'm trying to beat my opponent, trying to play my best tennis.

Today I didn't think anything of, like, what round I was in or anything. I was just trying to get out of a hole and play a bit better. Unfortunately that didn't happen, so yeah.

Q. What are you going to do now? Play a few more events in Europe?

ASTRA SHARMA: There is doubles still here. Yeah, after this there is the Ostrava WTA which I hope to get into. Right now I think I'm 58 out of something, so might not be possible. May be heading to the U.S. to play some of the ITFs there. Right now everything is a bit slim pickings, yeah.

Q. I want to understand how hard it's been to navigate the season. Must be quite a challenge how best to get around, where to play, how to stay safe.

ASTRA SHARMA: Yeah, definitely, look, it's just been up in the air for most of it. You commit to some events, then they get canceled, you're left stranded. You kind of try to predict the situation.

Europe is not good. A lot of the French ITFs got canceled. You try to make a plan. Then obviously with there not being that many tournaments going on, the ones that are going on are really strong, have a big field. Again, those are hard to get into.

Yeah, at the end of the day it's a bit just luck, trying to pick where you think isn't going to get canceled, where you think you can even get in. So, yeah, those are all factors in it.

Q. Must be hoping everything goes smoothly back here for January.

ASTRA SHARMA: Yeah, I mean, I think I'm pretty optimistic about Australia. I think the government and country have done a great job in their approach to doing the lockdown and everything. It's kept the levels quite low. I'm quite confident the way everything is going it should be pretty normal.

Yeah, fingers crossed for that.

Q. Your confidence level heading into that early next year, you must think you're capable of winning lots of matches?

ASTRA SHARMA: Yeah, I mean, I hope so. I would like to definitely keep improving on the things I've been working on because already they've shown some kind of dividends in my matches in the U.S. and coming over here.

Yeah, hopefully with a little bit more specific focus, good attitude going in, that will be the case. I'll hopefully go far in home country. That would be great.