QATAR TOTAL OPEN

March 1, 2021

Garbine Muguruza

Press Conference

G. MUGURUZA/V. Kudermetova

6-2, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. A quality win out there to get going. You've got another tough opponent coming up in your next round against Aryna. I wanted to find out, can you recall an event you have been in where you have come in unseeded and had to play quality opponents from the first round like this?

GARBINE MUGURUZA: Yeah, I feel like many times. Not always I have been seeded. In these tournaments where there is a small draw and everybody wants to play, you know, it's like that. You have to be always in high rankings to avoid facing right away tough opponents.

But I feel like everybody's tough. I mean, today my match, Veronika was a very tough opponent and she's not seeded either.

Just happy with this win. We played a year ago, and I remember it was a tough match. Yeah, happy to have closed it in two sets.

Q. How did you spend your down time since the Australian Open? You had a little bit of time following your loss to Naomi. Did it give you time to kind of refocus yourself for this week in Doha?

GARBINE MUGURUZA: I mean, I went home. I went to Switzerland and I just relaxed, ate nice food, recharged a little bit. Didn't do nothing exciting. Just sometimes there is also a time to do nothing. Because it was very intense, the whole swing with, you know, all the situation and everything we had to go through, you know, I was happy to be back home and just recharge for the next Middle East swing.

Q. Nice opening win today. Can you just look ahead to playing Sabalenka next?

GARBINE MUGURUZA: I mean, yeah. Good match ahead. I think we only played once. I feel like it was a long time ago.

Yeah, I think she's playing great. Last year and this year I saw she's winning titles and playing good tennis.

I'm excited to face these top players. I feel like every match is hard.

Q. I believe that the courts in Doha, it's the same surface as they put down in Australia because of the qualifying event that was held there. I'm curious, for you, do you find that it's playing similar, or do you find it's playing very differently from Melbourne?

GARBINE MUGURUZA: I mean, I'm not really -- I'm not that sensible, I would say, as other players. I try not to think a lot.

But I do feel like it's a little bit slower here. Like I feel like the surface has been renew and it's very fresh and it's very grippy. I don't know if that's a word, but...

So I felt it was a little bit slow in comparison to the Rod Laver Arena or Margaret Court.

Q. If you could just talk a little bit about a little bit of a curveball obviously with Conchi, but how has that been working out in terms of coordinating your practices, getting input? I see she's watching live your practices, I guess. Is it difficult this way, or have you found ways around it to make it work?

GARBINE MUGURUZA: I mean, it has been a challenge, but I guess everybody has to, you know, to go through this virus with all of this traveling. I feel like sooner or later, you know, we are always exposed, so it's always tough to find a way and to have a member of the team in quarantine.

But with technology, I feel like we are trying to do our best. She's always with us, watching my practices and on my ear kind of with my beads. I connect them and I can hear her.

I even practiced one day, part of the practice with the ear phone and, you know, just tried to have a laugh also out of all this, because it's tough and we have to adapt all the time to every circumstance. But so far we are finding a way.