OMNIUM BANQUE NATIONALE

August 10, 2021

Carol Zhao

Press Conference

S. SORRIBES TORMO/C. Zhao

6-2, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Would you walk us through your match, how you felt your performance was.

CAROL ZHAO: Yes, obviously disappointed with the results today. I thought there were good stretches during the match, but didn't execute in some of the important moments where I felt like I had some windows of opportunity. Obviously she played tough on the big points.

Yeah, so just hope to learn as much as I can from it and move on to the next.

Q. You've been playing this tournament for a long time. How do you look back at this experience overall this year?

CAROL ZHAO: Obviously it was different than previous years. I also played on a court with no fans, so it didn't feel as, I guess, rowdy as the other years. But still it's always special to have an opportunity to play here, not one that I take lightly.

I obviously wanted to put forth my best performance today. Hopefully I'll have more chances in the future to do better.

Q. What was the difference between you two today technically? What did she do better than you?

CAROL ZHAO: Yeah, I think she had a bit more confidence in the big moments. I think we had a lot of close games today, especially in the first set, that I think a few points made the difference. Yeah, she just hung tough, made the right decisions on the bigger points.

Yeah, a lot of times it's hard to reflect on right away, not having seen the full stats and everything. But I'm sure there's things that I could do better. Will go back and analyze those.

Q. Did the first break in the first set change the complexity of this whole match?

CAROL ZHAO: Like maybe a little bit. I think I had some chances at 2-All on her serve. Obviously didn't get the break there. Bit of a momentum swing. Obviously she broke me at 2-3. Playing from behind against someone who's obviously playing with a lot of confidence right now like her is going to be a little bit tougher.

I think I tried to recover, but ultimately couldn't quite do that today.

Q. How did you decide to play doubles with Melodie?

CAROL ZHAO: The opportunity came forth from Tennis Canada. They proposed that I would play with Melodie this year. I often was the junior playing with the more experienced player. I thought it was a cool chance for me to get to play someone up-and-coming.

We played a good match yesterday, so looking forward to the next one tomorrow hopefully.

Q. Can you talk about your team, if you made any changes.

CAROL ZHAO: Yeah, right now I'm on a trial basis with a new coach, making some adjustments with my team. Right now, this year especially with the pandemic, it's been very hard to sort of have consistency in terms of my staff.

Hopefully we can also have some sort of consistency there for the rest of the year. I'm sure that will help my performance overall.