AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January 18, 2022

Daria Saville

Press Conference

R. PETERSON/D. Saville

6-2, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: You fought hard today but unfortunately not your day. Take us through the match.

DARIA SAVILLE: Yeah, I'm disappointed, but at the same time I've got to really stick with my expectations.

I think where I'm at is that I really need to get back on court and get some matches under my belt and build from there. Obviously very fortunate to get a wild card and to be playing a Grand Slam, but I definitely need to get back on court and get training and build back.

I'm really hoping to play a full year, full season this year. The last two years I've played seven matches in 2020 and five matches in 2021, so a bit underdone, but yeah, I'm really looking forward to playing a full season.

Q. Chances were pretty even in terms of break point opportunities. Obviously she took a lot of those. Do you feel that the match was a bit closer because you had those break points answers and it could have gone either way had you have nailed those?

DARIA SAVILLE: Yeah, I think I didn't start very well. I feel like I was pretty passive and she was dictating a lot. Even though, yeah, I had chances, especially in second set, like first game, maybe I could have put more pressure on her, but I felt like I was the one always under pressure, always trying to come back. I didn't make her feel like nervous or anything like that.

I think it would have been maybe a bit different. She started giving me a few points away, but she was still the one dictating and not me. Whenever I had chances, I didn't take them.

Q. Given the long break after last year's Australian Open, how is your body pulling up after matches? Are you feeling okay generally?

DARIA SAVILLE: Yeah, I'm feeling good. I still sometimes, like oh, please, I'm trying -- hoping that my feet are going to cooperate with me and not just give up on me, but it's been good. Yeah, like I said, I'm just really going to build on playing a full season.

Q. Has your preparation had to change because of that? Do you have to do different things before and after matches just to make sure that doesn't come back?

DARIA SAVILLE: Well, I just spoke with my coach, and we were saying that my whole -- I'm not really answering the question, but my whole preseason and like the last 12 months I've been preparing to get back on court and not so much preparing to be playing and winning tournaments. My preparation was like just doing a bit of rehab literally just to get back on the court, where now I'm like, okay, I'm back, I've done that, ticked that box. Now I'm going to be training to be playing tournaments and winning.

Hopefully that's going to be a bit different. But yeah, with the way I manage my injury, it's different to how I've been preparing like six years ago, for example, when I was 20, 21. But I've accepted that. That's part of my career, managing my niggles and my achilles. It's just part of it.

Q. You've kind of answered it already, but part of your target for this year you said is playing a full season. Do you have some targets where it's like I want to get to this level of ranking, I want to play all four majors? Is there a certain target that you have?

DARIA SAVILLE: Well, I think getting back to top 100. I'm almost like unranked, so I've got to get back and grind and play some lower ranked tournaments. I can use my protected ranking, and I'm going to be using that.

But it puts you under a bit of pressure because if you don't do so well, one opportunity to use your protected ranking is like wasted. I've got to be smart with the scheduling.

Q. Have you had a thought to what's next? Where do you go after here?

DARIA SAVILLE: Well, hopefully I will play some 25's in Canberra, if that happening, and then I think I'm going to go to South America and use my protected ranking -- sorry, North America and México, play there, and use my protected ranking. I'll use my protected ranking for qualifying like of Indian Wells and Miami.