NATIONAL BANK OPEN

August 9, 2022

Rebecca Marino

Press Conference

Q. ZHENG/R. Marino

3-6, 7-6, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Can you share your thoughts about the match today.

REBECCA MARINO: Sure. Today was a tough three-set match against Zheng. She's really an up and comer. I'm quite proud of that, that I was able to take a set off her.

And I definitely had my chances in that second set, in the tiebreaker. So of course disappointed at that.

But I think considering the quality of the match I'm really proud of the showing that I had today in front of the home crowd.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions.

Q. Sorry about the loss today. I would like to ask you a slightly different question. The news about Serena announcing her retirement after the US Open. What's your reaction to it and what kind of influence was she on you and your game?

REBECCA MARINO: Oh, I think Serena's influenced every single player on tour. She's also brought tennis to a worldwide audience, just in terms of her presence on court and the amount of people she sort of has drawn attention to tennis.

I saw the news this morning. I guess a lot of us aren't terribly surprised. I don't know.

But I think it's fantastic that she's at least still playing right now. She had a great match yesterday that she won. She's still got it.

I think it's great that it's going to be the US Open that she finishes with. Sort of, yeah, All-American kind of gal. And that's, I think, the place to do it. And she's had an incredible career.

Q. Tell me about her career. What's her legacy going to be in this sport?

REBECCA MARINO: Everyone calls her the GOAT, right? The greatest of all time. So I think she's going to hold that legacy for a long, long time and inspire a lot of people to try to do the same sort of thing in the future. Which is a big challenge, but definitely something we can aspire to do.

Q. Did you get to play her at all?

REBECCA MARINO: No, I never played against her. I've only played against Venus. But still both sisters are incredible.

Q. You're playing great tennis right now and do you feel like it's the best tennis you've played in your career what you're showing right now?

REBECCA MARINO: It's hard to say. But I definitely feel like in terms of my comeback I'm playing my best tennis so far since 2018 to now.

It's really hard for me to compare before when I was 19, 20. Because I kind of took my tennis for granted. But I put a lot of hard work and I'm feeling really good on court.

Despite losing the match today, I think I can come out with a lot of confidence heading into the hard court season. I had a good week last week, great match today, definitely a long summer ahead on hard court. And I'm excited to sort of continue to show what level I can bring.

Q. Leylah Fernandez spoke to us last night about the importance of a hometown crowd. What did you think of today's crowd?

REBECCA MARINO: Yeah, the crowd was great today. It's tough when it's sort of dreary, cloudy. It tried to drizzle at some points. So I think we had a good daytime crowd. Definitely a nighttime match is like the big show stopper. But we had a good crowd today.

I think they really supported me. But they were also quite supportive of my opponent. And I thought that was like very Canadian and polite. But a fantastic crowd.

And it's of course always lovely to play in home country. Toronto's kind of like my home, my birthplace. So it's nice to be back here always.

Q. I just want to know about your success this year. To what do you attribute this?

REBECCA MARINO: Not being injured right now (laughing), knock on wood. Like, I mean, I had a big plantar fascia tear that kept me out for a year and a half.

So I've just been progressively working on maintaining my fitness and staying strong, keeping my head down and continuing to work hard with the internal motivation.

I think that's what sort of allowing me to get to this step. Just the incremental progress and taking the right steps along the way.

Q. Is there a new mindset or something?

REBECCA MARINO: Not a recent thing. I think I'm just very grateful that I get to do this for my job on a daily basis. I'm very passionate about what I do. I think it sometimes shows on the court or I hope it shows on the court.

But I just have a lot of appreciation and gratitude for what tennis is giving me.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the parts of the game that you're still trying to improve?

REBECCA MARINO: Yeah, pretty much everything (laughing). You're constantly trying to adjust and improve a lot of things.

A couple things I would probably want to improve is just my return game. My opponent served very well today so that was a big challenge. I do have a big serve and I would like to improve my return to sort of back up the service games.

Of course just trying to come in to net. I think that's sort of the future of women's tennis. We're going to see a lot more women following up the approach shot, coming to net, finishing with a volley or a swing volley. So that's something that I want to add to my game just to have more tools in my toolbox.