GUADALAJARA OPEN

October 17, 2022

Marta Kostyuk

Press Conference

M. KOSTYUK/A. Sasnovic

6-1, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Just feel free to jump in with your questions.

Q. How was your experience playing with a Belorussian?

MARTA KOSTYUK: At times it's tough. At times it's better. You know, it's never the same. I tried to put my focus on something else so I don't focus on the nationality I'm playing against.

Obviously, it's better when I win because most of the matches before I lost against those players. It just doesn't feel nice. Losing overall doesn't feel nice, but specifically these kind of matches is always something you want to do because you feel responsible, like I want to win for my country and so on.

But, you know, it's fine. I tried to put my focus on different stuff.

Q. How are you finding your experience in Guadalajara?

MARTA KOSTYUK: It's a great city. I feel very welcome here. Especially by people around who are, like, serving us at the restaurants and hotel. It's a great atmosphere.

I like the sport here. I don't know. It's a great city. I've just seen it from the car (laughing), but it's nice.

Q. Is it your first time?

MARTA KOSTYUK: Yes, first time.

Q. Just talk a little bit about your match today.

MARTA KOSTYUK: It was a good match, obviously, because of altitude the conditions are a bit different. So I was practicing as much as I could and tried to prepare for the match and do my best basically.

I don't know. I don't think she expected me to play the way I played because I tried to manage and to see because I couldn't play how I usually play here. It's not the place, I understand.

I don't know. Just I put a lot of pressure on her because I think she had a feeling she has to play really good and very close to the lines to beat me. That's why she did a lot of mistakes.

I felt like she made a lot of mistakes, but I think it was because of the fact that I was putting a lot of pressure on her like the way I played.

I don't know. It was good. The first set was really quick. The second set we had a bit of a fight, which felt nice because you still want to have this feeling of a fight even every match because you are kind of more ready for the next one.

If it comes too easy, you are, like, Oh, the next one should be probably the same. Then when something goes wrong, you're not as prepared.

Q. In the second round you play Maria Sakkari. What's your opinion about Maria?

MARTA KOSTYUK: I played her last year at the US Open, and coming back from the injury. I was still in a lot of pain. The US Open was my shoulder injury. I hadn't touched a racquet for over a month that period of time.

I don't know. She was very ready for the match, so she was really fighting and very pumped up. These kind of players, when they are ready for you, it's tough. They expect from you to play good tennis.

It's not so easy for me recently because everyone is preparing for me. I just feel that I would say I just feel that players get prepared to play against me big-time, which gives me a very difficult time on court.

I don't know. I'm excited because of the different conditions here. She's a good player, big serve. I'll do my best. We'll see.

Q. How has the circuit been for you this year just with all of the circumstances?

MARTA KOSTYUK: It felt so good to play tennis before the war started because it felt like a lot of stress, but it is nothing compared to how we all, probably all Ukrainians, feel now. It's a different reality.

These last couple of days, I was very nervous these last couple of days, you know, because we are eight hours behind everyone so when I wake up in the morning, most of the day has gone by in Europe, in Ukraine, and a lot of news, a lot of things happened already.

Any time I go to sleep here, it's like, Okay, tomorrow I might wake up and, I don't know, there's going to be a nuclear bomb somewhere, or something like this, you know?

Some weeks it's fine. Then last week they did this huge strike of - how you say? - Uranium drums in the city center. I was just there, and it happened two days after I left, places that I was every day. These kind of things, you know...

The one that happened last week was pretty difficult because before everything was more or less stable, like understandable because the war was happening, but we could understand how it's going because it was all on the south and the east. Okay, it's the war, but it's just there. It's there.

Then now it's just civilians, and the striking that they do makes no sense. It's very random. You never know what to expect.

These last couple of days were pretty, pretty tough. Today as well. Like, I woke up in the morning, and, again, the city center. It's never easy.

I don't know. I was just asking my mom today when is this going to end? It's just so tiring. The problem is no one feels bad for you. It's not like I come on court and everyone is, like, Oh, she has a war at home, I'm going to give her a couple of games or give her a match. It doesn't work like this.

I'm at disadvantage every single day compared to other girls. I don't know. I'm always down compared to everyone else.

Obviously, on top of that I have my own issues, like everyone else does. I don't know. I just feel at constant disadvantage. It's more tiring than usually. Obviously, more stressful.

I just hope my career is not going to end quicker because of this.