ADELAIDE INTERNATIONAL

January 8, 2023

Linda Noskova

Press Conference

A. SABALENKA/L. Noskova

6-3, 7-6

THE MODERATOR: Tough loss today, but a good week overall. Can you give us your thoughts on how you played today and the tournament as a whole.

LINDA NOSKOVA: Amazing tournament. Just really played great for the entire tournament. I will just try to keep the level for Melbourne quallies.

Obviously a very tough match today. Aryna played just amazing. I didn't have a lot of chances. I did have some break points, but she always served her way out of it. That was really tough to beat.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Have you now put your focus to Melbourne?

LINDA NOSKOVA: I was actually walking down the hallway and I was thinking, Who am I going to play next in Melbourne (smiling)?

I'm really good at just changing topics in my head really quick. So I'm just going to focus on that, for sure. Like, this tournament doesn't matter in a few hours, so yeah.

Q. What have you learned about yourself? Last night you talked about your mentality. What have you learned about yourself this week?

LINDA NOSKOVA: I think that when I trust myself and my game especially, I can just freely go for it, I can definitely play and actually beat some of the best players in the world right now. That's really great feeling.

But I'm obviously going to have to develop my game. There are a lot of blind spots. There's always things to work on, I think.

Q. One of the tough things for the new players on the WTA Tour is learning how to manage the tournament, playing match after match. How much experience do you think you gained managing that?

LINDA NOSKOVA: I am really comfortable playing day by day. I actually don't like the opposite, having like two, three days off between matches. This was just really fitting for me.

I'm just glad I didn't injure myself at all. I'm just, yeah, going to go like this for Melbourne tournament.

Q. Looking ahead a little bit to Melbourne, given the amount of tennis you played, the amount of energy you had to expend, the confidence you gained, was this the perfect preparation for quallies for you?

LINDA NOSKOVA: I mean, the best would have been if I would be in main draw right now (smiling). Unfortunately I have to play quallies.

But I can't say that I have a lot of matches now. So that's going to be a really tough one to compete with. It's just another challenge and I have to go with that.

Q. Did you have hopes that if you won today, you would get that main draw?

LINDA NOSKOVA: No.

Q. You knew?

LINDA NOSKOVA: Yeah, kind of.

Q. (Question about what she would have thought if her coach told her how she would perform this week.)

LINDA NOSKOVA: Well, I don't know. I would just be happy. I don't know how because I don't win any sparring match in practices before. I wasn't really going with it into tournament that I'm definitely going to be in finals or, like, having a chance to win this whole thing.

I'm just glad the way that I played. That's the whole reason.

Q. Would you have been surprised?

LINDA NOSKOVA: Of course, I would be surprised. Who wouldn't be (laughter)?

Q. At the start of the week and the season, what was your preparation? What was your off-season like? Petra said she had sparring matches in the Czech League under her belt. Did you participate in that as well?

LINDA NOSKOVA: I did play Czech league, Czech super league in December. That was like the last tournament of the year. It was just a few days of a few good matches.

But before that I had a preparation off-season. I did earlier because I didn't have lot of matches to do because my limit was done, so I couldn't play anything else. I had a little bit earlier. I was in Slovakia in the mountains preparing. Yeah, I did two, three weeks of practice at home.

Q. You had to come in and do these press conferences with reporters all week. Do you like this aspect?

LINDA NOSKOVA: Yeah, sure. Like I'm not stressed about it at all. Maybe in the future when I'm going to be, like, fed up with it, I'm going to be, like, not okay. For now it's all right, like totally.