US OPEN

August 26, 2024

Emma Navarro

Press Conference

E. NAVARRO/A. Blinkova

6-1, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: Very impressive victory, under an hour, straight sets. Assess your performance.

EMMA NAVARRO: Yeah, really exciting. Getting my first win at the US Open, third time is a charm. So, yeah, just happy to have played some good tennis today, and feeling some good momentum going into the second round.

Yeah, feel like I'm playing good tennis and excited for another match.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. As you said, your first match win in your city of origin. What does that mean to you? Do you feel as if a hurdle has been crossed? You've crossed many hurdles this year.

EMMA NAVARRO: Yeah, a little bit. I think it was pretty cool coming out on Court 7, an outside court. I didn't really think about what the crowd would be like, but walking out there, the stands were full, was a pretty cool feeling because I've walked out on outside courts before where the stands were empty.

To walk out there and have the stands be full and the majority of the crowd being behind me was really cool. Definitely felt the love out there. Yeah, it's cool to do it in the city that I was born in and in the country that I live in, and I feel just really proud to come from.

Q. You're ranked 12th. You were 57 one year ago. Only Iga has won more than your 41 matches. Can you get a grip on that? That's amazing, isn't it?

EMMA NAVARRO: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. No. 12, it's knocking on the door of the top 10. It's pretty insane to think about. When I zoom out, it does feel pretty crazy. Then I zoom back in, and the stuff that I'm working on, it's the same stuff or similar stuff that I was working on a year ago, just maybe at a higher level.

My goals stay the same. Individual day-to-day stuff, it's pretty similar to how it's always been with the additions of a few things. I think it's cool to be able to zoom out and kind of appreciate where I've come from and where I'm at now and then zoom back in and just get really detail-oriented.

Q. You played a couple of WTA 125s earlier this year. You played in Monterrey last week. This is your fifth tournament in five weeks. Why did you play Monterrey? Very few people did what you did -- played the Olympics, played Toronto, played Cincinnati.

EMMA NAVARRO: Trying to get my six 500s in is part of it, and then also Monterrey is a great tournament. Yeah, I love to just kind of stay in match mode. I think it's tiring in one sense to always be in that mode where I have to play a match tomorrow, but in the other sense I think constantly putting yourself in the arena, it allows for a lot of growth. Every match is a learning experience.

The more I can be in the arena, the more I can learn. I'm always trying to get in there and get uncomfortable and, yeah, just improve myself.