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WESTERN & SOUTHERN FINANCIAL GROUP WOMEN'S OPEN

August 10, 2010

Melanie Oudin

CINCINNATI, OHIO

E. VESNINA/M. Oudin
6-2, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You lost all seven your breakpoints on your serve. What technically went wrong today?
MELANIE OUDIN: Um, well, everything was really I think for her today. She was hitting every line on the court and serving really well.
Um, I definitely didn't think I played my best tennis, but she came out firing and really played some good tennis today. She deserved to win.

Q. How much was the heat an issue for you out there?
MELANIE OUDIN: I didn't think -- I mean, the match want that long, so I didn't think it was that much of an issue.

Q. When you were down 0-3 in the first, you called your coach to the court. What did he tell you?
MELANIE OUDIN: He told me to relax and try to make the points longer, because she just started off just trying to attack every thing and hit the corners off the back.
So I needed to try to um keep the points longer and not go for too much.

Q. As much as you try keep points long, do you get think you ever get sucked into being too defensive? I saw in the stats you only had one winner.
MELANIE OUDIN: Yeah, well, today it was pretty hard for me to hit a winner when she was being so aggressive so quickly.
And normally, like when I play, I'm hitting a lot of winners, so that definitely was against me today.
It kind of started going so fast and she wasn't missing and I was missing, because then I tried to go for too much.
Just wasn't a good day.

Q. Did you feel any extra pressure this year because of how well you did at the Open last year? I looked up the record this year, and first- and second-round exits on the precious eight tournaments, and I'm just kind of wondering what part of that is you're young versus maybe feeling a little bit of extra pressure to do well.
MELANIE OUDIN: Well, um, yeah, I definitely feel a lot more pressure than last year. Almost every person in the United States expects me to win every single match I play, so, I mean, that's kind of a little bit of pressure.
But, yeah, I mean, last year I was like the new kid in town, and you really don't have like any pressure when that happens. But when people start knowing you and they start getting to know your game and everything, I think they start figuring out a little bit.
The fact that I've had so much stuff besides the tennis, like I've had so much media stuff and all kinds of stuff because of the fact that I'm like the new American coming up. So last year I've done so much stuff I really just want to got back and focus just on tennis.

Q. Is there anything you can do maybe to block out of a lot those distractions? I mean, some of that comes with experience.
MELANIE OUDIN: Right. Yeah, that's the thing. Because like last year I never had half the stuff that I have to do now compared to like last year.
I just really need time to like work on it. I'm gonna need time to get used to the fact that I have all this other stuff plus tennis, and be able to block that out and separate it.

Q. Christina McHale is another young American. She won today earlier, the match before yours. Would having another American up-and-comer help you in terms of taking away some of the spotlight from you?
MELANIE OUDIN: Yes, definitely. I'm hoping that her and CoCo and all of them do amazing, because then people will start look at them too and, you know, start cheering for them and take like some of attention. They can take some of night matches from me and all of that stuff.
But they've been playing really well lately, so I'm hoping that that's gonna happen.

Q. What specific things in Vesnina's game bothered you. The results were similar to your match in Ponte Vedra Beach.
MELANIE OUDIN: Right. Um, she has a good serve, I think, and mixes it up really well. She can hit any corner. So that was tough to read.
And then she is just a big first striker. It was hard for me to -- even when I got the ball deep, she kept it deeper today. She did everything better than me today, so...

Q. From a positive standpoint, was there anything that you did today that you liked and that you may want to improve on?
MELANIE OUDIN: Well, the thing is, I've been playing like really well in practice. And even in the past couple weeks, I mean I lost it Stosur and Azarenka, and Azarenka won Stanford and Stosur is top 5 in the world.
So I didn't really have like bad losses. I wouldn't called today a bad loss. Vesnina's a really good player. Um, past few times I've played her, like after the match, she's said, Sorry, I played really well today. She's played really good tennis the past few times. She was the better player.

Q. Last night Ivanovic mentioned that because she was unseeded she tended to get more difficult draws. Do you think that's maybe affecting you as well?
MELANIE OUDIN: Well, I mean, for me, like everything is like so much different this year, because last year I played quallies and everything. Then all of sudden this year I'm in the main draw of everything.
So the players I was playing last year were 150, and now I'm playing top 50 all the time. So it's a lot different.

Q. Do you think it would help you to maybe scale back and play smaller tournaments after the US Open, like Quebec City or something like that to get the wins under your belt?
MELANIE OUDIN: Yeah, I am planning on playing Quebec City because I'm trying to get my match count up. The only thing I have to be careful on is like traveling a lot.
But I feel good and I'm healthy and not injured or anything, so I think it's gonna be good for me to try to play a lot until the end of year.

Q. US Open is less than a month away now.
MELANIE OUDIN: Yeah.

Q. With how much hype there was last year, what were you expecting the hype and tension to be like in 2010?
MELANIE OUDIN: Well, I'm hoping it won't be that bad, but I have a feeling that it's going to be. I mean, because of last year, I think people are gonna hope or expect that I can do it again.
And, um, the thing for me is this year I'm just gonna try to go into it like I did last year, and that's how I did so well. I had really like no expectations.
I mean, I saw my draw before the tournament, and my coach looked at me and goes, To win the US Open, you have to beat like six Russians and a Williams sister. (Smiling.)
So it was like, a joke. I mean, playing Dementieva and then Sharapova, people I like looked up to for so long, and being able to beat them was amazing, because I had no pressure on me and I just went for it.
So that's what I'm gonna do this year again.

Q. What's been the biggest adjustment for you from last year to this year? Obviously you're playing higher-quality players. But, I mean, travel, you know, what has been maybe two or three of the biggest changes or adjustments you've had to make that's been tough?
MELANIE OUDIN: I mean, the travel is a lot, but a lot of the extra stuff besides tennis that I didn't have last year.

Q. Media stuff?
MELANIE OUDIN: Yeah, and like photo shoots and all that stuff like that has been a lot more than last year. And the traveling has been a lot. But I don't mind it.

Q. I saw John Isner in Washington last week, and he's already talking about how he's really sick of talking about the Wimbledon match. Can you relate? Do you have similar fatigue talking about your US Open run?
MELANIE OUDIN: Yes. Everyone asked me in my press conference after I lost in Wimbledon - and even the French - they kept saying, How did it feel to get to the quarterfinals of US Open?
I'm like, Aren't we at Wimbledon? Like aren't we at the French Open? Why are you talking about the US Open when that was almost a year ago.
Now it's exactly a year ago almost, so I'm looking forward to not talking about it anymore.

End of FastScripts

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