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March 16, 2012
INDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA
M. SHARAPOVA/A. Ivanovic
6‑4, 0‑1 (ret.)
THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.
Q. Before Ana was hurt, seemed like it was a high‑quality match.
MARIA SHARAPOVA: Yeah, definitely. It was unfortunate that it had to end this way. I thought towards the end of the second set we started playing really good, high‑quality tennis.
Yeah, it was a surprise, because I thought‑‑ I didn't notice anything was wrong until she called for that medical timeout, and then...
Yeah, obviously I would have loved to have finished the match the right way, but I am happy after, you know, a long match yesterday that I got a little shorter one today.
Q. You'll get an opportunity now to play Victoria in the next one and try and go for revenge from January.
MARIA SHARAPOVA: Yeah.
Q. Can you talk about that a little bit, coming off of that loss?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: Yeah, absolutely. She's definitely the one to beat right now, someone that's playing with a lot of confidence and all the momentum in the world.
You know, I'd love to get my revenge from Australia and play much better, as well. You know, in our previous meetings we have had really tough matches, and I hope that the quality of tennis will be good and hopefully change a few things around.
But it's nice to, you know, have that opportunity again and to be in the finals of this tournament.
Q. Do you have tactical changes in mind for what to do differently against her?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: Yeah, I mean, I think there are a few things that I could have done better from, you know, the previous match. I'll hope to improve those in our meeting on Sunday.
But, yeah, of course, you know, when things don't work out, you obviously try to adjust to the circumstances and figure out what didn't work and what can work better.
Q. When you kind of did the post‑match after Australia and kind of came out with the game plan, the tactics to bring forward to this match, what were the key things that you really thought maybe kind of hampered your game, was it just a bad day, that sort of thing?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: You know, I was actually really extremely happy to be at that stage in Australia, because coming into the tournament I wasn't sure what to expect.
So I tried not to take too many negative things out of it and really look at the positives of where I had come from before, not playing competitively for a while and going into a Grand Slam and getting to the final.
Yes, of course it's tough to lose, and she played, you know, really well. But you have to move forward and not look at too much in a negative way.
Q. After perhaps a tricky start, your serve looked about as good as I think what we've seen for a very long time. Is that something that you think is really coming around?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: Um, yeah, that's obviously very important against her. She's someone, you know, that likes to attack from the first ball, and if you give her too many second serves to look at I think she'll obviously gain confidence from that, and, you know, go for a more.
That's what she likes to see, is to step in and be aggressive. So it's very important to‑‑ it was very important to serve well.
Q. How do you make the decision whether or not to wear your visor during night matches?
MARIA SHARAPOVA: It depends. Usually if I wear it at nice usually it's because it's really humid and I'm sweating a lot. I don't like to wear headbands anymore. I did it a long time ago.
But if I do wear a visor at night, it's usually because of the sweat.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
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