Who said what on the 11th day of the 2023 French Open at Roland Garros on Wednesday:
"Obviously you lose to someone seven times, you feel crappy. It's not fun at all. If I go in believing that I lost the match before it already happens, then I'm never going to win. But obviously when it's over, yeah, it does suck."
-- Coco Gauff after losing for the seventh time in seven meetings against Iga Swiatek.
"Carlos is absolutely ready. He wants to play the match, and the small details I cannot tell you!"
-- Juan Carlos Ferrero, the coach of Carlos Alcaraz, on Friday's marquee semi-final with Novak Djokovic.
"I don't really know if that was her only option or not, but I know Coco is a nice person, and she wouldn't mean it. Nothing personal. It happens."
-- Swiatek after being hit full-on by a powerful, close-up forehand drive from Gauff which sent her crashing to the clay.
"I didn't try to hit her. I was just trying to hit the ball hard in the middle of the court and it happened to hit her. I apologised after, but I think she knows that's part of the game. If you hit a bad ball and you decide to run to the net, there's always a risk that you get hit. I think when I said sorry, she shook her head, and we had a mutual understanding that that was the only shot I really had."
-- Gauff explaining the shot that sent Swiatek sprawling.
"I think I rushed my way back on tour, but that's because I wanted to be ready for the French Open. You know, like all the training and the physical training, maybe I didn't have enough time to prepare for that, but I did my maximum. I did what I could do in a short time period."
-- Ons Jabeur, whose clay court season had been compromised by a calf injury, after losing her quarter-final in three sets to Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia.
"A tennis match is like a marathon. It's not 100 metres race.
-- Haddad Maia, the first Brazilian woman in a Grand Slam singles semi-final for 55 years, on saving a match point in the last 32 and then playing for the best part of four hours in the fourth round.
"That was the most difficult year of my life. I love playing tennis and the sport and competition were taken away from me."
-- Alexander Zverev on returning to the semi-finals, a year after suffering ankle ligament damage at the same stage of the tournament.
afp
