Emma Navarro, 24e mondiale, a été sèchement battue en huitièmes de finale de Roland-Garros par la Biélorusse Aryna Sabalenka, deuxième joueuse mondiale (6-2, 6-3). Mais l'Américaine, 5e de son pays derrière Gauff, Pegula, Collins et Keys, n'est pas assurée d'y participer...
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - Emma, obviously a tough result,
00:05 but one of your best Grand Slam performances ever.
00:07 Can you just give us your overall thoughts
00:09 and your experience here at Roland Garros?
00:12 - Yeah, I've had a really great week and a half
00:15 here in Paris, and obviously a tough one today,
00:18 but faced a really tough opponent
00:21 who was having a really good day out on the court.
00:24 So definitely wasn't easy on me today,
00:27 but I took it on how I wanted to
00:29 and played some good tennis.
00:31 And yeah, it's always a learning experience,
00:35 always a good experience.
00:36 So yeah, I'm moving forward in a better place
00:41 than I was when I came into this week.
00:43 So yeah.
00:45 - Questions, please.
00:47 Yes.
00:49 - Tough luck today.
00:53 How did you find the experience of being
00:55 on one of the big show courts at Grand Slam finally?
00:59 - Yeah, I had a, obviously wanted a different result today,
01:04 but had a really great experience on center court
01:08 and had the crowd cheering my name
01:12 at a couple of different moments throughout the match,
01:16 which is kind of a surreal feeling.
01:18 So yeah, just feel really good about the experience
01:24 and it definitely makes me motivated to keep coming.
01:28 - What was, hey, Emma, what was the big difference,
01:33 do you think, between your experience of playing her
01:37 in Indian Wells versus here?
01:40 Obviously different surface, different country,
01:44 all those different things.
01:45 But in terms of the player you were facing
01:48 and the player that you were today
01:51 when you think about those two different matches.
01:54 - Yeah, I think she had a really great day today.
01:57 I have to give her a lot of credit.
01:59 She played really good tennis
02:02 and didn't make hardly any mistakes.
02:05 So to be on the other end of that is tough
02:09 'cause you feel like you can't afford to make mistakes,
02:12 which is how I was feeling
02:13 at a few different moments in the match.
02:17 And I think today I wasn't able to return as well
02:22 as I did last time, which was a big,
02:24 yeah, it was just like a big thing for me
02:28 last time I played her.
02:30 I felt like if I could have returned better today,
02:32 it could have gotten me into the match
02:36 a little bit sooner maybe.
02:37 But yeah, I felt like I served better today
02:42 than I did last time.
02:43 She was just returning really well
02:46 from really far inside the baseline.
02:48 So yeah, definitely maybe a combination of me
02:53 not returning as well as I wanted to
02:56 and her playing pretty flawless tennis.
03:00 - And do you intend to come back here for the Olympics?
03:03 - I would love to.
03:04 There's a lot of Americans doing really well right now.
03:07 So we'll see what their plans are,
03:10 but yeah, I would love to play in the Olympics.
03:12 - I was gonna ask you something else,
03:16 but if I could follow up on that.
03:18 What would it mean to you to be part of the Olympics?
03:22 And is that something you've thought about in the past?
03:25 Or I guess, why would it be an exciting moment for you?
03:30 - Yeah, it'd be a huge deal to me
03:35 just to be able to play for my country
03:37 wear USA on the back of my shirt
03:41 and be able to, yeah, just play the sport
03:45 that I love playing for the country that I'm from.
03:48 I take a lot of pride in that.
03:50 So it'd be an incredible honor
03:52 to be able to play in the Olympics.
03:54 And I hadn't thought a ton about it until this year
03:58 when I realized there was a possibility of me playing.
04:01 But since then, it's definitely been something
04:05 that I've thought about.
04:06 I've tried not to think about it too much,
04:08 not let it carry too much weight
04:09 'cause there's a little bit of a race going on right now.
04:13 But yeah, it'd be a huge honor
04:16 to be able to play in the Olympics.
04:18 - And you spoke about your return game today against her.
04:22 Could you describe what it is about her serve
04:27 that makes it as effective as it does?
04:29 You're not the first opponent
04:31 to maybe have a little bit of trouble on her serve.
04:33 And I'm just wondering what it is about her serve
04:36 that makes things tough.
04:37 - There's kind of, there's two parts to her serve.
04:41 She has the pace and then she has the spinny kick serve.
04:47 And I felt like she hit that really well today.
04:51 She'll use it on her second serve,
04:53 but also more so on the outside on the first serve.
04:58 So, and positioning on that is tough
05:01 'cause ideally I'd like to take that farther
05:04 inside the baseline than serve with more pace.
05:08 So, kind of just the combo of those two serves make it tough.
05:11 And yeah, she hit her kick serve,
05:14 second serve really well today.
05:15 So yeah, just wasn't able to return well enough
05:18 against that.
05:19 - Grass season next for you.
05:22 How do you feel about that surface
05:23 and what are your expectations for the tournaments?
05:26 - Yeah, last year was my first grass season
05:30 and I had a lot of fun on grass.
05:33 Actually played some better tennis
05:35 than I thought I'd be able to play on grass.
05:37 So, I'm excited to get back on it
05:40 and play some good tennis again.
05:43 - Any final questions?
05:45 - Mm-hmm.
05:46 - If you are back here in a little bit of time
05:51 for the Olympics, there is a bit of an unusual thing there
05:55 with going now from clay to grass,
05:59 but then returning to the clay.
06:01 What do you think, do you think that'll be a challenge
06:07 at all and if so, what would be the toughest part
06:10 of switching surfaces like that quickly?
06:15 - Maybe a little bit of a challenge,
06:17 but I'd say nothing I'm not used to.
06:21 Playing on the ITF circuit as much as I did last year,
06:24 you're always switching back and forth between surfaces.
06:27 There's no real seasons.
06:28 And also I always feel at home coming back on a clay court.
06:33 So yeah, a little bit challenging, but nothing crazy.
06:38 - And you've had a real breakthrough year in 2024.
06:43 What do you think, and this is your best Grand Slam
06:47 showing so far in your early career.
06:51 What do you find to be the greatest difference
06:55 between weekly regular WTA tournaments
07:00 and playing in a Grand Slam tournament?
07:05 - Maybe I didn't know this until today.
07:10 Had to learn this today, but the best players in the world
07:15 on a stage like that and a tournament like this,
07:18 they are not messing around.
07:22 Maybe it was, she just had a great day today,
07:26 but I really felt like she was coming after me
07:29 and maybe it was a different type of challenge
07:34 than I faced when I played her last time.
07:36 So yeah, I think the best players in the world,
07:39 they're able to step up in these big moments
07:42 and yeah, deliver.
07:45 - Last question from Matt.
07:46 - I think you're doing better in most tournaments
07:51 you're playing this year than you did last year.
07:54 It seems like you're developing along
07:56 on a sort of pretty nice curve.
07:58 Where do you feel like you are
08:01 in terms of your development?
08:03 Do you feel like you're still new to all this
08:06 and you're sort of taking it all in as a sponge,
08:09 or is there a percentage that you can put on yourself
08:13 on how much of the full version of Emanuel Navarro
08:17 that you are?
08:18 - I don't know if there's a percentage I can put on it,
08:22 but my coach talks about six years is when I'm at 100%.
08:27 So we'll see if I can beat that timeline.
08:33 I would like to beat that timeline.
08:36 But yeah, I'm definitely, I learn a lot as I go
08:41 and I learn through experiences.
08:43 So just the more experiences I'm able to have,
08:47 the more comfortable I feel in just different moments
08:51 on court and on different stages.
08:53 So yeah, I would say I'm maybe still a little bit
08:57 in sponge mode, but my sponge is filling up
09:02 and maybe growing too.
09:03 So yeah, we'll see.
09:05 - Six years from last year or six years from now?
09:07 - That's actually a good question.
09:10 I'll have to clarify that with him.
09:12 Yeah. - Thank you everyone.
09:14 - Thanks.
09:15 (upbeat music)