Australia’s new tennis princess is confident she has the game to continue her giant-killing ways with a fourth-round conquest of Spanish 10th seed Carla Suarez Navarro on Sunday.
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Gavrilova had a breakout season previous year, taking some big-name scalps including Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic, as she rose to No. 39 in the world.
Gavrilova’s travelling coach, Craig Tyzzer, believes the benefits of the continuing emphasis on the mental side of her game will be even more apparent later in the year, he and Pratt having already adjusted their approach by realising they were trying “to change things that were probably not going to change”.
“I’ve got nothing in my head”, she gushed afterwards.
She began the first grand slam of the year with a win in straight sets over Dominika Cibulkova, before doing the same to Nicole Gibbs in the second round 6-1, 7-6.
As a match-fixing controversy continued to reverberate at Melbourne Park, Serena swatted Hsieh Su-Wei 6-1, 6-2 to reach the third round as she seeks a record-equalling 22nd major title. She’s a great kid, she works hard, she’s had her ups and downs, she had knee surgery early in her career and she’s come back from that, so she’s resilient that’s for sure.
Australian tennis fans react after Gavrilova’s unfortunate slip of the tongue.
At the mixed doubles tournament, she knocked off top players Sabine Lisicki and Elina Svitolina, while also putting in strong performances against Caroline Garcia and Heather Watson, going down fighting. “But I love it. I’m embracing it”. Not much support there – just her dad. Everything she does is really tough and solid. “But I’m happy that I got through”. I’m just really excited and I want to hug the whole stadium, ‘ Ms Gavrilova beamed.
“I don’t know, I’m just emotional”.
“In the end I just told myself, Okay, you’re down 5-3, what would you do?” she said.
And yet again, she was up against a far more experienced player in Kristina “Kiki” Mladenovic in the third round.
Saville says she is enjoying the publicity and the limelight, the world No.191’s ongoing battle to make a significant breakthrough in senior ranks himself a reminder to enjoy the good times when they come.
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So, we have to ask, how does Dasha think her partner feels about nearly being better known these days as Mr Gavrilova?
