Serena Williams lost to Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina 6-4, 6-3 in her third-round Olympic singles match on Tuesday.
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Williams never got into her rhythm throughout the match.
“Obviously I am very disappointed. The better player today won”. “Being in the moment, that’s definitely what helped me today, and just relax and go for my shots because I was doing some winners and especially on the second set when it was really, really tight”.
“I was trying to be focused because she’s a great player with great experience coming back in many unbelievable matches”. Although it did not work out the way she wanted to, Williams was grateful that she had made it to the Rio Olympics.
“It was a career opportunity”, said Williams of her fourth Olympic appearance. It was awesome, it was fun but it’s over now.
Serena Williams of the United States reacts during a women’s singles third round match against Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.
Svitolina, 20th in the WTA Tour rankings, committed 17 unforced errors to Williams’s 37.
The 21-year-old now has her sights set on the biggest prize, saying: ‘ For me the Olympics is just unreal.
Svitolina, who will face Czech Republic’s Petra Kvitova in the quarter-finals, was over the moon with her first victory in five meetings over the 22-times grand slam singles victor. “To beat her, I don’t think I was even dreaming about that”. “This is just a flawless moment”, said Svitolina.
“In that moment, I was just trying to stay in the moment and focus on every point”.
The second set was clearly far more of a contest as Stosur finally found her serving range, winning 52 per cent of points on first serve, compared to just 39 per cent in the first set.
His win followed losses earlier on Tuesday by compatriots David Ferrer, Carla Suarez and GarbiAe Muguruza that left Nadal – the gold medalist at the 2012 London Games – as Spain’s only option for a medal in singles play, reports Efe. She was struggling a bit, and I could see that if I pushed a little more, I could be on top.
Of the four tennis events under way in Rio – mixed doubles hasn’t started yet – all four No. 1 seeds are gone, including Novak Djokovic in men’s singles.
The defeat by the 20th-ranked Svitolina ends Williams’ Olympic tournament, having also suffered a surprise loss in the doubles with older sister Venus on Sunday.
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Svitolina, now in the quarterfinals, will next face Petra Kvitova. Williams had a 4-0 record but all of that didn’t matter in Rio.
