Anna Kalinskaya is making a strong run in Rome. For the first time in her career, she has reached the fourth round of a clay-court WTA 1000 event, overcoming tough opponents in Katerina Siniakova and Belinda Bencic. The Russian also won her first-round doubles match in the Italian capital, after which she answered a few questions from a correspondent.
— Let’s start with your first match of the tournament against Katerina Siniakova. You saved five match points in the second set, then another four in the third. How did you keep yourself motivated in those moments?
— Actually, in that match, even though a lot of things weren’t working, I was able to quickly reset for the next point and not dwell on mistakes. I just focused on fixing them as fast as possible. When I was playing, I didn’t even realize there were so many match points, because in the moment I wasn’t counting—I just knew I had to fight for every ball. But yes, it’s a very memorable match in my career. I’m really happy I managed to win. And when I closed it out on my very first match point, I couldn’t believe it.
— You’ve said you don’t remember similar matches in your professional career. What about in juniors or as a child?
— No, I don’t recall anything like that.
— How do you usually recover after such long, back-and-forth matches where you were close to losing many times?
— Yes, it ended up being the longest match of my career—three and a half hours. The next day I didn’t do anything special—just saw the physio, had a light practice, and did some recovery work, mostly stretching to relax the muscles. Also, for me it was my second match, but actually it was the third round, late in the evening. Playing that late schedule worked in my favor.
— Why didn’t you enter the doubles here with Sorana Cirstea?
— I wanted to play doubles here and asked if she would play with me. She said, “If I finish my singles earlier, I won’t stay just for doubles, because the doubles here start very late compared to other tournaments.” So she said she wouldn’t play doubles here. We’ve entered Roland Garros together. Then she changed her mind a day later, but by then I had already found a partner, and it wouldn’t have been fair to change.
— Did you get to congratulate Sorana on her win over Sabalenka? How did you react?
— Yes, I saw her in the locker room after the match. I’m really happy for her. It’s such a special win, even though I also like Aryna a lot. But for Sorana, I think it’s the first time she has beaten her. I’m not sure how many times they’ve played.
— It was actually her first win over a world No. 1 in her career.
— Yes, I’m really happy for her. It was an unexpected victory, of course. We get along well, and I know how hard she trains and how much she tries, so I’m genuinely thrilled for her.
— Did you think about talking her out of retiring after this season? She has been planning to. Like, why stop? Keep going.
— I think it’s not the right time to discuss that now, but I’ll ask her.
— How did you end up partnering with Iva Jovic? And how did you win your match today?
— Actually, my coach arranged it. I just said yes. We played pretty well together in our first match. It wasn’t easy because I haven’t played doubles in a while, but we managed to get the win.