“My First Good Match” Says No. 1 Karolina Pliskova Who Blows Past Brady to Reach Quarterfinals Versus Vandeweghe at US Open
(September 4, 2017) FLUSHING MEADOWS, NY – No. 1 Karolina Pliskova saved a match point on Saturday, on Monday she was totally dominant in a 6-1, 6-0 destruction of American Jennifer Brady, ranked No. 91 in the world.
“Going out there I was a bit nervous,” Brady admitted “It’s a bit overwhelming, going out there for the first time, playing on Ashe, playing the No. 1 player in the world.
“But, you know, I think it’s a good learning experience for me. You know, I’ll just take the positives away from it.”
“I felt like she was playing pretty well today. I didn’t play my best. Maybe I gave her the opportunity to play well.
“But, you know, I think she was hitting her spots and her serves well. Yeah, she came out playing, I felt, like the No. 1 player.”
Pliskova hit 23 winners with only nine unforced errors and was 6 for 9 on break point chances. She won 55 points in the match compared to 22 for her opponent.
Pliskova felt that she played one of her best matches of the year.
“My first good match, actually,” Pliskova said. “I think one of the best, even this year. The opponent was not the best today. Definitely she can play better than she was playing today. I think she was kind of nervous, and also, with the shadow, I think she just didn’t feel well.
“That’s nothing change on my game today, so I was feeling great.”
On Saturday afternoon, Pliskova had to come back from match point to reach the fourth round.
“Sometimes you just need to have some of those matches where you can just really get through I” she said. “You don’t even know why, but the game improve so much. So I didn’t change anything. I didn’t even practice yesterday. So there is nothing really what I did different. But I just felt much better.”
“It’s a good sign to save match point. No, it’s always — I think in every tournament there is somebody who is going to save a match point almost.
“And like I said, it’s just good sign if you can get through this match, and then you can, you know, feel much better. Even though I was not playing well the first three matches, I just felt great today. Definitely gave me a lot of confidence that I got through this one.
“Hopefully I’m going to feel much better and much, you know, like enjoying the tennis what I was doing today. So I was not really enjoying myself the first three matches. I’d like to start to enjoy a little bit more.”
The world No. 1 will face CoCo Vandeweghe who defeated Lucie Safarova 6-4, 6-4. Asked to compare and contrast her game with Vandeweghe, the Czech said: “Well, obviously I think it’s the speed of the shots, but otherwise, I would not really put me and her together. Like not even personally.
“Like with the game, like, we both have the plan to play aggressive, but I think she’s a little bit — not messy sometimes, but she’s just going for her shots. Even if she just miss like five meters out, she doesn’t care, so it’s different. It’s not my game style.”
Pliskova has a 2-2 head-to-head record against the American.
“I think it’s definitely the first strike kind of tennis, ” Vandeweghe said about playing Pliskova, “I think is the easiest way to simplify it. If I’m hitting my shots, I’m definitely doing a lot better job in the scoreline than she is and vice versa.
“So I think it’s pretty much as simple as that.”
This will be the American’s first-ever US Open quarterfinal.
