Sloane Stephens defeats Sara Sorribes Tormo 7-6, 7-6 in Second Round

S. Stephens defeats S. Sorribes Tormo 7-6, 7-6 – Second Round

Q. Sloane, can you just talk through that match? Tough conditions, tough opponent who wasn’t really missing a lot of balls out there. So how do you think you got through it?

SLOANE STEPHENS: Yeah, obviously the conditions all around were just — it was a tough day, and I was just happy to get through. Obviously a lot of different factors, but just happy with the fight and happy that I was able to get through.

Q. What was it about her game or her size that was tough for you? SLOANE

STEPHENS: She slices a lot. She doesn’t play like most of the girls play. She hits a lot of slices. She runs around a lot, stays around the baseline. Just plays kind of a different game style than most. She hits a lot of moon balls. She just has a lot of different variations, so it’s tricky to play against her. Yeah, I mean all in all the court was playing a little bit slow because it rained last night. It was a little sticky, and like I said, a lot of different factors, but I was happy to get through.

Q. Just in the first set when Chris came down to chat, we couldn’t hear it. What did he say that helped you because after that it seemed like things settled down and you went on that run of winning all those games? SLOANE

STEPHENS: Yeah, just basically “hit forehands.” He came on the court, and he was like, how do you feel? I was like, “Well, it’s not going to get any worse than this.” So I was like, “What do I do?”

He said, basically, control the court more, hit more forehands and kind of settle down. That’s what I did. He said, “She’s only going to beat you if you beat yourself,” basically. If you have a lot of unforced errors and get frustrated, you’ll beat yourself. So I was like, okay, I’m going to hit forehands and then see how it goes. And then I started playing better and just kind of went for it. Obviously a little up and down emotionally, mentally, but I just tried to stay with it the best I could and kind of just fight my way through the ups and downs.