Sam craves Slam glory
SAM Stosur has declared this summer will not be her last oncourt Down Under – but she does believe her best shot at becoming a two-time Grand Slam champion lies abroad.
Stosur, 33, emphatically knocked on the head any suggestion of her nearing retirement.
“This isn’t my last one (Australian summer),” she told the Bulletin. “I will be back again.” Stosur revealed last week she had struggled with motivation for the game three or four years back but has no such troubles any more.
“You think, ‘Do I want to keep going, keep doing it?’. You have a few losses that are a bit hard to handle and everything seems so hard,” she said.
“That may have lingered on for a while but at the end of the day I always knew I loved what I did.”
Looking super fit, the Gold Coast star is in unfamiliar territory as the third-ranked Australian women’s singles player – 41st in the world – after a long lay-off caused by a hand injury. She endured a difficult run at home during last summer, failing to win a match, and has taken a different approach this time around by completing her preseason training on the Coast.
Her rise to Grand Slam champion status came on the US Open hard courts in 2011 but Stosur admits the Parisian clay poses her main hope of winning another major.
Stosur (pictured) has been a constant threat at the French Open, making one final and the semi-finals on three other occasions – and she appeared a key contender this year until being struck down by injury mid-tournament.
“Yeah probably,” she said of Roland Garros being her best chance.
“Overall French Open has been my best Slam by a fair bit.
“I really enjoy playing on the clay. It naturally suits my game. I just walk on it and I love it whereas I feel there is a few more variables with the hard courts. The hard courts here in Australia are very different to the hard courts in the States … in Australia for whatever reason the conditions I find really challenging compared to elsewhere around the world.
“I think it’s still a surface I can play well on but maybe I just have to work that little bit harder to get those same rewards that I do on clay.”
Stosur will line up for the Brisbane International which begins on December 31.